they have nothing to do with the decline of what I like to call apparent religion as greater voice put it:
" It is customary to blame secular science and anti-religious philosophy for the eclipse of religion in modern society. It would be more honest to blame religion for its own defeats. Religion declined not because it was refuted but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid. When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crises of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when faith becomes a heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with a voice of compassion- its message becomes meaningless." Abraham Joshua Heschel
and in a lighter continuation: http://www.jewishjournal.com/...