On Tue, 26 Nov 2002, Steven Brust wrote: #Man's religious beliefs have changed over the millennia. In my opinion, an #examination of these changes would lead to the conclusion that the gods #have been shrinking. Those areas where the supernatural is required for #understanding have gotten smaller and smaller. The idea that they might #vanish entirely in the not-to-distant future doesn't seem farfetched to me. Let's not make the mistake of judging universally by the sample most familiar to us. I don't think the overall level of religious belief in the world is anywhere near as low as the level among my friends and acquaintances. And social trends have a way of not running to completion, but finding a new equilibrium and then swinging the other way, or ANother way. -- Mark A. Mandel