Why has religion gone down in importance lately?

B4 I tart I would like to say this is a mere question and I am NOT by any means forcing any of my own personal beliefs (which I will attept to hide within this post) onto any of u. With that siad let me start.

More and more I've seen a lot of ppl that are aetheist (and there is ABSOLUTELY nothing wrong with that) especialy young teens. But what I would like to now is why? Why have ppl been losing faith in religion lately more than in older times? It's not that I have a problem with it it's just religion has become how should I say it....bs to everyone when in d past t was a main part of everyones lives. Why has d world turned it's back on those who do believe in some form of religion and labeled them idiots? Why?


PS: I realy hope I did not offend anyone

I don't really specialy know for the rest of the world about the decrease of religion but the increase in science and technology. But Quebec got some event that lead to it.

Like i've said in the other threat, here religion was controling everything, what they weren't controling was by the english folks. After some time being slaves, anyone would say 'stop!' and so started the 'Tranquil revolution' that had for goal to separate the church and to stop the 'english superiority'.

The roman catholic church left a bitter mark on most of the Quebecker view of religion.

Hmmm alot of religious debates in SD these days.
On topic I suppose that it is the fact that the world so much smaller. In the "old days" People were confined to a town or nearby towns that would most likely be the same religion and so they jumped on the bandwagon and didn't disagree. Another note may be the internet an anonymous system of communication has caused atheist who used to suppress their disbelief in god can do it without other people in real life knowing. As the internet grows more and more people are gathering Ideas and pics. Because people are finding out all these cool things to do and see their religion won’t let them they turn away from it because they see so many other people having fun with it.

It’s an interesting question hard to pin down. But I would say that there is nothing to worry your head over of all my friends only me and one of my buddies are atheist. It’s Ironic that like half of my friends are in religious clubs and stuff like that. Oh and my sisters atheist hmm maybe that says something about our family?

I c and I guess u guys are right that is a hard question to respond to anyway thank you

Edit:have u written your first manga description yet Gin?

It could also be just a change in the flow. For example the catholic church ruled in Europe completely with almost no opposition for ages then suddenly the protestants took a foot hold.( I won’t get into how, to long a story) Or before that roman mythology ruled Rome until Jesus budded in. I mean atheists have existed since roman times, but never in such quantity.

I think this has something to do with most religions nowadays emphasizing the restrictions imposed on its people. In this day and time, the old ways of emphasizing restrictions doesn't work. I think religion should make their members feel good about their faith but without compromising the restrictions they adhere to.

This is probably the biggest contributing factor to religion dying out. In the old days, people were intrigued at how things worked. Since, they didn't have the technology and science as we do now, they weren't able to answer to questions with logic.

So they came up with a way to explain it. Create gods who created them. Without science to really prove the facts, it was easy to believe in gods which were the only explanation to phenomenons such as "Why does the sun set and rise?" which the Egyptians explained by saying it was dung beetles, the servants of Rah who rolled it across the sky (There are actually many other explanations in Egyptian mythology).

Now, we can prove that the Sun is a mass compilation of gas that burns and we are orbiting the Sun due to gravity, etc. through science. When we have our own way to prove things, god doesn't seem to be too big a deal anymore and seems less believable.

Oh jeez. What did that one conversation do? I think I already made my views on religion clear from a few topics ago.

why religion has gone down in importance lately, huh...maybe because people have realized that illusions are bad, and more so indoctrination? or, maybe humanity has improved to the point where reward-punishment based moral system is not considered cool anymore...

or, put simply, because people have realized it was never important in the first place, maybe?

I wouldn't say that religion has gone down in importance as much as popularity. Religion is still very much important.

I think that the main reason (and my main reason for being atheist) religion is slowly losing its popularity is because of the recent advances in the world of science. With science, people have concrete evidence provided to them, instead of having to rely on words and tradition.

Another reason, at least to me, is the seemingly low amount of intelligence and logic that many (not all) religious people seem to lay out when arguing the reason why the believe. Don't get me wrong, I believe that many religious people are incredibly well-learned, but the mass majority that atheists confront nowadays do not display any levels of reason that would endear religion to them. The same also applies in reverse: Many atheists cannot provide a valid argument for why they do not believe in a religion beyond the phrase "Religion is retarded" (in simpler terms, they think it's cool to be atheist).

Two words. Information & Technology. I'll use the Christian Church in Europe as my example.

The church controlled nearly ALL information within Western Europe. Only the Clergy could read or write. They had the information and when the people wanted answers they went to the church which didn't have every single answer but, instead a single answer to everything. This happened with every religion since the beginnings of society. Everyone from the tribes of Africa to the tribes of North America the "Holy Men" had the answers. As technology improved and information began to flow more fluidly we began to move away from religion as a whole.

i don't really know how relavent this is but, I'll point to maslow's hierarchy of needs (google it). People are reaching self-actualization because our society is giving us the opportunity. in areas where religion is still the center of society the basic needs are not being met somewhere on the pyramid which prevents their "growth".

Pretty much this. Back in the olden times people were not allowed to think for themselves, religion did it for them. And no one complained, hell, they were getting into heaven for it. But now that technology is readily accessable and such, many people are questioning the values that once kept everyone in check. +rep for stating my point before me, fpod.

The increases in the sciences is a pretty big one. It is just easier to believe something that can be scientifically proven than to believe something only based on supernatural beliefs. I've heard the ol' shmeal that science is fallible because it was a concept created by man, and if that is something that someone chooses to believe than fine, but get off your computer and go live back out in the forest hunting animals with sticks and rocks. XD

Anyway... like the quote says. "Why reach for a supernatural explanation when a logical, scientific one suffices?"

Like many others have said, it's simply that we're learning more things that contradict the established religions all the time. The Internet has also been a great way to spread this information all over the world.

I think everyone has pretty much nailed it, though I do have one thing to contribute: our current pace of life.

I don't think our current pace that we live our lives allows much time for piety and religious thought. Many people are immersed in this very materialistic world, and it's getting more and more competitive by the day. It's a dog-eat-dog society out there, rich and poor, and if you aren't doing something to enhance the bottom line of the business you work for, you're going to get laid off. I think a lot of people are finding other avenues of stress relievers other than religion due to the availability of many services and luxuries and products, all offspring from technology - and we come full circle.

To me religion was only created to explain the unexplained at the time. But since things like science came along people have started to learn why the stuff really happens. At least that was the case with most polytheism's, then monotheism rained supreme and polytheism was declared mythology. Monotheism was more for instilling moral values to people growing up religious and laws enforced religion in the old days I'm mean people with different beliefs where hung or killed. Now the world is more free to believe what they want. Humans have a natural tendency to rebel and that's whats happening now. Religion has caused the world so much pain, I mean The Crusades, The Spanish Inquisition and such as the things that have been going on in the middle east for thousands of years. Wars in the name of god are the bloodiest.

Indeed. People are finding that the unanswerable questions of old can now, in fact, be answered. And like G said, God does not pay the bills, clean the house, or feed the family. Working, on the other hand, does.


Or, maybe.. one side of the argument makes more sense than the other, and more people are taking notice to that...

Just saying.

Why has religion gone down in importance lately? because people has stopped believing of course

I would agree with what pretty much everyone has already said, with more in the world being understood, their is less of a need for an explanation beyond what we understand. People pretty much don't NEED to believe in God like they used to. Back in a time when so much was unexplained, people needed to know that it wasn't just unknown; that there was something outside of themselves and they world they saw that controlled or at least created it all. But we can explain a great deal more now, and even though so much is still left unexplained, we can accept that we don't understand it, and that one day we might, and that it had nothing to do with any sort of "God."
Religion is an outdated coping mechanism.

There is also the fact that the human mind works better in general now, and people hallucinate less, so there is a lot less of this "God talked to me" business. Now when people hear things like that, and a church doesn't get them first, they are seen as crazy and occasionally get some help with it.

In any case, it isn't necessarily a bad thing. Just as people don't need religion to explain the world around them, they shouldn't need the constant threat of a vengeful god to act humanely. It should be the responsibility of society to teach it's new members how to properly behave, and of that society's "morals," without telling them that if they DON'T comply, they will be forever tortured in a place that is horrible beyond imagination.
You shouldn't not kill someone out of fear of damnation, you should not kill someone because it is not good for society. Unless it IS good for society, in which case they should be killed promptly and efficiently.