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Rubbish.

Attendance at church in Europe is the lowest ever, historically speaking, a mere fraction of what it was even twenty years ago.

The US, being founded by religious nut-jobs, is still more religious, and the extremely religious are very vocal. But still the attendance at church is at a all-time low. To quote from the links below;

"From 1992 to 2003, average attendance at a typical church service has dropped by 13% whereas the population of America has increased by 9%!"

http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_tren.htm

And at current trends the majority of people in the US will not be religious in 2035;

Amusingly, a lot of religious people lie when asked about church attendence;

http://www.religioustolerance.org/rel_rate.htm

For well over half of the world, religion is less relevent and belief vauger and more general than evet before. In the remainder (for example, India) it is the same as it ever was, outside of small pockets.

And globally the 150 million extremely religious people in the US are a pocket, albeit one with deep pockets and nuclear weapons.

You are mistaking the volume of panicked squeaks from reactionary religionists fighting a rear-guard action for a real volume of belief that could over-turn secularism.

And don't forget that popular religions in developing countries (Islam, Hinduism) will hit the self-sanme wall as religons did in the West as those countries reach similar levels of development.

You want evidence? Open your eyes;

http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/17164.htm

The National Church Life Survey showed that in 1960 41% of the Australian population attended church at least monthly, but by 1980 this figure had declined to 25% and was heading down to 20% by 2000. (Kaldor, Peter et. al. Build My Church: Trends and Possibilities for Australian Churches. Sydney: Openbook, 1999, p.22)

http://www.whychurch.org.uk/trends.php

The decline for attendance forecasts a 55% fall from the 1980 level by 2020. From 1990 the decline in Church attendance is significantly higher than membership, and that for ministers is about the same that for Churches. This tells us that even amongst the membership the Church in general struggles to attract people to services. The rate of decline in buildings is significantly less than that for membership, suggesting that congregations are on average getting much smaller with many more nearing the point when they will cease to be financially viable.

My response to all this, and the snivelling about how their rights were being trampled upon was that I'm unsympathetic to their plight primarily because the Muslim community has brought this upon themselves. I stand by that statement. We never hear the Muslim community being up in arms about a Muslim suicide bomber smearing the good (?) name of Islam

Does the fact that you haven't heard about Muslims condemning suicide bombers mean it doesn't happen?

I think this is the crucial flaw in your position that the Muslim community has brought this on themselves. I've seen some condemnations, but I've also seen complaints that the media doesn't give the same coverage to moderate Muslim statements against radical Islamists as they do to the actions of terrorists. Think about the nature of media coverage, and I'm sure you'll see the bind that both reporters and moderate Muslims are in. "If it bleeds it leads" is the saying in the news business, and a moment's reflection tells you that fearmongering coverage will almost always trump reassuring statements about how not all Muslims are trying to blow you up.

Here's some of the results from a quick google search for "muslims condemn suicide bombings". The first link is a list of public condemnations by Muslim leaders and groups.

Muslims Condemn Terrorist Attacks
Landmark Islamic Ruling Unequivocally Condemns Suicide Bombings
Minister: Muslim decree to condemn suicide bombings
U.K. Sunnis condemn London suicide attacks
Grand Sheikh condemns suicide bombings
Suicide Bombing
INDONESIA: Muslim leaders condemn suicide bombing
A sampling of fatwas and other statements by Muslim individuals and groups condemning terrorist attacks
Muslim Scholars Condemn Terror U.S. Islamic Leaders Issue Edict Against Attacks On Civilians

They get some coverage, but no stories get multiple days/outlets to repeat the message the way an event like a bombing does. The problem isn't that Muslims don't condemn suicide attacks, it's that their condemnations don't get enough play, so people like you think that the Muslim community silently condones the actions of the extremists.

Not really fair, as Scientology is really the corporate pinnacle of religions, where profit at the top is the sole motivation. So yeah, the leaders sharing the belief rather than just a flagrant exploitation of naive and vulnerable element of society does make a difference.

No contest. The Roman Catholic Church wins, consider 15 billion in assets vs about $400 million. Those numbers are drawn almost entirely out of thin air but are likely to be order-of-magnitude correct.

Nothing like being around for two centuries and plundering various continents for getting the old bank account stuffed. In this game, the Scientologists are just posers.

Sadly, I think that Ghandi had it right about us christians.

Cult-of-personality reference. Jim Jones gets followers to drink poison kool-aid as he kills himself and all his followers...in the 80's(?)

http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/12589.htm

No, the point is mu.

Kind of like this old joke