Religious Commitment: Decline of Religions
This topic is one that strikes a hard cord with me. I myself am a Muslim, and I have been a Muslim all my life. And yet when I hear people speaking about topics such as religious decline, I am always perplexed by the different responses. I am not sure what the latest polls and charts say on this, but the popular buzz is that certain religions, like Christianity for example, are experiencing a gradually increasing decline in the amount of followers and many cities have seen a large amount of churches closed. Another popular statement is that there are other religions like Islam that have been growing in popularity and have had large influxes of people converting. I query that I have is as follows, what are your thoughts on these statements?
As a Muslim, I can say that as for the second statement, I have not seen such an influx in my community or even any of the surrounding Muslim communities that I am familiar with. In fact, I have observed something to the contrary. It is something that I am sad to see, however many of the youth in our communities are choosing to shrug off both the religion and the cultures in which they have been brought up in. This is a constant trend that many of us have seen. My second query is this, is this something that many of you have noticed in today's culture? Is this a trend that is commonplace throughout religious communities and is this a mind set that is growing in stature?
As a Muslim, I can say that as for the second statement, I have not seen such an influx in my community or even any of the surrounding Muslim communities that I am familiar with. In fact, I have observed something to the contrary. It is something that I am sad to see, however many of the youth in our communities are choosing to shrug off both the religion and the cultures in which they have been brought up in. This is a constant trend that many of us have seen. My second query is this, is this something that many of you have noticed in today's culture? Is this a trend that is commonplace throughout religious communities and is this a mind set that is growing in stature?
Comments (15)
I've heard but i don't know how true this is that Muslims tend to have more children and are growing due to population growth. I would argue Christianity is decreasing due to problems within the church. I could elaborate if you like.
I would guess some kind of similar pattern prevails for Islam.
It is waaaay too early to announce the death of religion. 6 billion out of 7 billion people participate in some kind of religious activity/organization. 1 billion, at least, do not.
I am of a mixed mind as to whether or not we would be better off with a good deal less religion. If strong, positive, secular and civil values replaced religion, that would be fine. If religion is going to be replaced by fascism, or blind faith, or aggressive dehumanizing conversions, then no.
thats a really good answer. I usually don't see answers like that on this forum.
It's difficult to address this without specific and reliable statistics. I think that often when people say that a religion is growing and another religion is dwindling, they may be referring to a global scale as opposed to a specific region, community or culture. Religious popularity could change significantly on a global scale based on fluctuations in a heavily populated region, and if a person lives in some other region, they wouldn't notice. A reasonable outlook on statistics requires diligence and objectivity, and I hear them often thrown around unchecked, or with some spin on them, in attempts to win debates or influence public opinion.
Assuming you're right about the decline of Christianity and rise of Islam, I could venture a few theories:
In the west (predominantly Christian) culture is moving much more toward individualism and relativism. Both of those things are somewhat antithetical to the whole point of religion. So you get a whole lot of people who are "spiritual but not religious" cause they want all the coziness of a creator without the hassle of being told what to do or what is right and wrong.
Islam and Muslims, on the other hand, are literally and figuratively under attack world wide. That kind of adversity tends to unite people and they tend to cling to the aspect of their identities that is under attack so much more. Thus, people even tangentially related to Islam are drawn into it as an act of solidarity.
Islam is under attack world wide? By who, other than themselves? Everyone is under attack by somebody, presumably you are saying Islam is under attack “worldwide” more than all other religions?
I'm not going to derail the conversation by getting into whether they are or not.
For the sake of my argument it suffices to say that they think they are. ( I happen to agree, but that's besides the point.)
One could just as well argue that allowing oneself to be told what to do is the cowardly option, because it avoids having to take moral responsibility for one's own decisions. On that analysis, the SBNRs are the courageous ones, taking the hard road.
I don't think either extreme is correct.
I also have a cynical view towards organized religion, so it's not like I'm favoring one over the other.
Not that it’s easy to separate religious & secular values from any culture, but what values are currently missing from contemporary secular and civil life?
If I’m not mistaken, you’re not religious. If that is the case, do you by chance tend to have blind faith in things? Are you a fascist? Inhuman?
Religion may help bind groups with common values but it does not somehow create these values from nothing.
I don’t think it’s cynical. If a spiritual practice doesn’t offer some sort of “coziness” then what good is it. And is it good to be told what’s right or wrong by some rando religious idiot? No.
Young people get nothing useful from attending traditional church services that they cannot get outside of church. They learn this distinction very clearly as teens. There is no sense of community for them, no deeper understanding of their faith and no sharing of subjective experience to which they can relate in weekly masses at your average church. Why would they bother?
Young people are not really after a coziness from religion, and if they are they won’t find it anymore without suspending rational and independent thought. They’re after relevant answers that they can verify in their own experiences. Church attendance doesn’t offer that anymore - we’re no longer taken in by a sense of reverence for an unquestionable authority.
In my experience, there is a large percentage of the population who are non-practising religious or SBNR - not because they’re after coziness without rules, but because they’re after answers without sacrificing critical thinking. As long as religion fails to offer this in their practices, they will continue to lose people between school age and parenthood. And as long as they measure their faithful by either church attendance or census questions, then the numbers simply won’t add up because these two measures are worlds apart.