Religions of the Future...

In all honesty, I don't see any reason why it should have changed hugely from where it is today. Islam and Christianity, in all its various forms, have been fairly competitive, while the others seem to have endured. What I think MIGHT change is the form. Every now and then, you'll get a new branch of each one springing up - either from a cult founded around a single strong personality, or from a moral break-away of some kind. So I'd think that what you'd probably have would be a similar balance to today, but with some elements in the religions (and possibly even some completely new religions) that we don't see today.

Major world events would shape it, though. If the major Christian areas of the world were blighted with a plague, or vice versa for Islam, their respective dominances would fade badly, for example. I could also see contact with extra-terrestrial life really having a major impact on people's perspectives, and perhaps having a significant impact on how the religions view each other in light of the new one.

And also, with fashion, technology and world events, it's always possible that mechanist atheism would have evolved into the position of "religion of choice", though it's hardly one in any really substantial way...

I have no religions in mine. They've all been chased underground by science.

Given the quick progression of religion in the past few years, I'd be willing to bet that Christianity, Islam, and atheism/agnosticism will prevail, and all others will grow extinct (with Buddhism leaving last, due to the rising power of China...though the Chinese government encourages a lack of religion).

Statism, probably.

The vast majority of Christians, Muslims, Hindus, and all other religious people are also statists. So unless you have a bunch of Christian anarchists or Hindu anarchists in your future world, statism will be the dominant religion then just like it is today.

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I think they would probably remain more or less the same. Christianity and Islam could be the dominant two as they seem to be today. Hinduism and Buddhism have been around for a slightly longer time so I don't think they would disappear. The same can probably be said of Judaism, but out of the "big five" their numbers are the lowest so who knows if they are still around.

Atheism/Agnosticism probably would grow as well as some Pagan religions but who knows if they would become major belief systems or not.

I'd say that Judaism would definitely be still around; it's lasted the longest of all monotheistic religions, and will probably continue to last, in the same minority number-range that it always has. Christianity will have mutated to fit the ideas of the currents generation, and Islam will be living in the past, ideologically. I don't know about Hinduism.

Religion in general has upswings and downswings. It was up until the Roman Empire, down during most of it, and up again immediately following its fall. It's on a down now. You can make 500 years from now either an up or a down.

My work deals with this. Remember that 300 years is much less longer than the past longevity of the world's great religions. Even some of the not-so-great ones ... Parsis, Samaritans, and Yezidis still survive, for example. Not many--but some.

In my future world, religions haven't changed much in their forms. There's still a Pope and a Dalai Lama and imams and ayatollahs and swamis and rabbis. But in practice people who believe (then, as now, the vast majority) will be divided less by their historical creedal differences and more by how syncretistic they have become.

People of all the creeds will be divided into two rough, informal, but nevertheless discernible groups. The first and larger group is those who profess their creed publicly while accepting that religions should get along with each other and should all be subordinate to national and global social and political needs. These people will be accepted into discourse in public forums and the media. There are others who speak less in public, but whose primary allegiance is to their faith rather than to the visible public order. This second group of people will be heard of much less often, and then usually in dismissive terms like "conservative," "traditionalist," or "hard-liner."

In short, the situation will be much like the late eighteenth century at the height of the Enlightenment, but on a much larger scale and brought into focus for everyone by the prevalence of the media and the Internet. (Which will still exist.)

I think neopaganism could develop into something with structure. Its own specific buildings, clergy, etcetera. Christianity and Islam will pretty much always be around, because together they comprise the majority of religious people on earth. As for Hinduism, it may get a second wind or something, what with the spread of information. I hope it does anyway, because Hinduism is sweet. Buddhism is also becoming more popular, because it can be used in conjunction with other religions, if used by a freethinker. Christo-buddhism could be the new Sikhism.

I agree with everybody else with regards to Islam and Christianity. Religion would probably become more tolerant and liberal with the more conservative branches (e.g catholicism) diminishing or changing.

What I see are some things staying the same (the presence of the major religions) but if you work your hand just right, you shouldn't have to state how diverse the future social structure is unles it's a major plot point. When we get to intersteller travel, I think that things will depend far more on the culture that colonizes the planet. Some planets could have a strong christian/new unknown religous tendencies while others could be far more pacifistic or Islamic or what have you.

However, the athiest/agnostic portion of the populations should grow. In America today we have an underlying religion, but a society that funcitons without consorting with religious figures (sepperation of church and state). What with all the backgrounds in the world, I think that will be a vital component of how societies will have to function. There will be athiests/agnostics etc and the major urban areas will have less of a religious impact.

There would be exceptions, some cities centered around a religion, and some people where ever they are may profess to believe their cultural religion without doing so, as like today. In summary: Same religions with some new with less of an impact in general and the place/intencity iof the religion would depend on the world/cultural places they live in.

Well, considering that a lot of people who claim to be Christians don't really have any religious convictions — they just do it for social reasons or because "thats the way its always been done" — I'd imagine that atheism or agnosticism will become much more prominent. Such world views are already much more prominent in this day and age than they were in classic times, and not to imply anything derogatory, but education and understanding of the world/universe has increased in parallel with this change in world view. It seems only logical that as technology and understanding of reality grows, more people will shy away from superstitious and supernatural beliefs. Of course, I doubt all religious belief will disappear in 300 years — thats such a short amount of time in the grand scheme of things — though, I do think it will diminish.

I think that Technologism will win out - the worship of technology, whether your computer (for not erasing a file you thought it did), your PDA (for being just plain handy) or even your mobile/PDA/computer/camera/iPod all rolled together (otherwise known as an iPhone). Yep, Technologism's on the way up!

Atheism. I feel that society in general is moving further and further away from Christianity and traditional Christian values and beliefs.

Let's not forget pastafarianism.

This sounds a little crazy, but believe it or not, the Jedi religion is actually making a move. New Zealand recognizes it as an official religion because so many people on their last census claimed "Jedi" as a religion.

The same thing is happening in the UK as well. There is actually a Jedi Church that is tryiing to get state approval in the UK.

What is fascinating about it is, that maybe these uber fans have an inkling into what future religion may be like. I am not saying that the novelty of being a "Jedi," so to speak will stick around. However, Lucas was brillaint. He combined the best parts and fundamentals of the major religions to create the Jedi.

Perhaps, just maybe, as we advance in civilization, and hopefully become more tollerant of each other, maybe there will be a unique religion that involve judeo/christian beliefs with some budhism and enlightenment type ideas. I once read a statistic that in all the worlds religions only about 4% don't share the core ideas and beliefs when it comes down to believing in a supreme being and the teachings of how to live live and treat one another.

That means that 96% of religions believe basicly the same thing. We just have yet to unify and set aside the politics involved in religion.

I think how religions develop will depend to a great extent on how the world develops in these 300 years.

Will we meet extraterrestrial life? I believe that could turn out to be the killing blow for religions as we know them today. At least for Western religions such as Christianity, Islam and Judaism. I don't know enough about Hinduistic and Buddistic creation beliefs to know how they would be affected by the existence of aliens. The religions would have to adjust and change with the changed world. Also, I think many people would worship these aliens as gods.

If the worst-case prognoses become real and there is really a big violent culture clash between the Christian and the Islamic countries, fanatics will profit from it greatly. Nobody can predict whether they'd get the upper hand. If they do, religions might return to promoting holy war rather than peace as they do nowadays

If the environmental problems get much worse, if whole countries are plagued by draughts and floodings, fatalistic religions will profit. Cult leaders all over the world will preach that the end of the world is near, some might order mass suicides and others the return to a pre-technological age. Maybe in 300 years, the terrorists we fear are motivated by a desire to liberate earth from the "human plague". On the other hand, many people will completely turn away from religion, believing that if a higher being exists at all, it must be malevolent to let them suffer like this.

f things basically stay as they are, I think religions will basically stay the same, too. 300 years just isn't enough time for big religious changes. There will be more atheistic people and even more people than nowadays will belong to an organised church, but aren't truly religious. Paganism might become a socially accepted and widespread religion or maybe it won't. I don't think that we'll ever have a "Pagan Church" like a Catholic Church, for there are too many different Pagan traditions to unite them in one worldwide church. In 300 years, Buddhism will be more widespread in the Western countries, as it's gaining many believers nowadays. As the big Christian churches become more moderate (accepting gay people, women and married men as Catholic priests, and so on), smaller Christian churches will appeal to the conservative people.