19 replies to this topic

[Guyverman1990]

This video makes me wonder how and where world religions will spread and grow/shrink in the future. I think that Islam will eventually grow to be a majority in Europe, while Hinduism could possibly spread westward as well. Christianity will continue to grow in Africa.

[MarcZ]

Funny no Mormonism or Zoroastrianism, also all the countries that are supposedly Christian are not necessarily so, for example certain countries like Estonia identify no-religion as the majority.

[tornado64]

In Europe Christians are the majority, but most of them are not really religious. Maybe in south-Europe more than in the north & middle.

[Shimmy]

Islam will never be a majority in europe, they will try but anti islam feelings will grow exponentially and the public will eventually do something about it. Could get very messy but islam will lose.

[Guyverman1990]

Islam will never be a majority in europe, they will try but anti islam feelings will grow exponentially and the public will eventually do something about it. Could get very messy but islam will lose.

Anti-Islam will eventually dwindle as time goes by.

[Tumaini12]

It's even possible that some minor cult or sect will mushroom into a major new world religion, as societies change drastically over the coming centuries (be it change for better or for worse...)

When Mohammed and his handful of followers fled from Mecca to Medina in 622, who could have guessed that within 40 years, the faith he founded would dominate all of Arabia, Egypt and Persia?

Edited by Tumaini12, 18 May 2012 - 07:12 AM.

[Italian Ufo]

I really doubt that new religions will emerge at this stage or later in the future. Cults will stay a minority...I only believe that new philosophies will start to emerge and these will give new ethic codes and morals that will mix spirituality and technology. Mostly they will be philosophies inspired by atheism or agnosticism and somehow similar to Buddhism.
The expansion of Islam in the Arabian penninsula right after Muhamed's death is also connected to political power. Some even converted for econmic reasons. But today relgions spread mostly by fashion (e.g scientology) or by virtue which rarely happens. So thats the reason I see a decline in religions.
Even Islam will start to be less strong in Europe. While in London I met Muslims who arrived there in the 1970s and claim that at first they were very observant as time went by and they become more integrated, they are still culturaly Muslims but not observant like before. In fact the ate pork meat drink alchool etcc..
Will see ...it is just a theory

[Guyverman1990]

In the west, the Greek/Roman pantheon was the dominant faith from approxamently the 8th century BC until Constantine converted to Christianity in the 4th century AD. This was about 1200 years

Since Constantine, Christianity as been a mainstream, dominant world faith for 1700 years. I'd give it another 2-300 years until it fades from mainstream society and dwindles into mythology like the pantheon before it.

If the timeline is correct, new religions will spawn around physics, reality and nature rather than myths and dogma. However, these are likely to remain cults due to the advance of science and technology rendering most of mankind atheist or agnostic.

Edited by Guyverman1990, 21 May 2012 - 08:47 AM.

[MarcZ]

I do think Pantheism could be a growing force of a religion in the future. It's embrace of science as opposed to rejection of it, may make it a viable alternative to people who cannot cope with blatant atheism.

[Guyverman1990]

Vancouver currently has the world' largest concentration of Sikhs and Sikhism outside of India. If fertility rates continute to grow along with increasing immigration rates, they could very well become a majority in the area.

[eacao]

If the timeline is correct, new religions will spawn around physics, reality and nature rather than myths and dogma. However, these are likely to remain cults due to the advance of science and technology rendering most of mankind atheist or agnostic.

I'm agnostic. And I have sort of a strange faith - I believe in mathematical probability in a sense. In 2009, my math teacher got the class to do a class activity where everyone had two dice and we had to roll it then tally the total after 10 rolls. Almost the entire class got pretty close to each other and it all came down to chance.

Then you've got the monty hall paradox, if you have three doors and you have to select one, your probability of selecting the correct door is one in three. However, if someone removes the third door, you might think that the probability of you having chosen the correct door is now 1/2, but it remains 1/3. The remaining door now has a probability of being the correct door of 2/3.
And, if you do a simple experiment with this principle, you find it works pretty well.

I don't believe that it is conscious, or a higher being.. It just works.
Monty Hall's-paradox and Charles Darwinism - That's my religion.

[Alric]

Eacao, if I may rephrase what you said a little, it sounds like what you believe in is math and science. Which isn't strange at all. It is the only reasonable thing a person can believe in. If you put math and science vs any religion, math and science always win by huge margins. So while there are some people who outright reject science(and look like idiots doing it), most people at least try to reconcile what they think(religion) with what they know is true(math and science).

[MarcZ]

I really don't believe humanity will ever really be atheist, religions will simply adopt to become more inline with science and I think pantheist or neo-pantheist religions will become the norm for future religious development. Also if there happens to be a contact event with other intelligent life in the future that will upend all our Abrahamic faiths.

[MarcusAurelius]

In the west, the Greek/Roman pantheon was the dominant faith from approxamently the 8th century BC until Constantine converted to Christianity in the 4th century AD. This was about 1200 years

Since Constantine, Christianity as been a mainstream, dominant world faith for 1700 years. I'd give it another 2-300 years until it fades from mainstream society and dwindles into mythology like the pantheon before it.

If the timeline is correct, new religions will spawn around physics, reality and nature rather than myths and dogma. However, these are likely to remain cults due to the advance of science and technology rendering most of mankind atheist or agnostic.

Thats very optimistic of you. But what you aren't taking into account is that in the last 1700-2000 years there has never been this level of scientific discovery and advancement. I think its unrealistic to believe it will take another 2300 years to fade. It only takes a few generations to change social memes and traditions to the point of losing them altogether. Take for instance native american indian culture, after white man settled its plains, the disrupting force of western civilization took a heavy toll on its values and traditions. Nowadays american indian youth are more americanized than ever. They will never be able to return to the days of old.

Another more recent example is when America stepped into Philippines and took over from the Spanish. Despite centuries of Spanish rule and influence, America introduced English as the formal language instead of Spanish. In just a generation or two, nobody was raised speaking spanish anymore. Today philippino youth have no idea about their spanish colonial past. Despite all the streets and even their surnames being spanish, this country is now predominately english speaking.

So I predict the same will happen once scientific sweeping changes take place that challenge social norms of today

I really don't believe humanity will ever really be atheist, religions will simply adopt to become more inline with science and I think pantheist or neo-pantheist religions will become the norm for future religious development. Also if there happens to be a contact event with other intelligent life in the future that will upend all our Abrahamic faiths.

But what if contact with a myriad of intelligent alien life shows us that all of them or an overwhelming majority of them do not have religion and instead hold science and the order of the universe more in line with their core beliefs.

Edited by MarcusAurelius, 11 June 2012 - 08:14 AM.

[CallMeKari]

I'm hoping that as science continues to advance people will start finding their answers there rather than in a god. But I'm very anti-theist so maybe I'm being a little too optimistic. I'm pretty sure that until we find out exactly how the universe was created, irrefutably, there will always be people saying that there is a possibility that god created it.

[MarcusAurelius]

A little bit too Zeitgeisty, but an interesting take on religion nonetheless

Edited by MarcusAurelius, 12 June 2012 - 03:01 AM.

[MarcZ]

In the west, the Greek/Roman pantheon was the dominant faith from approxamently the 8th century BC until Constantine converted to Christianity in the 4th century AD. This was about 1200 years

Since Constantine, Christianity as been a mainstream, dominant world faith for 1700 years. I'd give it another 2-300 years until it fades from mainstream society and dwindles into mythology like the pantheon before it.

If the timeline is correct, new religions will spawn around physics, reality and nature rather than myths and dogma. However, these are likely to remain cults due to the advance of science and technology rendering most of mankind atheist or agnostic.

Thats very optimistic of you. But what you aren't taking into account is that in the last 1700-2000 years there has never been this level of scientific discovery and advancement. I think its unrealistic to believe it will take another 2300 years to fade. It only takes a few generations to change social memes and traditions to the point of losing them altogether. Take for instance native american indian culture, after white man settled its plains, the disrupting force of western civilization took a heavy toll on its values and traditions. Nowadays american indian youth are more americanized than ever. They will never be able to return to the days of old.

Another more recent example is when America stepped into Philippines and took over from the Spanish. Despite centuries of Spanish rule and influence, America introduced English as the formal language instead of Spanish. In just a generation or two, nobody was raised speaking spanish anymore. Today philippino youth have no idea about their spanish colonial past. Despite all the streets and even their surnames being spanish, this country is now predominately english speaking.

So I predict the same will happen once scientific sweeping changes take place that challenge social norms of today

I really don't believe humanity will ever really be atheist, religions will simply adopt to become more inline with science and I think pantheist or neo-pantheist religions will become the norm for future religious development. Also if there happens to be a contact event with other intelligent life in the future that will upend all our Abrahamic faiths.

But what if contact with a myriad of intelligent alien life shows us that all of them or an overwhelming majority of them do not have religion and instead hold science and the order of the universe more in line with their core beliefs.

That's called pantheism...

[Tumaini12]

But what if contact with a myriad of intelligent alien life shows us that all of them or an overwhelming majority of them do not have religion and instead hold science and the order of the universe more in line with their core beliefs.

I f we do ever make contact with intelligent extraterrestrials, they may turn out to have strong religious traditions of their own.

Who remembers Babylon 5? There was a very perceptive comment in one episode about the idea that "more advanced races might be nearer to God than we are..." Many humans might well decide to convert to alien religions.

The Minbari, in Babylon 5, practiced a form of Pantheism. Their belief was that "the Universe itself is conscious, in a way we can never truly understand. It is engaged in a search for meaning - so it breaks itself apart, invests little bits of its consciousness in living things. We are the Universe, trying to understand itself." Would you go along with that, MarcZ?

[Raklian]

But what if contact with a myriad of intelligent alien life shows us that all of them or an overwhelming majority of them do not have religion and instead hold science and the order of the universe more in line with their core beliefs.

I f we do ever make contact with intelligent extraterrestrials, they may turn out to have strong religious traditions of their own.

Who remembers Babylon 5? There was a very perceptive comment in one episode about the idea that "more advanced races might be nearer to God than we are..." Many humans might well decide to convert to alien religions.

The Minbari, in Babylon 5, practiced a form of Pantheism. Their belief was that "the Universe itself is conscious, in a way we can never truly understand. It is engaged in a search for meaning - so it breaks itself apart, invests little bits of its consciousness in living things. We are the Universe, trying to understand itself." Would you go along with that, MarcZ?

Babylon 5 is one of the few favorites of mine. I would recommend everyone to watch it.

I wouldn't mind a remake of the series.

[Guyverman1990]

Tell me guys, do you have an honest theory of when the Abrahamic faiths will leave the mainstream? Like i said, I'd give it another two centuries or so.