A study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers.
The study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.
The team's mathematical model attempts to account for the interplay between the number of religious respondents and the social motives behind being one.
The result, reported at the American Physical Society meeting in Dallas, US, indicates that religion will all but die out altogether in those countries.
The team took census data stretching back as far as a century from countries in which the census queried religious affiliation: Australia, Austria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Switzerland.
Their means of analysing the data invokes what is known as nonlinear dynamics - a mathematical approach that has been used to explain a wide range of physical phenomena in which a number of factors play a part.
One of the team, Daniel Abrams of Northwestern University, put forth a similar model in 2003 to put a numerical basis behind the decline of lesser-spoken world languages.
At its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the "utility" of speaking one instead of another.
"The idea is pretty simple," said Richard Wiener of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona.
"It posits that social groups that have more members are going to be more attractive to join, and it posits that social groups have a social status or utility.
"For example in languages, there can be greater utility or status in speaking Spanish instead of [the dying language] Quechuan in Peru, and similarly there's some kind of status or utility in being a member of a religion or not."
Dr Wiener continued: "In a large number of modern secular democracies, there's been a trend that folk are identifying themselves as non-affiliated with religion; in the Netherlands the number was 40%, and the highest we saw was in the Czech Republic, where the number was 60%."
The team then applied their nonlinear dynamics model, adjusting parameters for the relative social and utilitarian merits of membership of the "non-religious" category.
They found, in a study published online, that those parameters were similar across all the countries studied, suggesting that similar behaviour drives the mathematics in all of them.
And in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.
However, Dr Wiener told the conference that the team was working to update the model with a "network structure" more representative of the one at work in the world.
"Obviously we don't really believe this is the network structure of a modern society, where each person is influenced equally by all the other people in society," he said.
However, he told BBC News that he thought it was "a suggestive result".
"It's interesting that a fairly simple model captures the data, and if those simple ideas are correct, it suggests where this might be going.
"Obviously much more complicated things are going on with any one individual, but maybe a lot of that averages out."
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I'll believe corporations are persons when Texas executes one.: LBJ's Ghost
I think the article under estimates how easily swayed some people are by "easy" answers. It's easy to say "god has a plan" then to actually dig deep and solve problems, people will go for the easy solutions instead of trying to understand complex things.
I think the article under estimates how easily swayed some people are by "easy" answers. It's easy to say "god has a plan" then to actually dig deep and solve problems, people will go for the easy solutions instead of trying to understand complex things.
I agree completely. When I began hearing people preaching that being reborn is all it takes, no good works, no adhering to commandments then I realized the "Good News Bible " was "get out of hell Free Card".
Why not? You can't raise money without a happy congregation so you pander to human weaknesses and declare DIY salvation (but send in money).
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I'll believe corporations are persons when Texas executes one.: LBJ's Ghost
I agree completely. When I began hearing people preaching that being reborn is all it takes, no good works, no adhering to commandments then I realized the "Good News Bible " was "get out of hell Free Card".
Why not? You can't raise money without a happy congregation so you pander to human weaknesses and declare DIY salvation (but send in money).
It's not really a bad thing that "religion" might die out. That is that the old dinosaurs of organized religion have become outdated, for they have become a replacement for the personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Practicing religion is not what God has in mind for us, and I see that Blucher has fallen for it hence his statement I highlighted above.
Salvation comes by being born again. Being born again is obtaining a new spiritual identification, we become new creatures in Christ:
II Corinthians 5:17 So then, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; what is old has passed away ? look, what is new has come! 5:18 And all these things are from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and who has given us the ministry of reconciliation. 5:19 In other words, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting people?s trespasses against them, and he has given us the message of reconciliation. 5:20 Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making His plea through us. We plead with you on Christ?s behalf, ?Be reconciled to God!? 5:21 God made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we would become the righteousness of God.
The good news is that we do not work for our salvation, we do not follow laws and do good deeds (the acts of being religious) for God has reconciled us to himself through what Christ did for us on the cross. We don't reconcile ourselves to God but God reconciles us to him. We then take on His righteousness because we do not have a worthwhile righteousness of our own. It comes down to what God does for us not what we do for him. We accept by faith what He has done for us and walk in His righteousness as new creatures with new born again spiritual natures.
What Paul Crouch (the picture above) and his crowd are doing is a perversion of the good news of the gospel. So don't make your judgments of Christianity by them. They will have to answer to God one day for their perversion of the gospel.
Ephesians 2:4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, 2:5 even though we were dead in transgressions, made us alive together with Christ ? by grace you are saved! 2:6 and he raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 2:7 to demonstrate in the coming ages the surpassing wealth of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 2:8 For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God; 2:9 it is not from works, so that no one can boast. 2:10 For we are his workmanship, having been created in Christ Jesus for good works that God prepared beforehand so we may do them.
For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God; 2:9 it is not from works, so that no one can boast. 2:10 For we are his workmanship, having been created in Christ Jesus for good works that God prepared beforehand so we may do them.
He prepared a few commandments too that seem like instructions for behaviors. The bible is full of directions about treating others.
My personal belief is that these instructions are very useful in our own lives and reflects Christ's teachings. I know man bornagains who sure won't go to heaven based on their behavior on Earth so it strains my credulity to think this latest slant on Christianity isn't just so much malarkey.
Judeo-Christian teaching clearly are often also rules of behavior for simple often nomadic tribal people. God couldn't easily explain trichinosis to them so his instruction was that swine were unclean. That saved a lot of lives.
My whole point on religions is that yours or anyone's is fine by me until practitioners wish to push it on me. In 1960 we Catholics scoffed at the idea of an American president allowing his Catholicism to alter his presidential decisions. 50 years later we live in grave danger of exactly that happening should the religious right ever elect a President.
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I'll believe corporations are persons when Texas executes one.: LBJ's Ghost
wow, using circular arguments to make a point, the bible is valid because the bible says it is....... come on, please debate at a higher level then that.....
any religion is going to have similar demands/statements, posting what you did proves nothing and not relevant to any discussion of religion that has any substance, it is but a distraction from logic....
any religion is going to have similar demands/statements, posting what you did proves nothing and not relevant to any discussion of religion that has any substance, it is but a distraction from logic....
early in the country's History the Massachusetts Bay Colony had the most clout in the colonies. This was Puritan drivel that still haunts us.
Next came the new age of America as a world class contender and that brought waves of nationalistic fervor and home grown American religions like the Mormons. Today the religious power base wants a form of Baptist Sharia in a Theocracy
In 20 or 30 years the Catholics should be in line to become the religion of the majority. Hispanic Catholics that is and I really haven't a clue as to a possible agenda on their part. Others will follow thenm in time and they too may have a yen to legislate a bit of their beliefs into the lives of the rest of us.
My point being state & religion have been tried over and over and always results in persecution usually of the minority.
Only the most short sighted should see that what you do today may haunt your tomorrows.
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I'll believe corporations are persons when Texas executes one.: LBJ's Ghost
There's way too many failsafes in America to let persecution happen - that's preposterous. And by failsafes, I mean liberals.
I agree that religion may dissipate at some point from the times a' changin so-to-speak. However, I think it'll take thousands of years...
Let's not forget this is all based off of what religious preference people put on the census. The census, in and of itself, is ripe with inaccuracies and is famous for being a "big guess." Additionally, a lot of people just check "no religious preference" because they don't feel like picking between the antiquated options on the census form. Personally, my Corps dog tags read "No religious preference", even though I do, in fact, have a preference. In boot camp, they just put that on there for all of us - to make things easier. Same goes for the census - the entire study is moot.
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