Will Atheism or Agnosticism soon be the Human Norm in the Future?

[ikkuh2]

Oh i'm sure religion dissappears, along with mankind, in a few billion years.

[Square Ninja]

Originally Posted by Phoenix

Is there a good aspect of religion that you can't have without it?

Faith. Hope. Forgiveness. If it takes religion to give people these things, then I am more than willing to put up with the bullshit.

[Lifes.Lover]

Originally Posted by Square Ninja

Faith. Hope. Forgiveness. If it takes religion to give people these things, then I am more than willing to put up with the bullshit.

Not to spark a true religion debate, but why should religion instill these qualities? Why do people immediately jump to me having no morals simply because I'm an atheist? Not saying that you're doing anything of that kind with anyone.

You know, it takes a certain leap of faith to believe in anything, religion or science based. Cold hard facts are only cold hard facts if you believe in the process taken to get there. Therefore, every person on this planet believes in something, whether it's religion or not.

And hope: people hope for so many things without having to hope in a God to do it for them.

Forgiveness is not something that's solely religion based. We all have it in our hearts to forgive if we wish to, no matter what we grew up learning.

If religion were no longer a huge part of the world, of our upbringing, would our morals and our sense of right and wrong truly crumble?

[Phoenix]

Faith. Hope. Forgiveness. If it takes religion to give people these things, then I am more than willing to put up with the bullshit.

You can't have these without religion?

[Hidden]

I'm simply going with what you stated--that mankind will let go of the divine. Perhaps this means something different to you, but it seems to me a terrible loss of a seeking for something beyond mankind.

[Phoenix]

Well, I'm defining "divine" as things that humans accept have no explanation, so they stop trying to explain them.

[Ventux]

Society will become more secularized, hopefully, but obviously religion will still be around even if all questions are answered. Humans have natural ignorance tendencies, and there will be those who simply distrust science because they take it for granted.

Originally Posted by Bangkok Superpussy

Science is, for many people, a substitute for religion and not an alternative, if you get what I mean by that. For that reason, I can see it itself becoming a religion, complete with its own sects, dogma, rituals and subjects of obsession of not worship.

I don't see how that would come about. I could imagine new religions emerging due to scientific discoveries, but they wouldn't classify under science. The scientific community has (supposed) divisions on certain subjects, but nothing vast enough to form sects. Simply put, human nature isn't enough to completely transform science into a belief system.

[Bangkok Superpussy]

Originally Posted by Ventux

human nature isn't enough to completely transform science into a belief system.

Have you ever met a Christian?

[Ventux]

Originally Posted by Bangkok Superpussy

Have you ever met a Christian?

If you're referring to Intelligent Design, the "followers" act like it has serious scientific backing, when it doesn't. It also goes into my point that beliefs could emerge from scientific discoveries but not classify under science. I thought you were talking about something far more significant.

[Monkey]

The only reason Athiesm is so big in numbers is because of the chinese, who are slowly becoming a more religious country after their regime tried to eliminate the insititution.

I think eventually the west will become predominantly nonreligious, but the rest of the world, with huge populations in China, India, the Middle East, and Africa will be larglely religious.

Considering the west's population is either decreasing or not increasing at the same rate as those other parts of the world, it'll be for nil

but obviously religion will still be around even if all questions are answered. Humans have natural ignorance tendencies, and there will be those who simply distrust science because they take it for granted.

Id love all the questions to be answered, but even scientists say that not all questions will ever be answered, science constantly seeks new ways to increase knowledge, no such thing as knowing everything. Furthermore, saying that once everything is known, religious will still exist because people distrust science is seriously underestimating the use of religious as a moral way of life or a spiritual method of relaxation, and not necessarily an answer to the unknown or unseen, which is the one aspect of religion that may or may not conflict with science.

[Ryu]

Naturally none of us can say for sure, but I think the belief in that which we have yet to understand will always continue to fascinate us, including the idea of a divine power. Religion may take a different form in the future, but it won't be abandoned anytime soon.

But more importantly as Hidden implied earlier, the point where mankind abandons the search for things greater than ourselves will be the point where mankind will come to an end. We've come this far because of our inherent need to improve ourselves and our way of life, and religion's been a big part of that. Once humanity as a whole starts accepting that there is nothing left to grow towards or nothing left to attain, nothing left to live for or believe in, it'll mean the end of humanity. We live for the unknown and the possibility of a divine power is part of our reason to live.

[Ventux]

Originally Posted by Monkey

Id love all the questions to be answered, but even scientists say that not all questions will ever be answered, science constantly seeks new ways to increase knowledge, no such thing as knowing everything.

I disagree with you, I believe there is a finite amount (though incredibly huge) of knowledge about everything. But, I was only talking about a hypothetical situation.
Maybe if humanity somehow survives for a billion years.

saying that once everything is known, religious will still exist because people distrust science

I never said that all religious people do, just that there will always be some.

is seriously underestimating the use of religious as a moral way of life or a spiritual method of relaxation

Religion may spread those things, but it by no means owns them.

[ikkuh2]

Ryu, you imply that mankind still isn't extinct because of the search for a deity of some sort. If that were to be the case, we wouldn't. Mankind lives on for two important reasons, fear of death and personal joy. We want to evade death as much as we can, since instinctively it is the end for us. We know how slim chances are you get to live as second time, consciously or unconsciously, and as such we act to prolong our own life. The second, the reason we have offspring, is that we want to be happy. We try to avoid unpleasant situations, including injury and death, and try to do as much things that make us happy as possible. Having a legacy in the form of a child, seeing it develop with you as a guide is hapyness to a lot of people.

[Square Ninja]

Originally Posted by Phoenix

You can't have these without religion?

Re-read it, only this time read the whole thing and not just the first part.

Originally Posted by Ryu

But more importantly as Hidden implied earlier, the point where mankind abandons the search for things greater than ourselves will be the point where mankind will come to an end. We've come this far because of our inherent need to improve ourselves and our way of life, and religion's been a big part of that. Once humanity as a whole starts accepting that there is nothing left to grow towards or nothing left to attain, nothing left to live for or believe in, it'll mean the end of humanity. We live for the unknown and the possibility of a divine power is part of our reason to live.

Religion is the Spiral Power.

[Shade737]

I can see more of a chance of Agnostics dominating in the future than Atheists.