Will religion ever go away?

I wonder if mankind, on a global scale, will ever denounce religion? What would it take to do this?
Do we really need to wait until space aliens arrive for all these insane people to realize that religion is just a made up story, and done in many many different ways and in different languages, but the fantasy is all the same.. One guy that is God and all his disciples.
Humans devote way too much time to this fantasy.
The only good thing about religion is that it does give people something to focus on rather than fall into despair. They can actually believe someone loves them, even if said person never shows themselves. Kind of like an internet romance, except the other end is just a picture and never replies.

This page is a permanent link to the reply below and its nested replies. See all post replies »

BlueSkyKing · M

“[R]eligion was the race's first (and worst) attempt to make sense of reality. It was the best the species could do at a time when we had no concept of physics, chemistry, biology or medicine. We did not know that we lived on a round planet, let alone that the said planet was in orbit in a minor and obscure solar system, which was also on the edge of an unimaginably vast cosmos that was exploding away from its original source of energy. We did not know that micro-organisms were so powerful and lived in our digestive systems in order to enable us to live, as well as mounting lethal attacks on us as parasites. We did not know of our close kinship with other animals. We believed that sprites, imps, demons, and djinns were hovering in the air about us. We imagined that thunder and lightning were portentous. It has taken us a long time to shrug off this heavy coat of ignorance and fear, and every time we do there are self-interested forces who want to compel us to put it back on again.”

― Christopher Hitchens, The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever