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[Always the Same]

All religions are not timeless whatsoever and will need to be hugely reformed as society and technology progresses.

Religion is beginning to get somewhat outdated, some more than others. But the common ground between all religions is that in highly developed areas of the world, religion is on the significant decline.

Take Norway for example, the perfect example for this. Norway is ranked 1st on the Human Development Index Ranking, and has very happy citizens, the world's most socialised economy, and the world's foremost democracy. However Norway has been heavily declining on the religious side.

Since the last survey taken 2 years ago, belief in god has fallen 4%. Now it's 30%, from 53% 35 years ago. The age group with the lowest belief in god are the 25-39 year olds, with a 19% belief rate.

There are countless examples of this same phenomenon, that belief in god or religion is no longer needed in highly developed areas. It just fades away as a natural process of societal progress, as especially the younger generation discard these outdated ways. And eventually, it's going to be said young people who decide wether to raise a child religiously or not.

There are of course other factors such as the complete eradication of any and all miracles the moment technology progressed and the standard of evidence was raised, and said standard is only going to get higher and higher. Any human raised in a well developed area such as Norway is going to have a significantly higher standard of evidence compared to that of Pakistan, which boasts a 98% muslim rate. And when an entire society has a very high standard of evidence, what's happening to Norway is going to happen anywhere else too.

And these numbers are only going to get worse for religion as a whole in the future. Doubts will be more apparent, brainwashing will be much less common, any benefit from religion is easily obtained without it, miracles will continue to have stopped existing, and negatives will outweigh the positives.

But believe it or not, in our current timeline there are still many people that unironically believe miracles exist, this too is on the significant decline but it scares me that they are still out there despite our progress as humans.

The fatal flaw from the deceptive humans of the past is that religion is stuck at a certain point in time, whereas technological and societal progress is limitless. Something like the creation of a new religion, or even the beginnings of an old one would not be able to survive in our current world.

Perhaps not in my lifetime, but eventually the only option for religion as a whole to survive is to undergo a huge reform. Maybe a new one will surface somehow? It's much more probable than any current religion surviving in the future. Ideally it will just die out, but even in the future religion will still be very useful to anyone in a position of power, so complete death of god and religion is unlikely but still very possible.

Obviously it will take religions with the majority based in very unfortunate countries such as Islam longer to die, but it's only a matter of time in the end.

Anyway, If anyone can let me know of more factors for the decline of religion I'd be grateful, as there is sure to be many more.

[jimwalton]

Religions aren't getting outdated. Instead, people are becoming duller in their spiritual perception.

> belief in god or religion is no longer needed in highly developed areas

Belief in God is always needed, because God is truth. Because people learn to get by without God is not an indication of His not being needed, but rather an indication that people are becoming more secular and are missing many things that can be known. They are closing their minds to vast areas of truth, and then redefining truth to mean "the things we can know through science." It's just a shrinking of the path of knowledge and becoming more closed-minded.

> the complete eradication of any and all miracles

There's nothing true about this. Miracles are still happening.

> And these numbers are only going to get worse for religion as a whole in the future

Possibly, but there will always be a remnant of people who will perceive the truth with fully open minds, not restrained in thought, and having access to sources of knowledge inaccessible by other means.

> The fatal flaw from the deceptive humans of the past is that religion is stuck at a certain point in time

It's not stuck at all. Christianity keeps pace with the culture in its flexibility of expression, and it outstrips culture in its grasp of meaning.

> eventually the only option for religion as a whole to survive is to undergo a huge reform.

Hopefully not. Truth is always true and should be validated as such, no matter what the era or culture.

I don't know what country you live in and what exposure you've had to Christianity, but your views are somewhat imperceptive and inaccurate. You've picked up on some socio-cultural aspects of religion but missed the true meaning, import, and truth of them.

[Throwaway]

What would you personally define as a miracle?

[jimwalton]

Some philosophers say that it is an occurrence contrary to nature, but we shouldn't be so quick to embrace that limited definition and then find our hands tied by our own definition. The Bible never claims that God violated the laws He himself imposed on the world.

C.S. Lewis said that miracles were just nature on a different time continuum, like fast forward. He said water always turns to wine; it just usually takes four months instead of one second; human bodies have the capability to heal, just not instantaneously at the word of the Master.

The Cambridge Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion (pg. 208) defines a miracle as "An event (ultimately) caused by God that cannot be accounted for by the natural powers of natural substances alone. Conceived of this way, miracles don’t violate the laws of nature but rather involve the occurrence of events which cannot be explained by the powers of nature alone."

That’s an acceptable definition, but I would tentatively define miracle as "a supernatural exception to the regularity and predictability of the universe, and therefore it is not a common occurrence." The laws of nature speak of naturally recurring events, and miracles speak of supernaturally nonrecurring events.

[Throwaway]

Could you give me an example of a miracle that follows the guidelines you’ve laid out?

[jimwalton]

Sure. I read a story a few years back about someone in Africa who was raised from the dead. I often here stories about people suddenly healed (inexplicably by medical standards) from cancer.

I myself had first-hand knowledge of one case. My son, at 19 years old, was suddenly rushed to the hospital with a life-threatening stroke. It was a Sunday evening, he was totally incoherent, and his one side was non-functional. When he talked it was total babel. The doctors said he may not live, and if he did, his functionality might be minimal. His church gathered to pray, and by email and Facebook, people all over the world also prayed. The next morning the church had a special prayer meeting at 6 in the morning. My wife and I went into his room at 9 am on Monday morning. He said to us (I kid you not), "Hi Mom. Hi Dad. What's going on?" I was THERE. I consider this to be miraculous. Later diagnoses identified that the stroke was in his brain stem, where life functions reside. And yet the very next morning, after the prayers of many, he was talking coherently, and today lives a productive life. The doctors shrugged their shoulders.

[Throwaway]

Firstly i’d like to point out that I’m from Africa and that the person who was supposedly brought back from the dead was very clearly breathing in the video of the incident.

Now the reason I asked about these miracles was actually to lead up to my most important question: If miracles are real and God loves everyone equally, why does He only selectively grant them?

[jimwalton]

> Firstly i’d like to point out that I’m from Africa and that the person who was supposedly brought back from the dead was very clearly breathing in the video of the incident.

I'm not sure both of us are referring to the same incident.

> If miracles are real and God loves everyone equally, why does He only selectively grant them?

Love doesn't mean we treat everyone the same. I have three children, and I love them all equally but I treat them all differently, according to their personality, needs, and direction.

For instance, here's a quote from Dr. Joe Boot that is about justice but I think addresses your concern: "In the Biblical view, justice is not about equalizing, unifying and leveling all things so that distinctions and hierarchies are destroyed to bring about a social or, for some, metaphysical oneness in which even the fundamental distinctions of sexuality (male and female) are mere illusions of social constructions to be overcome and resolved by an androgynous ideal. Rather, justice is giving to each their due in accordance with their nature, a nature that is created and defined by God. This does not undermine the equal value of all people made in the image of God. Rather, it emphasizes the need for plurality as the indispensable ground of unity in real diversity. Biblical justice does not aim at the destruction of diversity, but a covenantal or relational unity within real diversity based on the true nature of all things created and defined by the absolute personality of God."

In that same way, God's equal love for everyone doesn't require that everyone be treated the same. We're all on a separate journey through life, and it makes sense that we are not all treated like everyone else. In ways, that would be grotesquely unfair and unloving.

[Throwaway]

So newborns with bone cancer don’t need to be healed by miracles?

[jimwalton]

"Need" is the operative word here. Now you're dipping into the issue of evil and suffering in the world, and there are many legitimate reasons God could allow for both evil and suffering. As you know, it's a length argument. Hopefully you've done some research on the Christian philosophical/theology position before tossing out this stuff. If you haven't, I would recommend it to you, if it's something you truly care about. If you have, then you know better than to cavalierly toss out this stuff.