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Does anyone think we will live in a post-religious society?

Bainbridge83 3 May 30
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30 comments

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4

I already do in my own little world

3

Not in what remains of my lifetime, but I hope it does happen.

3

Depends.
Organized religion will shrink with time and be less and less relevant, unless some tragedy in global scale happens.
But the religious thinking, with people looking for a super being that will save us in a shape of politician or military power or even treating science as the new god will still be there.
This will always generate dogmactic thinking and open space for pseudo-sciences.
So religious dogmactic mindset will not disappear because we are hard wired to do so, we evolved to do so and it is our evolutive advantage to be able to see and follow padrons.
The science method defy it, it asks you to always test the limits of your knowledge and this needs a lot of energy and resources. Even the most agnostic person will relax and put some areas of his life in automatic mode, trusting that the way he does, think, act, teach is the best way.

Excellent comment. Thank you.

2

Not in this lifetime.
I'm not even sure humanity will ever eliminate religion.

2

I think we are heading in that direction as more and more become "enlightened." But we're not there yet and, sadly, I think things will get worse before they get better in this regard.

2

No I don’t think so, there are to many sheep (follow each other without thinking)

2

One day. I hope so.

2

Not in my life certainly, and not likely overall.

2

We can only hope! 😉

Mea Level 7 May 31, 2018
2

Not on my lifetime and do not underestimate the greed of humans. Most likely the next wave will be dominated by women. Maybe roseanne barr will be their new jesus and trump be judas because that is what a liar will be and everything start again for next 2 or 3 millenials so don't start celebrating yet. It ain't going to happen in your lifetime.

1

Europe has made significant progress to this end in my opinion. The US not so much so....

1

I think Ireland fits the label. I was a boy in the 60s when Ireland was a very oppressive society. The country has shown signs that it no longer accepts the authority of the Catholic Church, voting not too long ago for gay marriage and just recently for abortion. We are expecting a visit from the Pope in a couple of months so it will be interesting to see how the public react to that.

1

No, but many aspects of religion's hegemony in the world ARE eroding, and the rate of erosion is accelerating, particularly for authoritarian / literalist types. I consider this inevitable, because of the spread of education / knowledge, which inevitably destroys religious faith.

As to how that plays out and the timeframes, there are a lot of ways it could go. My money is on it taking another millennium or so for religion to be marginalized / unimportant as a general influence, probably 3 or 4 more generations before the fundamentalists are carved out to that particular fate. But in the meantime there could be rather dystopian detours that could happen, various setbacks / regressions, or, more positively, some tipping point reached that just sidelines religion as a core driving force of society more quickly than I can presently imagine.

Then there's the question of what exactly replaces that ... if it's a reasonable bias to teaching critical thinking / skepticism / scientific method, an overdetermined scientism, or some political or social ideology (democratic socialism? fascism? xenphobia or other forms of areligious tribalism?)

Bottom line, the human enterprise will continue to lurch along, hopefully toward at least incrementally better outcomes.

That's a great post!

1

I am sure that we will, I doubt if I'll be alive to see it.

1

no chance

1

Probably never unless that big ass asteroid wipes us all out.. Don't Panic!

1

No - but we can hope.

1

Depends on how you define religion. Religious organizations seem to be on the wane, but deep religious sentiment by individuals is an integral and valuable part of humanity IMO.

“Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible concatenations, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion. To that extent I am, in point of fact, religious.” Albert Einstein

I think it boils down to independent spirituality versus organised spirituality. For me, organised spirituality is an oxymoron in the sense that the organisation always managed to diminish spirituality as unity of belief becomes more important than spiritual awareness.

@brentan Sounds like we think alike.

1

Seems like we are moving in that direction. The actual practice of religion (as opposed to simply identifying with a religion) seems rare compared to just a few generations ago, at least where I live.

MsAl Level 8 May 31, 2018
1

I highly doubt it. I don’t think that humanity will ever have the potential to replace their individual brand of religion with science on a large enough scale.

1

Not us, but hopefully a few generations down the track.

1

No.

skado Level 9 May 31, 2018
1

By 'we' I assume you mean the current generation. Probably not, but there is some hope for the future. Maybe in another 10 generations, hopefully fewer.

1

Anything is possible with enough willpower. It's going to be very hard to get rid of religious instincts entirely though. I think even in a post-religious society, you would have quite a few people swinging back to it, and coming up with God-concepts of all kinds.

1

No ! We don't live long enough !

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