Greatful,
I am unsure of your motivations. You will find that your point, "<<The world is evolving toward an atheistic future. Religions are dying out." is far from reality. In some parts of society church going faithful are on the increase, the continuing collapse of the congregations of the more traditional church's is more to do with the irrelevant nature of the organisations and their inability to change or accept responsibility for their actions. A recent article about the popes visit to the UK and comments made by Geoffrey Robertson QC are a good example of the crumble of these church's, Only an article but a start.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/09/16/3013313.htm?section=justin

As an Atheist i have no real interest in the church, i also have no opinion either way about their existence. I do not appreciate the idea that they have some right to try and push their ideology onto other people through missions, RE in schools, door knocking and taking advantage of the desperate and unfortunate.
Separate to this is a deep distrust in the church system, after growing up in a very strick religion that people generally think of as a wonderful organisation i saw so many people claim to be christians but very few that lived it. They used their faith as an avenue to the high morale ground while ignoring the abuse and lies that were around them.
I don't care what religions do so long as they keep it to themselves. If someone wants to know they will come to you, but no religion has an automatic right to brainwash the population of certain belief, we have seen throughout history where that ends and continues to take us.
Atheists don't deny people the right to believe what they like, they simply ask that we teach things based on fact. What an adult wishes to believe is their business but to intentionally misinform someone based on belief not fact is dangerous and fraudulent. The shift in community attitude is not away from faith to atheism but away from the church.

Dear grateful,

As I've written in the past, for many years it
was widely felt that as science progressively
provided rational explanations for the mysteries
of the universe, religion would have less and less
of a role to play and would eventually disappear,
unmasked as nothing more than superstition.
But there are still gaps in our understanding that
science can never fill. On the ultimate important
questions - of the meaning and purpose of life
and the nature of morality - science is utterly
silent and, by its very nature, always will be.

Few people of modern societies would utterly deny
the possibility of some higher power in the universe,
some supernatural, transcendental realm that lies beyond
the boundaries of ordinary experience, and in this
fundamental sense religion is probably here to stay.

As for Atheism - from my understanding - Atheism is
not necessarily opposed to religion. Some forms of
religious mysticism can be considered atheistic
because they seek a kind of spiritual unity with the
universe instead of a supreme being. Some forms of
Buddhism are also sometimes described as atheistic.

However, to answer your questions I'd recommend you
read the book, "The God Delusion," by Richard Dawkins.
It won the Galaxy British Book Award - Author of the
Year 2007. It's the best "scholarly" work on the subject
that I know of - and is available in paperback from
any reputable bookshop. Worth a read.

I am an atheist but the views you ascribe to me are not mine at all.
I just do not find religion personally relevant.

I am also continually disappointed by the hypocrisy, intolerance, closed-mindedness,self-righteousness, destructiveness and hurt caused by many religious organisations. There are many good people connected with churches/mosques/etc, however they just seem to give the evil people cover. Most churches ISTM achieve the opposite of what they say they are about. Perhaps they are the work of the Devil? :)

Atheism is not a philosophy, is not a belief, is not a political affiliation, is not an opinion, is not a religion, is not a lifestyle, is not a philosophy.

What happens anywhere/anytime/in any universe is the result of nature being nature. That's atheism. Religious people say it's because of Godly design and intervention. Atheists think as they do because science has shown us the workings of nature, and because there is not one single shred of evidence of god existence. Religious belief is just that - - - "belief".

Keep in mind our species is only just coming out of the stone age; as a result we won't be able to conclusively "prove" and explain everything in it's entirety, as we are still way too primitive. Come back in one or two million years, and if we are still here as a species then, maybe the full understanding and scientific dissemination of nature in it's entirety will be available.

It's a pity that atheism exists as a word, but I guess we need to call it something. It's a pity because people will continually try to twist it's meaning for their own agenda purposes. That's life. That's what people are like. I have a sneaky suspicion the topic starter is one of those people; I guess we'll soon find out.

It will have absolutely NO impact on social and economic development because ethgics are a world apeart from all the jazz religions throw up and divide people from one another. Sio there!!

siocratease

Yes thats what happens: Religion divides people. I can't get past the sort of people that go door knocking, trying to spread their imagionary beliefes, they must have a consience surely. If thats what they want to beleive, so be it, but don't push it on to anybody else. You tell electricity company's where to get off when they come door knocking. You do the same to bible bashers, but they are so much into the world of make beleive, they need laws to curtail their persistence. This puts people off-side and do not want to know any thing about it.
Sunshine and nature is god, and it didn't take no church to tell me that.