A question...

[PinkUnicorn]

Trying to sum up and compile a few questions which have been raised in recent threads. Apologies if its a bit rambling as I'm trying to get my thoughts on it in order...

From various threads its quite obvious the topic of religion is a hot one in the US. Indeed, even covering the TV and print news barely a day goes by without some mini-religious stink occurring.

Now out of all this is _why_?

Why is religion such a hot commodity in the US. The only other countries which seem to have the same level of fanaticism about belief are theocracies in the middle east, and the appearance between some Christian evangelical and an Imam screeching for jihad are more than passing. The recent 'Kill Chavez' brings back echoes of 'Kill Rushdie'. Now, the US is a western country. Indeed, it is the first thing which comes to many peoples minds when 'the west' is mentioned. So why out of all the 'western countries' does the US have such a religious burr up its arse.

In Britain, Australia, Germany, Canada, France, etc religion is going the way of the dodo. Church attendance is dropping like a stone, religion is considered ones own problem and not other peoples, religious figures are looked upon with benign contempt, fundies are laughed at, and the very thought of someone dancing around the senate/parliament/rathause saying 'lookie me, I'm a christian' is almost considered abhorrent. Of course, there is always a small part of the population which gets a collective hard-on with their brand of religion and try to push their mind drugs via politics, but they are usually ignored.

Not so the US - in fact the exact reverse appears to take place - people want their religion fix. If you don't openly parade your beliefs you a 'dirty stinky atheist who eats children and puts kittens in blenders'. The very thought of a politician say 'Religion - meh' is inconceivable by a huge majority of the people. Even here on DU it's obvious that there exists a 'blind spot' to religion. US citizens intelligent and thoughtful start frothing if you dare criticize the 'R' word, even if its a completely spaced out religion like Scientology, or Raelienism.

The difference can't exactly be explained to age of the nation, as Canada and Australia were formed at roughly the same time. The immigration of the puritans could be a possibility, but the population received several influxes of others.

So, why is it that religious nut jobs are apparently everywhere in the US? And more importantly why does a large part of the population love them? Please not, this is not a 'I hate the US' post, theres enough of that going on as is. I just want to know 'why' as mentioned above

Ta

PU

[GOPFighter]

1. I've tried to figure this out, too

I grew up in a RW, fundamentalist christian home, so I sort of know first hand what kind of people embrace this nonsense. For some reason, a lot of Americans are extremely insecure about their ability to cope with a fast-paced, constantly changing modern world. They feel inadequate. They are scared they will lose their jobs, scared their kids will experiment with sex and/or drugs, scared they're not measuring up to everybody else.

Fundamentalist churches give these people security (Jesus will watch over you), hard and fast rules of what's right and wrong (so people don't have to make those decision themselves), and a sense of community (sorely missing in American life today).

Even more importantly, these churches give these scared, insecure people an enemy: GODLESS LIBERALS! They say, "The reason you feel uncomfortable with life is because Liberals are trying to change everything you hold dear: they are promoting gay relationships, they are taking God out of everyday life, they despise patriotism, hate America, and are responsible for taking hard-earned money out of your pocket and giving it to lazy minorities who make babies instead of getting a job."

People who feel inadequate need someone to blame for their troubles, someone to hate, someone that their church and their community can unite against.

But this doesn't explain why two of my brothers embrace fundamentalist Christianity. Both are intelligent, outgoing, confident, and successful - just the opposite of the stereotype I described above.

Anyone else got ideas?

:shrug:

[Hello_Kitty]

10. What you said plus - Everyone else is doing it.

And in the case of your brothers, a lot of people who appear to be very confident and together turn out to be teeming masses of insecurity and self-doubt. Or maybe they wield so much power in their daily lives that they need a release valve, or the comfort of having someone or something in charge of them where they don't have the pressure of making decisions and having to be in control all the time.

[muriel_volestrangler]

19. Expanding on that: what about the "godless commies" meme?

I wonder if the 1950s American propaganda of "commies are out to take over the world, pollute your precious bodily fluids, etc." was responsible for linking God and Patriotism - and then, the more you bang on about God, the more patriotic you must be, mustn't you?

It was DU that told me the "under God" bit of the pledge was only inserted to distinguish the USA from the Soviet Union. I wonder if the US government sat around, saying "how do we convince the working class that they're better off under capitalism than socialism? Hey, the communists aren't keen on religion - that's a good differentiator". So they play up the "godless commies" phrases, in the pledge and elsewhere (think of the reading of the start of the Bible from Apollo 8 when it got to the Moon) while Europe, Canada, Australia etc. took a more realistic stance (like better welfare programmes), and organised religion faded in popularity there.

And my own theory is that the number of dead in the World Wars turned many countries outside the USA away from the idea of a god that loves them. Here's my estimates of the percentages of population killed for the larger English-speaking countries:

Country     WW1     WW2

UK         1.66%   0.83%
Australia  1.13%   0.42%
Canada     0.71%   0.33%
USA        0.12%   0.23%

[onager]

2. The old humorous explanation...

The British Empire sent its criminals to Australia and its religious fanatics to America.

We are still wondering how Australia got first choice.

Not so long ago, the U.S. was much as you describe Europe. Church attendance was probably higher, especially in rural areas where peer pressure is intense. But we had very few legislators who ranted about the Will Of Gawd from the Congress. Tossers like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson were seen by much of the populace as ignorant buffoons, interested only in fleecing their flocks.

Strictly IMO, the serious turnaround really started in the Age Of Reagan. (Though it's important to note that the people once dismissed as the "Nut Right" had been working in the background since their shattering electoral defeat of 1964.)

Another hard blow was the off-year elections of 1994, when a literal right-wing tsunami rolled into D.C. Many Americans who voted Republican in that election were casting Grudge Votes against Bill Clinton's party...and we can partly thank the right-wing echo machine and a spineless media for that disaster.

I'm at work right now, or I could pontificate on this even longer...

[PinkUnicorn]

4. Well..

True we did get the better deal with the British rejects - I include a forger, a burglar and a highway robber in my pedigree ;). But another point might be that criminals exiled for life to a arid isolated country are probably not exactly good conversion material.

However even through the Religious Right made a comeback at the points you mention, what was their 'selling point'. They can howl and rub their books all they want, but if there is no 'market' for it then it wont be taken up. True, religions have always offered 'quick fixes' or nice 'fluffy feelings' but nothing of any substance. Religion doesn't put food on the table, pay the mortage, provide medicine or get you a job.

What is the 'selling point' thats being used? How can they look in the mirror and convince themselves that 'Gawd' will provide for them even though he never has in the history of humanity (paging Katrina and Rita) and for that matter that their brand of deity is even the right one?

[onager]

15. Dammit, my pontification is failing...

I've been thinking of how to answer your quite good query about how these thugs slithered into power.

Unfortunately, it's a complex question.

If you get a chance, try to watch an excellent documentary called "With God On Our Side: Bush And Religion."

The first half traces the historical rise of the Religious Right in America. One interesting part deals with President Carter, and how the R-R mistakenly THOUGHT he was one of them. Carter was a devout Southern Baptist who had no problem talking about his faith, though he didn't go around clubbing people with it.

The R-R's were horrified when they discovered that Carter supported the Equal Rights Amendment, a woman's right to choose, and other liberal ideas.

The documentary has a priceless moment with the Rev. Tim La Haye and his scary wife. The La Hayes are out-and-out Dominionists who have been working for decades to build an American Theocracy.

La Haye calls Carter several names...rather un-Xianly, I thought...and says: "We had to get him out of the White House."

What replaced him was Ronald Reagan, who as an old ham actor, knew how to present with great fake sincerity guff like "Gawd's Shining City On The Hill" (that's America).

Oh, the second half of the documentary concentrates on Bush's manipulation of the Religious Reich.

Once again I've rattled on longer than I meant to...

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

3. Oh crap, I've been doing it all wrong the whole time.

So I WASN'T supposed to eat kittens and put children in blenders?

[funflower]

5. The other western nations all had/have state religions.

Religion, like other ideas, fluorishes when it's left alone or even disfavored by the state.

Also, the Europeans, at least, have seen the harm caused by state religion, as their history is filled with bloody religious wars. We've never experienced that on a large scale here - yet.

Our mind-numbing public education system and generally anti-intellectual culture probably doesn't help, either.

[A HERETIC I AM]

8. Thats pretty much the way i see it.

Separation of Church and State was a radical idea and it has created a free market of religious belief in this country. The very thing that has fostered religion's popularity in this country is the thing the xtian right wants to do away with! No State church!
I also see the erosion of effective, secular public education as a player here too. The "Dumbing down" of America plays right into the hands of the sectarian leaders. It is all about money, influence and control.

As my sig line says;

"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false and by the rulers as useful"

[funflower]

9. God. Seneca said that? Scary.

[onager]

14. Suetonius also had a good one-liner...

"If you did not know by the age of 5 that the gods are only made-up things and the stories about them fables, you are a fool."

Some of the Romans were almost as cynical about religion as our modern right-wing "family values" charlatans.

[funflower]

22. Are 5-yo's allowed to believe in the Tooth Fairy?

Even if they don't believe in Zeus and friends?

Actually, that kind of attitude sort of turns me off. For me, "deconverting" from Christianity has made me far more tolerant and accepting than I was before. I pretty much wouldn't call anyone a "fool" for adhering to sincerely held beliefs; unenlightened, as I was, perhaps, but "fool" is a strong term.

After all, to misquote Wesley or someone "there, but by the grace of (OOPS) go I."

It is interesting to see how much more logical some of the ancients were than many are in our modern world. I read somewhere that Thomas Jefferson predicted that orthodox Christianity would be virtually nonexistent within a generation after his death. Wrong-o.

[Az]

26. If was easy to remove the veils of delusion from believer's eyes

We wouldn't be having this conversation. We wouldn't have to even be cognisant of the fact that we were atheists.

But something in our minds makeup makes us pliable to belief systems. Reason is not enough to pry such beliefs out of infected individuals.

As to Jefferson's prediction, I believe it was in reference to Universalism. He believed it would quickly become the dominant religion in the nation.

[onager]

27. Heh! Hey, don't shoot the messenger!

:scared:

I was just passing the quote along. Maybe Seutonius had a bad batch of oysters for breakfast that morning.

One of the more fascinating ancients to me is one of the first Known Atheists among the Greeks: the Athenian scientist Anaxagoras.

He got in trouble for saying the sun wasn't a god but only a "burning rock." And for good measure, the moon was just a "cold rock." He worked out some astronomy that was way ahead of its time, IIRC.

Anaxagoras would have probably been executed, but fortunately good contacts paid off back then just as they do now. He was good friends with Pericles, who got his punishment downgraded to exile.

[funflower]

28. Didn't mean to "shoot" ya!. That Anaxagoras was quite the scientist.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

6. What's wrong with eating children and mixing a little cat in my margarita?

Why oh why do you mock my beliefs? :cry: (j/k for those without a sarcasm meter)

All kidding aside, I'm not sure where the upswing in religion has come from. I do know that wars create temporary increases in church attendance, and the U.S. is in it's 6th major war in the last hundred years. Maybe oil wasn't the only objective? Hmmm.

[Az]

7. A couple of theories

I have been wanting to respond to this question all day but the net was down locally.

As mentioned above complete seperation of church and state was not accomplished in very many countries. The US is a beacon in this territory. Other nations attempted to put some distance between church and state but were unable to make a complete break.

But the thing of it is they did not stay fully tied to the church. Instead they set about creating laws of a secular nature. Thus the church became subserviant to the state. The secular nature of the laws meant that the official state religion was effectively poisoned.

Religions are adaptive things. They ebb and flow with the society. If they have control they can guide things to their benefit. They can increase their control. But under the gaze of a beurocracy the natural flow of their adaptions to societal changes is stifled. And they begin to have less and less relevance to the people. Its as if the secular state functions staked religion out in the sun for the people to see all its flaws.

Meanwhile in the US there was an active attempt to keep religion and the state out of each others hair. Religions were free to grow and intermingle as they were want. It was a breeding ground for beliefs.

Another social factor that kicks in. Our society is heterogeneous. We do not have one culture. We are mixed together with a multiplicity of beliefs and backgrounds. This is not a natural condition for social creatures such as ours. We tend to gravitate towards our natural comfort zones. But our society is completely splintered.

Most nations of the world are relatively homogeneous. They have a single national identity. As technology and other advances increase the comfort of our lives the need of religious comforting declines. Thus with a secure sense of identity in a homogeneous society religion is not as strong a bind and becomes ancillary. Over time it atrophies.

The US despite it claims of bravado and patriotism still has identity issues. The need to proclaim that bravado is nearly evidence enough on its own. We are a nation at each others' throats in a great number of ways. Rich against poor. Racism still is rampant. North against South. People need to have a sense of identity. Religion being the adaptive force it is fills this need for many.

[FM Arouet666]

12. An interesting take on the subject.

I noted your post right after I posted mine below. I attributed the phenomenon to a sense of superiority intertwined in our nationalism. I guess I was formulating a response with an "American view of the rest of the world" perspective. After reading your post I see a different perspective.

Americans present a strong sense of nationalism toward the rest of the world, but we are lacking, relative to other countries, extending this sense of unity domestically. When I travel to Europe or Asia, countries with are typically more homogeneous, there is more of a general acceptance of each other, we are all French, we are all Chinese etc. America maintains a global face of united arrogance, but breaks down quickly upon domestic fronts. We are not all equal Americans, I am a christian, I am a democrat or republican etc etc.

[funflower]

23. I think this is true to some extent even in the middle eastern countries.

The theocrats' take-over of Iran, for example, has led to less religiosity among younger Iranians. It's hard to know what people really believe in a place such as Saudi Arabia, where open skepticism is basically a hanging offense. Also, the educational systems of these countries have been a major factor in the ability of theocrats to maintain control.

Tying religion to the flag ties religion to whatever the government does, which probably doesn't help the cause of religion much.

I wonder how many people on this board began to question their childhood religions because of something religious people or organizations did?

[Az]

25. I am very curious about how the process in the ME is going to continue

The rise of the dominant religious force in the ME is about 500 years behind the development of Western cultures dominant religion. More troubling it never went through a humanist revolution. Chronologically it is about due. But oil and power have placed tremendous control in the hands of the leaders. The civil unrest that lead to western society demanding more control of their society from the churchs has been suffocated by oil in the ME.

[funflower]

29. The other problem with the oil extraction biz is that it doesn't tend to

lead to the development of industries requiring an educated middle class. Even US states w/ big oil industries, such as Texas and Alaska, are "behind" (for their size) other states in terms of developing high-tech businesses and the educational systems to support them.

Lots of oil in the ground allows the elite to enrich themselves without having to become educated or relying on an educated populace.

[FM Arouet666]

11. I wish I had the answer

I like onager's response to your thread.... England sent us the religious fanatics... ;)

Perhaps it has something to do with the U.S being the "greatest nation on Earth." Other countries do not have this mistaken belief or have already gone through a stage where the population was feed this line.

When a person thinks of themselves as superior to another they must ask themselves, why is this so? Americans have been feed this nonsense for years, we defeated the Nazis, we brought down the wall, we defeated communism, and we will now defeat terrorism. America is a great nation, but why are we so much "better" than others?

Many who seek to explain our "superiority" do so in terms of moral values describing America as a christian nation. Reagan was a big spark for this type of thinking and things have gone down hill ever since.

When the population of a nation perceives themselves to be superior to all other nations, national pride can quickly become fanatical nationalism, the fuel for which, in the U.S. of A appears to be a sense of moral superiority derived from right-wing propaganda which exclaims that we are gawd's chosen people.



Yuck, time to move to Canada or The Neatherlands...... :hippie:

[salvorhardin]

21. I think there's a general feeling throughout the world that the U.S. is...

qualitatively different somehow. At least that's the word I've gotten from my German, English, Pakistani and Japanese friends. However, they usually see this difference as being in the people and the culture -- a culture that has traditionally favored progress and modernity and secular public life. It has nothing to do with religious values. I know, that's the line we're usually fed here in the U.S. but at least among the people I know it's all the other things that they admire about the U.S. I'm pretty sure they don't see the U.S. as superior, just different in a potentially good way.

[funflower]

24. It's interesting that the part of the U.S. that was "founded on" religion

(Massachusetts) is probably now the least religious part of the nation, while those colonies founded purely as commercial and/or political ventures (Virginia, Georgia) are far more religious....

Of course, the geographic differences in religiosity are also part of self-fulfilling systems. Often, religious folk don't want to move to California, and nonreligious folk don't want to move to Alabama.

[NMMNG]

13. What's wrong with eating a few children?

Considering the Judeo-Christians are commanded in the Bible to dash them against the rocks, what we do is not so very wrong by comparison. :shrug:

[onager]

16. Eating children? OK, I'm trying very hard to...

...restrain myself from the obvious joke about Catholic priests...

[NMMNG]

17. Bwahahahaha

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

Please, don't restrain yourself on my behalf.

[Az]

18. Ever seen the musical Sweeney Todd?

An entire different route we could go here.

Try the Priest. - Mrs Lovett

[Kolesar]

20. I think there is a lot of "religion" in Latin America

My hunch is that there is a lot of "Jesus and Mary" Roman Catholicism in Spanish-speaking America, a relic of the conquistadors and Spanish imperialism. (I don't have the data, though)