When traditional religion fades, other things must occupy the minds of the non-religious multitudes.
1. Something else faith-based is going to take over.
These are some of the rising candidates.
Sports: Belief in a concept, or that some event will happen. A sports team. "Superbowl". American football. Also known as bread and circuses.
Horoscopes: Very faith-based and convoluted.
Tarot cards: Ancient. Faith-based. Convoluted. But it's a bit too mysterious.
Zodiac signs: Here, it's not a matter of faith, but of general mass hypnosis, where the people have an incentive to believe, because it's fun to believe it.
2. "Age of reason"
- Tales and legends are seen as what they are, not as what people want them to be. The works of fiction that inspired "scientology" would remain as fiction, without suspended disbelief.
- Other kinds of irrationality, self-deception would take over. Like market bubbles, startup unicorns...
- People would indulge totally in whatever makes them happy, to the extent where there is virtually no time in which they are unsatisfied, meaning that scarcity, the fundamental problem in economics, is solved as soon as it appears. Finding things to want then becomes the full time job (#futureFirstWorldProblems). Religion becomes one of many possible things we can choose to fill our heads with. We are still far from that.
It may well be that population-wide religion would make a comeback if we enter another dark ages. In the meantime, people can always find something to burn away time and brain cells.
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