Is there ever going to be a major new religion?

I don’t see why not. I don’t feel like religion is dying a slow death so fast. For the record I count the Mormons as Christians and as a fairly recent major religion. The Jehovah’s Witnesses seem to have a decent number of people also, I count them as a recent Christian sect.

One question in my mind is if the new religions just convert those who are religious anyway, or pull in people who otherwise had no real religious association. If it’s just converting those who are religious anyway it doesn’t do much in terms if impact I don’t think, assuming the religions don’t turn the people into doing harmful things to themselves or others.

I think it would be great to start a religion, get the tax exemptions, hopefully help people, it sounds good on paper.

Black Velvet if you please.

You started off on a wrong foot here as Islam is almost as old as Christianity and certainly a newborn compared to Judaism. Our next new major religion will the one that has us praying to the God’s of AI who will control every aspect of our lives.

There probably won’t be any big new religion that spawns from the abrahamic religions, unless new scriptures are discovered that acknowledge a new prophet.

I think in order for a new religion to gain a large following there would have to be some groundbreaking evidence that questions the validity of other major religions.

Also, I think Christianity is the newest of the popular religions, not Islam.

Something centered around new age bullshit could possibly get really big. It could be attractive to those who want some kind of religion but not in the traditional sense.

@Silence04 Islam started in the 7th century; Christianity started in the 1st and began spreading around the Roman empire primarily in the 4th. So Islam is definitely a bit newer than Christianity.

@Silence04 IMO Atheism is the newest of up and coming religions.

Erich Von Danken had a shot with his ‘Chariots of the Gods’. He hooked me but apparently it hasn’t grown in recent years. Too bad, he hooked a lot of history and religion together.

Well, Islam started about 500 years after Christianity sprung up so I don’t know that I’d consider it “new.” Mormonism started in the 19th century.

Jehova’s Witnesses and Scientology are the newest I think (without googling.)

Somehow I think we’ve seen the end of any more major religions. As science gets stronger and is more and more able to answer the questions that religions were created to answer, I think the ones we have are going to slowly wilt away.

Kinda left out some important beliefs- Hinduism, in all its variants. And Buddhism is not a religion but a spiritual practice.

And really, with a significant proportion of the world in China, any religion that takes off there would catapult in importance. While Falun Dafa (Falun Gong) is a practice, its spread scared the begetters out of the Chinese Government.

“Religion is dying a slow death ”

From your mouth to… oh wait.

I think you’re right; the current major religions might spawn a few more sects, but overall we are less gullible than we used to be. The internet helps a lot with that.

Other than the apotheosis of Milo, I doubt it.

@gailcalled Wouldn’t that just be another version of Cat-holicism though?

Le chat, c’est moi?

@janbb Cat-holicism could never make peace with its own dogma.

^^ Excellent!

Apple products. It already has millions of followers giving up significant portions of their income, time, and emotions to the great cloud in the sky. They stroke and consult their devices for guidance multiple times per day. Once started on the path few veer to other systems. Children are born into it and look down upon all others.
It gives comfort to the hurting; companionship to the lonely; and stimulation to the bored. In an emergency, followers will grab their devices before all else.
Sounds a bit like a religion to me.

@zenvelo How is Buddhism not a religion and please name one religion that is not a “spiritual practice”.

I think Buddhism is a life style, a certain way of thinking. I don’t think they worship an invisible deity, @Cruiser, or believe that an invisible deity is controlling their lives. But that is just off the top of my head. I’ll go look some more.

Edit: Wiki calls it a religion

Buddhism most certainly is a religion in my mind and I am pretty sure the US federal government thinks so too. I doubt the places where Buddhists go (is it a temple?) pay any taxes.

Wiki calls it a religion, so I guess it depends on what an individual calls a religion. Is it a religion if there are no gods involved?

I don’t think there has to be a God for it to be a religion. It’s a group of people who follow a philosophy. If they had labelled Buddha a God back at the beginnings of the religion then he would be a God. It’s semantics in my mind.

I totally agree @JLeslie I consider Nature my church and every time I am outdoors I feel best connected to my higher power.

@Cruiser Buddhism is not based on belief in a God, or a dogma, there is no creed, no belief system. It is a way of being at peace with the world an date cosmos. That is why there are Jewish Buddhists, Catholic Buddhists, Protestant Buddhists, Hindu Buddhists, etc.

Most evangelical Christian churches are not spiritual practices, they do not invite the followers to explore a relationship with God or Jesus; they are predicated on a set of strict rules that must be adhered to or face eternal damnation. That is not a spiritual practice; that is a black and white way of thinking. Go to an evangelical Christian minister and they will tell you the answer to any problem is strict obedience to what the minister says is the word of God (even though the minister in the next town over will tell you something slightly different).

@zenvelo I see you have some valid points but one you postulate is incorrect…Buddhism is a nontheistic religion or dharma, “right way of living”, that encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha

And no matter how much you may want to redefine Buddhism as not a religion….you will be outnumbered and grossly incorrect.

@Cruiser The critical point, what differentiates it for me, is that there is no creator-deity in Buddhism. That is why I do not call it a religion as opposed to a spiritual practice.

@zenvelo Your definition is one definition, but not the only definition of the word religion. If you look up religions around the world most certainly Buddhism is counted when statistics are done.

@zenvelo Bhuddism fundamentally is no different than Christianity (Jesus) and Islam (Allah)where both of those religions elevated an individual to deity status because of their leadership words and writings. Siddhartha Gautama more popularly known as Bhudda occupied that spot with the Buddhist faithful.

But they don’t pray to Buddha. They quote him, but they don’t pray to him the way Christians pray directly to Jesus and Islamic people pray to Allah. They acknowledge that he was a wise human who is now dead.

I have my hopes up for the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. All hail His Noodliness!

I would qualify Buddhism as a religion, because it treats mind and soul as separate. The Tibetan form of Buddhism goes so far as to believe in reincarnation. The Buddhists claim that the self is an illusion, which invites the obvious question of, just who is it then that is being fooled?

I figure if an atheist Jewish person can write on a form that their religion is Judaism, why not a Buddhist?

@JLeslie Is Judaism really their religion in such a case? Surely, it may be their culture, their ethnicity, or their history, but it’s not their religion.

@dappled_leaves Agree with you. I feel like I’m culturally and genetically a Jew rather than religiously.

I too consider myself a secular Jew.

@janbb @gailcalled I consider myself ethnically Jewish too, or a secular Jew, but if someone asks my religion I say Jewish. I sometimes clarify I am not religious. If I fill out a hospital form I fill in Jewish. Do you do the same? Some secular Jews don’t, but I think most do.

@dappled_leaves I think my point is the word religion has a few different definitions like so many words in English. How someone uses a particular word can vary from person to person. @zenvelo only uses the word religion for groups that believe in God. Other people use the word differently. All the definitions are correct, what’s important is that people realize the different definitions for clear communication. Someone might intend to communicate one thing, but the listener interprets the intention of the speaker incorrectly, because they define the word differently.

We don’t put Jewish on the census form for the federal government, probably mostly because the Jews would feel terrorized if asked to put that they are Jewish on a document like the census, but that’s another discussion. However, it does come back to how we use the words differently also depending on the circumstance. I’m not going to write down I am Jewish American on a form like the census, because I don’t equate it to being Hispanic for instance, but one could argue it is very similar actually. Then there is my husband who is a Jewish Hispanic person by our current definition of Hispanic. On the census he is white Hispanic. My cousin is “Hispanic” and his family is from England before Cuba.

@JLeslie “if someone asks my religion I say Jewish. I sometimes clarify I am not religious.”
If you don’t mind, could you explain this?

@JLeslie “We don’t put Jewish on the census form for the federal government, probably mostly because the Jews would feel terrorized if asked to put that they are Jewish on a document like the census, but that’s another discussion.”

I agree that we shouldn’t co-opt the discussion, but I just have a quick question about this: do you therefore laugh at any statistics about the Jewish population in the US and abroad? If Jews are not self-identifying on census forms, how do we know anything about them as a group? I always laugh at ultra-conservatives who fear the census, and I’m not sure what I think about this revelation!

I guess now that I go to a Unitarian congregation, I would have to say, “I am a Jewish atheist who is also a Unitarian.”

@janbb Yes, this seems ridiculous to me. When checking a “religion” box, I would expect you to choose “None”. They don’t want your entire social history, they just want to know what you believe.

@dappled_leaves I have no idea what I would choose in terms of a check box. I’m talking more in terms of conversations with people, usually at the Unitarian congregation. There I want people to know that I haven’t repudiated my }ewishness, just parts of it (like that annoying little G-d bit.)

@janbb Well, sure. Real people in conversation do want your entire social history. :)

@dappled_leaves I don’t laugh at statistics about Jews, I question statistics about religion, religious people, and atheists, because depending on how you word the question the answer varies.

I think it’s reasonable to look at Jews as a group. Politics, psychographics, demographics, etc., and discuss them from a sociological, or even marketing perspective. Just because the government isn’t asking doesn’t mean stats aren’t being compiled.

I’ll give you an example of what I mean by wording the questions. I’ve talked about this on Fluther before. When I was in college I participated in a study that was a simple questionnaire. The answers were multiple choice. I had a hard time answering a lot of it.

When I finished I went up to the person administrating the questionnaire who was talking to a student who finished just before me. As I walked up I realized she was saying the exact same thing I was going to say, a lot questions did not have answers to fit her. Within a few seconds we realized we were both Jewish. That questionnaire was obviously written by a Christian who has no clue how Jews function. I don’t know if the other student was an atheist, I’d say 50/50 chance.

I asked what the questionnaire is trying to evaluate, and he said that they are trying to get information about whether having a strong belief system affects students academically. Grades, study habits, and other parameters I don’t remember.

I felt strongly the questionnaire didn’t capture me accurately.

If I remember correctly it never asked my religion.

I’ll add that in a hospital I answer Jewish, because if clergy came to my bedside I want them to be clued in a little for them and myself. If I died I would prefer care be taken that tend to be in line with Judaism, but of course my family would be consulted assuming it is not an extreme odd circumstance where for some reason they are not present. If I died while my parents are alive I care more that Jewish tradition is followed for them. Even though they also are not religious.

^^ Does that mean a plain, unlined pine box, a linen shroud and burial within 24 hrs of death, which is the Jewish tradition?

@JLeslie “Just because the government isn’t asking doesn’t mean stats aren’t being compiled.”

Yes, but my point is that any statistics compiled are going to be utterly baseless if Jews are afraid to check the “Jewish” box on a census form. If you won’t check the box, what is to say others do?

@dappled_leaves It isn’t on our census on America. I’m talking about the federal census. I’m just good old white on there. My husband is white too for race, even though he is primarily middle eastern. He also is Hispanic (actually if I remember correctly they actually separate out Mexicans, so he checks that box).

People can say pretty much whatever they want on the census, it’s not really checked on, it’s just whatever a person personally identifies as. You can choose not to answer about race and ethnic background.

I can’t imagine Jewish people anywhere in the world would be ok with answering a government form for religion. Maybe people in some countries might? If they trust their government and are young enough to remember.

@gailcalled I wouldn’t expect that. I just meant not embalming, not cremating, I’m not sure what else might be done if the body is known to be Jewish. If be fine if it was a religious traditional ceremony though.

As far as my parents, I’m fine with what they would want as long as my husband is fine with it. I don’t want to be embalmed, that’s the only thing I kind of stick to the religion with. At least I think so. I have trouble deciding exactly what I am ok with. I care more about the people who mourn me I think. My great uncle gave his body to science and his sister, my grandmother, was very upset about it. It made an impact on me.

Hopefully not, the world doesn’t need more violence, war, intolerance etc. added to what it is now. (Islam and Christanity do enough damage already)