Why is America so religious?

[bluedawg12]

More than other nations?

Where does this come from?

[John Q. Citizen]

1. Fear and guilt n/t

[Castilleja]

7. That's it, In a nutshell. N/T

[Bzzzz]

32. I agree n/t

[bluedawg12]

12. What are the future trends for religion in America?

More religiosity?

Will there be a secular back lash?

What would it take to make/happen for Americans to become more secular like Europeans?

Doea urbanization lead to a retreat to secularization?

Is there a harm in being a people who deeply believe that God is invovled, or, even runs day to day events and idividual lives?

Are we more passive for this belief?

Is it odd that dog is god spelled backward?

[LastDemocratInSC]

73. Fear and guilt n/t

[noahmijo]

2. First off we are by no means the most religious nation

"more than other nations" The Phillipines are more religious than us even and I don't need to point out virtually every country in the middle east.

In case you didn't know Iran for example is an outright theocracy.

Compared to most of the world we're actually fairly tame, but it is getting worse and has gotten worse since the religious right found their man for 2000.

Quite frankly I am amazed at the progress this nation has made since its birth. We went from Calvinists and Puritan witch-burners to what we have today where you can be a Wiccan for example and not be threatened with death by burning stake.....well for now at least.

[tocqueville]

8. sorry you are the most religious Christian nation after Ireland

http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_poll3.htm

http://www.religioustolerance.org/rel_comp.htm

since 1944, the Gallup Poll has been asking Americans whether they "believe in God or a universal spirit." The answers have always been 94% or more affirmative. These numbers have been so widely reported in academic articles, and the media that they have been almost etched in stone. However, the ISSP results are under 63%. The wide gap is probably due to the different wording of the question asked. The ISSP requires a degree of certainty of belief that is not present in the Gallup Poll. This shows that many Americans who believe in God are not that certain about their conviction.
A similar drop is seen between the Gallup Poll and the ISSP poll over belief about life after death. American results are typically 75% and 55%. Again, the degree of certainty expected for a positive answer to the ISSP question is probably responsible for the difference. Many Americans seem to hope for life after death, but are not that certain that it exists.
Americans, Irish, Filipinos, and the Poles together form a group of cultures with a much higher degree of traditional religious belief than the rest of the Christian countries shown.
The results on the evolution question may reflect the strength of a scientific, secular world view in the society. The results on the existence of God might reflect the strength of traditional religious belief. The two seem to be inversely related.
A comparison of data from East and West Germany is interesting. Presumably, at the end of World War II, the two populations would have held similar religious views. But the East Germans were exposed to almost two generations of Communist rule, with its oppression of religion and promotion of Atheism. The East Germans have lost much of their traditional religious belief. Some of the results dropped to less than one third of the values for West Germany. It will be interesting to see whether residents in the eastern part of Germany can recover their old levels of belief, and at what rate.

[noahmijo]

22. Oh well gee what a surprise a vast majority of Americans are Xtians

Despite this fact we aren't allowing the government brutally torture gay people for being gay as Iran did a few weeks ago.

If you're expecting me to be apologetic due to the fact that America is overwhelmingly a Xtian nation forget about it, I'm not a Xtian I don't take any responsibility nor shame for the fact that America is overwhelmingly Xtian and secondly I find a great deal of callousness on your part to point out in what seems to me a sort of accusing way that ohh America is mostly Christian you should be ashamed sort of way, meantime you got the entire Middle East which is far more theocratic in nature, and although I don't doubt their model is one of which the fundie Xtian right would love to adopt, Americans have not let that happen, while in other nations they have.

[tocqueville]

33. I merely pointed out facts

Facts say that out of the WESTERN nations America is the most religious and regarding religion's involvement in politics is outstanding.

The worse is that the fundies have seized power, which hasn't happened in any other Xtian nation.

http://www.buzzflash.com/premiums/05/09/pre05131.html

Those fundies don't torture gays because they can't (yet). But they do torture muslims. And if they could torture gays they would. And if they could prohibit abortion under death penalty, they would.

the comparison with the middle east isn't relevant. None of these countries have previously been democratic. And one the few SECULAR nations there (Iraq) was attacked by... America.

[Charlie Brown]

3. I think the US is so religious because until recently we were mostly rural

particularly the South and Midwest. In the absense of infrastructure and bureaucracy, religion is the only thing that knits communities together.

[tocqueville]

11. applies to any western country except Britain

[Charlie Brown]

15. Few Western Countries are as big as the US

the only valid comparisons are Canada, Australia and maybe South Africa. The frontiers of Canada and Australia did not evolve the same way as America's, with various ethnicities (Scotts, Swedes, Germans, and later Irish) establishing communities defined by their religions (Mennonites, Lutherans, Moravians, Presbyterians, Catholics). The Great Awakenings also played a large role in the diffusion of strong Christian beliefs thru the population. In the absense of authority and the rule of law, it stands to reason that residents looked to their churches to fill the void.

[dutchdemocrat]

Canada

Canada established many communities defined by their religions. I don't see this as being the seed that sprouted the fundy weed.

I think the Puritan roots along with 30 years of televangelist brainwashing has done the trick.

[Bassic]

61. Yeah I think that's just about on the mark.

[dutchdemocrat]

19. Canada

Canada established many communities defined by their religions. I don't see this as being the seed that sprouted the fundy weed.

I think the Puritan roots along with 30 years of televangelist brainwashing has done the trick.

[tocqueville]

20. area isn't interesting, percentage of rural communities is

before the industrial revolution most western countries were rural to 80%-90%, with the exception of Britain that was industrialized a bit earlier. So I don't think the answer is there.

I posted earlier :

1) a foundation of the country by religious sects
2) a revolution where liberation from Church played a minor role thus unclear laws of separation
3) lack of a strong socialist - labor movement leaving place to church based charity instead of secular solidarity systems.

A country like Sweden is a very good example of the third statement and church plays there a minor role even if there is no formal state-church separation.

France - extremely rural - had an anticlerical revolution, laws back to 1882 that separated Church and State (for example forbidding any legal value to a marriage only performed by a priest, banning religion teaching from scholls etc..) and of course a very strong labour movement.

Italy is interesting too : the very active LEGAL communist influence already in the 50s counteracted the Vatican.

Spain after Franco had a long secular anti-church quiet revolution...

[Zero Division]

14. Spot on. Good insight.

Sounds just like one of those illuminating ideas my anthropology professors would have us discuss back when I was in college.

[SaveElmer]

4. It just seems that way...

Squeaky wheel gets the grease as they say...

We have an evangelical tradition here that drowns out anything else. I would argue in terms of actually leading a religious life, we are down the list.

It's gonna get worse before it gets better. Fundies, beset with increasing evidence that the bible cannot be taken literally, are hysterically lashing out at anything that challenges their beliefs. Eventually they will fall under the weight of their own contradictions, but that will take a bit of time!

[tocqueville]

5. probably several reasons

1) it was founded by religious refugees. Most of them would be considered as sects today in modern Europe.

2) the American Revolution never really "made up" with religion to the difference from the French for example. The separation of Church and State is not really clear.

3) the lack of a powerful socialist movement at the turn of the last century (to the difference from most European countries) resulted in that the lack of solidarity between the poor was replaced by religious charity

It's interesting to note that the shock of 9/11 was very much absorbed by religious rituals. Such a phenomenon couldn't be seen in Spain or Britain after the bombings. Some masses, that's normal, but no mass prayer and candle vigils.

[Stinky The Clown]

6. Even in seemingly 'more civilized' Europe, we have Spain and Ireland

as examples of countries that are likely more relgious than we are.

Spanish Catholics are very devout. They're just not nuts about it. Ireland (Northern, in particular) has seen generations of war almost entirely attributable to religious differences (fanned by a bit of British nationalism).

What we see here is the shockingly rapid growth of the *power* of our religious nuts. But the difference for us as compared to other countries is that our religious nuts are being led by a group with little interest in religion and a lot of interest in pure power. Look back at the convergence of mass marketing and relious 'leadership' It is more about money and power than Jesus and Mary. Jesus and Mary have been taken hostage for very non-religious ends.

[Erika]

9. Yep. Ask Pat Robertson & his African diamond miners

The religious can control the masses through fear and a few crumbs.

[tocqueville]

10. wrong see poll

God: "I know God exists and I have no doubts about it"
Afterlife: I definitely believe in "life after death"
Bible: "The Bible is the actual word of God and it is to be taken literally, word for word." A yes answer implies that the subject believes in the inerrancy of the Bible.
Devil: I definitely believe in "the Devil."
Hell: I definitely believe in "Hell."
Heaven: I definitely believe in "Heaven."
Miracle: I definitely believe in "religious miracles."

most yes answers :

USA
N Ireland
Philippines

Spain isn't in the poll shown. But I don't think that a country that just allowed homosexual marriage (nr 2 in Europe after the Dutch) can compete with the US. There were some protests from the Church, they tried to organize a mass rally, but it flopped.

[julianer]

43. I don't know about the statistics

but I've never met a fundamentalist Irish or Spanish catholic in the UK. Or Ireland, come to that, but I spent most of my time there in bars not churches. Or Spain, but I wouldn't have understood it if they had been.

The Irish and Spanish people I've met have stood out as humanist and radical but not religious.

However, the NI conflict was not about religion in the least. It was/is about nationality and civil rights and democracy.

[Stinky The Clown]

45. 'Religious' does not equal 'fundamentalist'

I believe in God. Therefore I call myself religious. I am as far from a fundamentalist as one can get without being an athiest.

[julianer]

67. Sorry, my mistake

:hi:

[Celeborn Skywalker]

72. Spain

I went to Spain a few years ago and it didn't seem that religious. They do believe in God and celebrate many Catholic traditions but I wouldn't call them particularly devout. I don't have stats but I believe I remember reading somewhere that about 1/4 of Spaniards go to church more than once a month.

[joemurphy]

13. Fundies can't handle social change

Fundies were not always Republicans. For theological reasons they tend to distrust all worldly institutions, and arguably their natural state is to shun politics and keep to their little enclaves, getting right with God and watching the world go to hell -- sort of like the Amish.

Historically, they've erupted into the political scene several times (last time, they were for William Jennings Bryan in a big way), and they ended up leaving in disgust when things didn't go their way.

Fundies have always found something to despise in society; but I think the '60s snapped them out of their complacency. Jazz and cigarettes were bad enough, but for God's sake, these hippies were getting naked, taking drugs, and questioning authority. Riots and bombings, increased crime, and lawsuits against school prayer showed that things were truly spiralling out of control. Feminism seemed like an attack on the way things should be. And above all there was abortion, which was not just perverse but truly evil.

[On the Road]

16. Unlike Most European Countries,

there is no state church. That alone explains a lot. Who's going to believe in a church run by the government?

I am an atheist. But the fuzzy liberal Christianity and stricter public morality that permeated the 50s went hand in hand with a more liberal and secular society. I will gladly take that trade.

If you want a more secular society, make religiion official. That's one reason things like nativity scenes and "under God" don't bother me that much.

[tocqueville]

21. most European countries don't have a state church

what I know of

[tocqueville]

24. list of European countries with official state religion

Lutheran :

Denmark
Iceland
Norway
Finland (along with the Finnish Orthodox Church)
Until 2000, Sweden had a Lutheran Church as a state church. The Church of Sweden has now been relegated to the status of a national church

Anglican/Reformed :

England, Scotland

Catholic :

Andorra
Liechtenstein
Malta
Monaco
Some cantons of Switzerland
Vatican City

Orthodox :

Greece


which means that practically all the big countries France, Germany, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, all the Eastern countries, Ireland don't have a state religion.

Religion plays a big role in Ireland/Poland but not in any other country. Not even in Italy and Spain today.

[On the Road]

55. In England, the Leaders of the Anglican Church

are in the House of Lords. In Germany, the state gives money to mainstream Protestant and Catholic churches. (Not exactly an official church, but it has official state sanction.) Then there's Italy and the Roman Catholic church. It doesn't end there, but I'm not an expert on it. There are lots of holdovers from earlier days of Christian monarchs.

My point is not so much the legal status of the church, but having a church that's incorporated into the government framework. It becomes part of the power structure, co-opted, and tends to lose its conviction and ability to attract followers. I absolutely believe that the separation of church and state has made churches more vigorous. And the current movement towards secularization has intensified that trend.

[tocqueville]

68. sociologist approach

State religions tend to enjoy the allegiance of the majority of their country; however much of this support is little more than nominal, with many members of the church rarely attending it. But the population's allegiance towards the state religion is often strong enough to prevent them from joining competing religious groups.

Sociologists put this forward as an explanation for the religious differences between the United States and Europe: many sociologists theorise that the continuing vitality of religion in American life, compared to many European countries, is due to the lack of a strong state church (or indeed, any state church at all) during much of American history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_religion

my point is that the statement above may be right regarding the history of nations who went from a middle-age king/church system to modern democracy without a violent revolution. That is the case for most European countries. The only different path is the French which (mostly through the ideas) resembles the American evolution/revolution. In certain aspects France and the US are young countries if you take the late 1700 as a landmark. In both countries state religion disappeared, but the difference is that the French 1905 passed a law that make it even clearer.

[baron j]

17. It seems like a lot of the people who claim to be Christian

really don't act like they are; hypocrites, many of them, in my estimation.

[raccoon]

47. You said that right. My guess is that's true of any religion.

I think many people believe that by proclaiming themselves to be a "Christian" (or some other religion) that identifies them as a "good" person.

It doesn't make them any more decent, moral, whatever, than the next person. It doesn't make them any less likely than somebody who never goes to church and/or is a self-proclaimed atheist, to drink, beat their wives, kids, pets, gamble away the family's money, commit adultery, etc.

But unfortunately, it does, for a lot of people, cloak the religious, church-going person in respectability and "goodness."

[Lexingtonian]

18. When traditionalistic immigrants arrive on American soil

their cultural clock abruptly stands still.

When they get stuck in enclaves with each other, their cultural energy goes into in a certain amount of assimilation to where they are (Upper East Side, southern Minnesota) and to a large extent into creating a reactionary ethnic culture.

Generally the environmental supports for the traditional ethnic culture are small or frail, though generally immigrant groups find the part of the country closest in climate and botany and such to where they came from. Norwegians and Japanese ended up in Washington State, Scots in central Ontario, Swedes in Minnesota, Poles and Russians in Ohio and Michigan, Germans along the Ohio and Missouri River watersheds, Vietnamese on the Gulf Coast, Iranians and Armenians in the hill country of Southern California, etc. (I tell my Chinese friends to settle in Arkansas or Mississippi as where climatewise the U.S. is closest to the Two Rivers parts of that country...for some reason they don't develop any enthusiasm for that idea, though....)

But even that tends not to prop up traditional culture and society for traditionalistic groups. In the end the Bible and traditionalistic Belief- for European immigrants almost invariably Christianity- are vital props. As a matter of fact, a reactionary religiosity and particularistic interpretation of Christianity, i.e. the materials the Christian Right is built on, are what remains and is fervently clung to as ethnic culture decays. It's a deficient substitute, but it's what they have that connects them to a world they consider real...even if that happens to be pre-Enlightenment Europe.

There's a lot to say about the groups of English descent, i.e. Puritans and Maryland Catholics and such, and the great American sects- Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses and Southern Baptists and other generally horrid stuff that grew out of the Great Revival. But it's not essentially different; they're all similar attempts by groups to redefine themselves as pious medieval European serfs and overlords when confronted by the problem of this vast continent not being European.

All these groups stood before a choice of intensifying the part of Europe they had retained or 'going Native'. Not being educated people, medieval European Christianity (their Bible) and medieval European remnant paganism ('tradition') and medieval European occultism (Settler ideology) is what they had. Not Science, not Literature, not Philosophy.

They chose they way they did because all the pressures then made it irresistable. The trouble is, these pressures have essentially vanished. In fact, the solutions that are now the correct ones for adaption and survival in North America involve rejecting occultized Christianity (i.e. 'strong' theism and Settler ideology, aka Dominionism) and European paganisms (i.e. racisms, sexisms, etc.) The American future is now about scientific and post-theistic civilization and about 'going Native', i.e. integrating with Indian populations (we call the largest group of them by the lumping term of 'Latinos') and ultimately accepting their highly aboriginal system of beliefs as the cultural center.

In short, the U.S. has been a haven for bits of medieval Europe that have pretty much died out on that continent around the World Wars. Some would say the U.S. has been a kind of zoo for medieval heresies and absurdities, carefully preserving and propagating themselves (and, at times, committing fratricide or suicide). Modernity is killing it all, and all the Wild Creatures have risen up and put up an ugly and nasty fight they couldn't really win, aka the Culture War or Civil Rights Era (depending on which respects you look at) to assert the dominion of medieval European village mores and habits and beliefs and behaviors over anything and everything else in the world.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

59. Interesting analysis

I can see it in rural Minnesota, where entire European villages seem to have transplanted themselves onto the prairies. There are plenty of towns that grew up as all-Catholic or all-Lutheran because they were founded by settlers from parts of Europe that practiced those religions.

In such a situation, the church becomes the focus of the town's entire social life, as it does in towns in the West that are all-Mormon.

[Name removed]

23. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[crowshadow]

25. For Profits

People are looking for leaders and it is easier to believe in the unknowable than to face reality. And that is why it is so easy for GWB to deceive people.

[weiser]

30. lol the picture says so much

It's the "perception" Bushit was trying to give during the early days as he pushed for war in Afghanistan and Iraq. A chapter many seem to forget. A religious Bushit is a truly fucked up idea that only fools and zealots can accept.

Bushit was embraced by Christian America because of his religious overtures.

Religious America is becoming more extreme... By invading Iraq and occupying Arab territories illegally, we're obviously becoming more and more like Israel....... The similarities are undeniable (less sensitive to the suffering of others and only concerned about our needs, economic and political).

I feel many Christians are becoming more Zionist Christians, taking on a more extreme view of issues and becoming militant minded and willing to use unjustified means to achieve their aims.


We're basically fucked if we don't win the next election. And that's the bottom-line......

Democrats and Liberals need to take back America.... we're slipping.

[Arugula Latte]

50. Welcome to DU, crowshadow!

:toast: :hi:

P.S. Okay, you're freakin' me out with that Jesus Bush picture!!

[Name removed]

26. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[crowshadow]

27. For Profits

[DOJ-IG]

28. 911 Exposed!!!!

This is for everyone who wants to know the TRUTH.

Please go to justacitizen.com and sign the petition requesting our government/Bush to release the DOJ-IG Report.

The real truth about 911 or as we call it, “The Bush cover-up.”
Go Sibel Edmonds. The most gagged person in America.
The truth will set us free!!!!
www.justacitizen.com/

The ACLU is also asking the Supreme Court to reverse the D.C. appeals court's decision to exclude the press and public from the court hearing of Edmonds' case in April. The appeals court closed the hearing at the eleventh hour without any specific findings that secrecy was necessary. In fact, the government had agreed to argue the case in public. A media consortium that included The New York Times, The Washington Post, and CNN intervened in the case to object to the closure.

Edmonds, a former Middle Eastern language specialist hired by the FBI shortly after 9/11, was fired in 2002 and filed a lawsuit later that year challenging the retaliatory dismissal.

It is way past time for a little bit of critical thinking. The Attorney General cites two reasons to justify the unconstitutional and panic driven assault.

Reason one: To protect certain diplomatic relations - not named since obviously our officials are ashamed of admitting to these relations.

Reason two: To protect certain U.S. foreign business relations. Let’s take each one and dissect it (I have given up on our mass media to do that for us!) For reason one, since when is the Department of Justice, the FBI, in the business of protecting ‘US sensitive diplomatic relations?’ They appear to be acting as a mouthpiece for the Department of State. Now, that’s one entity that has strong reasons to cover up, for its own self, what will end up being a blunder of mammoth scale. Not internationally; not really; it is the American people and their outrage they must be worried about; they wouldn’t want to have a few of their widely recognized officials being held criminally liable; would they?

[Michael_UK]

29. It was settled by peole who thought Charles I was too liberal (nt)

[ladylibertee]

31. ENGLAND.....To understand Americas retardation, one need only look

at the history of the nation from whence these pompous, self-righteous,hypocrites came.Not because they are christian or religious no.Rather,because they claim to know God but do not serve him.They claim to live according to the bible, but their history of racism and deceitful treaties shows otherwise. Their sexism and hatred of anyone who dare oppose their own warped,un godlike ideologies is what they use as a proud, arrogant political banner.I have read the bible and a true Christan is Christ-like.They may be quick to judge everyone else but they are the ones who will be judged for their hypocrites.They say "SAVE THE BABIES" yet send men off to die in a war they created.They say"DON"T HAVE SEX UNLESS YOU ARE MARRIED" yet their priests rape and molest the innocent.Don't get me started on the price of gas either.I'm kidding.I had to lighten it up a bit.:-) In any event,that is what I think.

[leesa]

34. Because they are lazy and spoiled with luxuries...easier to be religious

than it is to think

[sendero]

35. I think religion..

.... is often the last refuge of broken dreams. I think the upturn in religious activity is related to America's decline as an economic power. I think people are dissapointed with their lives because in America, you are supposed to be able to become a millionaire and when your life turns to disaster it is easier to turn to religion (hell, I've done it) than to look at the realities that you will have to deal with.

[noonwitch]

36. Our history, and our freedom

Many of the original settlers from Europe came here to escape religious persecution-the pilgrims, the puritans, the Quakers, the catholics who founded Maryland, etc. They were people whose religious practices were not in line with the Church of England, for various reasons, and were free to practice their religions in the colonies.

The reason it continues is because we live in a free society that allows people to believe in what they want to believe in, and go to whatever church or temple they want to attend, or none.

[momisold]

37. The USofA is 229 years old

The countries you are comparing us to are a 1000+ years old and have had social/political/religious evolutions that we haven't had time to go through. We are basically still a toddler in age terms compared to other nations.

[Name removed]

38. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[lost lid]

39. America the religious?

religion takes away from the thought process and the guilt behind a consumer driven, materialistic, quick self gratification mentality that the majority of Americans have acquired over the past 50 yrs, and gives them a feeling of rightness, or justification if you will,(just to sum it up)!

[Arugula Latte]

52. Welcome to DU, lost lid!

:hi: :toast:

[lost lid]

63. Thanks!

Cheers to you Oregonian:)

[ComerPerro]

40. Most of it is hypocritical bullshit so people can feel self-importance

and invoke moral superiority.

Its the only way they can find personal worth or get a sense of self-satisfaction.

And it helps them win arguments.

[MountainLaurel]

41. All the nuts moved here

e.g., The Puritans were kicked out of multiple countries for being so dogmatic. It's just bad luck that they ended up being one of the founders of the USA.

[lost lid]

42. well said!

I liked the good correlation MountainLaurel, (after I went and looked up who the puritans were, and what dogma meant)!

[julianer]

44. A few wise words from old beardy

Religion...

...It is the fantastic realisation of the human essence because the human essence has no true reality. The struggle against religion is therefore indirectly a fight against the world of which religion is the spiritual aroma.

Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and also the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of spiritless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

To abolish religion as the illusory happiness of the people is to demand their real happiness. The demand to give up illusions about the existing state of affairs is the demand to give up a state of affairs which needs illusions. The criticism of religion is therefore in embryo the criticism of the vale of tears, the halo of which is religion."

Karl Marx

[The Sleeper]

46. Because the USA has a strong tradition...

of con men, hucksters, and snake oil salesmen. It has been a career path for quite some time in this country. Look at P.T. Barnum for instance....hell, the guy was one of the original partners in Madison Square Garden....

[Scout]

48. I think that many people who claim to be religious

are just doing/saying it becuase they think it is expected, it's what normal, etc. If you got right down to it and started questioning their beliefs and actions, they'd get very uncomfortable.

It's a sham for a lot of them, but it gives them comfort to think there is a big daddy taking care of them.

[WA98296]

49. Because the "Media" tell us it is, so it must be true

[Richard D]

51. Too many chemicals in the food . . .

. . . and not enough nutrition. Makes people stupid.

[Arugula Latte]

53. Another factor: a crappy educational system.

Easier to believe in spirits and dieties and other supernatural beings if you've never been taught critical thinking.

[newportdadde]

54. Most aren't religious they just go to church.

Except for that small time they are there I have found them to be some of the most hypocritical people I've ever been around. But of course they aren't going to hell because they show up each week and I am even though I actually live much closer to Christ's teaching then they ever will.

[RedCloud]

56. To hide the genocide

How do you explain to kids:

Well, you see more than 100,000,000 Native Americans met a grisly fate as a result of European arrival and conquest over 500 years and another 100,000,000 died from Africa and the far East due to slavery, being thrown overboard, left to die on small islands or its resistance.

Then if those populations had been allowed to grow, they would be the majority today and rule!

Of course, it is much easier to ignore this and bury their heads in religion and omit the "thou shalt not kill" part

[Lydia Leftcoast]

57. Ironically, it's BECAUSE we have no state religion

Countries that have state churches and religious instruction in schools (much of Europe) have low levels of church attendance and have for years. One reason is that in countries where the clergy are state employees, the churches keep existing whether anyone attends or not, so while people might want to get married in a church or observe holidays, they don't feel any personal involvement.

Churches in the U.S. are self-financed and self-governing. If people stop attending and supporting a parish, it dies. This gives people who value the rituals and the sense of community an incentive to get involved and stay involved. Since no one is forced to attend, the people who do attend are there because they want to be.

By the way, even in Iran, which has a state religion in spades, young people are becoming alienated from Islam after 25 years of forced observance.

[SunDrop23]

58. It comes from the huge GUILT we have heaped on us as soon as we emerge

from the womb.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

60. And this doesn't happen in Europe?

It's obvious that you never grew up with immigrant relatives.

[TroglodyteScholar]

62. We're not religious, we're self-righteous... n/t

[Fire Walk With Me]

64. Quaker Founding Fathers?

Fear of uncertainty? Fear of normal bodily functions? Fear of normal emotional reactions to the unacceptable?

[True American]

65. Check this out!!!!

Have you read the Sibel Edmond's story. I never know about this story until today. I urge everyone to read this story about the Bush Cover up. The Aurthur is Real Time.

Post a reply to keep this story front and centered.

The Truth will prevail.

True American.

[Fire Walk With Me]

66. Burning Bush be damned. I have seen the light.

The Holy Palm Tree of Saint Veeblefetzer is the new way. It tells us to spend wantonly, to dominate our neighbors both home and abroad, and to consume mass quantities of purile entertainments.



Submit. You know you'll enjoy it.

[OnionPatch]

69. For one thing

The right wing has figured out how easily they can manipulate people who have strong faith in conventional religion, so they promote it and encourage it all the time. We have some of the most sophisticated advertising and marketing minds in the world working on Americans via Republican propaganda and sadly, the church is an arm of it.

The other thing I think is happening is that while most Americans believe in God, many of those are not conventional at all in their beliefs. We have a ton of people involved in alternative religions and spiritual beliefs in this country. Think crystals, etc. I just read that 35% of Americans believe in reincarnation and most of that 35% consider themselves Christians!! (Like me!) So thankfully, even if we are religious, we aren't ALL fundies.

[IndianaGreen]

70. America's religiosity is PHONY!

America fits to a tee the enemies of Jesus, the ones that were publicly pious but were all corrupt on the inside. As Etan Thomas said:

Then I'd feed them hypocritical lines of being pro-life as the only Christian way to be. Then very contradictingly, I’d fight for the spread of the death penalty, as if thou shall not kill applies to babies but not to criminals.

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0927-20.htm

[meppie-meppie not]

71. laziness. It's hard work to be a critical thinker, it's much easier to be

a sheep