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I don't know why people are leaving organized religion. Maybe higher education has something to do with it. I would guess that the the general trend towards social liberalism has a lot to do with it. Most of the more vocal representatives of christianity in this country are generally associated with more conservative christian sects, sects whose values are completely at odds with the way that most americans live their lives.
I don't think that it has anything to do with the accumulation of knowledge, though. I don't think that americans are really accumulating all that much knowledge, scientific or otherwise. I imagine that in certain respects we are even dumber than the generations before us.
Knowledge and understanding will never displace religion because religion tends to occupy a space where direct, verifiable knowledge cannot exist. One can understand quantum mechanics and have faith in god - these two things aren't mutually exclusive and neither invalidates the other. Some of the greatest minds in the history of science have known this. Isaac Newton wrote extensively about the bible and even tried to predict the timing of the apocalypse based on scripture.
I think that if anything, organized religion is losing faithful because being organized and religious, or even being just plain old spiritual, requires discipline and restraint and reflectiveness and commitment. These are all things that many americans lack.
That and it can seem a bit overauthoritarian and self-righteous.
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