If you focused on why some churches are booming in the midst of a general decline in enrollment, you will find that many people have a "hunger" to find God. Some sociologists refer to this as "the God gene".

In contrast, that hunger does not translate into wanting to be a member of a particular denomination. Let me offer an alternative possibility, that the pressure to belong to a church whether you have strong beliefs or not is diminishing and so many people drop out, no longer feeling any social pressure to attend.

Gallup's poll found only 17% of people do not believe in God. I think that number tends to move over time, but it is certainly a hugely different number than the number of people that attend a church.

Regarding some of your other points, remember it was the Democrats that opposed Barrett on the grounds she was Catholic even though as you said correctly, one's religious preferences should have no bearing on their capacity to hold public office.

Regarding our Judeo-Christian values as a nation. People misunderstand that term. Judeo-Christian values are not religious values per se. Instead, they evolved in Europe where most of the people were Christian or Jewish.

So, let's look at some Judeo-Christian values and how they shaped America.

In Japan, the emperor had the right to execute anyone, he did not like, and it was always right, because the emperor was God and accountable to no one.

Under Christian Judeo thought, secular leaders were subject to God's judgment and were accountable for keeping God's law. So, a king who abused his power was seen as abusive and outside his rights even as King. When we bemoan the genocide of the Chinese against the Uighurs, we are arguing that they are violating our Judeo-Christian values, their values don't view such behavior as immoral. Human life under their values is expendable to achieve a greater good.

So, what are the key Judeo-Christian values that our country was grounded in? First and foremost, in the Declaration of Independence we recognize the existence of a "Creator", who presence is evidenced in nature (the Founding Fathers did not accept "revelation" as proof of God's will but instead looked into the universe to discern God's will. )

From those observations, they concluded the Creator gave humans unalienable rights including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Interestingly, science believed "humanity" began at conception, while some religions argued humanity began with "ensoulment". But that is a bit off topic.

So, human rights are derived from God, who has sovereignty over everyone including kings and governments. Governments no matter how much power they have, never have the right to take away a person's unalienable human right without doing everything possible to accommodate that right unless failure to act infringes on someone else's rights. These are hard-core Judeo-Christian values, but you don't have to Christian, Jewish, or even religious to embrace them, but as an American, you should.

These are not the same values that govern other societies as I noted in several examples above.

Other core Judeo Christian beliefs, that most Americans share, but that you don't have to be Christian or Jewish to hold revolve around concepts like a "just war". Most of our concepts of fairness and justice are grounded in Judeo Christian ideology. Why shouldn't you steal, say who? Guess?

In China today force organ harvesting is okay because it helps fund the government and prisoners have no human rights. We find the practice repulsive. We don't even allow "forced" organ harvesting from people already dead.

So, to be clear, Judeo Christian values do define us as a nation. You do not have to be Christian or Jewish to embrace them because they are less religious in nature and more related to man's broader relationship to God and government.

Today's Democratic party has moved away from tradition Judeo Christian values towards Neo Marxism. This changes the relationship between humans, the Creator, and the government, by removing God from the equation.

With God gone, government is no longer accountable to God and so it can impose on citizens pretty much anything it wants to until the people rebel. Thus, power more than underlying core values determine right from wrong.

If a Muslim government decides homosexuality is a crime it believes it has a right to execute that person for “sins”. If a Communist government decides someone is guilty of undermining the state, it can deal with that person how it wishes. If a Fascist government see Jews as bad, it can kill them. There simply is no higher authority.

Now to show you how ingrained this concept is in Judeo Christian ideology, when the Jewish people asked God for a King to rule over them, He told them they were nuts. They had the "law" (his values), they did not need an abusive government. In the end, God caved, gave them a king, and one after another the kings abused the Jews. This idea that even Kings or government are subject to God's law is pretty powerful and goes all the way back to when Israel transitioned from "a people" to a "nation".