OK let’s face facts, human beings need some kind of religion to inspire them to great things and to prevent them from succumbing to nihilism. If the religions they have aren’t satisfactory they will invent new ones. The problem with our ancestral religions is they are myopic, archaic and obviously absurd. Our understanding of the universe has expanded so far beyond the worldviews of Iron Age tribes that it’s incredible to me that their myths still persist. A basic familiarity with modern astronomy, with its world-destroying asteroids, comets, black holes, supernovae and gamma ray bursts will quickly disabuse you of the idea that there is a God who takes a personal interest in our fate. The universe is clearly an incredibly vast and indifferent void. But what about our need for religion?

After meditating on this problem I may have come up with a solution: a new cosmic religion for the 21st century. My inspirations were people like Arthur C. Clarke and Carl Sagan. The basic idea of this religion is that man is destined to become the ancestors of godlike beings who will spread out to the farthest reaches of the universe, harnessing the energy of entire galaxies and bringing life and intelligence to billions of dead worlds.

This quote by Arthur Clarke captures the spirit of the new cosmic religion:

OK, I have quoted one of the prophets and hopefully given you the basic idea of the new cosmic religion; now can anyone suggest a good name for it?

Kurzweilism?

AI needs to be mentioned at least once in order for something to qualify as Kurzweilism imo

Yeah Kurzweil's Singularitarianism is similar to what I'm proposing, but he seems mostly focused on getting to transhumanity and superintelligence. I'm interested in what happens after that!

ftl travel

no they don't need any kind of religion for inspiration..

Hmmm well I totally disagree. Exceptional individuals may be able to deal with the reality of the cosmic void, but humanity as a whole needs myths. Note that I'm talking about religion in the general sense of a system of higher ideals and meaning, not a belief in supernatural gods. The great pyramids, the Mayan temples, the Gothic cathedrals, the Apollo Project and the Hubble Space Telescope are all religiously inspired works. The last two could be thought of as early works of the new cosmic religion. I'm not sure why even the most hardcore atheist would find this objectionable.

Because it's wrong.

I propose confusianism.

Would you care to elaborate?

The Hubble space telescope and the Apollo project were not religiously inspired, nor were they early works of some new religion.

Even if it were true that religion gives meaning and science gives meaning it does not follow that science is a religion. Two things with some traits in common are not necessarily of the same type.

Apotheosism.

from wiki:
Apotheosis (from Greek ἀποθεοῦν, apotheoun "to deify", in Latin deificatio, "to make divine") is the exaltation of a subject to divine level.

Well Al Einstein may disagree with you:

Science is a methodology, religion tells you what you should or shouldn't be doing with that methodology. I'm proposing a religion that scientists can subscribe to. I don't think it's enough to only have a negative vision that says "there's no God and all religions are false". Every civilization needs a positive vision of where it's going and why, and I'm not sure what people like Dawkins have to offer in this regard that can compete with existing religions. This is where transhumanism and my "cosmicism" come in.

Yeah but he was a lightweight.
I'd still go with confusianism, but irrespective - making a new religion is one thing (you may find anthroposophy close to what you're looking for - that was an attempt to direct scientific thinking towards the spiritual). Claiming that science is a religion is false. So is claiming that the Apollo project was religiously inspired. If anything it was political.

OK I agree that Apollo had political motivations, but what is the motivation for the Hubble telescope? Why should we care about images of other galaxies? Rationally it's a total waste of resources. Now to we Cosmists (how do you like this name?), observatories and space telescopes are our temples, where we commune with the "divine" cosmos, so the justification is obvious...

It really don't matter people are stupid and some will listen to whatever he says. And he only has to trick them til they drink the special Jupiter juice.

The motivation is to learn how the universe works. It makes us feel good and might even prove useful. Rationally it's a really good thing to do.
After-the-fact rationalisations are not justifications.

Confusing scientific endeavours or findings with pseudoscientific claptrap is counterproductive. You yourself imply (in your first part, quoted above) that without some 'ultimate reason' we shouldn't do science. There is no reason to think this is true, even if you personally struggle to get out of bed in the mornings. Importing unverifiable nonsense into science is a bad idea.

Jupiter juice! I like it! OK this is all starting to come together now.

Imagine a Cosmist priest dressed in a black robe with stars and galaxies on it, holding a service in a temple called an "Observatory". Images of astronomical bodies are shown on a huge screen, and a sermon is read which features interesting astronomical information and inspirational words from people like Arthur Clarke and Carl Sagan. Perhaps a clip from "Cosmos" is shown. At the end of the sermon, members of the congregation come up to the front to drink Jupiter juice and enter a mock spaceship that symbolically takes them to the stars.

That's all I have so far, what do you folks think?

Your new religion is missing both the ritual and voodoo elements. Since it is so deficient I propose naming it Ralph.

Can you give me names of any big projects being developed today in the name of religion?

Yes.

Oh one more thing; this video would be watched and sung along with at every Cosmist service:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSgiXGELjbc

"A still more glorious dawn awaits – not a sunrise, but a galaxy rise, a morning filled with 400 billion suns – the rising of the Milky Way"

So you're not going to reply to this mistergrinch? Shocking. Truly shocking.

Dude I'm on your side. Besides, we are orbiting one of at least 10 billion trillion stars in a universe that is more than 15 billion years old and may go on forever, so it's not clear that this debate is very significant at this particular place and time.