Will God be replaced, and with what?

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A better conception of the divine. God is simply an idea that we all have in our heads. It no more resembles actual divinity than you could eat a paper describing a sandwich.

The idea of God evolved with Judaism many thousands of years ago. They referred to God by various names, names that more ancient peoples devised, and the Hebrews just dusted off and reused. Back then it was held that every tribe had a god protecting them. These gods collected into pantheons as humans earned to ability to build empires. Nations had gods, empires had pantheons.

If an empire really didn’t like you, they’d destroy your temple and whatever physical artifacts your god possessed and forcibly converted you to their pantheon.

This happened to Jews twice, a historical oddity that hasn’t really been repeated. These cultural artifacts were held to be sacred and it was commonly believed that if you destroyed them, your god would be dead too. Jews were influenced by Zoroastrians, who believed that their god was better than all the other gods. Jews innovated on this by stating that their god was the source of all morality.

It’s really interesting to think about how the Jews managed to evolve the concept of monotheism. Christians later innovated on monotheism, and the idea inflected as they spread across Europe and found themselves with the same problem that the older empires found themselves with. It’s easier to allow conquered peoples to retain their beliefs than it is to convert them. So when you see all these saints and angels, that’s where they’re coming from.

Judaism had no use for these things because their religion is passed matrilineally, they’re not interested in converts. Oh I mean you can, but it’s by no means easy. The concept of divinity had to evolve to accommodate evangelism. Theological concepts of grace and soteriology only became interesting because Christianity was interested in spreading itself to anyone who wanted it.

This is another thing that people fail to understand, Christianity was the first religion where the people wanted others to be a part of it. It was inclusive. Anybody could be a Christian. Christendom welcomed all into the fold.

Where is the next big idea going to come from? Well, religion has become a victim of its own success. That’s the big problem it needs to grapple with. A big part of why people wanted to become Christian revolved around the fact that Christians are generous once you’ve entered the fold. But that generosity is no longer compelling. God has to find another way to encourage faith in His people.

The kingdom of God needs to find a way to become rational.