
Ask HN: Does religion have a future - digamber_kamat
After watching the recent star trek movie I realized that the science fiction movies have altogether kind of agreed that there is no religion in future except in cases of some distant planets with Paganism.<p>There is no Church/Mosque/Temples anymore :) 
Very rarely do we see the remain of Mexican Aztec culture but no Christianity or Islam (for that matter any other major religion)
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gaius
That simply isn't true tho'. The biggest and most famous franchise of all,
_Star Wars_ , is heavily religious, the very first film states it openly. So
is the best recent sci-fi series _Battlestar Galactica_. A main character of
_Firefly_ is a preacher.

Even in _Star Trek_ the Vulcans spend an awful lot of time contemplating
candles and wearing robes. They may not talk about it on-screen but the
producers must have consciously chosen to use monastic/Catholic imagery.

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oldgregg
Belief in a higher power has been around since the dawn of time. There are as
many religious people in the world as ever. Decrease in the west? Yes.
Increase in the east? Yes. Faith has survived thousands of years of
innovation, so it's a bit of generational arrogance (possibly coming from your
particular western enlightenment reddit-reading background ;o) to think that
we're finally outgrowing God.

Nietzsche declared God dead a hundred years ago and since then religion has
been booming in china, africa, south america, et al. Of course, maybe those
poor dumb people will be rich and educated like us someday. :-/

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digamber_kamat
your statement kind of reflecting what I am trying to say. I am from East and
not West.

I am referring here to religion and not to God. Religions like Christianity
and its institutions like church are so much based on Dogma that can not stand
reasoning.

Will that vanish with time and scientific progress?

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Dove
Some folks think so, but I don't. For two different reasons.

The first, rational. Some folks think science will overturn religion because
(they so casually assume) religion is false, irrational, and inflexible. Well,
that's a touch easier to just assume than to actually argue with a live
Christian intellectual, isn't it? I find the viewpoint humorously arrogant,
and shall return the favor: Christianity will survive because it is not only
rational, but also true. Theology and science both love truth, both pursue it
through reason, and anything that is true cannot remain the enemy of either
one forever.

The second, human nature. Some folks think religion is nothing more than
superstition, and easily overturned by education. I think folks might find
that foolish if they actually visited a church and tried it; the roots of
religion in human nature are an awful lot deeper than that. The need for God,
for purpose, for morality, for mythology, is a very deep and universally human
thing. Science, for all its practical success, is a pursuit for intellectuals,
but the spiritual is universal. For every cold intellectual you show me, I'll
show you ten romantics, and maybe even a couple guys who answer both calls.

Christianity has been around for two millenia; Judaism for four or five.
Neither is going anywhere soon. Oh, the institutions will change, the names
will change, how they actually function may grow close to unrecognizable. But
folks will gather for worship and prayer as they always have, and devout
mothers will pray over their children as timeless peers. The hot theological
debates will be different, but doctrine and scripture that hasn't changed in
three or five millienia is not going _anywhere_ in another ten.

It seems fashionable to pronouce religion dead at least once a century, but
it's like the old knight said . . . the church of God is an anvil that has
worn out many hammers.

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amit_pradhan
This is very interesting observation. Over last few centuries we have seen
many religions evolving drastically, I guess the far future will have
religions but they will evolve in such a way that I and you may not be able to
find resemblance between them and todays religion

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digamber_kamat
The trend of that evolution is very much on the lines with Darwin's theory of
evolution by natural selection.

IF we see the dogma of religion has been defeated by reason and logic over
time. But some part of it still exists. Who knows eventually even that will
get extinct?

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ErrantX
Christianity is a very young religion (taking one example). I am certain it
wont exist 100's of years in the future (mostly because certain elements wont
stand the test of science). But will there be replacements? Religions born out
of existing ones or created anew (a bad example: scientology). I imagine there
will be.

At the end of the day religion is designed to fill a void: not the unexplained
(because that, I think, is to do with faith and belief) but rather because
humans constantly seek to hand off their reposnsibility. "It's not my fault I
ws told to...". In a group like a religion blame can be spread out. I think
society does need these organisations, for better or worse, to function
(personally I wish it was different).

Will faith and belief in a higher power exist many hundreds of years in the
future? Well I think there will always be those who refuse to believe the
findings of science (Im thinking along the lines of young earth creationists).
Many of those are due to religious brain washing - but some have actually
developed that view through free will. And I dont see that changing. But I do
think that faith and belief will focus on different aspects of the
unexplained. I t just depends how far our science goes. In thousands of years
we should have documented proof of darwin evolution for example. But will we
have figured out the big bang? Who knows! :)

SO the simple answer to the question is, I think, yes religion does have a
future and yes faith does have a future: but the form it takes is dependant on
our scientific progression (a small irony there I feel)

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y0ghur7_xxx
There is a believe in some form of a God in Star Trek, for example Picard
believes <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNwzawXu4v8> that the afterlife is
run by someone/something, just not by Q.

~~~
digamber_kamat
My question was not really about the God, but religion and institutions that
promote some sort of Dogma.

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catfish
The only hope is evolution. Religion is rooted in the wetware, and resides
physically in the brain. As we evolve a percentage of the population is born
with ever shrinking god regions in the wetware. Those who cannot feel or
understand faith, or do not sense an external force, do not participate in
religious commune.

If this mutation is successful, changes in the population will eventually bear
out a larger group of mutations, than earlier populations. I definitely
believe its a genetic issue and one that will be identified fully in time, as
our understanding of the brain evolves.

At some point we may release the baggage of our childhood and move out into
the universe that beckons. But, as long as there are more people hell bent on
believing the rapture is just around the corner, the less likely I believe our
species can survive.

We have technology that can eliminate us, stories in the Bible, Quran, and
Torah that predict our demise, and a world full of believers set on seeing it
through.

Obviously, this does not add up to a Star Trek ending. Only science can save
us. Hopefully, one day they will find this root of all evil and remove it from
the population.

Maybe, just maybe, we will last that long.

I doubt it.

