My Lefty friends see a gigantic right wing religious conspiracy in the country. They see conspiracies everywhere including the totally disproven Plame-Wilson conspiracy run by Bush-Cheney and Rove.
The Left sees a religious conspiracy. The data belie them. The growing religious groups in America are the unorganized single building churches with local charismatic leaders.
With total adult population increasing almost 13% between 1990 and 2000, the percentage of Christians increased only 5% (151,500,000 to 160,000,000) while the non-denominational part of that total composed nearly all of that increase by more than doubling (8,000,000 to 16,500,000).
Unmentioned by anyone I know, the anti-non-religious establishment did even better. “No religion” or “Refused to reply..” grew by even more than double (18,500,000 to 41,000,000), up 225%.
If America is getting more pious and sanctimonious, nobody has told individual Americans.
(Table 69 page 59)