The Philosophy Discussion Forum

Dubious wrote: ↑Sat Aug 22, 2026 12:04 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Aug 21, 2026 11:06 pm

Dubious wrote: ↑Fri Aug 21, 2026 10:32 pm ...religion in the West is broadly characterized by a decline in traditional religious affiliation and institutional participation, alongside a corresponding growth in the religiously unaffiliated ("nones").

I said that. I said you are using your own experience in Western countries to suppose something that is simply not true of the larger world. And that's exactly what the sociological data says, as well.

Yes, you certainly implied it.

No, I stated it.

But what the data states is this:

...while billions of people remain deeply religious and certain faiths are expanding rapidly in the Global South, the global relative share of institutional religion is shrinking due to the accelerating rise of secularism and religious "nones".

You need to read more carefully. "Institutional religion" means all "religions," and "institutional" ones. There are certainly some dead and dying "religions"; that's far from implying they all are. Some are rapidly growing, like Pentecostal evangelicalism is, for example (644 million adherents, with about 35,000 converts every day, calculated to be over 1 billion by 2050). So while the "institutional" entities, like the Anglicans, are taking a hit, others are picking up.

Your analysis completely lacks the breakdown between those that are struggling and those that are expanding...and there are both. The loss in one is not at all a loss to the other, anymore than the gain of one is the gain of the other.

Based on your insistence of the bible being the true word of god, wouldn't that imply an "involuntary kind of atheism" on their part by failing to believe in the biblical account - the Western orthodoxy which you unconditionally accept?

That's another badly missed guess. It's actually the more fundamental, more Bible-believing groups that continue to increase rapidly in numbers. The ritualistic, "institutional" ones that are struggling. The best way to be an expanding Christian group, it seems, is to be evangelical and fundamental. The quickest way to die is to be old, tradition-bound, to stand for very little and to compromise with modern secularism.

Biblical Christianity overall is expected to top 3 billion by 2050. China and India are currently hotbeds of growth for it as well; so are Indonesia, Brazil, Nigeria, the Philippines, South Korea, Mexico, Russia...and they all have tons of people.

So you're just wrong again. You need to check the precise divisions in your statistics.

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Fri Aug 21, 2026 11:33 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Aug 21, 2026 11:15 pm...I do know there are very compelling arguments for the existence of God...

Other than the ontological, cosmological, teleological and moral? I'm all ears.

Well, you already dismiss the mathematical-empirical and logical proofs for the existence of a First Cause. You declare them unconvincing, but for no reason: you can't create an infinitely-regressive chain of prerequisites. QED.

But QED isn't enough for you, it seems. So it's unsurprising that you've given the same unthinking treatment to things like the Kalaam or the teleological arguments. You've also given the superficial brush off to the argument from design, and the moral argument, both of which I've mentioned before.

I'm simply convinced you don't understand any of them. That's why I offered you The Blackwell Guide to Natural Theology. You couldn't read it and then think there weren't substantive arguments in favour of God, I'm certain. But you dismissed that, too.

So...I guess you're just going to dismiss all arguments. I can't stop you. So there's no next move from there. A man who refused to be convinced refuses to be convinced.

Drudgery isn't as bad as it used to be, so the impulse to fantasize about redemption, divine justice, reward in heaven, etc., isn't as strong anymore in the more advanced societies. People are getting along better with the idea that they're gonna die because they have TV series to watch and six days of paid vacation to relax. In other words, the distractions are more abundant. Back in the day, all you did was plow muddy fields under grey skies all day. You had a lot of time to think about your death and how you're being worked over by some dirtbag land owner. That's the kind of life that needs religion and will cling to it.

But yeah, the west is in Comte's last 'stage'. Africa, India, central and south america, still in the superstitious second stage and will remain there until capitalism modernizes them.

Note also the irony. Capitalism, an ideology that would have never been brought to bear without hundreds of years of intellectual sabotage and brainwashing by the church, actually creates environments in which secularism grows and thrives. But now, brainwashing isn't necessary to keep order when capitalism can create a police state. This it does through its property laws and constitutions.

Lol, just when when the working classes were coming out from under one spell (the church), another one is inmediately cast on them (the law).

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Aug 22, 2026 1:02 am

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Fri Aug 21, 2026 11:33 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Aug 21, 2026 11:15 pm...I do know there are very compelling arguments for the existence of God...

Other than the ontological, cosmological, teleological and moral? I'm all ears.

Well, you already dismiss the mathematical-empirical and logical proofs for the existence of a First Cause. You declare them unconvincing, but for no reason...

That is not true. For example:

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Thu Nov 13, 2025 3:42 pmFirstly, it is based on an unsound premise - that the world is causal. As I said, quantum mechanics seriously challenges that assumption. Secondly, I'm not convinced the leap from numbers to reality is valid.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Aug 22, 2026 1:02 am...it's unsurprising that you've given the same unthinking treatment to things like the Kalaam...

Well, if you understood the Kalam argument, you would understand that the second premise is unsound, and if you understood quantum mechanics, you would understand how if there were an uncaused cause, it might have been a random quantum fluctuation.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Aug 22, 2026 1:02 am...or the teleological arguments. You've also given the superficial brush off to the argument from design...

Which are the same thing. As I mentioned, I spent two years looking at precisely these questions; it was you who superficially brushed that off by blaming my professor.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Aug 22, 2026 1:02 am...and the moral argument...

The basic argument of which is circular.
P1 If there were no god, there would be no objective morals
P2 There are objective morals
Therefore God exists.

So, one might ask, how do you know there objective morals? Answer: because God exists.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Aug 22, 2026 1:02 amI'm simply convinced you don't understand any of them.

The difference is that I can look at them dispassionately.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Aug 22, 2026 1:02 amThat's why I offered you The Blackwell Guide to Natural Theology. You couldn't read it and then think there weren't substantive arguments in favour of God, I'm certain.

I wouldn't have wasted time on arguments that I don't think substantive, but on careful inspection, they are not conclusive. They might be an aid to your faith, but they are not proof.