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Speculations on Religion in the Future
What will religion(s) look like 10 years from now, 50 years from now, 200 years from now? Given the long and varied history of human religious expression throughout history, the possibilities seem just about endless. As a mental exercise, I thought it might be fun to try to project current religious trends forward in time and see where they might take us. This is of course highly speculative and you’re welcome to add your own thoughts and imaginings to this list. In no particular order:
- As the Latino population increases in America, and big companies start advertising more to and being fluent in their culture, I bet we’ll see a huge upswing in Latin and Afro-Carribean religious practices, like Santeria, Voodoo, and all the other variants. This seems only likely since within these communities, it’s already perfectly acceptable to mix commerce with religion - you can even buy religious candles and paraphernalia at convenience stores.
- Since so many Latinos are also involved in Catholicism, I imagine this also will have some kind of effect on the future of Catholic tradition as well. We’re likely to see the rise of more and more folk saints which the Church may or may not be forced to officially accept.
- Will Christian “megachurches” become even bigger and more popular? My guess is yes. How big and how popular is the question. Part of the strength of these groups is that they are extremely well-organized, very aggressive and very well-funded. It seems like a combination that is destined to expand their reach tremendously.
- The backlash from that of course is house churches and things like the Emergent Church movement: people who are interested in small decentralized groups with no external authority whatsoever. On some levels I could easily see this merging with the current interest in contemporary gnosticism, Da Vinci Code inspired spirituality and even certain strains of Wicca and neo-paganism. These groups all share a great deal in their methodology, if not their final beliefs. And I could even imagine larger and larger communities of these people coming together in common conversation and possibly even multi-denominational worship settings. Although I doubt they would ever be as big as the Megachurches, since the foundation of many of these religious philosophies is decentralization and the authority of the individual.
- When artificial intelligence finally is created, I think we’re likely to see an enormous move towards religious organization around it. The fact is that (most) humans on some level do strive for an external authority. If we have a super-intelligence, I guarantee that one of the first things we’re going to ask it to tell us is whether or not there is a god, and it seems VERY likely that it’s answer is going to be: “Yes, me!” Or something similar. Or, we’re likely to see people feed this computer with a “complete” history of the world, a full text documentation of everything available from every religion, philosophy, etc. And we’ll ask the computer to find the “truth” in all of it. Maybe it will find the truth, or maybe it will outline a totalitarian utopia based around a mythology which satisfies us all, or at least keeps us in check. I imagine this as being the only movement which could topple Christianity in terms of power and popularity - although if Christians figured out that they could conflate AI with the doctrine of the Logos, then it would only strengthen them.
- Verifiable contact with alien life forms is the only thing that I think could match or beat the introduction of AI in terms of kickstarting a huge new religious movement. You think there are a lot of crazy fringe groups worshipping UFO’s and building strange mythologies now? Well, just wait and see what happens when these things appear over your city or on the news. Mass hysteria combined with heightened religious feelings! Many people in fact suggest this is why official policy is to deny their existence to protect the public from itself. The other scenario I imagine tied in here is that extra/ultraterrestrials make their presence known, and then reveal that it was them behind all our religious and paranormal phenomena throughout the ages. If the shock of aliens alone wasn’t enough, that would pretty much seal the deal.
- Another related alternative is that technology and mass deception is used by a power elite to fake the above scenario, or to fake the re-appearance of Christ or some other religious figure. Project Blue Beam conspiracies talk about projecting holograms into the sky of religious figures around the world along with microwave pulses conveying information in various languages, directly to the minds of percipients. If such a thing were indeed possible, the world would be pretty much ripe for the picking, I think.
- This leads me to other technologies which can fool the senses. Virtual reality combined with anything that can be pointed at you to make you have false sensory perceptions. When people lose the ability to trust their senses from outside bombardment or manipulation, then what will we have left? Seems that people will willingly begin taking drastic measures. One I imagine is that people will begin retreating en masse to virtual reality worlds which are predictable or run according to a consistent set of rules - unlike “real” reality which they can no longer trust or which is impossibly confusing thanks to advances in technology by advertisers, propaganda and social controllers. (Then you’re also likely to see the Matrix-inspired backlash against these ’safe’ virtual worlds)
- Also, if you can fake sensory perception, then it seems like you’d be able to fake memories as well. Implant memories of meeting Jesus, or of living past lives, or anything really. Perhaps people would want to sign up with others and have a shared collective memory. Or even better, a fully networked mind. Imagine you and your friends and loved ones could be in a state of constant contact with one another, a sort of hive mind. I imagine the drive to be a part of something like that would be tremendously, partly because we’re social animals, but also because of the tremendous advantages amassing all that mind-power together would lead to.
- Apart from megachurches and “traditional” religious institutions, I think a lot of these types of things will be driven by corporations. They will be selling technology, chips, implants, mental hacks and modifications which enable you to exist in these meta-worlds. In a sense, I could see the equivalent of corporate religions springing up around these technologies. Their employees would basically act as ministers to these congregations, providing them with continued access to the religious technologies and various ritual avenues of expression - all of which are designed to make the corporation enormous profits. This to me is one of the more likely scenarios, and I could easily see it merging with others listed above. Maybe all the members of a megachurch would want to be linked together in a hive mind in a virtual reality world where Jesus had already returned - or something along those lines.
Anyway, that’s just a taste of the twisted futures that are playing themselves out in my own little virtual reality space inside my mind. I’m both anxious and scared to see if any of these ever really happen.
Articles With Similar Themes:
- Notes: Bubbles From Eyes
- Your Ideal Religion
- Religion Vs. Spirituality
- I like this too
- Books: Give Me That Online Religion
- Prev: Alistair, On The Air
- Next: Christians Against The Senses
December 7th, 2005 at 3:16 pm
I saw an interesting article on Christianitytoday.com a couple years back about how the Catholic Church is dealing with the African enthusiasm for syncretism. Sacrificing cattle, goats, etc as a blood offering to ancestral spirits is such a huge part of the African spiritual impusle that some Catholic clergy are allowing congregants to do the same before Catholic mass as well, as a way to give Catholic services a familiar and reassuring vibe for tribal peoples.
Christianity is exploding all over the 3rd world actually, even as it is dying out in the west. Very soon the majority of the world’s Christians will be african, asian and economically underdeveloped. I predict this will have a huge impact on Christianity as a worldwide phenomenon - restrained Protestant theology will go “out”, tribal syncretism, spirit possession and folk magic will be “in”!
December 7th, 2005 at 6:39 pm
The return of the shaman?
One can only hope
December 7th, 2005 at 7:06 pm
I just collected a bunch of links together on the future of religion over at my link blog if anyone wants to explore other viewpoints on this:
http://www.timboucher.com/linklog/2005/12/07/the-future-of-religion/
December 7th, 2005 at 7:31 pm
My bet is that the future of humanity will be in the hands of an Erulian Order that will organize and defeat the forces of Horus and the Dieing God reaching for the throat of humanity right before an enviornmental diasaster makes earth almost uninhabitable. Just my 2 cents.
December 7th, 2005 at 7:46 pm
Oh I forgot about the old environmental disaster scenario as a massive religious upheaval. Good call.
December 7th, 2005 at 8:18 pm
Come on Tim, we have to have giant gas explosions, meteorites, and flying saucers akin to the infamously bad INDEPENDANCE DAY to have any real religious turn over in this country. I cant wait! Grab me a pound of popcorn for the ride straight to hell!
Semi jesting,
andrew
December 7th, 2005 at 9:45 pm
Very interesting question. I find the best way to predict the future is to look into the past:
I don’t think churches and religions have changed much over the past 10 years, nor the past 100. Technology has allowed churches to make more money faster and also helps polish its image, but actual doctrines are amazingly stunted.
I think future churches will pick up where Dr. Gene Scott left off: there will be more emphasis on re-translating the Dead Sea Scrolls and analyzing scriptures and passages to the point where a simple verse such as John 3:16 will now mean something almost completely different.
This will lead to newer and more denominations, and some of those denoms will appeal to people right off the bat. Other denoms may just die out. Only the most relevant beliefs will survive– Social Darwinism for religion!
I think certain denoms that exist now will become more popular, and it will be a two-sided affair: the more tolerant denoms (such as Episcopalian) and far-out-seeming ones (Pentacostal) will flourish, but so will the rigid ones (fundamentalist, Evangelical, etc). The religious middle-ground will be filled in with mongrel beliefs– new denoms that mix in New Age philosophy with Catholicism, maybe?
Eventually, if there ever is a One World government, there might even arise a Wal-Mart-type church that swallows up the rest… but that’s if you believe the world has a chance of every being united in the first place!
December 7th, 2005 at 11:38 pm
I’ve returned. My brief pre-bedtime comments.
1. You bet. I wonder how long before CVS starts selling bottle tree kits next to the prayer candles.
2. I suspect Liberation Theology will replace, or at least influence, current RC dogma even down to the level of the nature of, e.g., immaculate conception, communion, etc.
3. I’m not so sure about the “Megachurch”–it’s largely tied in with America’s idiot-oil-soaked Geography of Nowhere approach. Has anyone read Architecture for Worship? It’s awful, but it largely influenced the megachurch and the ecumenical “spiritual center.” On the other hand, the Megachurch might grow to a pseudo-governmental power if Anarchy does descend.
4. After reading #3, that was an image I got: not the sanitized “multidenominational” or “nondenomination” center, but small, poly-denominational centers, aka, syncretism, places where all will express all. Ancient Greece had Buddhists alongside Judiac Missionaries alongside Gnostics, Zoastrians, Atheists, Cynics, etc. Viva la Voudounista Revolucion.
5. I don’t know if humans “strive towards external authority,” but we, especially men, respond very well to commands. I don’t like the possibility that AI might become a new ring-do-not-pass holy-of-holies where only the priestly class can aspire–what about us poor schmucks–but it’s a real possibility.
6. That’s contigent on a lot of different conditions.. the alien mess is a mess. I remember an ayahuasca revelation: “They’re everywhere around me, not is space but in time”. Now run that backwards into Alien Autopsy with a dash of Taken and Alien…
7. I think it’s a great possibility (1/10, maybe even) that’s already the case with UFOs and saviour figures like Maitreya. ANd I don’t like it one bit.
8. The Western material world is a form of virtual reality already. The web is approaching a sort of parallel space to our VR/social-consensual construct. What effect will these second and further interations have?
9. Time is tricky stuff. I’m avoiding that one for now.
10. That’s classic cyberpunk stuff–it’s simultaneously too possible and too hokey.
On a related note, a lot of the alt. reality games, and other heavily-planned/designed experiences–where are you, Fell–bear relation to this. Some, like the edgy neurocam, or the fictional Magus or The Game, in my opinion, open up a whole world of limit experiences and honest-to-barbelo gnosis. Others might contribute to the gradual development of “multiple personality disorder as a way of life” (Morrison), which I believe to be a related phenomenon. But there’s a great chance for more stupid, waste-your-time bullshit, like Tekken 38 Tournament Murder Mystery Investigation, which I can’t see offering much. I admit this is more an aesthetic opposition than an honestly spiritual concern.
Good topic, Tim.
December 8th, 2005 at 12:27 am
To quote one of my favorite shows which is set a thousand years in the future, “I wish he would have chosen a more mainstream religion, like voodoo or Oprahism.”
But Futurama quotables aside, I feel religion will probably die along with the extinction of humanity itself. Possibly. At any rate, that gives us what. . six more years to create new, exciting religions that are as fun as they are pointless? Cause ya know, around 2012 when the 2nd Sun/13th planet arrives, along with the poles flipping, aliens colonizing our planet/False Bob returning with the Xists in tow, I don’t feel “religions” will really matter all that much. Except for SubGeniuses, of course. They’ll survive ANYTHING.
December 8th, 2005 at 1:25 am
Dont forget about the coch roaches and Keith Richards! (lol, Robin Williams’ standup makes me giggle sometimes)
I think eventually, one of two things will happen:
1) Either science and religion will meet somewhere
or
2) Science will become so sick of Physics, and some Psychologists, and you’ll see a massive schism in science, with some branching off towards religion, and others flying in different directions.
And if aliens really do take over the earth, I hope they slow-cook us, perhaps the oceans and volcanoes first. That way I can set up camp in the wilderness somewhere, watch the light show, and cook my food with or without electric power.
That popcorn’s sounded good right about now!
December 8th, 2005 at 2:18 am
that`s precisely george carlin`s viewpoint. we are circling the drain……he just wants to be high enough up so he can watch the show.
December 8th, 2005 at 11:47 am
Don’t forget the likely economic hard times ahead as we pass Peak Oil and head downhill. Economic hardship always drives religious revival, since distress and poverty are two of the four classic motivators for religious ectivity (the others being curiosity and true wisdom). So we will likely see an increase in religious activity in general, even a renaissance, likely with strong Luddite overtones, as people’s faith in technology to deliver a high standard of living is betrayed by the coming post-petroleum collapse, oil wars and environmental disasters.
In India after the collapse of the Vedic Empire beginning about 5,000 years ago, a progression of religious conceptions appeared: Buddhism, Sankarite impersonalism (also known as the Mayavada interpretation of Vedanta) and Vaisnavism. Each became popular and then became the environment that produced the next.
The reason this is interesting is that we have seen a similar progression play out in America over the last century or so. First came the early Vedic philosophy teachers like Vivekananda. Then Buddhism became the inspiration behind the Beatnik generation. That was followed by Mayavada impersonalism inspiring the Hippies in the next generation.
The most likely next progression will be a swing towards a religious conception featuring a direct relationship with a personal God. Whether this takes the form of the revival of a classical faith such as Vedic Vaisnavism, or a syncretic faith containing elements of Vaisnava, Pure-Land Buddhist, Santeria, Wiccan and other paths that worship God in form (sa-guna) is anybody’s guess. My personal opinion is a charismatic type of Gnosticism with an optional choice of many different forms of God to relate to.
We certainly live in interesting times!
December 8th, 2005 at 12:46 pm
“oh god don’t let the churches laws fall on me”and she cackled
December 8th, 2005 at 1:30 pm
For the first time in the past 1,600 years or so, we’re witnessing the growing distinction in the mass consciousness between “religion” and “spirituality.”
People are beginning to perceive “religion” as pointing the individual to something “external,” like a creed or a church, while they are beginning to see that REAL “spirituality” focuses them back to the deepest parts of their own being.
I believe the future of “religion” will be that the word “religion” itself will come to be LESS ABOUT “what the Pope thinks” or “what the bible says” (or the Koran or Talmud) and MORE ABOUT how “my inner experience of the sacred” informs my daily living.
As this happens—indeed it’s happening now—fundamentalism will continue to increase AS A REACTION TO THIS, but it will be fighting a losing battle, ultimately: the true leanings of the heart usually win out over fear; it may take a while and it will be difficult, but I think the “spirituality of the heart” will prevail over any “religion of fear.”
December 8th, 2005 at 7:13 pm
innaressin’
Christianity thrives in the third world
http://chud.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-46278.html
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News of Animal Sacrifice in the Catholic Mass
http://www.worthynews.com/news-features/animal-sacrifice-catholic-mass.html
December 8th, 2005 at 7:41 pm
From an astrological viewpoint, Tim is right on the money with his predictions. I’m working on a big article about just this that’s still half-baked, but this post inspired me to post myself:
Tim Boucher has a great post today speculating on what the future will bring for religion. His ideas tie in closely with major upcoming planetary events:
As the Latino population increases in America, and big companies start advertising more to and being fluent in their culture, I bet we’ll see a huge upswing in Latin and Afro-Carribean religious practices, like Santeria, Voodoo, and all the other variants.
The planet Uranus brings revolution and breaks up rigid social patterns in the sign that it travels through, and earlier this year Uranus moved into Pisces, the sign of the spiritual quest. Pisces is less concerned with dogma (that’s the realm of Sagittarius) and more with a real experience of the Divine. Uranus will remain in Pisces until 2011, bringing with it a huge influx of new religions, occult and not.
Will Christian “megachurches” become even bigger and more popular? My guess is yes. How big and how popular is the question.
Pluto’s travel through Sagittarius through 2008 has brought with it issues of power and religion. Everywhere we turn we see this: The power of the religious right in the government of GW Bush, the battle in the middle east between Jews and Muslims, and between Shia and Sunni. In 2008 Pluto will enter Capricorn and begin creating and destroying our power structures. At that point we may see more banding together of religious groups (Uranus in Pisces) in order to form stronger power bases (Pluto/Capricorn).
When artificial intelligence finally is created, I think we’re likely to see an enormous move towards religious organization around it. The fact is that (most) humans on some level do strive for an external authority. If we have a super-intelligence, I guarantee that one of the first things we’re going to ask it to tell us is whether or not there is a god, and it seems VERY likely that it’s answer is going to be: “Yes, me!” Or something similar. Or, we’re likely to see people feed this computer with a “complete” history of the world, a full text documentation of everything available from every religion, philosophy, etc. And we’ll ask the computer to find the “truth” in all of it.
This I believe is what we are beginning to see as we move into the “Aquarian Age.” Not the “Age of Aquarius” where the moon is in the seventh house and love will rule the sky, but a 2,000 year period where everything we believe we know turns out to be false and many of us become tuned in to sources of knowledge that are beyond the dimension in which we now live. Computer technology is associated with Uranus which rules Aquarius, and the boundary between computers and personal thought will begin to blur. When these changes take place, the concept of a divinity will be completely transformed.
Another related alternative is that technology and mass deception is used by a power elite to fake the above scenario, or to fake the re-appearance of Christ or some other religious figure. Project Blue Beam conspiracies talk about projecting holograms into the sky of religious figures around the world along with microwave pulses conveying information in various languages, directly to the minds of percipients. If such a thing were indeed possible, the world would be pretty much ripe for the picking, I think.
This could certainly happen at any time, but is very likely during the opening Uranus/Naptune square that will occur in the 2040s. Uranus opens a gateway of consciousness and Neptune can create illusion and delusion, and that is bound to be a time of difficulty. Here’s a great article about the effect these planetary cycles have had throughout history.
A fascinating topic; both technology and human consciousness are accelerating at a rate that has not been seen on earth before. I doubt that we can even imagine what even the next twenty years will bring
December 8th, 2005 at 7:42 pm
I forgot the link to my post: http://astrodynamics.blogspot.com/2005/12/future-of-religion.html.