BlackBart wrote:So... Positive atheists probably number around 500 million in the world
Subtract Chinese positive atheists who through no fault of their own, hadn't even heard of him.
300 Million.
I've always thought that trying to calculate the number of atheists is going to be a difficult exercise. I'm fairly certain that there are millions upon millions of people sitting through interminable drivel in churches, synagogues, mosques and temples of all kinds who are running an internal dialogue saying, "FFS, this is fucking nonsense."
The balancing calculation is in officially atheist states like North Korea where people may be sitting through a party congress or somesuch and thinking 'If only Jesus would come into their lives." or the like.
I'd reckon that in a comparison between the places you can get into trouble* for saying out loud that you are an atheist versus the places you can get into trouble for saying you believe in supernatural entities**, the former outweigh the latter.
(* Trouble may mean social exclusion and family estrangement, limited career prospects etc., or it may mean having your head cut off with a big fucking knife.)
(**Of course, you have to say that you believe in the right supernatural entities. You know, the one true faith, not all of those other made up ones. See note above.)
Back on the topic of prophecies, I remember back in 2012 there was a load of wiffle about the Mayan calendar and the 'great cycle' and whatnot.
Some wag wrote into Viz saying 'Well, the deadline has come and gone and I'm wondering if any of your readers could confirm if the world ended as prophesied. Only, I live in Southport and, quite frankly, it's hard to tell.'