Flint
Posts: 478
Joined: Jan. 2006
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I gotta agree. The sheer unbridled success of the scientific method generally (do what works, figure out why it works so you can do other things that work) is doing too good a job of promoting itself. Among people generally, who attend school and know that the really really smart people go into science and NONE of these people go into the clergy, and who enjoy a standard of living that doesn't seem to have anything to do with prayer, it's clear how to bet.
People LIKE being comfortable in this world, science has found a whole lot about this world that makes us even more comfortable, and has found no sign of any afterlife. Science does all this by simply ignoring the supernatural as though it doesn't even exist. The sheer numbing irrelevancy of institutionalized superstitions gradually soaks in on people because they're simply ignored. Nobody spends much time sitting around denying the gods; why bother?
Even worse, the evil materialistic worldview makes a better life available directly; there's no magic rituals, no priesthood. Ecclesiastical stuff has no pride of place; it's just as available on the buffet of life options as anything else, competing on even terms and ultimately offering very little. Gradually people understand that they DO have a choice, they CAN sample what's offered, and compare. I really don't think the religious folk like a fair game, where you can only win on your merits. They fall distinctly short in the merit department...
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