Atheism used to be on the march, religion on the back foot. Times change.

[Kire]

At the sight of Stephen Colbert the studio audience begins cheering with anticipation: It's time for "This Week in God." Colbert calls up the "God machine" and gives it a tap, and a window begins spinning to the most unholy sound as a panoply of religious symbols and images—the pope, believers in the shroud of turin, assorted rabbis, imams, ministers, priests, creationists, spiritualists, even those those professing secular humanism and atheism ("The religion devoted to the worship of one's own smug sense of superiority")—flash on the screen. Finally the machine comes to rest on a particular target. We see a Jerusalem rabbi, imam, and priest set aside their mutual hatred long enough to denounce that city's gay-pride parade. Or we watch Colbert conduct a blind taste test to see whether he can tell the difference between holy water and Pepsi. Through it all he pokes fun at faith itself, sparing no religion and no holy man (in Blasphe "Me!!!" he takes on deities themselves, challenging, say, Quetzalcóatl to strike him dead by the count of five). Watching "This Week in God" on Jon Stewart's Daily Show, we are, it might seem, witnessing the culmination of a historical progression, from Robert Ingersoll, the great nineteenth-century public unbeliever, to Clarence Darrow, who in the 1920s and '30s would debate a rabbi, priest, and minister during a single evening.

No wonder, then, that it is a bit jarring, after Colbert's polished irreverence and his audience's unforced delight, to return to the real world and be reminded that it is irreligion, and not religion, that is on the defensive today.

It is this weakening that Alister McGrath sets out to explain. In his telling formulation, we are living in the "twilight" of the great modern era of disbelief.

More: http://www.bookforum.com/aronson.html

[Maple]

1. There are well over a billion atheists

McGrath is lost in fantasyland

[RageFist]

3. Is that true? where do you get that stat? nt

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. adherents.com

http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html

# Christianity: 2.1 billion
# Islam: 1.3 billion
# Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist: 1.1 billion
# Hinduism: 900 million
# Chinese traditional religion: 394 million
# Buddhism: 376 million
# primal-indigenous: 300 million
# African Traditional & Diasporic: 100 million
# Sikhism: 23 million
# Juche: 19 million
# Spiritism: 15 million
# Judaism: 14 million
# Baha'i: 7 million
# Jainism: 4.2 million
# Shinto: 4 million
# Cao Dai: 4 million
# Zoroastrianism: 2.6 million
# Tenrikyo: 2 million
# Neo-Paganism: 1 million

[CBGLuthier]

5. Well, I was going to dispute that figure, but

The first page I pulled from google backs you up.

They themselves do admit it may not be 100% accurate but it is probably closer than one would think.

http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html

[Old Mouse]

16. strangely enough

I recall that figure being extremely different before the web explosion, with Buddhism with all its variant sects and Islam easily topping Christianity in numbers. Now this same chart is all I can find.

But then again, memory is a strange thing.

[Az]

2. Unfortunately it is not just the mainstream religions rising

All manner of fanciful beliefs are rising. Psuedoscience is staking out new ground on a daily basis. Ann Druyan (widow of Carl Sagan) refers to it as the Great Turning Away in reference to reality.

Science and skepticism never really had the high ground. It experiences popularity for a time. But natural desires and social forces will alway favor the spread of the fanciful over the plodding truth.

Science has a bad habit of kicking pedestals out from under things we like. Center of the universe? Boot to the pedestal. Unique and special creation? Boot to the pedestal.

Telling people what they want to hear always has the edge. It takes work and effort to challenge your preconceptions. And science and reason demand it. Its uncomfortable. And the mind always favors the things that are more familiar to it.

Science and skepticism need champions. Just like religions and philosophies. Unfortunately the vast majority of scientists expet their work to speak for itself. They see no reason to sully themself in trying to convince people of the truth. Thus social groups that are willing to try and convince the people of their position have free reign to use any and every tactic they deem appropriate.

Carl Sagan was in large part responsible for bringing the light of critical thinking to a great number of people. But he was nearly alone. Bill Nye (a student of his) picked up the baton for a bit. But today there is no voice for science and reason. But the airwaves are filled with the voice of beliefs.

[melody]

6. Ann and Carl are/were as belief-oriented as the Christians

I'm an agnostic. The world constantly confuses me. I admire those smart enough to be Christians or atheists. I can barely balance my own household budget, let alone figure out cosmology.

IOW: We have to break our addiction to ideology of all kinds if we're ever going to grow as a civilization. Asserting we know all when we don't is the pathetic fallacy that creates the whole problem.

[Az]

7. Some clarifications

An atheist does not necissarily claim to know there are no gods. At their most basic form an atheist simply does not happen to believe in any gods at the moment. If one happened to pop up (or whatever it is gods do) in front of us we would not withold our acceptance beyond reason.

Some atheists may insist there are no gods. We call these Strong Atheists. Other atheists state that of the examples of gods they have been told of they find refutation for the bulk of them. But they are well aware that there may be a description of god that they cannot refute and there may even be evidence to support it. These are called Weak Atheists.

The mind by its nature attempts to avoid internal conflicts. In this way if it comes to a quandry about a matter of belief it attempts to resolve it one way or the other. Failure to do so creates stress. And the mind avoids stress when it can. Thus it is not likely for a mind to be able to maintain two opposing beliefs at the same time.

From this we can see that the mind either does or does not believe in a god at a given time. Not believing in god does not imply an active disbelief. Merely the absese of beleif. And that corresponds to the basic definition of an atheist.

So ask yourself this. Do you currently believe there is a god or gods? Not whether you deny the existance of god.

In the end don't worry about it too much. Labels can sometimes get in the way.

[arcane1]

8. that's kind of why I prefer "non-theist"

the word "atheist" often puts ideas in people's heads that don't necessarily apply to me

good post!

[melody]

9. See, that's the problem - definitions of words

Obviously someone can call herself a "Christian" and have no semblance of real Christian beliefs. Somebody can term himself an "atheist" and yet have a myriad of structurist acceptances that amount to beliefs.

I'm happy with the term "agnostic", personally, but it's all splitting hairs. I was just making the case in terms of Carl, although he did improve his absolutism in later years. He even went up to Terence McKenna's place to talk to him. lol

[Az]

11. Definitions are always important

Most arguments are misunderstandings of words. Sometimes you have to take a hammer to the words and figure out what each person really means.

[Old Mouse]

15. Very interesting insight on atheism.

Thanks for the clarification.

[trotsky]

10. Such wishful thinking and active denial

are a delight to read. Thanks for the link.

[TreasonousBastard]

12. Curiously...

it is only in the US, and some formerly Communist countries that this great leap of faith is taking place. Europe seems to have steadily declining church membership, and Japan has its Shinto shrines virtually empty. South America is rapidly losing its reliance on the Catholic Church, and Africa is completely up in the air.

Islam is the only religion showing serious growth throughout the world, but that is often because it's a state religion.

The growth religions, interestingly enough, are almost all fundamentalist and dogmatic in style. The Christian growth sects are evangelical fundamentalist, with the moderate churches, and even the Catholics, showing declines, or very slow gains. Perhaps this is because the message is simple. A simple message of a simplistic God who will solve all the problems eventually is a powerful message that many want to hear.

At any rate, unless I lived in the Bible Belt or Saudi Arabia, I wouldn't worry too much about atheism being stamped out.

I'm thinking that strong atheism, the insistence that there is no God, is becoming a bit out of fashion as an indefensible belief in itself, but other forms of atheism are becoming more acceptable as time goes on and religions refuse to adapt.

[Old Mouse]

18. You need to look deeper

Shintoism is not dying out, Japan is.
Shinto has no dogma or laws, and is more of a traditional earth worship. As such it has always allowed multiple faith worship.
Buddhist cults such as the terrifying Aum and the more benevolent Sogogakki are more popular than even in Japan.

Marketing data shows a steady rise in global spirituality.

[onager]

19. Japan is dying out?

What, exactly, does that mean?

Japan made the national decision to start reducing its dependence on fossil fuels in the 1960's, something this country has never had the guts to do.

Shinto has plenty of dogma, it's just not written, fixed dogma like in Xianity and the other members of the Monotheistic Big 3. In fact, our U.S. Occupation Government after WWII felt the need to ban the teaching of "Shinto dogma" in public schools.

One Shinto explanation about the creation of the earth involves a deistic orgasm. I'm trying to restrain myself from Big Bang one-liners.

Buddhism has always been "popular" in Japan, and I don't see any evidence that the radical cults are any more popular than radical Xian cults are here in the States. Probably less. During several trips over there...including one not long after the Aum attacks on the subways...the Japanese I talked to were absolutely horrified by the cults.

The Japanese happily incorporate both Shinto and Buddhism in their religious observances. On New Year's they visit the graves of their ancestors and go wave to the Emperor, then go to a Buddhist shrine.

I did notice one thing VERY much in common with Western religion when I visited the biggest Buddhist shrine in Tokyo. All the streets leading to it are jammed with souvenir shops selling all sorts of overpriced religious gimcracks.

The Japanese seem to view religious observances as more a part of their culture than actual worship of anything.

The funniest comment I ever heard on religion in Japan (from a Japanese): "Fifty per cent of Japanese are Buddhist, fifty per cent are Shinto, and fifty per cent have no religion at all."

[Az]

21. The culture in Japan is dying

I am friends with someone that used to tend Shrines in Japan as a child. The culture that existed in her day is dying if not dead already. It no longer has the hold it once did. It has become a ceremonial trapping in most cases.

There will continue to be some that still practice it. But the bulk of the society has moved on.

[Old Mouse]

22. I've participated in Shinto ceremonies

at a few different shrines in Japan. The problem is not modernization as much as depopulation.
Girl's day, Bon festival, New Years celebrations, all still celebrated by a majority of the population. Ritual carrying of the Mikoshi still shuts down the second biggest economy on earth as it did a thousand years ago. All of the right wing politics are based on Shinto as cultural heritage and worship of the emperor regardless of the American imposed constitution.. It's just that Shintoism isn't practiced as Western religion, attendance to Shrines is no way to calculate its popularity.

[trotsky]

13. A critical review of McGrath's book

http://www.policyreview.org/feb05/berlinski_print.html

... (O)ne wishes McGrath had made his case with greater precision and care. He offers scant sociological data and few statistics about rates of religious belief over this period. He rarely specifies the indicators he uses for his assertions: How many Westerners, for example, declared themselves to be atheists in 1966, when that issue of Time magazine was published? Is there any reason to believe that the reemergence of religious belief in Eastern Europe has a correlate in Western Europe? McGrath does not note — but should — that church attendance in Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden is now below 10 percent, a dramatic decline from the 1960s. Rates of baptism have similarly plummeted. Christian belief in Western Europe has in fact dropped sharply since the fall of the Berlin Wall, according to opinion surveys. The first draft of the new European Union Constitution did not include a single mention of Christianity. When asked by pollsters to name an inspirational figure, British respondents placed Christ well below Britney Spears. The only religion on the ascendant in Western Europe is Islam, and this for historic and demographic reasons only tangentially related to the collapse of communism.

There is not much evidence of widespread religious revivalism in the United States either. Columnists for the New York Times may insist that America has become a nation of pulpit-bashing religious primitives — for Maureen Dowd, this is a self-evident proposition on the order of “snow is cold” — but the proportion of the American population identifying itself as Christian has actually shrunk by more than 10 percent since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

...

But McGrath defines atheism so narrowly that the most interesting questions are unaddressed and unresolved, and his ebullient conclusions are unsupported by the arguments. It is not clear, for example, that the discrediting of one strain of atheism necessarily entails a similar grim fate for secularism, humanism, or agnosticism; nor that it will produce a revival of Christian faith, which McGrath strongly implies. If it is true that a wide renewal of faith is at hand, as he believes, it is nevertheless not clear precisely how this devolves from general revulsion at the excesses of atheist regimes. One might equally expect the reaction to be a condemnation of zeal and faith in all its forms, theist or atheist, in preference for the weak solutions of moral relativism — or the spread of general outright despair.

[BurtWorm]

35. Thank you for the reality check, Trotsky.

(Not that too many seem interested in checking in with reality these days.)

:toast:

[CarbonDate]

14. Dead cat bounce.

Rational thinking will continue to expand as the human species evolves. It can't help but continue to move in that direction. Superstition will continue to decline, even if it does experience minor temporary bounces along the way.

[Old Mouse]

17. Actually, that's not true

It has more to do with economics. Fundamental interpretations of scriptures are more popular now than two hundred years ago.

[Az]

20. Not necissarily

There was this lovely library once in a a town called Alexandria. It was a great repositry of knowledge. Some considered it to be the single greatest collection of human learning to date. Seems there were some groups that did not like some of the learning contained there. So they burned the place down and slaughtered the head librarian. Some people consider the final fate of the Library of Alexandria to mark the beginning of the Dark Ages.

Faith and Religion can cause people to deliberately blind themself and put the torch to knowledge. As knowledge accumulates it may find itself impinging on claims of certain beliefs. If the matter continues to widen the gap between what the knowledge claims and the religion claims a struggle ensues. If the knowledge does not have enough backing and support from the society compared to the religions, it can be purged.

Some have suggested that if the Library of Alexandria had not been sacked we would have entered the industrial era 1500 years earlier. 1500 years may be temporary but it is certainly not minor.

[Old Mouse]

23. Correct calculation of the earths circumference

by math, a stick, and a couple of hours. We'll never know the wonders it held. But I think you forget most of the work in that library was generated by religious societies.

The sacking of the library was for profit, robbery plain and simple. Heck, the library itself was populated by stolen and plundered items. They were after gold doorknobs, It was not an anti-scientific religious purge. They sacked all of Alexandria because it was a rich city, any city that embraced culture was rich in art and artifact.. And at this point in human development, I might add,religion was the impetus that inspired these arts to grow. In fact the pre-monotheist societies were incredibly tolerant of each other's religions. "Swear by the gods you swear by"

Pythagoras was a religious kook, and it is impossible to calculate where mankind would be today without his contributions.

[Az]

24. Religion was indeed the impetus

Religion was practically the midwife of science. The fact is the leaders of the various sects so believed they were right that they figured better understanding the nature of the universe would only prove their case.

As to the Library it was sacked a number of times and it was not always just for the looting. A number of religious groups did turn on it. The final pillaging of it that lead to its ultimate downfall was performed by a group of religous zealots.

And the manner in which the library came by its stores of information was that anyone entering the city had all their documents seized. The librarians then made copies of the documents and the originals were returned. If the owners were still about of course.

[onager]

25. The usual annoying, smart-ass corrections...

1. Actually, the COPIES were returned in most cases, which undoubtedly pissed off a lot of book owners. But this was an order from the Greek "Pharoah" of Egypt, so there was no appeal.

According to Galen, during the reign of Ptolemy III Eugertes (246-221 BCE): "...he ordered that all books of those who landed at Alexandria be brought to him so that copies could immediately be made and then the visitors were returned not the originals but the copies..."

He didn't stop there, either. Again according to Galen, Eugertes wrote the government of Athens and asked to "borrow" the irreplaceable original works of Sophocles, Euripides and Aeschylus.

As a security deposit, Eugertes put up a large sum of money--fifteen silver talents.

After the works were copied, Eugertes kept the originals in Alexandria, sent the copies back home, and forfeited the security deposit.

2. It may be comforting to supernaturalists and woo-woos to imagine that religion inspired the creation of the Alexandria Library, but it just ain't so.

The book collection of the Library was intended as a general collection of world-wide knowledge on all subjects.

Even more important, it wasn't just a library in the sense of "collection of books." It was a center of learning. In modern terms, the Alexandria Library was a combination of the Library Of Congress, Harvard and MIT.

When Ptolemy Philadelphus II started seriously collecting books, he didn't treat religion differently from any other topic. According to a history written circa 367 CE by the Bishop of Salamis:

Ptolemy wrote letters in which he asked the kings and great men of the world to send him works of whatever nature: poetry, prose, rhetoric, sophistry, medicine, magic, history and everything else.

The Greeks knew the difference between science, magic and religion. In the Library, books on the latter topics were housed in a special collection called "Ancient Wisdom." They weren't mingled with the works of mathematics and geography.

This info comes from the book Alexandria, Third Century BC--The Knowledge Of The World In A Single City. It's a great history of the Alexandria Library that I bought at the New Alexandria Library when I was working in Egypt a couple of months ago.

[Old Mouse]

26. most often the documents were not returned

nor were the documents "borrowed" from other countries. And it is not true the advance of science at this time was to prove validity of religion. Polytheism never intended to explain the mechanism of nature. In fact most religions of that time were understood by the practitioners to be symbolic.

It was not destroyed by zealots, it was sacked and burned during a civil war. You may be thinking of he temple of Serapis, which was sacked by Christians - as they attacked the town, not the knowledge - but that was after the earthquake, fire and tidal wave that flattened the city in a.d. 365

[onager]

27. A large part of the Library WAS housed in the Serapheum

That was the "daughter library." The Serapheum, or Temple Of Serapis, was sacked and burned by Xian mobs in 391 CE. And on direct orders from the local Xian Bishop.

However, there are many "destruction of the Alexandria library" stories, with a lot of finger-pointing depending on which Major Religion is trying to duck the responsibility.

The disaster of 365 CE sounds more like a tsunami than an earthquake. In fact, from eyewitness descriptions it sounds just like the recent Asian tsunamis. Witnessees said the sea suddenly "rushed out," leaving ships stranded on the bottom and exposing all sorts of interesting marine life.

Some Alexandrians were out there collecting marine life when the water roared back in, with enough force to drive boats onto the roofs of tall buildings.

The forty-story Pharos lighthouse survived that incident, and stood until August 1303, when a major earthquake finally damaged it beyond repair.

[Az]

28. No dogmatic religion stands for being told they are wrong

Ancient history is rife with purges of one sect by another. Countless documents are gone forever because they did not proclaim the truth the dominant sect proclaimed. Heads have been lopped off. People burned. All because they dared to speak the truth of what they had learned in the face of dogmatic authority.

The entire point of this conversation is that learning and science can indeed be jeopardized if religious zealots gain sufficient power to destroy that which offends them.

Science is this day and age is proclaiming things certain vocal sects strenuously disagree with. Science cannot bend it's knee in this. It can only march forward gathering what information it can. The dogma of the believers must either change, die out, or destroy that which threatens it.

[Old Mouse]

29. except dogma is an invention of monotheism

zealotry of ancient religions is an invention of modern entertainment. Polytheists believed all religions gods existed simultaneously, not just their own. There was war, and purges, but not on the grounds of one's beliefs dogma or customs. Moral behavior was dictated by survival issues until the age of Axis, not dogma. The first real religious based conflict was Christian versus Christian

There is also the modern illusion that science is the basis of human progress. we are only now approaching the calculated life expectancy of pre-colombian north american indians... the average american worker has less leisure time than he did two hundred years ago. If the libraries had remained intact, we might have had Fat Man a thousand years earlier than we dd.

[Az]

30. Was not suggesting polytheistic religions were n/t

[Old Mouse]

31. Sorry if I misspoke or misunderstood.

You have a talent for multi-threaded conversations. Not all of us oldsters are so multitasking!

[Az]

32. I could have been more clear

I actually consider the polytheistic religions of ancient times to have been evolving onto an intellectual externalizing of social moral discourse. Rather than insisting one truth from one supposed source the gods were a means of working out a dialog of moral codes and understanding.

This is why the Christians ran into trouble when they were made to swear fealty to the Roman gods. It was not a means of forcing a belief on them. It was a means of verifying that they would abide by societies rules. But because the Christian beliefs were exclusionary they could not agree and were thus punished.

[Old Mouse]

33. Agreed

The early philosophy of Christianity the Romans worried about was mercy and compassion, not the dogma the Church created a millennial later. But you are correct, one purpose of religion is to create a truth (or perceived truth...) greater than contemporary values. That's exactly why Constantine's endorsement, putting the two in alignment, redirected the nature of Christianity.

It's interesting to note that the Romans got to the point they didn't want to kill or torture the Christian's any more, but a Christian sect had evolved that believed only by experiencing Christ's torments could one enter heaven. Swearing fealty got watered down to just "wish the emperor good health" but these "wittinesses" refused even that easy out.

I think you're dead on about externalizing moral codes, but I suspect its more of an instinctive trigger than scholars first thought... thus the continued use of royal families and the obvious effect of presidential behavior on population segments.

[onager]

34. Huh?

There is also the modern illusion that science is the basis of human progress.

I don't really mean to be so argumentative, but that statement is the sort of neo-Luddite nonsense that burns me up.

Science IS the basis of human progress. If you don't believe that, feel free to take your deathly ill self...or child...to the local faith-healer. Just ignore Evil, Materialistic Modern Scientific Medicine.

we are only now approaching the calculated life expectancy of pre-colombian north american indians..

Ah yes, the myth of the leisurely Hunter-Gatherer society. Since they lacked Evil Science, they were forced to become subsistence farmers after they hunted most species into extinction.

Things weren't so hot when an epidemic struck, either. Some Evil Science might have helped a bit with that, too.

...the average american worker has less leisure time than he did two hundred years ago.

In what field? "Two hundred years ago" would have been 1805, when this was largely an agricultural country.

If you imagine farmers work an 8-hour day, you've obviously never lived on a farm. My grandfather was a sharecropper in the South.

Actually, Americans in 1950 had the most leisure time in the nation's history (second only to Australia, according to the experts I just read.) It's been downhill since then.

[Old Mouse]

36. BTW

I meant I agreed with your premise, not that I agreed you could have been more clear! heh