> Religious affiliation, church attendance, and belief in God have all fallen in the US. None of these declines is happening fast, but the signs are now unmistakable. To take religious belief as an example, only 45 percent of young adults aged 18-30 have no doubt about God’s existence, compared with 68 percent of people aged 65 and over.
Churches (in America) are like lotteries and other fantasy businesses. When they get boring, churches go out of business and they get replaced by other churches that promise a chance at a better prize. There are parts of USA where many old church buildings are for sale and can be had for a song.
Generally agreed, but there often is some semblance of community in those get-rich-quick schemes, MLMs in particular. You have people coming to the scheme's local branch meetings like they'd be attending church service, and they're all full of enthusiasm that's feeding off each other - creating a ridiculous cult-like happy death spiral.
Source: 3 people I know are, or were in the past, involved in various MLMs and invited me - including to one of their "internal" meetings, which I attended out of curiosity, and where I observed the most striking cult behaviour I ever experienced.
