Is the US headed towards a socialist government?

[kandrathe]

You seem to be trying to correlate drop in church membership with... Something. Anything.

Bad PR. Over meddling by the ruling class. Focus on aspects which are irrelevant to faith. Intellectualism. Many many things contribute to peoples apathy.

And, conversely, I also wonder how the 1/5th of America that declares itself as atheists must feel about how well their freedom from religion is being protected.

There is no protection from religion. There is protection from the government imposing religion upon people(establishment clause), but there is no stated protection from there being religion in civil society. In fact, the opposite (free exercise clause) exists where people are free to express their religious views without government intrusion. Do you feel the government interferes with atheism?