Some religions keep adding things onto their long lists of rituals and beliefs. Some things may be necessary as a better explanation of things past but more likely another and another layer of belief is all what some religions eventually become - a warehouse of old ideas.
I am reminded about how the number of pieces of flatware in a bride to be’s hope chest grew to 146 items in the 1920’s. The burden of one more special fork for olives or sardines and the expense drove proposed legislation to limit the number of flatware pieces sold to 55 items. How many forks do you need? How many prayers do you need to try to be spiritual within a belief system? How much belief is belief enough?
Without predicting what a global world looks or feels like in 50 to 100 years in terms of religion, the likely book on the topic will come from someone stationed in space or on a lunar colony for a few years. That person will measure the practical of everyday faith of a mixed culture in the colony and measure it against the need of the three basic necessities of water, calories and oxygen. Perhaps in such an environment, God and or faith will be considered a fourth necessity or maybe even primal.
I have never seen any UFOs. Our culture against an advanced one is likely to lose from a technology point of view of any real encounters. From a human POV, maybe merging of ideas will only form wider avenues as pathways to enlightenment.
Perhaps we are too young since the last ice age to see or fathom that the stagnation of religions, or their real functions as yet undefined, over time is cyclical. That when we go beyond earth, carry our faith(s) with us and they polish themselves against other unknown as yet beliefs, maybe the simple faiths of earth will prove to be polished gems amidst the background of the universe.
The efforts some writers are making suddenly to live and let live and say that there can be little common ground to share or change the world through many religions, these efforts are perhaps a bit premature.
