mcfarmer,

You are spot on with this point. The world has always been moving in this direction and though it goes the other way in brief spurts or stalls out, the march towards more liberal and progressive objectives goes on and on and on. 

This includes globalization of the world in many realms.

The Climate Accord was actually an attempt by the United Nations to seal the biggest/most powerful, globalization agreement in history.........and globalized socialism, sold under the completely fraudulent "save the planet" narrative. Fortunately, it's failing miserably as it becomes quite obvious that it wouldn't do anything, even if they had the science right(with China and India continuing to be allowed to massively ramp up their CO2 emissions under the agreement) and it was not legally enforceable anyway, so the terms for the developed countries, like the US would have destroyed their economies and that was destined to cause them to back off of the agreements before that happened(note the yellow jackets in France). 

Trump was just ahead of everybody else in pulling out right away from an agreement with all negatives to the US and zero benefits. 

This same thing is happening to religion right now, as the US marches away from religion and towards atheism. I personally think that this is going to result in a devastating moral, ethical and compassion crisis in this country. 

For example, less and less young people being taught to love their neighbor, even love their enemies, help the poor, help the less fortunate, care for the sick in parables like "The Good Samarintan" in the Gospel of Luke and it will take a toll that results in less active compassion for other people over time. By active, I mean resulting in actions not just words.

https://bigthink.com/stephen-johnson/the-us-is-losing-its-religion-and-faster-than-you-may-think

I'm sure that non religious will disagree with this but its the real world that proves it. Go to page 170 at the link  below for instance. This is, possibly the worlds most comprehensive analysis/discussion on peoples actions/values based on religion/non religion. 

American Grace ROBERT PUTNAM .....The Tanner lectures on Human values

https://tannerlectures.utah.edu/_documents/a-to-z/p/Putnam_10.pdf

We can ask a question.

If one group of family's had parents that taught their children extensive math from an early age or even sent them to schools that specialized in teaching advanced math and another group of families, had some parents that taught them math, others that did not, which kids would be better at math?

The answer is obvious but with religion, its more controversial and there are sometimes judgmental issues that get in the way but the stats show conclusively that religious out volunteer the non religious in every category and often by a wide margin. 

I am somebody that has devoted their life to this.........volunteering to make the world a better place and have witnessed this in a profound way across the board for decades in every domain. 

I am not saying that atheists are not very generous. Many of the greatest philanthrapists  in the country are atheists. However, like with the example above, many children that don't get extra math at home or school can be gifted at math and be mathematicians that perform in the top 1% in this field............there will just be less of them. 

Excellent post Mike, well thought out argument.

I am bookmarking the link to read when I have more time.

Thanks mcfarmer,

This is a profound subject worth discussing more.

A wise teacher once addressed our class about the arts and progress.

They stated that seldom does either occur until man has acquired "leisure time".

Meaning once man has satisfied procurement of lifes basic needs-food,clothing and shelter,say- he then has time to 

THINK. 

Most times good,but sometimes not.

John