The religion of an increasingly godless America
By Amanda Marcotte The views expressed are her own.
Listening to the national discourse, one could be forgiven for imagining that America is becoming an ever more religious place. The amount of God talk in the public square has dramatically increased in a generation. Prior to the 70s, the concept of “the religious right” had barely existed, but now it’s a powerful lobbying force with multiple groups from Focus on the Family to Concerned Women for America, all sitting on more money than most liberal special interest groups could ever hope to accumulate. Republicans, especially, claw over each other to demonstrate fealty to a very narrow, fundamentalist view of Christianity that forbids gay rights, reproductive rights, and requires you to believe that evolution never happened. A generation ago, most people outside of evangelical Christian circles had never heard of things like “megachurches” or “the Rapture”, but now even people living in the most secularist urban enclaves are familiar with these concepts, if still less than approving. Americans seem not just more religious, but more drawn to reactionary religion than ever before.
That is, until you start to dig into the actual facts. If you poll actual Americans, you’ll find that the trend is not towards more religiosity, but towards less. Much less, in fact. Recent research from the Pew Research Center on politics and generational differences shows that interest in religion is actually declining from one generation to the next, and not only that, but interest in mixing religion and politics is on the decline. When asked which factors are the key to America’s success, fewer than half of Millennials say they believe that religious faith and values are important. They are the first generation to respond in such a way, as a majority of all older generations cite religion as an important factor. Even the generation known for cynicism, Generation X, has 64% of respondents citing religion as an important factor in our nation’s success, a full 18 points over the Millennial generation. Despite myths that people become more religious or more conservative as they age, previous Pew research shows that Xers and Boomers held roughly the same opinions on religion in their youth as they do now.
The research also found that more than one in four Millennials have no religious affiliation at all, the largest of any generation, though only by a small margin, as one in five Gen Xers is also irreligious. The percentage of unaffiliated Americans has grown gradually over the generations, but with the Millennials, we’re seeing a new trend emerge. There is now a large group of Americans who have a faith, but separate it from public life, keeping it in the private sphere.
So how to square away declining rates of belief with the perception that America is a land where the Bible is thumped regularly in the public square? What we’re seeing with the heightened emphasis on religion in politics is the death throes of the old order. After all, in the past, where it was assumed that a vast majority of Americans were not only religious, but Christian, those who wanted Christianity to dominate didn’t feel they had anything to prove. It’s only when they started to feel their power threatened did they become defensive, and in doing so, became much louder.
Right wing Christians would be the first to tell you that they feel that the dominance of traditional Christian values is under threat in this country. If you have any doubt about this, look at the long list of people they consider the enemies, internal and external, to their view of how America should be: atheists, Muslims, feminists, liberals, uncloseted gays and evolutionary biologists, amongst others. They aren’t wrong to believe these groups are growing both in numbers and in influence, as the polling data suggests that they are. The increasing volume and militancy from the religious right is to be expected in light of these changes. Sarah Posner, a senior editor at Religion Dispatches magazine, says the religious right has grown specifically in response to massive social changes. Opposing these changes was “exactly their point,” she told me, and conservative Christians believe that when they see these more secularist worldviews on the rise, they have a duty “to redouble one’s efforts”. She added that, in the eyes of evangelical leaders, “evangelicals had insulated themselves too much from secular society, and that they had a God-given duty to have an impact on the culture, on politics, on the media, and so forth.”
Most importantly, the religious right sees the Millennials as a special threat requiring most of their attention. Abstinence-only education, the attempted defunding of Planned Parenthood, creationism in the schools, and the growth of the home-schooling movement are all aimed at the youth of America. In some cases, as with TLC’s Duggar family, the religious right is going so far as to step up baby-making, hoping to create enough religious youth to curtail the power of the growing cohort of secular youth.
from The Great Debate UK:
Interfaith centre at New York 9/11 site sparks controversy
- Mark Kobayashi-Hillary is the author of several books, including ‘Who Moved my Job?’ and ‘Global Services: Moving to a Level Playing Field’. The opinions expressed are his own. -
Not every Muslim is a terrorist, but every terrorist who attacked the U.S. on 9/11 was a Muslim.
That’s the kind of aphorism being bounced around the Internet because of the news that a nineteenth-century building located close to Ground Zero in New York may be demolished to make way for a community and cultural centre aimed at improving relations between Islam and the West.
Naturally the new building will include a mosque and there is outrage on the blogs and social networks after a three-hour hearing of New York's Landmarks Preservation Commission this week.
The focus of the hearing was officially to examine whether the building earmarked for demolition is actually worthy of preservation, but it seems that most of the campaigners asking for it to be awarded heritage status were more interested in heading off the proposed community centre.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg opted to avoid defending either side by saying: "The government should never be in the business of telling people how they should pray or where they can pray."
from Afghan Journal:
Afghanistan: the Gods of war
[CROSSPOST blog: 27 post: 4308] Original Post Text: In openDemocracy, Paul Rogers writes that one of the great mistakes of the media is that it tends to assume the only actors in the campaign against Islamist militants are governments, with al Qaeda and the Taliban merely passive players.
"Beyond the details of what the Taliban and its allies decide, it is important to note that most analysis of Barack Obama’s strategy published in the western media is severely constrained by its selective perspective. There is a pervasive assumption - even now, after eight years of war - that the insurgents are mere “recipients” of external policy changes: reactive but not themselves proactive," he writes.
"This is nonsense - and dangerous nonsense. It would be far wiser to assume that these militias have people who are every bit as intelligent and professional in their thinking and planning as their western counterparts. They have had three months to think through the Obama leadership’s policy-development process; and much of this thinking will be about how the US changes affect their own plans - not how they will respond to the United States. Thus they may have very clear intentions for the next three to five years that are embedded in detailed military planning; and what is now happening on their side will involve adjustment of these plans in the light of the great rethink across the Atlantic."
So how will al Qaeda, the Taliban and other Islamist groups respond?
As discussed before in openDemocracy, and highlighted on this blog more than a year ago, the Taliban has been pretty good at studying the lessons of history, including taking inspiration from the Vietnamese war commander General Vo Nguyen Giap, who successfully employed guerrilla tactics against the French before crushing them in the battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954.
It is reasonable to assume they have also studied the spillover of the U.S. war in Vietnam into Cambodia where the United States, reluctant to send in its ground troops, resorted to special ops and bombing campaigns to choke off the Vietcong's supply routes - rather as Pakistan now fears the Afghan campaign will spill into its territory as Washington tries to eradicate Afghan Taliban leaders and bases there. The ensuing chaos paved the way for the takeover of Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge.
It would be a step too far to suggest that the Afghan Taliban and their allies are set on taking over Pakistan. As it is, there is still a fierce debate on how far they are primarily Afghan nationalists who would settle for a return to power in Afghanistan and how far they have bought into al Qaeda's global Islamist agenda.
Anon which is more dangerous, a religious zealot or an empire seeking material gain?
from The Great Debate UK:
The debate over Darwin 150 years on
Debate continues to swirl around the theory of evolution Charles Darwin proposed 150 years ago in his groundbreaking book, "On the Origin of Species," despite its universal acceptance among scientists.
Before Darwin's discovery, the world was generally thought to have remained more or less the same since its creation. This belief, based on Biblical interpretations, was contested through fossil studies showing that species change over time.
Darwin's legendary round-the-world 1831-1836 voyage aboard the HMS Beagle generated his most significant observations and discoveries, inspiring his work on natural selection.
Although Darwin first used the term "natural selection" in a paper in 1842, it wasn't until 1859 that he published his controversial theory that all living beings share a common ancestry -- a discovery that remains vital to modern biology.
Author Nick Spencer, director of studies at Theos, a research organisation launched in 2006 with the support of the Archbishop of Canterbury, explained why the debate persists to this day.
"People are encountering evolution not so much as a science but as a philosophy," he told Reuters ahead of a Nov. 24 lecture at Westminster Abbey to mark the anniversary of the exact date on which Darwin's book was first published.
The ongoing debate astounds me. As a science teacher in the United States, I’ve had a wide variety of pamphlets, and readings, and emails that (as Anon mentioned in the first post) focus on minuscule examples that appear to be exceptions to the theory. What astounds me is how many of these arguments are at odds with each other. Hopefully as technology and knowledge increase, we will see new approaches to this “debate” from those opposed to evolution.
In U.S. elections, fear of Muslims
(Bernd Debusmann is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – In the summer of 2006, a Gallup poll of more than 1,000 Americans found that one out of four favoured forcing Muslims in the United States, including U.S. citizens, to carry special identification. About a third said Muslims living in the U.S. sympathized with al Qaeda.
Almost a quarter said they wouldn’t want a Muslim as a neighbour. Republicans, the poll said, saw Muslims in a more negative light than Democrats and independents, and were more opposed to having Muslim neighbours. Fewer than half those polled thought U.S. Muslims were loyal to the United States.
A few months after the poll, callers to a Washington area radio talk show suggested branding Muslims with crescent-shaped tattoos and special stamps in their identity papers, the better to spot potential terrorists.
Polls are snapshots of attitudes, and attitudes can change. But incidents during the U.S. presidential election campaign, now in its final sprint towards November 4, show that fear and suspicion of Muslims persist undiminished and are being used as a political weapon.
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell became the most prominent member of the U.S. establishment to highlight the problem when he broke with John McCain, the Republican candidate and a personal friend of decades, to endorse Barack Obama, target of a prolonged campaign by activists who portray him as a Muslim.
One of his reasons: “I’m troubled by, not what Senator McCain says, but what members of the (Republican) party say,” he told a television interviewer this week. “And it is permitted to be said such things as ‘well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim.’ Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he’s a Christian. He’s always been a Christian.
Am I the only one who can mentally replace the word ‘Muslims’ in the first three paragraphs with the word ‘Jews’ and see that we’ve got 1930′s Germany happening here in ‘Good ol America’??? Powell is probably the only person associated with the Bush Administration who is worthy of respect — Listen up!
Go away atheists! Keep your godless religion private! Stop shoving the Atheist religion down our throats!