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Why is America so religious?
December 6, 2011 at 9:21 am
Most countries which have the highest standard of living are becoming increasing secular and less religious.
In the UK its less people with each generation who seem to believe in myths and it seems to be becoming more and more atheist, whereas America seems to be obsessed with religion.
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RE: Why is America so religious?
December 6, 2011 at 9:24 am
America's a much younger country, and puritan descendants are adept at bullhorning.
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RE: Why is America so religious?
December 6, 2011 at 9:51 am
Not to Godwin the thread in the fourth post, but the Nazis thought God was on their side too. [rolling eyes]
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RE: Why is America so religious?
December 6, 2011 at 10:08 am
A good step towards your own demise is to have your population infested with religious insanity. Look at Sarah Palin for example. If she gets in, you're fucked.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence - Carl Sagan
Mankind's intelligence walks hand in hand with it's stupidity.
Being an atheist says nothing about your overall intelligence, it just means you don't believe in god. Atheists can be as bright as any scientist and as stupid as any creationist.
You never really know just how stupid someone is, until you've argued with them.
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RE: Why is America so religious?
December 6, 2011 at 10:36 am
(December 6, 2011 at 9:21 am)Xavier Wrote: Most countries which have the highest standard of living are becoming increasing secular and less religious.
In the UK its less people with each generation who seem to believe in myths and it seems to be becoming more and more atheist, whereas America seems to be obsessed with religion.
A very good question and one I've often wondered about. It seems especially strange to me because America was once a bastion for secularism. Mind you, I'm going back two hundred years when Europe was still in the midst of sectarian violence. To the best of my knowledge, we were the first without an official religion or state sponsored Church. The separation of Church and State was written into our very Constitution, a document that never referenced any divine authority.
Now the situation seems to have reversed itself.
One hypothesis I've heard, which would explain it, is that because there was no state sponsored religion, the mind viruses that survived had to be shrewdly marketed and gain popular support. Preachers became proficient at the art of razzle dazzle. The environment created a particularly aggressive strain of the meme. Meanwhile, the state religions in Europe got fat and lazy.
It wouldn't be the first time that a destructive strain of fundamentalism grew out of an environment of religious tolerance and plurality. Christianity itself was born in the theologically eclectic Roman Empire.
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... -Statler Waldorf, Christian apologist