Religion will dramatically shrink

[Anymouse]

It will come down to something worst than the second world war in death tolls, Since Nuclear War is Mankind's greatest threat, . . . (rest cut for brevity)

If you don't count epidemic, drought, starvation, overpopulation, climate change, environmental destruction, &c.

Remember that WWI was not ended by an Allied victory; it was ended by the Spanish Flu. War (as of yet) has never had much of a long-term impact on populations. 350,000 new cases of poliomyelitis were reported in 1988, even today the number is about 1,000 a year, and most Western nations have abandoned mandatory polio vaccinations.

By the mid XVIII Century smallpox was killing 400,000 people a year. Smallpox is no longer vaccinated against, either. The global mortality rate for the 1918/1919 Spanish Flu pandemic is not known, but it is estimated that 20% died, or about 100,000,000. In the USA alone, 675,000. Now certain bonehead scientists have dug up the virus from people who died from it and are studying it in labs (like smallpox) on animals and in vitro.

Shouldn't be too long before someone somewhere has an "accident," or worse, such stuff gets stolen. (A suicide bomber with active polio or tuberculosis, perhaps?)