Will religion ever become rare?

[Pandemonium]

I personally think in a post-revolutionary society religious beliefs would gradually die off.

[Islamosocialist]

In my opinion, religion won't become rare. I think it will always attract up to 30% of the population.

But it will certainly become less common. We've seen than many times over in more left-wing, secular societies.

[Tablo]

It will gradually become less common. Islamosocialist is right that it may still retain a large following, but over the next few thousand years I assume it will eventually become much more rare.

[Kornilios Sunshine]

Something that there is no scientific proof about its existance doesn't really become rare.

[thefinalmarch]

Religion in the sense of that which is practised by those who turn to it as a result of the harsh realities of life in class societies (see the famous "opium of the people" quote) will gradually die off as a result of those adverse social and economic conditions leaving the picture.

I think there will always be curiosity about and interest in modern-day beliefs such as the many contemporary pagan religions and many member religions of the so-called "new religious movement".

[Rafiq]

Religion will die in a matter of thousands of years.

[ComradeMan]

Religion will die in a matter of thousands of years.

And on what empirical evidence do you base that assertion?

[thesadmafioso]

I see your 'will religion ever become uncommon' and raise you an 'it will become extinct over the course of the progression and realization of the Marxist dialectic'.

[ComradeMan]

I see your 'will religion ever become uncommon' and raise you an 'it will become extinct over the course of the progression and realization of the Marxist dialectic'.

Which will happen because..... ?

[thesadmafioso]

Which will happen because..... ?

Religion is a cultural construct which resulted from material conditions of inequality and societal division. In a society free of such turmoils there will simply be no demand for a religious escape from the material world and there will be no institutions to promote it, thus it will cease to exist.

[ComradeMan]

Religion is a cultural construct which resulted from material conditions of inequality and societal division. In a society free of such turmoils there will simply be no demand for a religious escape from the material world and there will be no institutions to promote it, thus it will cease to exist.

Except that anyone who has studied anthropology will tell you that that is a complete load of nonsense.

[thesadmafioso]

Except that anyone who has studied anthropology will tell you that that is a complete load of nonsense.

Pardon me if I hold the concrete analysis of historical materialism to be above the trappings of bourgeois idealism.

[ComradeMan]

Pardon me if I hold the concrete analysis of historical materialism to be above the trappings of bourgeois idealism.

It's not about any -ism or philosophy it's about hard historical science and anthropology which I am afraid does not support that thesis. You have to go where the evidence takes you....

[thesadmafioso]

It's not about any -ism or philosophy it's about hard historical science and anthropology which I am afraid does not support that thesis. You have to go where the evidence takes you....

To briefly quote Friedrich Engels at the graveside of Karl Marx


Just as Darwin discovered the law of development of organic nature, so Marx discovered the law of development of human history

We are not dealing with some abstract and indefinable philosophy here, we are dealing with the laws of history. Your philistine refutation of the components of materialist analysis is still without any weight on this matter.

[ComradeMan]

To briefly quote Friedrich Engels at the graveside of Karl Marx. We are not dealing with some abstract and indefinable philosophy here, we are dealing with the laws of history. Your philistine refutation of the components of materialist analysis is still without any weight on this matter.

Except you haven't actually provided any argument at all, other than the circular argument of "it's right because Marx/Engels say it's right".

What are the "laws of history"... could you explain what these laws are and where they come from empirically? :rolleyes:

[Dzerzhinsky's Ghost]

I personally think in a post-revolutionary society religious beliefs would gradually die off.

Yeah, I doubt it, the same was said during the revolutionary times in France. Large portions of the French revolutionary cadre were anti-religious as seen by the Culte de la Raison perpetuated by the likes of Hébert and others and yet here religion still remains. The face of it may change, sure but ultimately I think religion will endure. As modern human history has unfolded nearly in every century from the begining of it to the end of it there is both religious and irreligious persons heralding the death of faith and yet it never happens; it changes, adapts, reinterprets and so forth.

[NGNM85]

It could. Whether it will or not is anybody's guess. I don't claim to have any special powers of precognition. However; there's no reason why it should be dependent on the establishment of a more-or-less 'fully realized' Libertarian Socialist society. According to statistics religion is, generally, on the decline in the West, meanwhile, the percent of individuals identifying as Atheists is increasing dramatically.

[NGNM85]

Double post. My bad.

[Bud Struggle]

I personally think in a post-revolutionary society religious beliefs would gradually die off.

Well China is "post Revolutionary" amd religion is on the upswing. In the furture I think not everyone will believe--but there religion will always have a place within the human race.

[Dzerzhinsky's Ghost]

Well China is "post Revolutionary" amd religion is on the upswing.

Strike that, no it most definetely is not; atleast not in the sense we're talking.

[Nehru]

Religion (in a broader sense) won;t go away because man will always long for something other than material necessities. Kind of like Ecclesiastes - not all the luxuries can satisfy us, because sooner or later they all become old and monotonous. Thus the search begins again...

[Pandemonium]

I think that a scientifically and technologically advanced civilization that has achieved the abolition of all class systems will probably be irreligious to a degree that significantly surpasses the most irreligious today.

Even the relatively marginal egalitarianism of e.g. Sweden seems to have dramatically secularizing effects. Now I don't think religious belief will ever completely disappear, but I think it's fairly probable that it will become ever more marginal as (if) we progress.

[Rafiq]

And on what empirical evidence do you base that assertion?

The gap is getting smaller...

[ComradeMan]

The gap is getting smaller...

Empirical evidence please not abstract hypotheses.

[Nox]

I think the belief in a God will eventually die out as we learn more about the Universe. However, that doesn't necessary mean religion as such will die out.

[Dzerzhinsky's Ghost]

I think the belief in a God will eventually die out as we learn more about the Universe. However, that doesn't necessary mean religion as such will die out.

Has it ever occured to anyone here that the belief in God could be a philosophical position/assertion? Not just an opinion on how the universe was started and or functions?

[Zealot]

My opinion: Religion will decline but I don't think it will ever be eradicated altogether. With the progression of human history and science, I think religion will become rare and somewhat of an embarrassment for a community much like flat-earthers, holocaust-deniers and other rare pseudo-science that is alive in the face of an increasing amount of evidence. Alternatively, spirituality could remain while superstition will slowly wither out of existence. Btw, most atheists don't have a problem with "spirituality" per se; as an atheist, nothing stops me from meditating in a cave, following some type of philosophy and admiring the Universe for what it is. We draw the line when people start coming back from those caves claiming divine revelation

[thesadmafioso]

Except you haven't actually provided any argument at all, other than the circular argument of "it's right because Marx/Engels say it's right".

What are the "laws of history"... could you explain what these laws are and where they come from empirically? :rolleyes:

Wait, so you are honestly asking me for an overview of Historical Materialism? As this task has been dealt by many others and to a great extent already, I will direct you to a brief yet informative excerpt of Trotsky on the matter.

Trotsky, from "Dialectical Materialism and Science"


The essence of Marxism consists in this, that it approaches society concretely, as a subject for objective research, and analyzes human history as one would a colossal laboratory record. Marxism appraises ideology as a subordinate integral element of the material social structure. Marxism examines the class structure of society as a historically conditioned form of the development of the productive forces; Marxism deduces from the productive forces of society the inter-relations between human society and surrounding nature, and these, in turn are determined at each historical stage by man’s technology, his instruments and weapons, his capacities and methods for struggle with nature. Precisely this objective approach arms Marxism with the insuperable power of historical foresight.

Source: http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1925/09/science.htm

Trotsky, from "The ABC of Materialist Dialects"


We call our dialectic materialist, since its roots are neither in heaven nor in the depths of our “free will”, but in objective reality, in nature. Consciousness grew out of the unconscious, psychology out of physiology, the organic world out of the inorganic, the solar system out of the nebulae. On all the rungs of this ladder of development, the quantitative changes were transformed into qualitative. Our thought, including dialectical thought, is only one of the forms of the expression of changing matter. There is place within this system for neither God nor Devil, nor immortal soul, nor eternal norms of laws and morals. The dialectic of thinking, having grown out of the dialectic of nature, possess consequently a thoroughly materialist character.

Source: http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1939/12/abc.htm

[ComradeMan]

LOL!!! So it's now true because Trotksy said so. :laugh:

The last quote is so full of abstracts and a sudden jump to theological references that it's hard to know where to begin.

Define just exactly how consciousness grew out of the unconscious- empirically, materialistically and objectively- oh wait, there is not materialistic consensus on consciousness.

If you are going to preach dialects at me from the pulpit could you explain to me how everything has an opposite?