RE: Why is America so religious?
December 6, 2011 at 1:14 pm
(This post was last modified: December 6, 2011 at 1:18 pm by orogenicman.)
To answer the OP question, The United States is so religious in large part because of its history, which goes back to the colonies. Many Europeans fled religious oppression in European countries. And so many of the the settlers themselves were very religious. Those traditions have been passed down, generation by generation, to the present.
My own family was among those that came here in 1640 to escape English oppression of Catholics. They founded the Catholic colony at St. Mary's, in Maryland. Of course, when we got here, the English protestants who were among those doing the oppressing back home had already established a colony at Jamestown. Naturally, it wasn't long before fighting erupted between the two groups. It was to prevent that kind of sectarian violence that was among the reasons Jefferson wanted the 1st amendment passed.
My own family was among those that came here in 1640 to escape English oppression of Catholics. They founded the Catholic colony at St. Mary's, in Maryland. Of course, when we got here, the English protestants who were among those doing the oppressing back home had already established a colony at Jamestown. Naturally, it wasn't long before fighting erupted between the two groups. It was to prevent that kind of sectarian violence that was among the reasons Jefferson wanted the 1st amendment passed.
'The difference between a Miracle and a Fact is exactly the difference between a mermaid and seal. It could not be expressed better.'
-- Samuel "Mark Twain" Clemens
"I think that in the discussion of natural problems we ought to begin not with the scriptures, but with experiments, demonstrations, and observations".
- Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
"In short, Meyer has shown that his first disastrous book was not a fluke: he is capable of going into any field in which he has no training or research experience and botching it just as badly as he did molecular biology. As I've written before, if you are a complete amateur and don't understand a subject, don't demonstrate the Dunning-Kruger effect by writing a book about it and proving your ignorance to everyone else! "
- Dr. Donald Prothero
-- Samuel "Mark Twain" Clemens
"I think that in the discussion of natural problems we ought to begin not with the scriptures, but with experiments, demonstrations, and observations".
- Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
"In short, Meyer has shown that his first disastrous book was not a fluke: he is capable of going into any field in which he has no training or research experience and botching it just as badly as he did molecular biology. As I've written before, if you are a complete amateur and don't understand a subject, don't demonstrate the Dunning-Kruger effect by writing a book about it and proving your ignorance to everyone else! "
- Dr. Donald Prothero
