More likely, advancing education and relative prosperity accompanies declining religious observance, independently of whether religion is state-sponsored or not. [numbers needed!]

Of course, heavy-handed state sponsorship may increase insincere observance as a social/political obligation, but ultimately that can only hollow out the religious aspect, just as compulsory Party membership in a one-party state kills political belief.

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II}