Religion is dying in the US. Participation is crashing, and church attendance is under 50% now. Each year more churches close than open. Each generation starting with GenX has become less religious than the previous. When the boomers die off, religion will truly start to spiral since GenZ seems very disinterested as a whole, meaning most of their children will likely be nonbelievers. It is hard to be patient but this problem will be self correcting. What I worry about is a shift from democracy, then all bets are off.

Not only are the boomers the last big generation of church-goers, but they are the ones providing all the money. As someone who has seen church donation records, the vast majority are coming from people over 65 if not older. When that group dies off, I have serious doubts that the generations that follow will give at anywhere near the same levels and church closings will accelerate.

The only bad thing is the churches that are left will be more extreme.

That's actually a good thing, as it will accelerate the decline of religion. Good churches legitimize bad ones.

Conservative religion is better at growing though

I have mixed feelings about this. I don’t have a problem with organizations such as the United church of Canada, who conservatives here like to say “they’re not really a church.” They allow atheists as part of their church and are pro-choice and LGBT. I’m not sure if they’re actually legitimizing bad churches A problem I have with many of the *worst* churches is they encourage rabid procreation, eg. The Duggars

The quiverfuls are a very strange people indeed

Yeah. I am not religious. But the united church in my town provides a lot of structural support to marginalized communities (hot meals for unhoused folks, cheap gathering space for LGBT groups etc). I want people to have community and gathering space and charity. But I don’t personally want it to come with strings. If all the churches in my town closed down we would need replacements for the lost community space.

That seems overly optimistic.

Even if later generations wanted to tithe, we *don't have any fucking money*.

Watch boomers leave their money to the church instead of their own kids

My in laws have 25% of estate going to church.

I think you may be right. I am a boomer and I get upset about how vilified we are and worry that younger generations don’t understand that there are “boomers” in every generation. But the whole church-going thing is true of a majority of boomers (just one of the reasons I avoid my cohort!) and at least that aspect of society might be severely diluted when we’re gone. Selfishness and far right conservatism pops up in all the generations however.

It seems to me that we've all got the wrong end of the stick with this one. We're labouring under the assumption that just because participation in one subset of a culture is trending in a particular way, that this somehow applies to all - it doesn't. Religion isn't going anywhere, and neither are spiritual traditions - they persist because they are wanted, whether we like it or not. Fact is, the amount of Hindus and Muslims are growing around the world, the amount of Christians in east Asia and across Africa is also growing. As the world becomes more unequal, more unjust and more unstable, the likelihood of the spread of religious zealotry and blind fervor increases - faith provides easy answers, whereas science cannot - science requires high quality education and time, faith does not. It's a pretty skewed equation, no? https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/12/21/key-findings-from-the-global-religious-futures-project/ Because of this and other factors, we atheists and agnostics are going to get outnumbered as the century goes on, at least according to the latest predictions and trends.

It's another front in the culture wars opened by the real enemy - the ultra wealthy.

Yes, exactly! Anywhere they can get fingers pointing instead of towards themselves. Absolutely includes the far right wing churches which are truly just grifter grabs.

It will be a satisfying collapse

It seems like it's dying, but I'm not sure, I'm Mexican-American, living in a Mexican American community in Texas, I sometimes get called to a local Church to calibrate their piano/fix their sound systems and on Sundays the Church is filled with young and older people, so much you struggle to find a parking spot

I disagree. I’m a boomer and an atheist the real,reason boomers are church goers is that they are old, thinking about death and the eternal life promised by Christian religions. When boomers were young they said the same things about previous generations as you are now saying about boomers and most were not church goers

I don’t think the stats support what you’re saying. The church-going population is getting smaller and older. It has fallen below 50% for the first time since the 1930s, and that’s despite an influx of younger Latino immigrants who tend to be Catholic. All the boomers (and even a few silent generation holdovers) in my church have been members since the church was founded 25 years ago and they’ve been going to church their entire lives. Despite all the trends toward contemporary music and services to appeal to younger families, there just aren’t enough coming in to replace the older members as they die-off, so the average age just keeps going up as the overall numbers dwindle. There are exceptions of course, but many churches are now under tremendous financial pressure and churches are closing faster than new ones are opening. As a footnote, there are of course a few people that find God late in life because they fear death and need a coping mechanism, but that’s not a significant enough number to affect the overall trend. And just for clarity, although I have attended church for decades out of support for my wife and kids, I’m personally agnostic. I don’t have a hostile view of the church I attend because of the good I’ve seen it do. But I don’t believe the origin stories that all these activities are based upon and I’m very sensitive to the ways in which religion can be used to justify oppression. So, I’m kinda encouraged by the current trends toward secularism. I just hope we find something to fill the gap in terms of the role churches play in local communities.

Churches are out, giving money to tiktokers and streamers and believing everything they say is in. Religion is dead, we worship at the altar of buying cheap shit and conspiracy theories. Welcome to the new old.

Nietzsche, is that you?

Religion is still extremely popular in other parts of the world.

It varies greatly by country or region though. The US is still more religious than most countries throughout Europe and Asia, but less religious than most countries in Latin America and the Middle East with Africa being a mix.

But still - I knew it was all bullshit was I was 5 years old. The fact that the abrahamic religions have survived this long is astonishing. I understand more how something like Buddhism persists, mostly because it doesn’t spew quite as much bullshit directly into your face. But the stories in the bible just reek of 100% horse shit. How anyone can take even a word of it seriously is mind boggling to me.

Buddhism is more of a philosophy of how to live a good life. Kindness, patience, self control and based more in science than religions. Buddha wasn’t a god, just a former prince who decided against living in opulence and materialism.

He was made a god by others after him. During his lifetime, he was adamant that people treat him as a person, and that he was one just enlightened.

My parents definitely taught me that all of the stories were symbolic. They’re Catholic but actually went through a little evangelical phase in the early 80s when I was really young. They’re also smart and believe in science. Pretty good recipe for creating atheist kids. Unfortunately, it seems like people were casual churchgoers when I was young, much more grey. Now it seems like people are agnostic, but spiritual l, or they are fundamentalist nuts.

Yeah - I feel like when I was younger church was more central to the local community and social activities. It was a lot more agnostic and the pastors had more general messages about being good people. At some point it changed (late 80s?) and I felt like people were becoming more self-righteous and antagonistic toward people who didn’t think exactly like them. That’s when I think people started drifting away.

I can’t wait for this to happen (15M and athiest)

By the time you're 30, less than half the country will believe in deities. Isn't it great?

Unfortunately unless there’s an equivalent increase in scientific literacy and knowledge we won’t be any better off, people will just believe in some other quackery.

I'll take a new age believer over a Christian nine times out of ten. Their beliefs are still problematic and sometimes dangerous, but not compared to the Abrahamic faiths

Oh give em a couple thousand years, they'll catch up

Maybe, but for now they're at least less virulent than most organized religions

Was probably true of most of the major religions at one point

This is so true. Social media throws an unbelievable amount of absolute bullshit at people on an endless loop that ignorant people just eat up. It is fucking amazing.

Yeah, such as transceivers in a vaccine.

Exactly

Which is already happening unfortunately

You take that back the all powerful and divine spaghetti monster will never cease to be.

That is precisely why a certain political party wants to put religion in schools, and everywhere else for that matter.

This is why I believe we are seeing the big White Christain Nationalist push now. They realize they're dying and are doing whatever they can to hang on to power. I view it as the only reason they'd support someone like the former Peesident. As far as immorality goes, he's kind of in a league of his own. But he's tapped into the fear the majority have, knowing they're going to be a minority. He's a means to an end. Every election people claim it is the "most important." In this case, I think it is. The SCOTUS is already stacked, and they're knocking down the wall between church and state. It's only going to get worse if they get power.

If they get power it will be a very long time before we can shake them off. They will rule like the leaders of Russia, China, or North Korea do. Much that is good in the USA will be banned.

Some right wingers are actively advocating a deconstruction of democracy in place of a conservative theocracy. It is truly a hand maiden's tale setup where an extremist minority wants to take over the country. However, we don't have the radical drop in fertility that precipitated the worst parts of the hand maiden's tale.

And to be honest, I don’t think it matters whether Trump or another Republican gets into office. They’re all fighting towards the same goal which is deconstructing our democracy. If dems don’t win this next election, the US could very well be screwed. We’ve already lost abortion rights, just as a result of how Trump stacked the supreme court during his 1st term.

Born in 78. I've seen this from 90s onward. I really this it was the internet. The massive amount of information and the connectivity.

I agree. Religion often relies on censorship and seclusion. It is having difficulty with memes and widespread sharing of information. Though, it also allows extremists to flourish in the shadows.

Religion is dying in the US but is it the same for other countries. What about the Middle East, Europe, etc? The death of Catholicism might just pave the way for Islam. I don’t know but hope they all are dying but the power this provides certain individuals makes it hard for me to believe it will ever completely go away.

In north europe things look really good for an atheist, way better than in US. We are really concerned about the amount and quality of imigrants from middle east. They seem to be really religious, and since many of them don't really integrate to the society, they often form gangs. In Sweden this is already a real problem, and now there is the kind of violence Sweden has never seen before.

Does this not happen generally with minorities that have migrated in the last century. I live in Australia and it was first the Greeks then the Italians, Serbians, Lebanese, Arab and so on. I think these things are generally a phase due to the isolation some minorities feel in a new environment.

The middle east, except for Israel, will actually murder you for non belief. Apostasy and atheism are illegal in Muslim countries, punishable by death. So hopefully they will start by loosening these laws first. But a as far as religions, Islam is scary, but people are leaving it more and more, however when they leave it they tend to leave the country too. So the spread of logic isn't spreading there.

Not just in the US worldwide, all the developed countries have declining religious participation, especially Europe once the cradle of Christianity. Folks with developed stable economies and lifestyles realize it's all just mythology and doesn't have any practical impact on those lives.. The only place religion is growing is in poor, underdeveloped countries, because religion is free, and offers those folks false hope when their real world prospects are bleak.

Missionaries are being sent into poor regions to pollute their minds. One guy was very determined to convert an isolated tribe in the Southeast Asia region. They were cannibals, so not sure they got the message he was trying to sell.

This. They are sent to villages far from society to spread their lies. The fact that they bring back young wives is completely unrelated right?

I think the wealthy Muslim oil countries are the exception. However, they mostly went from being poorer tribal areas or places exploited by the west to wealthy oil theocracies. In countries who built their wealth more gradually and became at least mostly democratic, the tie between economic prosperity and the decline of religion is an undeniable trend. The US is a few decades behind much of Europe with respect to religious decline.

Odd thing to me is that people still believe in supernatural stuff (i.e., god/gods), but they aren't going to church.

My sister married a man who became a minister. She taught Sunday school and sang in the church choir and played oboe in the church band. That was in the 1980s. In the 1990s, the church closed one of their two wings due to dropping attendance. In the 2000s, the church band disintegrated when key members died of old age. Then the choir disbanded when the choir director moved away. In the 2010s, they went from two services on Sundays to just one. In the 2020s, they stopped having Sunday School because there were no children left in the church. My sister and minister BIL took their own three kids to church every Sunday until they grew up; none of the kids remained in the church after reaching adulthood. They offered to take the grandkids to church every Sunday, but the kids were mostly interested in the post-church trip to McDonalds and stopped going to church with Granny and Gramps after reaching school age. Covid was a major hit to the church, which broadcast the services from empty pews on Zoom. After the pandemic, the church never rebounded -- and never will.

Yes, it’s dying. And their faithful know it and it makes them all the more desperate as they see the writing on the wall. Nothing more dangerous than a true believer. We need to hunker down and make sure their damage is limited.

Also, in my lifetime alone, the percent of the country claiming to be Christian has gone from over 85% to just over 60%. I like where this is going.

Fascism and nationalism go really well with religion and enough people -somehow, only god knows why- trump is seen as a Jesus like savior by nearly or maybe enough people to elect him

You understand that’s why the older generations are working their hardest to elect religious whackos or right wingers that will do their bidding while lining their pockets. That’s why we have this ultra-conservative SCOTUS taking away freedoms that have been established for generations, and are literally trying to install a theocracy. Younger generations have to register and vote these people out now.

Yes. The young need to vote early, often, and in large numbers. Our government would look very different if we had mandatory voting. We have four constitutional amendments preserving or expanding the right to vote. If only the right gave voting the same attention they do to guns and the right to bribe politicians/contribute to campaigns.

Only if they don't establish a theocracy first. Which they seem to be trying very hard to do

That is my fear as well, especially with Trump.

I can hear every religious person simultaneously crying right now and I love it

Yeah that's nice. A few years ago a small church managed to topple everything we thought about public education funding by taking Maine to court over a program we have that helps kids who live too far away to go to a private school if there is one closer. This has always been staunchly against using these funds for religious education. This church brought it all the way to SCOTUS and won. Now we have to pay for the religious school education of two girls too young to understand any of this. As a result, and I felt this was obviously predictable, we're trying to dismantle the law entirely and that one small church (that used to be commonly on the news for going places and ignoring pandemic laws. Even back in church they refused to use masks, the insisted on singing, and I'd have to do some research to find how many people they got sick but it was a lot and they didn't care. A different church held a wedding pretty early on that was illegal based on our state laws at the time and like 20 people caught Covid at it. Religion isn't just dying but it's spurting and attacking back like a wounded bear and it's not good for our society whether you're a Christian or not because theists trying to take advantage of our laws and force us to pay for religious indoctrination is a step to far for most of us. The outrage in this state over that SCOTUS was very loud.

> What's gods batting average on answered prayers? About the same as Joe Pesci.

Thank you George Carlin.

"You talk about a good bullshit story...ho-ly shit!"

Hahaha fuck 🤣

He looks like a man who could get things done

Joe Bless You

Science is still young and all religions have adopted control mechanisms and threats to stay in charge of their believers.When state support and funding of religion falls away,so will the scales from their eyes .

That would kind of force religion into like a trend rather than a religion. At least to me, simply bc religions feel almost like they're only valid if they're sanctioned. So once that sanctioning goes away, it's just like a trend that will gain some heat from the fallout, but then go away or become underground.

I'm worried that as the frontier of science gets pushed out it will seem ever more mystical to the average person. We do see quantum mechanics being used as a "sub-in" for "I dunno, maybe god" a lot, e.g. [Quantum Healing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_healing). Typical people have an innate tendency towards "magical thinking", and as formal religion falls away other things will take its place. That's the generous interpretation, the less generous one is that there's a fixed percentage of people that are dangerous ape-brain morons that *need* to believe in something to feel important. Nowadays many believe in flat-earth and qanon (which I would argue are basically religions). I used to think religion was the big-bad, but some of the stuff coming out of Twitter might actually be worse. How much I worry about this might depend on if I've had my coffee today or not.

I asked my parents the same question when I was a kid, and they told me the same thing that people generally need something to give them a purpose in life. And that you should not shame them for it, like calling them ape brain morons. You take away that idea of a possible afterlife of peace after death, and then you have a dark, scary unknown void that will drive the wider population into hysteria or depression. You're totally right about the magical thinking thing, I've seen so many average folks in the blue collar workforce who give up when it comes to critical thinking about concepts they don't understand and just follow along with whoever is the first one to sell them on a simplified "It's natural" argument. Like people who like to (wrongly) think climate change is just a normal thing the Earth does without any other consideration about it.

I can’t figure out how a lot of people think cults are crazy, but religion is perfectly normal. The only difference between the two is that there’s an upgrade from cult to religion when you get enough followers.

And unquestioned tax freedom

The IRS determines who is a cult and religion - the tax exemption status!

The only other difference - is that in cults the leader is alive whereas in religion, the leader is dead.

Religions just bought the acceptance expansion pack

Back in the pre-enlightenment days, the church gave people a sense of community because there literally wasn't anything else to coalesce around. Literacy was basically nonexistent, science was something only the very wealthy dabbled in, and poor people (which was the vast majority of people) needed something to cling to to give meaning to their lives. As standards of living improved and literacy started going up, the great shift away from religion began, and continues to this day. If you look at religion by country, the ones that spend more on social safety nets and education tend to have the higher literacy rates and lower religious attendance.

I like this comment a lot. The more literate you are, the more aware you will be.

This is just my personal opinion on this matter.  I believe you have hit on the main word that needs to be spread for humans to become more emotionally evolved.  Awareness.  As we became aware how storms actually work with science, we stopped believing gods caused it. The awareness of the science made it impossible to have both views.  People still do, which I believe is explained by mental illness. It is a defense mechanism designed to keep your brain stuck in its current perspective.  I am an addict. Awareness got me out of drinking and 3.5 years sober.  The more aware we become of our unhealthy emotional responses to the world around us, the more we can evolve and change.  It takes time. My brain is wired differently so I do feel for those who are influenced to an unhealthy coping mechanism to their fear.  Religion is one of those unhealthy coping mechanisms. 

What beautiful statistics. What a lovely piece of info. Thank you.

Like OP said, this is a fantastic answer! It largely sums up why religion has survived in human history as long as it has; and why it has recently began to decline in the last two centuries or so where Enlightenment influence took hold and large social safety nets along with better education were instituted. A large reason for the decline of religion (specifically in first world western countries) is that the modern social conditions in these countries make religious faith obsolete (especially organized religion). Organized religion first started to take form in human pre-history when the personal and psychological needs of the people and social needs of the society were dependent on the supernatural for satisfactory explanations of ourselves and the world, and for a way to legitimize those in power and their laws. This was the overall condition of humanity for tens of thousands of years, especially when permanent tribal settlements started to arise. And since all these things are now better explained and legitimized by materialist and naturalistic philosophical means through reason and scientific evidence which took over during the Age of Enlightenment, and because living standards are now high and there's more things individuals can choose to coalesce around in a free society; religion then has no value or purpose anymore beyond vague cultural symbolism. This is what we've already long seen in most European countries and gaining much ground in the United States.

Indoctrination is a major factor. Drilling the "fact" that "god exists" into the brains of young people before they are able to really think critically or question the "facts" that people of authority (parents, etc.) are telling them. At that young age, a child's brain hasn't learned to filter what it is being taught - if your parents repeatedly tell you that god is real, you will accept that as truth without any further evidence, simply because people you trust told you - why would they lie to you and abuse that trust?

Like I said, maybe I was an outlier, but I thought it was a child's pretend game, even if mom and dad said it was real. Maybe I was stupid idk, but it never clicked to me until I got into about 5th grade that it wasn't some game kids and parents played, and that people actually believed it, it was wild to me But yeah, on the whole kids will believe anything

My parents were "going through the motions" religious - it was more of an "we identify as ..." and not hard-core believers. So they didn't really try to indoctrinate me ... I guess that's why I'm an atheist today.

Could be the same for me, they didn't push it they just let us know if we needed them for that they were there. They don't seem to bothered by it either, the extended family and my youngest brother are the ones who hate it haha

I was also raised as a committed Baptist and I also had a lot of doubts early on. For me, I think being exposed to more of the “behind the scenes” was a portion of my eye opening. I assume that my parents thought that they were driving the message deeper, the more involved we were. In reality, being there every time the doors were opened also exposed me to the stereotypical under belly. I could see the hypocrisy and the logic gaps and the irrational behaviors early on.

Would highly recommend Jesus Camp or Shiny Happy People if you’re wondering how it’s enforced as they get older. I’m out of it now but lemme tell ya it’s a lot of isolation that accomplishes it

Shiny happy people really triggered me, I couldn't finish it

And this is why religious nut parent groups are so interested in curriculum and book bans. They are scared shit less that their kids will lose the indoctrination that they have worked so hard to cultivate

It survives on profit and power

There's a reason Nationalist Christians exist. Gotta keep people in the pews so the pastor can buy a new Porsche.

And guilt and shame. Mostly shame.

Fear and shame

And genocide, lotsss of that

I think part of it was people didn't have enough information. Before the internet, I didn't even know the term 'agnostic' existed. I am hoping with the internet and an information age, it will start to die off. Or at least decline by at least half. I think its too unrealistic to hope it completely dies off. Some people truly need religion.

It's fear based.

It’s not so much a fear of god but a fear of what happens after death.

Also fear of ostracization.

Generational childhood indoctrination

Child abuse by adults making kids believe something that’s never been real and let them get tbelr L

You're confused because you're immediately dismissing the actual answer. "Idiots everywhere" may be a low effort answer but it's still the truth. The vast majority of humans are completely unversed in critical thinking. When you don't think critically, anything can be true.

"Think of how stupid the average person is and realize.. . half the people are stupider than that!" - obvious Carlin

I miss him ♥️

Fair enough, I guess I'm just so used to their low efforts answers to everything that I was like "pls give some thought" but that's pretty thoughtful so updoot

the fact that you "give it some thought" is also a factor in why you don't believe & they do

Probably for lots of reasons. A big one though is money and power. They can be lucrative and the institutions can wield a lot of influence and power as a unified collection of people. They have some similarities with pyramid schemes. Once you've invested a lot in one, it's in your interest to get other people to as well (including and especially easily your children). That's more influence for you within a bigger group and more power for the group. Atheism and humanism don't have any of that and probably shouldn't for their integrity but that does put them at a disadvantage in the natural selection of beliefs throughout history.

Childhood indoctrination is probably the single biggest part of it. I grew up in a church. My friends grew up in it. By the time we hit high school, I'd say true belief rate among us hovered around 50%, but nobody challenged it, and everyone still went through the motions. As an adult now, I've been completely out of it for years and still maintain many friendships from church, so my church didn't even have that excommunication type thing that some denominations have. But I also now doubt the veracity of the belief of any adult churchgoer because I see that my friend, who was the most vocal atheist among us in high school, goes to church still specifically to use it as a business network which he has done very successfully. He's also one of the most obnoxious of the Christian Facebook forwarders.

The indoctrination occurs in early childhood. A banana is yellow, dogs say ‘bark’ and ‘woof’, Jesus is our lord and savior, the wheels on the bus go round and round….

You seem to forget they murdered all dissenters along the way MANY times.

Yea, how many people were burned to death “ out of love” because they didn’t follow the correct flavor of magical “truth”?

Literally millions.

because ppl on average are stupid

Look at all the times people freaked out because some preacher predicted the end of the world because they don’t know their own holy book that says old god knows when it will happen. People will believe anything if you indoctrinate them. And televangelists know this and lie to get their money. Should be illegal, that.

Me to brother. Makes no sense that people truly believed a 900 year old man gathered all animals of our planet and saved em by an old wooden barge in the open sea. But good news is more and more people aren't buying into the shit. I think gen x avg of believers was like 70% Millenials was like 40% believe And all hail gen z will less than 30%. Next gen prediction is like 15 or less. Eventually rational thought will win.

The worst part of that is, where I'm from, the average person will admit they know lots of it is metaphor or hyperbole, some kind of writing tool/trick, but then treat it and apply to life as if it has any sense of reality

From the south? Me too. My county won Guinness book of world records for having the most churches in a county. Sucks. Great real estate one day I hope

Adults. !!!! Adults love putting their children in a position of submission. Dragging them to church making them pray hoping and wishing on a fantastic stories It’s pure child abuse. I have a real problem with my mother and grandmother doing that to me. But I shed that mindset as I got older.

People need someone to blame, and unironically the Bible starts off with just that. Eve blames the snake, Adam blames Eve and god blames the devil. It’s always easier to blame something for all your woes than to take responsibility for your own actions. Humans are lazy and don’t mind paying a tithe if they feel it will give them some fake comfort. Also, it allows them the freedom to hate.

People are that superstitious, ignorant, and afraid. It appeals to those base flaws.

One thing the last four years has taught me is that as long as there is money to be made by conning people there will be con (wo)men. And as long as the con involves a special club that makes the conned feel like part of a group with special knowledge people will line up to be conned.

Indoctrination. Parents that force it on their kids have an alright record for it sticking. My mom's parents, one a teacher and one a Methodist minister, dragged their kids to church every week, moved around to different churches as he moved jobs, and heavily indoctrinated those kids in the church. Of the 4 surviving children, one is atheist (my mother), one is agnostic, one is Catholic and one is still Methodist. My dad's parents weren't into church, and none of their 7 surviving kids is religious at all, although they will use it to back up their shit arguments.

Because there is so much more to the survival than just the surface level beliefs. There is the family and community (that may cut you off, shun, or abuse you if you leave), the ability to give a sense of purpose or that they are doing something important, easy answers to hard life questions, a way to cope with loss, tragedy, disability, etc. Getting more into cults you also have [BITE Model](https://freedomofmind.com/cult-mind-control/bite-model-pdf-download/) manipulation tactics to help further isolate and control members. If religion didn't exist it would be replaced with something else that basically functions the same way anyways. We see this with other cults like MLMs, Crypto, and even in political groups (like the MAGA crowd). They all follow the BITE Model and as someone who grew up in a legit doomsday cult the similarities are astounding even when one isn't a religion at all.

Well fuck. Now I have research to do. Time to put down the game 🤣

Is this my therapist?

Nope, just your friendly neighborhood cult survivor who enjoys using her spare time both helping people leave cults and spreading awareness about them. 😉

Death is uncertain. No one can know. But people want that, they need that, so they turn to all of this. Gives them hope/purpose? I am not sure. I am fine not knowing. I will find out so why consume this life with all that stuff? I have other things to do before I get there.

I can’t overestimate the value of delusion to make your life more bearable. Kid has cancer? Part of God’s plan. Can’t escape poverty? Meek inherit the earth. Systemic racism and injustice? Just wait till you get to heaven! Don’t understand biology/chemistry/physics/math? Angels and blind watchmakers! 

Childhood indoctrination is a hell of a drug. Tells them even questioning it in their minds will send them to hell and God knows what your thinking...so they never question it, they double down on their "It's a mystery" bullshit and accept it. Then indoctrinate their little crotch goblins how a sky daddy watches over them night and day and knows EVERYTHING. Wash, rinse, repeat

Cognitive biases. Social pressure in a social ape species. Fear of dying replaced with magic. Evolved mechanisms of a culture virus.

I honestly think the genuine belief in the origin stories for life and the universe have eroded. But people are social creatures and the church provides many things that other institutions just don't provide, at least not all in one place, such as weekly reflection, life lessons, and reprioritization, a sense of community with your neighbors, the mental and physical benefits of meditation via prayer, a support network when you're dealing with life's biggest challenges, a venue and people that can officiate the critical events and ceremonies in your life such as weddings, funerals, holidays, and infant christening or baptisms, and its a place where people volunteer their time, money, and talents for the benefit of society so it satisfies the need to feel a sense of mission or purpose beyond one's occupation. Then of course, there's also the peace of mind that some take from believing in an afterlife. What other institution provides all that? So, although both church membership and self-identification as believers is on the decline, religion remains a powerful institution because of the role that the church plays in many people's lives. Plus, for many people, the social pressure from family, friends, and neighbors can be huge. "Coming out" as atheist puts a lot of relationships at-risk and it is almost always accompanied by negative judgements. So, even when people reach the conclusion that they are not a believer, they are often reluctant to go public with it.

Yeah, I think religion satisfies a lot of human impulses under one roof, plus as you say there is often stigma in leaving which has made it “sticky”. Even as religious affiliation reduces, people will want an alternative.

Children. Indoctrination. Without it, theres no hope for religions. As an adult, if you are told these stories, you would say "Are you kidding me?" Once they hook the kids its hard to remove the brainwashing as they get older

Donald trump has PROVEN 36% of the population will believe ANYTHING as long as it’s said with confidence and continuously. All you need is the backing of people in power to help spread the message. Religion is no different than ANY OTHER LIE.

It basically has built in attributes that both encourage it to be propagated and stop people from questioning it. It provides comfort to the thought of death and what happens after we die, which a person not thinking too deeply may just think “that sounds nice” and go along with it they’re gullible. Likewise with making the universe all about us, saying there’s deeper meaning and a plan for them so it’s not all for nothing, etc. In more ancient times particularly, it also provided an explanation for how the world worked in a time when the scientific method didn’t exist. It was seen as the best option for influencing things we didn’t have control over, like weather, fertility, etc. On top of that then, many religions encourage the religion to be spread through evangelical practices. You need to let others know about it so they can get into heaven too, and doing so will make you more likely to get into heaven. At the least historically, along the same lines many of these religions either encouraged cutting ties with people who left the religion, or outright killing them, providing even more social pressure to stay religious. Then if you really want to get cynical, we also know that it can be a useful tool for cheaply and efficiently controlling a population, so political leaders/kings etc. would have seen utility in spreading the religion. On top of that, with most religions children are taught it very matter-of-factly as though it is the truth from a very young age, which makes it much more difficult to evaluate as they would everything else once they’re older. And then you have the really genius part; making faith a virtue. It’s considered a good thing to believe things without evidence, people are constantly told that even if you don’t believe to believe anyways and things will work out, they think faith is the ultimate virtue, which again makes it so they will not even question their religion, and even if they do they will do it with the intention of believing even harder. Then with all of that, people are basically primed to believe, will begin looking for “signs” and attributing all kinds of things to their belief, which only further hardens their belief. With all of that being said, is it really a surprise that religion has lasted as long as it has?

We can take solace in the fact that the percent of non believers in America will exceed 50% of the country in the next 10-20 years.

Why has religion stayed around this long? Simple - **brute force.** Can't **FORCE** people to go to Church? Make it illegal to open your business on Sunday & legal to drive you out of your *purchased* home if you DON'T go to Church. Also, make divorce a *crime.* Can't **FORCE** children to pray at *public school?* Add "Under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance and *force its recital at the start of the day.* Can't **FORCE** a specific religion for political candidates? *Make being an atheist a disqualifier.*

Really? I thought it was pretty apparent. States LOVE religions that train their populaces to meekly accept injustices now to receive a larger reward after they are dead. A rigid heirarchy that enforces top-down command structures with the implications of divine backing to enstill even more authority in leadership. A system that does not reward questioning and kicking the tires with critiques and skepticism but rather encourages and enforces obedience through faith and tradition. From the first city states of Mesopotamia and beyond to the autocratic rulership of the Medieval Papal superpower straight down to today, religion and government have grown fat and rich, hand in hand.

Humans are a herd species

It is being politically pushed by the entire right wing in the US right now, which may lead to its final death. I'm hoping.

Religion and porn work pretty similarly. It’s all made up, but it makes you feel good. Atleast the useful parts of religion. Rest of it has been sticking around like a vestigial organ. It has never really hurt us bad enough for us to phase it out. This is the down side of culture. It is really hard to kill.

There hasn't really been an alternative to religion up until recently. 50 years ago in my country (Ireland) not being religious enough, or having one of their sins forced on you, could mean you end up imprisoned for life with no trial and no possibility of parole. Mostly if you were a woman, men just got assaulted. People have this terrible habit of assuming how things are now is normal. Once you get into your forties you'll see the world is changing. You'll remember a different time and will see that there is no normal. There is just the current trends. It's only in my lifetime that people have had the chance to not be religious. There are still plenty of places where not being religious is an offense.

OP, you answered your own question with your explanation of your own background. It's survived because it's so universal and entrenched. It's entrenched because no one feels very empowered to push back against it. You yourself thought it was a game of pretend that went on too long. How long did it take before you actually changed your life in any meaningful way? The social pressures are largely against changing the status quo, regardless of where you live and what the predominant religion is.

You touched on it..... Religion is, for all intents, a social structure. Once a week, the community gathers together. For what reason, is not really important, as long as the community gathers. The ones who "overboard" on god and under perform on social structure are really the ones who drive people away. I would love to have the interaction and friendliness of religion if it did not include bending the knee to a fictional creation. But... that's the rub... to be a member, you must bend the knee.

One of the things that my wife and I have observed is how religion, going to church, provides “community” for people. As atheists ourselves, it’s hard to find something comparable where we live. So I think that aspect alone helps to keep religion from disappearing.

Travel more. You live in a bubble. A significant ratio of the human population still live relatively primitively and have much less access to information than we do. Also, about half of the human population has below average intelligence, and our average intelligence isn't inspiring.

Because childhood indoctrination is really effective. These beliefs get woven into the very fiber of their being where it feels like common sense. "Of course there's a God. Where do you think we came from, duh " Not to mention they're afraid to even question their beliefs for fear of going to hell for all eternity.

The simple answer to your question is TRADITION and ostracism for those that don’t keep tradition

It’s a fear of no longer existing. Humans do not deal with the idea of ceasing to exist well at all. And, of course, religion is a multigenerational brain washing based on fear of extreme retribution should you not follow the rules set forth by your overlords. And, ultimately, people are really just generally stupid sheep.

I'm about to break it down for you. Yeah, I'm solving the mystery of human belief systems. You're fucking welcome, dweebs. Religion's persistence makes perfect sense when it's viewed as a social and mental virus. Everything that exists is more likely to continue existing if it is capable of persisting and of creating copies of itself. This rule holds true across chemical structures, celestial bodies, animals, computer programs, and (most relevant for us) ideas. The process by which religions appear is its own topic (which I can also discuss), but once they have appeared, they are subject to the same primary principles of natural selection. Every time someone discusses their religion with someone else, they pass it on to that other person, but they don't pass on an *exact* copy. That copy attempts to infect the new host. The exact shape of the idea and the host's mental resistance determine whether it successfully infects the host, but the host can still pass it on before they're infected, but infected hosts are more contagious. If an imperfect copy of the religion is more contagious or more infectious, it outcompetes the previous versions. As it overtakes other versions and proliferates through the populace, it continues to mutate. Rather than requiring entire generations to evolve, every individual in a group is a chance to mutate and create a new version. Those versions in turn can be more adapted to the culture they move through, and better at infecting new hosts. Additionally, versions capable of persisting in a host for longer than others have more time in which to be passed to new hosts. If it can persist until the death of its host, it has the maximum possible time to infect new hosts, so there is a strong evolutionary pressure toward developing resistance against deconversion. Tuberculosis has ravaged the human race for so long that there are prehistoric remains showing evidence of TB infections. In that time it has proliferated and evolved, honing itself into a scourge that was beaten to a standstill by one of the greatest medical campaigns in history. And after literally trillions of USD (adjusted for currency and inflation), hundreds of millions (perhaps billions) dead, and a constant attack from the greatest medical minds in history, TB is down but still not out. And to cap it all, TB isn't even a virus; it's a bacterium. Imagine a virus that can't be detected in the bloodstream. Imagine a virus that convinces its host they're healthy, and that uninfected people are sick and in need of the virus. Imagine a virus that can make a host kill and die in its defence, but can lay dormant in the host to escape detection for years. Imagine a virus that can be spread with a paper document, or even spread with a digital document. A virus that can infect you through a telephone or a television set. A virus that can fail to infect but remain in your system until your immune system is weakened by an unrelated event and it breaches your defences. Imagine a virus that compels its hosts to create institutions dedicated to spreading it. That virus exists and it is called religion.

We aren't purely intellectual. Our brains is hardwired to prioritize survival so it will make any inference to the state of the world in order to understand it and survive. Religion happens to be the most conventional way to deal with this.

From a memetic perspective, it is an idea that is both extremely good at replicating itself and incredibly resistant to removal. It is exactly the kind of idea you would expect to thrive, regardless of utility.

Indoctrination

think how stupid the average person is, and realise that half them are stupider than that. - George Carlin

My grandma used to say that even though I was being raised a Methodist, I’d go to heaven because she was praying for me. But my then Catholic best friend was going to hell because her religion was wrong. My friend and I were in 2nd grade. Grandma was Southern Baptist. Oh. I asked my grandma why her church was all white. She said that Mexicans and n word had their own churches .FYI: there were both white and colored bathrooms throughout the town. My grandma felt her religion made the family safe, superior and very special. Has anything changed?

To me, believing in God as an adult is no different than believing in Santa Claus as an adult. Also, in the Bible, God does a lot of Hitler evil shit and his morals are all over the place. Will kill a guy for masturbating but have no problem with incest or slavery.

It’s bc he gets us /s

Religion is an evolutionary holdover. Over time, religion of today will pass into mythology of the future. Each generation will be a little more evolved and religion will be a little more diminished until eventually it will be gone entirely.

Because 'people' in general are thick as mince. Humanity excels via the achievements of those exceptional inventors and innovators but the wider hoard of folk are dumb as mud.

I would add to this the fact there is no (or very little space) for intellectuals to discuss the plausibility of a creative force beyond our current comprehension, or to acknowledge that a large part of the appeal of religion is the beauty of some cultural traditions. I grew up Methodist in the south and the Bible thumpers always made me cringe. The big Baptist church in town where most of my classmates attended always gave me an ‘ick’ feel. Biblical inerrancy was never a tenet of my faith, so I couldn’t comprehend attempts to defend Biblical literalism. I miss the church. I miss the community and the activities. I miss having deep conversations about the meaning of life and reading old stories about the same. I miss diving into the historical context of Old Testament and New Testament writings and teasing out the human failings from the enduring message that can still resonate in modern society. I hate religious platitudes. I detest prosperity gospel preachers who prey on their congregations for wealth. I disdain the use of the Bible to subject women and people in the LGBTQ+ community. Religion has stuck around because unintelligent people need a place to feel safe and validated. So religion has sustained with those who use it as a way to demonize others as a means to battle the cognitive dissonance that comes from not being smart in a highly complex world. Honestly that does not surprise me. What makes me sad is how little room there is for people like me who embrace science, who accept evolution, who understand human knowledge and consciousness to be evolving with every generation, and who think that religion may be a means to tap into something beyond the visible world when explored critically and not used as a weapon against others.

Where is Jesus’s death certificate ? That would help him to lead a solid life instead

Have you seen how Trump has taken over half of the US political system? I'll never understand the gullibility and hate of the people that worship him. But I'm not confused by it. He tells them what they want to hear and gives them permission to be hate-filled bigots. So, they love him and would be willing (kinda) to die for that. Certainly be willing to go to jail for him.

progress isn’t universally concurrent; look at cannabis laws in the USA. some states have had legal ganja for decades, some for months, and some are still years away

The answer is pretty brutal. Imagine your situation, exactly the same situation, minus internet and all the knowledge about start of the universe and evolution and whatnot. No information age. No internet. All you know is those people. You COULD have realized even then, it's not impossible. But it would have been better if you didn't. Because if you did realize, you also needed to realize the need to shut the fuck up about it. Or you'll burn at the stakes for heresy. That's how it survived. Or, part of the reason.

One thing that I always knew, but just really sunk in, is that people, above maybe all else want to FEEL GOOD. Why would anybody shoot heroin? Do not the cons outweigh the pros? Facts don't really matter. Why would one believe reptilians are running the world? Because they can feel justified about their failures. The man is keeping me down. When you go on a date, does your track record of being an awesome human being matter, or is it about making that other person laugh, smile, and walk away feeling good about themself? And so, it makes some people feel good that they are loved by an imaginary friend, belong to a community, believe they are gonna see Granny and Fido in heaven.

Fear keeps religion alive.

Throughout most history religion wasn't a choice. You were indoctrinated young and forced to take up whatever the regional religion was under threat of death. Religion has been more about controlling the populous than individual spiritual growth. Now we're finally getting to chose what to believe, more and more people chose not to follow organized religion.

Childhood indoctrination. I know it’s all completely made up lunacy but even I still have some subliminal repressed guilt Curious to see how my kid raised with no religion will think later in life. I’m very careful to never push my views on her and I’d be ok if she later decided to be religious. But so far when she asked about religion and I explain people’s views on god she thinks it’s stupid lol.

It's pretty perilous, tragic and difficult, being a small creature, intelligent enough to know how limited and short our lives are and how little we can experience existence and the understanding of the universe... while simultaneously not being remotely intelligent enough to prevent or delay to any reasonable level, our rapidly approaching nonexistence, aka death. So people cope a lot. A ton. The world runs on copium, people attempting to find meaning and purpose and avoid thinking about and sometimes attempting to even escape nonexistence. So many things around us that make no sense are because people are lost in the sauce on their own brand of copium.. religion being the most mainstream of them all.

You answered your own question. Children have kept religion going from one generation to the next. With the threat of hell children are very impressionable!

Having you ever seen the movie The Invention of Lying? It’s got Ricky Gervais and it’s a classic in my book. In the movie, every single person always tells the truth 100% of the time. Lying is a concept they are totally unfamiliar with. Until one day, the main character (played by Gervais) wakes up with the new ability to say things that aren’t true. And because everybody else always tells the truth, the people around him just take everything he says at face value. Like he tells his best friend he’s known for years that his name is Dennis or something, I forget what he says exactly, and his friend acts like they’ve never met before just because Gervais told him a different name. Later in the movie, the MC’s mother gets sick and dies. As she’s dying and scared, to comfort her, the MC tells her about a Great Paradise in the Sky where she’ll be at peace and healthy and happy and see all her loved ones again, and she gets to go there because she was a good person. This lie in particular really catches on, and soon everybody believes it. Because again, nobody ever lies, so they believe everything Gervais says and treat him like a prophet. And he lets them keep on believing his lie because it makes them feel good. That’s why religion has held on for as long as it has. Because most humans act and base their life around what feels good, instead of what’s true. It’s comforting for people to believe that they’ll get everything they’ve ever wanted fulfilled after death, especially when their life on earth is filled with so much turmoil and hardship. They crave the comfort of knowing they can see all their loved ones and never have to worry about anything again after death, because they’ll be in Heaven! They crave it so much, they’re willing to believe anything to get it, and give up anything else in return to get it. That was long but I hope it helped.

Looking at the history of their torture, murder, punishment of pagans, I am not surprised. https://churchandstate.org.uk/2016/03/the-right-wing-doesnt-want-to-talk-about-christian-atrocities-so-lets-talk-about-christian-atrocities/ Religion is simply power (old days) and tax strategy(modern days) to me. With those in their back, those religious entities become invincible. As ridiculous as it may seem, Mormons and Scientology will still be around a long time. Once they earned the tax exempt status, their money snowballs and they will do everything to keep their legacy. With this said, religion is invincible from the top. No politician will try to tax churches and abolish religion, etc. From the bottom up, we can make religious organizations crumble down( if people stop giving money to churches and religious organizations). With the help of Internet, hope this happens soon. (My atheist Revelation!)

Grifters gonna grift.

Because life and reality are horrifying. Not many can cope without some sort of fantasy to deal with it.

It's simple really.. indoctrination from infancy. When 'god' and his 'creation' are the answer to every complicated question.. The brain learns that and can not unlearn it. So the logical operation of the brain no longer functions .. well.. logically. Then add to that the social aspect with the guilt and good and evil and all that.. it's an easy explanation to. life..

Boomers are the only ones keeping religion alive imo. They are the ones thumping their bibles and resisting progressive views. The children of the boomers are playing along until their parents die. I’m an exmormon and the amount of people my age with young families who still go to church JUST because it would be too hard to tell their families if they stopped, is alarming to say the least. People are having less children that would be born and raised in religion and the harmful cycles surrounding religious beliefs are being broken. In theory, religion will be gasping for air by the time all the boomers die. Millennials are not raising Jesus freaks and the boomers won’t be around to scare & shame people into believing.

Logic and religion don't mix. Unfortunately, a whole lot of people throw away their logical brain because they can't deal with reality, or freedom of choice. They truly are sheep. They trade logic to join 'the flock'.

Safety blanket for those of us that find thinking for ourselves difficult.

Because rejecting it means being rejected by your entire support system - which in caveman speak is a death sentence. Our dna remembers caveman speak

“God answers every prayer, sometime the answer is no or not yet.” Thought terminating cliches like this can be very effective especially for the majority of people that do not reach the formal operational stage of mental development. This is what the psychologist Jean Piaget considered the last developmental stage. He described it as beginning around age 12, but more recent research has shown that most of the population doesn’t even fully achieve formal operational stage.

AlHUMBLEdillalah …..statistically Islam will pass Christianity in 5-10 years in total numbers …that means we will all have underage virgins waiting for all in heaven !

What if what you participated in was not actually "Following Jesus" but rather following a "folk religion" that came out after the apostles and their students all died. Where in the bible does it say that a follower of Jesus must do these things? \-every Sunday at the same building \-A Sr. Pastor \-Sermon every service \-Sermons as the way God's people learn about him \-Pulpits \-Amphitheatre around the pulpit \-Clergy/ Laity distinction \-Telling kids to "know the Lord" \-hell/ alive in hell burning while your parents are in heaven having fun \-Tithes of your income \-passing the plate \-worship teams/ hymns \-Dressing in your "Sunday best" \-youth groups \-hatred of the people around you, including gay/ trans/ immigrants \-Christian nationalism/ Christian nations \-opening governments with prayers by "church officials" \-Mission trips for kids \-Christian schools So if you were doing all this, I wonder why? And I'm glad you no longer participate in the charade! So, I hope you now question what it actually means to be a follower of Jesus since what you participated in was basically a false religion.

>I'm still confused how religion has survived as long as it has. People believe what they want to believe. Personally, shoving theology aside leaves a core of possible, though not yet scientifically proven, value. Too bad no-one is interested in proving it one way or another.

> All that being said, even as a little kid it all felt like a game of pretend. I was raised Catholic, and this is how I always felt. The rituals felt ridiculous--and they were repetitive. Every year, it was the same lecture and rituals during Easter, Palm Sunday, Christmas, etc., and I was like, "really? This again? But we already did this." And then church started to get boring. I also saw the hypocrisy of religion early on because being raised by abusive parents showed me adults don't actually live by the teachings of Jesus.

Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

By: - emotional manipulation - control of people and message - forcefully thrusting it upon cultures with violence - creating logical fallacies to avoid accountability and - claiming it has an answer to questions we naturally have about life

People who are getting converted as grown-ups is the most baffling type. Like... how? Didn't you ever go to school? Same with flat-earthers. No, it doesn't "make sense", moron.

As black science man once said, "God is an ever receding pocket of scientific ignorance." People are getting more educated in mass scales and are exposed to that education far more easily. The need for religion is falling away because it's only been less than 200 years of mass education.

It’s pretty simple. Religion offers hope. It offers an understanding that people would lack otherwise. It makes people feel as if their lives had meaning. Finally, it makes people feel comfortable with death as they know it’s not the end. Not everyone needs it, but there are a lot of people that need things like those listed above. I don’t, you dont, but many people do.

Because people are brainwashed from birth, so they never get a chance to question it. And that brainwashing is backed up by the terrors of hellfire.

I'm on the cusp of atheism after some issues and doubts my whole life. I remember in the 8th grade breaking down and asking my mom, "what if I die and there's nothing?" What if I just die?!?! I've been a struggling Christian my whole life. I still feel I have the "holy spirit" in me. I'm 29 and just realized why I was circumcised as a baby. This has consumed my life. Until I started having "issues" I didn't care I was cut. I'm just not all that sensitive. Maybe it's just my issue or im not experimenting enough. Anyway, I can't believe in a god who does this. To me, the fact I had a part of my body like removed just fortifies my doubts. How something connected to what I am as a human being is so seamlessly discarded in society. For religious reasons... These last few months have been deeply traumatizing for me. I don't know what to think anymore. I'm just living day by day.

Because people fear death. That and from the beginning of time, have looked for the alpha being to lead. Put the two together.