OpEd: Religion and atheism in America

Post #48,447 by marlowe 8/6/02 4:53:31 PM Reply	OpEd: Religion and atheism in America [link\|http://www.nationalreview.com/derbyshire/derbyshire080602.asp\|Where real men have real opinions] Excerpts: Religion is stronger here than it is in any other first-world nation, but so is atheism. God is honored here more than in any other free country, and He is also hated here more than anywhere else. Two of the most striking things about this country, to a foreigner, are the breadth of religious belief, and the number of people you meet who are angrily, bitterly anti-religious. There are angry atheists in other countries, of course, as the example of Derb Senior illustrates; but I have never met so many as I have met over here. The dominant mood in England \ufffd and in Europe, too, I think \ufffd is indifference. Nobody much cares about religion. In the U.S. pretty much everybody cares, one way or the other. I find this bracing. It adds a dimension to public life that other countries don't much have... Outside the sphere of religion, it is difficult for most of us to get a firm grip on the big questions, the questions that have agitated mortals since Achilles moped in his tent before Troy: "How shall we live?" and "Why must we die?" These matters, dealing with the foundations of morality and the place of human life in the grand scheme of things, color political issues here in the U.S.A., and so are constantly discussed and debated. This gives a depth and gravity to national political discourse that in other countries, I think, is mainly lacking. Now that I have acclimatized myself to this aspect of American public life, in fact, I find myself thinking, when I read newspapers and magazines from England, that there is something frivolous and shallow about the way matters are presented over there. (And China, where they are not spoken of in public at all, seems a very dark place.) [link\|http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/marlowe/index.html\|http://www.angelfir...e/index.html] Everything's a mystery until you figure out how it works. Free Joel Mowbray! I'm a-gonna put a gun rack on my SUV.
Post #48,589 by Brandioch 8/7/02 5:22:31 PM Reply	Fascinating. Paragraph #3. Backstory on John Derbyshire. #4, see #3. #5, see #4. #6, see #5. #7, see #6. #8, see #7. Personally, I find the childhood reminiscing rambles of people I have no interest in to be vastly fascinating. I made it through 8 paragraphs from this guy before I found something better to do. Editor? What's that?
Post #48,605 by Another Scott 8/7/02 6:48:04 PM Reply	Another take on the topic. [link\|http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/kurtz_22_3.htm\|Paul Kurtz's recent editorial in Free Inquiry]. Yet one bright ray of light penetrates the spiritual mush that has engulfed us: there has been a rather dramatic growth of a secular opposition in the United States. Evidence for this recent development is the survey published by the Graduate Center of the City University of New York American Religious Identification Survey, 2001, by Barry A. Kosmin, Egon Mayer, and Ariela Keysar. This study finds a significant increase in the number of adult Americans who profess no religion. Today there are 29.4 million American adults who have no religious identification\ufffdan increase since 1990 from 8.16 percent to 14.17 percent. Moreover, the number of people who reside in a household whose members do not belong to a religious organization has likewise increased, from 46 percent in 1990 to 54 percent today. It must be granted that a preponderance of the public (if often only nominally) still self-identifies as Christian-77 percent in 2001, in comparison with 86.7 percent in 1990. Yet here, too, this is a 9 percent decline. Today those with no religion are the third-largest minority, after Roman Catholics (50.9 million) and Baptists (33.8 million). In their introduction to their significant survey, the authors observe: . . . often lost amidst the mesmerizing tapestry of faith groups that comprise the American population is also a vast and growing population of those without faith. They adhere to no creed nor choose to affiliate with any religious community. . . . The pattern emerging from the present study is completely consistent with similar secularizing trends in other Western democratic societies (p. 5). Another interesting recent Gallup poll (2001) concerns rather dramatic changes over the past two decades in beliefs about the Bible. Of significance to readers of Free Inquiry magazine is the fact that 20 percent of the American public now consider the Bible to be a book of fables and legends, in comparison with 11 percent in 1981 (a year after Free Inquiry was founded). Moreover, belief that the Bible is "the actual word of God" declined from 65 percent in 1963 and 37 percent in 1981 to 27 percent in 2001, a rather strong trend, more in line with European belief. Cheers, Scott.
Post #48,647 by Ashton 8/8/02 1:50:28 AM 8/8/02 2:05:25 AM Reply	Oops - no link in this one. Never mind. I was looking for, some months ago. Quite a change since '63. Pity that in say, 2004 - it will prove impossible to relate any changes in those numbers directly to The Ashcroft Covenant (or the Catholic p\ufffddophile mess) unless.. those awful secular umm Humanists! should ask these two questions directly. (So no point in my predicting an unprovable correlation ;-) To Kurtz's wonderings re the hi-tech presence here VS rampant superstition; isn't it necessary for most to ignore many of the religious homilies? - when vulture capitalism permeates all social life and, the only suggested self-preservation from a tissue of ads/lies is: caveat emptor ?? I think our mercantile mores indicate the actual choices made, between lip-service about 'goodness' and the daily acting-out of greed (and deception). In '63: 65% x 175M population = 114 M 'fundamentalist' re Bible. In '02: 27% x 208M population = 56 M ditto Fundamentalist literalism is down by half, over 40 years. But no age data is there to indicate whether that number will drop precipitately in 30 years as the old die off - or to guess how successfully are the new kids being inculcated [??] Oh well, I guess after the Rapturing-out: those numbers will drop to 0. Ashton Edited by Missing User 70 Aug. 8, 2002, 02:05:25 AM EDT Expand All History
Post #48,648 by Ashton 8/8/02 2:02:17 AM Reply	Thanks - that's prolly the source of the survey I was looking for, some months ago. Quite a change since '63. Pity that in say, 2004 - it will prove impossible to relate any changes in those numbers directly to The Ashcroft Covenant (or the Catholic p\ufffddophile mess) unless.. those awful secular umm Humanists! should ask these two questions directly. (So no point in my predicting an unprovable correlation ;-) To Kurtz's wonderings re the hi-tech presence here VS rampant superstition; isn't it necessary for most to ignore many of the religious homilies? - when vulture capitalism permeates all social life and, the only suggested self-preservation from a tissue of ads/lies is: caveat emptor ?? I think our mercantile mores indicate the actual choices made, between lip-service about 'goodness' and the daily acting-out of greed (and deception). Still and all - to whatever extent that [link\|http://www.bartleby.com/br/162.html\|Babbitt] accurately captured the Murican bizness ethic in 1922 (when that '65% Literal' figure may have exceeded 80% ??), we seem to have suffered all along with a dichotomy between what folks Said they 'believed' and: how they behaved. Surprise. Lying to polls forever? In '63: 65% x 175M population = 114 M 'fundamentalist' re Bible. In '02: 27% x 208M population = 56 M ditto Fundamentalist literalism is down by half, over 40 years. But no age data is there to indicate whether that number will drop precipitately in 30 years as the old die off - or to guess how successfully are the new kids being inculcated [??] Oh well, I guess after the Rapturing-out: certain numbers will drop to 0. Ashton

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