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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   27147 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 20, 2023

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then a religion which lays the groundwork for its own collapse is probably not close to an optimal religion.

This would be a far stronger argument if a different religion would take its place, rather than atheism.

My theory for the demise of religion in the west is that we've succeeded too well at reigning in chaos and spreading knowledge for religion to be seen as valuable by most people. For a substantial part, that is because we have become so good at producing a good society to live in. If this is the goal of Christianity, then it made itself obsolete.

Muslim population of England and Wales 2001: 1.6m 2011: 2.7m 2021: 3.9m

Christian population of England and Wales 2001: 47.3m 2011: 33.2m 2021: 27.5m

Somewhat tongue in cheek, so 2 caveats:

  1. 'No religion' has seen a larger rise (although as above, 'no religion' if replaced by the secular, humanist, liberal Western milieu which seems to be commonplace can be seen as a religion in and of itself).
  2. Large chunks of the Muslim population growth are either new arrivals or 2nd, 3rd gen migrants. It'd have been interesting to see if Islamic adherence over time could have continued if there'd been strong pressure to convert/the legal status of the CoE had been maintained.

I imagine that the replacement of Christianity with a weak 'Western Humanist' religion is not a long term equilibrium. Something else will fill the gap- what that is remains to be seen.

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