Damouse writes:
A powerful force, indeed, but on its way out imho.
While I have no doubt that most religions will ultimately go belly up, I don't think christianity is on its way out anytime soon. Yes, the number of nonbelievers are higher than ever before, but so is the overall population.
Speaking from the perspective of the RC church, numbers are way down on everything, and all across the board church attendace is not what it used to be.
I suspect that the younger generation catholics are more drawn to other denominations because of their specific appeal to their age group. The christian youth group that I belonged to in college before I turned atheist recruited a significant number of former catholics.
That nonwithstanding, christianity is on a recession to what it once was.
I think the appearance of recession come from the fact that witch hunts are no longer allowed and that the RC church has lost most of its political power in the world. Scratch that, I think they lost direct power. But now that the western world has pretty much turned one form or other of democracy, christianity as a whole is still retaining most of its power through the voting system.
Think about it. You can't get voted into office without constantly telling people you believe in god and you pray everyday.
Disclaimer:
Occasionally, owing to the deficiency of the English language, I have used he/him/his meaning he or she/him or her/his or her in order to avoid awkwardness of style.
He, him, and his are not intended as exclusively masculine pronouns. They may refer to either sex or to both sexes!