Despite predictions otherwise, religion is here to stay

Recently at the American Physical Society meeting in Dallas, several scientists presented a mathematical model which predicts the extinction of religion in 9 western industrialized nations.

The nations included in the study were Australia, Austria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Switzerland. The data was collected from their respected censuses.

When this story was published on BBC with the words “religion” and “extinct” in the headline, naturally it caught my attention.

I attempted to localize this story to pubish it in the Reveille, however the United States Census data on religious affiliation was insufficient.

However, I still managed to talk with students, including those who are atheists, agnostics, humanists or religious.

Alex Misthos, current president of the Atheists, Humanists and Agnostics Club at LSU, corresponded with me via e-mail.

“I think these findings are absolutely correct, organized religion will eventually become nearly extinct in western society,” Misthos said.

I was skeptical. While religion may be declining in several western industrialized nations, I believe it is booming in many non-western and semi-industrialized nations around the world.

For example, the whole Middle East.

This requires little explanation. Islam is much more ingrained into the fabric of every day Middle Eastern society than any religion in the west. In fact, Islam is so popular that certain sects of Islam persecute other sects in countries such as Iran and Bahrain.

While the study may show that people are moving away from organized religion, I don’t believe those same people are moving away from religion in general. A religion is made up of believers who share a common faith, it doesn’t have to be organized with a church, offering, communion, etc.

People like to believe in something bigger than themselves, whether that be God, Allah, nature or science. It is a basic human instinct. It gives us comfort to know that while us as individuals may be less than significant, as groups we are important.

Christians believe in God, while atheists believe in the lack of God, but both are belief systems. People like to believe. We want to believe. I would even go as far to say that every single one of us inherently needs to believe in something.

We have to believe in something other, rather something bigger than ourselves. All too often we fall short of our personal goals, it is during these times that we fall back on our beliefs. Whether our thought process is, “at least when I die I’ll go to heaven,” or “at least when I die nothing happens,” we find comfort.

While organized religions always run the risk of failing or losing believers, they have the ability to adapt and change. While they may be reluctant to tweak their core values, religions have been known to adapt to the times. They cater to the crowd because they need the crowd.

Personally, I don’t think organized religion is going anywhere. There are millions upon millions of Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindu, Buddhists, Atheists, Agnostics, Humanists and many others. These people believe in something higher than themselves, some much stronger than others. Regardless of how much or little an individual believes, regardless of who or what they believe in, we are all reluctant to let go of those beliefs.

While organized religion may lose a few followers here and there, belief in something higher than ourselves is here to stay.

PARKER CRAMER

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Contact Parker Cramer at pcramer@lsureveille.com