I used the example about Songs of Praise because it was in a post by Numptynamechange.
There are lots of theories about the reasons for the decline in church membership. Most of those who have done serious research into the growth of secularism have identified the key drivers as increased prosperity, consumerism, greater choice of leisure activities, decline in traditional beliefs generally and changing social structures, in addition to greater diffusion of atheist ideas. It's not simply a case of heroic freethinkers battling against the evil power of organised religion. And it should be noted that in any case secularism is a fairly localised phenomenon -- strongest in Northern Europe and parts of northern America.
Can you force anyone to worship? I very much doubt it. The current advice to CofE clergy taking school assemblies is to say a prayer and tell children that if they wish to join in, they should say Amen at the end. It is true that many people in the church feel it is vital to reach children with the good news of the Gospel. But an increasing number of baptisms are of adults with no previous experience of church. Personally I think worship is valuable at school because it is a time of reflection and meditation, when children's spiritual needs can be addressed. It needn't be Christian. The main problem, I think! comes when people try to deny that children have any spirituality.
As far as I can see atheists are quite keen that their values are passed on to the general population, hence the remorseless proselytising of Dawkins, Minchin and co. I don't suppose you would mind it if there were school assemblies for 'critical thinking'?
The 'church is nothing but oppression and power' myth is simply that: a myth without historical foundation. The development of libraries, universities, hospitals, human rights, classical music, high art, schools, counsellors and science, to name but a few examples, were all dependent on Christianity and Islam.
I know there are bishops in the House of Lords, because of the constitutional settlement of 1688. As it happens I think the establishment of the CofE has been at best a mixed blessing for it as an institution. But I can't get steamed up about Bishops in the House of Lords. There are 26 of them, compared to 92 Lords temporal that is, people who have hereditary right to be there because of their birth most of them are there because their ancestors bankrolled the monarch. Of the rest, some 650, many are there as a mark of favour because they have done the government of the day a good turn. At least all the bishops have all been parish priests, so they will have sat with the sick and dying, fed the hungry, and seen the harsh side of life. That's more than I think we can say for definite of the hereditary peers, no?
I was thinking of childlike qualities of innocence, imagination, wonder and creativity all of which are part of faith. I don't think of children as particularly credulous no more so than adults, though perhaps adults' credulity operates in rather different arenas.