This paper is a consideration of three of the world's most popular religions - Christianity, Judaism, and Islam - and their potential place in life in the 21st century. This paper posits a future in which technology has contributed to an increase in prosperity, helped to reverse current environmental stresses, allowed humankind to regularly travel beyond Earth, and provided a bountiful society for the majority of earth's citizens. In this new world, organized religion can be expected to continue to serve an important purpose, but only by being willing and able to adapt to a world transformed by science. The dramatic changes that have occurred in this century have already proved the durability and flexibility of the world's great religions in remaining relevant to daily life.
Paul Boyer (1992) devoted several years and considerable effort to researching and writing an exhaustive study of post-World War II prophecy belief in America. At times, he questioned whether the subject merited such intense scrutiny, but he ultimately concluded that his work was justified by the universality of interest in the possibility of an imminent apocalypse. World events, especially the destruction wrought by the two atomic bombs exploded over Japan in 1945, helped make the end of the world a legitimate topic for discussion and concern in mainstream society. Boyer notes that writers prophesying the end of the world saw ample proof for their arguments in modern society: "The rising ooze of wickedness, materialism, and secularism inundating the West, and particularly contemporary America, they argued, offered . . . compelling evidence that the end was near" (1992, p. 225).
A far less horrifying vision of what is to come, however, is offered by popular science fiction such as the Star Trek TV and film series, as well as more optimistic speculators predicting the shape of the coming millennium. In these scenarios, the world does not end in the e...