Reply #2

15% of US citizens identify as being part of the "religious right". However, about half of them aren't actually regular churchgoers, even though invariably they will say that they are, and even those who are are not necessarily morbidly religious. For example, Sarah Palin apparently attends church about four times a year.

The main function of religion in this instance is as an identifier. When identity politics arose in the 1970s, and people began identifying as Black Americans, Native Americans, Cuban Americans and so forth, the people who heretofore had no ethnic identity sought out some signifier by which they could be reckoned amongst this new political landscape.

Their options boiled down to two: white nationalism or evangelical Christianity. To give them some credit, they repudiated the former and chose the latter option. The irony was that notwithstanding the growth of the evangelical movement, the pattern of actual church attendance has been steadily declining. In particular, small traditional churches have suffered the same fate as mom-and-pop shops in the age of Walmart and Starbucks.

The mistake that "atheists" make is in believing that Christians actually adhere to Christian cosmology, and that they actually believe that one day the heavens will open and Jesus will jump out of a cake. Overwhelmingly, however, people sign onto these sorts of things for the sense of community and identity, rather than because they are logically persuaded of the cosmology.