What are you optimistic about?

That's this year's question from Edge.org. Daniel Dennett's answer is "The Evaporation of the Powerful Mystique of Religion". He claims that

Around the world, the category of “not religious” is growing faster than the Mormons, faster than the evangelicals, faster even than Islam, whose growth is due almost entirely to fecundity, not conversion, and is bound to level off soon.

He doesn't cite his source for this claim.

Two other sources for optimism on the first page of responses were (a) the decline in violence over time — notwithstanding current and recent past events — and (b) the likelihood that we will be able to support the world's population, both (i) because the rate of population growth declines (eventually to zero) with a rising standard of living and (ii) because we will learn how to make effective use of energy from the sun.