Isn the modern future study movement secular?
The modern study of the future is secular, as indeed science is secular. But even the secular has a core of compassion. In 17th century England, the Royal Society, building on the thought of Francis Bacon, repudiated dogmatic divinity doctrines and substituted the actual study of nature. Compassion and pity for suffering humanity motivated Bacon. His deep religious vision of the orderliness of nature, our world being God’s world, led him to inspire scientists to search for laws of nature an act of faith. Science, a secularization movement, was another way of expressing faith. Religious values or spiritual technologies, however, for the most part do not guide the contemporary futurist. However, there is a new openness among futurists to exploring how meaning, culture and values shape tomorrows’ worlds. The mission of the religious futurist is to relate the worlds of the religionist and the futurist. This involves recreating the concept of laboratory, [made up of words for work and pray,
