is a new religion possible?

In the 21st Century, the prospect of a new religion emerging to overshadow the existing religions is pretty remote. Or is it?

Let's face it. The major religious elites have it all sewn up and while barely tolerating each other they are nevertheless fully capable of uniting against the rise of any sort of newcomer on their lucrative turf.

Many new 'prophets' tried and failed over the centuries.

The last century, however, was particularly fruitful in terms of new quasi-religious elites trying to upset the status quo - we had Hitler reviving Aryanism and Lenin and Mao fomenting a humanist Communist revolution in Russia and China respectively - and while neither movement survived the century, their emergence on the world stage demonstrated not only that new belief systems can emerge but also that they can be brutal in their determination to succeed in gaining power.

More likely than a new religion emerging is a resurgence of old religions, especially those that eschew the monotheism of the Abrahamic faiths - Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

The notion of one god choosing one group of people, the Jews, to be His chosen people is anathema to the other faiths and causes far too much bitter and murderous division.

A wildcard scenario - such as the discovery of intelligent life in other parts of the galaxy - would surely put an end to the Abrahamic faiths and expose us to the unique belief systems that evolved elsewhere.