It looks like those of us who are anti-religion activists have our work cut out for us. I'm just happy to see the appearance of the "New Atheism" movement. I'd really like to see more people agitating for a more non-religious American society.
That being said, I think this survey is allowing too many people to lie about their church attendance and their religious beliefs. I think that these surveys overestimate American religiousity. Americans tell researchers and pollsters that they are religious because there is peer pressure to be seen as religious and there is some guilt at work.
> Americans who say they attend church only seldom or never -- a little
> over 40% of the adult population -- give a variety of reasons for
> their non-attendance.
I bet the number is actually much higher. This figure is like the ones relating to weight and diet. People tend to overestimate their attendance.
Still, this number is encouraging. It means that almost a majority of Americans do not attend church frequently.
> As a prominent example, it appears reasonable to hypothesize that
> older Americans are more likely to be religious and attend church
> because they are more immediately facing the prospect of death.
No. The more obvious explanation is that older Americans go to church for cultural and generational reasons. They go to church because they've gone to church for most of their life and they still subscribe to the paradigm that church attendance is mandatory if you have religious beliefs. Younger people aren't attending church because they were raised in a more secular society. If worry about death was a significant factor, then there should be an increase in church attendance among younger generations. And it's possible that younger generations start going to church more as the settle down and have families, because they want to "connect with tradition" or whatever crap they have in their heads.
Chuck