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It's time for a new religion.  And, I don't mean the messiah story warmed over again with a new star or a Mormonesque prequel religion.  (I don't want to get into the details of the LDS church: there are cartoons on youtube that explain Mormonism pretty well; but, even though it was a neat idea -- and better than the Star Wars prequels -- it's still derivative, and that's not what I'm calling for.)  Scientology has the right idea.  Nothing but originality there.  But, something about Scientology doesn't sit right with me -- it feels superimposed.  It's not organic.  A good religion explains the origin of the world around us and makes a connection between the material world that we can experience and (for lack of a better term) the spiritual world that we intuit.  Scientology has some cosmological spiritual stuff, but it doesn't explain the big picture -- to my limited knowledge, the aliens who get stranded in a volcano don't explain the origin of volcanos.  (I could be wrong -- maybe there is something really compelling at the multi-million-dollar level.)  The next big thing ought to have Scientology's wacky newness while hitting the fundamentals: why are we here, where did reality come from, what should we be doing, &c.  

The authors of our next belief system have to avoid an easy trap -- feigned ignorance.  The last time we were explaining our surroundings, we didn't know much about them.  People who make new religions sometimes fail to distinguish the fundamental QUESTIONS from early-man's knowledge.  The big questions are keepers, but it's no longer necessary to pretend that we wonder where the sun goes when it sets.  In other words, it's silly to come up with origin stories to explain mysteries that aren't.  The new gods (if we're going to use the god model again) will need mysteries to matter -- let's anthropomorphize quantum physics.  Of course, it's not necessary to be scientific purists when we tell our creation stories -- scientists won't ever get to be in control of religion because science tends to lack a narrative, and it is not especially concerned with society.  However, our current experience of the world is largely informed by scientists.  The ontological chunk of religion should no longer begin from the knowledge we get with our senses . . . we can begin from the knowledge that we have acquired with beakers and telescopes and math.  

I think bees would be a good symbol for a new religion.  For one thing -- as you all know -- experts don't know why bees can fly, so that's a good source of mumbo jumbo.  Also there is honey.  But, the best part of bees is their vision (I love that people know things about bee vision but not about bee flight despite the fact that bee flight is the issue that has made it into common knowledge.  Stuff like that is great -- it's sort of like the exasperated "we can put a man on the moon, but we can't do X?!?" question.  The complexity of a problem does not have a relationship to it's popularity.)  Bee vision is cool because it extends well beyond our range.  They see patterns in flowers that we can't see.  We get Roy G. Biv -- they get %^&4roygbiv)(~#!.  That's a great analogy for a religion based in part on the physical world that is beyond our senses but is nonetheless sensible.  

Feel free to use the bee thing new-bible writers.