God not so dead: Atheism in decline worldwide

[RebelOne]

God not so dead: Atheism
in decline worldwide

By Uwe Siemon-Netto
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
Thursday, March 3, 2005

Gurat, France – There seems to be a growing consensus around the globe that godlessness is in trouble.

"Atheism as a theoretical position is in decline worldwide," Munich theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg told United Press International Tuesday.

His Oxford colleague Alister McGrath agrees. Atheism's "future seems increasingly to lie in the private beliefs of individuals rather than in the great public domain it once regarded as its habitat," he wrote in the U.S. magazine, Christianity Today.

Two developments are plaguing atheism these days. One is that it appears to be losing its scientific underpinnings. The other is the historical experience of hundreds of millions of people worldwide that atheists are in no position to claim the moral high ground.

http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/05/breaking2453432.91875.html

[onager]

1. Two theologians debating atheism...

...is like two prostitutes debating virginity. (To steal a line from Martin Luther--of all people.)

At least the bias is right up front in this article.

[fshrink]

2. Or like Wolfowitz and Rove debating democracy. nt

[Warpy]

25. Not only that, but the apparent "decline"

is generally a result of constant bullying by believers. People just say "amen, brother" to avoid confrontation at best and assault at worst.

Belief and unbelief seem to be hardwired in us. There's no way for a believer to convert an unbeliever and vice versa, although from time to time we do convert them away from the more pernicious fundy sects and back to mainstream but harmless religion.

Bullying just makes the fools think they've made converts when they haven't. Prase The Lord, Pass The Loot, and Prevent The Lunacy by seeming to agree with them.

[progressoid]

3. mmm...Huh?

Writes Turkish philosopher Harun Yahya, "Atheism, which people have tried to for hundreds of years as 'the ways of reason and science,' is proving to be mere irrationality and ignorance."

[RebelOne]

4. Yeah, I know. That one got me, too. n/t

[trotsky]

5. "the great public domain it once regarded as its habitat"?!?

A big :wtf: on that one!

Atheism has ALWAYS survived in the private beliefs of individuals, that's all we have.

[progressoid]

6. We really need to get us a Pope!

[Modem Butterfly]

19. Or a Popette

;)

[Taxloss]

21. I vote Richard Dawkins.

A big Jihad or Crusade on anyone who disagrees.

By which I mean, the last thing we need is more organisation. We're meant to be escaping that.

[YankeyMCC]

7. losing its scientific underpinnings ???!!!???

WTF!

Did someone discover Heaven somewhere up in the sky?

Maybe that's where those WMD's are!

Quick we'd better build a ladder so we can destroy them!

[FiveGoodMen]

9. I know

I got so mad when I saw that I couldn't even post a response.

Truly, I wish there were a death penalty for lying like that.

[Kolesar]

8. UPI is Rev. Moon's outlet

So what is World Tribune? Go look at their columnists. Go look at their collection of late night jokes. Leno, whatever, but NO Jon Stewart. http://www.newsmax.com/liners.shtml

[JNelson6563]

24. My first thought

Moonies declaring atheism on the downswing? LOL!

Julie

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. The article is plain wrong when it says that Flew now believes

in Intelligent Design:

Antony Flew has retracted one of his recent assertions. In a letter to me dated 29 December 2004, Flew concedes:

I now realize that I have made a fool of myself by believing that there were no presentable theories of the development of inanimate matter up to the first living creature capable of reproduction.

He blames his error on being "misled" by Richard Dawkins because Dawkins "has never been reported as referring to any promising work on the production of a theory of the development of living matter," even though this is false (e.g., Richard Dawkins and L. D. Hurst, "Evolutionary Chemistry: Life in a Test Tube," Nature 357: pp. 198-199, 21 May 1992) and hardly relevant: it was Flew's responsibility to check the state of the field (there are several books by actual protobiologists published in just the last five years), rather than wait for the chance possibility that one particular evolutionist would write on the subject. Now that he has done what he was supposed to do in the first place, he has retracted his false statement about the current state of protobiological science.

Flew also makes another admission: "I have been mistaught by Gerald Schroeder." He says "it was precisely because he appeared to be so well qualified as a physicist (which I am not) that I was never inclined to question what he said about physics." Apart from his unreasonable plan of trusting a physicist on the subject of biochemistry (after all, the relevant field is biochemistry, not physics--yet it would seem Flew does not recognize the difference), this attitude seems to pervade Flew's method of truthseeking, of looking to a single author for authoritative information and never checking their claims (or, as in the case of Dawkins, presumed lack of claims). As Flew admitted to me, and to Stuart Wavell of the London Times, and Duncan Crary of the Humanist Network News, he has not made any effort to check up on the current state of things in any relevant field (see "No Longer Atheist, Flew Stands by 'Presumption of Atheism'" and "In the Beginning There Was Something"). Flew has thus abandoned the very standards of inquiry that led the rest of us to atheism. It would seem the only way to God is to jettison responsible scholarship.

http://www.secweb.org/asset.asp?AssetID=369

[FiveGoodMen]

11. Considering the haphazard way this guy reaches conclusions

(Flew, I mean) why does anyone care what he thinks?

[muriel_volestrangler]

14. Indeed. I hadn't actually heard of him before his 'deist' announcement

but some believers seemed to think that he was so influential in atheist circles that his change of mind would have an effect. I can't see it myself - by our very nature, atheists aren't followers of 'authority' figures. I don't think members of organised religion often see how their sheep mentality can be one of the offputting things about religion.

[phantom power]

18. Because they have power, and they are after even more.

We might prefer to ignore them, but they don't plan to ignore us.

[FiveGoodMen]

20. It's a shame you can't challenge them to prove it...

... and then get them ousted from the media when they can't prove it (the way the right got Dan Rather bumped).

[Synnical]

12. Religious scholars proclaim decline of atheism

http://www.newhumanist.org.uk/more.php?id=1358_0_1_0_C

Editorial Staff 03 Mar 05

No vested interests here, say priests, theologians and religion correspondents

Under the headline "Analysis: Atheism worldwide in decline", the religious affairs editor of American press syndicate UPI, Uwe Siemon-Netto, declares that atheism will be regarded as an 'also-ran' in the competition for most successful worldview. His 'analysis' is based on interviews with seven believers and no atheists, and the old canard that prayer aids recovery from illness.

Read the article and ask yourself how the Washington Times could reprint such garbage.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yeah, I keep reading that atheism is in decline. Doesn't change my point of view. Atheists or in the minority in the US, as are Democrats.

[rexcat]

13. Since the downfall of the Soviet Union

I might say they have a point but in the developed world, "Western' Europe, Canada, Australia, and even the US there is and has been a decline in church attendance. It depends on your perspective on the issue. I don't think the whole story is being told by these people.

[A HERETIC I AM]

15. Don't believe it. There are more Atheists, Agnostics and generally

Non-religious folks in this country than Evangelicals and Baptists. Hell, there are more BUDDHISTS in the US than Episcopalians ( I was raised Episcopal) and Buddhists are, by and large ATHEISTS!

The fight has been taken to the schools because religion is a generational thing. The religionists and the various churches MUST ensure a new crop of ignorant, poorly educated sheep in order to guarantee continued tithing. Well educated, critical thinking individuals don't buy religious bullshit in larger numbers than their ill informed counterparts and well, HELL! the pastors and priests JUST CAN'T HAVE THAT!

[BurtWorm]

16. What gas!

"Two developments are plaguing atheism these days."

One development is "plaguing" atheism, as ever: theists in positions of political power. Period.

[onager]

17. Heh! Well, there are a FEW of us left...

From the Encyclopedia Brittanica's figures on world religious belief:

Total # of Christians worldwide: 1,900,174,000

Total # of "non-religious" and atheists combined: 1,163,189,000

The breakdown of the last 2 categories is:

Non-religious: 924,078,000
Atheist: 239,111,000

http://www.geohive.com/global/religion_top.php

I say ANY claims about church membership should be taken with a grain of salt as big as the Biblical Mrs. Lot. The figures come from the churches themselves, which automatically makes them suspect.

For example, since the 1940's (IIRC) the Catholic church has been trumpeting the figure of sixty million American Catholics.

But that includes everyone who was baptized as an American Catholic. And Catholic baptism takes place when the "member" is a helpless infant and can't fight back. That number certainly doesn't square with the news of dioceses closing due to a lack of members in Boston --one of the most Catholic cities in America.

[BlueEyedSon]

22. An interesting chart:

Major Religions of the World
Ranked by Number of Adherents

Last modified 6 September 2002.

(Sizes shown are approximate estimates, and are here mainly for the purpose of ordering the groups, not providing a definitive number. This list is sociological/statistical in perspective.)

1. Christianity: 2 billion
2. Islam: 1.3 billion
3. Hinduism: 900 million
4. Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist: 850 million
5. Buddhism: 360 million
6. Chinese traditional religion: 225 million
7. primal-indigenous: 150 million
8. African Traditional & Diasporic: 95 million
9. Sikhism: 23 million
10. Juche: 19 million
11. Spiritism: 14 million
12. Judaism: 14 million
13. Baha'i: 6 million
14. Jainism: 4 million
15. Shinto: 4 million
16. Cao Dai: 3 million
17. Tenrikyo: 2.4 million
18. Neo-Paganism: 1 million
19. Unitarian-Universalism: 800 thousand
20. Rastafarianism: 700 thousand
21. Scientology: 600 thousand
22. Zoroastrianism: 150 thousand

[DuaneBidoux]

23. Unfortunately it may simply turn out (God forbid) that belief in God

is more adaptive. It certainly used to be. Of course I'm not saying there is a God. But religion obviously evolved because of a purpose served. But these two theologians obviously haven't been to Sweden or France because I'm here to tell you they're "all" heathens in those two countries. Don't remember the stats exactly but it's like 90% in Sweden and 70% in France are either athiests, agnostic, or simply don't find the issue even worth thinking about.

[GOPFighter]

26. Just a bunch of theologians whistling in the dark

They can't even be honest when discussing religion. What losers!

[EvolveOrConvolve]

27. What scientific underpinnings???

I consider my atheism a complete lack of belief. I don't believe or disbelieve. Both positions are unfalsifiable and thus equally untenable. If there are any scientific underpinnings for that viewpoint, then I'm a monkey's uncle.

It's easy for the author of the story to attack any beliefset if he redefines it beforehand. Fucking ridiculous...