Religion on the upswing.

I've noticed that religion seems to employ a dichotomous role in our society.  One the on hand our entire legal system is founded on the idea of secularism and more and more people are declaring as atheists/agnostics.  On the other hand fundamentalism, strict adherence to all parts of religion even when they are inconvenient or incompatible with modern life, seems to be on the rise for all faiths.   As followers drift away, those who remain behind get more and more fervent in their belief.

I am inclined to think that this is a self reinforcing process.  There are few things in life which are as disconcerting as someone who is highly vocal about something with which you disagree so the atheists and fence sitters are gradually pushed away from religion.  The religious people, for their part, feel threatened by people who deny the truth on which they have based their life, so they become even more vocal, which in turns alienates non-believers even more.

This is why we get so many religious groups these days which seem to drop the more friendly aspects of their scriptures and lash out with hate (islamic jihadists, the religious groups who say that soldiers die because we tolerate homosexuality, etc.).

This is an unfortunate tendency which is present in alot of other areas of our lives where one group identity collides with another.  I don't really see a workable solution, other than trying to be open to the idea of multiple identities.