The following in highlighted text is from a post by a Christian called James that is designed to target atheist’s, however he also targets his own Christian faith and either does not recognise this fact or he believes that his faith is somehow immune to the geography issue he has recognised.
“I’m not ruling out geography as something that influences religion, what I’m saying is, so what if it does.”
“So what if even the biggest predictor of a person’s religion is geography?”
Apart from the fact that geography obviously does predict most people’s religion, this indicates people are clearly indoctrinated into the traditional and prevalent regional religions often through many decades.
Would it mean that if geography is the biggest predictor of those who will hold a certain belief, then that belief is false?
Yes, because it definitely does not make the belief real and is a false belief in the ideological beliefs of particular god or gods being real because hundreds of different gods around the world are also claimed and only based on faith to be the genuine gods, If the god is exactly the same god for all the worlds religions it may have held some respect, however not for atheism because not one single god from the time when man first walked on the planet to the present day has any real evidence of existence outside of a theists brain.
If that were the case, we could simply lump atheism in with all other “religions” and say that geography is the single biggest predictor of whether a person will claim atheism.
“All the other religions,” but not with his own you will note.
Polls indicate that those born in China or the former Soviet Union, and certain other areas of Europe, are much more likely to be atheists than other areas of the globe (Major Religions of the World…, 2007).
This is true since communism was a dominating factor in these countries. In China July 1, 1921 the communist party was formed due to Inspiration from the Russian Revolution when in November 7, 1917 Lenin seized power. Of course part of the communist doctrine was to promote atheism through the restrictions of organisations such as churches, academic learning institutions and of course banned many other groups, clubs and meetings where they believed political unrest could develop.
So what does that mean about atheism? Aren’t we forced by rationality to agree that it means nothing, other than the fact that most people, including atheists, adopt the beliefs of the people nearest to them? It says nothing whatever about the truth of the beliefs.”
Considering that atheism is the default position and is not an indoctrinated ideology and is simply a disbelief in any god or gods, and because in most English speaking countries with democratic governments where there are the most Christians and where atheist numbers are growing quite rapidly, I would say this statement is not accurate. Specifically this is because the only influence for theists to become atheists is their Bible, their church and maybe the odd dose of scientific truth.
Christianity is of course different as is suggested by this a blogger called Mel.
Mel “Another interesting point about this is that Christianity seems to be the most adaptable faith to diverse cultures around the world. Consider that it started in the Middles East in places like Turkey and Syria, even in parts of India. Then it spread to Europe, Africa, and, of course, the entire Western Hemisphere. The biggest single group of Christians are probably in China now. But when you look at the other primary world religions, the majority of followers are still in the parts of the world where they started.”
Of course all other religions are spreading quickly around the world. My answer to him as to why Christianity is more diverse and larger than the others was regulated by James, as it had to much historic truth, however you can read my comment below.
SKLYJD “One reason why Christianity is so diverse is that the British Empire over many hundreds of years was spread out throughout the populated world bought Christianity to many countries who had never heard of it. As they had so many countries to go to and many thousands of fanatical preachers who wanted to make their mark in the world is it not a wonder why it is the largest religion.”
The history lesson (a real one) for these American theists is that the British Empire covered 23% of the world population at the time, and by 1920, it covered 35,500,000 km2 (13,700,000 sq mi), 24% of the Earths total land area. At it’s peak it was the biggest empire to ever exist. (Google)
SKLYJD 