The Bigger Picture

[queenofnines]

Surprising Statistics:

Number of atheists/agnostics/non-religious WORLDWIDE in:

1993 - 969,000,000 million (18.3% of the world population)
1997 - 1,169,939,840 billion (20+% of the world population)
1999 - 850,000,000 million
2005 - 749,247,571 million (~12% of the world population)

I just KNOW someone is going to comment on the numbers going down; well you have to realize, we had billions of less people in previous years.  There's thousands of new jihadists being born every day.  

The fact remains, NON-RELIGION is the third most popular stance on religion, after Christianity and Islam, of course!  Just food for thought for those of you who think the unbelieving are a "minority"!

Interesting quote from 1965:

"Twentieth-century intellectual man has increasingly divorced himself from his former identity as homo religious and has embraced instead a philosophy of the non-transcendent.  The non-religious man (the term would mean almost nothing in the ancient world) has become a reality.  Mircea Eliade has done much to characterize him: 'The non-religious man refuses transcendence, accepts the relativity of 'reality' and may even come to doubt the meaning of existence... Modern non-religious man assumes a new existential situation; he regards himself solely as the subject and agent of history, and he refuses all appeal to transcendence. In other words, he accepts no model for humanity outside the human condition as it can be seen by the various historical situations... The sacred is the prime obstacle to his freedom.  He will become himself only when he is totally demysticized.  He will not be truly free until he has killed the last god.'"

Source = http://www.adherents.com/Na/Na_478.html

[Falconer02]

This is cool-- especially the quote on the bottom. I'm curious as to why it dropped a bit. The first thing that came to mind was 9/11 for me...I imagine since it had some ties to religion that the feeble-minded people saw it as some sort of prophecy instead of just religious radicals doing what they do best.

[shernajwine]

I guess you will never be free then....since you can't ever kill God 

[Falconer02]

I guess you will never be free then....since you can't ever kill God

Which one?

[ButterflyWings]

Thank you once again Queens..Your posts are always so interesting and have awesome facts..
I have the courage to not be ashamed for being a thinker and non believer..And I have you to thank your posts have opened up doors I have kept silent out of fear of persecution you have given me the strength to be me..Thanks you Rock girl Keep the posts coming!!

[shernajwine]

I guess you will never be free then....since you can't ever kill God

Which one?

The real one.

[queenofnines]

I guess you will never be free then....since you can't ever kill God 

I dunno...I heard somewhere that the average shelf life for a religion is 2,000 years, so Christianity should be dying out pretty soon.  Current trends put it at being GONE by ~2240 (sadly, not in my lifetime  ) -- it has being going down almost a percent every year.  Islam will most likely follow a few hundred years after that (because it started later than Christianity).  I highly doubt any religion will "replace" Christianity as something major, because as we can see, people who start their own religions in more modern times don't get much of a following (Joseph Smith, Ron L. Hubbard).  Science and technology will be so advanced, only a special few will believe in such B.S. anymore in the future.

See chart below (futuretimeline.net):

[queenofnines]

Thanks you Rock girl Keep the posts coming!!

Glad you liked it!  I thought it was really interesting!!   

[shernajwine]

so Christianity should be dying out pretty soon

Lol if you say so!

[queenofnines]

Lol if you say so!

I don't say so, Gallup does!   

[queenofnines]

Humans will have died off by then.

If we do, it will most likely be **because of** religion (Muslims nuking the whole world).

[Falconer02]

The real one.

Again, which one? Everyone thinks their gods are real. When you get down to the bare bones of it, yours is no different.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1YiDN8MT9w

Joseph Smith, Ron L. Hubbard

SCIENTOLOGY AS A RELIGION!? WAUGH! As much as I'd like to throw it into the religious mix, it's a crooked business disguised as a religion. Mr. Hubbard said so himself. Mr. Smith? Yeah. Definately.

Lol if you say so!

A lot of religions die out. It may evolve into something else that vaguely resembles christianity (thus the whole system of religions borrowing and rewriting stories from others), but it will inevitably die out. They're practically long-term trends. Unless something like WW3 happens (which, as usual, religion will be a good way to coerce people into going into war) and renders the world back to the stone-age, it'll most likely be gone.

[shernajwine]

Again, which one? Everyone thinks their gods are real. When you get down to the bare bones of it, yours is no different.

There is only one real one. You saying mine is not different than others.....well, that's coming from a person that doesn't even believe ANY god exists; so I'm not inclined to give what you say about my God any credence.

[Falconer02]

There is only one real one.

Any person of any religion can say this and it can hold the same weight as your own statement.

You saying mine is not different than others.....well, that's coming from a person that doesn't even believe ANY god exists

When did I say this?

so I'm not inclined to give what you say about my God any credence.

Okay.

[FuzzyCottonsocks]

"The Book of Eli" here we come....