So many people are gullible, it makes me weep. All the people who respond to the spams that I discard without thinking, all the people who fall prey to the "technical support" scam phone calls, and everyone else who believes stuff without any evidence that it's true. Gullibility. This is also known as "faith".
Many people think that faith is good! You hear things like "My faith is wavering, so I'm praying for it to be stronger". But faith, which is really another word for "gullibility" is not a good idea. It leads you into believing things that just aren't true, and can lead to loss of time, money, dignity and reputation.
America, historically, has been one of the worst places for faith. America is where about half of adults believe that the earth is less than 10,000 years old. But the good news is, this is changing.
Among people born after 1980 (called "millenials") 35% are atheist or agnostic. An agnostic, of course, is just a pedantic atheist, as in "I can't be certain that there's no Tooth Fairy, so I have to say that I Don't Know". Thirty five percent! That's huge, and growing, because if you look at the age group born before 1945, the figure is 11%.
But it's even better. If committed religionists can't (or won't) indoctrinate their children into faith, it's obvious that atheists won't. Two thirds of millenials raised without faith, stay that way, according to the survey. So the children of atheist millenials will be atheist, plus there will be more people leaving the faith of their parents.
A broad reduction in gullibility must be good; an increase in the number of people who demand evidence is good, and a decline in the number of people who are anti-science is excellent.
Sure, there will still be people who cling to the faith that they learned as children, and I have no problem with that, although obviously I'd be willing to help them out.
But the churches are emptying.
No comments:
Post a Comment