Organized religion: Is it all bad?

Why is it that people who believe in evolution by natural selection are reproducing at the slowest rate, while religious believers are reproducing at the fastest rates? People who hope to see the end of religion are going to disappear long before religion ever does.

Materialists, because of their belief in Darwinism, should consider religion superior to atheism because religious believers are reproducing rapidly while atheists are not.
 
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The end of religion and the end of religious authority are two different things.

There's also no guarantee that having kids means they follow your religion. If anything it seems "nones" and "spiritual but not religious" are on the rise in the Western world. As technology and communication spread I expect this will become a world wide phenomenon.

Like any interest - whether religion or anime - some people will come together in a communal fashion. So there will still be religion. But I think rather than "being" a religion more people will see religions as gyms or art communes. Something to move in and out of as one finds their own path, with some people remaining in a particular "gym"/"commune" for extended periods.
 
I'd say religion is what got us into a space where people would rather deny their own meaningful existence than accept anything that looks like God or leans toward It [1]. Part of the problem is the absolute gateway, but part of it is this idea you should hate yourself for your sexual urges and that damnation awaits you because you are a horrible sinner. (Switch some of those terms for Hinduism and other religions, but that sexual repression/control is definitely there especially for women.)

The faster religious authority wanes [2], seems like the faster the prospects for parapsychology or even immaterialism in general will improve. At the very least the value of secularism should be continually emphasized in the Western world, it might also help counter the fundamentalist recruitment issue as well.
(Bolding and bracketed #s are mine).

[1] I agree with this statement. Religious institutions provide ready-made containers for our numinous energy. We almost automatically grant them this energy every time we enter into their spaces. At least that's been my experience when I enter their spaces: cathedrals, temples, chapels, etc. So they have that going for them and they impose a very real and powerful psychological internal presence at the time as a result of this numinous energy.

Religions are also very good, obviously, at organization building in contrast to the very loosely knit community of persons defining their own meaningful existence. Which is to be expected since a group of individuals each with their own vision of a meaningful existence is going to be at an organizational disadvantage against a group espousing a common belief. Which is not to say that organizations can't exist that have a very much looser definition of the ultimate truth: Dances of Universal Peace, the Ruhianat International and their closely related US and Int'l "Sufi" orders, or the Universalist Unitarian Church, these being but a few examples.

[2] I expect due to [1] religious authority will wane very slowly and never completely. There is a strong impulse to be part of the group, "safety in numbers". Institutions offer a mutually reinforcing certainty that we must be right since there are so many of us. This is tough to counter and then successfully only by another competing institution, which is a hurdle it seems to me at least that the individual can't normally overcome.
 
I believe the roots of most religions were probably reasonably pure in intent and purpose when they began. However it doesn't take long for those with an agenda to screw things up, which has certainly been done with the major churches.

Also from my experience very few religions preach that members should search and discover their own truth and seek their own proof. Spiritualism comes the closest in my experience.

So where does that leave me in terms of whether religion is "all bad"?

For starters I don't think that anything is "all" anything: everything is shades of gray. Having said that, I would say that good intentions aside, modern religion is nearly rotten to the core and does way more harm than good in the world. And further, any religion that suggests people should believe ANYTHING because "it is written" is in my mind, invalid.

I disagree with those who say that moral code comes from, or is even proof of the existence of god. I think "do unto others" might just as easily be a human trait which is reflected in the mirror of the church, which at this point is much more a creation of man than God anyway.

I agree that nothing is all good or all bad. If you extract positive things from religions, these will be good for you in the same way than psychology, philosophy, science in general.
Dogmas are bad, reductionism is bad, limitation is bad, broadmindedness is good, critérium is good, etc.
 
“If sweetness can win”: The religious discourse of Adventure Time

This cosmic dance of bursting decadence and withheld permissions twists all our arms collectively, but, if sweetness can win (and it can), then I’ll still be here tomorrow to high-five you yesterday, my friends. Peace.

—The Royal Tart Toter, Adventure Time, “The Other Tarts,” episode 35 [season 2, episode 9], (originally aired January 3, 2011)


Adventure Time is a cartoon series currently in its fifth season on Cartoon Network. It is nominally a children’s show, and children do watch it, but given the complex narrative, characters and cosmology that the series develops, it deserves adults’ attention as well. Its setting is Ooo, a magical landscape that teems with diverse, intelligent, non-human beings. These beings are the descendants of people and animals that mutated after the nuclear apocalypse, or “Great Mushroom War,”one thousand years before the series’ action takes place. In this essay I analyze the religious elements of Adventure Time, drawing parallels with various religious traditions in order to flesh out these elements’ implications.

I argue that the series acts as a “counter-hegemonic discourse” in the context of the contemporary American religious landscape, challenging mainstream Christian conceptions of eschatology, cosmology, death, morality and suffering, and developing an alternate narrative through which to understand ourselves, our world and our future.
 
Why is it that people who believe in evolution by natural selection are reproducing at the slowest rate, while religious believers are reproducing at the fastest rates? People who hope to see the end of religion are going to disappear long before religion ever does.

Materialists, because of their belief in Darwinism, should consider religion superior to atheism because religious believers are reproducing rapidly while atheists are not.

I love that, Jim !
 
“If sweetness can win”: The religious discourse of Adventure Time

This cosmic dance of bursting decadence and withheld permissions twists all our arms collectively, but, if sweetness can win (and it can), then I’ll still be here tomorrow to high-five you yesterday, my friends. Peace.

—The Royal Tart Toter, Adventure Time, “The Other Tarts,” episode 35 [season 2, episode 9], (originally aired January 3, 2011)

In the same vein of spirituality being formed from entertainment in addition and in place of old religions ->

Harry Potter For Seekers

What is Harry Potter really about?

The aim of Harry Potter is to show how death can be vanquished; how an ordinary mortal human being can enter a process of transmutation and transfiguration that will alchemically transform him or her into an eternal, perfect child of God, filled with overwhelming compassion for suffering humanity.

All the characters are symbols or personifications of aspects of the process, symbolically called, "making the Philosopher's Stone". With this stone the alchemist can make gold, i.e. the Gold of the Spirit, and the Elixir of Life, i.e. eternal life.

It is the aim of this website to inform the world that the most popular book ever published tells the most beautiful story ever told: the return home of the Prodigal Son to the arms of the Father. We hope you enjoy your visit to our site and that we have succeeded in showing the depth and intensity of the spiritual power emanating from Harry Potter.
 
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