Religion in America
Jeff Alworth
The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life recently released a massive report on a survey they conducted over the course of several months last year. It asked respondents a series of questions about their background and religious beliefs. For those who follow religion and politics closely, most of the findings will seem familiar. America remains an overwhelmingly Christian nation, with three-quarters citing one of the major denominations. Among Christians, 26% are Evangelical Protestant, 18% Mainline Protestant, 24% Catholic, and 7% are members of an historically black denomination. No other single religion is practiced by more than 2% of the population.
The secular threat in America? It doesn't amount to much: just 10% profess no religious belief. Only 1.6% are athiest, 6.3% are "secular," and 2.4% are agnostic. (Not to put too fine a point on it, but there are more Jews in America than athiests.)
Dig into the findings a bit, and there are trends worth noting. Although the percentages of majority religions haven't changed a huge amount over the years, there are trends within the percentages. For decades, the Catholic population has remained a constant quarter of the population. But nearly a third of Catholic-born respndents are no longer with the Church. Their numbers are offset by the larger number of immigrants who are Catholic (46% to 24% Protestant).
And, while trends remain relatively stable in the aggregate, based on the sharp difference between young and old respondents, this may change. Pew's findings show:
"that more than six-in-ten Americans age 70 and older (62%) are Protestant but that this number is only about four-in-ten (43%) among Americans ages 18-29. Conversely, young adults ages 18-29 are much more likely than those age 70 and older to say that they are not affiliated with any particular religion (25% vs. 8%). If these generational patterns persist, recent declines in the number of Protestants and growth in the size of the unaffiliated population may continue."
Numbers for Oregon and Washington are below the jump.
Northwest Religious Affiliation
Oregon Washingon Nation
Evangelical Prot. 30% 25% 26%
Mainline Prot. 16 23 18
Hist. Black Prot. 1 1 7
Catholic 14 16 24
Mormon 5 2 2
Jewish 1 1 2
Buddhist 2 2 1
Unaffiliated 27 23 16
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Mar 3, '08
Very heartening results..!
The "unaffiliated" category jumped (it's especially large in the Northwest). And a good chunk of those are flat out atheists, who no longer believe in the mighty Zool (though they may still like Sigourney Weaver!)
The Catholics, unsurprisingly, plunged (it's tough to support an organization paying out billions because it won't let its poor priests have a normal sex life) (& misogyny, scientific illiteracy, and opposition to birth control don't help much either).
And the Evangelicals - didn't Falwell die? How old is James Dobson? (And not everyone wants to fry up some holy squirrel..!)
There is such awe in reality, and as our understanding of evolution, heredity, neural networks, biology, physics, etcetera expands, it inspires fascinating new questions, engenders new discoveries - and leaves the minister looking a bit lost...
6:05 p.m.
Mar 3, '08
Please don't make blanket statements about those who are Christians, especially Evangelicals. Not all of us were followers of Falwell & co.
Blanket statements about people of faith is a big reason why Republicans have done so well with that community. The fact is, the basic morals of people of faith are the same as Democrats. But as long as we poke fun at them, make assumptions, etc., we're going to keep pushing them away.
Mar 3, '08
People in Oregon don't get the religion thing. Recently I was forced to spend a few weeks in Arlington Texas for my job. I arrived on a Tuesday, and battled traffic like everybody. On Sunday morning I decided to drive myself into Dallas to look around and see where Kennedy was shot, etc. The freeways and streets were EMPTY. I could have walked or roller-skated across the freeway. It was a ghost-town. EXCEPT for the church parking lots, which had tens of thousands of cars.
I agree with Karl Marx that religion is the opiate of the masses, but people in Oregon should not assume they know anything about religion and its relationship to politics until they have spent a Sunday morning in the South. A different world.
Mar 3, '08
"I agree with Karl Marx"
I respect your candor, Greg. You make no attempt to conceal your Marxist leanings unlike so many who comment here. Good man.
7:44 p.m.
Mar 3, '08
Greg:
Very true. I grew up in a rural town outside of Houston, and was raised as a Southern Baptist. And your description of a Sunday morning in Texas is just what I remember.
Since moving to Oregon, going to church regularly has been difficult. Getting employers to let you off on Sundays so you can attend service - or at a minimum schedule you for after church - can often times be almost impossible.
Mar 3, '08
"It was a ghost-town. EXCEPT for the church parking lots, which had tens of thousands of cars."
Explain to me the signifigance of this statement.
Heck, have you seen how light traffic is when we have one of those holidays only govt workers get off? NOW that's scary.
Besides if people are going to church, how exactly is that hurting you?
8:11 p.m.
Mar 3, '08
The big divide here is not between religious and non-religious people. It's between people who think religion ought to dictate politics and those who don't. I doubt very seriously that anyone was worried about Jimmy Carter's beliefs (except that people believed he was overly sanctimonious). But I agree, to the extent that liberals forward the argument as Oregon Bill does, they're doomed. Look at the findings, for cryin' out loud. The country's overwhelmingly religious.
8:23 p.m.
Mar 3, '08
Jeff:
Exactly. There are plenty of religious people out there who don't think that it ought to dictate politics, other than in a general sense - taking care of those less fortunate, treating others as you want to be treated, etc. Morals that are common to almost every religion and are typically held by those who don't consider themselves religious.
As long as liberals/Dems misunderstand this and make blanket statements about religion and people of faith, the harder it will be for us to get them to vote for our candidates, ballot measures, etc. Which is too bad, since we agree on so many things. But voters often times vote on values, as opposed to specific ideas. And when you attack their values, even in a generic sense - like making fun of religion, you lose them.
Mar 3, '08
In 1980 there were 3 candidates: Carter the Sunday School teacher who has since published a book of adult Sunday School lessons at his Baptist church, John B. Anderson the former Evangelical Layman of the year, Reagan who was the darling of the Religious Right.
That was a generation ago. Many of us who attend church when schedule permits (some employers require Sunday work) and have sometimes been involved in a campaign with someone we know from church, are not pleased by those in either party who define what "religious" people believe.
Reagan, the divorced and remarried movie star, was more "religious" than Ford and Carter who were active members of their churches and denominations? Gimme a break!
Mar 3, '08
There is no listing in the table for Muslims. Seems pretty peculiar, to say the least.
10:24 p.m.
Mar 3, '08
Interesting. I was raised Greek Orthodox and don't regularly attend church today (sadly, this is true although I now live within walking distance of Holy Trinity in NE Portland). If I were to choose a faith off the shelf today in close alignment with my personal philosophical beliefs, I think I'd go either UCC or Episcopal (but not Anglican -- some of those people are starting to scare me).
10:28 p.m.
Mar 3, '08
I have to echo Jenni about evangelicals and modern-day Pharisees like Falwell and Robertson. Clearly a majority of evangelicals buy into that stuff. But there has for many, many years been a bedrock of evangelicals who reject out of hand that kind of hate posing as "christianity." I was raised in just such an evangelical extended family and attended like-minded parochial schools my entire childhood.
Little known by the outside world is the fact that there is a staunch pacifist streak running through a significant minority of the non-Falwell evangelical minority. Joining the military was never encouraged by the churches I attended. But for those who did express such a desire or intent, becoming chaplains or medics was strongly encouraged. Lacking those opportunities, anything that would avoid carrying a rifle with the expectation that it would be used on another human being. Right, wrong or indifferent on their spiritual beliefs... this type of evangelical is dead serious (no pun intended) about pacifism.
Don't judge a book by a cover unless you're 100% positive that the book and the cover actually belong together.
Mar 3, '08
The faith-based community is stepping up big time in Washington County on gaining money for affordable housing, and making homelessness a major issue.
The evangelical community is also poised to make some big moves in the next year around suppoting the 10-year plan to end homelessness.
Saying all that, and appreciating the role faith based communities can play in working with the poor, immigrant reform, etc. You have to understand the blanket statements after more or less losing control of the world because of single issue politics around gay-marriage, abortion, etc., etc. - largely driven by the religous community. (yes, I realize not all the same, etc.)
J says "As long as liberals/Dems misunderstand this and make blanket statements about religion and people of faith, the harder it will be for us to get them to vote for our candidates, ballot measures, etc. Which is too bad, since we agree on so many things. But voters often times vote on values, as opposed to specific ideas. And when you attack their values, even in a generic sense - like making fun of religion, you lose them."
I belive that individuals that honestly stand for helping less fortunate,etc. recognize these statements as frustrations and not personal attacks. Just because people don't like religion or the moral debate that comes along with it doesn't mean they don't respect the bigger picture.
Considering the world we live, people have ever right to call bullshit on the vast majority of religious instititions.
The right has done an amazing job of bringing politics into church. Instead of worrying about what non-believers think- the liberal faith based community should keep its eye on the prize, and continue to do good and mobilize around poverty and progressive issues. Don't worry about the rest of us non-believers.
Mar 3, '08
Religion is power. I suppose that's how I look at it, at least as it relates, or potentially relates to the political sphere. It's wonderful when people are willing to draw upon the compassionate morals of various political parties that are comparable to that of their own various religious affiliation, to help out the poor and improve society in general for everyone. That seems to me to be consistent with constitutional provision for separation of church and state.
What bothers me, is when religious individuals and groups, not satisfied with the morals of political parties, begin to flex their muscles, seeking to effectively become independent entities in the political sphere. Whoops! Anybody see separation of church and state around here? Where'd it go?
11:04 p.m.
Mar 3, '08
I've seen a lot of cultural opposition to religion conflated with political concerns about separation of church and state, but these are not synonymous.
Separation of church and state does not mean one cannot be religious in the public square or base one's political positions and convictions on one's spiritual beliefs. It merely means that the state cannot enshrine one belief system as the official system of the state. So apart from tax code for non-profit churches (which prohibits them acting in certain political ways) there's no law against running as a Christian or supporting a ballot measure as a Buddhist or fighting WOPR as a Wiccan.
Bad-mouthing religion and equating separation of church and state with atheism or some sort of taboo on spirituality, on the other hand, drives many people away from the left, and the Falwell fringe is all too happy to have them. So on strictly political grounds I think it's certainly best to have an accepting view toward all faiths and reiterate the logic of the founders: separation guarantees that you are free to practice your faith without interference.
I'm a practicing but non-official Buddhist (i.e. haven't taken the precepts) which makes me kind of a religious atheist drifter I suppose. On the cultural question I don't see religion as the problem; power-seeking, public manipulation, violence, intolerance and misanthropy are the problems, but those things can clearly thrive with or without religion; I'd say misanthropy for example is just as alive and well on the secular left as well as on the religious right. There's no "correct" way to dehumanize one's rival.
12:57 a.m.
Mar 4, '08
On Sunday morning I decided to drive myself into Dallas to look around and see where Kennedy was shot, etc. The freeways and streets were EMPTY. I could have walked or roller-skated across the freeway. It was a ghost-town. EXCEPT for the church parking lots, which had tens of thousands of cars.
Greg D, that may have more to do with urban growth patterns than with anything related to religion. I've never been to Dallas, but I understand that the urban core has largely emptied out of residents - with most people living out in the suburbs. But, of course, it's harder for churches to move with their populations.
Thus, it's not uncommon to see urban churches with congregations that drive into town to attend services. Take a drive in the area between SE Division and SE Belmont in Portland. I daresay the Hawthorne area probably isn't dominated by a very churchgoing population - but it seems as if there's a church on every other street corner.
One more thing about Dallas: The closest we've come recently to the first openly gay mayor of a major American city was last spring in Dallas, when the openly gay candidate won the primary, but lost the runoff. (Portland offers the next opportunity in the nation, in 2008.) Dallas? A gay mayor, you ask? Yup, after all, they've got a lesbian sheriff.
Mar 4, '08
Posted by: Trollbot9000 | Mar 3, 2008 7:17:46 PM
"I agree with Karl Marx [that religion is the opiate of the masses]."
I respect your candor, Greg. You make no attempt to conceal your Marxist leanings unlike so many who comment here. Good man.
"I respect Marxist learnings." - Trollbot9000
I can take things out of context too.
1:59 a.m.
Mar 4, '08
The same was true of all the cities around where I lived, none of which had the suburb problem. Churches were packed with people, and the stores and streets were empty.
When the prayer in school debate came up and our family participated in the lawsuit against the school, we were all but kicked out of the church. So for a while I didn't have a church to go to. So my Sunday mornings were free, and I found it the best time to run errands, shop, etc. The streets were deserted and the stores were empty. I-45, which was regularly packed with people traveling to Galveston, Baybrook Mall, etc. would be empty as well.
I belive that individuals that honestly stand for helping less fortunate,etc. recognize these statements as frustrations and not personal attacks.
Actually, they do see them as personal attacks. To many of these people, religion is one of the most important things in their life. When you attack it, you attack them. It's a big reason why the Democratic Party has had a hard time pulling in people of faith. I'm a member of the DPO's Faith Caucus, and I can't tell you how many people made remarks about us not needing the caucus, as Christians are all right wingers, against abortion, anti-gay, etc. To those of us who are dedicated to the Party, it was frustrating, but not enough to chase us away. For those without that attachment to the Party, it is enough to chase them to the party that welcomes them with open arms.
Mar 4, '08
It's WAY past time.
The most curious social convention of the great age in which we live is the one to the effect that religious opinions should be respected. -- H L Mencken, in American Mercury (March, 1930)
Religious observance is plunging (and it's hit bottom in more widely educated countries, like many in Europe), because you can't fool all the people all the time - particularly without a shred of responsible evidence...
So here's a perfect example - the Templeton Foundation (the "religious" alternative to the Nobel Committee) recently funded a study (2006) designed to prove the efficacy of "intercessory prayer" (i.e., prayer from a distance!).
(These guys know that they need at least SOME evidence to hold on here...)
So parishioners in Texas "prayed for" heart patients in a California hospital. And, lo and behold - prayer did not in any way, shape or form affect the medical outcome.
Unless..!
Unless...the patients were TOLD there were a bunch of Baptists in Texas praying for them. These patients did WORSE! (Researchers suggest that the idea of a bunch of Baptists in Texas praying for their good health kind of stressed the patients out).
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16569567
So the Mighty Easter Bunny was nailed to a Chocolate Egg and Rose as a Spirit Bunny to Commune with The Great Tootsie Roll in the Sky (Who Hates Lesbians) - it's time to realize, and point out clearly, that's this is obviously a load of hooey...
We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart. -- H L Mencken, Minority Report (1956)
Mar 4, '08
No - the faux "respect" for the indefensible is the problem. Mencken (reporter at the famous Tennessee Scopes trial, recently repeated in Pennsylvania!) summed it up BRILLIANTLY back in 1925...
The way to deal with superstition is not to be polite to it, but to tackle it with all arms, and so rout it, cripple it, and make it forever infamous and ridiculous. Is it, perchance, cherished by persons who should know better? Then their folly should be brought out into the light of day, and exhibited there in all its hideousness until they flee from it, hiding their heads in shame. True enough, even a superstitious man has certain inalienable rights. He has a right to harbor and indulge his imbecilities as long as he pleases, provided only he does not try to inflict them upon other men by force. He has a right to argue for them as eloquently as he can, in season and out of season. He has a right to teach them to his children. But certainly he has no right to be protected against the free criticism of those who do not hold them. He has no right to demand that they be treated as sacred. He has no right to preach them without challenge. Did Darrow, in the course of his dreadful bombardment of Bryan, drop a few shells, incidentally, into measurably cleaner camps? Then let the garrisons of those camps look to their defenses. They are free to shoot back. But they can't disarm their enemy. -- H L Mencken, "Aftermath" (coverage of the Scopes Trial) The Baltimore Evening Sun, (September 14, 1925)
9:38 a.m.
Mar 4, '08
Actually, Bill, what you espouse looks like pure dogmatism to me--not softly-held conclusion of an open mind. I have great respect for religious traditions with which I don't personally have a connection. I find it by looking at some of the practitioners of those faiths. Take MLK. Would he have been the transformational figure he was without his beliefs? Add Mother Theresa, Gandhi, and the Dalai Lama.
Sure, it's possible for the John Hagees to use religion to justify malignant beliefs, but that reflects human nature, doesn't it? I mean, malignant beliefs arise with or without the presence of religion. On the other hand, for those who harness the religion as personally transformational, it's hard to argue with the results.
You don't have to subscribe to a religion to admit its value.
(And of course, as a political position your "you're all idiots" approach doesn't make great sense.)
Mar 4, '08
It's actually contingent on the religious believer to back up or support their fervent (and dogmatic) belief in an omnipotent supernatural Holy Chocolate Egged Easter Bunny.
So if I don't buy this Bunny bit (unless you at least show me the Egg) - that makes ME dogmatic..?
Mar 4, '08
Well, Oregon Bill, it seems like you have it all figured out. Good for you.
Mar 4, '08
Religion can be very liberating. I guess that's what it was for MLK, and through him, for everyone in the U.S. to varying degrees. That's a great thing. Religion can also be very repressive, and this is not so nice. I'm not a member of a religion or a church. The kind of thing Jenni Simonis relates in post/1:59:21 AM, is one of the reasons why:
"When the prayer in school debate came up and our family participated in the lawsuit against the school, we were all but kicked out of the church."
They love you until your beliefs don't exactly align with theirs. When they start to think of you as their enemy, things can really start to go wrong.
Mar 4, '08
Who has it "all figured out?"
But really - the Easter Bunny..? That's pathetic.
And when your Easter Bunny, that invisible, omnipotent, thunderbolt hurling Easter Bunny, is regularly invoked to deny women access to medical care, start another crusade, fly planes into buildings, restrict access to civil protections, promote scientific illiteracy...
It's time to quit pandering to the Invisible Bunny crowd. (i.e., show me the Bunny; or enough already, please..!)
12:55 p.m.
Mar 4, '08
It's time to quit pandering to the Invisible Bunny crowd.
Yes, let's take back America with the athiest bloc. All 1.6% of them.
Mar 4, '08
What is the "Easter Bunny" referring to? Are you saying that people who believe in the actual Easter Bunny are bad news or is that a code word for God?
And if it is a code word for God, then no, I can't prove it to you. But as a believer and a progressive, it doesn't matter to me if I can prove it to you or not. And whatever study you cite as proof that God or prayer or whatever doesn't exist isn't going to change my mind. And what do you care if other people pray? What is the big deal to you?
And I'm tired of always having to say to people like you, "I'm religious and my family is very religious, but we're the good kind and I'm a fierce progressive." I'm not going to explain it anymore. I am Catholic and I'm progressive and I'm a mother and I'm all these things.
Yes, many bad things have been done in the name of religion. And as most people on this thread have pointed out, many, many wonderful things have been done also.
Many bad things have been done in the name of atheism too. Your description (denying women access to medical care, or forcing "medical care" (another code phrase), restricting access to civil protections, promoting scientific illiteracy), and I'll add more: lack of civil rights, denying religious freedom and freedom of the press, criminalization of homosexuality and more(!) are hallmarks of China. China is a formally atheist country and is actively anti-religion.
And another point: saying that religious people don't believe in science or that the advancement of scientific discovery somehow disproves religion, is like saying that only creationism exists. It's two sides of the same coin.
So, not to speak for the entire "Invisible Bunny Crowd," I hope you can come to a place where you respect my beliefs and just let it go. I don't need to prove to you my legitimate place as a progressive and a Catholic and how my deeply held beliefs have shaped my life in a very positive way.
But, just back off. Please.
Mar 4, '08
Why you have it all figured out: Because you, Oregon Bill, don't believe that God exists, then God doesn't exist.
You can't find a study, no one has adequately explained his existence to you, no believer has backed up their belief in a sufficient enough manner, you found a study explaining that prayer doesn't work, and you liked a few quotes that supported your theory. So, you have it all figured out.
Good for you.
Mar 4, '08
Totalitarianism of any kind intrudes into the personal lives of individuals and individual personal beliefs and choices of personal behaviors (such as choice of whom to love or how to conduct family life)and demands conformity with dogma. This was true in Nazi Germany, in Maoist China, true...BUT the totalitarian pattern is from established religion. Theocracies are by nature totalitarian of course...Religion has backed kings and dictators and provides a handy reinforcement of power over the humble. Our society's freedoms depend on our understanding and committment to the vision of our founding fathers who recognized the danger to freedom from the natural result of government/religion alignment and the separation was critical. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were architects of the separation language and the number of freethinkers and Deists among the founding fathers was key to America... The reluctance of many to announce their atheism, agnosticism or nontraditional views is due to their desire to maintain relationships jeopardized by their "minority" status in an increasingly conformist buzzword responsive society. I suspect that such books as The End of Faith (Harris) and The God Delusion(Dawkins) would not be the wildly successful sellers that they have been if its only a tiny fraction of Americans who harbor these views! For those who are curious, I recommend reading them.
Mar 4, '08
Another great American example -
Benjamin Franklin invented the lightning rod to channel electricity generated during storms safely past wood structures into the ground, while prominent church leaders in Boston claimed that lightning was an essential, holy Tool of the vengeful "Easter Bunny" (insert personal god here!), not to be messed with...
So the Boston churches refused to place such "devilish" rods on their church buildings, which were often quite tall, with metal tops. Oops! For some reason, the Bunny's vengeance struck at THEM...
http://www.amazon.com/Stealing-Gods-Thunder-Franklins-Lightning/dp/140006032X
We now have a long history of Easter Bunny tales (tails?) versus evidence-based scientific explanation - and the Bunny ain't doing too good...
And I agree with Trent - many don't accept the Bunny business (including more than 90% of National Academy of Science members), but often keep their opinions private. Time for that "most curious social convention of our age" to end...
Here's another good reference, for the curious... http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5015557
Mar 4, '08
I'm not sure why so many people feel the need to subscribe to any established framework of religious or non-religious beliefs, but if they do, well, that's their business as far as I'm concerned. Keeping their religious preoccupations from trampling the democratic foundations of this country is what I'm concerned with.
Some people feel a presence beyond and within themselves that calls for a descriptive word or expression, and some people don't. Whether they do or not doesn't cancel the need to be very conscious of and actively working to sustain common principles that afford a potentially great life for all people living in the U.S.
Mar 4, '08
Well, you clearly can't prove that your supernatural god exists - because it's a supernatural god. It's out there in the ether, it suffuses all things, it's whatever you decide to claim it is. And isn't the Catholic god really three separate gods (or even four, including a goddess, if you count the virgin Mary?)? And did you know that Athena sprang fully formed from Zeus's skull?
I'm sure you're a wonderful mom, a nice person, and perhaps even a liberal voter - but your religious views are evidence-free, and your church references these beliefs to actively reduce the legal worth, medical options, and educational opportunities of others (e.g., your multi-part invisible man apparently hates lesbians, except nuns). Catholics also deny biologically healthy, adult sexual relations to their nuns and priests - with in your face obvious, disastrous results.
(and these guys are considered experts on marriage and family! I mean, Jesus)
I think more and more people now get this (see the Pew survey numbers above).
And that's a healthy change for the U.S...
Mar 4, '08
Sigh.
God doesn't exist, it's like believing in the Easter Bunny. It's superstition, supernatural. Bad things come from religion, blah, blah, blah.
You will always reference the same things to defend your argument (I know this, because I've read lots of your past posts on religion), and I don't think you are even really listening to what I am saying. I'm not going to defend or explain my religion and my religious beliefs to you, but I will say your explanation of Catholicism is just silly.
You've made it the silly season for a meaningful discussion of religion.
I just don't think your ears are open.
Take care, dude.
4:15 p.m.
Mar 4, '08
What you might be missing, Oregon Bill, is that irrational decision making is hardly limited to the religious.
Like you, I'm committed to rationality as the basis for my life and my decision making, but I'm clear that all of us, myself included, make decisions based on feelings or instinct a lot oftener than we'd like to admit, even to ourselves.
Chiropractic, Rolfing, Herbal This and That, and other palliative care is now covered under a lot of insurance programs, but there have been no studies showing that many of the claims made by practitioners are provable beyond the 33 to 35% of people who will get better when fed sugar pills. The Placebo effect is alive and well.
Our government employees and a lot of alleged mental health care professionals place alcohol and nicotine consumption in the minor vice category, while marijuana is a Gateway Drug. No evidence, just preconceptions.
Social workers, shrinks, and economists imagine themselves and their professions to be scientifically based, when in fact, they're more or less guessing a lot of the time, as the systems that they imagine that they can steer scientifically are so complex and loaded with variables that they really have little idea about the usefulness of any given strategy.
People are fiercely loyal to one brand or another of cars, beer, motor oil, ice cream, and so on, with no clue how the various products differ in effectiveness and quality.
<hr/>I think that organized religion does bolster this sloppy thinking, but television advertising and the consumer culture (which has no basis in the Christian Tradition) might arguably have even greater adverse impacts on our society.
Bottom line is that human society manages to stagger along more or less, because the brain ain't monolithic in it's irrationality.
4:34 p.m.
Mar 4, '08
I second Pat's comments but want to add a note in response to Trent: "BUT the totalitarian pattern is from established religion."
I don't think that's correct for some of the reasons Pat mentions, but also just logical and historical grounds.
Take Christianity for example; it began as far as we know as a very personal and syncretic communal religion that was a blend of Judaic mysicism, Hellenistic mystery religions and probably some spiritual currents travelling from the east along trade routes. The entire point of the early religion as far as I can tell was personal awakening and otherworldliness to transcend - not enforce - temporal exercise of power. "Give to Caesar what is Ceasar's, and to God what is God's" was a revolutionary statement of religious individualism on par with Sophocles' Antigone.
Enter Emperor Constantine a few centuries later, and the now-popular religion is seized upon as an ideological prop for the empire. A council of politically-vested bishops is convened to determine what's in and out of the canon based largely, I would say, on what's politically tenable. In other words: the power paradigm altered the religion, not vice-versa. It's no different than what Hitler did with Neitzsche; the latter explicitly warned against state worship but that didn't prevent the Nazis from exploiting and perverting his philosophical ideas.
One could also (and some have) argue on purely materialist grounds that it is technology - from agricutlure to modern warfare to mass media - that allows people to enslave one another, and the ideology is an afterthought. I think that argument would actually have a little more merit than the religious one; the religious mindset may be fanatically violent at times, but it's the cool engineering mind that built the nuclear bomb.
I do not think one needs religion, technology, or any other material or ideational superstructure to see people seeking power; kids on the playground do it. It's the chaos of the human heart. Our diligence should be aimed at the source - the power-impulse, and the abuse of power - and not at people's religious beliefs or religion per se.
5:02 p.m.
Mar 4, '08
While I sit here hitting "refresh" incessently on the election returns, I will riff for a moment on themes started by Pat.
Humans don't exist in a world beyond belief. Our brains, functioning by neural net, have evolved to make good guesses. We draw conclusions based on available data and run our lives on working assumptions. We're fast at this, but imprecise.
Things that qualify as actual "knowledge" constitute a rather small miniority of our working dataset. We know that when we plug in the computer, electricity somehow makes it come to life. We know that the hard drive stores our information, even if we don't know the difference between a flash drive and a regular drive. We know other things, too like that cigarettes cause cancer.
If you go down the line, you find that these things aren't actually knowledge. Why does cigarettes cause cancer? What's the mechanism? What happens molecularly? We don't know--we've just heard enough from reputable sources to find it persuasive. After all, our brains our back-of-the-envelope organs. Cigs cause cancer; sounds good--now, where's the remote?
This is why Oregon Bill comes off like a dogmatist. He doesn't just find religion--or the charicature he ascribes to the faithful--unpersuasive, he finds it existentially maddening. He hates religion with the same fervor others love it. It has, in short, become one of those many beliefs he carries around like the rest of us in his mostly-accurate brain.
It says nothing about the veracity of religion, but it says a lot about Bill.
7:00 p.m.
Mar 4, '08
ws said: They love you until your beliefs don't exactly align with theirs. When they start to think of you as their enemy, things can really start to go wrong.
Right. But the way I look at it is that they're human. They're not God. They have no say over whether or not I'm a good person, am a good Christian, etc. They have absolutely no say in whether or not I go to heaven. If they decide to make it difficult for me to attend their church because my beliefs are different, that's fine. I don't have to have a church to talk to God, to be a good Christian, etc. They're just a person (or group of people) with ideas different than mine.
I just continue to act in such a way that I believe to be God and Jesus' teachings, which are to treat everyone the way I'd want to be treated, help those less fortunate, do everything I can to make my community a better place, etc. Nowhere does the Bible tell me to judge others, to discriminate against others, etc. And all the while I know there is someone who cares for me no matter what, loves me for my strengths and my faults, is there listening when things are bad, and the like. It's that which gets me through the hard times, including a time during my teenage years when I contemplated suicide.
If it turns out that there is no God, no heaven, etc., have I really lost anything? Was I less of a person or a worse person because I believed those things? No. It meant I treated people well, had hope, was better able to deal with the deaths of loved ones, etc.
Mar 4, '08
I am an atheist, but I have no beef with anyone practicing any religion, except in three instances: 1. when the practitioner trys to subvert our country's constitution and move us toward a theocracy; 2. when the practitioner uses THEIR religious beliefs to try and restrict the actions of others because the others actions don't align with the practioners beliefs (this happens even amongst the religious, not just between believers and non-believers)and 3. (and most important in my mind, is when the practitioner uses or invokes the name of their deity in order to justify their own personal behaviour---"I'm killing you in the name of my deity" or "I can treat you like crap because my deity says that unless you believe like me, you aren't worth anything anyway". There are far too many heinous acts being committed in the name of various deities. The majority of those professing to represent these deities are NOT actually following the precepts in their holy books--they are using religion as an excuse for their own depravity and cruelty. I personally do not believe that any dieties or supernatural entities exist, but if they do, I certainly hope they are taking note of what some humans are doing in their name/s.
Peace to all.....
Mar 5, '08
From the "This I Believe" series on NPR; apparently the most widely e-mailed commentary. It may help explain some of the newest Pew numbers...
There Is No God, by Penn Jillette
(Penn Jillette is the taller, louder half of the magic and comedy act Penn and Teller. He is a research fellow at the Cato Institute and has lectured at Oxford and MIT. Penn has co-authored three best-selling books and is executive producer of the documentary film The Aristocrats.)
Morning Edition, November 21, 2005 ยท I believe that there is no God. I'm beyond atheism. Atheism is not believing in God. Not believing in God is easy -- you can't prove a negative, so there's no work to do. You can't prove that there isn't an elephant inside the trunk of my car. You sure? How about now? Maybe he was just hiding before. Check again. Did I mention that my personal heartfelt definition of the word "elephant" includes mystery, order, goodness, love and a spare tire?
So, anyone with a love for truth outside of herself has to start with no belief in God and then look for evidence of God. She needs to search for some objective evidence of a supernatural power. All the people I write e-mails to often are still stuck at this searching stage. The atheism part is easy.
But, this "This I Believe" thing seems to demand something more personal, some leap of faith that helps one see life's big picture, some rules to live by. So, I'm saying, "This I believe: I believe there is no God."
Having taken that step, it informs every moment of my life. I'm not greedy. I have love, blue skies, rainbows and Hallmark cards, and that has to be enough. It has to be enough, but it's everything in the world and everything in the world is plenty for me. It seems just rude to beg the invisible for more. Just the love of my family that raised me and the family I'm raising now is enough that I don't need heaven. I won the huge genetic lottery and I get joy every day.
Believing there's no God means I can't really be forgiven except by kindness and faulty memories. That's good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around.
Believing there's no God stops me from being solipsistic. I can read ideas from all different people from all different cultures. Without God, we can agree on reality, and I can keep learning where I'm wrong. We can all keep adjusting, so we can really communicate. I don't travel in circles where people say, "I have faith, I believe this in my heart and nothing you can say or do can shake my faith." That's just a long-winded religious way to say, "shut up," or another two words that the FCC likes less. But all obscenity is less insulting than, "How I was brought up and my imaginary friend means more to me than anything you can ever say or do." So, believing there is no God lets me be proven wrong and that's always fun. It means I'm learning something.
Believing there is no God means the suffering I've seen in my family, and indeed all the suffering in the world, isn't caused by an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent force that isn't bothered to help or is just testing us, but rather something we all may be able to help others with in the future. No God means the possibility of less suffering in the future.
Believing there is no God gives me more room for belief in family, people, love, truth, beauty, sex, Jell-O and all the other things I can prove and that make this life the best life I will ever have.
Mar 5, '08
This has been a thoroughly enjoyable discussion. Hats off to the proponents of the differing views.