Am I being unreasonable to say most people are no longer religious?

[Rtruth]

I mean how many people actually believe in a “god”, there are so many human interpretations of the same religious texts that if a all knowing being had created them, they would surely have cleared it up by now.

I only ask as more I think and read my former religious text of choice, I don’t agree with its words on homosexuality, slavery and treatment of women. So I just find my morals are better that what’s in it.
I’m pushed to atheism as I’ve not enough proof to just believe.
Not saying isn’t anything, but proof seems flawed.

Jesus came to set people free from the rules of the OT and to make a new covenant.

And he made it even worse.

Judaism doesn't have an official conception of the afterlife. There is no hell, they aren't sure about heaven. You do good on earth when you're alive and that's that.

In setting us free from the OT there is the concept of heaven and hell and being damned for eternity in the next life too. Or behaving well for eternal rewards in heaven.

Yeah fuck that

You can't claim special privilege to be above being mocked when your holy text claims that we are all born as failures and then ordered to be good, on pain of eternal punishment. And that we somehow owe God something because of a bizzare human sacrifice that happened 2000 years ago. It's a fundamentally horrible ideology that views humans as nothing more than raw material in a cruel social experiment.

Let's put this into context . .

If I dress up in a bed sheet and walk out of my front door, cross the street, kneel down in front of a lamp post and pray to the God of the light, people would say I need help.

If I dress up in my Sunday best and walk of my front door, cross the street, go into a church, kneel down in front of a altar and pray to the God in Heaven, that's fine.

Not saying it's right or wrong, but it's bizarre behaviour to believe in what is literally an invisible friend. I mean if you were six years old, people might say it's cute the way you have little chats with your made up buddy, but at 26!

I’m an atheist and so is my wife

I haven't read the whole thread so am unsure if this has come up before but certainly my experience of C of E families is that the religious are still religious but families who in the past would have felt that society expected them to go to Church no longer feel they have to go to be respectable. Those pressures no longer exist. My grandparents were never religious but got married in church, had their children baptised and both wanted church funerals (which we arranged for them) because that was what you had to do. They went to Church maybe once or twice a month because if you didn't people would notice. It was instilled in both of them and my mother adopted this pattern without thinking about it. I remember questioning them all about what they believed in and none of them really being able to answer me with any conviction.

Wearywithteens

"Jesus came to set people free from the rules of the OT" You mean Jesus thought the OT god was wrong? How do Christians make that work? They are not on the same side then?

"I’m sure there are ‘non-believers’ who say a prayer when there is a moment of real anguish or personal crisis even if it’s ‘oh God help me’..."

No, that's just something religious people say. How likely is it that when you were in danger you'd cry out "Oh Tooth Fairy! Oh Tooth Fairy, please save me"

Christians live by the New Testament which is very different from the Old Testament quoted. As someone has already said Jesus gave us a new covenant and we are no longer obliged to follow the rules of the Old Testament.

Wasn't the old testament supposed to be the word of God? If God is supposed to be an inerrant and infallible being then the very fact he sent his 'son' to change the rules would prove he can't be either.

Regardless of belief, one thing I do find sad about fewer people being active Christians esp cofe in the U.K. is the loss of unified identity which goes with it. Nowadays you go to a rememberance day parade and more than half the people don’t know the hymns. Regardless of whether you believe the hymns message or not, community singing like this is a very unifying experience.

The same with the understanding of UK culture, much of the art, poetry, literature etc of the west over the last 1000 years is firmly tied to Christianity, either in glorification, rejection, or simply by reference. Even Harry Potter is basically a retelling of the Christian story with Classical Greece and Egyptian mysticism thrown in.

I know we are all supposed to embrace all cultures and religions these days, but I think there’s a major argument to study Christianity in schools, not as a factual faith but as a major part of our heritage, to understand the culture in the U.K.

And he made it even worse.

No, He didn't. We managed that all by ourselves

If you mean most people in the UK then you’re probably right but many other countries are still devoutly religious. Most Asian and African countries certainly are and certain European countries such as Spain and Poland are too.