Did the USA split two ways during the Cold War; theist and intellectualist?

The politicians had control over the herd-like majority as they always have in a democracy and changes were made to the US currency and pledge of allegiance to reflect the opiate of the mes - religion. So in other words, there were those in the USA who saw an increase in the dominance of religion as a defense against Russian communism. But there were a minority of people in the USA who saw science as the best defense against Russian communism and it was they who received government funding for things like nuclear testing, space exploration and the Stanford Linear Accelerator etc. Now the Cold War has ended and the bad guys for Americans are terrorists instead of communists, it seems as though the intellectualist side is not challenged by the new bad guys to create and they have diminished whilst the religious side of the US is as strong as ever; do you think this is what has happened to the USA?