WTF???

[Entropist]

Here in Australia, it's considered crass to wear one's personal beliefs on one's sleeve. (except for sports of course) Most normal people treat religious proselytisesr and militant atheists with a kind of amused contempt.

Culturally speaking, the attitude about religion is remarkably different in developed countries other than the US. There is a reason why foreigners often speak of "American-style Christianity" which usually means charismatic churches or other fundamentalist variety churches that tend to be more outspoken in public on religious issues.

It isn't just that there are less religious people in some of these other countries-- even among the religious, the attitude is different. Speaking from experience, living in New Zealand briefly back in 2007, I was surprised to see (as Padraic says) that religious and non-religious attitudes was not something worn on one's sleeve as it is in the US. No weird church signs, no weird bumper stickers (no bumper stickers at all, really), no t-shirts shouting out an opinion. It was refreshing actually.

Religion there seems to be more laid back, less in your face, and religion is not even an issue the politicians bring up. Kiwis find it odd, the US "Gawd bless America" nonsense that every US politician is expected to parrot. The last prime minister (Helen Clark) and the current one (John Key) aren't even religious (though its really considered bad taste to even ask the question because it is irrelevant to the position).

This is a country that recently had a MP, Georgina Byers. Georgina used to be George-- got a sex change some time ago-- and also was a former prostitute (I'm not sure if she was a prostitute before or after it was legalized there)-- and even wrote a book about her past-- this was not something she needed to be ashamed of. She was elected more than once. Nobody had a problem with this-- could you imagine THIS happening in the US?

One other story-- at the time I was living there, the big news was controversy over "child smacking" (spanking-- NZ sadly has really high rates of child abuse). It had been proposed to enact a law similar to Norway's which made child smacking illegal. I have mixed feelings on the issue myself, but that's beside the point. It was very controversial (still is, actually) and there was quite a lot of opposition to the bill. I saw in the paper that there was a demonstration being held by a bunch of churches. Being a US American, I thought to myself, "Well, here come the nutters with their 'Its my god-given right to beat the crap out of my child whenever I want to, gawd says so in the Bible!' schtick." I was mistaken. I had to re-read the article because my pre-conception as a US American was confusing me: No, these Christians were out in SUPPORT of the bill. Again, if this were the US, you know it would be the other way around.

NZ has one US American-style church, the "Destiny Church" which is a charismatic church modeled on the "prosperity gospel." They even have their own political party. They are nobodies and most kiwis think they are wacko. But in the US, idiots like this have a far stronger voice (and remember Dobson's regular meetings with Bush?).

I imagine it is much the same in Europe: Religion is simply irrelevant. Like when Oprah went to the Netherlands (atheists! socialists! potheads!) and was baffled how religion was simply dismissed with a shrug. Like these countries should fall off into the ocean, or why aren't they murdering and raping one another gleefully?

The only thing I can think of is that after centuries of religious (and in the 20th century, ideological) wars over the smallest quibbling nuance, much of Europe was simply exhausted from it all. They learned the hard way, by bitter experience, but as a consequence, religion and atheism are both largely unimportant. The experience in the US, for better or for worse, tells a very different story. Like the measles, getting it once immunizes one from it, but if you have never had it before-- well, that's what I find worrying about the prevalence of religious nuts in the US ("measles" here being religious wars, not "religion" per se). We have yet to learn what Europe has learned. There are also other (political) reasons why religion is less prominent in these countries but I won't get into that here.

I don't think people become enlightened by embracing rationality. Rationality is merely a tool to be used or abused. Its the best tool we have. But humans are NOT rational animals-- no one ever converted to religion because of an apologist's syllogism. Humans seem to learn only after a sufficiently large slaughter has occurred-- and I don't mean one event (9/11 changed nothing in the US-- it only made US Americans only more xenophobic and insular than they already were).

It is for this reason, I can't dismiss the teabaggers too lightly. These nuts used to be heard only on AM radio at 2 in the morning back in the early 90s. It has changed-- big money is involved. The teabaggers themselves are just tools. But to establish the sort of thing they want, it doesn't require intelligence. All it requires is people to line up. Might doesn't make right, but it does make history. Ideas, even great ideas, are irrelevant in the face of a mob.

I'm just rambling now and I've had one beer to many...