Is faith waning?

Do you think faith is waning as societies and science advance?

  • Total voters
    23
Grim_Reaper said:
Yes I do think that religious faith is in decline and non to soon if you ask me I see churches closing here in Canada on all most a daily basis. Take the Catholic religion for example with all the pedophile priests and such the only people that continue to attended on a regular basis are the old people. And by Old I mean 50 plus the younger people are slowly realizing that it is not a god nor a faith in a god that will help you out of a tight spot. It is relying on ones self and sometime family that will help you out of a tight spot. There is not after life and there is no heaven nor hell if there was one it would have been discovered by now.
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I agree with you, but your last statement is flawed. It is presumptious. I do observe a decline, but I just don't think it will go away before we kill ourselves because we as a world can't get over it.

You mention about how to deal with life, and yes, the younger generation needs to learn to take action. Take my wife for example:

One battle I have is a wife who is a Christian. I respect her position, and even encourage her. She knows where I stand. She doesn't know how to take on life. She kind of had a falling out of going to church, though she still believes and wants to start going back. But, she has hard times all the time. And, I've tried telling her how she can deal with it on her own, but she doesn't receive it well. I can bring peace to her simply by just quoting scripture and comforting her that way and she is right as rain. Though I don't believe it, and I know she knows I don't, I use the Bible anyway to make her better. It is just sad that she doesn't know any other way to deal with stress or life's issues.
 
jayleew said:
I agree with you, but your last statement is flawed. It is presumptious. I do observe a decline, but I just don't think it will go away before we kill ourselves because we as a world can't get over it.

You mention about how to deal with life, and yes, the younger generation needs to learn to take action. Take my wife for example:

One battle I have is a wife who is a Christian. I respect her position, and even encourage her. She knows where I stand. She doesn't know how to take on life. She kind of had a falling out of going to church, though she still believes and wants to start going back. But, she has hard times all the time. And, I've tried telling her how she can deal with it on her own, but she doesn't receive it well. I can bring peace to her simply by just quoting scripture and comforting her that way and she is right as rain. Though I don't believe it, and I know she knows I don't, I use the Bible anyway to make her better. It is just sad that she doesn't know any other way to deal with stress or life's issues.
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Well my wife was similar to yours she went to church and all though I did and do not believe in a god heaven nor hell I would encourage her to go. Until one day she stopped going it was a year later that she came to me and said you know why I stopped going to church? I said no I do not why did you stop going to Church? She said she stopped going because the pastor told her that I was the anti-Christ and that she needed to leave me before she was infected with Satan. And at that same time she all so enrolled her self in one on one counseling she stayed in counseling for several years. She has now discontinued the counseling and has never been better. She found out that only she could help herself not a church not a god but her with the guidance of a counselor she has never been better. As for my last statement I do not see that as being a false statement or unfounded. It is my opinion there is no heaven and there is not hell and there is most certainly no after life that I know of and I have actually died once for 6 minutes when I was a kid.
 
Grim_Reaper said:
Well my wife was similar to yours she went to church and all though I did and do not believe in a god heaven nor hell I would encourage her to go. Until one day she stopped going it was a year later that she came to me and said you know why I stopped going to church? I said no I do not why did you stop going to Church? She said she stopped going because the pastor told her that I was the anti-Christ and that she needed to leave me before she was infected with Satan. And at that same time she all so enrolled her self in one on one counseling she stayed in counseling for several years. She has now discontinued the counseling and has never been better. She found out that only she could help herself not a church not a god but her with the guidance of a counselor she has never been better. As for my last statement I do not see that as being a false statement or unfounded. It is my opinion there is no heaven and there is not hell and there is most certainly no after life that I know of and I have actually died once for 6 minutes when I was a kid.
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Interesting. Thanks for posting. My wife is too proud a person to resort to counseling. I know she needs it. We have a child that has ADHD and ODD, and is very taxing for her. Plus, she's an accountant and the job is stressful. She has no friends outside of work. She needs someone to talk to because she doesn't listen to me. When I try to help, it just sounds too preachy she says. It's funny when I hear her mom or friend at work tell her the same exact thing I say, and she tells me how it helped her. I'm so relieved when she finally gets it, even if I said the same thing to her months before.
 
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jayleew said:
One battle I have is a wife who is a Christian. I respect her position, and even encourage her. She knows where I stand. She doesn't know how to take on life. She kind of had a falling out of going to church, though she still believes and wants to start going back. But, she has hard times all the time. And, I've tried telling her how she can deal with it on her own, but she doesn't receive it well. I can bring peace to her simply by just quoting scripture and comforting her that way and she is right as rain. Though I don't believe it, and I know she knows I don't, I use the Bible anyway to make her better. It is just sad that she doesn't know any other way to deal with stress or life's issues.
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M*W: I understand where you are coming from. Just stick your ground. You might want to read a post where I replied to Dave Whte on the Comparative Religion forum. That was my point of "not knowing anything other than the bible." It's not an easy place for non-believers to be, so they sit in a church pew while their loved ones still believe there is a god.
 
All this is a function of human variability. Some of our variability is genetic and some is learned.

There are people who are innately predisposed towards a religion or some equivalent, and others who are more inclined to simply judging good data rather than operating on faith.

So will religion disappear? I do not believe so, as long as we are unable to change basic human nature. Until we can do that , there will be a percentage of people who will march down the highway outlined by their specific religious faith.
 
Science will never replace religion. Science as it is now cannot give us eternal life in heaven while religion can. The afterlife is very important to people but I don't think science can give us that yet.
 
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pluto2 said:
Science will never replace religion. Science as it is now cannot give us eternal life in heaven while religion can. The afterlife is very important to people but I don't think science can give us that yet.
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M*W: At least science is trying to figure out how we will have eternal life. Nobody has contacted by anyone who has come forward with proveable evidence that there is a heaven or a hell. Without works of science, we will never have eternal life.
 
Medicine*Woman said:
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M*W: Believing in lies is the bane of human nature.
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I totally agree but unfortunately believing and living the lie is the creed that the superstitious will die and even kill for, so as I said 'ignorance is bliss'. I am not willing to die or others being killed over their fears of knowing truths
 
Maybe; but the vast majority of people are ignorant and weak and require religion as a crutch. Religion is a valuable tool of control, however, and could be put to good use.
 
brennus said:
I totally agree but unfortunately believing and living the lie is the creed that the superstitious will die and even kill for, so as I said 'ignorance is bliss'. I am not willing to die or others being killed over their fears of knowing truths
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M*W: I believe is knowing what is the truth and knowing what are the myths. All of the credos are myths. I am certainly not willing to die for any of them nor killing anyone else over any false credo.
 
Norsefire said:
Maybe; but the vast majority of people are ignorant and weak and require religion as a crutch. Religion is a valuable tool of control, however, and could be put to good use.
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Ah yes, Manipulation is easy especially when messing with their security blanket that covers the chains that bind them. Security is all they want or care about. People do not like their vulnerabilities exposed, they will do anything and give-up everything to maintain their false sense of security. Even tightening those chains even tighter.
 
Medicine*Woman said:
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M*W: I believe is knowing what is the truth and knowing what are the myths. All of the credos are myths. I am certainly not willing to die for any of them nor killing anyone else over any false credo.
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You may want that, but most do not want their security blanket removed. It's comforting to be painfull imbecilic.
 
brennus said:
Ah yes, Manipulation is easy especially when messing with their security blanket that covers the chains that bind them. Security is all they want or care about. People do not like their vulnerabilities exposed, they will do anything and give-up everything to maintain their false sense of security. Even tightening those chains even tighter.
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Does this freindly observation apply to every theist?

jan.
 
Yes I think faith is waning and it's a very good thing.

Religion seems to mess up people's critical thinking skills. It instills in people's minds the idea that belief without proof is a good thing, that you are unreasonably closed-minded if you want proof before believing in something. That's irrational and dangerous and the sooner that mentality dies out the better.

Now granted there are good sides to religion. People do altruistic things in the name of their God. You don't need a God to be altruistic, though. Religion also acts as a kind of 'opiate' to make people feel better about life...again...there are other ways than religion to help you out when you're down, and probably more constructive ones.
 
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