...where do you see religion fitting in to society? Will it still be here? Will they still worship Jesus, Muhammad, spaghetti monsters?

I think science will have been around long enough by that point and it will reign supreme...but I also never underestimate the power of dumb.

Thoughts?

I'm not sure where religion will be. I picture more of a personal spiritual journey, rather than a Bible-based church/religion.

I do picture students in school studying ancient Christian mythology, just as we study ancient Greek mythology.

It wasn't mythology to them at the time. It was their religion, and they believed in it.

Who knows...The christian religion has been around for almost two thousand years. Why wouldn't it survive for a thousand years more?

I think religion will still be around. It seems to be an intergral part of our personalities. I suspect it will change and science will be more accepted. BTW, today many religious people have no problem with science. It is not an either or situation even if some posters seem to think it is. Christianity and Islam are new religions so to speak and will probably still be around in some form. 1000 years isn't that long a time and some other religions have been around for much longer than Christianity and are still thriving..



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/01/2011 12:10AM by bona dea.

After the discovery of "youth serum" in 2012, many wealthy people were able to extend their lives indefinitely.

President Monson of MoWay (The Mormon Way) spoke at the 3010 general conference near the Salt Lake spaceport:

"Brothers and Sisters and Transexuals, I met with a widow today whose husband died in 2009. She hasn't seen him for a thousand years. She's been faithfully paying her tithe and cleaning urinals for ten centuries. How blessed is she!"

Hey, that's funny at least for me!
How blessed you are xD

MoWay! Love it! lol

Hi Omen,

That's an interesting question.

I think that religion will exist in various forms, but that Christianity and Islam will have gone extinct and become mythology, much as we deem Greek religion to be mythological from today's perspective. In other words, the stories of Christianity and Islam will be studied for their literary value, but certainly not accepted literally.

I think that Buddhism will persist in various forms because it's visually interesting and it actually (to everyone's surprise) has a technique--meditation--that has positive health effects in many people. I also believe that new religions will arise that align themselves closely with science, technology, and the environment. They'll be utopian, with cult leaders, but cult leaders grounded in science who profess a utopian vision that doesn't invoke White Fathers in the Sky, but instead appeal to common values that unite the community toward a mission or overarching goal.

States (countries) come and go. They have a life cycle. So to humans. So does software. Similarly, I believe that religions have a life cycle: inception, suppression, toleration, growth, persecution, decline, and extinction. I think that Christianity and Islam are experiencing persecution from rationality-based perspectives, namely those of science and technology. Eventually, these religions will decline, and within one millennium, go extinct.

If you want to see what future religions might be like, look at existing high-tech cults today.

Regards,

Steve

Many Christians and Muslims don't take it all that literally now. I suspect that will become more common, but I don't see them dying out that soon.

If we continue to double the population every 50 years, in 1,000 years the population of this planet would be absolutely more than it could handle (I didn't do the math but over 100 billion). Any religion that resists population control measures will be laughed into oblivion long before that.

In addition, scientific knowledge will increase considerably and probably make many religious teachings seem rediculous. Any religion that isn't equipped to adapt to both the about will be long gone.

There will always be things we don't know so religion will happily be there to make up answers.

The questions may change by getting further out than the ones now. They may not be making up answers about where thunder comes from like they did 1000 years ago. They may not be answering how the universe arose like they try to do today. They will continue to make up things like, perhaps, WHY the universe exists.

Remember one common aspect of religion is the way they make promises they don't have to fill (Believe and pay now and you get to live forever). I don't see this changing. There has never been been a time when a sucker wasn't born every second! I just don't think humans are smart enough to never be taken in by the sugar snack religion gives them.

As for many of the intelligent people who are into religion now, the emotional reasons, the comfort, and support shared may likely still be reasons to participate in a religion of the future.

Religions may come and go, but the role it plays will remain because we are human. Christianity has been around 2000 years. Heck, Zoroastrianism is still around. It won't die out in 1000 years. Something weird that we can't imagine may arise to fill the void. It might not resemble what we see as religion today.

I'm delusional, but here is what I would wish for the religions of the future: All the good things of religion without the BS. Imagine a religion that doesn't make up stuff, doesn't pull the supernatural card, doesn't require faith, authority, or a god. Instead, imagine a religion that is all about thinking, humanity, support, hope, charity, empowerment, progression, and education with no links to gaining power. None of the unsubstantiated nonsense. No regressive clinging and sacred attachments to old holy writs. Yeah, I know I'm delusional. I'm one of the suckers too.

Great responses. Sorry if the question seemed a little strange, but speculating about what might be, is something I really enjoy.

Religion will be around in some form untill people evolve a different disposition. As a species we are fairly new. When are ansectors were less evolved I doubt they had religion. As they evolved religious traits began to manifest themselves and have been developing since. As it stands now we can choose to remain non religious after infancy and likely lifelong conditioning. Maybe one day we will lose the traits that lead so many to be religious, but I doubt that time will come in the next thousand years.

I think there will always be some dumb psycho who craves some level of mind control, money, power, and worship. Religion will stay on the planet in one form or another~ in my two cents opinion.

a thousand years from now the chrislamists will be a small terrorist organisation mainly based in the chinese provinces around the 'bible obi' of the north american continent.

the greater part of the world's population will be Atheobuddhists

As others have already opined, I, too, agree that there will always be some sort of religion around. Our human brains are just wired that way. Not that we're born believing, rather, we're born capable of believing and so we do. It takes serious thinking to understand that gods and supernatural beings are just figments of our fertile minds.

But whether Mormonism or any now known religion will survive that long? Anybody's guess!