I wonder about the 'idiocracy' affect; more highly educated people who are less likely to be religous have fewer children compared to their less educated, more religious peers, thus perpetuating religion.

Surgery? Did you mean to write resurgence?

I often find myself wishing autocorrect would stop trying to help me.

In Australia this question is asked on the census & is probably the hardest to get people to answer accurately. Many people get confused by the question and write whatever they were brought up with and not their actual belief. I have spoken with a person who acted like I was a fool when I pointed out that she is an atheist but answers "Christian" saying that that's how she was brought up. At the last census, secular groups had to advertise for people to answer accurately which made a big difference in the result. Don't take too much notice of opinion poll questions like this. They are not accurate.

There are many social benefits available to pseudo-Christians. People who volunteer to prostrate themselves before the group get the acceptance of the group. And since there are so many flavors of "Christianity" you can find one that embraces your perversion.

Thank you for this informative post. I read through the data looking for research explaining why religion has stopped shrinking. I suspect there could be some correlation between religion and existential threats like pandemic or climate change but I found no research was done. However, this is a good accounting of U.S. religion.

Sad, I was hoping they would continue to dwindle down to irrelevant status….

sigh…

I was really hoping the white christians would just fade away

The Dawkins effect has about run its course. There is a new crop of philosophers like Vervaeke and DSWilson who have a broader, more scientific understanding of human nature.

This is likely just a blip.