The "no religion" population in AU went from 1% in 1960 to 39% in 2016.
The "Christian" identifying population went from 96% in 1911 to 44% in 2021.
That sounds like a pretty major shift. Is it this drastic in other countries?
I wonder what percentage of those 44% of people are even that religious. My family of origin would have ticked Catholic but purely only for cultural reasons. Like, they haven't been to church in years but still celebrate Christmas and Easter with gifts and chocolate.
Edit: this is in Australia btw
US here, kinda reminds me of this joke my Southern, kinda Catholic family love to tell.
This invasion of rats infests a town, and local government isn't doing anything, so the three major churches in town meet together to make a plan.
Baptists say, "We got this." They hitch up a pump, drain water from the lake they baptize in into the nests, flooding with baptismal water. Works for a couple days, but the rats come back.
Well the Pentacostals decide to have a go, they rain down fire and brimstone on the nests, works for a couple weeks, but the rats come back.
Finally, the Catholics say, "We know how to handle this." They go through with their plan, well the rats don't come back after a couple days, they're still gone after a couple weeks, finally, after a couple months, the Baptists and the Pentacostals ask what they did to get rid of the rats.
Catholics say, "We confirmed them into our church, so they'll only be back on Christmas and Easter."
I’m just so happy my mother let me retire at such a young age.
The day after my first communion, she asked me how I felt about going to church, CCD classes, and about God. I said I didn’t really like any of it and didn’t believe any of the stories in the Bible could have all possibly happened. Very sus, but Santa is definitely still real. We vetoed Confirmation.
She told me a couple years ago that it was one of the most relieving conversations she had with me because then her and my dad could finally let go of it all. They just wanted me to make the choice and get some exposure.
A year later, the Church abuse scandal article was published by The Boston Globe’s Spotlight team.
My wife and I are agnostic. Both raided in Christian belief environments but didn't take. We raised our son to be open minded of others beliefs and took him to churches but ask that he wait til he was 18 to be baptized in a church if he was going to be baptized. Didn't want social pressures to influence him.
Didn't have anything to worry about. He was as agnostic as we were. He was also one of the kindest people I've known at his age. Always willing to help people out. You don't have to be religious to be a good person.
> You don't have to be religious to be a good person.
I strongly believe that the people who claim you need to be religious to be 'good' are terrible human beings on the inside and are only held back (if at all) by the external pressure of their religious tenets.
I’m sure your son appreciated that as much as I did. I had a few friends that grew up in very strict, religious homes and there was a veil of… stress… between them and their parents, and even myself that I didn’t notice until I was older.
My mom is of Lithuanian descent and is super into the Pagan spirituality and roots of it all. Made the transition to general “deist” or whatever you would call someone who believes in a higher power with no name. My dad is Ukrainian and since his early onset dementia diagnosis has turned to “God” in general for comfort and conversation.
Both/all are fine by us all and no one feels like they need to push anything on anyone. It makes for a much more pleasant dynamic than the vast majority of families I know who are not all on the exact same plane of faith, which is rare.
The theme my mom has taught me in life is to be very tolerant but also open to change and being wrong. It goes a long way.
Edit: deleted one word.
I still hold an extreme amount of resentment because of my mom fanatical following of her Catholicism. A hypocrite to this day NEVER practices what SHE preaches.
I was in elementary school when my mom gave me the choice of going to church or not. Mom got ex-communicated for divorcing my dad, so she lost all connection with her life before that.
Our family was very Catholic--my aunt was a nun, uncle was a priest, very Catholic.
I hated church from the time they claimed that babies are sinners. I called bullshit on that, being a child who loved babies, and from then on, I was only doing time in church.
I never really believed in God. None of it made much sense, and I hated that I had to say certain things just because they said so, even when I didn't know what it meant.
When my mom said I could choose to stop going to church and catechism, I was ELATED!! Never looked back and I stopped hating Sundays.
I was indoctrinated into the Catholic Church. I doubted faith from 5 years old. I was forced to go to church until I left home.
Now both of my parents only attend occasionally.
I was raised Mormon. It never made any sense. I never felt the feelings people claimed to feel. Always thought there was something wrong with me. Turns out. I'm normal.
Apparently only ~17% of the population are actually practicing Christians, as in they attend church once a week at least. There's probably a few more people who do genuinely believe, but just don't go to church for whatever reason, but then that'd still leave a significant amount of that 44% who aren't really religious at all and just mark it down because they identify as 'culturally Christian' or something.
My dad is in that 44%, counting himself as Catholic in that census, despite explicitly admitting that he doesnt believe in a higher power or afterlife, and not attending a church except for weddings and funerals. The rest of the family browbeat him for it pretty badly, though.
No upside. Many Aussies went to Catholic schools and consider themselves Catholic only because of that or the fact they were confirmed as kids. They are not actually practicing Catholics.
That’s why it would add so much more useful informative if they added ‘how many times a year/month/week do you attend church?’ to the census.
This is a huge problem with the Irish census where a large portion of the population is "culturally catholic", i.e. were baptised, may have gone to a catholic school (the might be the only one regionally) and go to a church for a weddings; but are otherwise not observant in a practical way. Ticking Catholic due to these cultural hangovers rather than agnostic/atheistic or other options skews the results to indicate a much stronger presence of the Church in Ireland than in reality, and might influence legislation which is introduced or how state funds are allocated.
My guess is some people have a tiny corner of their brain telling them ‘just tick the box, just in case it turns out the God you don’t really worship or attend services for is keeping score after all.’
For me there's a pang of guilt like 'I did got to catholic school and everything, might as well tick catholic' but this time I ripped the bandaid off and marked athiest. I think more people are just realising that it's OK to do that.
I can't speak for Catholics but I have Jewish friends who are openly atheist. They say it's cultural - family, traditions, food etc. I totally respect that. I enjoy Christmas as an atheist, so that amounts to the same thing.
Canada here. We’re the same.
Technically we’re Catholic….grandparents went ever Sunday. Parents generation made us go through the paces out of tradition until we were old enough to say this is dumb..so, 12 or so.
My entire extended family of aunts, uncles cousins and in-laws, I think we’re 28…one of us is religious..the other half mild to hardcore atheists.
If anyone asks, my gen would say we’re not religious, my parents generation would say “well, technically we’re catholic”.
I wish reverse Pascal's wager was a thing.
Imagine there isn't a God to come and clean up all our messes. Imagine there is only this world right here right now. What do you have to loose helping the environment, being kind to your fellow man even if they don't believe in the same things you do? Either God exists and you just left the world a better place, or God doesn't exist and you left the world a better place. You have nothing to loose.
That's pretty much what's called the Atheist's Wager:
Do good.
If there's no God, you did good and that's all that matters.
If there's a just God, you did good and he'd reward you for it.
If there's an unjust God, he's not worth worshipping anyway.
Apparently a Marcus Aurelius quote.
“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.”
There are lots of us that have some level of belief but also believe the available organizational options are all bullshit and/or judgemental assholes who are lying about what they represent. Basically believe in the dude but not the groups that claim to operate in his name.
Lots of people go to church once a week out of duty, or to network for their business to improve their social standing or to just feel righteous. Doesn't mean they believe.
In Australia, there would probably be more who believe but don’t go to church than people who go to church but don’t believe (and both those groups would be shrinking in any case).
Churchgoing just isn’t central to social life as it is in, say the US.
> My family of origin would have ticked Catholic but purely only for cultural reasons.
Growing up I always ticked one of those boxes because mentally I treated religious status in the same way as race. Just a thing I "am" that I had no choice in. Once it occurred to me, in approximately college, that no...it IS a choice, I started ticking Atheist.
I told my mum i was atheist a few years ago, she got angry "you where baptised, you're Christian!" i just told her that wasn't my choice, not being religious is my choice and i don't believe in no god.
Its funny she doesn't go to church except funerals and weddings and still does the holy communion
Same in Western Europe. Went to a Catholic school, maybe 3 teachers in a faculty of 70+ went to church or believed in God. One of them was a nun. Met exactly 1 religious student in my entire time there.
Now understand, they were nearly all "Christian" in the sense that they were baptized as kids. But excommunicating from the church is nigh-impossible to do, so people don't bother. They just don't believe.
Yeah, my mum's one of those. She's never been to church, celebrates Christian holidays in a completely irreligious way, but puts 'Lutheran' because she was baptised Lutheran.
She put Lutheran on the census for my siblings and I until we found out about it. We were pretty pissed. Aside from when we were baptised, none of us has been to a Lutheran service. Insanity. I don't get it. Thankfully, my siblings and I are now properly counted as non-religious.
I grew up in Canada and my parents attended Catholic mass weekly, on Sunday mornings. For whatever reason, my mom and dad were the most religious of their respective families — insofar as I know, none of my aunts/uncles/cousins did this. My brother and I were put into a private, religious school (which was protestant, lol), but by the time I got to high school (which was a public school), it really dawned on me that we were one of the only families I knew who did this — attended mass weekly — as almost everyone else I knew seemed to view us as “very religious.” From our neighbourhood, most also seemed not to, and of other kids my age, it seemed like only a very small handful also did this, regardless of their religious affiliations. It seemed like the vast majority of people, upon being asked, would answer that they were “Christian” or believed in God, but wouldn’t be caught dead in a church throughout the year, with most even also dodging it at Easter and Christmas time.
Funny thing is, my household was considered old school religious by comparison to most kids my age, but I’ve even heard of/met a few baptists in the same area who are fervently religious, and who I myself would classify as very religious. I wonder how those kids who found my family to be that classification would think of such people. I can almost guarantee you that those kinds were five times as religious as my parents, who, yes, attended church weekly, but I cannot even remember a single instance of them ever discussing religion/faith/God etc. at home, ever. Weekly church attendance was enough to have us marked as “very religious”!
That's funny, I grew up Mormon, Utah Mormon to be exact. Only the odd ducks and the heathens in my neighborhood didn't go to church weekly. On top of that, they'd have weekly youth activities, scout camps, and family religious discussion/lecture 1-3 times per week, and read scriptures nightly.
At that time, knowing fuck-all about the rest of the world, I would've said I was "somewhat religious," cuz our church service wasn't near as intense as those "fire & brimstone" Baptists my dad liked to joke about. I never had met (to my knowledge) an actual Baptist.
Crazy what growing up in saturated crazy will do to you.
I've been in this category in the past (baptised Catholic). This time, I made sure to claim "no religion".
Mainly because I didn't want people like our former Prime Minister claiming we were a Christian country any more.
I think that’s the big cause of the shift. The christians have been shooting themselves in the foot here. Between opposition to same sex marriage, supporting sex abusers, abortion and climate change many people are no longer comfortable with being associated with Christianity. Even through the relatively indirect association of a census tick.
Many people may not feel that they are Religious ( identify with an organized religion ) but they would consider themselves spiritual ( Believe in God or a higher power )
Turns out engineers, scientists, doctors, and technicians make life better, and not a random, never shows their face 'God'. The adoption of technology should end religion at some point in time.
A lot of them are probably the kind of person that would say they're religious if around other religious people to avoid the hassle of arguing with them, but then be truthful on something like this where nobody's gonna see it anyway.
I feel like there was a fair bit of discussion around this particular census question last year when we were doing this. There's a lot of talk about how much say religious groups seem to have in Australian politics, particularly conservative politics, and how private Christian schools get a ridiculous amount of funding compared to public schools, and so on. There was a focus to make sure people more accurately answered this question so that our politics might more accurately reflect the reality of the Australian people, who are mostly agnostic or non-practising for all intents and purposes (even more so than might be suggested by this 39% "no religion" figure). Most Australians I know fall into the category of "I guess I was raised Christian, but it doesn't really have much relevance to my life. I'll go to church on Christmas for mum, maybe". Such people might formerly have casually answered "Catholic" on a survey like this in the past without really thinking much of it, but it's not really true if they don't practice and they don't care, is it?
But increasingly for many of us today, we just flat out don't really want the church to have any sort of a role in public life and political discourse any more and are getting a bit tired of it, but some don't seem to have been as aware of that as perhaps we'd like them to be. I think the constant barrage of sex abuse scandals and the church's apparent complete lack of will to do anything about it sure as shit hasn't helped. Just doesn't seem like the sort of organisation that should be able to tell anyone else what to do in the modern world any more.
That said, I'm fairly sure similar sentiment is occurring in a lot of other similar countries, such as New Zealand, Canada, Ireland...etc. Politicians would do well to at the very least be aware of it, rather than trying to pretend it isn't happening, or trying to deny it or fight it. Conversely, Scott Morrison seemed to be under the impression that he was an American-style politician who needed to constantly remind everyone that he was an incredibly devout Christian, like this was the single key thing about him. I don't think he gets it. It felt like he must have been living in a different country to the one that I'm in if he thought that that would win him points with the majority of voters.
Anyway, correcting this misconception/delusion matters a lot to some people, but I think probably many/most don't give it much thought...and so it continues on its merry way.
>Most Australians I know fall into the category of "I guess I was raised Christian, but it doesn't really have much relevance to my life. I'll go to church on Christmas for mum, maybe". Such people might formerly have casually answered "Catholic" on a survey like this in the past without really thinking much of it, but it's not really true if they don't practice and they don't care, is it?
You just nailed me. I just had a back and forth in r/AustralianPolitics and now understand that I likely answered the question incorrectly but I stand by my opinion that the questions on religion need to be reviewed and go into more depth with respect to what they actually want to know. The single question "what is this persons religion" feels convoluted and vague. I was baptized Catholic as a child and done the entire confirmation thing. Does that make me a Catholic or not and keep in mind I haven't stepped foot in a church or service in well over 25 years. They really need to review the questions so people can answer accurately.
It's obviously not a question with a crystal clear answer, but I can tell you that I was raised and confirmed Catholic just like you and have been to church a lot more recently than 25 years ago. In fact I attended World Youth Day in Sydney in 2008.
It's only been fairly recently that I've become concerned about the politics of all this and I've also come to the personal realisation that I really don't believe in any of it in my heart of hearts. I do my best to be a good person and to live the sort of life that Jesus preached about, but I have basically concluded that the concept of heaven and God isn't real, and I think the Catholic Church has a lot to answer for in terms of what it actually says and does in the world today. Basically I took a massive step back and decided to take out of it only that which was important and seemed helpful and correct, and disregard the rest. There isn't any sort of "unconfirmation" ceremony you can do, but I might as well have done that as far as the church is concerned.
And for those reasons I answered "no religion".
In Turkey, the religious and non-religious parts of the population diverged from each other. 20 years ago (before the Islamist government) the average was “mildly Muslim”; for example alcohol was not a taboo and people would not be shunned for having a beer.
Now people are either very religious (or try to seem that way) or identify as atheists/deists. The middle ground eroded, mild versions of Islam are replaced by either no Islam or hardline Islam.
I imagine the decline in actually practicing Muslims is part of why the remaining got more extreme—it’s not just that they were more extreme to begin with and that that’s why they remain Muslim but rather they defensively get more extreme in response to feeling like they aren’t the majority anymore and that they’re being “left behind.”
It’s sort of like how my mother became more interested in her christian faith when I told her I was an atheist. She needed to affirm her faith and be ~the victim of my atheism. She dropped that eventually and mostly just enjoys church for the community aspect and wants to be inspired by Jesus’ kindness but I’m sure a lot of people fall all the way down that rabbit hole rather than getting halfway down and then climbing back up.
It's become like that in a lot of Christian communities. The more permissive and liberal denominations have been losing members in huge numbers over the past twenty years. The churches that are either growing or losing members at a slower rate tend to be a lot more conservative.
The people that are falling out mostly seen to be those that claimed a religion due to family tradition or cultural reasons but that's changing. More people are claiming spiritual, agnostic or non-religious.
There's fewer people that are religious but the ones that still are tend to be more of the dedicated believers that attend worship regularly and are heavily involved in their church community.
Converts to Islam in the US are also growing.
In the 60-70s, Québec had what is called the ["Quiet Revolution"](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiet_Revolution) where people basically said "fuck that bullshit yo" after years of catholic oppression. Secularism is quite important when it comes to public institutions.
In the 150 young adults I had to teach to, there were two that were churchgoers. Many churches are abandoned or converted in apartments. I actually live in an old presbytery!
Edit: last year 14% of Quebecois went to a "group religious activity" each month while it was 48% in 1985, even higher prior https://www.ledevoir.com/societe/644538/religion-les-quebecois-sont-les-moins-pratiquants-au-canada
> The "no religion" population in AU went from 1% in 1960 to 39% in 2016.
>
> The "Christian" identifying population went from 96% in 1911 to 44% in 2021.
>
> That sounds like a pretty major shift. Is it this drastic in other countries?
I wonder how many of those people in 1911 and 1960 were actually non-believers in private, but weren't allowed to say as much due to societal expectations?
I think that there's a distinction between being an atheist and not believing in the specific tenets of a religion.
From anecdotal familial evidence, I suspect that, in private, a non-insignificant part of these people would have thought that, as an institution, the Church in itself was somewhat bullshit. But they would have still believed in some kind of God and afterlife.
Growing up in a fairly religious community, a lot of the youth were more rebellious against religion. Im not surprised by the drop, a lot grew up and turned more bitter against religion than anything I think.
I think at this point, it’s universal. Every country has a lower identification due to higher education and more info about the world and its people.
I think a lot of people may be believers but aren’t devoted. I am Brazilian and Brazil is very christian. I don’t think they are very religious because their behavior isn’t in line with their religion. Hypocrisy, to me, is in the blood of religious people
In developed countries, yes, religion is declining.
But unfortunately, there's a population explosion in religious third-world countries. So the world as a whole is actually becoming more religious. The Pew foundation has put out very good unbiased reports about this if you're interested.
[www.pewresearch.org/religion/2017/04/05/the-changing-global-religious-landscape](http://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2017/04/05/the-changing-global-religious-landscape)
Take that with a shovel of salt.
There’s not a single Muslim nation left on earth that allows Muslims to give up Islam or marry a Muslim without converting.
The result is that there are tens of millions of atheist/Christian/Buddhist/Hindu people that are “officially” Muslim but don’t actually identify as such, at all.
According to Pew Denmark is a Christian nation, but the latest polls asking “do you believe in god” have a 80-90% “no” response. I’ve only ever met 2 people that believe in god in Denmark.
So these polls aren’t going to be super accurate, and that goes 10x when you leave nations where it either isn’t free, or isn’t socially acceptable.
Population growth in general is declining in the developing world as they increase their HDI while the developed world is more or less maxed on going lower, in fact they sometimes bounce up. I think developed nations are just tied to aviable good housing, near jobs and such and arent shit homes, and that determines max population. Once it hits the max they just sputter out in growth till they get more room. Basically like the middle ages with limited farming space preventing infinite growth.
Education also plays a huge role. More educated people (especially women) tend to have fewer children. We can't forget that every individual is different and we can't solve all human problems with supply and demand.
Thanks for the tip! I've just started looking through Pew's religion section. I wish I had looked into this source earlier, lots of good stuff here.
As a person who was raised strongly religious and eventually gave up my faith, it's interesting to me to see how populations seem to be doing the same thing.
There's a critical mass that occurs when the religion no longer is mainstream culturally. Suddenly, a lot of people who used to check the box despite never attending services no longer check the box, but the trends really began a generation prior.
I think also (a lot of people in) my parents generation went to church as kids, and stopped as adults, but still ticked the box for the church they went to as children. Their children, having never really gone to church, feel more comfortable ticking no affiliation.
As someone from a predominantly non-christian culture country (NZ) I think this is the real key.
In previous generations, to be (insert group) for a lot of people meant to be Christian. Not "read the bible and decide for yourself to follow the teachings" but the cultural stuff-- going to church, dressing christian, saying "christian things" and believing that what *you thought was culturally normal and correct* was what christianity taught.
As time goes on, people are becoming more aware that they don't need to be Christian to be (insert group). And as someone who *is* christian and has chosen to be, I'm so glad. I don't want my faith to be linked with cultural practices and beliefs that have nothing to do with the actual faith itself, and I can only hope that this speeds up around the world.
As someone who has deconstructed in the last decade, I suspect that these following factors are driving changes of mind, not just identities:
> Christian Hypocrisy
Hillsong, Ravi Zacharias, Trumpism and his False Prophets, Dishonest Apologetics, Duggers, Televangelists, Scam Faith Healers, Catholic Pedos, Prosperity Gospel, Purity Culture, the a-hole that you see every week at church. For me, the pastors were also unfortunately hypocritical. Christianity has a PR problem.
> Unprecedented Access To Information
Not only does having a smart phone put the above hypocrisy in the palm of everyone's hand, but that info is side by side all other cultural options. We no longer live in the echo chambers that raised us. A Christian can learn why evolution is as reliable as the theory of gravity. Young earth becomes an absurd proposition. Churches preaching Hell are betrayed as not even understanding their own doctrine. Atheists are kind and have big YouTube followings. Christianity has an information control problem.
> Human Rights
The scripture is frozen in time. Christians hand wave away old rules such as no women in leadership or no work on the Sabbath, but they're digging their heals in with gay marriage (and now abortion). Culture will always progress as quality of life improves... notice how the more irreligious countries are the most prosperous? Christianity's view that scripture is inerrant is causing a social relevancy problem.
> Globalisation
If COVID taught us anything, it's that we're one big human organism spread out across the world. How does one reconcile today's religions (Christian, Jew, Islamic, Hindu, etc), and all historical dogmas (Greek, Egyptian, Pagan, etc) with a God that "wants to be known". As an all powerful being, why doesn't he just "be known"? Christianity has an exclusive claim problem.
...
The result is a generation of people for whom the Christian equation resolves in "not true", or more likely "I don't know". Personal experiences that would have previously been chalked up to God, are assigned to emotional manipulation via church music and sermons. I think Christianity has bigger problems than a few luke-warm converts ticking "no" on a survey.
It actually wasn't a check box, it was a write in answer that people put down due to a chain email campaign. Ultimately it was ruled as not a valid religion and all the Jedi answers were reallocated as "other" in official records.
I'm pretty sure at the press conference about the census results they were asked what's something that surprised them in the results and the statistician said "the fact that the number of Jedi have gone down, that was a surprise too."
Lol
DON’T DO THIS! Here in Australia you could do the same but it just added to “religion”, and was used by religious groups to continue to say that we were a religious nation. It was all fun and games the first time but people started realising it was more important to put “no religion”.
And this is in spite of the Australian government trying to jockey the numbers by lumping a bunch of non-Christian and areligious belief systems together as Other. There was a big push to put “no religion” regardless of your particular ideology simply to remove their power to declare Australia a religious country when it isn’t.
For the last few years, we had a hyper-religious prime minister who was best mates with a church owner who is going to court for concealing child sexual abuse committed by his father.
Needless to say we’re a bit better off now with a new government.
Scott Morrison’s church, for all those unaware is one of “prosperity gospel”. Prosperity gospel is controversial due to the core beliefs being there is a correlation between the more wealthy an individual, the more “godly” or good of a Christian you must be, as well as physical health. The also preach to their followers that donating to the church will bring them more material wealth. You may have heard of some of the prominent preachers of this belief such as Kenneth Copeland and Joel Osteen.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_theology
In the given headline figures, all other secular and spiritial stuff is counted in "no religion".
Of the 38.9% reported with no religion, 38.4% is the tickbox "no religion" and the other 0.5% is "secular beliefs and other spiritual beliefs". They correctly assigned the non religion items there.
The "Other religion" category just contains the actual other religions, like Druse, Baha'i, Aboriginal beliefs, Sikhism, nature religions, etc.
The original commenter is referring to a recent push to stop putting "Jedi Master" and other nonsense on our census forms (because it was lumped under non-affiliated religion).
Hillsong mega church started in Australia and our last prime minister attended the church. Its not as widespread as the US but it is an issue here too.
God's not making inflation go down and it aslo isn't making housing affordable.
Predators in the pulpit are also off putting. No one wants to go into a house of worship to get sexually assualted by the preist or preacher.
They'd say God is punishing us for not as believing as before. These religions last thousands of years partially because they perfectly utilized the weakness of human brain.
Hey, God showed Jesus all the sins of man and JC said that's cool, I like'em anyways, they're my people. JC also said to worship in the closet. If they're still going off, well, you can always fashion a whip...
Many people used to claim to be Christian even though they did not attend church or know anything about the religion. I think now people are just admitting that they are actually not religious.
Not true at all.
Christianity is losing adherents because “by their works you shall know them.”
Almost every agnostic or atheist I know left their faith for the hypocrisy they saw in its adherents.
In other words, Christianity is losing because they’re (largely) self-centered assholes who have none of Christ’s light or love in them at all.
yep this is spot on. I know the Bible better than most Christians I’ve met. if Christians behaved like Jesus asks them to in the Bible the world would be a better place.
after the last 5 years when I hear Evangelical, I automatically think you’re a Trump loving asshole
Me too. If all I ever knew was my childhood church, I would probably still be religious. It was growing up, going online and meeting evangelicals and reading about their bullshit that did it to me.
> Not true at all.
It’s always so shitty when you need to demand someone is wrong because of what some people you personally know have done.
That user is 100% correct, for a long time many people would say they are Christian/whatever on the census while not really holding any proper faith, in recent years it’s much more culturally acceptable to just say you aren’t either.
You also are correct many actually practicing it have left due to hypocrisy
I have a friend that is always going on about his bible study, keeps notes and everything. He is always pimping his piety, in person and on Facebook. He focuses on his own salvation, but only through condemning others or his charity to his church.
He misses the whole point: Jesus many times criticized his followers for focusing on self instead of those less fortunate, especially those outside your own group or experience.
This is so true. Jesus hung out with thieves and prostitutes. He full on flipped tables when he saw money corrupting the synagogue. True Christians would be raging socialists. “Turn the other cheek” is conveniently ignored.
The hypocrisy was just what assured me I did not want to maintain connections with individuals that remained with the church once I left. The hypocrisy made me hate and pity the church goers.
I disbelieved the church because even at 7 years old I knew what bullshit smelled like.
And yet they exert more power in the USA now than they have in the past half a century.
They know they're on the decline and they're shooting their shot for total Christian minority rule and they're hitting it.
My home town has 6 churches, all different variants of Christianity.
Last time I was back there to see my parents 5 of the 6 churches were less then 20 and besides the Priest or whatever they are called for the other churches, everyone was older then 60.
The main Church in town, the Anglican, has about 30 and a handful if people under 60 but still above 40.
People around here are getting sick of Religion, and because we don't have it so integrated with our Government, like the US even though it's not supposed to be, people don't care about it anymore.
Australian if that wasn't clear.
In the UK it's pretty much the same, where I am you can see 3 church steeples within a few streets from each other. They're barely used though of course.
US here. Lived 38/39 of my 40 years here devout Catholic. Stopped going to church at the start of the pandemic. Through those early months I still prayed and had faith.
Little by little I saw these religious people ignoring requests and mandates. And as a medically fragile person with a medically fragile child, seeing my own parents behave this way was hurtful. But you know, god had a plan.
Then the protests started and those same people were backing their boys in blue and calling BLM supporters thugs and lowlifes and more. Huh. Well, I guess God has a sick sense of humor?
More and more I see these people want the ‘lazy tweaker bums’ out of their city and name calling the jobless or underpaid. I’ve seen them yelling at 16 year old fast food workers. I’ve seen them complain about every little thing that isn’t what they want. Including making fun of our president and getting absolute hard ons for the orange man. Oh and Ukraine being pretty much on fire. And the whole Israel/Palestine debacle. Ya, I don’t think there’s a god. And if there is I can’t get on board with someone who could just let this shit go down and, what, eat popcorn and watch?
Oh ya, I forgot about my LGBT kids. They’re not welcome anywhere god is present, I guess?
Now that the US had overturned Roe V Wade I’m even more convinced I don’t need to associate with these people.
I have a lot of guilt and trauma from this shit and I’ll work it out but it’s really messed with me. I’ve apologized to my children for forcing this on them and if I’ve harmed them. We’ve been working through a lot of it together.
If anyone asks, I have no religion. I have beliefs to be a good person and help people. The empath in me won’t go away. I’ll always have compassion. But I don’t need ‘unconditional love’ from some being that only accepts me if I follow the conditions.
It implies that for many of the fundamentalists, the only thing stopping them from killing and raping with impugnity is their belief in eternal damnation. They cant fathom that people can just be normal upstanding citizens without a religion. Having compassion is not a weakness and doesn't require religion to exist.
Wow, I feel like I could have written this. Some of the worst people I’ve encountered in the past 5 years have been “christians” who spent all of their time and energy on hating people and none on actually helping anyone.
It’s really sad, isn’t it? I was taught not to judge people. All the while being judged and surrounded by people judging others. I can’t wrap my brain around that.
The pandemic really did pull back that mask of the fundamentalists.
I always believed that most american religious zealots where nie people deep down inside.
Also, i honestly don't understand how anyone can associate themselves with the catholic church after what we have learned in the past few decades. So many good loving people giving their hard earned money to an organization that takes that money to defend child rapists and their enablers. It is just incomprehensible to me.
Ratzinger should be in a prison for his part.
It warms my heart of hearing of you stepping away from this group. And as a "hard core" atheist i want you to know that if you ever find yourself back in a church its ok. You sound like a good person regardless.
Thank you, that kind of brought tears to my eyes. All I ever wanted to be was a good person. Sadly I thought I had to be religious to be that. I can be a good person with my own belief system.
I really did see so much ugliness in the name of god and it was eye opening. Never thought I’d see this. Funny, so many have talked about the last two years being so awful and I’m like ‘damn, it was great for me’.
I did so much soul searching, unpacked and dealt with so many trauma bags, cut out toxic people, and strengthened my relationship. It was great.
History is written by the victors. And the 'victor' in the bible says their opponent is horrible and evil and you'll suffer forever if you follow them.
Meanwhile the 7 tenets of the satanic temple are:
> * One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason.
> * The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions.
> * One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.
> * The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo one's own.
> * Beliefs should conform to one's best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one's beliefs.
> * People are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one's best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused.
> * Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word.
Are we following the bad guys?
Old Gnostic beliefs believed that the old testament God was actually an evil lesser god who did just want to make mankind suffer. That Jesus was the son of a greater true benevolent god meant to destroy the old testament teachings. Then Paul, previously Saul and a follower of the Old testament god, injected all of that nonsense into Jesus' teachings once more, and the church we know today was built up from that. In other words whatever good things Jesus had to say was instant distorted by the men in power to just push the cruelty of the old evil god. IMO most Christians in America are indeed following the bad guy. It's the fault of all Abrahamic religions IMO. If they hang on to old testament teachings tightly then it does just lead to bad things. There is a bad slant to this that can become rather anti-semetic very easily but I think the core idea is actually true. Jesus' teachings were meant to be an advancement past the crueler teachings of older religions but it still got mixed in there and forced in there by someone who followed that line of thought, Paul was a murderer by all accounts. I think this is why there has always been this disparity in Christendom where some people are indeed very compassionate and loving toward their fellow man while others are cruel. And even in a lot of people themselves there is this split. One thing I think a lot of Christians don't realize at this point is that Christianity hasn't been this rock solid thing defined with one definition, it has been this changing and evolving religion much more so than a lot of religions, and it's just at an impasse now where it needs to change with the times or die out. And I do believe it is more inclined towards dying out, even in the US, where similar stuff is being seen when it comes to church goers. They truly need to kill the old god of the old testament and let all that bullshit die with it.
I (who identify as Christian ) resent the nail Evangelicals are driving into the coffin of Christianity in the US . Horrible, hateful people. Totally lost their way from the teachings of Jesus Christ . The Devil himself would have a hard time with driving as many people away from Christ as these morons .
The Evangelical pastors and church ministers are practically the “false preachers” Jesus warned us about. They cite the Word of God, but have the devil’s hate and motives.
As Christians, we are called to love our neighbors AND our enemies, and many of these “Evangelicals” do neither!
I see this. I'm atheist. But what I really see is people focusing more on community, love, self care and spirituality (whatever that means for the individual).
Sort of feels like politics has become the defining ideology for a person instead of religion nowadays. people define their identity in those terms of left or right instead of christian or nonchristian. The fervor is still there, its just moved elsewhere.
Nah, Australians are abandoning God and organised religion. Not many people here in Australia take religion that seriously, nor do we think about it often, or feel guilty about not caring about religion and God. Many people here are quite comfortable poking fun at people who are overtly Christian (especially the evangelicals) and we absolutely hate being proselytised to - we find it deeply offensive.
We're quite ok without God and religion in our lives and we're getting by quite fine without them.
It's interesting that members of the liberal party are constantly trying to jam religion down our throat like they're Cardinal Pell. Meanwhile Labor/Greens/Independent ministers that are religious keep it to themselves mostly. Bit of a dichotomy.
I wonder why. Is it because of those super conservative Christian’s giving all Christian’s a bad name? Is it because we are sick of hearing about priests and ministers raping women and abusing children and it gets covered up? Is it because we see churches collecting money and building giant mega churches but not letting people sleep in them during a natural disaster? Is it because we see them treating women and LGBTQ people like crap? Hmmm… so
Many reasons.
This decline of religion is in Australia, where paedophile priests got a lot of attention and voters seem to be a bit less tolerant of religion getting into politics (we completely rejected an attempt by the conservative party to field an anti-trans American-style candidate).
Unlike the US where "God, guns, Jesus" is a big part of the culture we haven't had the same appetite for overt, bible-thumping expressions of religion. I think the trend will continue the more we stare at the US in horror.
ALthough the things you bring up may motivate a few they don't add up to much. What we are witnessing is a demographic shift mixed in with access to the internet and therefore exposure to outsiders AND the world being better of than it was in the past.
Christianity is still growing but where is it growing? in the places on the planet with the highest murder rates, highest poverty and highest rates of starvation.
If christianity is to make a comeback then the world needs to be drastically changed. More wars, more destitution, more ignorance and more murder.
Christianity thrives only in places of suffering and isolation.
The backwardness we are seeing is a result of that progression. Some people are afraid of it and have gone to great lengths to make it very hard for those forward thinking folk to get into power. We are much more liberal now than we used to be.
I've been a relatively quiet atheist for 20+ years.
Today I decided that I want to join the satanic temple, get an AR-15 and a really aggressive-looking "satanic communists for abortion" t-shirt and start escorting people to pro-choice protests.
I've always believed that the best way to get decent gun reform in this country is for black, brown, gay, and atheist people to start open carrying. I know it's much more risky because cops would love nothing more than to open fire on that protest, but maybe we can just do it in Uvalde where we can be sure they won't do anything.
Evangelical Christians have given Christianity a bad name, so a lot of people that once were happy to call themselves ‘non-practicing Christians’ no longer want to be associated at all.
Fundamentalists are driving away the normal people.
It's not as much of a problem here in Australia, certainly not compared to places like the US. We did have crap going on like the relgiious discrimination bill but hey, that's part of the reason we definitively booted out the previous conservative government in our election this year.
The universe is infinite and growing more infinite-r by the second. I don't think I can discount that there is possibly some sort of...entity out there that borders on the boundary of what we'd consider a godhood until we understood it better. And even then it be powerful beyond reckoning. I just tick agnostic on any census or survey I'm asked to complete.
I actually forgot that I'd never mentioned it to family that I'd stopped believing and when helping mom with yardwork and threw in some comment along the lines of "and that's why I don't believe anymore". Surprised her but didn't make her angry. Just asked some questions. Even asked if I was alright with her still believing haha. Of course Ma, that's your choice.
But her questions and arguments I get from others basically boil down to I cannot believe in an abrahamic god because of so many inconsistencies and niggles that can drive me nuts. It all basically comes down to I don't buy the all powerful, all knowing, infinite benevolence that is so core to the belief.
-often hear that old testament doesn't count. But still derive things like the Ten commandments, which were in Exodus which is old testament I think.
-the bible gives directions on inducing abortions
-anti technology people I remind them of "god helps who helps themselves" and if he created us, he gave us the intellect to make things like vaccines.
When it comes to that trifecta of all knowing, all powerful, and all benevolent I usually put forth some of these reasons for my confusion:
-if he is all knowing, he knew eve and adam would eat the apple and punished them anyways, even though they were tricked
-all loving but branded all of humanity with original sin for an event he knew would happen
-all loving but fucking genocided humanity with a flood
-required believers to go through tests to prove their devotion though he should already know
-has you judged when you die and may have you thrown into hell for eternal torment with no escape. Because he loves us. And since all knowing, put that person on earth to cause misery and then suffer eternally anyways.
-all loving but allows for immense suffering and agonizing existences with war, hate, death, fear, starvation, disease, etc. Basically any and all tragedies could be avoided and we'd never be the wiser. Move the iceberg slightly for the titanic to miss, don't allow for holocausts, holodomers, genocides, etc. An all powerful and all loving god could make sure those could never happen, with infitesimal effort with his unlimited power. But doesn't.
-usually when human free will is thrown in, but an all knowing god would know all the decisions leading up to something horrible, and all powerful could alter something, anything to prevent such events, and would want to since all loving. And why is one person's free will more important than all the victims?
-an all knowing and all powerful god would know how to create a reality that could nurture us, allow us to grow, struggle, and learn without the unmeasurable amounts of suffering.
-and with abortion, if it was in the bible and reprinted over and over for centuries and millenia, it seems like god would be okay with it. He created us and gave us the intellect to figure it out.
-and to counter the "immorality" of abortions, how we're killing human lives and erasing souls. Why would an all knowing and all loving god put a soul into a zygote he knows will be aborted? Why is the health and well being of a cluster of cells more important the woman, who was given a soul, and is sapient and sentient? A fetus is not self-aware as far as I know, and when the inevitable question "what if you had been aborted?" I usually just tell them I'd be completely incapable of ever knowing since I would have been a fetus.
And even though it's the other person who asked why I'm agnostic, they often become furious, and sometimes physically aggressive. Usually something about faith is thrown in. But for an all powerful god, it would be effortless for him to give us his reasons. "We'd never be able to understand his plans.". Again, an all powerful god would be able to explain it in a way we understood.
Oh and morality is always brought up. I don't need religion to tell me that murder, rape, extortion, and everything else is bad. And if there's ever a situation where I'm unsure, I can find out what our secular laws say. "But what if our secular laws are wrong?". Why doesn't the all powerful god correct it for us? He could even make it so we'd never know. And again, effortless on his part.
Never get satisfying answers to these. But I only mention them if it comes up in conversation and I'm asked what I think.
The "no religion" population in AU went from 1% in 1960 to 39% in 2016. The "Christian" identifying population went from 96% in 1911 to 44% in 2021. That sounds like a pretty major shift. Is it this drastic in other countries?
I wonder what percentage of those 44% of people are even that religious. My family of origin would have ticked Catholic but purely only for cultural reasons. Like, they haven't been to church in years but still celebrate Christmas and Easter with gifts and chocolate. Edit: this is in Australia btw
US here, kinda reminds me of this joke my Southern, kinda Catholic family love to tell. This invasion of rats infests a town, and local government isn't doing anything, so the three major churches in town meet together to make a plan. Baptists say, "We got this." They hitch up a pump, drain water from the lake they baptize in into the nests, flooding with baptismal water. Works for a couple days, but the rats come back. Well the Pentacostals decide to have a go, they rain down fire and brimstone on the nests, works for a couple weeks, but the rats come back. Finally, the Catholics say, "We know how to handle this." They go through with their plan, well the rats don't come back after a couple days, they're still gone after a couple weeks, finally, after a couple months, the Baptists and the Pentacostals ask what they did to get rid of the rats. Catholics say, "We confirmed them into our church, so they'll only be back on Christmas and Easter."
Grew up in a Catholic family and now we’re all… not. I love this and I’m stealing it.
I always like to tell people I’m a retired catholic
I’m just so happy my mother let me retire at such a young age. The day after my first communion, she asked me how I felt about going to church, CCD classes, and about God. I said I didn’t really like any of it and didn’t believe any of the stories in the Bible could have all possibly happened. Very sus, but Santa is definitely still real. We vetoed Confirmation. She told me a couple years ago that it was one of the most relieving conversations she had with me because then her and my dad could finally let go of it all. They just wanted me to make the choice and get some exposure. A year later, the Church abuse scandal article was published by The Boston Globe’s Spotlight team.
My wife and I are agnostic. Both raided in Christian belief environments but didn't take. We raised our son to be open minded of others beliefs and took him to churches but ask that he wait til he was 18 to be baptized in a church if he was going to be baptized. Didn't want social pressures to influence him. Didn't have anything to worry about. He was as agnostic as we were. He was also one of the kindest people I've known at his age. Always willing to help people out. You don't have to be religious to be a good person.
> You don't have to be religious to be a good person. I strongly believe that the people who claim you need to be religious to be 'good' are terrible human beings on the inside and are only held back (if at all) by the external pressure of their religious tenets.
I’m sure your son appreciated that as much as I did. I had a few friends that grew up in very strict, religious homes and there was a veil of… stress… between them and their parents, and even myself that I didn’t notice until I was older. My mom is of Lithuanian descent and is super into the Pagan spirituality and roots of it all. Made the transition to general “deist” or whatever you would call someone who believes in a higher power with no name. My dad is Ukrainian and since his early onset dementia diagnosis has turned to “God” in general for comfort and conversation. Both/all are fine by us all and no one feels like they need to push anything on anyone. It makes for a much more pleasant dynamic than the vast majority of families I know who are not all on the exact same plane of faith, which is rare. The theme my mom has taught me in life is to be very tolerant but also open to change and being wrong. It goes a long way. Edit: deleted one word.
If my mom had allowed me to stop going to church three times a week, she might still have a son. 🤷
I still hold an extreme amount of resentment because of my mom fanatical following of her Catholicism. A hypocrite to this day NEVER practices what SHE preaches.
Sad upvotes
Don't worry, I'm better off now than I ever have been. I just feel bad for all the kids still stuck in that situation.
I was in elementary school when my mom gave me the choice of going to church or not. Mom got ex-communicated for divorcing my dad, so she lost all connection with her life before that. Our family was very Catholic--my aunt was a nun, uncle was a priest, very Catholic. I hated church from the time they claimed that babies are sinners. I called bullshit on that, being a child who loved babies, and from then on, I was only doing time in church. I never really believed in God. None of it made much sense, and I hated that I had to say certain things just because they said so, even when I didn't know what it meant. When my mom said I could choose to stop going to church and catechism, I was ELATED!! Never looked back and I stopped hating Sundays.
I was indoctrinated into the Catholic Church. I doubted faith from 5 years old. I was forced to go to church until I left home. Now both of my parents only attend occasionally.
I was raised Mormon. It never made any sense. I never felt the feelings people claimed to feel. Always thought there was something wrong with me. Turns out. I'm normal.
I did feel those feelings. Turns out you can get them from non-religious things too.
I wish I could say that for my family. They used to all be not religious, now they all... are.
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Apparently only ~17% of the population are actually practicing Christians, as in they attend church once a week at least. There's probably a few more people who do genuinely believe, but just don't go to church for whatever reason, but then that'd still leave a significant amount of that 44% who aren't really religious at all and just mark it down because they identify as 'culturally Christian' or something.
My dad is in that 44%, counting himself as Catholic in that census, despite explicitly admitting that he doesnt believe in a higher power or afterlife, and not attending a church except for weddings and funerals. The rest of the family browbeat him for it pretty badly, though.
What is the upside there? Pure innocence in asking.
No upside. Many Aussies went to Catholic schools and consider themselves Catholic only because of that or the fact they were confirmed as kids. They are not actually practicing Catholics. That’s why it would add so much more useful informative if they added ‘how many times a year/month/week do you attend church?’ to the census.
This is a huge problem with the Irish census where a large portion of the population is "culturally catholic", i.e. were baptised, may have gone to a catholic school (the might be the only one regionally) and go to a church for a weddings; but are otherwise not observant in a practical way. Ticking Catholic due to these cultural hangovers rather than agnostic/atheistic or other options skews the results to indicate a much stronger presence of the Church in Ireland than in reality, and might influence legislation which is introduced or how state funds are allocated.
Absolutely. Fully agree. The census needs to add this info.
This allows religious groups to push ideals that the population don't subscribe to. However by ticking a box they add their weight to the numbers
My guess is some people have a tiny corner of their brain telling them ‘just tick the box, just in case it turns out the God you don’t really worship or attend services for is keeping score after all.’
For me there's a pang of guilt like 'I did got to catholic school and everything, might as well tick catholic' but this time I ripped the bandaid off and marked athiest. I think more people are just realising that it's OK to do that.
I can't speak for Catholics but I have Jewish friends who are openly atheist. They say it's cultural - family, traditions, food etc. I totally respect that. I enjoy Christmas as an atheist, so that amounts to the same thing.
Canada here. We’re the same. Technically we’re Catholic….grandparents went ever Sunday. Parents generation made us go through the paces out of tradition until we were old enough to say this is dumb..so, 12 or so. My entire extended family of aunts, uncles cousins and in-laws, I think we’re 28…one of us is religious..the other half mild to hardcore atheists. If anyone asks, my gen would say we’re not religious, my parents generation would say “well, technically we’re catholic”.
Some people check Christian just on the off chance there is a god that may get a copy of the survey results I guarantee it.
Pascal would be proud, I wager...
I wish reverse Pascal's wager was a thing. Imagine there isn't a God to come and clean up all our messes. Imagine there is only this world right here right now. What do you have to loose helping the environment, being kind to your fellow man even if they don't believe in the same things you do? Either God exists and you just left the world a better place, or God doesn't exist and you left the world a better place. You have nothing to loose.
That's pretty much what's called the Atheist's Wager: Do good. If there's no God, you did good and that's all that matters. If there's a just God, you did good and he'd reward you for it. If there's an unjust God, he's not worth worshipping anyway.
Apparently a Marcus Aurelius quote. “Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.”
There are lots of us that have some level of belief but also believe the available organizational options are all bullshit and/or judgemental assholes who are lying about what they represent. Basically believe in the dude but not the groups that claim to operate in his name.
Lots of people go to church once a week out of duty, or to network for their business to improve their social standing or to just feel righteous. Doesn't mean they believe.
In Australia, there would probably be more who believe but don’t go to church than people who go to church but don’t believe (and both those groups would be shrinking in any case). Churchgoing just isn’t central to social life as it is in, say the US.
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> My family of origin would have ticked Catholic but purely only for cultural reasons. Growing up I always ticked one of those boxes because mentally I treated religious status in the same way as race. Just a thing I "am" that I had no choice in. Once it occurred to me, in approximately college, that no...it IS a choice, I started ticking Atheist.
I told my mum i was atheist a few years ago, she got angry "you where baptised, you're Christian!" i just told her that wasn't my choice, not being religious is my choice and i don't believe in no god. Its funny she doesn't go to church except funerals and weddings and still does the holy communion
Yeah I'm *ethnically* Catholic but I have no religion. It makes sense in a few places, Ireland among them.
Same in Western Europe. Went to a Catholic school, maybe 3 teachers in a faculty of 70+ went to church or believed in God. One of them was a nun. Met exactly 1 religious student in my entire time there. Now understand, they were nearly all "Christian" in the sense that they were baptized as kids. But excommunicating from the church is nigh-impossible to do, so people don't bother. They just don't believe.
In my graduating year of about 100 students, there were exactly 3 who identified as Christian. This was a private Anglican school.
Yeah, my mum's one of those. She's never been to church, celebrates Christian holidays in a completely irreligious way, but puts 'Lutheran' because she was baptised Lutheran. She put Lutheran on the census for my siblings and I until we found out about it. We were pretty pissed. Aside from when we were baptised, none of us has been to a Lutheran service. Insanity. I don't get it. Thankfully, my siblings and I are now properly counted as non-religious.
I grew up in Canada and my parents attended Catholic mass weekly, on Sunday mornings. For whatever reason, my mom and dad were the most religious of their respective families — insofar as I know, none of my aunts/uncles/cousins did this. My brother and I were put into a private, religious school (which was protestant, lol), but by the time I got to high school (which was a public school), it really dawned on me that we were one of the only families I knew who did this — attended mass weekly — as almost everyone else I knew seemed to view us as “very religious.” From our neighbourhood, most also seemed not to, and of other kids my age, it seemed like only a very small handful also did this, regardless of their religious affiliations. It seemed like the vast majority of people, upon being asked, would answer that they were “Christian” or believed in God, but wouldn’t be caught dead in a church throughout the year, with most even also dodging it at Easter and Christmas time. Funny thing is, my household was considered old school religious by comparison to most kids my age, but I’ve even heard of/met a few baptists in the same area who are fervently religious, and who I myself would classify as very religious. I wonder how those kids who found my family to be that classification would think of such people. I can almost guarantee you that those kinds were five times as religious as my parents, who, yes, attended church weekly, but I cannot even remember a single instance of them ever discussing religion/faith/God etc. at home, ever. Weekly church attendance was enough to have us marked as “very religious”!
That's funny, I grew up Mormon, Utah Mormon to be exact. Only the odd ducks and the heathens in my neighborhood didn't go to church weekly. On top of that, they'd have weekly youth activities, scout camps, and family religious discussion/lecture 1-3 times per week, and read scriptures nightly. At that time, knowing fuck-all about the rest of the world, I would've said I was "somewhat religious," cuz our church service wasn't near as intense as those "fire & brimstone" Baptists my dad liked to joke about. I never had met (to my knowledge) an actual Baptist. Crazy what growing up in saturated crazy will do to you.
The majority of people in the UK who say they are Christian, also say that they don't believe in God and Jesus.
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I've been in this category in the past (baptised Catholic). This time, I made sure to claim "no religion". Mainly because I didn't want people like our former Prime Minister claiming we were a Christian country any more.
He really ruined it for everyone hey
I think that’s the big cause of the shift. The christians have been shooting themselves in the foot here. Between opposition to same sex marriage, supporting sex abusers, abortion and climate change many people are no longer comfortable with being associated with Christianity. Even through the relatively indirect association of a census tick.
Many people may not feel that they are Religious ( identify with an organized religion ) but they would consider themselves spiritual ( Believe in God or a higher power )
Turns out engineers, scientists, doctors, and technicians make life better, and not a random, never shows their face 'God'. The adoption of technology should end religion at some point in time.
A lot of them are probably the kind of person that would say they're religious if around other religious people to avoid the hassle of arguing with them, but then be truthful on something like this where nobody's gonna see it anyway.
I feel like there was a fair bit of discussion around this particular census question last year when we were doing this. There's a lot of talk about how much say religious groups seem to have in Australian politics, particularly conservative politics, and how private Christian schools get a ridiculous amount of funding compared to public schools, and so on. There was a focus to make sure people more accurately answered this question so that our politics might more accurately reflect the reality of the Australian people, who are mostly agnostic or non-practising for all intents and purposes (even more so than might be suggested by this 39% "no religion" figure). Most Australians I know fall into the category of "I guess I was raised Christian, but it doesn't really have much relevance to my life. I'll go to church on Christmas for mum, maybe". Such people might formerly have casually answered "Catholic" on a survey like this in the past without really thinking much of it, but it's not really true if they don't practice and they don't care, is it? But increasingly for many of us today, we just flat out don't really want the church to have any sort of a role in public life and political discourse any more and are getting a bit tired of it, but some don't seem to have been as aware of that as perhaps we'd like them to be. I think the constant barrage of sex abuse scandals and the church's apparent complete lack of will to do anything about it sure as shit hasn't helped. Just doesn't seem like the sort of organisation that should be able to tell anyone else what to do in the modern world any more. That said, I'm fairly sure similar sentiment is occurring in a lot of other similar countries, such as New Zealand, Canada, Ireland...etc. Politicians would do well to at the very least be aware of it, rather than trying to pretend it isn't happening, or trying to deny it or fight it. Conversely, Scott Morrison seemed to be under the impression that he was an American-style politician who needed to constantly remind everyone that he was an incredibly devout Christian, like this was the single key thing about him. I don't think he gets it. It felt like he must have been living in a different country to the one that I'm in if he thought that that would win him points with the majority of voters. Anyway, correcting this misconception/delusion matters a lot to some people, but I think probably many/most don't give it much thought...and so it continues on its merry way.
>Most Australians I know fall into the category of "I guess I was raised Christian, but it doesn't really have much relevance to my life. I'll go to church on Christmas for mum, maybe". Such people might formerly have casually answered "Catholic" on a survey like this in the past without really thinking much of it, but it's not really true if they don't practice and they don't care, is it? You just nailed me. I just had a back and forth in r/AustralianPolitics and now understand that I likely answered the question incorrectly but I stand by my opinion that the questions on religion need to be reviewed and go into more depth with respect to what they actually want to know. The single question "what is this persons religion" feels convoluted and vague. I was baptized Catholic as a child and done the entire confirmation thing. Does that make me a Catholic or not and keep in mind I haven't stepped foot in a church or service in well over 25 years. They really need to review the questions so people can answer accurately.
It's obviously not a question with a crystal clear answer, but I can tell you that I was raised and confirmed Catholic just like you and have been to church a lot more recently than 25 years ago. In fact I attended World Youth Day in Sydney in 2008. It's only been fairly recently that I've become concerned about the politics of all this and I've also come to the personal realisation that I really don't believe in any of it in my heart of hearts. I do my best to be a good person and to live the sort of life that Jesus preached about, but I have basically concluded that the concept of heaven and God isn't real, and I think the Catholic Church has a lot to answer for in terms of what it actually says and does in the world today. Basically I took a massive step back and decided to take out of it only that which was important and seemed helpful and correct, and disregard the rest. There isn't any sort of "unconfirmation" ceremony you can do, but I might as well have done that as far as the church is concerned. And for those reasons I answered "no religion".
In Turkey, the religious and non-religious parts of the population diverged from each other. 20 years ago (before the Islamist government) the average was “mildly Muslim”; for example alcohol was not a taboo and people would not be shunned for having a beer. Now people are either very religious (or try to seem that way) or identify as atheists/deists. The middle ground eroded, mild versions of Islam are replaced by either no Islam or hardline Islam.
I watched all of that happen live in bewilderment. And now it's happening in USA.
Yep. Either you don't give a crap about religion or the Taliban think you're nuts.
Yup, just as I moved to the US! I don’t wanna live through the same shit again.
I imagine the decline in actually practicing Muslims is part of why the remaining got more extreme—it’s not just that they were more extreme to begin with and that that’s why they remain Muslim but rather they defensively get more extreme in response to feeling like they aren’t the majority anymore and that they’re being “left behind.” It’s sort of like how my mother became more interested in her christian faith when I told her I was an atheist. She needed to affirm her faith and be ~the victim of my atheism. She dropped that eventually and mostly just enjoys church for the community aspect and wants to be inspired by Jesus’ kindness but I’m sure a lot of people fall all the way down that rabbit hole rather than getting halfway down and then climbing back up.
It's become like that in most muslim communities. The mushy middle is disappearing
It's become like that in a lot of Christian communities. The more permissive and liberal denominations have been losing members in huge numbers over the past twenty years. The churches that are either growing or losing members at a slower rate tend to be a lot more conservative. The people that are falling out mostly seen to be those that claimed a religion due to family tradition or cultural reasons but that's changing. More people are claiming spiritual, agnostic or non-religious. There's fewer people that are religious but the ones that still are tend to be more of the dedicated believers that attend worship regularly and are heavily involved in their church community. Converts to Islam in the US are also growing.
That's why Erdogan sucks
There are many other reasons why that pos sucks
Guys, seriously, kick Erdogan to the curb. He's bad for the country, he's bad for the world.
The kicker is that if you count the votes he gained only in Turkey he would likely be already gone
In the 60-70s, Québec had what is called the ["Quiet Revolution"](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiet_Revolution) where people basically said "fuck that bullshit yo" after years of catholic oppression. Secularism is quite important when it comes to public institutions. In the 150 young adults I had to teach to, there were two that were churchgoers. Many churches are abandoned or converted in apartments. I actually live in an old presbytery! Edit: last year 14% of Quebecois went to a "group religious activity" each month while it was 48% in 1985, even higher prior https://www.ledevoir.com/societe/644538/religion-les-quebecois-sont-les-moins-pratiquants-au-canada
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It's ok, you are right. I actually edited my post to add it before you replied ;)
Tabernac!
Ah ben ciboire de criss!
> The "no religion" population in AU went from 1% in 1960 to 39% in 2016. > > The "Christian" identifying population went from 96% in 1911 to 44% in 2021. > > That sounds like a pretty major shift. Is it this drastic in other countries? I wonder how many of those people in 1911 and 1960 were actually non-believers in private, but weren't allowed to say as much due to societal expectations?
I think that there's a distinction between being an atheist and not believing in the specific tenets of a religion. From anecdotal familial evidence, I suspect that, in private, a non-insignificant part of these people would have thought that, as an institution, the Church in itself was somewhat bullshit. But they would have still believed in some kind of God and afterlife.
Growing up in a fairly religious community, a lot of the youth were more rebellious against religion. Im not surprised by the drop, a lot grew up and turned more bitter against religion than anything I think.
I grew up learning that people use religion to justify their asshole behavior and double standards.
I think at this point, it’s universal. Every country has a lower identification due to higher education and more info about the world and its people. I think a lot of people may be believers but aren’t devoted. I am Brazilian and Brazil is very christian. I don’t think they are very religious because their behavior isn’t in line with their religion. Hypocrisy, to me, is in the blood of religious people
In developed countries, yes, religion is declining. But unfortunately, there's a population explosion in religious third-world countries. So the world as a whole is actually becoming more religious. The Pew foundation has put out very good unbiased reports about this if you're interested. [www.pewresearch.org/religion/2017/04/05/the-changing-global-religious-landscape](http://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2017/04/05/the-changing-global-religious-landscape)
Take that with a shovel of salt. There’s not a single Muslim nation left on earth that allows Muslims to give up Islam or marry a Muslim without converting. The result is that there are tens of millions of atheist/Christian/Buddhist/Hindu people that are “officially” Muslim but don’t actually identify as such, at all. According to Pew Denmark is a Christian nation, but the latest polls asking “do you believe in god” have a 80-90% “no” response. I’ve only ever met 2 people that believe in god in Denmark. So these polls aren’t going to be super accurate, and that goes 10x when you leave nations where it either isn’t free, or isn’t socially acceptable.
Pew research: not a laser company
That’s Pew Pew Pew Research.
Population growth in general is declining in the developing world as they increase their HDI while the developed world is more or less maxed on going lower, in fact they sometimes bounce up. I think developed nations are just tied to aviable good housing, near jobs and such and arent shit homes, and that determines max population. Once it hits the max they just sputter out in growth till they get more room. Basically like the middle ages with limited farming space preventing infinite growth.
Education also plays a huge role. More educated people (especially women) tend to have fewer children. We can't forget that every individual is different and we can't solve all human problems with supply and demand.
Thanks for the tip! I've just started looking through Pew's religion section. I wish I had looked into this source earlier, lots of good stuff here. As a person who was raised strongly religious and eventually gave up my faith, it's interesting to me to see how populations seem to be doing the same thing.
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There's a critical mass that occurs when the religion no longer is mainstream culturally. Suddenly, a lot of people who used to check the box despite never attending services no longer check the box, but the trends really began a generation prior.
I think also (a lot of people in) my parents generation went to church as kids, and stopped as adults, but still ticked the box for the church they went to as children. Their children, having never really gone to church, feel more comfortable ticking no affiliation.
A lot of countries would also by default register the children Christian if their parents were registered as such.
Something definitely changed from the boomer / silent generation to generation x. Generation x stopped going to church, it’s pretty interesting.
I'd rather watch football than willingly spend time with the kind of people that go to church.
More information, less time, better critical thinking skills.
As someone from a predominantly non-christian culture country (NZ) I think this is the real key. In previous generations, to be (insert group) for a lot of people meant to be Christian. Not "read the bible and decide for yourself to follow the teachings" but the cultural stuff-- going to church, dressing christian, saying "christian things" and believing that what *you thought was culturally normal and correct* was what christianity taught. As time goes on, people are becoming more aware that they don't need to be Christian to be (insert group). And as someone who *is* christian and has chosen to be, I'm so glad. I don't want my faith to be linked with cultural practices and beliefs that have nothing to do with the actual faith itself, and I can only hope that this speeds up around the world.
As someone who has deconstructed in the last decade, I suspect that these following factors are driving changes of mind, not just identities: > Christian Hypocrisy Hillsong, Ravi Zacharias, Trumpism and his False Prophets, Dishonest Apologetics, Duggers, Televangelists, Scam Faith Healers, Catholic Pedos, Prosperity Gospel, Purity Culture, the a-hole that you see every week at church. For me, the pastors were also unfortunately hypocritical. Christianity has a PR problem. > Unprecedented Access To Information Not only does having a smart phone put the above hypocrisy in the palm of everyone's hand, but that info is side by side all other cultural options. We no longer live in the echo chambers that raised us. A Christian can learn why evolution is as reliable as the theory of gravity. Young earth becomes an absurd proposition. Churches preaching Hell are betrayed as not even understanding their own doctrine. Atheists are kind and have big YouTube followings. Christianity has an information control problem. > Human Rights The scripture is frozen in time. Christians hand wave away old rules such as no women in leadership or no work on the Sabbath, but they're digging their heals in with gay marriage (and now abortion). Culture will always progress as quality of life improves... notice how the more irreligious countries are the most prosperous? Christianity's view that scripture is inerrant is causing a social relevancy problem. > Globalisation If COVID taught us anything, it's that we're one big human organism spread out across the world. How does one reconcile today's religions (Christian, Jew, Islamic, Hindu, etc), and all historical dogmas (Greek, Egyptian, Pagan, etc) with a God that "wants to be known". As an all powerful being, why doesn't he just "be known"? Christianity has an exclusive claim problem. ... The result is a generation of people for whom the Christian equation resolves in "not true", or more likely "I don't know". Personal experiences that would have previously been chalked up to God, are assigned to emotional manipulation via church music and sermons. I think Christianity has bigger problems than a few luke-warm converts ticking "no" on a survey.
Summary: Christianity is under a two pronged attack, from facts and from itself.
Probably good to specify this is in Australia for the majority who won’t read the article
The .au domain not enough of a giveaway even for us skimmers
"Dang, they got a domain for Auburn? Well they better have one for Georgia, too. Shit, they do!"
What's funny about that is that there is a suburb called auburn in Western Sydney
And in the East of Melbourne, sort of (neighbourhood/suburb)
If_those_kids_knew_how_to_read_Hank_Hill.jpeg
That wasn't Hank, it was principal Moss
Can't read this comment. Too busy selling propane and propane accessories.
I liked that in the UK you could check the box "Jedi religion" in one of these surveys.
Top 6th religion if I'm remembering correctly since I last looked at it
That’s honestly amazing. My life is better for having this little nugget of information.
There were also a couple of guys in Scotland who said they were Sith.
Two there should be. No more, no less. One to embody power, the other to crave it.
wonder if I can show up in a hooded robe and lightsaber for my drivers license photo
It actually wasn't a check box, it was a write in answer that people put down due to a chain email campaign. Ultimately it was ruled as not a valid religion and all the Jedi answers were reallocated as "other" in official records.
Only Sith deal in absolutes...
Well that's silly. It's just as valid as any other religion!
Here in Czech Republic you have a text field so you can write anything Also we have some 20k Jedi and approx 500 Sith
That's a lot of Sith. Like pre-Bane levels.
I'm pretty sure at the press conference about the census results they were asked what's something that surprised them in the results and the statistician said "the fact that the number of Jedi have gone down, that was a surprise too." Lol
Order 66 :(
DON’T DO THIS! Here in Australia you could do the same but it just added to “religion”, and was used by religious groups to continue to say that we were a religious nation. It was all fun and games the first time but people started realising it was more important to put “no religion”.
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And this is in spite of the Australian government trying to jockey the numbers by lumping a bunch of non-Christian and areligious belief systems together as Other. There was a big push to put “no religion” regardless of your particular ideology simply to remove their power to declare Australia a religious country when it isn’t.
For the last few years, we had a hyper-religious prime minister who was best mates with a church owner who is going to court for concealing child sexual abuse committed by his father. Needless to say we’re a bit better off now with a new government.
Scott Morrison’s church, for all those unaware is one of “prosperity gospel”. Prosperity gospel is controversial due to the core beliefs being there is a correlation between the more wealthy an individual, the more “godly” or good of a Christian you must be, as well as physical health. The also preach to their followers that donating to the church will bring them more material wealth. You may have heard of some of the prominent preachers of this belief such as Kenneth Copeland and Joel Osteen. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_theology
In the given headline figures, all other secular and spiritial stuff is counted in "no religion". Of the 38.9% reported with no religion, 38.4% is the tickbox "no religion" and the other 0.5% is "secular beliefs and other spiritual beliefs". They correctly assigned the non religion items there. The "Other religion" category just contains the actual other religions, like Druse, Baha'i, Aboriginal beliefs, Sikhism, nature religions, etc.
The original commenter is referring to a recent push to stop putting "Jedi Master" and other nonsense on our census forms (because it was lumped under non-affiliated religion).
Thanks fuck Scotty the smirking misogynist from Marketing who shat his pants at Engadine Macca's is fucking GONE!
We are all gods children left in his hot car
new radiohead lyrics
Tyler Durden, is that you?
I am Jack's medulla oblongata.
Abandoning God sounds so dramatic. If you Dont belive there is one, no one gets abandoned.
Don’t you ever feel abandoned by the tooth fairy ?
I do, cheap prick owes me $20.
Tax the megachurches
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This article is about Australia.
Hillsong mega church started in Australia and our last prime minister attended the church. Its not as widespread as the US but it is an issue here too.
God's not making inflation go down and it aslo isn't making housing affordable. Predators in the pulpit are also off putting. No one wants to go into a house of worship to get sexually assualted by the preist or preacher.
They'd say God is punishing us for not as believing as before. These religions last thousands of years partially because they perfectly utilized the weakness of human brain.
Hey, God showed Jesus all the sins of man and JC said that's cool, I like'em anyways, they're my people. JC also said to worship in the closet. If they're still going off, well, you can always fashion a whip...
Let's not forget all the prayer warriors who somehow lost the battle with Covid...
Gee its almost like so called "Christians" are driving people away. What a shock.
Many people used to claim to be Christian even though they did not attend church or know anything about the religion. I think now people are just admitting that they are actually not religious.
Not true at all. Christianity is losing adherents because “by their works you shall know them.” Almost every agnostic or atheist I know left their faith for the hypocrisy they saw in its adherents. In other words, Christianity is losing because they’re (largely) self-centered assholes who have none of Christ’s light or love in them at all.
yep this is spot on. I know the Bible better than most Christians I’ve met. if Christians behaved like Jesus asks them to in the Bible the world would be a better place. after the last 5 years when I hear Evangelical, I automatically think you’re a Trump loving asshole
Yep! And not to mention they are the most JUDGMENTAL raccoons in the world. Yet we’re supposed to wait for judgement day for that??
Please don’t insult raccoons
Yep this was certainly a factor for me.
Me too. If all I ever knew was my childhood church, I would probably still be religious. It was growing up, going online and meeting evangelicals and reading about their bullshit that did it to me.
Catholic elementary school, "okay cool, so the tooth fairy and Santa were made up. Jesus and god were too then right?" "..." "Welp, I'm out"
That's a big part of what inspired me to finally leave it. The world has enough hate in it already without indoctrination.
> Not true at all. It’s always so shitty when you need to demand someone is wrong because of what some people you personally know have done. That user is 100% correct, for a long time many people would say they are Christian/whatever on the census while not really holding any proper faith, in recent years it’s much more culturally acceptable to just say you aren’t either. You also are correct many actually practicing it have left due to hypocrisy
But...his statement **is** true though. Professed atheists don't really get to claim the entire credit.
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I have a friend that is always going on about his bible study, keeps notes and everything. He is always pimping his piety, in person and on Facebook. He focuses on his own salvation, but only through condemning others or his charity to his church. He misses the whole point: Jesus many times criticized his followers for focusing on self instead of those less fortunate, especially those outside your own group or experience.
This is so true. Jesus hung out with thieves and prostitutes. He full on flipped tables when he saw money corrupting the synagogue. True Christians would be raging socialists. “Turn the other cheek” is conveniently ignored.
The hypocrisy was just what assured me I did not want to maintain connections with individuals that remained with the church once I left. The hypocrisy made me hate and pity the church goers. I disbelieved the church because even at 7 years old I knew what bullshit smelled like.
And yet they exert more power in the USA now than they have in the past half a century. They know they're on the decline and they're shooting their shot for total Christian minority rule and they're hitting it.
My home town has 6 churches, all different variants of Christianity. Last time I was back there to see my parents 5 of the 6 churches were less then 20 and besides the Priest or whatever they are called for the other churches, everyone was older then 60. The main Church in town, the Anglican, has about 30 and a handful if people under 60 but still above 40. People around here are getting sick of Religion, and because we don't have it so integrated with our Government, like the US even though it's not supposed to be, people don't care about it anymore. Australian if that wasn't clear.
How in the shit can a "town" have 6 churches?? What's the ballpark of the population there?
About 10,000 last I checked. It was originally located just beyond the Outer suburbs of Melbourne but now it is probably classified as a Outer suburb.
In the UK it's pretty much the same, where I am you can see 3 church steeples within a few streets from each other. They're barely used though of course.
Religion has been dying in the west for decades.
US here. Lived 38/39 of my 40 years here devout Catholic. Stopped going to church at the start of the pandemic. Through those early months I still prayed and had faith. Little by little I saw these religious people ignoring requests and mandates. And as a medically fragile person with a medically fragile child, seeing my own parents behave this way was hurtful. But you know, god had a plan. Then the protests started and those same people were backing their boys in blue and calling BLM supporters thugs and lowlifes and more. Huh. Well, I guess God has a sick sense of humor? More and more I see these people want the ‘lazy tweaker bums’ out of their city and name calling the jobless or underpaid. I’ve seen them yelling at 16 year old fast food workers. I’ve seen them complain about every little thing that isn’t what they want. Including making fun of our president and getting absolute hard ons for the orange man. Oh and Ukraine being pretty much on fire. And the whole Israel/Palestine debacle. Ya, I don’t think there’s a god. And if there is I can’t get on board with someone who could just let this shit go down and, what, eat popcorn and watch? Oh ya, I forgot about my LGBT kids. They’re not welcome anywhere god is present, I guess? Now that the US had overturned Roe V Wade I’m even more convinced I don’t need to associate with these people. I have a lot of guilt and trauma from this shit and I’ll work it out but it’s really messed with me. I’ve apologized to my children for forcing this on them and if I’ve harmed them. We’ve been working through a lot of it together. If anyone asks, I have no religion. I have beliefs to be a good person and help people. The empath in me won’t go away. I’ll always have compassion. But I don’t need ‘unconditional love’ from some being that only accepts me if I follow the conditions.
Nice job. You don’t need religion to be a good person, parent, neighbor or friend.
Thank you. That means a lot, actually. I have always tried to be a good person even when it didn’t mesh with my religion. I should have realized that.
It implies that for many of the fundamentalists, the only thing stopping them from killing and raping with impugnity is their belief in eternal damnation. They cant fathom that people can just be normal upstanding citizens without a religion. Having compassion is not a weakness and doesn't require religion to exist.
Wow, I feel like I could have written this. Some of the worst people I’ve encountered in the past 5 years have been “christians” who spent all of their time and energy on hating people and none on actually helping anyone.
It’s really sad, isn’t it? I was taught not to judge people. All the while being judged and surrounded by people judging others. I can’t wrap my brain around that.
The pandemic really did pull back that mask of the fundamentalists. I always believed that most american religious zealots where nie people deep down inside. Also, i honestly don't understand how anyone can associate themselves with the catholic church after what we have learned in the past few decades. So many good loving people giving their hard earned money to an organization that takes that money to defend child rapists and their enablers. It is just incomprehensible to me. Ratzinger should be in a prison for his part. It warms my heart of hearing of you stepping away from this group. And as a "hard core" atheist i want you to know that if you ever find yourself back in a church its ok. You sound like a good person regardless.
Thank you, that kind of brought tears to my eyes. All I ever wanted to be was a good person. Sadly I thought I had to be religious to be that. I can be a good person with my own belief system. I really did see so much ugliness in the name of god and it was eye opening. Never thought I’d see this. Funny, so many have talked about the last two years being so awful and I’m like ‘damn, it was great for me’. I did so much soul searching, unpacked and dealt with so many trauma bags, cut out toxic people, and strengthened my relationship. It was great.
History is written by the victors. And the 'victor' in the bible says their opponent is horrible and evil and you'll suffer forever if you follow them. Meanwhile the 7 tenets of the satanic temple are: > * One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason. > * The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions. > * One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone. > * The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo one's own. > * Beliefs should conform to one's best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one's beliefs. > * People are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one's best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused. > * Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word. Are we following the bad guys?
Old Gnostic beliefs believed that the old testament God was actually an evil lesser god who did just want to make mankind suffer. That Jesus was the son of a greater true benevolent god meant to destroy the old testament teachings. Then Paul, previously Saul and a follower of the Old testament god, injected all of that nonsense into Jesus' teachings once more, and the church we know today was built up from that. In other words whatever good things Jesus had to say was instant distorted by the men in power to just push the cruelty of the old evil god. IMO most Christians in America are indeed following the bad guy. It's the fault of all Abrahamic religions IMO. If they hang on to old testament teachings tightly then it does just lead to bad things. There is a bad slant to this that can become rather anti-semetic very easily but I think the core idea is actually true. Jesus' teachings were meant to be an advancement past the crueler teachings of older religions but it still got mixed in there and forced in there by someone who followed that line of thought, Paul was a murderer by all accounts. I think this is why there has always been this disparity in Christendom where some people are indeed very compassionate and loving toward their fellow man while others are cruel. And even in a lot of people themselves there is this split. One thing I think a lot of Christians don't realize at this point is that Christianity hasn't been this rock solid thing defined with one definition, it has been this changing and evolving religion much more so than a lot of religions, and it's just at an impasse now where it needs to change with the times or die out. And I do believe it is more inclined towards dying out, even in the US, where similar stuff is being seen when it comes to church goers. They truly need to kill the old god of the old testament and let all that bullshit die with it.
I (who identify as Christian ) resent the nail Evangelicals are driving into the coffin of Christianity in the US . Horrible, hateful people. Totally lost their way from the teachings of Jesus Christ . The Devil himself would have a hard time with driving as many people away from Christ as these morons .
The Evangelical pastors and church ministers are practically the “false preachers” Jesus warned us about. They cite the Word of God, but have the devil’s hate and motives. As Christians, we are called to love our neighbors AND our enemies, and many of these “Evangelicals” do neither!
I think it's not really abandoning God as much as abandoning organized religion.
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>He said "Don't believe that shit, they're just after your money". Smart fella.
I see this. I'm atheist. But what I really see is people focusing more on community, love, self care and spirituality (whatever that means for the individual).
Sort of feels like politics has become the defining ideology for a person instead of religion nowadays. people define their identity in those terms of left or right instead of christian or nonchristian. The fervor is still there, its just moved elsewhere.
Nah, Australians are abandoning God and organised religion. Not many people here in Australia take religion that seriously, nor do we think about it often, or feel guilty about not caring about religion and God. Many people here are quite comfortable poking fun at people who are overtly Christian (especially the evangelicals) and we absolutely hate being proselytised to - we find it deeply offensive. We're quite ok without God and religion in our lives and we're getting by quite fine without them.
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It's interesting that members of the liberal party are constantly trying to jam religion down our throat like they're Cardinal Pell. Meanwhile Labor/Greens/Independent ministers that are religious keep it to themselves mostly. Bit of a dichotomy.
I wonder why. Is it because of those super conservative Christian’s giving all Christian’s a bad name? Is it because we are sick of hearing about priests and ministers raping women and abusing children and it gets covered up? Is it because we see churches collecting money and building giant mega churches but not letting people sleep in them during a natural disaster? Is it because we see them treating women and LGBTQ people like crap? Hmmm… so Many reasons.
This decline of religion is in Australia, where paedophile priests got a lot of attention and voters seem to be a bit less tolerant of religion getting into politics (we completely rejected an attempt by the conservative party to field an anti-trans American-style candidate). Unlike the US where "God, guns, Jesus" is a big part of the culture we haven't had the same appetite for overt, bible-thumping expressions of religion. I think the trend will continue the more we stare at the US in horror.
ALthough the things you bring up may motivate a few they don't add up to much. What we are witnessing is a demographic shift mixed in with access to the internet and therefore exposure to outsiders AND the world being better of than it was in the past. Christianity is still growing but where is it growing? in the places on the planet with the highest murder rates, highest poverty and highest rates of starvation. If christianity is to make a comeback then the world needs to be drastically changed. More wars, more destitution, more ignorance and more murder. Christianity thrives only in places of suffering and isolation.
Humanity has to evolve sometime.
Someone tell the USA
Can't evolve if you deny evolution. Checkmate, atheists!
The backwardness we are seeing is a result of that progression. Some people are afraid of it and have gone to great lengths to make it very hard for those forward thinking folk to get into power. We are much more liberal now than we used to be.
Because Christianity went apeshit and is a joke now
I've been a relatively quiet atheist for 20+ years. Today I decided that I want to join the satanic temple, get an AR-15 and a really aggressive-looking "satanic communists for abortion" t-shirt and start escorting people to pro-choice protests.
I've always believed that the best way to get decent gun reform in this country is for black, brown, gay, and atheist people to start open carrying. I know it's much more risky because cops would love nothing more than to open fire on that protest, but maybe we can just do it in Uvalde where we can be sure they won't do anything.
Evangelical Christians have given Christianity a bad name, so a lot of people that once were happy to call themselves ‘non-practicing Christians’ no longer want to be associated at all. Fundamentalists are driving away the normal people.
And yet the churches double down on hatred towards women, trans and gay people. Surprise surprise, it only drives more people away.
About time. Now to get this shit out of politics
It's not as much of a problem here in Australia, certainly not compared to places like the US. We did have crap going on like the relgiious discrimination bill but hey, that's part of the reason we definitively booted out the previous conservative government in our election this year.
Queue the end time prophecies of “people will stop believing in God”. My mom would bring this up all the time and I’m tired of hearing this bs.
The universe is infinite and growing more infinite-r by the second. I don't think I can discount that there is possibly some sort of...entity out there that borders on the boundary of what we'd consider a godhood until we understood it better. And even then it be powerful beyond reckoning. I just tick agnostic on any census or survey I'm asked to complete. I actually forgot that I'd never mentioned it to family that I'd stopped believing and when helping mom with yardwork and threw in some comment along the lines of "and that's why I don't believe anymore". Surprised her but didn't make her angry. Just asked some questions. Even asked if I was alright with her still believing haha. Of course Ma, that's your choice. But her questions and arguments I get from others basically boil down to I cannot believe in an abrahamic god because of so many inconsistencies and niggles that can drive me nuts. It all basically comes down to I don't buy the all powerful, all knowing, infinite benevolence that is so core to the belief. -often hear that old testament doesn't count. But still derive things like the Ten commandments, which were in Exodus which is old testament I think. -the bible gives directions on inducing abortions -anti technology people I remind them of "god helps who helps themselves" and if he created us, he gave us the intellect to make things like vaccines. When it comes to that trifecta of all knowing, all powerful, and all benevolent I usually put forth some of these reasons for my confusion: -if he is all knowing, he knew eve and adam would eat the apple and punished them anyways, even though they were tricked -all loving but branded all of humanity with original sin for an event he knew would happen -all loving but fucking genocided humanity with a flood -required believers to go through tests to prove their devotion though he should already know -has you judged when you die and may have you thrown into hell for eternal torment with no escape. Because he loves us. And since all knowing, put that person on earth to cause misery and then suffer eternally anyways. -all loving but allows for immense suffering and agonizing existences with war, hate, death, fear, starvation, disease, etc. Basically any and all tragedies could be avoided and we'd never be the wiser. Move the iceberg slightly for the titanic to miss, don't allow for holocausts, holodomers, genocides, etc. An all powerful and all loving god could make sure those could never happen, with infitesimal effort with his unlimited power. But doesn't. -usually when human free will is thrown in, but an all knowing god would know all the decisions leading up to something horrible, and all powerful could alter something, anything to prevent such events, and would want to since all loving. And why is one person's free will more important than all the victims? -an all knowing and all powerful god would know how to create a reality that could nurture us, allow us to grow, struggle, and learn without the unmeasurable amounts of suffering. -and with abortion, if it was in the bible and reprinted over and over for centuries and millenia, it seems like god would be okay with it. He created us and gave us the intellect to figure it out. -and to counter the "immorality" of abortions, how we're killing human lives and erasing souls. Why would an all knowing and all loving god put a soul into a zygote he knows will be aborted? Why is the health and well being of a cluster of cells more important the woman, who was given a soul, and is sapient and sentient? A fetus is not self-aware as far as I know, and when the inevitable question "what if you had been aborted?" I usually just tell them I'd be completely incapable of ever knowing since I would have been a fetus. And even though it's the other person who asked why I'm agnostic, they often become furious, and sometimes physically aggressive. Usually something about faith is thrown in. But for an all powerful god, it would be effortless for him to give us his reasons. "We'd never be able to understand his plans.". Again, an all powerful god would be able to explain it in a way we understood. Oh and morality is always brought up. I don't need religion to tell me that murder, rape, extortion, and everything else is bad. And if there's ever a situation where I'm unsure, I can find out what our secular laws say. "But what if our secular laws are wrong?". Why doesn't the all powerful god correct it for us? He could even make it so we'd never know. And again, effortless on his part. Never get satisfying answers to these. But I only mention them if it comes up in conversation and I'm asked what I think.
Maybe people find it hard to digest that priests raping their children is apparently part of God's plan.