Religion or Secularization - the future.

[hauslern]

Much has been debated about the decline of church or religious participation due to secularization. The happiest countries in the world are the Scandinavian countries where participation in religion is low. The prominent sociologist is Phil Zuckerman, author of Society without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us About Contentment. I found an interview of this author by, of all people, a Southern Baptist theologian Albert Mohler: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkCOpSLXkHs

Here is one response contrary: https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/d ... TEXT01.pdf

Zuckerman's CV: https://www.pitzer.edu/documents/zuckerman-cv

[Gadianton]

Secularization follows economic prosperity which generally tracks with education. If we find a way to solve our resource problems and increase living standards for people in general, not just rich people, and technology doesn't stagnate, there will be more secularization. If wealth distribution increasingly leaves greater numbers of people impoverished, or global warming or some other catastrophe wrecks or sets back prosperity significantly, then religion will take over the future, and it will be days of glory for Dan.

[drumdude]

it will be days of glory for Dan.

Most religious people are like this. They yearn for the end of the world, the coming of the messiah, the separation of the believers and unbelievers. It’s such a primitive selfish wish. No matter how Dan tries to fancy it up.

[hauslern]

In the book When Prophecy Fails, Festinger presents arguments how the members of a faith deal with cognitive dissonance." A man (or woman) with a conviction is a hard man (or woman) to change. Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts and figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point." Festinger, p.3. When Prophecy Fails.

[IWMP]

Much has been debated about the decline of church or religious participation due to secularization. The happiest countries in the world are the Scandinavian countries where participation in religion is low. The prominent sociologist is Phil Zuckerman, author of Society without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us About Contentment. I found an interview of this author by, of all people, a Southern Baptist theologian Albert Mohler: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkCOpSLXkHs

Here is one response contrary: https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/d ... TEXT01.pdf

Zuckerman's CV: https://www.pitzer.edu/documents/zuckerman-cv

I doubt that the Scandinavians are happier because of lower religious participation.

[sock puppet]

Much has been debated about the decline of church or religious participation due to secularization. The happiest countries in the world are the Scandinavian countries where participation in religion is low. The prominent sociologist is Phil Zuckerman, author of Society without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us About Contentment. I found an interview of this author by, of all people, a Southern Baptist theologian Albert Mohler: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkCOpSLXkHs

Here is one response contrary: https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/d ... TEXT01.pdf

Zuckerman's CV: https://www.pitzer.edu/documents/zuckerman-cv

I doubt that the Scandinavians are happier because of lower religious participation.

Causation is debatable, but there is a correlation. Lower religious participation goes hand in hand with happier, more contented people.

[huckelberry]

Much has been debated about the decline of church or religious participation due to secularization. The happiest countries in the world are the Scandinavian countries where participation in religion is low. The prominent sociologist is Phil Zuckerman, author of Society without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us About Contentment. I found an interview of this author by, of all people, a Southern Baptist theologian Albert Mohler: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkCOpSLXkHs

Here is one response contrary: https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/d ... TEXT01.pdf

Zuckerman's CV: https://www.pitzer.edu/documents/zuckerman-cv

hauslern, I tried watching the discussion with Albert Mohler and made it about half way through before my interest died. Perhaps the second half reaches some actual discussion. Perhaps degree of religiosity is related inversely to secular success. Perhaps.

My limited familiarity with Mr. Mohler does not incline me to be eager for his views though he could have some good observations. He is one of the leaders of the fundamentalist tight control of Baptist organization. I was once quite struck by his expressing the view that it does not make sense to follow pseudoscience to show a young earth. Better to see God as creating everything all at once as if it were real old, an imaginary history built into the theater. I find a bit a respect for such clarity as well as a horror for its dogmatic absolutism.

I heard in the discussion some thoughts about what might count as real religion. It is difficult to be clear enough to be sure of what you are measuring. (the print article lead off with an atheist saying all religion is destructive and "moderate" religion which is not so destructive is just not real religion.) I guess real religion depends upon what you are looking for.

In America there has been a struggle over the past hundred years between fundamentalist and modernists who will allow science to influence how religion is understood. The difficulties there certainly influences the number of people holding religious attachment. However it appears to work both ways.

[Physics Guy]

Perhaps in the future, when everyone is vegan, they will still like cold, soft desserts. Whatever they call this popular class of food products, they will definitely recognize our ice cream as a historical example of it. They won't think of their popular desserts as substitutes for ice cream. They won't even think of ice cream as an obsolete alternative to their dessert range, because the similarities between ice cream and their frozen desserts will all be things that they know, while the differences will be foreign concepts to them. So it will be obvious to them that ice cream was an old form of the same kind of stuff they still love. They will just shake their heads at how we ever used to make it from cows' milk.

I suspect that the future of religion will be a lot like that.

Things that now seem essential to any kind of religion will disappear; if anyone happens to learn how important they once were, they will be shocked and appalled, though only to the slight degree that one is shocked or appalled by anything far in the past. At the same time people won't think of religion as something that once flourished but died. They'll think of all our past and current religions as earlier examples—impressive or awful or quaint—of something that will still be alive and important.

[huckelberry]

physics Guy, I can see and appreciate your observation about slow change in ideas can be relatively invisible to the current participants. I bump into two thoughts. One religion can appear quite stable and conservative over the last two thousand years. Compared to the forty or likely many more thousands of years of human religion perhaps the last two thousand are just the current modern epoch.

In the last two thousand there has been meandering but fundamental change.

[hauslern]

What Happens when Countries Lose Religion? | Phil Zuckerman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Dr9GKuMYsg

And Can We be Good Without God?
https://cdn.theatlantic.com/media/archi ... 674469.pdf