Religion Wanes While Superstition Increases
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The University of Chicago just released a new survey on religion. In the survey, they discovered that more Americans are praying and more people believe in an afterlife, but less people have any formal religious affiliation. The study also found that New England and the Pacific North West are the least religious populations.
As I’ve stated before, religion is the survivalism of higher reasoning, which means it’s here to stay. And while I try to live a rational and logical existence, I realize that unless human beings can collectively reject a portion of their own nature, religious belief, in some form, is here to stay. With that being said, I really appreciated what Ray Waddle recently wrote in the Faith and Values section of the Tennessean about this survey and what it means to our culture.
Religion will outlast all theories of secularization. The weather of belief doesn’t go away. But unlike the daily uncontrollable motions of sun and rain, people can choose which kind of religious climate should prevails.
Healthy belief advances the cause of humane society, the spirit of God and scientific inquiry too. Sick religion dreams of authoritarian control and the destruction for everyone who disagrees
That is really the idealistic hope of the secularist – that religions of the world will reflect tenets that are conducive to humanistic philosophy. I realize that appears like an impossible juxtaposition, but what I’m really trying to say is that my hope is that if religion is here to stay – which it is – that the cultural influences on its dogma reflect tolerance and acceptance of other beliefs and lifestyles. That their belief system would include that all human beings have inalienable rights, and that their beliefs, or non-beliefs as some would see it, are respected within the canons and cultures of their religion.
Download the full report here: Religious Change Around the World (PDF)
