@TheMiddleWay "As long as science deals with mystery"[?] Seriously? Science always deals with mystery or, as it is more often called, the frontier of our knowledge. Religion, on the other hand, is forced to retreat from its preconceptions with each knowledge-expanding scientific breakthrough. When religion is not wasting its time in combat with science, it spends its time rewriting creeds, dogmas and superstitions. Given this, of what possible use is religion? If it must inevitably bend to science, why must it even exist? As the Great Agnostic of the 19th Century, Robert Green Ingersoll noted, “Every new religion has a little less superstition than the old, so that the religion of Science is but a question of time.”

@TheMiddleWay I tend to agree with you ... there's always more to learn. And yet, it's a bit like the infinite halving of a distance, don't you think? As our knowledge of the cosmos increases, at some point the 'room for religion' occupies a space so tiny and insignificant that it might as well not be there.

@TheMiddleWay I tend to disagree, or would at least prefer that we qualify the term religion with ‘as we understand it today.’ If religion—and here we must insert the dominant faiths we know today—survives (much less remains relevant) in the centuries to come, it must adapt. It will either evolve or join the graveyard of dead beliefs. The Abrahamic deities, God / Yahweh / Allah and Christ, will eventually join Ra, Zeus, Odin, Baal and the myriad other forgotten gods in obscurity.

So then, what are the gaps that the religionist points to today as ‘evidence’ of his/her god? Miracles? Most certainly not—only the most unscientific and superstitious would insist that a supernatural deity interferes with the laws of the universe. Morality? We now know that the foundations of our morality—namely empathy and reciprocity—are found in other mammals, and are therefore a function of evolution. Consciousness? At some point we will determine, perhaps through the field of artificial intelligence, the required functionality for self-awareness. Origins then? Only hardcore fundamentalists reject evolution, and once science can determine how life got started, the only remaining question involves the universe itself, or, as you’ve alluded to, a multiverse.

The issue I take here is that the gaps are not only receding, but are increasingly unknown even to religion. Science is the only true method to identify knowledge gaps. Religions carved out their positions and placed their stakes in the ground. But religion cannot claim that all newly identified unknowns—thank you science—belong to their domain, or in the realm of their god.

The death of religion as we know it, is inevitable, and science is not the only threat to its existence. The very nature of religion—that of an authoritative, hierarchical philosophy—is in question, as the collaborative, collegial and cooperative character of science gradually permeates society and becomes the norm. Our species is evolving, and we are growing weary of top-down models as a society. Religion, in this context, cannot behave as it does today—it cannot have prophets or prophecies, no sanctuaries or churches, no sacred traditions (no sacred anything!), no miracles or holy texts, no such thing as ‘divine inspiration' or 'revealed wisdom.' If such a philosophy can be made and branded a 'religion,' I might even endorse it!

@TheMiddleWay A beautiful response ... I may still disagree on some points, but your points are well taken. With regard to your point about the increasing participation of science in philosophy, I offer the following quote by Stephen Hawking: "Philosophy is dead. Philosophers have not kept up with modern developments in science; particularly physics.”