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According to my brother, my single mom who barely gets by is in the top 1% wealth wise. He could be wrong, and I'll go check out the statistic, but if it's true, then I bet you're wealthy too.
How'd believing in Him do that?

But other people have had visions of Muhammad, for example. Check out the Muslim subforum, there's a very interesting thread there about 'why do people refuse to turn to Islam', and the person writing there is mentioning all sorts of miracles that remind me very much of what you're saying.
I know it isn't the same to you. But to me, as someone who's not part of either Christianity or Islam, it does.

I'm not sure who are those three you're asking me to name more from, could you please specify?

The main problem we have when trying to get into the heads of people in the past, is that the poor, usually, couldn't read and write. They left no written record of their thoughts and ideas.
But the issue isn't 'only people now are expected to be happy'; I think it's something else. I think people have always wanted to be happy - it is the definition of happiness that has gone wrong in some countries. For many reasons, the idea that happiness is being very rich found many followers. This idea is great for advertisement, but as you must know, it doesn't work that way in the real world.

I think you can find very happy rich people and very miserable ones, same for poor people. Same for middle class people. There's much more to it than possessions. I've been in situations in life where I thought things were going pretty well for me, when people around me living in the same conditions and situation exactly felt that their life sucked. The only difference between me and them was attitude. At any given moment, you can choose the way you look at things.

And another thing, I don't think it was people getting wealthier that has made Atheism more popular; if anything, it probably had more to do with science. Science gave different answer to questions only religion could answer before. After all, there have been rich, religious people throughout history; king, dukes, all people who had higher status - they weren't any less religious than the poor. Solomon wasn't an Atheist after all - after all those questions he posed, he found his own meaning in god. Did they need less hope than those struggling to survive? Maybe they needed about as much.

I think the Maslow's hierarchy of needs should be turned upside-down. In order to struggle and be willing to stand very difficult conditions, you have to have something to do it for. If you hadn't, your efforts could seem pretty vain and you'd just give up trying.

I'm an Atheist. And I do have what keeps me struggling in bad times too. Some turn to god for that - I have no problem with that - but it doesn't work for me. Yes, I think one day I and all those around me are going to disappear into a void of nothingness. Sure I care. I don't want to die. But it doesn't make any of this any less worthy. It is worthy as long as it exists. The future does not eliminate the present.

I think we have different ways of reaching to the same spot. We're dealing with feelings; when it comes to feelings, there aren't really many limitations.
Religion just doesn't do it for me. I tagged along one of my relatives to her Presbyterian church once to see what it's like, and tagged along a Jewish friend to a synagogue. I left them both pretty confused and feeling out of place.

False miracles, and those are different. I've never heard of anyone having a vision of Muhammed.

More then three religions with a Hell.

I do think some people had less time to think then others. On a farm, you work all day long. You're body's probably getting more excercise then your mind in that case.

That's true, I suppose.
Still brain chemistry does make a difference, and there's some environments or situations that are very hard not to be miserable in.

I'm definetely not saying a rich man can't be religious, but I do think it's a factor. It's easier not to worry about what happens after death when you're enjoying your life.
And science and religion don't clash, to my mind. Many earlier scientific breakthroughs were made by Christians, and just because science is now advcating evolution doesn't mean it's true, or that it's God vs. science, because if He's real then He created it and there's a reason everything works so well together.

The future does kill the past. Two ridulously close sisters can get married and give it a thousand years, and their families won't know a thing about each other. To the universe we're all just dust specks brightly lit for less then a moment. When it comes down to that, everything ceases to matter, unless there's a greater reason for it to.

Religion isn't what fills people. Having a relationship with God is. If you meet Him, you'll see.

Okay issue with this in that this argument can go both ways. For some, science has helped reinforce one's belief stance regarding the existence of deities. If you mean that it was evidence for religious and philosophical systems that are atheistic, then you would be more accurate.

More than likely because of the numerous atrocities that occurred during this time period, philosophical developments to deal with such atrocities, and clergy that was poorly educated about their religion and an even more poorly religiously educated laity. But that's just my educated guess. I could be wrong.

Considering that they are mutually exclusive dealing with different types of knowledge, I'm not seeing how science contradicts religion.

To build upon what you are saying, the future does not eliminate the present. The future is dependent and built upon what happens during the present. Unless a system is closed and all variables are known, there's always a margin of error concerning predictions of the future when there is a possibly of unknown variables.

Edit: Correction

No but we had faster and more accurate forms of communication and communication technology was improving around this time. Hence more people were aware of global events going on during the 20th century than previous time periods.

Maybe you've never heard of it because you've never tried. You could ask at the Muslim subforum. Maybe you'd get a positive answer, maybe not, but I seriously doubt that experience is one of a kind. But if you're really interested, I wouldn't mind checking the web. Could be a cool way to practice Arabic.

As for hell, there you go. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell
I was going to check it anyway and quote it.

And when you think of all the factors, I think it was scientific achievements that promoted Atheism. There have always been rich and poor people, always. There have been a few Atheists in history, yes, but there were very few of them, or they preferred keeping their mouths shut in order to not be persecuted for their beliefs.
Atheism began to become more popular in the 20th century. I believe it surely is related with new researches and theories of that time. There could be other things too, but there's a reason why so many people turned to it at that time specifically.

No, science in general doesn't contradict religion. But there's a pretty big chunk of it that does.

I really don't like this idea of 'not having the time'. That's really not true. Even when I was working 16 hours a day, every day, I was thinking about things. I had other things in my mind than what I was doing at the moment. We aren't robots.

I still don't see how the future eliminates the present. I am here right now. Nothing that will ever happen, couldn't change me having been here.

Why don't you rather read The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins? Or The Origin of Species. Or, if you're lazy, just watch The Theory of Evolution Made Easy by potholer54 of youtube.

Maybe you'll get a better understanding of how evolution actually works.

Remind me to do that...I need to catch up on sleep so I'll probaly get off after this reply. And if you find any revelations from other religions, that'd be helpful, though I can't promise I wouldn't argue they were something else. sweatdrop

I skimmed through, and also looked up 'devil' and here's what I think: the religions besides Christianity don't seem to say you go to Hell if you aren't of that religion, and some of them don't include a major antagonist who would cause the human race harm, and try to lead people away with false miracles. My point about this, as simply as I can state it is thus: that people got to Hell because they choose not to dwell in the Presence of the one from which life flows. It's also that when other religions don't have an adversery that directy opposes the race, then you can't explain man's suffering, why there is evil in the world, and who would want to lead man away from the true religion-the one that actually worships God. The fact Christianity has these is what supports it.

I think it's because with modern advncement, people are beginning to think they don't need God. People love their pride and independence, so if they think they can get by without Him, then of course they're gonna try.

Evolution, yeah I know. I still don't believe in macro evoution, but I'll return with that argument afte I read Darwin's Black Box.

Of course we're not. But be honest-do you think deep more when you're busy, or after reading a deep book, or writing out your thoughts?

What does it matter though? All the people who have witnessed this post will eventually die, and eventually the entire human race will die. Even if a moment exists, if there's no eternal record of it, it doesn't matter. It doesn't even matter if you were Christian or not. If a Christian's right, they go to Heaven, but if an athiest is right the Christian suffers no loss. It's a win-whatever for a Christian, and a lose-whatever for the athiest, and most of the other religions don't damn you if you don't follow them anyway, or have something to rule them out, when compared with Christianity.