Why is the atheist movement in decline?

[historia]

Consider these recent comments from several prominent atheist activists:

You know lately when I look around on social media, and in the media in general really, I see these proclamations. Proclamations that the atheist movement is on life support. It's dying. It's probably beyond saving.

. . .

As an atheist activist myself, I can understand myself why some activists have just left the party. They just got tired of it. All the politics and the posturing and the trolls and the bad faith operators out there. They have seen first hand that atheists are not immune to scandal, to ugliness, to irrationality, to this unhealthy rage.

If you look at the major atheist groups right now -- like the national groups, the ones that are doing the real activist work, like American Atheists or Secular Coalition -- they are not bringing in the kind of donations they used to. Most of them are starved for cash. They're downsizing left and right, because people aren't just giving like they used to.

And I talked to a lot of the major donors out there and they said, "Well, we're kind of tired of seeing the atheist community just fight amongst itself and not really get anything done. We'd rather not give money if we don't think it's going to go somewhere."

It is a hard time to be an atheist activist . . . We are suffering a level of defeatism that I've never seen before . . . I have heard "it's over" so many times it makes me sick . . . This apathy is infecting us and it's hurting us . . . That has resulted in a splintering and a faction-ing of the movement that I've never seen before . . . We're in a bad situation and it's getting worse.

Atheism has squandered its momentum on a defensive old guard and apologists for neglect of events happening in our world. I’m going to have to suggest that we all abandon it.

Question for debate: Why is the atheist movement in decline?

[marco]

Anyway, I grow suspicious when people start building databases about something so complex and personal as religious belief.

This is a splendid observation. Obviously we expect official surveys to avoid statistical bias, but that's hard in the complex area of belief. Each person understands a question in an individual way.

[rikuoamero]

It depends on which thread of the conversation you are referring to. One thread concerns global demographic trends, while one of the more recent threads centers on the percentage of religiously unaffiliated Americans who believe in God.

I was mostly interested in how anyone can trust worldwide surveys or data about religious belief.

One culture might have four words for 'God'. How would we translate our God-question into their language?

Another culture might think of God as purely spirit, unable to come into the physical world and do anything (not even deliver "Holy Scripture" to us). Would American Christians think of those people as A) believing in God or B) disbelieving in God.

Anyway, I grow suspicious when people start building databases about something so complex and personal as religious belief.

I'm going to let my inner Japanophile show. The word for God in Japanese is 神, pronounced Kami. Sometimes, Japanese people might say Kami-sama. The part at the end is a sign of respect given by a person of lower station towards a person of higher station.
However, if one just says Kami...that by itself doesn't strictly speaking mean God in the Abrahamic sense. The literal word means spirit, so if someone says "Kami-sama", it can be translated back into English as a phrase meaning "Spirit for whom I have respect, acknowledge as being of higher station than myself".

[JoeyKnothead]

from the OP:

Question for debate: Why is the atheist movement in decline?

'Cause many folks are willing to accept as truth, claims that can't be shown to be?