I'm very suspicious of folk who need some kind of threat or fairy tale to make them behave decently.They call themselves Christians, Jewish and Muslim.

Let's not forget the Buddhists. I used to love watching on Thai TV the monk telling (w/ English sub-titles) about well-behaved people becoming wood sprites after they die and something like the smokers and drinkers going to the 13th level of Hell to have molten lead poured down their throats. Real fire and brimstone stuff.

I'm very suspicious of folk who need some kind of threat or fairy tale to make them behave decently.They call themselves Christians, Jewish and Muslim.

Let's not forget the Buddhists. I used to love watching on Thai TV the monk telling (w/ English sub-titles) about well-behaved people becoming wood sprites after they die and something like the smokers and drinkers going to the 13th level of Hell to have molten lead poured down their throats. Real fire and brimstone stuff.

Fundamentalist Buddhism. These people read the Pali texts and believe that the cosmology of the time they were written (about 2000 years ago) is the way it really is. Was it the DMC channel you were watching? Wat Dhammakaya, a notorious and very wealthy sect. People lap this kind of thing up.

If atheism became really widespread, popular (non-) belief would soon drag it down to a primitive level - probably some form of anthropomorphic polytheism, in which the gods are not supreme but look out for us if we please them. A bit like ancient Greek religion and contemporary popular Hinduism.

It seems that religious belief is the default position for humanity. Atheism is not a mass movement. Institutional religion in Russia and China seems to be stronger now than it was before the Communists took control. The Vatican has made considerable progress in the past decade in normalizing relations with the Chinese government. There are now somewhere between 40 and 100 million Christians in China, mainly Protestants. Orthodox Christianity and some evangelical movements are thriving in the former Soviet nations.

As religion wanes in the West (despite the Pentecostalist bubble), it rises in the East (& South)