Interesting debate really. I thought I'd bring over some of the responses from the previous thread to save us hashing them out again (must be noted this was more an argument that there were more than census information suggested rather than truly more than christianity):
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In attack:
luns101 wrote:OK then, what source are you quoting from that proves there are billions of atheists around the world? Since everyone always wants me to document my beliefs I should be able to ask the same of you. The last estimate I saw said there were roughly 6.5 billion people on the earth total and I would think the majority of them are either Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish (Judaism), or another major religion.
CrazyAnglican wrote:Okay I'd like to chime in here. Where are all of these billions of silent atheists? The University of New York did a random sampling survey (a pretty valid test considering the subject matter) of 50,000 people. Their findings were that 76.5 % of Americans were Christians. It also stated that while 14.5 % considered themselves "Not religious" only 0.4% identified themselves as atheist.
http://www.gc.cuny.edu/faculty/research ... ndings.htmI understand the U.S. is not the world. There have been some ABC News peices done on the explosion of Christianity in Africa. The third biggest single church in the world is in Nigeria now and brings in 50,000 members a month, according to that news source.
Also the Anglican CHurch is growing in Southern and Eastern Asia. Korean Baptist churches are not that uncommon a sight around my hometown either. I just don't see atheists as the silent majority.
drose wrote:There are NOT billions of atheists in the world, and anyone who tells others they are xian is not an athiest IMHO.
However, there are more Athists than jews, according to one source:
http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.htmlwhich surprises most people.
It's unreasopnable to assume that non chruchgoers are atheists, that's not allowed any more than assuming that all students at religious schools are xian.
I agree that you should remember that america isnt the entire world, but the real point is that there are bugger all jews and hindus, and that most xians are anglican or catholic and are a direct result of colonial conquest (see Australia, South America, phillipines, east timor etc).
That doesn't detract from the numbers, but when you or your family is sick or starving and men with guns direct you to food, medicine and xinaity, there is a human instinct to go with the flow...
This carries on to other generations. IOW, religion is first and foremost a cultural thing. (duh.)
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Then some responses:Stopper wrote:Well, it very much depends on who you define as being a Christian. A great many people will define themselves as Christian simply because they were baptised as Christian.
They then have absolutely nothing to do with Christianity for the rest of their lives, except the odd funeral and wedding. This behaviour seems to be common throughout Europe, East Asia and a great deal of the USA. Personally, I'd say that that kind of behaviour would be tantamount to a kind of atheism, regardless of what the person themselves professed themselves to be.
Because if a person does nothing to demonstrate any kind of belief in Christianity, then what meaning can that belief have? Of course, Islam has some answers to that, but luckily, not many people on this forum are Muslim.
Stopper wrote:I've long held that the majority of the world's population can safely be regarded as atheist, just by their behaviour. It matters bugger-all if a person writes down on a census form that they are "Christian", if they then ignore absolutely all the precepts of Christianity in the rest of their lives, which is what the overwhelming majority of these so-called "Christians" do.
If you extend the definition of a "Christian" to absolutely anyone who professes to be one, then the description itself loses all meaning.
I could call myself a "Jedi Knight", but given that I don't even know what a "Jedi" is, I think most people would quickly disregard that definition of myself. There's no reason why you can't do the same with "Christians", "Muslims" and "Jews".
Incidentally, I think much the same thing when it comes to the "socialists", "anarchists" and "patriots" etc etc, that I come across all the time.
Guiscard wrote:Just what I was about to say really. If you look at collectable and verifiable census information, sure Atheism doesn't rank in the billions worldwide (although the figure differs wildly). The actions and beliefs of those who claim to be religious on a census form often, however, entirely contradict the box they ticked. My mother ticks the 'Church of England' box because she was christened, went to a C of E school and was married in a church. Her family are Christian. She, however, doesn't believe in God whatsoever. People often see religion as a cultural thing. Traditional Roman Catholic families may very well contain generations of Atheists but they'll tick the Catholic box because that's there family culture. Although there is no accurate way of gauging that percentage, there are plenty of cases which indicate this trend. Whilst I was simply googling for figures I quickly came across this article here which describes a conservative scholar who recently 'came out' as an theist. She says that 'I was unaware of the depth of commitment to the idea that religion is the source of values and that conservatism and religion are inseparably linked.' because religious belief is so ingrained into certain societies people will claim to be Christian no matter what their actual beliefs (or lack of). Do you seriously think countries like Saudi who claim 96-98% Muslim do not contain a significant number of atheists? Religion is a cultural label people will give themselves even if they are very much atheistic.
Stopper wrote:I agree with this - BTW, I'm not saying that labelling societies or communities as "Christian" and "Muslim" isn't a useful thing to do sometimes from a cultural point of view. Regardless of my own personal beliefs, I dare say it's useful sometimes to describe me as "Christian" or even "Catholic", because I'm bound to have many values and customs which I will have picked up from Christianity/Catholicism, even when I'm not aware of it. These will sometimes set me apart from Muslims/Protestants/whoever - although I can't think of any good examples off-hand - so the distinction is not entirely useless.
But my original point was addressing someone who talked about the personal beliefs of people in the world, and that, as I see it, is a separate matter from culture. Actually, we could go on about this 'til the cows come home, because the question of whether someone is genuinely Christian is a more complicated one than it might appear at first sight - and that's even long before you get into denominational differences.
Still, I say the majority of the world can be best described as "atheist". Most pursuits in life are minority pursuits, and religion isn't any different.
Posted: Sun Apr 08, 2007 4:43 pm
I'll begin, you begin. I'll rebut, you rebut. One thing that I forgot to mention in the parley thread : rebuttals are only for refuting what the other guy said, not for introducing new ideas. Essentially make all of your points in the first post.
Umm guys. You do realize that this isn't the debate thread.......right? This debate actually begins between Juggernaut and me......tomorrow.