re: How many thousands of years until current believers give up?

Let me suggest a book to you. Actually it's not a book, just an outlook. Nobody on this earth has any more information about what's going on in the afterlife than you do. And nobody who's lived before you has had any more information than you do. Nobody is as qualified as you are, or any less qualified, to speak on the afterlife. This is a level playing field of guessers, realists and people who claim to "know." They don't, because they have the same information as you, and you don't know either.