Is the weakening of religion through the gaining of knowledge a byproduct of progress?

Answer 1

the word "to believe" is actually the opposite of the word "to understand"
So with the gaining of more and more knowledge, people tend to believe less and less.
Maybe that is the reason for many religions objecting to free access to information.

Answer 2

Religion may be weakening. People are busier than ever; there is a general distrust of institutions, and we are not as apt to make commitments as in days past. However, keep in mind that your question specifies religion and not a belief in God. The percentage of people who believe in God is still high. Religion is an institutionalized form of expressing belief in God. Many theists choose not to become religious in that sense. Either way, I don't believe this nonreligious attitude has much to do with science. It has more to do with what I mentioned above. Newton and Mortimer Adler were both Christians. The great Jewish and Muslim scholars of the Middle Ages dominated the time. Knowledge of any kind does not weaken faith. Faith or its lack is a byproduct of philosophy and revelation.

Answer 3

Ave,

Religion has always been the limitation to personal progression with lame arguments as answers that is forced into one another to from some consensus between all believing in that specific path or religion.

Progress in the sense of what I understand this is a product due to the break away from the herd mentality towards that which is and not that which they dream it to be... yet they choose to make war in some god's name...

Religion has been nothing but a nice way to make you believe you want to be a slave to the thoughts and plans of one egotistical person sitting on a chair somewhere. Who has put the leaders of religion in a place of power that they are allowed to decide what is moral and what is not?

and a very contradictory believe amongst the greater mass in society is that they believe the Pope to be the closest to god and his personal representative... Uhm no it is not true... they should then atleast read their own scripture...

But here read this...


The twofold struggle against misfortune. When a
misfortune strikes us, we can overcome it either
by removing its cause or else by changing the
effect it has on our feelings, that is, by
reinterpreting the misfortune as a good, whose
benefit may only later become clear. Religion
and art (as well as metaphysical philosophy)
strive to effect a change in our feeling, in part by
changing the way we judge experiences (for
example, with the aid of the tenet, "Whom the
Lord loves, he chastens")1 and in part by
awakening a pleasure in pain, in emotion
generally (which is where tragic art has its
starting point). The more a person tends to
reinterpret and justify, the less will he confront
the causes of the misfortune and eliminate them;
a momentary palliation and narcotization (as
used, for example, for a toothache) is also
enough for him in more serious suffering. The
more the rule of religions and all narcotic arts
decreases, the more squarely do men confront the
real elimination of the misfortune---of course,
this is bad for the tragic poets (there being less
and less material for tragedy, because the realm
of inexorable, invincible fate grows ever smaller)
but it is even worse for the priests (for until now
they fed on the narcotization of human
misfortunes).

1. "Whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and scourgeth
every son whom he receiveth" (Hebrews 12:6).

Sorrow is knowledge. How gladly one would
exchange the false claims of priests---that there is
a God who demands the Good from us, who is
guardian and witness of each act, each moment,

each thought, who loves us and wants the best for
us in every misfortune---how gladly one would
exchange these claims for truths which would be
just as salutary, calming, and soothing as those
errors! But there are no such truths; at the most,
philosophy can oppose those errors with other
metaphysical fictions (basically also untruths).
But the tragic thing is that we can no longer
believe those dogmas of religion and
metaphysics, once we have the rigorous method
of truth in our hearts and heads, and yet on the
other hand, the development of mankind has
made us so delicate, sensitive, and ailing that we
need the most potent kind of cures and
comforts---hence arises the danger that man
might bleed to death from the truth he has
recognized. Byron expressed this in his immortal
lines:
Sorrow is knowledge: they who know the most
must mourn the deepest o'er the fatal truth,
the tree of knowledge is not that of life.

Answer 4

Gaining knowledge does not necessarily weaken religion - in fact, it can compliment it, if people's eyes are open to that possibility - which, often, they are not. And in some circumstances, it is less of a byproduct of progress, than what some people would see as progress as itself - they aim to weaken religion.
I suppose it depends what you would define as the points we are progressing to and from.

Answer 5

Gaining knowledge should strengthen your religion, not weaken it. It is "Directly Proportional", otherwise your knowledge is a byproduct, because it did not result in progress by creating wisdom...

Answer 6

Religion was mans first attempt to explain his existence and the mysteries around him. Now it has become a solace to cheat death. Science is now King
INo matter what the religious freaks of today spout and try to push on people their reality is just that "theirs" leave them to it and don't be bamboozled by them.
Sure, science is lonely when it comes to what will become of the individual mind upon death, however all the billions of us suffer the same fate...........oblivion, we return to state we were in before we were born and that's it.

Answer 7

No. It's a byproduct of sin and arrogance.

Answer 8

When did religion start weakening? What are your sources?

Answer 9

No. It's a symptom of moral erosion from "progress." The further man gets from God, the less progress he makes, and in fact, regresses. I don't subscribe to evolution simply because I do subscribe to devolution.

Answer 10

I think your a byproduct of some pretentious philosophy classes.

I don't like how you're implying that intelligence leads to atheism.