Hey Enoch,

The premise of the video is wrong. Christians, if you include Catholics, make up around 1/3 of the worlds population. By 2050 it is predicted there will be over 3 billion Christians in the world. Christianity in many places in the world, especially Asia and Africa, is exploding. Even in the west, it is isn't exactly stagnating. 42 percent of the population of the United States believes in young earth creationism, for example:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/170822/believe-creationist-view-human-origins.aspx

It is simply not true to say people no longer believe; believers are increasing, not decreasing, in the world.

Not so; the biggest increase is in the secular. One area that remains in the religious majority, however, is the poor, the lost, the desperate and the frightened. But, as education and intellect increases so, too, does the need for answers to serious questions without resorting to myths and brainwashing.

Nothing - absolutely nothing - that this video attributes to religion cannot be provided without it. "the challenge is to learn from religions?" Thank-you, but we have already. Religion is not didactic, it is dictatorship. Watch it again, and if you are not patronised by statements like love, art, community, sharing etc, are borne from religion, then you sadly need religion to think for you. Think for yourself. Be a good person for its own rewards not imaginary ones.

Just like most things, belief can swing back and forth like a pendulum. But that pendulum will never swing one way (toward atheism) and stop.

Because a belief in a higher power is hard-coded into our DNA. Religion is man's attempt to interpret this. Some interpretations are more accurate than others, but 'whatever floats your boat'. There is great diversity in the creation, and great diversity in Man's interpretation of belief systems.

Atheism is also a belief. It requires a great deal of faith. Atheists are the few dissonant chords allowed in the symphony. But if you are drawn to that dissonance, you are out of tune.

The fish doesn't have to believe in the ocean. It's always there and sustains the fish. But the fish can't live outside of it.

No.

Yes.

About 1/2 of kids in the US today will grow up with out religion. We ARE seeing what is replacing the aspects noted in the video.

Marriage had gone from 73% in the 60 to 46% today. 55% today families have remarried / single parent or no parent as opposed to 30% in the 60s.

The moral fiber needed to stay married is gone.

Abortions are off the hook, but decreasing lately,
gangs, crime, porn, hookups, sex all more morally acceptable today. IS this a good thing for society as a whole? Sex and hooking up on the side might be nice but when it is so rampant is it really a social good?

Are we truly kinder to each other? More willing to help or do we tell the government to step in?

The direction of morality is indeed heading in the wrong direction.

If you look at the actual statistics, atheists are the one group nearly missing in the criminal grouping. They make up well over 10% of the population, but only .02% of the prison population (.07% in Federal prison). The facts kind of ruin your 'morality comes from religion' argument.
The same goes for divorce and lack of education (a major factor in criminal behavior). Both are far more prevalent among "Christians" than atheists.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/wwjtd/2013/11/study-atheists-get-divorced-less-than-deeply-religious-couples/

http://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/christian-polling-group-finds-atheists-divorce-less-than-christians/news/2013/07/02/70328

If only it were true that 1/2 of kids would grow up without religion, we would be moving in the right direction, sadly that's not true.

No.




lol

I would imagine that the reason so few criminals self-identify as 'atheist' is because very few people identify as atheists. So I don't get how atheists can get credit for being moral. Did Ted Bundy identify himself as a Christian? I doubt it. Anyone with common sense would believe that Bundy was godless. And, he had no concept of what was 'good'.

Atheism still can't explain why 'good' is good.

Hey! No fair rewriting it after I upvote you!

Your imagination steers you wrong again, many people identify themselves as atheist....
Demographics of atheism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A 2012 poll on the demographics of atheism by Gallup International, featuring over 50,000 respondents worldwide, recorded that 13% of those interviewed said they were "convinced atheists".
A 2007 Barna group poll found that about 20 million people say they are atheist, have no religious faith, or are agnostic, with 5 million of that number claiming to be atheists. The study also found that "[t]hey tend to be more educated, more affluent and more likely to be male and unmarried than those with active faith" and that "only 6 percent of people over 60 have no faith in God, and one in four adults ages 18 to 22 describe themselves as having no faith."
'Good' is good because harming others for personal gain is antithetical to civil society, while helping others selflessly is of great benefit to society.

Give me back my vote!

Really, your hanging your morality hat on atheists. Ok lets buy you argument its not Christians or atheists ( 10% population and you hang you hat on it.) for this morality issue. Then what all is really left is ideology. at that point there are only real 2 types those who are conservatives and those who are liberals.

Which demographic is more at fault for this morality decline?
Which ideological group is more responsible for the decline.
The liberals control all major media,(news and entertainment) schools ,( local and universities). They push their liberal ideas day in and out.

Which group promotes abortions ( murder)?
Which group promotes pre marital sex?
Which group routinely promoted adulterous affairs as entertaining?
Which group promotes "morality decided by self"
Which group promotes enslaving the poor?

It doesn't really matter how many people identify as atheists, although I only know one person in my circle who says he is one. I would consider him pretty moral, also.

As I said before, the pendulum swings one way, then the other, much like the sexuality of many in Hollywood.

Regardless, how do you explain the rise of some type of religion in every civilization? Atheism is most likely a late development although I don't have the stats on it. It's a 20th century invention, I'm sure.

When it comes to religion, my faith rests on those with experiential knowledge. There are multitudes of people who have had direct experience of God, they generally coincide, whereas how can an atheist explain his experience of 'no God'. He can't do it.

So to believe in God becomes a common sense decision.

If you don't, that's fine, it's your life, live it as you wish. Each man is his own philosopher. If you are miserable, you have a lousy philosophy.

i think some here are missing the point of this short video.
while we can all argue the particulars of religion,it's failings and its successes,the fundamental reasons for its existence remains.

the militant atheist will argue holy text with the very same literalism that a fundamentalist exhibits,all the while ignoring the massive contributions to humanity in the realms of:art,philosophy,politics and even science.

while this dynamic of the argument is not necessarily wrong,it is,however,inaccurate.one cannot ignore,nor dismiss the positive contributions of religions,which have been legion.this does not mean that religion is above reproach nor criticism,just that a militants argument is incomplete without acknowledging this vital facet of human history.

the problem gentlemen,is fundamentalism,of ANY flavor.
religion is not going anywhere,much to the chagrin of atheists,but the reasons why humanity gravitates towards religion,or a search for the divine and sacred,remain a very powerful influence.

religion must,and has over the centuries,evolve to incorporate the paradigms that are added daily.the religion that is rigid in its interpretations and implaccable in its philosophy...dies.human history is littered with the remains of lost religions that refused to evolve with humanity.

a good example is the dark ages.which was partially perpetrated by a rigid understanding of christian theology (and an abuse of power and authority)affecting millions.it halted human progress and imposed a suffering and misery that is still remembered to this day.then the church experienced a philisophical shift and the reformation was exacted,ending the dark ages and introducing the 'age of enlightenment"...and human progress was allowed to proceed.

interestingly enough,while this was all happening in europe and human misery was a direct result of religious rigidity,the muslims were carrying the torch for human progress.making such additions as algebra and other huge strides in the sciences.

how is that for irony?

fundamentalism,in any form,must be fought at every level.so on that note i tend to side with atheists who are on a constant vigil in revealing the utter hypocrisy of a fundamentalist theosophy,but i will not ignore the wonderful and fantastic contributions that religion has added to human history.

because the fundamental reason why humanity gravitates toward religion is still there and it is not going anywhere.so religion,like man,must evolve to encompass the new paradigm in order to express our humanity,inspiration and awe in the face of the divine.

i am not an overly religious man.
that form of theosophy is not my path,but i recognize the importance of religion and its positive contributions.the challenge is to allow the more archaic and atrophied theosophy to fall away and dissolve like a vestigal limb.keep the parts that inspire and exalt humanity and allow the unnecessary and irrelevant to die with dignity,to become a footnote in our history.

which is what i gathered this video was attempting to convey and why i found it interesting.

@shinyblurry
thanks for the link buddy,now i am depressed.

@bobknight33
please do not take offense when i say:your last comment is so riddled with contradictions,fallacies and outright ignorance in the understandings of -religious history,politics and philosophy that i cannot even begin to address a singular point.that comment is just one big mess.

i will say this in regards to your comment.
to assert that atheists have no moral compass due to their lack of faith and/or religion is just patently bullshit.unless of course,you secretly wish to murder,steal and bang your neighbors wife and the ONLY thing keeping you from acting out is your fear of god.
or hell..whatever..judgement.

do you see what a facile and inept argument that is? morality is inherent to each individual.we all develop our own moral code.now religion can help clarify that moral code,but if you take religion away? we still will all have a moral code we live by.

we also rationalize.
ah..now there is something we humans excel at..rationalizing.or better put:lying to ourselves in order to justify poor behavior.here is where the atheist and the religious diverge.because the atheist has no holy text to twist and manipulate in order to justify that poor behavior,they have to own it and take responsibility.the religious person,however,can abdicate responsibility onto an ancient text based solely on their own interpretation (or some authority they have given power).human history is burdened with the mass graves of such justifications.

ok..i am rambling.
i love this subject and rarely get to engage in discussions such as this.if you have made it this far..i thank you for your kind patience with my own proclivities towards verbosity.

That's funny, earlier you made that the main point of your argument, now it doesn't matter (maybe because you were dead wrong in your assumption?).
You can say the 'pendulum swings back and forth' all you like, it doesn't make it true. Most religious people never 'swing' away from their religion, and most atheists never adopt religion. You're just plain wrong again on this assumption.
Sweet Zombie Jesus! Atheists have been around longer than theists. It's not a new concept by any means, Christianity is a new concept comparatively. One more terribly backwards assumption.
How can you explain your experience of no real Easter bunny, you can't do it. (EDIT:As I see it, there's more evidence of the Easter Bunny, I've seen thousands of bunnies, and every year those colored eggs appear, that's more factual evidence than I've seen of a god ;-) There's no god, so there's nothing to experience, so nothing to explain. Simple, and done!
Believing in the invisible, capricious, self centered bully in the sky is NOT common sense, it's a complete suspension of common sense.
I see far more religious people complaining constantly over their lot in life, and that society doesn't all follow their beliefs, miserable that they can't 'please god' and blaming all their problems on things beyond their control or understanding. Atheists don't do that, and are statistically happier, better adjusted, more tolerant of others, less criminal people. Which philosophy sounds better?

PS. You owe me an upvote!

Please read again...and write again, reading what you write before submitting. I can't follow your first paragraph. What little I can understand completely ignores what I wrote and makes stuff up to argue against.

I didn't say atheists have a monopoly on morality, I said morality doesn't come from religions, and atheists are more moral than religious people. I gave clear statistics about criminal behavior to prove my point.
EDIT:It seems you are saying if it's not religious in origin, the only thing left is political affiliation!? OMFG! That's so wrong I don't know where to start, I hope I just misunderstand you.
Reading/writing comprehension matters.
read my last paragraph in the post above...you exhibit those symptoms.

The answer to all your demographic questions, the religious group.
Religious 'morality' allows for murder, rape, and slavery of the non devout, and so is more responsible for the decline, and for many of the schisms in society.
You watch too much fox news, liberals don't 'control all major media and schools'. "Conservatives" (which are not conservative, they want to be more 'progressive' than liberals by "going back" to a time that never existed) never shut up pushing their insane, debunked ideas day and night. Their morality supports slavery and rape and wage disparity so disastrous that it may lead to class warfare. (how you treat the least of your brethren...etc.)
(EDIT: also investigate the saying 'eat the rich'-Jean-Jacques Rousseau )

More abortions for Christians than atheists, they can't be seen haveing out of wedlock children and many can't use birth control.
Abstinence only sex-ed actually promotes pre-marital sex (if you look at the results).
Christians have more adulterous affairs... for entertainment, and more divorce too.
Religious 'morality' is all 'morality decided by self'. (You don't stone non Christians or people who work on Sunday, do you? If not, you absolutely don't take your morality from the bible.)
Religion totally enslaves the poor.

Any other fallacies you need me to destroy?

Who's morality? Yours @bobknight33 , Which i assume comes from the bible. Oh please, that's where your moral bar is set? Have you read the bible. That books lame when it comes to how to be a decent human. I'll out moral the bible seven days a week.

Do unto others. Now that's some good shit. Although i had that figured out way before i read it in the bible. It's called being an empathetic decent human being. I credit my parents with that if anyone.

Also me thinks people who are always spouting off about morality(the religious usually), or the lack of, or decline of, are usually pretty poor at being decent human beings, but that's just personal observation.

Ted Bundy was a Christian! wow, I did not know that. Now I understand your worldview. "Very Christian". Lot of Christians I know go around murdering people at random.

It's interesting how you make assumptions and ascribe them to someone, idiotic assumptions so that you can say how idiotic they are.

That's an engaging technique though I don't see that it is persuasive.