"Patriotism and the 'God gap'"

[MarkCharles]

"Nearly all Americans think they live in the best country on Earth. While a majority of Americans believe there are other countries just as great, nine in 10 say no nation is better. Within this high view of America, there are differences between different religious groups,” the magazine noted. "
...

"Among those surveyed, evangelicals were the most likely to think the United States is No. 1.
Other Christian traditions were less enthusiastic about America's position in the world, but they still saw the U.S. as one of the best on the planet. About 40% of other Christians said the U.S. stands alone as the greatest country; around 55% said it and some other countries were equally great. As with evangelicals, only a few said there were greater countries in the world.
Those with no religion, however,” hold a much less favorable view, according to the magazine."
...

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/28/patriotism-and-the-god-gap/

If some equate Paganism and Atheism to fascism and godless dictatorships, Christians seem to be closely tied to an American xenophobia, at the very least.

[jeepnstein]

1. America is the greatest.

For a variety of reasons. None of those reasons are spelled out in the Bible, though.

The freedom we have here is really quite something. You're free to be whatever you choose, at least from a religious point of view, and that's a remarkable thing. There's a reason why people are literally dying every day trying to get here.

[MarkCharles]

2. I doubt very much people are now coming to the United States for religious

reasons. Not any more. Their motivation is almost purely economic: they can attempt to live out their dream of becoming wealthy.

The freedom people have in the USA is quite something, but people have that same level of freedom in dozens of advanced democratic states as well.

To be sure, there are places in the world where religious freedom is not as great as in the USA. But few people from nations like Canada or the UK move to the USA for any reason other than economic opportunity.

Religion and the USA are not joined at the hip. But it is interesting that the greatest number of religious extremists and the most financially successful congregations are located here.

[rrneck]

4. Imagine a natural resource that is inexaustable,

furthermore, if a spike in supply is needed it can easily be produced. This natural resource can be exploited with little capital investment and managed without much more. The potential for profit from the exploitation of this resource is among the greatest the human race has ever seen and has been used by capitalists for thousands of years. That resource is human emotion, and we are living in the nerve center of capitalist exploitation of natural resources and wealthy churches are making money hand over fist at it.

Even if you are a confirmed atheist, even if you never set foot in a church, there is a pump jack between your shoulder blades right now. If the church can't exploit your feelings with plain old capitalism, it will exploit them with disaster capitalism. It's a win win for them in the culture wars.

[beam me up scottie]

5. Some muslims do.

Naturalized citizens probably appreciate our Constitution/Bill of Rights more than the rest of us because they've studied it.

And we welcome them, at least the ones with right colour skin and accent.

[RaleighNCDUer]

3. You also might be aware that there are people literally dying every day

BECAUSE they live here.

This country's potential has always exceeded its reality.
We were the last western power to ban slavery, and had to kill 600,000 of our citizens to accomplish it. The British Empire abolished slavery in all its territories around the world 30 years earlier, by passing a law.

We are the ONLY major industrial power that does not have universal health care as a civil right. Our health care system is such that a person who worked and saved all his life can lose his entire wealth, his home, everything in end of life care - five years on an Alzheimer's wing can reduce his family to near poverty.

We are involved in two major foreign wars, dozens of little ones, and have military bases in over 100 other countries; Switzerland has not been in a war in 450 years.

There are 92 countries (not counting the Vatican City) with populations smaller than our number of homeless (based on 2.5 MILLION estimated homeless in US).

You might save the cheerleading for football games.

[MarkCharles]

6. Great points. This "Christian" nation has a penchant for forgetting lots of

the Biblical values of "love your neighbor".

People in most western democratic nations take care of their sick and injured without bankrupting them. People in those nations are astounded at our nation's institutionalized disregard for our own fellow citizens when it comes to health care.

[saras]

7. It would be fascinating to break this down by what they value

I'm not so interested in which sect believes what. What I'd like to see is twenty to fifty categories, where people rank the US compared to other countries, as far as what makes it "great".

Then, we can check them, and see how accurate people's perceptions are.

I think a lot of people think America great for things we are measurably not that good in, compared to other countries.