I have noticed this too. Then there is the worship of things, stuff, food, wealth, ideas and possessions.

@Sofabeast exactly. A lot of atheists don’t worship God but have never given up their religiosity

Try to suspend your disbelief. haha. As John Cleese says in Clockwise, "It's not the disappointment. I could tolerate the disappointment. It's the bloody HOPE."

Millenials and Gen. Z in very large numbers.

I believe that we are ready to change our understanding of the big pictures. I don't believe that humans are ready to move into a radically different new neighborhood. Believing in nothing would be radical so they are moving into more familiar places with less HOA bullshit.

Participation in religion has been a necessary means of maintaining status and survival in America.

I think many Americans are trying to practice institutionalized religion and a manner that doesn't facilitate the unpopular politics of older generations... I do not think they are trying to separate the practice of religion from its toxic / discriminatory heritage.

They just want something that is less overtly bad.
As such I am not sure this is anything more than a constructive deflection of the underlying threat religion poses

@CuddyCruiser Thank goodness, because they may be the ones that end up saving us old farts.

Is that really a good thing, when there is actually only one path based on axiomatic truth and facts, and that is the scientific method?
Is choosing to be a bloody fool any better than choosing to be an utter arsehole, because it is easier to believe one lot of horse shit over another lot of deluded fuckwittery?

Is that really individuality, or simply a variation on conformity to a sociological pattern of self abnegation from the responsibility for making your own decisions?

@LenHazell53
Just because most people practice religion poorly doesn’t mean it can’t be practiced well, or that there aren’t benefits to practicing well.

@skado I see no way that indulging in fantasy and lies to the point of making an utter fool of yourself by publicly believing things that are obviously and blatantly untrue can produce any kind "benefit" whatsoever (other than perhaps an unjustified sense of self-importance and appearing virtuous in the eyes of other like-minded fuck wits)

@LenHazell53
That would be the poor practice. Just because it is common, and gets the most attention, doesn’t mean it’s all there is.

@hankster As it should since it only exists in the imagination of one being. The self. A self is going to have individualistic mannerisms.