Now I can see why I had such a hard time until the last ten+ years. I have never looked for any graphs like this. I always knew our numbers were small, just not that small. Us atheists were such a small minority. Just going by the graph for 1986, I can only imagine how small the numbers were in 1976, 1966. No wonder those damned Christians were abe to get away with so much torture, violence, abuse, rape, and molestation, until the mid-1980s. Who is going to believe that one in a million child? Especially, a godless heathen child?
https://i.imgur.com/zywMMNI.png
Of course, one must always be careful reading such graphics. However, considering the amount of violence, molestation, discrimination, and persecution I have suffered for over forty years, until the new millenium started, I tend to know the graphic above is largely true, if not completely true.
I mean, it is only in the last maybe 10-12 years, I have had some freedom to state the fact that I have been an atheist and anti-theist my entire life (excepting my family). Before then, I always had to check "other" when asked what religion I held, and left the line blank.
That line would always look, thus: [X] Other:_________________________.
After I had filled it out as far as I was going to.
Yet, us dumb ass Americans still have a long way to go. The church still has too much power. Too much money. But it is also loosing. And that is why the church and its most staunchest supporters have become so militant and violent. They realize the only method they have left is the instilling of FEAR into others through violence and hatred (Eternity in Hell). They are getting to the point they have no other alternative but to follow the biblical verses of crying (whiney-ass pleas) and gnashing of teeth (fighting tooth and nail). But mostly fighting tooth and nail.
And as George Carlin said, and I paraphrase: "For an omniscient — all-knowing — entity, God is a pretty poor accountant."
rmfr
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According to the figures from this site: http://christianityinview.com/religion-statistics.html
The proportion of atheists worldwide in 1800 was less than 1 in 90,000, and less than 1 in 7,000 in 1900, and about 1 in 46 in 2000...
It seems the stats were compiled by some Christian group, but I don't doubt it was done in earnest. I do wonder how reliable the figures are however.
It all paints a very bleak picture for christians. Religions as a whole especially christianity rely heavily on the appeal to popularity fallacy. If people realize only a small amount of people actually practice something like christianity it becomes that much easier to dismiss the ludicrous claims christianity or any religion makes. They end up getting the "cult" moniker instead of "organized religion."
Christianity and other various religions do not like admitting a huge majority of all people that ever lived have never even heard of christianity, or have and choose not to follow it. Their appeal to popularity in reality is actually turned on its head, christianity is unpopular, as is any other religious type, any religion no matter how big the majority of all people that lived disagree with it.
You do not even need to rely on the graphs, the problem is so bad in much of the US, you can pick almost any major metropolitan area, and quickly realize the vast majority of people do not attend church services on sunday. You could look at the filled parking lots of the churches sunday morning. (ooh a few hours a week.) then compare that to how many cars are on the road near the church. How many cars are sitting at the place of people's residences. Go back 100 years, even in the cities, Sunday morning the churches even in large metro areas were packed. The streets during popular mass hours on sunday morning were a graveyard, if one family did not go to church everyone in the area KNEW IT.
This graph whether completely accurate or not points to something even more precarious to the church, the Millenials and younger generations, (let's call them the internet generation) Are not buying in. I would say most of them it more apathy then truly atheist. Take out the national holidays like christmas (bribe em with gifts!) Or simply a day off and the younger generation really would not be bothered with all the religious crap unless it is heavily foisted upon them by family/peers.
Organized religion, especially christianity has been dying a slow death from the absolute pinnacle of power a few hundred years ago for some time now. It is starting to speed up lately as it becomes increasingly more obvious that religion is irrelevant in the face of highly and easily accessible knowledge that can give much better answers then: "have faith!"
Atheist republic and other sites like it is also a symptom of that. Now anyone anywhere can look up a site like this and quickly see there are other answers, better answers then what been shoved down their throats.
"Recovering Ex-Christians" and other support website have become popular in the last 15 years (my timeline guess). After I left the Nazarene church, there was nowhere except online. I found tons of good support, great articles and testimonies that helped so much.
Now that atheism is not so "isolated" (for lack of a better word), more and more religious folk are less terrified to leave. Websites, like Atheists Republic, and others, offer so much good. It is so great to have this.
One thing to keep in mind, is that the statistics on leaving or having left religion, does not equate to atheism. A person claiming to be non-religious, or to having left religion, can still mean that they believe in the existence of a god or so-called higher power. So let's not think that the graph tells us about the percentage of the age groups' proclaiming atheism, (although atheism is on the rise).
Mu.
I would agree with Mutorc and assert that a lot of non-believers actually attend church and pretend to be christian for family and business. Joining one or several local churches is an excellent way for a small businessman to generate a client base.
I agree with that absolutely. Amway is based on networking in churches. So is Avon. Not to mention Toastmaster's. It's not unusual for churches to sell their membership address list to other Christian organizations and businesses.
Also, you'll see families come to church when they have newborns all the way up to high school, just for the kids, and after high school graduation, you don't see them anymore. Ironically, you won't see the kids at all until they have THEIR kids, and suddenly they come back to church and the whole thing recycles.
@Magnificent Beast
Never considered that before (probably because I never attended church regularly.) Back to the whole thing of: there is no instruction manual on how to raise kids, so people often emulate their parents simply because they got no other instruction. How do we break the cycle of indoctrination? Sure many may stop going to church once the kids are gone, but I am guessing not all of them.
Plus when disaster strikes the fallback of authoritative seeming old white men saying the made up answer of: "god has a plan for you" over and over and over again can be very tempting when the normal answers do not work.
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▮ I am an atheist that always likes a good debate. ▮
▮ Please include @LogicFTW in responses directed to me. ▮
▮ Useful list on forum usage. A.R. Member since 2016. ▮
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(continuing Logic's last paragraph)
I always wanted somebody to do a comedy/drama about life in a fundamentalist church. Better Call Saul meets The LIfe of Brian.
Loved all the posts. I always look at graphics with huge grain of salt.
Ain't that the truth. Churches are an excellent place to advertise, as long as they allow it.
@ MB and thread,
Very good points. Never thought of it that way. However, with our daughters, we always taught them "how to think," "how to find their own answers." We even took them to church a few times, but we stopped because my wife and I just could not sit and listen to the diarrhea they would spew from the pulpit. We also got tired of having to deal with the paritioners and their bullshit. It was exceptionally difficult for us hard-core atheists to sit and "fake" it. We let our daughters go to church with their friends, but after about six months, they stopped going. Their reason? How they were taught how they come to be. (I may have posted this elsewhere, but...)
To convince children that they are born evil/sinful is unconscionable (not guided by conscience; unscrupulous; not in accordance with what is just or reasonable). What kind of immoral monster is going to tell their children that they are born evil/sinful, born of evil/sin, born into evil/sin, and must have an imaginative Sky–Faerie and Magic Zombie Virgin to save them? You stupid, idiotic, and retarded Religious Absolutists have it so damned backwards. Evil and sin had not one damned thing to do with it. Children are always born from love (well, 90% at least here in America, I think). I for one, always told my daughters they came about from the absolute love my wife and I had for each other because we were SoulMates. Literally ONE soul, ONE heart. It was an Act Of Pure True Love Between SoulMates that created our daughters. NEVER that bullshit diarrhea you Religious Absolutists spew.
Even my daughters said as much when we let them go to church to “find the answers for themselves.” They said the main reason was how you Religious Absolutists taught them how they came into this world. They said it was despicable of you to say they came into this world due to a sinful and evil act instead of the True Truth. Something no Religious Absolutist has ever been capable of speaking. Not a damned one of you.
The only way to do this is to teach our children "how to think." How to find the answers for themselves. An excerpt from my first book:
============================================================
Teach Your Children How to Think Instead of Telling Them What to Think
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I had always taught my daughters (while they were alive),
“You have to take everything with a huge grain of salt. Trust nothing. Investigate it for yourself and come to your own conclusion.”
Whenever they asked me a question, I would simply point them to the Walls of Why. The Walls of Why were nothing more than walls of shelves containing several sets of encyclopedias, 40+ years of National Geographics, 30+ years of Scientific America, my dad's college textbooks, my college textbooks, and many other textbooks and reference books I had purchased.
Additionally, once they thought they had found the answers they needed, and they were still not completely sure, I would sit down with them and discuss how to evaluate the evidence they had found. How to evaluate and determine whether they had all the data they needed, or if they needed to find more evidence. That is how ALL parents should help teach their children. Don't rely on just the public school system. Adn definitely do not let the church teach them anything.
I feel this is how all parents should be raising their children. However, all tend to say they don’t have enough time. The biggest problem today is social media. Most parents today have taken to this social media phenomenon worst than their children. Or just as bad. Due to this, most parents feel they cannot be interrupted from their "social media bullshit" by their children; thus, they give them a PADD or cell phone to play with. Parents, get off your damned cell phones. Spend time with your kids. Teach your children HOW TO THINK.
It may be harsh, but I feel there is need of some new laws:
1) No child is allowed anywhere near any form of anything religious until the age of 24 years.
2) No child is allowed to have any form electronic device (except ONLY a calculator) until the age of 18 years.
3) No child is allowed access to the internet and WWW, except to perform educational research, until the age of 18 years.
As said, these may seem quite harsh. These were rules I had implemented onto our daughters. My wife agreed after I explained why I felt this way due to the 14 years of experience I had had with the FidoNet and BBS network. Hell, even my daughters agreed when both my wife and I discussed it with them. However, I shall be the first to admit that I relinquished the electronic device rule when they were 14. By that time, my daughters had shown they were responsible enough to not let their cell phones rule their lives (and they did not). The same was done with the computer. Astonishingly, our daughters spent more time with my wife and I than on the computer (once their schoolwork was done). That is when they were home and not over at a neighbor’s home.
I feel it is the only way to get the human species into the Age of Rationality that it needs to ascend to. Unfortunately, the Absolutists still hold too much power (especially the Bible Belt Baptists) to get something like this implemented. Maybe in the next 2000 years here in the religious septic tank known as America, while the rest of the world passes us by. If America ain’t careful with this religious septic tank we are holding onto, we are going to become the most backwards nation on Earth. China will become the new leading nation in technology and capitalistic power. In fact, China ain’t as far behind as most of us Americans wish to believe. I even predict China will become the wealthiest nation on Earth by 2100. Perhaps as soon as 2050. Thus, it is you Absolutists who are attempting to destroy America’s standing in the world. Hell, even Canada is moving ahead of us when it comes to rationalism. One of the reason why I would not mind moving to Canada. Rationalism is also the reason I would love to move to Australia or New Zealand. America, the country of my birth, the country whom I served with honor, has become the most disgusting place I think of to live. If it were not for the freedoms, and having the most fascinating caldera to study, I would have left long ago.
Explaining My New Laws
----------------------
1) No child is allowed anywhere near any form of anything religious until the age of 24 years.
Why 24? Hopefully, by then, the person has gotten at least a Bachelor’s Degree and has actually learned how to think critically, using analysis, deduction, rationality, logic, and reason. Then, since they are also well beyond that 4 to 14 range, the Religious Absolutists may not be able to brainwash them.
2) No child is allowed to have any form electronic device (except ONLY a calculator) until the age of 18 years.
This is probably self-explanatory. Just look at people wherever you may go. At least 80% of the adults, and virtually 100% of the children with them, have their faces shoved into their cell phones or PADDs. Parents today no longer have the skills to discipline their children and to further their children’s education. Just so they ain’t got to deal with such, they give their children a cell phone of their own. “Here, sweetie, mommy ain’t got time to deal with you. Play a game. Watch a movie.” Bollocks. Horse hoowhee. Bullshit! I know it shall never happen, but we need to get rid of those fucking devices.
3) No child is allowed access to the internet and WWW, except to perform educational research, until the age of 18 years.
Again, kind of self-explanatory. Kids can access too much of the wrong shit online. However, this would also need to be implemented on children’s phones now days. I feel they should be limited to only accessing educational research tools on the WWW. Then those tools can further limit what they can research and which sites that come up during a search. Some form of centralized educational research center(s). Of course, this could also be easily abused by the wrong persons.
Basically, there is no easy or clean solution. However, a curbing of the three items discussed above may be able to help.
Tyrannically, if I were in charge, I would forbid ANY AND ALL religious organizations access to the WWW under penalty of death. I would also forbid any form of televised access, again, under penalty of death. Just letting them have tax-exempt status is bad enough. They would still corrupt far too many persons even without the WWW and TV.
And then I loved this statement by Aron Ra in one of his many YouTube videos:
Atheists don’t want religions to have exemptions under the law, and why should we? It’s not our demographic that has the most divorce, the most chemical dependency, the most domestic violence, the most criminal convictions, or even the most abortions. The only thing we Atheists might have more of, are diplomas.
The biggest problem with today’s society, and it actually began in the mid to late 80s, and especially in the mid to late 90s when the “smart phones” started to proliferate rampantly, is that no parent is willing to spend time with their children, furthering their education, as they are supposed to be doing. All parents want today is to get their children “out of their hair.” Thus, the reason you see children with advanced smart phones (although I differ on the “smart”) and/or PADDs at ages I would never give one to my child. EVEN TODAY! It would never happen.
I believe as my parents raised me, parents should spend every possible second they can with their children. Especially guiding them on their schoolwork. I did. I spent every possible second I could with my twin daughters. Except, of course, when they wanted to be alone with each other, go over to a neighbor’s home, or they wanted to go somewhere with friends with their parents, or they had friends over at our home, etc., etc. Yes, there are times children just want to be away from their parents. That is perfectly OK. That just gives the parents some alone-time. Hint, hint…
And the perfect way to teach your children how to think is when they have a question for which you do not know the answer, research for that answer WITH them. Analyze the data you find with them. Explain to them how you interpret that data. See if they have a different interpretation. In other words, why don’t you parents teach yourselves how to think while you are teaching your children how to think? Think about it.
Well, I done verbosed y'all to death again. Dagnabit. Got to learn to shut up...
rmfr
@Thread and arakish
Raising children in today's world seems like a very difficult job. Not that it was ever easy.
I was raised just before smartphones, and did not have regular internet access until I was nearly an adult. And my parents greatly limited my tv watching time. I can't even imagine a parent trying to compete with those forces in today's always connected world.