Are we atheistic Humanists able to predict
the Next religious tradition?

Depends on how many years in future we place the Next one.

I failed to predict that Words of Faith from Tulsa would get so big
as it did where I live in Northern Europe. They also surprised
the Pentecostal churches we had. They where taken by total surprise
and had a hard time to catch up and to get the dissenters back who
migrated to the Next religious tradition. Now they seems to have decided
that it is impossible to get them back so better to cooperate with the Next.

Is it not reasonable to expect it does not stop there? Sooner or later some other
Next version of religious tradition does start up and become big?
A kind of re-imagination going on. Like in any entertainment biz
they re-invent old stories and makes them look new or to be
the Next big thing to have faith in. Re-imagining being a way to survive?

It could be explained with humans seeking novelty and the generations
need for to self identify?

Compare with music industry popping out new idols so fast that
the public almost get fed up with too much choice?

But the public turn easily into being bored if there are no new boy band
or Teen Idol to marvel about as the cutest one. Soon forgotten just a few
hits later.

Religions last a bit longer but them too change for to appear new and fresh?

So can we as atheistic humanists predict what the Next big religious trad will be?

Fundamentalism seems to be a good bet? Liberal churches seems to decline.
Few care about them.

And political exploitation of faith seems to go strong. Anti-sex education
and anti-abortion and pro-free-and Home schooling may rise even stronger?

I have for a long time now find it likely that some variant of Political Correctness
turned into a kind of religious tradition that becomes very literally fundamentalist
but what kind of religion it turns out to be I can not guess. Not likely it would become
a supernatural faith. It needs to be some kind of post modern relativism that
are very righteous in their take on moral behavior? But PC is one of faster growing
faiths as I see it. But I can be wrong.

Say them are big the next 25 or 50 years to come.

Then to guess what happens at next 100 years seems very risky.
All trends say that Liberal religious traditions will most likely not survive
and that a few stubborn fundy literal faith will be a fierce minority at most
some 5% of the population?

If the trends among music fans is to rely on then independent acts of musician
seems to be a good reliable trend so could not that also be true for religion.

Think of independent preachers popping up doing their own non-affiliated thing
and them publishing blogs and videos and doing crowd sourcing online and
touring from group to group that sponsor these individual independent believers
that will be like Singer Song Writers in that they are the face of the Next faith
that they individually and independently interpret and perform as an act of faith .

Don’t some musicians already work a bit like that them including texts
and songs that are religious and they tour from Church to Church singing
and people have more easy to relate to the singer song writer than a Pastor
that only give them the text but not the emotional experience that a musician can give?

So for them to survive living on their music they may go that route?

A lot of Jazz musicians survived by doing concerts in Churches when they got
out of job due to Rock and Pop and Disco and House and whathaveyou took over?

You might get a hint of the future of religion and what it may morph into by checking out Phill Zuckerman’s book “society Without God”. After studying the religious philosophies of a cross section of the people of Denmark and Sweden, he found that many believers were cultural xtians and that the concept of fundamental belief didn’t exist there. In other words, xtianity became part of a cultural identity and had no real effect on believers, many of whom would be considered atheists. He went on to mention that in the US, people are beginning to gravitate more to the mega-churches (ex. We have 2 in our area) that are progressive in that there is no preacher per se but various leaders who serve in that capacity, also live bands with progressive xtian music and youth centers complete with gym facilities and day care programs. In short, the church has become a mini community unto itself fully supported by hundreds of members. That may indeed be the wave of the future for the church here in the US. It’s a rallying place for conservatives.

Cap’t Jack

Without spiritual guidance all atheists have to go on are the attempts at future predicting by using “trends”, which are notoriously unstable and by definition without sustainability as predictors. With spiritual guidance from literally above, we see a very different scenario going on which is a duplication of the spiritual confusion that happened around 2100-1900 years ago when the Spirit of Christ phenomena struck the Holy Land and spread out. It spread so fast because there was a spiritual vacuum as both Judaism and the Roman Empire Mystery Religions failed to deliver spiritual security any more to the more intelligent members of every religious group. When the head or brain goes out of the organized religion’s authoritative leadership and everyone is relying on repetition of outdated ideas and rituals, the body will eventually follow suit and this creates a unconscious need for seeking a New religious foundation because religion, despite all atheists attempts to deny this psychological truth, is the way human beings organize and control their major emotions, the ones that come into play in family and community relationships. So what we are seeing and have been seeing for at least a 100 years is this search for meaning going on with people trying new things, (my generation-counterculture) and people retreating into old things, (Jesus movement-conservative politics) because the new stuff was too scary for mass change. But that new stuff we found in our generation is here today and we have to deal with it, e.g:

Environmental degradation.

I was one of those commune organizers and in 1968 I was concerned about humans producing excess heat in cities and ways to reduce it noticing even then the way heat over cities was affecting air currents and weather. And all of us hippies were concerned about environmental pollution. And we were right. Right about Vietnam when conservatives were telling each other and Americans Commies were taking over the world in a Domino Scenario with Vietnam a vital linchpin in the whole of Asia. Right. And in our times, conservatives are right back with God and country and this time the Boogey Man are the Muslim Menace who are going to take over the world unless we stop them. Right. Conservatives just cannot predict anything right because their whole philosophy of life is based on Reaction to what others are doing that scares them, because it threatens security blankets sucked to shreds and falling apart..

The New Paradigm Change is what eventually stabilizes everything as we go through these celestial cycles where each one develops its characteristic religious stamp:
And that’s what going on now and will until the New Paradigm is spread out: And there is only one really new religious paradigm in the world now: Celestial Torah Christianity, nothing like it and because it’s revealed an ancient pattern that can be traced all through the ancient Near Eastern and Abrahamic traditions it has its built in stability that no human being can ever touch with bias or political manipulation—not once the knowledge is out which it is now and will always be there to be rediscovered again and again if this time does take. Which it will—because it answers and satisfies both emotional and intellectual human needs for Purpose in life.
Celestial Torah Christianity at: http://biomystic.org/celestialtorah.htm. Can’t go to Aquarius without a porpoise..

FredW - 29 November 2012 01:04 AM

Are we atheistic Humanists able to predict
the Next religious tradition?

Nobody can predict the next religious tradition.  Religion is just too weird to predict.  You never know what the human mind will come up with next.  It will be weirder than Scientology, Mormonism and christianity and will do at least as much damage to human minds.

 

Depends on how many years in future we place the Next one.

I failed to predict that Words of Faith from Tulsa would get so big
as it did where I live in Northern Europe. They also surprised
the Pentecostal churches we had. They where taken by total surprise
and had a hard time to catch up and to get the dissenters back who
migrated to the Next religious tradition. Now they seems to have decided
that it is impossible to get them back so better to cooperate with the Next.

Is it not reasonable to expect it does not stop there? Sooner or later some other
Next version of religious tradition does start up and become big?
A kind of re-imagination going on. Like in any entertainment biz
they re-invent old stories and makes them look new or to be
the Next big thing to have faith in. Re-imagining being a way to survive?

It could be explained with humans seeking novelty and the generations
need for to self identify?

Compare with music industry popping out new idols so fast that
the public almost get fed up with too much choice?

But the public turn easily into being bored if there are no new boy band
or Teen Idol to marvel about as the cutest one. Soon forgotten just a few
hits later.

Religions last a bit longer but them too change for to appear new and fresh?

So can we as atheistic humanists predict what the Next big religious trad will be?

Fundamentalism seems to be a good bet? Liberal churches seems to decline.
Few care about them.

And political exploitation of faith seems to go strong. Anti-sex education
and anti-abortion and pro-free-and Home schooling may rise even stronger?

I have for a long time now find it likely that some variant of Political Correctness
turned into a kind of religious tradition that becomes very literally fundamentalist
but what kind of religion it turns out to be I can not guess. Not likely it would become
a supernatural faith. It needs to be some kind of post modern relativism that
are very righteous in their take on moral behavior? But PC is one of faster growing
faiths as I see it. But I can be wrong.

Say them are big the next 25 or 50 years to come.

Then to guess what happens at next 100 years seems very risky.
All trends say that Liberal religious traditions will most likely not survive
and that a few stubborn fundy literal faith will be a fierce minority at most
some 5% of the population?

If the trends among music fans is to rely on then independent acts of musician
seems to be a good reliable trend so could not that also be true for religion.

Think of independent preachers popping up doing their own non-affiliated thing
and them publishing blogs and videos and doing crowd sourcing online and
touring from group to group that sponsor these individual independent believers
that will be like Singer Song Writers in that they are the face of the Next faith
that they individually and independently interpret and perform as an act of faith .

Don’t some musicians already work a bit like that them including texts
and songs that are religious and they tour from Church to Church singing
and people have more easy to relate to the singer song writer than a Pastor
that only give them the text but not the emotional experience that a musician can give?

So for them to survive living on their music they may go that route?

A lot of Jazz musicians survived by doing concerts in Churches when they got
out of job due to Rock and Pop and Disco and House and whathaveyou took over?

Lois - 29 November 2012 10:10 AM

Nobody can predict the next religious tradition. 
Religion is just too weird to predict.  You never know
what the human mind will come up with next. 
It will be weirder than Scientology, Mormonism and Christianity
and will do at least as much damage to human minds.

Lois Thanks yes that could be true.
But maybe Cap’t Jack Thevillageatheist
has something going for Mega Churches.
I would predict that both very new unpredicted and
the very known MegaChurces could survive in parallel
for a very long time.

arielmessenger, never heard of those you refer to
and I have not visited that link either yet.
Any short quote from them then that show why they are popular?

So if I get it you have spiritual sources then that they can
be would Lois refers to as too weird to predict for us
that have no such spiritual guidance.

When did they start and how big are they now?
Have you been with them from start or joined recently?
How did you come to hear of them in the first place?

What do they have that make them a good candidate?

Don’t you trust that a combination of Mega Churches
and small meeting in the homes and then going to the
Mega churches makes them able to appeal to a greater
diversity than something none had heard of?

Unless they get Celebs like Oprah to support them?

What about the Mindfulness Movement? Health is a popular trend
and Fitness so a kind of Take care of your body religion?

Lois Thanks yes that could be true. But maybe Cap’t Jack
has something going for Mega Churches. I would predict
that both of these could survive for a long time.

The key here is lots of money and being high profile. Check out the mega man himself, Joel Osteen’s “church”. Less god more feel good woo and psychobabble. That’s what packs em in, marriage counseling, guides to positive thinking, how to be financially stable (god wants you to drive a Cadillac crap), not much fire and brimstone and sin talk.

http://ww2.joelosteen.com/Pages/Index.aspx

Cap’t Jack

Thanks Jack. Yes They have something going for them.

Ariel and Lois are you two maybe cooperating?
None of you mention both of you have already
refered to The Aquariana Key book in other threads?

just a few days ago http://www.centerforinquiry.net/forums/viewthread/15182/P345/

FredW - 29 November 2012 01:04 AM

I have for a long time now find it likely that some variant of Political Correctness
turned into a kind of religious tradition that becomes very literally fundamentalist
but what kind of religion it turns out to be I can not guess. Not likely it would become
a supernatural faith. It needs to be some kind of post modern relativism that
are very righteous in their take on moral behavior? But PC is one of faster growing
faiths as I see it.

Humanism could almost fall into this category.

mid atlantic yes Humanism is very much like that too.
But they seems to play it down a bit by saying they
have aspirations and not that they are righteous true?

aspirations a. A strong desire for high achievement.
b. An object of such desire; an ambition.

As I get it the Political Correct not only aspire but them
already know they have the truth and that no nuances
needed. They already know all the facts and
that no further research is needed on the issue.

Humanism seems more aware of the complexity?
What makes me skeptical of Humanism is the assertion
that we are equal. Okay maybe they don’t say it that way
but it seems to be a dogma that is implied to be true by declaration. 

I know from my own personal experience of being bullied all life
that not all of us are seen as equal to others.
Humanism seems to be naive in that way.

I hope the Unknown Next Faith will be realistic enough to be
open about the complexity of human life.
That humans are hierarchical animals and
that group pressure thinking has effect on us.
Not everyone of us has talent for being individuals.

With spiritual guidance from literally above, we see a very different scenario going on which is a duplication of the spiritual confusion that happened around 2100-1900 years ago when the Spirit of Christ phenomena struck the Holy Land and spread out.

No. We don’t.

Bub, this is the wrong place to attempt apologetics and foisting of evengelical stupidity for fact. I gaurantee you, the people here know the Bible and it’s related works and the scholarship much better then you do.

FredW - 30 November 2012 02:45 AM

mid atlantic yes Humanism is very much like that too.
But they seems to play it down a bit by saying they
have aspirations and not that they are righteous true?

aspirations a. A strong desire for high achievement.
b. An object of such desire; an ambition.

As I get it the Political Correct not only aspire but them
already know they have the truth and that no nuances
needed. They already know all the facts and
that no further research is needed on the issue.

Humanism seems more aware of the complexity?
What makes me skeptical of Humanism is the assertion
that we are equal. Okay maybe they don’t say it that way
but it seems to be a dogma that is implied to be true by declaration. 

I know from my own personal experience of being bullied all life
that not all of us are seen as equal to others.
Humanism seems to be naive in that way.

LL.  No more than the US constitution is naive in its aspirations to treat everyone equally.

Of course we know that not everyone is treated equually.  That’s why it’s called an aspiration.  No governnent in the world can control how individuals treat one another.  The best they can do is to try to prevent government bullying or government-sanctioned bullying.

I hope the Unknown Next Faith will be realistic enough to be
open about the complexity of human life.
That humans are hierarchical animals and
that group pressure thinking has effect on us.
Not everyone of us has talent for being individuals.

Which is exactly the position of Humanism.  If you can come up with a better position on humanity and a better plan for the future,  you’ll let us all know how to do it, won’t you?

....

.....

FredW - 30 November 2012 02:45 AM

...What makes me skeptical of Humanism is the assertion
that we are equal. Okay maybe they don’t say it that way
but it seems to be a dogma that is implied to be true by declaration. 

I know from my own personal experience of being bullied all life
that not all of us are seen as equal to others.
Humanism seems to be naive in that way…

 

In actuality no individual is absolutely equal to another.  Even identical twins have different experiences, and are accordingly different from each other to some degree.  But we are all equal in the fact that we are each a product of our nature, and environment, and personal history.  Thus it seems pertinent that we mitigate our judgments of others and strive to mitigate the circumstances of those who are less fortunate. (That doesn’t mean that I, personally, wouldn’t enjoy seeing your bullies get their asses kicked.)

TimB - 30 November 2012 01:32 PM

Even identical twins have different experiences

...and neither are they genetically identical. The may have the same DNA, but they have slightly different amounts of it. That’s why they differ already at the moment of birth. I thought you may want to know that.

George - 30 November 2012 01:48 PM

TimB - 30 November 2012 01:32 PM

Even identical twins have different experiences

...and neither are they genetically identical. The may have the same DNA, but they have slightly different amounts of it. That’s why they differ already at the moment of birth. I thought you may want to know that.

Sure, and they may have had different environmental experiences within the womb, e.g., one recieving more nutrients than the other, or one having the umbilical cord wrapped around its neck. Also, one is born first.  One is born second. (I didn’t want to belabor my point more than I typically do anyway.)

Every religion has an avatar, a symbolic abstract representation of the deity (god) it describes. Thus when one prays one prays to the “whole” contained in the avatar. And when done right, a feeling of “oneness”, a belongong”, ecstacy, is the result. This is the strength of symbolic ritual.

As far as I can tell Atheism has no such symbol. This is perectly understandable as atheism is a non-belief.  But as a result atheists who are Humanists have no way to focus and direct their “inner self” toward a “concept” of good and right.
I have not seen an avatar which represents humanist values, other than “peace”,  “save the whales”, “save the trees”, “save the earth”, etc. butg those are specific objectives. I am looking for a psychological symbolism that describes the humane qualities of humans. An inspirational code
Perhaps this may be a worthwhile effort, to have a global search or contest for an avatar which expresses the “essence” of humanism. Something one can hang on the wall and occasionally (or regularly) meditate on its subliminal message of our place and purpose in the universe.

Ideas?

Athesim does have a symbol. And more than one! A Spaghetti Monster or a Darwin Fish on the back of the car clearly says: “I am an atheist.” What else would it mean?