Razib, regarding American "devoutness", isn't it kinda weird that the most devout US states are the ones w/the highest divorce rates and the highest alcohol & drug abuse? Also blacks are more devout than whites. So what is the use of all this devoutness?

Razib, here are a few miscellaneous thoughts on your divine predictions:

1.) would that de facto Universal Church really be some sort of de facto reunification between Protestantism and Catholicism. I don’t mean that Protestantism and Catholicism will unite institutionally (unless that institution is the EU), but that they will come more to resemble each other. This leads to a series of predictions about the Catholic Church: it will allow married and women priest and possibly become more democratic. Theologically it will become more abstract and ecumenical to the point possibly of resembling modern day Unitarians. This may actually fracture world wide Catholicism.
2.) Would this trend lead to a new round in a new place of religious conflict?
3.) This is certainly an optimistic prediction, but I suspect there will be a great deal of conflict with and within the Islamic World for quite some time. If there is an Islamic Haskalah, it will probably go along national lines with some countries able to shuck the old ways and move forward and others unable or unwilling to do so.
4.) This is a bit of a dilemma for us secularists, especially for those on the right who need to compromise with those we feel hold ridiculous beliefs. This is why many conservatives (including Joe Lieberman) often defend religion in general, without much regard to the specifics of the beliefs. This bit of conservative multiculturalism may have the effect of mitigating the influence of fundamentalism by diluting it with other religious traditions. The movement of Jews into the conservative mainstream along with Conservative Catholics may go a long way in modernizing fundamentalist thought. Let’s hope.
5.) Though I find it unimaginable how a new religious civilization could be born, grow, compete and flourish, I don’t know think it’s necessarily true that such “miracles” can’t happen in the future. If the flourishing of religion in the first place was a miracle, then from our rationalist perspective, a miracle is explicable according to some logic. What the logic is is another question. The missing piece of the logic, I think, is the actual belief in miracles. Luckily, miracles these days are of a more mundane variety.
6.) Razib, knowing that you are a Steelers fan, I, as a lifelong Browns fan, would like to know your divination of this afternoon’s (or morning’s for those in the wrong time zone) Browns/Steelers match up? Browns 20 Steelers 17.

steelers 21, browns 10.

Razib, you ignored my question about devoutness but got into a pointless argument about football. Sexist pig.

Razib, the additions of our scores would have been almost dead-on. We in Cleveland have unfortunately grown quite accustomed to these outcomes.

diana-

i've talked about this before :) the religion thing. religious people tend to get mad when i point out that secularism doesn't seem to have caused chaos here in oregon or sweden, or that religion doesn't mean that black areas or africa are panaceas. a religion response would be-well, imagine how bad it would be if not for religion.

The southeast US has been the Bible belt for only a century. In the 19th century, New England and the "burned-over" district of New York were the Bible belts. It looks like religion tends to cause moral improvements a century later.

Steelers suck?