Why religion is fading in the West

[NeoGreen]

47. I understand Illing's statement to implicitly include...

..."from the perspective of the believer" in his list,

..because religion is much more than truth; it's about meaning (as proffered by churches/synagogues/mosques/shrines and as understood by a believer), values (as generally shared by believers, as a class), tradition (again, as shared by any given particular class {i.e. church} of believers), consolation (which I would argue is a Human emotional need, and which most current belief systems provide as a side benefit), community (built-in to the concept of a church, with believers unified around their particular shared tenets) and transcendence (a concept co-opted by religion {a secular person can transcend bigotry taught by their parents, no god required} and used to further their agendas)

It does not mean that religions "own" these ideas, they have just co-opted and conflated them for their use, and thus, atheist's should recognize that while arguments proffered solely from "truth" might win in philosophy departments they will be insufficient as a means to expose the practical day to day hypocrisy of adhering to long established, extensively buttressed, deeply entrenched, widely distributed and constantly defended belief in the supernatural by believers (as a class).

Just my 1.5 cents worth of contribution to this thread...