Losing Faith

RELIGION IS DYING. It is dying rapidly in North America and Europe, and although there are still over four thousands religions in the world, and notwithstanding the fact that Christian missionaries have for decades expanded their faith throughout Latin American and Africa, religion is dying. the numbers prove it. In the last decade the percentage of American and Europeans who self identify as "Christian" has plummeted by a whopping ten percent, down to sixty five percent in the United States and even less in Europe, which has become essentially a secular civilization. The trend is being spearheaded by the millennial generation, which according to surveys only one half of which embraces religion. The reason is obvious: we live increasingly in a age of science. That science, rather than religion, is the basis of understanding the universe is manifestly obvious in in era in which telescopes penetrate to the edge of the universe, and chemistry, physics, and the biological sciences reveal the organic world down to the level of the subatomic particle. Confronted with the facts of science, the fables and myths or traditional religion seem not only blatantly false, but ridiculous, impossible to believe with any degree of seriousness. And, like a wounded and dying predator, religion is lashing out in anger. Right wing religious zealots concoct a never ending spew of conspiracy theories intended to place the blame for the demise on religion everywhere but where it properly belongs, blaming liberals, the media, Hollywood elites, the usual suspects, rather than the real culprit; education. people are smarter and better educated than ever. This seems hard to believe listening to Americans as they butcher the language, and display stunning ignorance on such matters as the identity of the vice president, basic math and science, and current events. Intellectually lazy as most Americans are, even the lazy uninformed are les uninformed than in previous generations. Most devout Christians still refuse to accept the scientific reality of evolution and a fourteen billion year old universe, preferring to languish in their creationism and other false notions. but even that is slowly changing, as the forces of education relentlessly, inexorably encroach upon society. Religion, which for thousand of years has kept the human mind mired in darkness even as it offers comfort and inspiration to those who have no interest in asking questions, is being pushed out of circulation by a better paradigm: reality.