Will reason ever outrun faith?

I have this difficulty with your argument: It explains why atheism cannot continue to increase, but it does not explain how we've gotten to the current level. What about your analysis of the future fails for the past, such that secularism managed to spread to the level we see in 2009?

This is a discussion of tactics and strategy, yes? And your complaint is that you don't have access to the same 'weapons' as your opponent?

Perhaps your assumptions about what is necessary to win are wrong. I moved progressively away from religion as I became aware of how limited religion was. (Not God, religion.) Ironically, I had to study religion and philosophy to be able to see this. If you are going to attempt horizontal propagation, then knowledge about religion and its history might be one of your best weapons. Certainly it opens doors to conversations you can't have if your reaction to a believer is simply 'Oh, you poor ignorant fool. I have the Truth; let me tell it to you.'

Do you know how the Catholic/Christian church progressively edited the contents of their canon? Are you familiar with the 'heresies' that were progressively (and violently) quashed by the Church during its history? Do you understand what prompts men to mythologize one of their own, and can you articulate it? The history of the Church speaks for itself, and it doesn't speak well for religion. Once a believer can question the Church/religion, then (and perhaps only then) can a believer question the ideas behind the Church (i.e., God). It may be a huge mistake to assume that you can win by attacking the idea of God first.

(Oh, I will add that reading a great deal of science fiction helped me too. Especially science fiction that dealt with alternative theologies, and the abuse of power within religious hierarchies. If others have had a similar experience, maybe there should be a list of helpful fiction...)

Atheism has some properties that religion does not that may allow it to spread rapidly under certain cultural conditions that likely will exist in the future. For example, as technology continues to play a larger and larger role in our lives (and continues to spread to the poorest countries), that may well correlate with an increase in the respect for and interest in science that people have, as well as the number of people trained in scientific fields. As science tends to directly contradict many religious stories (such as the creation of the world in Genesis), and since levels of religious belief among scientists are generally much lower than among the population at large, that may increase the rate at which atheism spreads.

Religion is declining in the UK.

For those who don't want to read it. From 1964 to 2005 people attending services has dropped from 74% to 31% and people saying they don't belong to a religion has gone from 3% to 38%.

I agree with the analysis that (2) is the way to go.

Accepting faith as an evolved Memeplex, it is probably well adapted to the communications model of the past few centuries. By intelligent design of some memes however, a determined rationalist community should be able to gain an edge here, as a designed memeplex could be better adapted to the modern media situation.

A concerted effort in this direction should identify common traits of well spreading memes, and design new memes or attach payloads to old ones. Think "saving cute kittens via rationality" on youtube. Depending on the available resources, one might even be able to subdue newly spreading memes with a new variant including the desired payload.

Is anybody aware of data about which memes spread how fast and any kind of analysis about the relevant factors?

Great article. I made the same unsettling realization a couple years ago. It hit me when I was pondering why the two other ages of reason: the Italian renaissance and greek antiquity only lasted a short period. It seems reason is not a good reason (heh) for self replication compared to religion. The superior demographic powers of the unreasonables always makes them take over eventually.

Once in a while, the stars align and the atheistic/scientific population gets some prominence but it never lasts.

We see the same debates of reason vs religion in the two other periods. See for example Lucretius' epic poem De Rerum Natura http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_rerum_natura

The debate is futile however as even though the texts may be useful in providing inspiration for a Galileo or two to advance science, it doesn't seem to be enough to counter demographics.

your assumption seems to be that religious memes, such as faith reproduce faster than rationalist memes. I'm not so sure that assumption is true. What it is more influential religion and faith, or reason and (most importantly) wealth?

Rationality is the primer here. With more rational agents, the more rationality propagates, and people’s maps will be more accurate. And that’s better for us, human beings*.

I recently halted a discussion with a theist, after discovering he was a Biblical Literalist who had not been listening to a word I said.

My whole conversation centered, not around the atheist/theist difference, and not once did I bring up his faith as a problem. Rather, I spent the entire conversation trying to get him to understand the importance of having an accurate map of reality. That science does not explicitly tell us how to live, or what is moral (although, it will have something to say about those things if empirical claims are made), but rather it is a tool for observing the world, and then testing those observations in order for us to make a model of reality. I am sure that someone other than myself from LW would have been able to explain this much more clearly than I, but ultimately I discovered it would not have mattered who it was who was trying to educate this man.

His whole world view boiled down to equivocation such that the Bible and Religion were he only authorities and if some fact did not fit with that authority, he would twist and mangle the definitions or terms until they would fit (in his mind only).

The one thing that does give me hope is that those who eventually do wind up creating an AI will have as our friend something that will be in a far better position to order the world for the better. However, that is only if we manage to accomplish such a thing before faith realizes its ultimate goal of sending us all to their maker (i.e. a metaphor for killing us all).

The point about the media is well taken. For instance, the TV Crime-Drama Numb3rs had an atheistic savant mathematician who was graciously given work by his Brother (an FBI agent) to help with solving crimes. At some point in the series, the older FBI brother begins flirting with Judaism, which the mathematician brother decries (since he is an Atheist, of course)... well, that doesn't sit well with the audience, so they have the typical episode where something miraculous occurs and the mathematician sees God.... This is what we will have to deal with in the USA. That and that atheists are seen as the most reviled group, right after murderers, homosexuals and drug addicts.

Where lies the hope for a predominantly rational and atheist world anyway?

Negative singularities might disproportionately kill off worlds - like ours - where the average level of rationality and reason is low.

In general, it seems very hard for religion to survive the singularity. The religious ones have to be rational enough to build FAI rather than uFAI. Then they have to make sure that the AI itself continues to believe in their god, otherwise their equivalent of CEV will get rid of literal religion.

So rest assured that religion as we know it probably won't survive; but unfortunately there might be a few rational people like us who go down with the sinking ship ;-0

It may not always be rational to track the truth, nor might tracking the truth be evidence of rational thinking.

In other words, reason does not necessarily 'ensue' atheism, nor might changing what people ostensibly think (through peer pressure mechanisms such as naff ads on the sides of buses) change how they think.