Is Athenism the belief that ASU will eventually get a varsity sports program?
I knew that springing for an adamantium/vibranium beekeeper suit wouldn’t be money wasted. 
This. Missionaries and the sword.
I’m thinking that a religion could fade away if people lost interest in it over time. The vast majority of people who practice a religion do so because their parents practiced the same faith. They didn’t choose their faith, but were instead born into it. If children lose interest in a faith, becoming C&E Christians rather than regular churchgoers, their children could have even less interest, and so on. We’ll see a growing number of “paper Christians” who were born into a faith, and maybe baptized, but otherwise lead a secular life, only going to church when it it absolutely necessary, such as for weddings and the like.
I don’t think that Quiverfull and similar groups will reverse the trend, just as ultra-Orthodox Jews haven’t had enough offspring to return the number of Jews to pre-Holocaust levels; high birthrates aren’t compensating for the small number of children in Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist families.
In the long run, an emergent, likely liberal faith (as Christianity and Islam were in their early years) will likely gain adherents that came from formerly Christian backgrounds. I don’t see neopaganism or New Age-based faiths gaining much ground, but perhaps Baha’i or a simple monotheistic UU-like faith rooted in social justice, sans saints, messiahs, holy prophets and the like, will take over where Christianity left off. Then again, such faiths are probably not going to be spread by the sword. Could there be a chance that Christianity would change form and evolve into something much different, much like early Hebrew polytheistic beliefs evolved into monotheistic Judaism?
It isn’t. The number of new Christians is at the highest point ever. (e.g. Fastest Growing Religion)
As for the OP. Perhaps if he chose a sufficient narrow definition of what constitutes a true Christian, the sooner date that he desires could be obtained.
No, it’s the decision to avoid both hyphens and accidental digraphs.
In the mainline church where I grew up, there wasn’t much talk of Christ returning to Earth and saving the UN from the anti-Christ, etc. So I never absorbed that part of Christian theology. I (naively?) thought that judgment occurred in heaven.
The paradox is that mainline institutions are more plausible scientifically, but tend to go into decline relative to more evangelical ones. You can see that in the reform Jewish community, and the relative decline of US mainline Christianity vs. fundamentalism.
“Fused” religions such as Unitarianism and Baha’i lack substantial pull, for reasons that are unclear to me. After all, churches have social, psychological, child care and other functions. There’s been some economically-oriented speculation that cults that demand sacrifice among their members (in terms of dietary taboos and the like) tend to be more stable. It represents a signaling mechanism among the membership.
By the figures you give, the population of humanity will have to increase by a factor of ten thousand billion billion billion billion in order for us not to be left with a fraction of a believer. I think we will run out of galaxies first, and even if we did not, we could not attain such numbers if we acquired fresh living space at the speed of light for the remaining lifetime of the Universe.
As to your question, ¿quién sabe?. If it’s all crap and there is no divine inspiration behind Christianity, it might wither and die at any time. But there, I’m afraid, you’re having to make a large assumption.
Or the needs of a new elite ruling class.
Paganism in the Mediterranean world. You might argue that paganism wasn’t a multi-national system, but the ancient pagans borrowed deities from each other’s pantheons all the time (Mithras and Cybele are probably the best known examples), and sailors, merchants and other travelers would worship in the temples of whatever city they happened to be in (e.g. making offerings to the local god of the sea).
Hardly. That is the obvious rational position to take given the complete lack of evidence for divine anything. We live in a world indistinguishable from one with no gods; there’s no reason to think that for the first time in history a god will show up to protect Christianity.
Could something that provides a major challenge to the tenants of Christianity, like the discovery of sentient, intelligent extraterrestrial life, threaten it?
I don’t think a major, horrifically devastating “why would a kind, caring God let this happen?” war with a death toll in the billions would deal a death blow to Christianity. The Holocaust reduced the number of Jews on the planet by up to a third, but it didn’t cause a mass exodus of Jews away from their faith.
Not really; variously sects already rationalize the possibility in various ways. For example, I was told as a child that aliens exist; but since humans are made in God’s Image, aliens must then not be in God’s image and are therefore Satanic.
How is it any larger an assumption than assuming there isn’t any Thoth?
Even if/when we have an atheist, rationalist world at some point, most people will probably think of Jesus as primarily a religious teacher, not as a carpenter, and that he had some good ideas that (maybe unfortunately) would have been very hard to express without the religious baggage, and that he was executed more for being a potentially dangerous rabble-rouser than for any actual crimes that justified death.
Meanwhile, if Zoroastrianism still survives today in small numbers (and not as a reconstructed neopagan thing), I’m sure Christianity has a long time to live.
But who cares? Why would anyone (or than a follower of some other exclusivist religion) wish for Christianity to be completely obliterated? Wishing for it to stop being a dominant force in western culture, that I can see, but what harm would a small handful of believers do to you?
Some time ago Colbert interviewed a Vatican astronomer who said (more or less, as I recall) that if alien life existed, they would be the creation of God – they may even have had their own redemptive sacrifice. If alien life were found, I think most practicing Christians would come around some related belief.
I’m going to guess the ENTIRE human race will reject Christianity about the same time as another representative of the animal kingdom picks it up.
SSG § Schwartz
Dogs. And cats will take up Islam. That way we can have cats screaming “Die infidel dog!”, while the dogs purge the heriticats.
I like it.
This is to the point.
Formal religion, be it J,C,I,B,H wxyz is culturally instituted superstition.
A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest, la di da.
My answer to the OP, no sooner than we get over any other.
As a Christian this is what I believe. If other people exist out there, then God created them and would not abandon them. I use the word “people” because they wouldn’t be “aliens” to themselves.