I was originally going to post this in the Dharmic DIR, but I thought it would interesting to see the opinions of others as well.
What is the future of eastern religions in the west? Do you think that they'll continue to grow? Or will they face great opposition from primarily Abrahamic religions? Do they have a greater affinity with modern progressive movements, science, and technology, that would allow them to grow in the west, over other religions?
It seems to me that some principles of eastern religions have appeal in the west, but not necessarily the whole cultural aspect.
Religion is often intertwined with culture, as a subset of culture. If religion is extracted from culture to attempt to be isolated and transported to a different culture, then it can be tricky to see where that separation ends. Art, language, family structure, level of development, knowledge of other cultures; these things can all be intertwined with religion.
So a lot of western people sitting around a temple statue with eastern physical features and based on eastern art- that setting just doesn't appeal to everyone. It feels to some as though they're part of something foreign, or something distant. Worshiping a foreign culture. The Abrahamic religions are originally foreign to North America or Europe as well, but Christianity has been intertwined with western culture ever since it got picked up in the Roman Empire, so it's sufficiently absorbed to the point of feeling to many as though it's a core aspect of their culture (like how Jesus is often a white guy with long fine brown hair in art for some reason).
It seems to me that "filtered" aspects of eastern religions are popular. For example, American Transcendentalism was based on numerous things from a few cultures, which included the Upanishads. But it doesn't have a foreign feel to it; the earliest essays were written by Americans. New Age beliefs often incorporate elements of western and eastern religion, like reincarnation. Buddhism is often practiced but from what I've observed it's often a sort of minimalist form with fewer cultural ties to east Asian countries in art or setting.
To continue that point, I also think variants of agnosticism and syncretism appear to be on the rise in developed areas, maybe due to increases in exposure to multiple cultures. Rather than looking to a local or foreign culture and saying "this is the specific belief system I accept as true rather than the others", people seem more likely to simply get inspired by a few concepts from different areas.
