Will Religions Survive in High Tech World?

[futuretalk]

Will religions survive as Earth goes high-tech and global?

By Futuretalk

 

At the center of our civilization lies culture – and the core of our culture has traditionally been religion. More than any other factor, religion provides a perception of reality by explaining the origins of the universe and giving meaning to history as well as humanity’s place in it. Religion defines the nature of good and evil and creates reward and punishment images of life after death.

 

The world’s major religions share their values but not philosophies, and conflicting ideologies have prevented peaceful coexistence in many of our societies for thousands of years. No single religion dominates Earth’s 6.5 billion people, as the following list shows: Christianity 2.1-billion, Islam 1.3-billion, Secular, Agnostic, Atheists, Freethinkers 1.1-billion, Hinduism 900-million, and Judaism, 14-million.

 

Most religious traditions include seeds of compassion and harmony, but some tend to promote conflict. While the world benefits from religious leaders like Pope Benedict XVI and the Dalai Lama who promote peace and benevolence, others like evangelical Christian James Dobson and Taliban leader Mullah Omar cause strife with their “I’m right and you’re wrong” mantra. This negative stance often inspires terrorists that try to weaken or supplant nations through fear, violence and intimidation.

 

Forward-thinking spiritual leaders understand that religions must change if they want to fill the needs of a civilization about to experience overwhelming science and technology breakthroughs at exponential speeds. Futurists predict that by mid-century or before, biotech, nanotech, infotech, and cognitive sciences could ‘morph’ the world into a global community enjoying the benefits of a high-tech future.

 

As the Internet grows and absorbs more of humanity’s knowledge, technology will soon enable two-way natural voice access making this communication system’s wealth of information available to everyone. This will equalize nations and the people in them, and curb tensions caused by today’s misinformation. By 2050, positive-thinkers believe that civilization could finally achieve lasting peace.

 

As life extension technologies mature, futurist Ray Kurzweil predicts that science may one day eliminate unwanted deaths. In Kurzweil’s scenario, humans would not die from sickness, old age, or even accidents. Should death rates begin to shrink, there would be less demand for religious counseling to overcome fear of death.

 

However, theologians believe religions will still have much to offer their parishioners. They can help people identify good and evil, which promotes a healthier moral life; preserve cultural and religious differences, which evoke feelings of individuality and pride; and instill a sense of belonging with congregational meetings.

 

Ethics Professor Thomas McFaul believes that distrust will give way to trust, and religions of the world will come together to bring greater peace and justice into the global village. “By mid-century”, McFaul says, “religious groups will treasure what is at the heart of their own beliefs and still respect, cooperate with, and appreciate the uniqueness of other traditions”.

 

Experts predict that future religious leaders will encourage their faithful to act as unified “world” citizens practicing justice, peace, compassion, and optimism. Obsessions over cultural differences will disappear.

 

So to answer the question: “Will religions survive as Earth goes high-tech and global”? Futurists believe that religions willing to adapt to our rapidly changing 21st century technologies will survive and prosper as we move towards an amazing “magical future”.

 

This article will appear in various print media and blogs; comments welcome. See other published work by Futuretalk at http://www.positivefuturist.com/archive.html

[Turtle]

The sooner we rid ourselves of religion, the better. Much like taking a vaccination rather than doing some dirt dance n' chant to rid ourselves of disease.:hyper: Oh...in my humble opinion.:eek2:

[futuretalk]

One day, religions may not exist at all; but in the near future – next couple hundred years or so – they could play an important role in development of superhuman race. This is just my opinion.

[InfiniteNow]

The sooner we rid ourselves of religion, the better. Much like taking a vaccination rather than doing some dirt dance n' chant to rid ourselves of disease.:shrug: Oh...in my humble opinion.:eek2:

I'm about to go buy a book (inspired by CraigD's post elsewhere actually) by Carl Sagan called " “The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark” for feelings very parellel to this.

 

http://hypography.com/forums/social-sciences/8214-america-doesnt-believe-evolution-24.html#post137159

[futuretalk]

In Demon-Haunted World, Sagan voices skepticism on belief in God and the afterlife, but was not very critical of supernatural, paranormal and pseudoscientific beliefs.

 

I do not envision religions disappearing right away, but many will undoubtedly change their format and adapt to new technologies that promise to reduce – eventually eliminate – deaths. Those that don’t change will quickly go out of business from lack of support.

 

Although I am a freethinker, not aligned with any religious or antireligious beliefs, I still believe religions fill a need in society; at least for now.

[Freddy]

Religion will survive and even grow as long as religious indoctrination continues. Less than half of Americans believe in evolution. Parents overwhelmingly allow their children to be indoctrinated into their religious persuasion. Of all the parents I know not a one has told their children to pick his or her religion or none if they choose. The creeping of religion into public schools through Intelligent design is dangerous. I do not see religion's demise anytime in the future.

[futuretalk]

Religions may not exist in future - Another view

 

Religion has played an important role in the past – historians believe our culture would never have advanced without it.

 

Savage cave man behavior included almost none of our valued “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” mantra.

 

Truly, humanity has benefited from religion, as it helped various ethnic groups face life in positive ways and allowed science and technology to advance and bring us into the high-tech world we enjoy today.

 

However, as civilization becomes more global, many countries feel threatened by change; some think it wrong that capitalist’ in their quest for profits, try to push western fashions and other products that tend to change their culture; others though, see it as positive, offering more lifestyle options.

 

Religions find strength in supporting local cultures, but some carry it too far with invasive war efforts (Bush and Iraq) and suicide terrorists (Al Qaeda). These acts impede humanity’s progress, which encourages technology to develop solutions (soon-to-come nano-dust and other neural enhancements).

 

As technology continues to march forward, most religions will change with the flow; those that do not will disappear from lack of support.

 

By the end of this century we could reach Type I Civilization status and our trillions-of-times more powerful minds may focus on simulated recreational experiences, enjoying the many amazing technologies at our disposal, and looking forward to a future that promises continued improvement in our lives.

 

Certainly, in the next century, our lives will be vastly different – beyond today’s imagination. I cannot envision anyone at this time believing that some imaginary “sky god” holds any influence in our lives. If religion still existed in this far future, it would have to become some kind of an integral part of our high-tech life. Could that happen? Who knows?

[TheBigDog]

Religion will never, ever, ever be removed from humanity. Religions will come and go, and ebb and flow. But religion cannot disappear as long as people are free to think for themselves. Some free thinking intelligent people will always choose religion. No matter how irrational non believers may see it, and no matter what science is used to remove it, religion will prevail in the hearts and minds of men.

 

The better question is "How do we ally ourselves, belivers and non believers to build the future?"

 

Bill

[futuretalk]

Very well put, BigDog. With 85 percent of Americans believing in God today, cooperation is the key to advancing our technology future.

 

However, as we trek into the 22nd century and beyond, who knows what changes civilization will experience?

[Chacmool]

I'm about to go buy a book (inspired by CraigD's post elsewhere actually) by Carl Sagan called " “The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark” for feelings very parellel to this.

 

http://hypography.com/forums/social-sciences/8214-america-doesnt-believe-evolution-24.html#post137159

It's a great book that everyone should read!

 

In Demon-Haunted World, Sagan voices skepticism on belief in God and the afterlife, but was not very critical of supernatural, paranormal and pseudoscientific beliefs.

I beg to differ. I might have misread Carl Sagan, but I found him to be particularly critical of pseudoscience. However, I'll have to refer to the book (which I don't have with me right now) for evidence from the text.

 

Although I am a freethinker, not aligned with any religious or antireligious beliefs, I still believe religions fill a need in society; at least for now.

I agree - many people seem to have the need to believe in a higher power.

 

Religion will never, ever, ever be removed from humanity. Religions will come and go, and ebb and flow. But religion cannot disappear as long as people are free to think for themselves. Some free thinking intelligent people will always choose religion. No matter how irrational non believers may see it, and no matter what science is used to remove it, religion will prevail in the hearts and minds of men.

 

The better question is "How do we ally ourselves, belivers and non believers to build the future?"

 

Bill

Well said, BigDog. Whether or not religion survives is irrelevant. We have to find ways to get along in the meantime.

[Boerseun]

As to the question asked in the title - with any luck, no.

 

I personally view religion as a vestigal remnant from our superstitious, ignorant past. As a fellow wrote in an article Turtle referred to in another thread, there is nothing more natural than rape. This is not to say that rape has any place in our modern culture, we have transcended whatever evolutionary benefits there could have been to the tendency to rape. But at one time in our biological past, it made evolutionary sense.

Same with religion, I believe. We might have a 'natural instinct' to assume supernatural answers to questions we don't fully understand. This is not, however, to say that its true. We should overcome this childish tendency to believe in fairytales with the same pragmatism as we overcame rape.

 

(This is not to say that rape doesn't occur anymore, either. But we frown up it; it's an evolved instinc that we have criminalised. This is a bit of a contradiction, where our brains have defined certain instincts illegal... but that's a topic for another thread)

 

I hope for the day where rationality rules, and religions are frowned upon. This is not to say that religions won't be practiced anymore, either. I believe that religion is a manifestation of the human brain wanting to understand what's going on. If you don't know anything about stars, how would you explain to your inquisitive mind what those lights in the sky are? You'd start going down a path of all kinds of weird explanations, and before you know it, you'd have invented your very own religion, complete with gods and devils.

 

So, religion does serve a purpose. It's a placeholder in the infant's mind until education gets around to filling the gaps and plugs the holes in the individual's understanding with more concrete, verifyable data. So, someone will enter the education system and experience a "My goodness! So that's how it works! I've always thought the sun was a fiery chariot pulled by horses around the Earth!" kind of moment. And then substitute his ignorant beliefs for concrete information. He will always, however, fondly look back on his misconceptions, and see it for what it was - the folly of youth and ignorance.

 

Everybody has his own 'explanation' for how things work, regardless of how naive and flat-out wrong his explanation might be. Religion is simply a mass-produced version of the same.

 

You have to give 10% of your income to God. God is invisible. Can I pay in invisible checks?

 

Come on...

 

The sooner religion is exposed for what it is, the better. We've all read "The Emperor's New Clothes". We have all been amazed at how silly the emperor was to believe that he actually was wearing clothes, only 'cause everybody told him so. And everybody was too scared to admit they can't see the damn clothes, because that'll be telling of their character. But a little kid who weren't yet indoctrinated to that level spilled the beans.

 

Well, here's the story, folks. The Emperor is naked. Is it a good thing? Is it a bad thing? I don't know. I suppose its simply a 'thing'. It's just the way it is. And if you do believe that you can see his clothes, your bullshitting yourself. Now you'll have to ask yourself to what purpose you're doing this? Are you bullshitting yourself so you don't lose face in front of your friends and family, or are you bullshitting yourself because you can't imagine the Emperor being so stupid as to walk around naked? So that you can't contemplate the possibility that the whole formal structure of belief, the Vatican, the myriad of churches of all denominations and synagogues of all flavours around the world are simply flat-out wrong?

 

We want to believe in some higher power because we have sprung from a male dominance hirarchy. We need to have an old, wise, sagely super-powered male in charge of things. That's how we humans have been wired, that's our evolutionary issue. But we used to rape women as a means of genetic survival, too. We (almost) successfully transcended the one. Why not the other, too?

[HydrogenBond]

Religion will continue on, along side of technical progress. There are several reasons. First, maybe 1% of the world's population are keeping up with the science and technology. Maybe 20-30% use the technology but don't know why its works. While maybe 60-70% are too poor to be part of the tech loop. The logisitics are still ripe for religion.

 

The average person may sit behind the wheel of a Hummer acting like they are at the cutting edge. But the reality is, they know how to drive it but could never build or service it. It sort of a farmer in a tuxedo. He may look and pretend to be sophicated, superfisically for others, but the farmer konws he is still a farmer inside. He also has even deeper mysteries of life he can not explain. Religion offers a way to explain the latter.

 

Another way to look at religion is that it is a study that has yet to be perfected. An analogy would be someone studying chemistry. There is always more to learn. Even after a lifetime one will not reach the end of chemistry knowledge. Religion, like chemistry is a intellectual work in progress that will always attract people seeking to know more that what is currently known.

[InfiniteNow]

It sort of a farmer in a tuxedo. He may look and pretend to be sophicated, superfisically for others, but the farmer konws he is still a farmer inside. He also has even deeper mysteries of life he can not explain.

Yeah, because farmers can't be sophisticated. Great point there HB. Really.

 

;)

[IDMclean]

I would say that i think that sure, religion will continue on, however as it is now? No I do not think that a great many number of the religions will survive as wide spread things. As people rationalize, they eventually drop supernatural beliefs, that is irrational beliefs. The margin by which the need for a supernatural explination exists shrinks ever smaller as the people become more widely educated.

 

Scientology is a prime example of why the discrimination based on creed will halt ultimately in our goverments. Someone who is religious is no less compelled in my book to act as a rational, resposible, and objectively moral individual in this world of ours. Just because a book written thousands of years ago tells you to kill the heathens, the unbelievers, doesn't mean you should do it.

 

Give it time and our religion will take a new shape. It has to or it will disappear into the sands of time, remembered not as religion, but as mythology as is the ancient gods and titans of yore.

[Boerseun]

It has to or it will disappear into the sands of time, remembered not as religion, but as mythology as is the ancient gods and titans of yore.

That's exactly what religion is, and that's exactly where it belongs. So why would this necessarily be a bad thing?

 

Modern religions can take a new form or a new shape, but there are exactly zero differences between the religions of stone-age cultures like the San Bushmen of the Kalahari, the "Dream Time" of the Australian aborigines, or modern Western cultures believing in mythical things like immaculate conception, rising from the dead (zombie fashion), etc. The differences might be in nuance or ritual, but the core elements are exactly the same. We don't know for sure where everything came from or why the world works the way it does. Ergo, an invisible omnipotent omniscient and benevolent god or gods (depending on your flavour of delusion) must be responsible.

 

The deduction from the only evidence we have (our lack of understanding) doesn't follow. It could just as well have been a red bunny that farted the universe into existence. The evidence for that hypothesis is at least as strong as the evidence for any other religion you'd care to mention.

 

Therefore, the most reasonable point of view is that all religion is bunk. And then the argument that religion is our source of morality and if religion should go, morality will disappear, is equal bunk. You get bad people and you get good people. Bad people will always do as bad people will, regardless of whether they went to church on Sunday or mosque on Friday. And good people will always be good people, regardles of whether they are religious, atheist, or whatever. Our source of morality is human nature - independent of any supernatural being.

 

The faster religions will disappear, the better.

 

And, HB, I see what you're trying to say. But look at it from another perspective. The average guy sitting in a hummer (per your analogy) can't build a hummer to save his life. But that doesn't imply that he doesn't know that that hummer was built in Detroit by flesh-and-blood men and women as able as he is. The moment he starts to believe that the hummer is supernatural in origin, I don't think anybody will deem him fit to sit behind that machine's wheel in the first place. Now - expand your analogy to the real world. Do we want the people running our world to believe in a supernatural sentient being, in charge of all things, simply because our knowledge of the natural sciences might not be 100% complete, yet? How reasonable is this: I don't know where the universe came from. Therefore, there must be a God. It's a bit like saying "I cannot find my sock. Therefore, there must be cheese in the refridgerator. And I was probably bad towards the cheese, and now the cheese is punishing me by hiding my sock".

 

The bunny did it. And I'm sure of it. And that's the extent of my evidence. And if you don't believe me, I'll invade your country, I'll put your women and children to the sword, and you will go straight to bunny hell.

 

Religion is not only bunk, but dangerous bunk.

[IDMclean]

Sounds much like the Viral Theory of Religion. That as a meme, religion is one which is an invader, much like aids.

 

As I've said elsewhere. Religion does not imply supernatural involvement, though it usually does include it.

 

Take my own religion. It's made up of truths, facts, and laws. I trust nothing that I can not verify concretely. My religion is one of Science, Philosophy and Humanities. I am a nontheistic secular dialectic materistic humanist conflected pantheist. That is I don't believe in more than what exists, or rather concider things that are above the material as irrelevant. I believe only in the natural. In the here and now, in yesterday and tomorrow. My faith is in humanity, and in the ideals that I hold to be constructive towards maintaining and progressing those faiths.

 

Religion has the potential to be a useful tool to give one motivation. To give one something to believe in, to help one find a purpose for existing.

 

Technically I'm a nihilist. I believe there is no intrinsic purpose for man, nor do I believe us to be special. Nor do I believe in anything beyond what I am now. That is to say at the end of my existence, I will extingiush, and be no more than the fire to have been lit a thousand years ago. No after life, no reward nothing like that.

 

I live here and I live now. No why about it. I just do. The difference between me and some other Nihilist, I choose to make purpose where there is none. Continued existence is important to me, and substained living is important to me and others. Those are things which then have purpose for me.

 

It was my religious questions that brought me to where I am and who I am today. I mean sure taken wrong, taught as a weapon against the masses, used as a terror tactic, religion is potent and deadly. Down right poisonious. Though parts of it are useful, it's just a matter of seperating the chaff from the wheat.

 

Religion has served it's purpose, now it's purpose is changing. Hopefully this will lead to a revoltution in the way we experience religion. I know that it has made for a wonderful synthesis of science, philosophy, and religion in my character.

[HydrogenBond]

Yeah, because farmers can't be sophisticated. Great point there HB. Really.

 

I was making an analogy to show that looking sophiciated does not mean one really is. It was not meant to single out farmers. I used that analogy because of a trip many years ago to South Korea. I mostly stayed in modern Seoul City but traveled to the rural areas, where the modern world was just blending with the old world. I met nice people with a big TV in little hut, Nikke shoes out in the fields, etc. Superficially things looked modern but the people was wonderfully old world charming with their old customs.

 

That made me realize that what you see on the surface does not always reflect what is going on inside. Culture may go higher tech, and people will accumulate technology, and look like the future, but they will still have the same basic human problems with relationships, kids, culture, jobs, polititians, etc., that have been around for centuries. You can take the farmer out of the farm but not the farm out of the farmer. This subjecitve side of life, connected to indivudal and social relationships, will always find comfort in religion.