Nine Countries are on the Path to Atheism
It seems like the religion in the U.S. is a juggernaut that will be nigh unstoppable in the next decade or two. It's seemingly impossible to get elected without being openly and devoutly religious. George Bush claimed to receive divine commandments on how to perform his job.
President Obama has made sure his church attendance receives plenty of attention too. Some question his sincerity, but no one questions that this is the politically smart thing to do.
George Bush famously said that Islam is a religion of peace despite all the evidence to the contrary. 40% of U.S. citizens are strict young earth creationists. There are constant efforts to insert religion into our schools. It's clear that religion has quite a hold on the minds of America.
It's not all bad news though. Even in America Atheism is on the rise. People claiming no religious affiliation constitute the fastest growing religious minority in many countries throughout the world. Americans without religious affiliation comprise the only religious group growing in all 50 states; in 2008 those claiming no religion rose to 15 percent nationwide, with a maximum in Vermont at
34 percent.
However, a recent study has found that 9 countries are on a path to complete atheism. According to the study, Australia, Austria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Switzerland, have ever increasing levels of atheists. The Netherlands had the lowest population of atheists at 40%, and the Czech Republic was the highest at 60%.
According to the "non-linear dynamics model" the researchers developed, they predict that these countries will lose religion almost entirely within the near future. The reason the researchers say the process will be non-linear (a sudden tipping point instead of a slow grind year after year) is social utility.
Once atheism crosses a tipping point, then holding on to religion becomes a social liability instead of an asset. At that point, all but the most die-hard zealots will drop their religion. Doctors Abrams, Yaple, and Weiner say that this tipping point is right around the corner.
So, considering the growth of atheism and people with "no religious affiliation in the United States, maybe we will see such a tipping point sooner than many imagine. Maybe religion isn't such an un-stoppable juggernaut after all.
As positive a move as that will be, let me give a word of caution. However flawed it may be, religion does provide a philosophical outlook on life. It tells people how to see the world, what is right, and what is wrong.
I believe that all of the messages religion teaches on these subjects are disastrously mistaken, but it would be equally disastrous to drop that framework without replacing it with something else. Just saying science, and follow the golden rule aren't enough. The "New Atheists" are quote effective at showing why religion is absurd, but they are less than convincing about what should replace it. Ultimately, and disappointingly, their alternatives rest on feelings or intuition.
According to Hitchens, "Conscience, is innate, and everybody but the psychopath has the “feeling” that this is so.
Hardly a firm basis for a rational moral system is it? After all, if the only standard is "feeling" that an action is morally right, then anything goes. How could you prosecute someone in court, if all he had to do was say his innate conscience told him that was the right thing to do, and that would get him off the hook. How are we supposed to use this guide when one person's innate feelings contradict anothers?
And isn't this claim of just knowing exactly what Hitchens is trying to throw out when he attacks religion?
Similarly Harris argues there is "a point at which we must anchor our ethical and other ideas to reality by taking “irreducible leaps” via “intuition.”
Intuition isn't an objective reality based way to tie ethics to the real world.
Dawkins posits poorly defined "altruistic urges" implanted by evolution. However the essence of morality is making choices. A biological impulse is neither a choice, nor a sound basis for making a choice.
Dennett says that a reality based system of morality is impossible. "We can do no better than to sit down and reason together, a political process of mutual persuasion and education that we can try to conduct in good faith." Ultimately, this just means that whatever the group consensus decides upon is moral. Throughout most of human history, the group consensus thought that slavery and genocide was moral. I think his theory leaves much to be desired as well. Popularity alone is not enough to decide morality.
These new atheists are going to need an actual philosophy, one that is integrated and based in reason. One that has rejected all of the left-overs of faith. One that rejects intuition as a method of knowledge.
There are precious few philosophic systems which fit the bill. Most of them are absurd. They preach things like skepticism, which means that knowledge is impossible. They teach that the ultimate good is to sacrifice ourselves to the collective, even though that doesn't work in practice. Some simply say god is dead, and nothing has meaning any longer.
Only Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism, provides the reality based, non-contradictory, rights respecting framework that atheists need to provide an effective systemic counter to religion.
Comments
what you've failed to understand is that's what morality is - a popularity contest. morality is determined by community consensus. we've been blinded by religion (rule by old holy book) for so long that we can't understand this.
if religion had a total hold on morality we could sell our daughters into slavery, profess our love of one god or face death, and kill our wives for adultery. but we don't. to SPITE what religion says these things are still considered wrong or amoral. it was dawkins that asked why not raping wasn't in the 10 commandments but keeping holy the sabbath was. he makes an excellent point.
religion isn't morality, it usurps morality for it's own gains and liberally applies it's own control mechanism to keep a population like sheep.
we KNOW morality, it is innate in us as biological urges, because we couldn't evolve as a species to highly cooperative animals by raping and killing everyone around us. if we couldn't decide on community morality we could never have left the cradle in africa to populate the globe.
i think dawkins and hitchens are close to what is needed but need to make that final leap into written code. but thinking that tortured and harassed biologists should turn into moral philosophers is a bit extreme. this to spite the fact that i'd love to see dawkin's own version of the 10 commandments.
Pol Pot's reign of terror was moral, because he was able to get enough people on his side to make it happen.
If morality is subject to a popular vote, that is to say subjective, it has no meaning.
That isn't to say that some societies haven't tried this approach, but it doesn't result in bettering man's life. It results in terror and violence.
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