The Quest for God (1)

The quest, was it more urgently prevalent in the middle ages? 
Did the Enlightenment sidetrack the quest?
Or is it built into our DNA, either to be acknowledged or denied?
Though nearly 70% in our country say they believe in God, atheism is also on the rise.
But in spite of selfism, consumerism, and materialism, does an unfilled need continue to persist?
Sometimes even undeniably?

Maybe Edwin Arlington Robinson had it right:

"The world is not a prison house; it is a spiritual kindergarten

where millions of bewildered infants

are trying to spell G-O-D with the wrong blocks."

Simon Tugwell in The Beatitudes stimulates my reflection too:

"It is the desire for God which is the most fundamental appetite of all,  and it is an appetite we can never eliminate.  We may seek to disown it, but it will not go away.  If we deny that it is there, we shall in fact only divert it to some other object or range of objects.  And that will mean that we invest some creature or creatures with the full burden of our need for God, a burden which no creature can carry."