(December 9, 2013 at 4:52 am)Jacob(smooth) Wrote: To what degree is Christianity in America tied up with the Republican / right wing political position?
Christians are a pretty large and powerful support base in the Republican Party in the USA. For a time it seemed as if their influence was waning, but now it seems to be picking up. I think that in the past there have been minor (and very ineffective) attempts at marginalizing the religious right or even separating the party from them, but the relationship has held.
I think that most self-described libertarians in the USA are Republicans who either want to separate themselves from the religious right, or are seeking to present a version of the GOP that isn't beholden to it. But I don't think you can separate them. I think that as time goes on, the GOP will rely more and more on the religious wing of the party. And I think that over time this will erode their support substantially. But we are still an overwhelmingly religious country and that might take some time.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould
