Which Religions Will Do Best In The Next Few Centuries?

[Dayton3]

Which religions do you think will do best (that is have the most people following it) in the next say 400 years?

I remember some science fiction series where U.S. Marines are sent across the galaxy to fight some enemy. When they wake up after several centuries in hiberation and happen to encounter contemporary humans they find that Wicca is the dominant religion of mankind.

Another short story regarding slower than light travel had all the main characters on a huge slower than light merchant ship being Jewish because as the captain thought "only a Jew could see 1000 years as a short span of time".

What do the rest of you think.

 

[Michael]

Maybe there won't be any religions in 400 years. As an atheist I surely can imagine that.

 

[Good Will Riker]

Christianity.

 

[Frodo Lives]

Science damn you!

Isn't Islam on a pretty big upward swing right now? I guess they could probably slow down at some stage and another one may overtake them (Wiccan does sound likely...) though I'm all for Belar's suggestion: Religion should go into the closet and stay there... at least until Xenu returns.

 

[Dayton3]

Religion has been around for more than four THOUSAND years.

It will certainly be around in four HUNDRED.

 

[StarryEyed]

I think it will be non-specific, non-dogmatic religions. I can see future humans searching for meaning in a spiritual way but I can't see the long-term survival of religions which purport to know the specifics of God - especially when such claims fly in the face of science and logic.

I don't think religion will go away entirely but it will evolve. It will become an exploration where one does not presume to know the answers and does not presume to judge others who believe differently.

 

[HRHTheKING]

None hopefully.

 

[Michael]

Has anyone seen the South Park episode "Go God Go"? Cartman freezes himself and awakes in a future where the whole world is atheist. Ironically, this all-atheist world is home to several warring atheist factions in a dispute over what name to use for their organization. I think that was so hilarious!

 

[Plecostomus]

Funny how alot of the self-professed atheists and religion basher types... the ones who mock us bible-thumping Jesus freaks for adhering to a strict religious doctrine without wavering... those are the ones who shout the loudest when Star Trek violates Canon. Look up the very definition of Canon. It's rather hilarious.

That said, I can see the groups with the really active missionary programs like the Witnesses and the Latter-Day Saints (such as myself) going into space to spread the word. Indeed the Saints have other reasons for wanting to go beyond Earth but I'm not getting into that right now.

 

[StarryEyed]

That said, I can see the groups with the really active missionary programs like the Witnesses and the Latter-Day Saints (such as myself) going into space to spread the word.

I suddenly sympathize with the 22nd century Vulcans wanting to keep us in our own solar system.

Can anyone picture "Witnesses and the Latter-Day Saints" showing up at the Great Hall of the Klingon Empire and trying to convert them?

 

[Frodo Lives]

So you're going to use your Marklar to destroy our Marklar, eh Marklar? Not very Marklar of you.

Anywho I consider myself an agnostic with atheist leanings, and I'm well aware of the origin of canon, and couldn't give a flip about it in Star Trek.

I perfer continuity anyhow, but it's not the end of the world when that's messed up either.

And I can see trouble ahead with this thread dudes, religion is a tricky subject, how about we just state what we think'll happen to religion based on our own opinions/speculations and not try to aruge over who's right or whose god is bigger. Oh, and have fun.

 

[Michael]

Frodo Lives said:
And I can see trouble ahead with this thread dudes, religion is a tricky subject, how about we just state what we think'll happen to religion based on our own opinions/speculations and not try to aruge over who's right or whose god is bigger. Oh, and have fun.

I think you are totally right. This thread could become really nasty. We should try to avoid that.

 

[StarryEyed]

This thread has given me a great idea for an Enterprise episode. A group of Jehova's Witnesses could have landed on Kronos and constituted that "disastrous first contact with the Klingons" Picard spoke of. Could have been the funniest Trek episode ever.

 

[Plecostomus]

Indeed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolob

Notice it's similarity to a certain plant mentioned in BSG? The original series creator was a Latter Day Saint, and the original story was based loosely on the trek of the early church members out of New York and across the country. They tried to settle several times but had problems each time, before they made it to what is now Utah.


That is the primary reason that the Latter Day Saints would want to go into space. To find Kolob, and to settle the question once and for all "What does God need with a starship?"

 

[EliyahuQeoni]

StarryEyed said:
I can't see the long-term survival of religions which purport to know the specifics of God - especially when such claims fly in the face of science and logic.

"Logic is the beginning of wisdom... not the end" - Cpt Spock

"God is not a hypothesis derived from logical assumptions, but an immediate insight, self-evident as light. He is not something to be sought in the darkness with the light of reason. He is the light." - Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

 

[Star Wolf]

Frodo Lives said:
Science damn you!

Isn't Islam on a pretty big upward swing right now? I guess they could probably slow down at some stage and another one may overtake them (Wiccan does sound likely...) though I'm all for Belar's suggestion: Religion should go into the closet and stay there... at least until Xenu returns.

We tend to count Islam as one and not different denominations like with Christianity.. Muslims tend to have kids, while others are barely replacing their population by birth. The Mormons also have kids and have the fastest growith by conversion. However the rate may reflect how few Mormons there are after all if you start with one to add one you have doubled.

 

[StarryEyed]

Interesting. I had no idea that LDS was such a young religion.

 

[Frodo Lives]

I just had a thought - if we do somehow make contact with alien life in the next four hundred years, and if those lifeforms had any religious beliefs of their own, I could see them becoming the next big church on the block.

Of course the Scientologists will be pissed...

 

[shapeshifter]

A new Bible based prediction based on a study of Its time-line information gives the world only 3 1/4 years left. It is not easy to explain but basically it says that 2011 is the 7000 year anniversary of the flood and thus; doomsday for the same reasons the world was destroyed by flood; sin. But this time it's with fire not water.

 

[Plecostomus]

StarryEyed said:
Interesting. I had no idea that LDS was such a young religion.

Very recent. Less than 200 years old. I lived in Palmyra New York where it all began. Where the original visions were seen, where Smith found the plates and all that.

*shrug* Rather than take up a thread explaining my church why don't you PM me with any questions. I'll answer them without the typical preachy-convert-now crap that you'd normally get. Offer is open to anyone who is interested!



--One way to look at it... the Borg are the ultimate missionaries/religion. You WILL join, you WILL like it, you HAVE NO CHOICE.