Why are there 5.8 billion people who believe in a god and only 16 % of the world's population is atheist?
Part of me refuses the question, but that's probably not fair; some measure of wondering what you expect is real.
How could some people genuinely know if there is an unknowable God? By what gnostic standard does one "know" God?
To wit, are you sure you're treating the word "gnostic" correctly?
Honestly, I think your inquiry reads more like a setup dependent on projection. It's
clumsy, that's the thing:
I can see a minority being wrong, but a majority?
I mean, come on, what world do you live in? What part of history makes the idea of a majority being wrong somehow extraordinary?
It is not scientifically or objectively appropriate to ignore history in order to inquire anew, and in that sense I still don't quite get how "religion" can be so important that evangelical atheists can carry on for years without learning a thing along the way.
You've been here for over ten years; some people have been here twenty. Just imagine the possibility that for all their years of concern about theists and religion some of our atheists somehow have managed to not learn a damn thing along the way. It seems like it ought to be impossible.
To wit, just for instance, why would you
presume a higher number of atheists? What about history suggests that presumption is anything other than arbitrary?
Or, maybe I can find an old note on Pagels,
The Gnostic Gospels, from
2010↗, and the discussion was no different back then, unless the current iteration is regressive. In the time since, Armstrong, in
Fields of Blood, addressed the easy casual talk about religion and wars and atrocities. Inasmuch as current understandings of religious thought, belief, and behavior make such casual, speculative criticism of religion more difficult, sure, I can imagine why the evangelical bloc of atheism might pretend or actually be unaware.
I recently
had occasion↗ to recall an old formulation about "the point where their unsupported beliefs start having detrimental impacts on other people", and in our moment the point reminds that it is not merely for cruelty and satisfaction that one criticizes religion. That is, your atheism isn't just another random bigotry; it's not just some excuse you think you have licensing cruelty toward others. I mean, right?
So, no, it's not so much that anyone needs to rush out and read this or that as much as simply observing that whatever people's interest in the subject is, what this thread expresses is a measure of cruelty seeking satisfaction. If, for instance, a discussion of traffic at Sciforums includes the point of
wondering↗ what about any given topic of interest actually interests someone, and an
answer↗ suggests, "something contentious", we find in this thread an example of contention driven by speculative inquiry without foundation.
And if, in the moment, some of your critics suddenly aren't fretting about that, it is because they
share↑ this manner of satisfaction, and accept this iteration for the sake of that satisfaction, even if, or perhaps especially when,
their part↗ is the sort of thing they apparently cannot justify. The idea of controversy or contention driving discussion is about as obvious as chubby rain falling on my head, but in that same sense we might also have a thing that should not be, or, at least, need not be. That is to say, controversy and contention, sure, but at the point we're making stuff up in order to get there?
And why would those who are better than that play along? Well, what of yourself, as you, too, consider yourself to be better than some problem about religion, and part of the answer is, quite simply, that you are a human being. There is strength in numbers, comfort in familiarity, and empowerment in solidarity. And religious people are human in the same way; historically, your context of humanity is derived from one shaped and carried by religious people. An important commonality is this idea of humanity and being human.
Which brings us back to your question: Humanity is emerging either from religion or, more likely, from one mode of religious function into another; it is a perpetual discussion that frequently, even proverbially always, feels as if it is verging on something big.
If we take a moment to wonder how much of sixteen percent is first-generation reactionary atheism, we might also consider the point that atheism and absence of religion are demographics on the grow. Why are "only" sixteen percent atheist? One in six isn't really so low a number, all things considered.
How subtle do we want to get in the moment: Armstrong on the
"idiosyncratic and eccentric"↗ conception of religion prevalent in the West since the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; this overlaps with Russell and Noll on
historical narrative↗, with Russell observing, "people act upon what they believe to be true", and Noll suggesting, "Theological method came to rely less," in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, "on instinctive deference to inherited confessions and more on self-evident propositions"; and as it happens, Armstrong
explained↗, "it is far more important for a particular idea of God to work than for it to be logically or scientifically sound". And no, that's actually not very subtle.
Comparatively, there is a reasonable question of what atheism offers, as such, and the answer is either a lot or not much,
i.e., either everything in the world, or none of that stuff has anything to do with atheism; it depends on who you ask.
But if we consider those who were never indoctrinated as children, and didn't fall in with religion, later, and then those who fell away from religious faith to declare themselves atheists, part of what makes that growth and sustainability precarious is the prospect that none of that other stuff has anything to do with atheism. Left in the void, like that, atheism offers little existential comfort or fundamental socialization. It's not just the sociality or regularity of church culture; even fallen away Catholics and non-practicing Jews still speak the vernacular of the ingroup.
Compared to something as flexible and dynamic as religion can be, and observing the circumstances from which the question of belief and atheism arises, sixteen percent isn't a bad market share for a product of no especial value. And considering the none-of-the-aboves raising the bloc to over a third, remember, while "atheism" is looked at as a kind of opposite to "religion", it does not inherently offer an actual competing product as such; there is a certain degree to which the social experiences, existential validation, and habituation into praxis people find in religion has nothing to do with atheism.
In that context, one in six is actually a pretty good outcome. You might ask why "only" sixteen percent, but, in the context of transition
from one mode of religious function into another, it is possible that a number as high as half a highwater mark represents not simply market dissatisfaction with diversity of religious expression, but faltering satisfaction with religion in a much more fundamental way. One in six is significant.
Why do people believe in God? Largely because they learned to, and it's a lot of trouble to then not believe, and the only promise such a conversion can offer is uncertainty.
And if such proximal and intimate values as sociality, validation, and praxis are too subjective, or something, another way to look at it is the common critique characterizing religion as a regulatory scheme, a means of controlling people and society. Atheistic,
i.e., godlesss, versions don't really sound any better. If we look at it simplistically, human folly is not going to be any sort of comforting justification compared to what God says. More subtly, if we attend Eliade, they're the same thing, anyway.
Toward which, again, one in six just doesn't really sound so bad.
