after institutionalized religion?

.
I have a sense, though I cannot prove it, that these are times when previously-accepted and applauded and institutionalized religious beliefs are waning... waning as water in a large bucket with a small hole might lose its contents, drip by drop. Perhaps it's the Internet with its flimsy instant gratifications or perhaps it is something else. Whatever, it's just a whisper in my mind.

Most visibly, perhaps, the Roman Catholic Church is hemorrhaging constituents, in part because of the sexual abuses its priests have been guilty of. In one Irish diocese, an advertisement for men to join up and become priests was met with a resounding silence ... not one person in an Irish Catholic country even nibbled at the offer. In Russia, participation in the Orthodox faith is wobbling. And there are signs that the bulwark-thick walls of ultra-orthodox Judaism, while far from crumbling, are not what they once were. And then there's good old Zen Studies Society leading the charge among those who may see Zen or Buddhism or Zen Buddhism as a religion.

As I say, none of this proves some sure-fire argument for the dwindle-dwindle-dwindle I sense. All of it may be nothing more than the old-fart proclivity for seeing the rise of mediocrity as the years advance.

But assuming for a moment that my sense is somehow correct and institutionalized religion is losing its grip, what I do wonder is where it is that people with honest yearnings and honest uncertainty and a purely human sense of unsatisfactoriness in their lives will place their money. Will it be a case of "if god didn't exist, man would have to invent him?" What form will the hoped-for answers take ... will they include "god" or will there be some new and improved verbiage?

Nothing will happen in my lifetime. There's still a lot of dripping to occur -- prelates to fulminate, atheists to delight, beliefs to be believed. But I do wonder what the newest mouse trap will be and what name it will go by. Not that the name matters much -- it's the ability to catch mice that counts.
.