in Tokyo, Seoul, Paris, London and other places when they read about this kind of bone-deep Stoopid..

It must look something like our friend Jerry Mouse here:

But each time I have, it was to find that people all over the world expect Americans to be stupid and violent.

It's a bit depressing.
But, on the plus side, it usually doesn't take me long to convince them that I, at least, don't fit into that category.

Then, they want to ask how on earth George W. Bush became president.
He really left a bad impression on other countries.

Obama, and, interestingly, Michelle are greatly admired, however.
I remember being in Den Haag (The Hague) and seeing an entire store window devoted to merchandise with Michelle Obama's face on it!

and the survey actually shows that 73% of people believe there was a divine influence in creation, the believers have declined from 82% to 73% in 33 years.

At that rate of decline, in approximately 297 years there will be no believers in a divine influence on creation. I can hardly wait.

That the universe simply came into being as a fluctuation in the eternal quantum foam defies no known law of physics. Lawrence Krauss' "A Unverse From Nothing" is a really fine book and explains it all.

It's all there in the soil.

The "missing link" is no longer missing....

They get elected by people like my father who is convinced that America will never get hit with a nuclear weapon "because God wouldn't allow it."

And, global warming won't destroy life because God promised Noah never to destroy the earth again.

And, it's not just my father. There are millions like him.

42% straight out creationists
31% God-guided evolution (not much better than creationism, frankly)
-- + Makes
73% who believe "God did it", vs only 19% who accepted Darwinian evolution as the most accurate model.

This required a real challenge to my ability to not see people who believed that as complete deniers of the central tenet of Biology.

In my first position, of 5 biologists 3 were of the god did it by evolution type. I found that mortifyingly embarrassing. But they were quite happy with what I there after called creation apologists.

Was it considered "bashing" when enlightened folks laughed at the flat earthers?

Religious idiocy is too deeply ingrained, and it has had devastating effects on this country and world.

Or do you only end up preaching to the choir, so to speak?

and that is thanks in large part to Internet discussion of religion, and, yes, mockery. People don't stay in their little bubbles anymore, where everyone in their town goes to the same church, hears the same nonsense, and doesn't have need to question it because everyone else buys it. It's the "Emperor's New Clothes" syndrome.

American society has been moving in a more secular direction for decades now. I think it is more that people generally stop believing the the religious claims over time.

I would love to see you prove a causation between just the Internet, and the secularization of society. People were not in bubbles before the Internet, and the Internet is chock full of bad information. Anyone who reads the Internet uncritically will come up with all kinds of bizarre beliefs. Or disbeliefs.

To the second point, I don't think mockery has ever convinced anyone of anything, regardless of belief involved. Mockery only shows disrespect from one individual to another individual. It is only enjoyed by those of an already identical viewpoint.

Religion is not a distinct belief category, even though there are plenty of people of "faith" who think that, because what they believe has no facts nor evidence backing it up, it is somehow deserving of special protection. Go figure.

Here's something discussing the effect of the Internet on religious belief:
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/526111/how-the-internet-is-taking-away-americas-religion/

and the problem with these claims are pointed out in the article itself.

...and these zealots are throwing gasoline on it....while doing their best to turn off OUR water.

The numbers you get are very sensitive to the exact phrasing of the question, so comparing different questions is dodgy. But Pew asked, as their first question, whether “humans and other living things have evolved over time” or “have existed in their present form since the beginning of time.”.



http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/07/01/chapter-4-evolution-and-perceptions-of-scientific-consensus/

In April 2013 the numbers were 48% and 27%; in 2009, 39% and 30%.

When split by 'conservative/moderate/liberal', the difference is even starker.