It's important to keep the idea of religiosity distinct from that of religious adherence.
Non-religious individuals often are members of churches. Perhaps they joined for social reasons. And people who belong to no organized religious group are nevertheless oftentimes highly religious individuals.
Just wondering what you people think about the future of religious belief. Is there any?
Of course. I don't see the basic underlying level of human religosity declining a whole lot from where it is now.
Do you think that Agnosticism, Atheism and Anti-Theism will reign supreme in the age of scientific forward-leaping
The "age of scientific forward-leaping" might be largely past us at this point. I think that the rate of scientific discovery and technological change is slowing, but I can't say whether that's a long-term trend. I suspect that it might be.
or does modern day religion have what it takes to hang on?
I think that religion has been changing with the times and that will definitely continue, probably at an even faster pace.
In the West, during the 15'th and 16'th centuries, we saw the rise of a more this-worldly culture (the renaissance) and growing antipathy towards the established Christian church (the reformation). In the 17'th and 18'th centuries, we saw the rise of deism and the heyday of natural theology amid growing skepticism about special revelations. In the 19'th and 20'th centuries we saw the arrival of full-frontal atheism, and along with a whole assortment of new-style pseudo-religious movements like Marxism, Freudianism, Naziism, spiritualism and the flying-saucer faith.
So what's likely to happen in the 21'st and 22'nd centuries? My guess is that religion will become globalized and less territorial. It will be individualised as people start to have adherents of many different religions living around them as neighbors, and as the internet brings every religious tradition on earth just a mouse-click away.
Religiosity around the world will be "Californicated", turned into a cultural supermarket, with people pushing their computers (or portable internet devices) down the many aisles, choosing this and that item to create their own personal brand of religiosity that suits their individual tastes. We already see that trend illustrated on the shelves of many 'new-age' bookstores, where goddess-worship, channeling, ritual magic, eastern religions, celtic mythology, ESP and UFO beliefs, esoteric Christianity, kabbalah, yoga... you name it, all rub elbows and compete for space.
I guess that Islam show signs that it is going to put up the most determined resistance to that trend.
So formal religious adherence might continue to decline. It's definitely going to become a lot more fluid, as people feel increasing freedom to leave traditional faiths for new ones, and feel growing freedom to create new religious ideas for themselves.
But the underlying religious impulse is still going to be there, the same as it always was.
