I find it funny that the anti-religous bigots are constantly predicting the demise of religion, but keep missing their predictions.  Meanwhile they keep trying to fill people's lives up with meaningless pablum and wonder why people don't have meaning in their lives.

Religion is meaningful pablum?

Religion is meaningful. Whether it's pablum is the subject of much debate.

While there are plenty of detractors who will share their opinions offline, there’s little doubt that the bulk of the detractors plaguing the church are explaining their views online, which is why this has become a problem now for a church that used to act like it could exert total control over believers’ access to information. One of the church historians, Steven Snow, openly cited the internet as the source of the criticisms. “There is so much out there on the Internet ,” he told the New York Times, “that we felt we owed our members a safe place where they could go to get reliable, faith-promoting information that was true about some of these more difficult aspects of our history.”

faith-promoting information. 

Basically they learned to use the same techniques as anti-religion people do.

fallacies for everyone?

No, I was thinking that they're learning to use blogs, Twitter, Facebook, etc. 

yes. more sources for their desired information. just like everyone. 

The Internet IS my religion. http://pandawhale.com/post/104/the-internet-is-my-religion

Geege, if you think that an affirmative message of respect, moral guidance, honesty, and forgiveness is morally equivalent to culture of soullessness and rootlessness that is tolerated in today's school and youth, then, my dear, you are part of the problem.  All you have to do is scan the recent school headlines for cheating, bullying, cybersexting, hazing, molestation, suicide, drug abuse, and yes, even murder.  Maybe we have vastly different definitions of "pablum", but those aren't the same things. 

I think (organized) religion is neither the problem nor the solution, but proclaiming religion is under attack is a contrivance.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/09/04/are-prepared-for-war-on-religious-liberty/

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/05/the-myth-of-a-war-on-religion/371438/

All schools should teach a baseline of civics, respect, life philosophy, naturally derived morals and ethics, the legal system, and psychology and sociology, directly or indirectly.  In the US, technically they do, but perhaps not always effectively.  They should also be taught by their parents.  Enlightened students should be teaching each other, acting against bullies for instance.  I didn't just teach my daughter not to bully, but to prevent anyone else from bullying.  And I believe she did that, being tougher than most other kids.  It only took a couple discussions.  While some inner city schools seem hopeless, some of them have been saved by good principals and teachers.  Most other schools, even public schools, function well overall.  In many cases, a lot of the things that are taught explicitly in religious settings are instead learned through natural interaction with others in the rapid emotional exchange in the wilds of junior high and HS.  While perhaps suffering from incomplete coverage, learning this way can be better: learning through experience is generally a more thorough lesson.  What we do with teenagers isn't quite right, but having more constraints and training wheels seems worse.  Comfortable parents vs. fully developed teenagers perhaps.

Schools and groups of students aren't failing because they don't have religion.  They fail because they aren't learning the right lessons at the right time.  Those key lessons don't require religion.  They can be taught either way.

Catholic schools work fairly well it seems, at least on a number of measures.  Presumably Jewish schools do well too.  I'm much less certain about most other approaches.  I would expect students of religious schools to have taken fewer risks, probably had less EQ building experience, and to be well-steeped in their religion.  I can see the allure of that for people of a certain viewpoint, and it is likely to prevent disaster for some students.  But I would never have chosen it for myself or my children.

"They fail because they aren't learning the right lessons at the right time.  Those key lessons don't require religion." Well said.