Forget the numbers. The big story is that religion has lost social influence.

[trotsky]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/religion/forget-the-numbers-the-big-story-is-that-religion-has-lost-social-influence-analysis/2015/05/26/c1b0f0ac-03dd-11e5-93f4-f24d4af7f97d_story.html

...behind the story of Christian decline and the rise of “nones” is a long-standing debate about what religion theorists call “secularization,” the broad process by which religion gradually loses its social influence.

...

Secularization theory faded, but the recent Pew report is not the only 21st-century evidence that religion is, in fact, losing ground in America. The General Social Survey shows the same, a strikingly large, rise among “nones” in the last couple of decades.

...

Social roles for women, for people of color and for those who are today called LGBT were strongly circumscribed by tradition just a few decades ago, and that tradition was underwritten by a widely shared religious orthodoxy. Today, individual choice routinely pushes tradition, and institutional religion, aside.

...

“In the struggle for authority with modern individualism, American religion is slowly losing.” That would be my headline for the recent Pew report. “Christians are declining in America” is just the tip of the iceberg.

[Fumesucker]

1. From your keyboard to God's ears

[trotsky]

2. This is some bitter stuff for liberal believers (and liberal defenders of religion) to swallow.

All along they've insisted that the path to progress is through liberal religion. MLK was their classic example. Nonbelievers need to shut up with their criticisms of religion, or they'll scare people away.

But social progress has accelerated to light speed as people discard religion. We are in for some very interesting developments over the next couple of decades! Can't wait.

[Yorktown]

3. If only religion could lose its influence in the classroom.

That would be a first step toward heaven.

[rug]

4. You should check your ethnocentrism.

As for the rest of the world, religion is growing through higher birthrates. And America’s own religious ecology changes through immigration as well as through institutional and ideological change.

The picture is complex. But if it is not possible to know the ultimate outcome of the interplay between modern individualism and religious tradition, it is still important to take a step back and look at the big picture.

[Lordquinton]

5. it's almost as if the topic was religion in America

Excuse me, the united staes. Just clarifing that so you can't deflect wih it.

[rug]

6. And the world is much, much bigger than the United States.

Even bigger than a white privileged subset of said United States.

[NeoGreen]

7. And the Universe...

...is much, much bigger than what the theocentrically-limited vatican claims it to be...

[rug]

8. Inasmuch as there is no known intelligent life outside Earth, that information is rather irrelevant.

[NeoGreen]

9. Non sequitur ...

...but either way, your post seem to suggest that it is not "important to take a step back and look at the big picture".

Especially, one could deduce, when there is a theological limit as to how "far back" you are willing (or able) to step.

And on a side note, I would accept the premise that Fermi's Paradox will be solved, and Science help us, I hope we are ready when it is for they will likely find us before we find them and god will be of no use when they do. Heck, I would go so far as to postulate that "god" would likely be a metric counted against us.

[rug]

10. I agree invoking the Universe (sic) in a Pew poll about belif is a non sequitur.

At least.

I commend you for using the word "hope" in your last paragraph. It is a virtue.

[NeoGreen]

11. Uhh, no...

...invoking the Universe with regard to a Pew poll about belief in a supernatural concept that believers claim created the Universe is not a non sequitur.

However, claiming the attribute "virtue" in my use of the word "hope" is, since I am not catholic.

The church can assign any additional special or magical meaning to words in the English language for their flock to use and comfort themselves with, that is fine, but that additional magical meaning is meaningless and a non sequitur, to me.

[NeoGreen]

12. Oh, and I forgot to add...

...for humor's sake:

I'm gonna' snap my fingers and jump for joy,
I got a personal commendation from a toupee insinuation...