(in relationship to Christianity this impact has declined significantly)

We're living in a post-religious age. I doubt anyone believes in God in the same way they did even 200 years ago, let alone 2,000. Religion is elective, like Folk Music, or Fantasy Role Play, any other essentially hobbyist pursuits that in no way reflect the current status of humanity as a whole where spirituality is more likely to found in the writings of atheistic scientists such as the late Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking and Richard Dawkins, than it is in the mumbo-jumbo of 'believers', whose message is invariable one of despotic obedience to a terrible law. Christianity represents a very terrible law - ethically and morally its foundations are one of an all powerful God who created humanity simply to indulge his misanthropic jealousy. We can see this in the effects of Roman Catholic Doctrine on such matters as homosexuality, contraception, the status of women and abortion which remain the cause of untold misery and atrocity getting worse by the day.