# And no religions, too
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-no-religions-too/608516
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [January 5, 2012, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-no-religions-too/608516 "2012-01-05T15:45:40Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2012, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-no-religions-too/608516/21 "2012-01-05T17:36:38Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#):
>
> Dianetics will be a mainstrean religion in 500 years. _That’s_ how they get started.
>
> If all religions disappeared tomorrow and with them all the people who like to believe in them, then we’d have a chance of rebooting at least first world society without any religions.
But isn’t the concept of a supreme being/religion hardwired in the brain? A [James Randi-based article](http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/957-homo-religiosus-why-we-are-hardwired-for-belief-in-god.html) addresses the idea.
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2012, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-no-religions-too/608516/22 "2012-01-05T17:46:02Z")
Are there currently any spiritual movements that don’t have their basis in already established religions? What sort of spirituality could arise without childhood indoctrination of the supernatural?
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### Author:  [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2012, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-no-religions-too/608516/23 "2012-01-05T17:46:20Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#):
>
> Premise: All religions vanish today-No memories, history, churches, relics etc.
Then we would be exactly at the place ancient man was, even before proto-civilization, philosophically.
So I can see no reason why monotheism might take precedence over polytheism, or any other belief system if any new religion develops.
Except…we now have science, communication and logic to guide us. The only problem here is that science may be selectively applied to justify fantasy beliefs. Isn’t that what happens now?
There will always be some people who prefer fantasy beliefs, so I doubt that the world will become 100% atheistic.
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2012, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-no-religions-too/608516/24 "2012-01-05T17:49:11Z")
> [@Musicat](#):
>
> Except…we now have science, communication and logic to guide us. The only problem here is that science may be selectively applied to justify fantasy beliefs. Isn’t that what happens now?
But the fantasy beliefs usually predate the science now available. In my scenario, this wouldn’t be so.
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### Author:  [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2012, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-no-religions-too/608516/25 "2012-01-05T17:59:46Z")
Og will rise.
**OG SMASH!!**
…sorry
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### Author:  [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2012, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-no-religions-too/608516/26 "2012-01-05T18:08:47Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#):
>
> But the fantasy beliefs usually predate the science now available.
True, the specifics of those beliefs do – names, powers, stories about gods. But my thought is the _tendency towards such belief_ may be hard-wired, a little like the Randi concept of a god being inate in our brains. Take away the specific god(s) and man will invent a new set, in spite of the lack of proof.
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### Author:  [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2012, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-no-religions-too/608516/27 "2012-01-05T18:19:18Z")
> [@Musicat](#):
>
> But my thought is the _tendency towards such belief_ may be hard-wired
Why? There are plenty of people with no religious feelings today. Either because 1) they’re smart enough to trust science and logic, or 2) they’re dumb enough to not give a damn one way or another.
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2012, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-no-religions-too/608516/28 "2012-01-05T18:58:55Z")
> [@Musicat](#):
>
> True, the specifics of those beliefs do – names, powers, stories about gods. But my thought is the _tendency towards such belief_ may be hard-wired, a little like the Randi concept of a god being inate in our brains. Take away the specific god(s) and man will invent a new set, in spite of the lack of proof.
But if religions arise out of unanswered questions, what current unanswered questions might a new religion spring from? I can’t see any new sun gods arising, for instance.
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### Author:  [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2012, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-no-religions-too/608516/29 "2012-01-05T19:01:13Z")
> [@Martian Bigfoot](#):
>
> Why? There are plenty of people with no religious feelings today. Either because 1) they’re smart enough to trust science and logic, or 2) they’re dumb enough to not give a damn one way or another.
Exactly. The tendency impels, it doesn’t compel, to borrow from a favorite astrology phrase.
I guess what I’m saying is, just like logic doesn’t override some beliefs today, it wouldn’t override all of them in the future if we started with a clean slate. Obviously, that’s only a philosophical/psychological opinion, not hard fact.
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### Author:  [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2012, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-no-religions-too/608516/30 "2012-01-05T19:10:08Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#):
>
> But if religions arise out of unanswered questions, what current unanswered questions might a new religion spring from? I can’t see any new sun gods arising, for instance.
No, I’m sure the details would be quite different. But there are some people who, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, believe that gods, supernatural beings, or aliens, created the Egyptian pyramids and Stonehenge, and there are those who believe that medical science can’t cure disease and a mystical being must be invoked (Christian Science), and those that believe in Scientology, which arose much after the scientific method was developed, and those who believe ghosts exist and aliens visit us daily.
Just like ancient man looked at nature and invented stories, I think future man would do likewise. Some people aren’t satisfied with mundane explanations and gravitate towards more elaborate, fanciful ones, in spite of science. I doubt if this would change.
As an example, I have a friend who occasionally calls me up to ask about some new (to him) “paranormal” event he has just stumbled across. He rejects most scientific explanations but accepts most paranormal ones. It seems to be part of the way he thinks. Now that I think about it, I have too many friends like that. I need to get some new friends.
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### Author:  [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2012, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-no-religions-too/608516/31 "2012-01-05T19:23:39Z")
I think modern Paganism/Wiccanism (at least as practiced/believed by the people I know who are into it) is an example of the sort of thing you’d see pop up again pretty quickly. Maybe not quite the same and without the same trappings, but millions of people have vague (or not so vague) belief in tarot, astrology . . . basically, some sort of wisdom/predicative power that will tell them What To Do. The appeal of that belief, and the emotional need people have to believe those things will not go away.
That said, just as we will never again have The Beatles, we will never again have Jesus. Fracturing, compartmentalization, and personal customization of culture will keep that kind of truly universal religious entity from coming into being again, IMHO.
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### Author:  [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2012, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-no-religions-too/608516/32 "2012-01-05T20:54:30Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#):
>
> But if religions arise out of unanswered questions, what current unanswered questions might a new religion spring from?
I don’t think that is a necessary condition or the sole source of fantasy.
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### Author:  [@B.Serum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/B.Serum)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2012, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-no-religions-too/608516/33 "2012-01-05T21:42:16Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#):
>
> Premise: All religions vanish today-No memories, history, churches, relics etc.
> Do new religions develop? If so, what might they be like?
> Might the world go atheist?
I highly doubt it. The human brain is wired for magical thinking. If you’re particularly interested in the subject, Robert McCauley wrote a book titled “Why Religion Is Natural (and Science Is Not)” which is worth a look.
[Amazon link](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0199827265?ie=UTF8&tag=poinofinqu-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=0199827265)
[Point of Inquiry Interview](http://www.pointofinquiry.org/robert_mccauley_why_religion_is_natural_and_science_is_not/)
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### Author:  [@Blaster\_Master](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blaster_Master)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2012, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-no-religions-too/608516/34 "2012-01-05T21:45:08Z")
I’m not completely clear on the OP. Are we also presupposing that all religion is definitely false or simply that it never developed and may or may not be false? I think that could affect the result. If we assume it is patently false, there’s a chance it may not come around, but if we don’t, then I think we’d end up in much the same place that we are, though the resultant belief systems would likely be fundamentally different.
> [@Martian Bigfoot](#):
>
> Why? There are plenty of people with no religious feelings today. Either because 1) they’re smart enough to trust science and logic, or 2) they’re dumb enough to not give a damn one way or another.
But there’s plenty of things that science doesn’t explain. And even for things that science can explain, it doesn’t make those explanations satisfactory. Our brain is great at drawing correlations between events, it was an important part of survival, but it means in a modern time with so much more input, we start seeing connections between things that aren’t there. With billions of people, there’s bound to be countless statistical anomalies that seed ideas, and then confirmation bias works toward cementing them into consciousness.
The thing is, religion, or spirituality in any sense, while it does have appeals to logic and the rational mind, it’s primarily an irrational and experiential thing. Once we start making this connections we’ll want other explanations. It would probably end up being much more of an illuminati or tri-lateral commision sort of conspiracy theory approach, where a “god” would be the one pulling all those sorts of strings, rather than a more mystical approach, but I think it would still arise.
> [@Czarcasm](#):
>
> Please re-read the OP. The premise is all religions gone, and all memories of said religions gone. With that premise in mind, what do you think would happen?
Maybe I misunderstood his point, but I think he didn’t mean just the memory, but there are some people who have a need to believe in something. To this end, for instance, despite that astrology is pretty thoroughly debunked, there are countless people who maintain interest in it. There are others who are initially drawn to religion for other reasons, some will claim rational or cultural appeal, others will claim epiphanies. Even in a world with no such memories, all you need is some cultural customs getting convoluted with some explanations. Hell, look at how the fore-fathers are venerated in the US, if the US weren’t heavily Christian already, I could easily see that working into some sort of religion. Or you have someone have an idea that binds people together, look at scientology, I could easily see a group created around the ideas of star trek and its philosophical implications quickly getting convoluted into something at least vaguely resembling religion over a few hundred years.
> [@Czarcasm](#):
>
> For example? With all the information now available at the speed it is available, please tell me what sort of religion could arise?
Unless you can have believable AND satisfactory answers to all of the questions people are going to ask, the information we have today may solve some problems, but it would just as much serve as a way to spread the ideas.
Again, I don’t think we’d end up seeing anything like any of the major religions, but look at how quickly conspiracy theories like 9-11 Truth movements or concepts like hate groups spread using modern technology. Sure, we had conspiracies and hate in the past, but they look considerably different now. People will always question what society’s answers our, especially to big questions. So it’s hard to imagine something at least vaguely religious wouldn’t emerge and get some pretty popular support.
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### Author:  [@PandaBear77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PandaBear77)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2012, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-no-religions-too/608516/35 "2012-01-05T23:15:41Z")
Man is hardwired to worship _something_. Those who claim to not believe in any kind of deity still worship something (usually themselves – hell, people who DO believe in a deity generally do that too). Yes, new religions would develop, probably mostly monotheistic.
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### Author:  [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2012, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-no-religions-too/608516/36 "2012-01-06T00:06:09Z")
Given the level of technology that exists now that can solve a lot of these mysteries many religions are based on, I don’t think we would have anywhere close to even a fraction of the type of powerful and influential religions we have now.
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### Author:  [@nani](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nani)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2012, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-no-religions-too/608516/37 "2012-01-06T07:36:40Z")
I would imagine that forms of religion would pop up almost immediately as people have experiences that, had they not had the word religion erased from their memory, they would have deemed religious. Organized religions would start and grow quickly once people begin to seek out ways to reliably replicate these experiences.
As to the character of these religions, they’d probably be similar in certain broad ways to the religions of today. It would be interesting to see whether that world would be more religious than this already quite religious world we live in right now.
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### Author:  [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2012, 8:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-no-religions-too/608516/38 "2012-01-06T08:39:01Z")
> [@nani](#):
>
> I would imagine that forms of religion would pop up almost immediately as people have experiences that, had they not had the word religion erased from their memory, they would have deemed religious.
Given that the word/concept "religion _has_ been erased in this scenario, mystically minded people might well be more inclined to fit such experiences into a convenient pre-existing framework that _hasn’t_ been erased, rather than creating one from scratch. Say, calling it a “psychic experience” or blaming it on UFOs.
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### Author:  [@scudsucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scudsucker)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2012, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-no-religions-too/608516/39 "2012-01-06T11:29:17Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#):
>
> For example? With all the information now available at the speed it is available, please tell me what sort of religion could arise?
Given the massive proliferation of conspiracy theories and other unscientific means of searching for answers, since the internet became widely available, I would argue the speed at which information is available now would actively encourage the growth of religions.
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### Author:  [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2012, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-no-religions-too/608516/40 "2012-01-06T13:06:17Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#):
>
> Are there currently any spiritual movements that don’t have their basis in already established religions? What sort of spirituality could arise without childhood indoctrination of the supernatural?
As has already been said, Scientology. LRH will become deified shortly (if you don’t say he already is). But the beginnings of the religion are psuedo scientific, not spiritual. If all religion were wiped out tomorrow, at the very least religions like scientology would arise.
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