Yes, ST says that religion is dead by the 23rd century, but a) this
ain't ST, and b) I think it's hogwash. I'm an atheist, and certainly I
wouldn't object to more people sharing that attitude. But the reality
is that the religious/spiritual impulse has been with us for as long as
we've been alive, and it's not going to just stop suddenly in the next
200 years. If anything, if you look at Eastern Europe, you're seeing a
resurgence there.

Your statement is predicated upon a) something massive and profound
permanently changing the belief system of b) every person on the planet.
At what point does it change for every single person on the planet? And
elsewhere? Where is the switch thrown?

People run into problems in extrapolation when they make the
assumption that things will be *drastically* different (barring some kine
(kind) of real disaster, obviously; if a meteor crashes into the central
United States, it's going to have a pretty substantial affect on the
people living there) from what's going on now. Fr'instance...the B W
SF *musical* "Just Imagine," made in the 1930s, set in the 1980s. In
the movie, people have numbers instead of names, they eat pills instead
of food, all the usual cliches. And, of course, they were wrong.

You're looking at 200-300 years as if it's a long time, which is a
uniquely American point of view. Go to Europe some time, stand in
buildings that've been around longer than this nation, five, six, seven
hundred years. Go to New Grange in Ireland, stand as I did in the burial
mound, the oldest man-made structure in the *world*, made before metal
tools had been invented...and you get a sense of what *time* is. 300
years is a blink.

I am an atheist. But I'm also a writer. And a writer is charged
with the responsibility of being as honest as he can in his work. The
religious impulse, little as it appeals to me, remains one part of our
species' attempt to define itself, and our place in the universe. And
it must be dealt with with a modicum of respect, and honesty. What you
like in ST may be more what you like, what you hope, but neither of us
genuinely *knows* for certain what's going to happen 250 years from now,
so they're both equally valid views.

jms