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

Christianity thrives in the third world

Saturday, May 11, 2002
WASHINGTON – Christendom is growing robustly, according to historian Philip Jenkins, who says the quintessential Christian of the future will not be a white male surbanite but a poor brown-skinned woman from a huge city in the Third World.
“By the year 2050, 3 billion Christians will inhabit the globe, but of those only one in six will be a non-Hispanic Caucasian,” Jenkins told United Press International in a telephone interview Thursday. As Europeans have slowed in their birth rate, Jenkins explained, “Christianity will become much more of a black and brown religion.”

http://chud.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-46278.html

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News of Animal Sacrifice in the Catholic Mass

Human Life International reported yesterday that some South African’s are calling for ancestor worship and animal sacrifices to be included in the liturgy of the Mass. According to Archbishop Buti Tlhagale of Bloemfontein, plans to include African pagan rites during the Mass is in response to the Vatican’s invitation to “inculturate” Catholic rites.

http://www.worthynews.com/news-features/animal-sacrifice-catholic-mass.html

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.”

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!

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!

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.

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.

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!

Semi jesting,
andrew

http://www.timboucher.com/linklog/2005/12/07/the-future-of-religion/

restrained Protestant theology will go “out”, tribal syncretism, spirit possession and folk magic will be “in”!

The return of the shaman?

One can only hope

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”!