There are some truly weird sociological blind spots in the article. I think the CIA and police torture might have had a tiny bit more to do with the collapse o

There are some truly weird sociological blind spots in the article. I think the CIA and police torture might have had a tiny bit more to do with the collapse of USA-ally dictatorships in Iran, not a failure of science to triumph over religion. This highlights the international level importance of religious groups (as opposed to the belief of religion or the individual believer, its the group that matters). The current system propped up by the CIA sucks, revolution executes the war criminal US ally dictator, giant vacuum exists for an org to step in, what giant org with a chip on its shoulder of knowing the right answer all the time oh how about religion? Better a religious than a corporate takeover, probably... Likewise on a smaller scale, inside nations, the article seems to miss the point that in the old days it was rather easy to discern if you were attending a fraternal social organization meeting like the freemasons or a religious service like pre-vatican-2 Catholic church. In the modern world both extremes have disappeared and merged into the middle. No amount of "science" can eliminate the traditional religious pre-game activities before the church knitting club meeting or the church singles club meeting or the Jesus themed rock music concert I attended one time at my local prosperity gospel church. I would theorize the collapse of the church in the UK is a mix of UK class separation and its related alienation leading to a lack of need for the church to be a social hub, plus mere individual anecdotal failure. There are also issues that are pretty much banned topics on this site, like religious fervor being transubstantiated into other forms such as political belief. If you ban a belief, if just means conversations about the topic are going to be ineffective and confused, which is why I have to leave this third issue unresolved, although its obviously a major component of the big picture.