The religions of today are the fables of the future.

[SoldierofFortune]

Right...But when?

History proves that it's really so...Look at the ancient Greek, Egypt, Roman miythologies...The people who lived at that time, they really believed them. Now, that myths are just stories to us. Christianity and Islam, too, are myths.

What is your foresight? When Islam and Christianity will be said to be myths of old times?

I think this actually takes just one generation or two...If those who order global politics want...But they don't want...Religions works for sleeping the people...

But communist Russia couldn't indoctrinate all the Russians to be atheist...

[Hydra009]

Optimistic prediction:  it'll take a couple hundred years
Pessimistic prediction: thousands of years or more

[Mike Cl]

Right...But when?

History proves that it's really so...Look at the ancient Greek, Egypt, Roman miythologies...The people who lived at that time, they really believed them. Now, that myths are just stories to us. Christianity and Islam, too, are myths.

What is your foresight? When Islam and Christianity will be said to be myths of old times?

I think this actually takes just one generation or two...If those who order global politics want...But they don't want...Religions works for sleeping the people...

But communist Russia couldn't indoctrinate all the Russians to be atheist...

Seems to me Constantine did the heavy lifting with the multitude of gods in the Roman Empire when he established the christian fiction----errr, religion as the one and only religion of the realm.  The others were destroyed.  So, even with the destruction of the Roman empire the christian religion was already established.  So, what will destroy the major religions of today?  Education.  And that makes it a slow process.  I think Hydra is right--could be a thousand years or more.

[Baruch]

I am not a progressive.  So I see each generation futilely flailing about, never learning any lessons from history.  So yes, maybe someday Christianity or Islam might be extinct.  Judaism probably sooner.  But there will be new myths.  In the movie Alexander the Great ... Phillip talks to his son, Alexander about the myths.  I think the talk amounted to, that myths were bad, because they create unreasonable expectations, like Alexander himself expecting to be like Achilles or Heracles.  Alexander predictably ended up doing the opposite of what his father wanted.

[gentle_dissident]

The religions of today are fables. Religion is fable.

[drunkenshoe]

As religions are also the fables of the past, I don't know if this is the right way to look at it.

[Baruch]

But Aesop was a cool dude, and I really liked the one about the frog who was too proud ;-)

[Mr.Obvious]

But communist Russia couldn't indoctrinate all the Russians to be atheist...

The USSR, like North Korea, are best seen as State religions imo. Sure there is no god, but there is The worship of The supreme leader, bestowed with a god's qualities and abilities; raised to a godlike status.

In The end, as been said here before, only education can hope to get people to see and truly accept The folly of religions internally. We'll just have to be patient, reasonable and adamant.

[marom1963]

Right...But when?

History proves that it's really so...Look at the ancient Greek, Egypt, Roman miythologies...The people who lived at that time, they really believed them. Now, that myths are just stories to us. Christianity and Islam, too, are myths.

What is your foresight? When Islam and Christianity will be said to be myths of old times?

I think this actually takes just one generation or two...If those who order global politics want...But they don't want...Religions works for sleeping the people...

But communist Russia couldn't indoctrinate all the Russians to be atheist...

I'm not so sure. The ancient myths weren't so uniform in their telling. The ancient gods had so many different myths attached to them. I don't think that the ancients were so damned set on the stories being literally true. But take the Christian myth. It's pretty solid all the way across the Christian cesspool, from the most orthodox to the most rabid protestant: same essential story - God knocks up Virgin who bears god-child who grows to manhood who builds following, performing miracles along the way, who ticks off authorities, who gets himself nailed to planks, who dies, who is resurrected, who ascends into Heaven - blah, blah, blah ... same crap w/only a few minor variations. That'll be a helluva lot harder to kill off than a Zeus who had more back-stories than most people have hairs on their heads. "This is true! This really happened b/c my mommy said so! Lookie - 10 trillion other idiots agree!"

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Right...But when?

History proves that it's really so...Look at the ancient Greek, Egypt, Roman miythologies...The people who lived at that time, they really believed them. Now, that myths are just stories to us. Christianity and Islam, too, are myths.

What is your foresight? When Islam and Christianity will be said to be myths of old times?

I think this actually takes just one generation or two...If those who order global politics want...But they don't want...Religions works for sleeping the people...

But communist Russia couldn't indoctrinate all the Russians to be atheist...

Religions follow society, not the other way around. The Church of Rome wouldn't recognize it's 1600 years later self, and in 1600 more years the names will be next to Zoroastrianism.

[TomFoolery]

I think the Internet is a wildcard variable that makes it too difficult to really tell.

The Internet has done a lot to debunk a lot of things like old wives' tales, conspiracy theories, and urban legends that persisted for a long time. However, the Internet has also caused some people who believed in those things to become even more firmly entrenched in their beliefs in them. While the Internet is a great source of information, it's also a watering hole around which the religious and crazy can congregate more freely.

Exposing people to information seems to go one of two ways: they either take it, think about it, and form an opinion, or they completely reject it, stick their heads in the sand, and scream "yeah, but, but... you're a liar!" until they're blue in the face.

You seem certain that modern religion will perish altogether and become myth at least eventually, but I'm not so sure. Even if Christianity largely goes the way of the dodo, new religions could always crop up or evolve into something else. It didn't take Mormonism a few millennia to become a swiftly growing religion.

[Blackleaf]

I honestly have no idea if/when modern religions will die. Christianity, in particular, has been very flexible. Many don't even believe in the Bible. They just see God as whatever is convenient for their current state of mind. If it dies, it'll likely take a really long time. And even if it does, religion is so ingrained into our nature that there will likely be several more religions waiting to take its place. Maybe, after another 2,000 years, people will finally realize that the "last days" aren't coming.

[Baruch]

"They just see God as whatever is convenient for their current state of mind."

This is true of everything people do.  What the claim about it, is just rationalization.

[Munch]

The old myths can be remembered quite fondly, legends like the Greek and Roman gods and heroes, the Norse gods, Japan and China's myths, all looked at with positive spin.
But will people in the future look back at Christianity and Islam for the cruel and inhumane practices performed by those following it, or will the myths get washed over and made into a tv series like hercules and xena?

[marom1963]

Probably. Jesus will be a superhero, solving crimes on a sound-stage that's made up to look like some future director's fantasy of the ancient world. Mary might be a cross between the Virgin and Xena! - hey, you never know!
Oh, wait - you won't have actors anymore - it'll all be computer generated. And nobody will know a thing about history. It'll be a complete costume drama, so the Roman soldiers will have machine guns, and King Herod will have a super computer w/a wicked sense of humor.