Is humanity finally getting closer to entering the Age of Reason?

[Fact Check]

Not as long as scientists pick and choose and try to suppress the truth.

[G C]

The wisdom of God make fools of those who call themselves wise.

[Shriekinglock813]

1) No, humanity is not any closer to any age of reason than any time previous and religion has nothing to do with it. Notice neither the poll you cite (nor any other poll of which I am aware) presents any similar statistics relating to economic affiliations. How sophisticated and advanced is a civilization that renounces religion for its absence of science while it concurrently does not even recognize its economics as an equivalent 'belief' system? The measurement is at least as (if not more) flawed than the very institutions it so desperately hopes to discredit.

2) Diminishing organized religious affiliation does not in any meaningful fashion reflect abandonment of theistic belief. Does the subject that declares 'no religious affiliation' automatically declare no element of belief? (The correct answer to that question is 'no' by the way just in case it is not otherwise painfully obvious.) Organized religions are in many cases (and in all cases to varying degrees) communal institutions that do not necessarily mandate any degree of 'superstition' at all. Affiliation with a religion is no more an indication of 'superstition' than no affiliation is indication of no 'superstition'. Any expectation that decline in 'religious affiliation' is a direct proportionate indication of decline in 'superstition' is gross wishful projection that relies on deliberate avoidance of any scientific methodology or 'reason' (and therefore in and of itself, is another sure indication as any that humanity is indeed NOT getting any closer to any age of reason).

3) I dread an "Age of (true pure) Reason (without any element of universality or belief)". I think Nazi Germany is an excellent example of precisely what we should expect from an age of uncompromising 'reason' that rejects all forms of 'belief' as 'superstition'. Some element of 'faith' in our humanity, in philosophical univeralities and in our intuitive sense of 'justice' and 'dignity' is what makes us sympathetic, cooperative and collective. Real 'reason' cancels all of that out. I think to most that claim to anticipate it, 'Age of Reason' really means the "Age when Everybody Else will Believe what I Tell Them to Believe". I think over emphasis on 'reason' (especially parallel with comtempt for 'superstition') is a form dehumanization of the presumably 'inferior', and have we not all seen where that kind of thought always leads?


Reason be damned. I have no use for it if all it offers is yet another social 'theory' involving superiors, inferiors, weakness, strength and disproportion. That is all our current economic 'reason' produces... and you are suggesting this is some kind of 'improvement' over the past? The current popular meaning of 'reason' is regressive because it is biased by selective subjective predisposition and until it recognizes and applies some form of objective universality, as far I am concerned, it is just so much superstition.

[deltron0]

humanity in general; yes...however the U.S. is actually going backwards...what a surprise.