Quote Originally Posted by Mad Pino Rage View Post
I don't know if religion will ever fade away. Scientology popped up 50 years ago and is growing stronger every day. Cults will rise and fall and eventually one will break through as a new religion. Established churches will break off and form their own ideas (eg Westboro, FLDL). I don't know but I think growth rate for followers of major organized religions will always be on the rise. I would think that even if aliens visited Earth they would probably try to spread their religion, and I think that we would try to incorporate aliens as being created by God and fit that into religious texts.
heh. well. the way i see it, there are myriad ways human history and development can go. one is towards another "enlightenment", i guess, one which doesn't banish religion (which is absolutely inconceivable) but describes a state where the majority of people have a secular education at a very high standard -- consider that in a hundred years we have NO idea what kids will be able to learn and therefore what will be taught in schools. (I.Q. and general intelligence rises dramatically with every generation; this is a well documented and explainable fact.) i'm not saying religion will vanish, just that the tables will turn and it will, slowly but surely, shrink to a small portion of the power it has today.

to me, that seems something of an inevitability. you KNOW the church is afraid to death of it happening -- that's why they try to halt scientific progress. with each scientific advancement, we need god a little less. all that's required to get religion to have less of a hold is education.