Philosopher Daniel Denett believes that within 25 years religion will command little of the awe it seems to instil today. The spread of information through the internet and mobile phones will “gently, irresistibly, undermine the mindsets requisite for religious fanaticism and intolerance”.
That is the third paragraph from this Guardian article titled “No Religion and an End to War: How Thinkers See the Future”
Sometimes you have to wonder if it is fair to let the mentally disabled be quoted in national publications?
I used to go with a friend to a local “freethinkers and atheists” meeting, though we called it “The Old Socialists Club” due to the political leanings of the bunch and the fact that at 24 and 41 we were the youngest there. Often we’d hear such questionable ramblings from the group.
Fact is, religion is still going strong. Traditional organized religions (like the Roman Catholic church) are in decline in the United States, but in other parts of the world they are gaining ground (same bunch is gaining converts in Africa). And even in the United States, religion still holds strong, but not in traditional forms. For example, while more mainstream and traditional Christian groups decline, newer denominations not encumbered by tradition, pomp and ritual (like Pentecostalism) are gaining. People in the US are becoming less willing to sit in church and be told to be good like they used to be, but they’re reaching out for a greater expirience of God and spirituality. Even if more Americans are abandoning formalized Christianity, they still believe in a religion, or have some kind of eclectic spirituality that borrows from many religions (the concept of karma, for example, at first only known amongst orientalists, then hitting our culture through beatniks and hippie/New Age awareness of eastern religions, and from there into the mainstream becoming an idea that holds its own without the tie-in to Buddhism or Hinduism). And while religion influencing government can be a bad thing, religion can influence people for good. People like Denett always fail to see the good in religious belief because they are always looking for the bad.
I’d encourage you to call people such as Daniel Denett not atheists, for atheists simply do not believe in God, and they can live their lives peacefully without religion, and still co-exist with the religious. But what you’re seeing in this comment is anti-theism, one who is truly against religion. For these people Marx’s”Religion is the opiate of the masses” and Mao’s “religion is poison” are the sacred phrases, and they are on a jihad to rid the world of uncivilized, heathen religion and establish their holy secular utopia. Of course, just don’t tell them that their own anti-theism is a religion itself, with its promises of Heaven on Earth and its own faith that the world would just be right if all religion was extinguished. It’s just as nonsensical as believing the world would be perfect if all non-Muslims or all chicken-eaters would be forbidden from practicing their beliefs.