Majority of the world’s massive population belong to some sort of religion, ranging from the vast worldwide churches to the indeterminate spiritual traditional and local groups. There lacks an exact number of religions present in the world, but from the many theories, it is certain there exists religion. Most of the theories state that religion originated from our ancestors who came up with the belief in a superior being, God. The basic purpose of religion to human beings is to improve the primary cognitive process of self-control, thus promoting valuable social behavior 1 . Many people across the world have confessed that religion plays a significant role in their daily lives through offering various teachings.
Aspects of Religion, Which Are Most Likely To Be Replaced By Secular Alternatives
Each religion has varying aspects and customs that tend to evolve constantly across different societies based on the geographic, economic, and climatic conditions in the various cultures. However, with time there have been controversial opinions regarding religion, thus the introduction of secular alternatives to religion. With each passing day, more people are coming up and declaring that they do not identify with any religion. These people, referred to as atheists, do not believe in any supernatural being, and do not hold any religious beliefs. However, they respect the fact that religion performs remarkable roles in people’s lives; hence, they have come up with secular aspects of replacing the religious roles on people’s lives. The aspects of religion that are most likely to be replaced by the secular alternatives involve of the belief in supernatural beings, moral codes in respect to supernatural beings, religious feelings, and sacred writings, and ethical rituals and ceremonies. Atheists do not believe in a supernatural being, which means that they do not believe in God 2 . In most situations, these people do not grow knowing God. Therefore, this leads them to dislike the religious congregations that people hold in order to receive religious teachings. Atheists prefer to use congregations for social interactions, hangouts, and having fun. Further, atheists use these congregations to change the aspect of sacred writings and teachings since instead of gathering to worship God and learn the scripture they gather to socialize after which they receive teachings that follow various themes that involve of life teachings.
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Functions That Promoters of Secular Alternatives Claim are Most Important to Religion
In addition, atheists use gatherings to make fun in what they refer to as gaining a positive energy. Atheists also want to change the aspect of seeking a religious feeling in religion by replacing it with seeking a sense of community. When religion is compared to atheism, most religious people take religion as a responsibility where every Sunday people are supposed to meet and worship God; hence, atheists are trying to change by making congregations places where meet and interact with others, learn about each another’s lives and have fun 3 . These congregations are aimed at creating a sense of community in a contrasting community unlike religions, which offer a sense of spirituality. Promoters of secular aspects believe that these aspects are important to religion in a number of ways. They argue that a secular society promotes growth of people and their perspective of existence through offering people with various teachings and skills for survival such as love and earthly happiness, which is note offered in religion. Atheists further believe that sense of community supplements the religious sense in that, religion teaches people to interact in the sacred space but it does not teach them how to interact in the community level, thus the sense of community offered in atheism helps people to connect in the society level and secular groups. Atheists claim that while religion offers a person the sense of religious safety, atheisms supplements it by offering people the sense of belonging and happiness. Since religion gives a moral framework for people, secular supporters state that in atheism through the sense of community people are able to become morally upright and learn how to live with each other peacefully.
Aspects That the Secular Alternatives Are Likely To Be Deficient
However, secular aspects tend to show deficiency in various ways. First, in the secular culture, people not only lack religious beliefs but also they do not believe in anything. This is a disadvantage since it denies one the belief in a supernatural being. Further, atheism makes a person view the world from a naturalistic perspective. This makes a person to believe in material things. Atheism can further make a person to become so self-centered since it advocates for people to think about their happiness. Most of the atheists end up living hypocritical lives since all they seek is happiness; hence, they end up ignoring other situations such as tragic situations for the sake of their happiness and well-being. In addition, atheism is said to be too general when compared to religion since religion creates an emotional grip on religious followers since it develops the sacred feelings. On the other hand, it reduces people to physical substances. To expound on this, it is evident that religion explains the belief of existence of a supernatural being, develops a sense of morality, purpose of human dignity and gives a reason for existence. On the contrary, atheism does not explain all those and most critics consider it as a waste of time. The secular culture makes people to become too judgmental to the point where they concentrate too much on criticizing Christianity; hence, instead of concentrating on the growth of their culture, they end up wasting too much time scrutinizing facts in an attempt to spot defects on the religious aspects 4 . The lack of faith by atheists is usually a method of hiding their reluctance to face the reality.
The secular aspect that atheism offers a person a sense of community has been claimed to be the reason as to why we have an immoral society. Atheists usually claim that they do not believe in the existence of God and by doing so they promote the existence of evil. Despite the claim that a secular culture creates connection with people and teaches individuals how to live with one another, atheism usually promotes the existence of evil since people get the notion that life is all about having fun 5 . Again, the secular aspect meant to replace the moral codes has made people to ignore the weight of evil thus commit a lot of sin where they hide under atheism. Similarly, atheism has made numerous people to develop a quality of arrogance where they tend to believe that everyone else is wrong except for them. As a result, secular aspects make people to be conformed in the mindset of pride. This comes along with irresponsibility including irresponsible behavior. Secular culture blinds people judgment to the point where they think that atheism usually promotes human freedom. However, in the present day human freedom means living within the moral code thus, living a secular life full of immorality shows human captivity rather than freedom. In further support of this, religion offers guidance, assistance in order to understand ourselves in a better manner, unlike the secular aspect that teaches people to remain interact with people, and only exist as matter in the universe. This shows the huge defect of secular the secular aspect of life that teaches people to exist without sound reasons for doing so.
Opinion on the Growth of Atheist Communities
In conclusion, it is evident that in the modern society religion remains an integral part, which influences people’s behavior. Further, atheists have always been a splinter group in traditional and modern society. In the same vein, study has proved that most of people, who join atheism, tend to acquaint with a religious community later on. Young people, who often get bored as they mature as they come to realize the complications related to atheism, mostly dominate the atheism population. Again, recently atheism has faced a lot of criticism, which explains why there is an expected decline of religiously unaffiliated individuals. Thus, we can conclude from this that atheism does not have a significant effect on religious communities and it is not expected to grow in the future.
Works Cited
Illing, Sean. Religion without God: Alain de Botton on "atheism 2. 0", 2018. Retrieved from <https://www.vox.com/conversations/2016/10/6/13172608/religion-lent-atheism- christianity-god-alain-de-botton>
Simmons, Eve. My Sunday afternoon in at the 'church for atheists', 2016. Retrieved from <https://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/article/b8290559-d05c-4e9a-b249-e1bb98d4eebd>
