[Daniel Dennet] points out that moderate religion tends to break down in a couple/few generations... but extremist religion is much more resilient.

I'd like to know how Dennet defines "moderate religion." If he means it as a synonym for "moderately religious," he's probably right. However, I'd suggest that any religion that doesn't claim to have an exclusive hold on the truth qualifies as moderate. Some of these (Hinduism, Buddhism, Shinto, Taoism) have been around for millennia.

And no,vthe fundamentalists are not weak. They have suffered setbacks, but they are still strong. They've openly stated their agenda and will not stop until we have the power to make them stop. They want all fags and dykes to be bashed. They want women's sexuality to be slut-shamed into nonexistence. They want atheists driven from the public sphere. Fundies are THE ENEMY. We will never be free until they are weak and marginalized. We have no other hope.

The point of Unitarian Universalism is that it's not founded on shared beliefs, but on a shared set of moral principles. If you follow those principles, you're free to believe anything you want. I think an atheist could join a church like that without qualms, and I'm not the only atheist who sometimes shows up; if anything, I think a plurality of the members are atheists

I can't speak to the plurality as I haven't been there in awhile, but at least one local UU church is routinely the host of new age fairs (complete with psychics, healers and crystal magic). Seems there are quite a few members of new age and buddhist background.

We underestimated human psychological instinct and yearning that shaped the religion in the first place -- plus the Fundamentalists do a lot of things which Liberal won't do -- their "evangelism" and "marketing" to gain a lot of exposure.

Or from unbelievers/liberal churchs.

From the original article:

Spong's mistake is a common one: he assumes that everyone views the world the same way he does.

Andrew, not having read Dennet (nor any of the "Four Horsemen") I can't be sure, but I suspect he doesn't mean the religion breaks down, but that after Jack and Jill start going to a moderate church, their kids are more likely not to go, and their grandchildren even more likely not to attend services there, but to have departed either for full-blown atheism or to have gone to a more fundamentalist religion.

Yes. That's basically what Dennett is saying. Moderate churches may be large, but they have strong a grip on their followers, and that grip loosens with each generation.

Even as Humanist societies grow in number, the older religions will be established. Unitarian Universal fellowships are already popular among a significant portion of the atheist community seeking rituals, community, and ethics, and a number of Reform and Reconstructivist synagogues and temples perform a similar function for atheist Jews.

I've never been to a Reform Jewish service, but I do occasionally attend a Unitarian Universalist church with my fiancee (who's an ex-Catholic). Coming from that perspective, I don't think UUs are in quite the same boat as Spong.

The point of Unitarian Universalism is that it's not founded on shared beliefs, but on a shared set of moral principles. If you follow those principles, you're free to believe anything you want. I think an atheist could join a church like that without qualms, and I'm not the only atheist who sometimes shows up; if anything, I think a plurality of the members are atheists.

Spong's case is different. Watered-down though it is, his theology is still based on a set of specific beliefs, even if his God is a mushy, insubstantial abstraction and his Jesus was just a really swell guy. If you don't believe what he believes, if you don't draw inspiration from the same sources as he does, you're not likely to feel at home there. In this respect, I think Spong's case is more like those of the mainstream Protestant churches, which have also seen their membership in decline.

Andrew, as a former Catholic, I would say that with regard to Catholicism in America, the moderates probably make up the largest bloc. In a religious denomination that is so large, you can expect that believers will break down into segments from extremely pious Catholics to those who only go to church on Easter Sunday, with the bulk of them being those who generally go to church once a week but don't necessarily follow church doctrine on abortion, birth control, the death penalty and so forth.

You see the same thing with Lutherans and Episcopalians too.

But you are not going to really see that with evangelical Baptists, because they define themselves as being more literalist in interpreting the Bible.