Seeing the Future: Can Religion Evolve and Survive in a Changing World?

[Aemma]

Seeing the Future: Can Religion Evolve and Survive in a Changing World?
By Peter Savastano

[Peter Savastano is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey. An anthropologist of religion, his areas of expertise are the intersection/clash of religion, sexuality and gender; devotional and contemplative life in the Roman Catholic tradition; and the future of religion and interreligiosity. He is presently the Co-Chair of the Gay Men's Issues in Religion Group of the American Academy of Religion and has published articles in journals such as Theology and Sexuality and Transformations and chapters in various anthologies including Gay Religion.]



One of the last books the Catholic mystic, social activist, poet, and Trappist monk Thomas Merton read just before his tragic death in Bangkok, Thailand on December 10, 1968, was Final Integration in the Adult Personality (1965, E.J. Brill). Written by the Iranian-born psychologist A. Reza Arasteh, the central premise of the book is that in order for a person to reach final integration of the adult personality, she or he must grow beyond their native culture and religious tradition.

In a subsequent book published twelve years after Merton’s death, Growth to Selfhood (1980, Routledge), Arasteh further develops this central idea making the paradoxical argument: that the means by which one outgrows or moves beyond the limiting worldview of one’s native religious tradition is through the practice of the religious tradition itself.

Two questions I have spent a lot of time thinking about over the last number of years is what form, structure, and expression the phenomenon we call “religion” will take in the future (that is, if “religion” is then still labeled as such); or, conversely, is there a future for religion (specifically formal, organized, institutionalized religion as we presently recognize it) in a rapidly globalizing, postindustrial and postmodern world?

Source

[antonio]

Religion is innerent on Humankind...but we're living at an unpredictable but perfectly planned process of dehumanization and robotization of Humankind yielding so to its denaturalization that nobody knows were it comes...it's the only thing they don't know. as Ive a pessimistic nature I assume it can be no good.

[Eldritch]

Religion is innerent on Humankind...

What's that part of the brain called again? The God Cortex or something. It's speculated that terminal alcoholics sometimes find God and save themselves since that part of the brain becomes active in very late-stage alcoholism.

process of dehumanization and robotization of Humankind yielding so to its denaturalization that nobody knows were it comes...

And thank the Gods for that!

For a moment there I almost lost hope already.

[antonio]

Do you really think it's a good thing? Religion losening is just one of the multiple facets of a bigger thing...just wait and see!

Ps. I hate to sound too apocalyptical, but Im on a phase (lets call it more vulgary late thirties) of consolidation of different experiences and news...and I am usually very confident on the conclusions I extract from what I know.

[Eldritch]

Do you really think it's a good thing? Religion losening is just one of the multiple facets of a bigger thing...just wait and see!

Religion as it's commonly understood being on its way out? Humans becoming robots?

Bring it on.

[antonio]

Religion as it's commonly understood being on its way out? Humans becoming robots?

Bring it on.

Just a last argument: you stated previously it's a hardwired functionality...at same time, were both not to expect MIT atheist nerds are going to preserve it on the electronic humankind they're to create: so it's just the contrary, robots never had religion and it's unclear they ever would have...or maybe it's me being too little confident on their learning modules! One thing is for sure, it would be unfair let androids know where their creators...so, maybe, robots would be more human than humans. Just a final words: (mind) specialization and ideology (including beliefs, specially beliefs) uniformization: these are the keys of the process for what I know. Or maybe I becomed traumatize ten years ago when I tried to step into private companies, they dont want a person like me, fastly I recognized that it wasnt for my weaks but for my virtues. Even so I becomed traumatized if not for me, for the poor world we have and were further building.

[Aemma]

Religion as it's commonly understood being on its way out? Humans becoming robots?

Bring it on.

Do you really want to be called Locutus one day, E.?

[Liffrea]

Some form of spirituality, defined as a sense of sacredness at least, would appear to be inherent to humanity, as an evolutionary adaptation or something external is a matter of conjecture.

[Eldritch]

Do you really want to be called Locutus one day, E.?

Well, in my "post-human civilizations" thread, I did say that I'd like to be a Conjoiner, who are basically a less evil version of the Borg.

[Saruman]

Well today, the only mass dogmatic religions left are Islam and Christianity, and they will pass away in not too distant future. But it's hard to say that spirituality will disappear, for as long a humans are so mortal. Regarding the robotization, well bring it on. I would not like to be Borg though, since I'm a male I can't be the queen.