PowerSwitch

I was just listening to kunstler ,and he was talking of his vision of the future where people are going to be pretty disappointed with the outcome of technology and just generally demoralized.

And he can see a return of religion to give these demoralized people some hope .

I know something about religion I'm a former Mormon and a lot of our views were slightly different from the majority culture, when society starts to fall to pieces Mormons to a degree will not be surprised because they think your mighty wicked for the most part and doomed for destruction, as is your world .

Lots of other fundamentalist religions think similar. not all religions are non violent, so I think some of them because of strong in group out group boundary's and lots of belief may do OK in a crash

Anyway can you see a real swing to fundamentalist religion, if you guys are right and you have a slow descent will society change and become more like the puritans or taliban ,

You have seen periods of history where the general public were quite liberal then more somber, you can see this reflected in dress styles of the different periods .

Will things many people today think of as normal but in the recent past were thought of as wrong, I'm thinking of things like homosexuality abortion womens lib, go back to being wrong.

This somewhat reminds me of the book "a handmaids tale" of life in a future real fundi America , society can change it has in my lifetime and I don't see any reason why it couldn't change back

Isn't the problem that there are lots of competing religions and sects in modern Western society? It's hard to see any of them gaining the ascendant without a lot of resistance from the others.

Any religious movement would have an uphill battle fighting the ingrained materialist secularism of most Western societies. On the other hand, a secular dogma similar to Nazism could more easily take root, feeding off prejudices and grievances that are already close to the surface.

I feel I should add last year I was a film extra in a American feature film, where I was puritan leader one they dressed me in a black suit with buckle shoes, and a hat like the pilgrim on the porridge oats packet wears, and I had to look stern



Like the sort of person who burned witches, and stamped out sinful ways

apparently I did a terrific job

so in the puritan future, I may be jonny2mad the hammer of the witches and the sinful

Will there be a new movement/drift towards religions?

Yes, I think so, but not necessarily towards the established, traditional religions. There has been something of a religious vaccuum in the West, following the effective neutering of Christianity. Islam has been imported with immigrants and is not spreading amongst the natives. Christianity is seen as out of date. No...the religions which are currently growing in the Western world and set to grow stronger in the coming years are the eastern and mystical religions - Buddhism, Taoism, New Age-ism, Nature Mysticism, Paganism and stuff like that.

I think there will also be a resurgence of traditional values associated with the old religions, but they may not be accompanied by the religions themselves. I don't think you actually need to be religious to arrive at the conclusion that the way we have been doing things for the last 60 years hasn't turned out so good and maybe there is a better way.

It's often crossed my mind that any move away from religion represents a positive maturing of the human race.

If we don't wipe ourselves out, presumably we would evolve further - I do appreciate I'm perhaps conflating timescales here - but it's depressing to imagine us regressing to a discredited way of seeing the universe.

are new age religions fundamentalist enough

I'm thinking of something like the strong powerful new idea the thing that made

Khalid bin waled ride against army's and behead thousands of people at a go, that made early companions of Mohamed ride against their own fathers

That caused people to fight crusades or spend their lives on some god awful rock in the middle of nowhere .

Anyway I think a lot of these new age religions are a bit limp, I'm talking westboro baptist church fanaticism, people who don't mind people hating them because they know their right

ludwig you do have a point about all the different religions that may well play against them until one emerges, and I don't see the Nazis rising they have to much political baggage

Whats traditional, surely it depends how far back you're looking?

Following emordinilap's point, is it not likely that taking together the people attracted to such religions, and the communities such closed-mindedness produces; that they may prevail in short-term survival periods before being left behind by more forward thinking groups/nations.

There will always be religion because of that specialness we feel in knowing we are self aware and feeling a need to explain it with something mystical.

This will see a resurgance whether we have a fast crash or slow descent.

A fast crash may need war like gods, a slow descent may need more contemplative gods.

It's sad and something I worry about quite a bit being somewhat outspoken about my lack of belief in real life.

It depends what you thinks forward looking, either we have a fast crash or a slow decline, I don't think we would get over a worldwide fast crash for many hundreds of years it took what about 700 years for Europeans to start to understand the ruins the romans left .

I'd image it would take us at least that long we would be primitive natives walking through a jungle past the ruins of skyscrapers, or people in mud huts in the shadow of skyscrapers much like the people of dark ages europe lived in a Rome with a few thousand people and goats grazing in the forum.

And when we start to rebuild from there we will run up against the same limits to growth

or we descend in stages of less and less complexity as fossil fuels and materials become rarer and rarer .

In either case I don't think being forward looking as we might understand it is that great a idea, being local having strong in group boundary's seems to be the optimum in a situation of scarcity.

Close minded people, religious fanatics got through the dark ages, I think they may have been the only educated group that did

jonny2mad - have you seen the planet of the Apes tv mini-series? That is very interesting in that the apes operate (around the year 3000 ad) a post-oil sustainable society where humans are the underclass.

I suspect you may find it interesting.

On the question of the thread, I agree that we will see a revival of traditional values but in terms of religion I don't think Europe will see a mass revival of Christianity within a generation (maybe 2 generations from now we may see the return of intense faith in mainstream society). I agree with the others that secularism is just too strong.

America is a different matter and a fundamentalist revival of Chirstianity has been going on since the 70's. Interestingly the rest of the world is getting more religious not less. The UK and Europe are the oddballs.

emordnilap wrote:It's often crossed my mind that any move away from religion represents a positive maturing of the human race.

If we don't wipe ourselves out, presumably we would evolve further - I do appreciate I'm perhaps conflating timescales here - but it's depressing to imagine us regressing to a discredited way of seeing the universe.

I think to view the whole of religion as "a" (single) discredited way of seeing the universe is a rather simplistic way of looking at it.

Religion always served several functions, some social, some moral, some intellectual, some spiritual. My view is that religion can bring out both the best and the worst in people, and that since we lost it, there has been something essentially empty about the way we live.

As for "discredited"... The mountains that science has to climb before it can be declared all-encompassing are higher than most people realise.

Hey what was the film were you an extra in?

The working title was something like fires of faith it was based around the time we got the first bible in English . Basically I walked about a bit looking like I wanted to burn people and handed a petition to king James, oh and argued a bit with people over the bible in the background of a scene .

My sister was a women carrying fire wood in a few street scenes.

I do strange things like that just before that I built a entire supermarket inside a factory unit as a set for a tv series .




and no beria haven't seen a new series of planet of the apes saw the old 1970s series

Wow, an ex-Mormon! I was only on their website yesterday, as I happened to come across a link to their "survivalist section"... they're into prepping big time. The UK Mormon prepping section isn't that big though, nothing worth linking to.

As for religion post-peak, hmmm. I guess it really does depend on too much to know for sure, but I'd hazard a bet of a cup-cake to Black Forest gateau that there will inevitably be more religion post-peak, but after initial collapse for 2 reasons.

Firstly, in most human societies in the past, as soon as you start getting any organisation, you get parasites feeding off the surplus produced by that society. Before you can get kings or prostitutes you get priests. Biggest parasites there are that will use a justification of whatever religion they are preaching.. Buddhist, Christian, whatever... to make sure that themselves and any acolytes are fed, and normally fed very well.

Look at the monks in medieval times... or the rabbis pre and post Christ. All religions demand people to bring the bearers of God's word some kind of sacrifice or offering. And you can bet that sacrificial goat/chicken/bowl of rice wasn't wasted. Also, most priest types will suck up to the rich and powerful of a society. By offering a special deal to the rich, to forgive sins etc, or ensure eternal salvation, they'll be looked after.

So, post-peak, it wouldn't take a huge leap of faith, no pun, to see that there will be a re-run of what has happened in all societies... a parasite will emerge that can justify, by the word of God, why it should be allowed to leach off of society, without putting anything back into that society of any worth. And the people will allow it... for the 2nd reason.

Again, in history and up to today, almost every human society that there has ever been has invented a God or Gods, human create the religion they need to explain the unexplainable, the mysteries of life, of death. Without knowledge, we don't know why thunder happens.. but as soon as someone can explain it, we're happy little humans. If that explanation is scientific, or supernatural it doesn't matter, we just don't want to be scared of the big banging in the sky. And that's just thunder, if I could explain an afterlife, where we're all happy warm and well fed.. to a bunch of scared humans in a post peak world, then I'm half way to ensuring that I'm going to be looked after.. cos I have the answers the scared humans want. I'll be enjoying the happiness, warmth and good food long before they do in whatever afterlife I care to invent.

So, yeah, religion will exist, always has, and probably always will. Can an uber religion emerge. Probably, but based on an existing religion. A fundamentalist preacher, that can unite various groups of people around a core belief... and part of that uniting will include being exclusive to that group... so we'll have to find scapegoats or those we want to exclude from the group. Gays .. but it could equally be asians, or blacks, or the disabled. Anything that'd make the group see itself as better and purer.. based on whatever weird and f***ed up reason the preacher declares is viable.

Ludwig wrote:

emordnilap wrote:It's often crossed my mind that any move away from religion represents a positive maturing of the human race.

If we don't wipe ourselves out, presumably we would evolve further - I do appreciate I'm perhaps conflating timescales here - but it's depressing to imagine us regressing to a discredited way of seeing the universe.

I think to view the whole of religion as "a" (single) discredited way of seeing the universe is a rather simplistic way of looking at it.

Religion always served several functions, some social, some moral, some intellectual, some spiritual. My view is that religion can bring out both the best and the worst in people, and that since we lost it, there has been something essentially empty about the way we live.

As for "discredited"... The mountains that science has to climb before it can be declared all-encompassing are higher than most people realise.

I accept what you're saying. Like many things, there are degrees and I apologise for not fully acknowledging that in my second paragraph.