Religion Decline in US

I think you're right... but I think it will go a lot further than just "perhaps not as dogmatic and organized."I think religious beliefs will go the way of conspiracy theories like crop circles.
Everyone knows they are man-made, and how they are man-made... but many still believe!It's just the nature of people.When people have a problem:1. Those who turn to rational, fact-based approaches will highly likely make headway and progress.
-not everyone, a few here and there will hit a wall, or otherwise get confused, "fight the system" and go rogue.2. Those who turn to religious belief approaches will highly likely go nowhere - as per usual.
-not everyone, a few here and there will serendipitously succeed and give all the credit to "their God" as opposed to the actual pure luck it should be associated with.One day it will get to a point where "being religious" will be seen as "being anti-vaccine."
-An idea that may help the individual (if they're the only one who does it,) but will be known to hurt society as a whole if it grows beyond a few minuscule, isolated cases.
-Society will tolerate those who actually require such an idea, but will see-through-the-bullshit and openly mock those who attempt to push the "believer's agenda" on the populous at large. Because it doesn't work. And rational, fact-based decision making does.

That quote's a good (tentative) summary of my thoughts as well.Thanks for that!

Gullibility.
As humans, we're born to be chock full of it.It takes hard work, focus and a willingness to be uncomfortable or even wrong to chase the truth.

Nah.
It's just gullibility because they accept the answer of God instead of continually searching for the answer and accepting whatever is discovered.

I don't think only atheists are rational and objective.What else are you wrong about? Would you like to provide an example we can discuss?

I'm not sure.
I'll take a crack at it, though.
Feel free to criticize my criticism.

quote:

---

In general I find it painful that you claim a privileged position and try to defend it by two walls of pride, an external one as a man and an internal one as a Jew. As a man you claim, so to speak, a dispensation from causality otherwise accepted, as a Jew the privilege of monotheism. But a limited causality is no longer a causality at all, as our wonderful Spinoza recognized with all incision, probably as the first one. And the animistic interpretations of the religions of nature are in principle not annulled by monopolization. With such walls we can only attain a certain self-deception, but our moral efforts are not furthered by them. On the contrary.

---

Wall of pride #1
-the external one 'as a man'
-'dispensation from causality otherwise accepted' = (and this is my guess...) - Basically the same idea as the phrase "you don't believe in all Gods except for one - I just go one further." That is, the "causality" being discussed is the "mundane-ness" or the "reality-based" ideas that lead one to not believe in ghosts or goblins or unicorns. Mr Gutkind accepts this causality to disregard such fanciful notions, but "claims a dispensation" (wants an exception) from this rule-of-causality (believing in things existing in reality based on evidence found in reality) where his God is concerned.Wall of pride #2
-the internal one 'as a jew'
-claiming the privilege of monotheism = "My God exists, obviously. But yours doesn't. Again, obviously." Where the 'obvious' part is, of course, never successfully defended.
-"And the animistic interpretations of the religions of nature are in principle not annulled by monopolization." = "You can say only your religion is the correct one all you'd like. It doesn't stop the other religions existing, or them having just as much "truth value" as yours does. Especially since many of their adherents claim the same thing for their own religion.And, then in general:
"With such walls we can only attain a certain self-deception" = "You're only lying to yourself. And, therefore, you're only fooling yourself."
"our moral efforts are not furthered by them. On the contrary." = "Your religion isn't providing morality, it's hurting the progress of human morality."...or such is the gist I get when I read it, anyway.