11-16-2018, 11:45 PM
(11-16-2018, 01:18 PM)Bill the Piper Wrote:(11-16-2018, 12:51 PM)jleagans Wrote: Nah religions going to come back strong, its at a low ebb in America only thing it can do is have a resurgence.
Iron Age religions will probably remain popular among the uneducated, while the brainy types among the neo-Missionaries can give rise to space-oriented religious weirdness. Like worship of a "Star Maker" or "Spirit of the Cosmos" and revelations received by minds augmented by biotech. The Missionaries were critical of Gilded hedonism, and the neo-Missionaries might be equally critical of dionysian culture left from the millennial cycle.
Millennials are not furthering the dionysian trends of the Awakening, including spirituality. Anything valuable and genuinely dionysian from the Awakening has been pretty much been wiped out already. But since humans need these things, they will come back. Looking at the cosmic cycles, I doubt the alpha-wave prophets will be quite so apollonian as you say. There may indeed be some false hedonism from the next 1T (and indeed the current 4T) for them to react to. The condition of pop culture is depraved to the max, but that was not Awakening culture, even if that is its distorted and empty legacy, thanks to the more-recent repression and commercialization process. Another belle epoque like the 1880s is possible too in the next 1T and early 2T, which could release more-refined pleasure seeking.
You'll probably know more likely than I how these neo-missionaries turn out. But I think a return to nature is more likely, and a rebellion against virtual high-tech pseudo-reality. It seems clear that, this time, the next Awakening will fulfill the aims of the last one, in a more-lasting way, and in ways that change society from the ground up-literally.