Atheism is unstoppable.

[Belacqua]

You're writing as though all religion is a failed attempt to do what science does better. While I hope those parts of religion will go away, I think we have to recognize that the various religions provide other things which science by definition can't.

Religion evolves and adapts. Many types are fully compatible with science. 

And, sad but true, sometimes the countries where science is well developed use their knowledge to kill more effectively. The survivors in the attacked areas may well see the products of science as evil, and the protection of their god as comforting. That's not going to change any time soon.

You seem to be assuming that I'm saying either religion or science can fulfill human needs, and nothing else. Which is not at all what I'm saying.

I think I wasn't clear before. 

I don't think that either religion or science, and nothing else, can fulfill human needs. 

What I meant to convey is that the two do different things. I don't think that improved science reduces the desire for religion. 

This has been confused in recent years because literalism -- the desire to take the Bible as giving science-like answers about the origins of things -- has increased. Augustine and others were clear that the Bible isn't to be read in this way. The New Testament teaches through parables which are obviously symbolic. In fact I think that the increased desire to interpret obvious symbolism as if it were science is a back-handed compliment to science. We live in an age when science has authority, and we think that any true sentence should be read as a science-like sentence. So silly people think that therefore Genesis must be in competition with scientific explanations. Ancient people were often wiser than we are about how they read literature, but we aren't so good at that. 

But anyway: "Terry Eagleton once remarked that regarding religion as an attempt to offer a scientific explanation of the world is rather like seeing ballet as a botched attempt to run for a bus."

Also, so what if religions are compatible with science? They're still useless, whether or not the proponents of that religion are aware of it. And my argument is that everyone will see the pointlessness of religion at some point.

It's a big claim, to say that all religion everywhere of every type is "useless." Various religious functions appear to appeal to people in different ways. They have survived for a long time. If they had no benefit for people at all, people would stop going. 

People seeing products of science as "Evil" has to do with their perception of the world, not with science. 

Do many people see the products of science as evil? Even Christians watch TV and use iPhones. Some people no doubt see certain uses of science as evil. (I think that no scientist should devote his career to developing autonomous robot bombs that use AI to decide, without human input, whom to kill. But there are scientists working on that.)

What need, exactly, do you think religion fills that NOTHING ELSE in life can fill? That's the question.

That's a big question. We'd have to work out exactly what people get from religion, and then figure out what could replace that. 

I'd say that some people feel a sense of community and purpose which, for them, feels sanctioned by the supreme Good of the universe. It must be comforting to feel that. Offhand, I don't think of any non-religious view that could replace that. 

As for other functions of religion, like providing charity or weekly pep-talks or structured morality -- yes, other organizations might provide those things. And in a perfect world, in the far future when we have reached Rational Utopia-Land, no doubt other organizations will step in. At the moment, though, religion does those things, and will for the foreseeable future. 

And sad as it is to say so, religion in some cases provides the only alternative voice that people hear in contrast to the main moral structure of our time, which is capitalism. In many cases, only people's view of what God wants serves as a persuasive alternative to what the market wants. 

Have you ever taken the bullet train through the urban sprawl around Osaka? From the window the only green oases you can see are Shinto shrines. Only the local gods have the power to overcome the economic desire to pave over everything. Even though the gods do not exist.