Young Turks: Study - Will Religion Become Extinct?

[CherylK]

Run time: 05:29 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0h5NfIS35g   Posted on YouTube: March 23, 2011 By YouTube Member: TheYoungTurks Views on YouTube: 304   Posted on DU: March 23, 2011 By DU Member: CherylK Views on DU: 1005

 
Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian discuss a study by the American Physical Society that used census data to show that there are nine countries (Australia, Austria, the Czech Republic, Canada, Finland, Ireland, New Zealand, the Netherlands and Switzerland) where religion may become extinct.

[elocs]

1. People may be religious and hold religious beliefs without attending a place of worship

or being part of an organized religion. I wouldn't look for religion to become extinct in this century or maybe even the next much to the chagrin of some here.

[madrchsod]

3. some form of spiritualism has been around since we started walking upright

i doubt it will go away anytime in the future

[RaleighNCDUer]

5. When I was a child I thought as a child.

When I was a caveman, I thought as a caveman. I didn't know anything about anything, so I explained every with ghosts. As I grew up, I learned what caused the thunder, the rain, the tides, which didn't just come and go for no reason. I no longer needed ghosts to explain them.

It's time we outgrew religion.

[liberation]

11. We know very little about the time when "we started walking upright"

much less what the spiritualism or superstitions of those hominids were.

Not that facts and evidence have ever been much of an obstacle for religious people, alas...

[madrchsod]

2. no.......

[aquart]

4. No. Our brains are wired for associative logic.

Which is the essential mechanism of religion.

[JonathanBrowne]

6. Scientology

Lol the religion Cenk is referring to already exists. Scientology. I realize there's a lot of negative press on them, but they are quite good at pushing right through that and sticking to their message.

Look for mindblowing growth from them. They doubled in the last 5 years.

And of course new age is becoming larger and larger, but that's not really a religion just a description of a certain kind of spirituality.

Check out the book The Aquarian Conspiracy: Personal and Social Transformation in the 1980s for a deeper insight into what "religion" in the future may look like.

In a sense, the religion of the future is bound to involve quantum physics.

Once people understand on a scientific level what "god" is (although there is still many mysteries), it has the power to change everything.

[aquart]

7. A religion created by a crappy sci-fi writer. No, thanks.

[JonathanBrowne]

9. Haha well im not saying you should become a scientologist, its an observation

Haha well, you could call L Ron Hubbard "a bad science fiction writer" if you'd like, but there is no disputing that Scientology is the newest rapidly growing religion.

I would say L Ron Hubbard was a pretty accomplished writer. He actually put out an interesting book called Buckskin Brigades which is a western about the Blackfoot Indians that was one of the first ever books put out showing the white man as the bad guys. Also, his book Fear (the one horror book he put out, which has some earlier metaphorical ideas that one could relate to scientology) has been lauded by Stephen King as a classic of the genre.

As for sci fi, battlefield earth is an absolute epic. I picked that book up when I was a teen with no conception of who L Ron Hubbard is, just because I was a huge science fiction fan and it was a massively long book.

The amount of detail put into that book is astounding. I actually watched the movie on netflix just for kicks and I didn't find it to be as bad as the critics claimed it was either. It wasn't oscar winning or anything but it had some really good effects, some interesting battles, and an interesting villain (played by john travolta). That movie clearly got lamblasted overly because of the scientology connection, as it wasn't some horrifyingly bad movie.

The huge amount of suspicion and distrust people have of Scientology though is a clear indicator that it is poised to grow significantly. Almost everyone in American culture is vaguely aware of it, and their church just calmly tells people to check it out for themselves rather than believe the critics. That approach works.

If you actually do read some of L Ron Hubbards books (Dianetics, Scientology: A New Slant on Life, etc) it's likely you will find it hard to deny that there was some serious genius involved in their creation.... I'm not a Scientologist but I do have to say the man was a genius, and a lot of the things he talks about make sense.

I think the reason it's able to grow so quickly is because it really is the only significant religion I know of where the actual "Scripture" is written by the man, instead of by his followers. L Ron Hubbard wrote something like 20+ books of Scientology...

With Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad, etc. one is left in doubt about what the actual views of the religious founder were since everything was written by the followers and clearly modified and organized later by politically motivated groups.

With L Ron Hubbard you just have his straight up books - written by him, copyrighted by him, and unedited.

[liberation]

12. Yeah, because "logic" is such a fundamental part of faith...

[The Backlash Cometh]

8. Oh, so only the U.S.A. is untouched by the trend?

[DeSwiss]

10. Based upon the meaning of the word "extinct".....

...as defined by http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/extinct">Dictionary.com, I would have to say that in my opinion many churches are already extinct but they just haven't realized it yet.

extinct ex·tinct  /ɪkˈstɪŋkt/
–adjective

1. no longer in existence; that has ended or died out: an extinct species of fish.
2. no longer in use; obsolete: an extinct custom.
3. extinguished; quenched; not burning.
4. having ceased eruption; no longer active: an extinct volcano.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/extinct">link

[JDPriestly]

13. Cenk is describing the Unitarian religion. It already exists.

Cenk, check it out.