Where no man has gone before

I don't believe the human race will ever reach the summit on thier uphill climb and finally achieve the dream Gene Rodenberry had of life in the future. Imagine it for a moment. No war on planet Earth, friends with E.T's who are of different shape, color and language. Everybody pulling together for the good of the species and not for personal monetary gain. No nationalism, no more flag waving countries, no more dictators and fanatics.
Six hundred years from now, who the hell knows what could be happening to the human race. Technological advances in the last hundred years were so far reaching we can only expect there to be an exponential increase in discoverys in science and technology. Already we have some of the worlds richest men getting together to put privatized space craft into orbit (for commercial use, of course!) But when these guys decide there has to be a better way to do things like this, a cheaper way that is, technology will advance to supply it. Of course we would have deep space flights already if someone told the U.S government they had discovered an oil planet. There would be tankers and warships headed for the planet of black gold pretty damnquick.
But what is really standing in the way of any real sense of oneness in the human race is religion. "My religion is the one religion. I'm right and you're wrong, and if you disagree with me anymore, I will find you and kill you and all of your kind."
Religion. It belongs in peoples hearts and minds, not in our governments and schools. There are far too many differing races and religions in the public schools to satisfy everybodys rules and holidays. So what do we do, we take the catholic approach and the very same people who came to this country and stole it from the native inhabitants, escaping religious persecution in thier homelands, enforce thier own rules and regulations on the diverse masses in the new lands. In my hometown this year, Halloween was pushed ahead a day to Oct. 30, because it wouldn't be appropriate to celebrate it on a Sunday. But isn't the Jewish sabbath on Saturday? You cannot satisfy anybody without offending somebody else.
Anyway, the point is, we are not going to get any closer to the ideal future that awaits us ala "Star Trek" until we can all get together as one, either one religion or no religion, and without personal profit being the motivating factor in getting anything good acomplished on this little blue planet.
By the way, I'm not a star trek fan. I always though Star Wars was a more realistic fantasy world. Realistic fantasy world is a great oxymoron. Use it somewhere if you can. Watch this space for future ammendments.