Where are we going?
Some of the questions we ask ourselves once we arrive in the real world, both feet on the ground, heads out of the clouds, as atheists, are the "big questions" which all go something on the order of, "Okay, what's next?"
Living in reality has its way of demanding that we spend at least some of our time - our cerebral time - outside of reality, wondering and postulating. We know where we are, sure enough... but where are we going and why?
I came across an old but interesting article on religion in a rather unlikely place, Bnet.com. The article, Forecasting the future of religion: the next 50 years, by Jeffery S Victor, is an interesting muse of the type I eluded to above. Just as its title tells, it tackles a big question and asks: "Okay, what's next... for religion?"
I gave it a read and found that I agreed and disagreed. (I left a comment.)
Religion, of the god-belief type, is on the down slope (no doubt) but will it evolve to some new sort of religion or will it disappear altogether? My call is that evolution is already at full throttle where religion is concerned and that it has been for the past two hundred fifty years. Religion isn't ready to roll over and play dead. Not yet.
As I see it, philosophies such as Jainism, Confucianism and Buddhism in the East and Humanism in the West will be on their way in as the reasonable replacements for the god-ideas of the past. And once the politicians begin to recognize that these "religions" can be as easily romanced as the god-beliefs have been throughout history, it won't be likely to see wholesale religion die off altogether at anytime soon. More likely, religions overall will evolve to become something a tad closer to solid ground... and hopefully that won't take fifty more years.
.
Some of the questions we ask ourselves once we arrive in the real world, both feet on the ground, heads out of the clouds, as atheists, are the "big questions" which all go something on the order of, "Okay, what's next?"
I came across an old but interesting article on religion in a rather unlikely place, Bnet.com. The article, Forecasting the future of religion: the next 50 years, by Jeffery S Victor, is an interesting muse of the type I eluded to above. Just as its title tells, it tackles a big question and asks: "Okay, what's next... for religion?"
I gave it a read and found that I agreed and disagreed. (I left a comment.)
Religion, of the god-belief type, is on the down slope (no doubt) but will it evolve to some new sort of religion or will it disappear altogether? My call is that evolution is already at full throttle where religion is concerned and that it has been for the past two hundred fifty years. Religion isn't ready to roll over and play dead. Not yet.
As I see it, philosophies such as Jainism, Confucianism and Buddhism in the East and Humanism in the West will be on their way in as the reasonable replacements for the god-ideas of the past. And once the politicians begin to recognize that these "religions" can be as easily romanced as the god-beliefs have been throughout history, it won't be likely to see wholesale religion die off altogether at anytime soon. More likely, religions overall will evolve to become something a tad closer to solid ground... and hopefully that won't take fifty more years.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment