Where do you think religion is heading in the 21st century?

As with all things.... it is being swallowed up by oblivion.... slowly but surely succumbing to entropy.

Nothing is destroyed immediately. Rather it is being whittled away in the minds of the populace... slowly ground down so there is less and less of it.... and it holds less and less importance. And when it finally dies off completely, nobody will even remember it any more.

Science will never have all the answers - there are always new questions - and faith will always have a home. Poeple will laways find a way to believe what they want to believe. Within 100 years, we will see another "major" religion develop, though it will have all the characteristics of every other major religion; comfort and answers for those needing comfort and answers, open-arms to new members, a charismatic leader making promises and predictions never to be fulfilled, an us-against-them persecution scenario, and a passion for taking credit for all that is good and blame to others for all that is bad. Scientology is proof of how easy a model it is to replicate. Someone somewhere will find themeselves in a "miraculous" situation and exploit it.

Religion will stay with us because it is necessary. We may have some bad apples inside some of our religions, that are causing great harm at the moment. Also traditional religion may be stuck in the past to much, and not very open to good spiritual ideas that are from other sources, or are new. But with the challenge to our morality, represented by advanced science and technology, and the struggle we will have dealing with the problems resulting, Religion of a more advanced form will have to develop. Necessity is the mother of invention. A lot of spiritual inovation, research using dreams, and hyponotism, new training techniques, and a more updated version of God should result. Atheism won't be eliminated, but it certainly will not take over. That is just a lot of wishful thinking, but very impractical.

First of all, seeing is not believing, believing is seeing. After all, science is a mortal concept and is only capable of answering mortal questions, it is however inferior in addressing the infinite. As far as where religion is headed unfortuneately I believe it is fading.I don't know why so many people enjoy this concept becouse if you look back you will see the further we have pushed GOD out of our schools the more violence, slaughtering and teen pregnancy we have experienced and as we question whether or not we should include GOD in our society, the more we see parents killing thier children, more violent crimes and more hate. It doesn't really matter to me, let the sheep run to the slaughter, but I will always believe and for that I truly live a charmed life.

"Though a thousand may fall at your left and ten thousand may fall at your right, near you it shall not come".

I answered a similar question not too long ago. Here it is: I hope all organized religions of every stripe go the way of the dinosaur. They are just big, money-centered businesses that enrich the few leaders and impoverish the masses of adherents. Anybody who tells you otherwise is dishonest or, dare I say it, a liar.

Edit: To Astrogoodwin: "An updated version of God" in the future? Tinkering AGAIN with your Bible to fit the zeitgist? No surprise there. Christians have been messing with version upon version of the Bible for centuries. No wonder it's loaded with inconsistencies...too many authors.

Let's face it, if these I D morons gain any sort of power, they are going to use it ruthlessly, so I think we're heading for another Dark Age --- and the last one continued for six hundred years!

Into the Aeon of Horus. The first Aeon was of Isis, the mother Goddess. The second of Osiris, the dead God who rose again. And the 3rd will be of Horus.

I think the trends we are seeing in Europe will eventually take root here in America. Religion will slowly fade.

Out of all relevance for right thinking people. Most people are totally ambivalent about it, it will slowly fade away I die.

Hopefully it will end within the next 50 years.