I find it hard to believe churches will all be gone in 20 years.

there are far too many fundies who will cling to it even more aggressively (and proselytize ad nauseum, ad infinitum) as they see its influence wane, trying to force its inclusion in everything under the guise of persecution. Fifty years, maybe, but I think even that is a bit optimistic. Five minutes is too long for me.

20 years is not a very long time.

IMO.

I'm an atheist myself, and I see no basis at all for religion, but that comes from a lifetime of study. Lacking that, what we have is human nature, and human nature invariably leans toward religious belief. Invariably.

Saving this thread for 20 years from now.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]"The whole world is a circus if you know how to look at it."
Tony Randall, 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964)[/center][/font][hr]

Not in the US of A.

as it should be.

will have sway over an insignificant percentage of people. But it certainly won't be gone, and it won't be in 20 years.

Even the Pope sees the writing on the wall regarding climate change.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]"The whole world is a circus if you know how to look at it."
Tony Randall, 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964)[/center][/font][hr]

next commute. Religion isn't going anywhere.

Oh, wait... wut?

So is anti-vax, homopathy, belief in aliens visiting the earth, conspiracy nuts, scientology, cults, etc.

Nobel Prize winning psychologist, Daniel Kahneman (prize won in economics): “Our comforting conviction that the world makes sense rests on a secure foundation: our almost unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance.”

Unfortunatley for our species, it's true.

As are national borders, governments and economics, too...

20 is too soon

Can I have a hit off of what ever the OP is smoking?

I can't wait for Georgia to legalize weed. I already have my Hobbit pipe picked out.

It'll be around as long as there are Americans.

Humans like thinking that there's a plan and a reason for everything, it's all in some omnipotent deity's hands, when bad stuff happens there's some justification behind it all, even if it can't be understood at the moment, we'll all reunite in a fluffy cloud Happy Land, blah blah blah. It's just easier to go through life thinking that way, so humans (Americans) take the easy road.

And we are moving AWAY from improvements to the environment, not closer.

God willing and the creek don't rise...


And I will still be a Christian..

I don't think your prediction is based on reason

Otherwise, your prediction falls flat on its ass.

They could change and accept rational thought. I suspect that is what the OP is predicting.

I think that's less likely than every Person of Faith dying.

Personally, I have a hard time wrapping my mind around the notion that everything that's happened on earth in the last 6 billion years is nothing more than a Cosmic Anomaly.

I fully believe fundamentalism will be very marginalized by then, and church attendance will be about half of what it is today. The remaining churches (excepting the fundies) will be more liberal (by today's standards) except in the south - but by then the South might have seceded.

so no, i dont think your premise is correct

perhaps in 20 years close to 50 percent of the west will have rejected religion, one can hope, but I doubt it.

Or something like that, I don't know.

In reality, the percentages of believers and unbelievers will not change to any significant degree. I think your prediction is just wishful thinking, and I'm an atheist and have been one all my adult life.