the US and religious fundamentalism

victor

victor

Antediluvian as Feck
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There's something I don't understand. And that's Christian fundamentalism in the USA. How can a country that's one of the wealthiest in the world, one of the major sources of modern science, be one of the main sources of religious hatred? I would understand if this was isolated in the large poor masses of that country, but there seems to be a very large upper middle class group that actively tried to sabotage science and reason. Why do they exist? To me, they're a pardox. A group of moderately wealthy people that, although having the opportunity to embrace education and intelligence, fervently cling to medieval myths. I would compare to Saudi Arabia's oil money-owning islamic barbarians, but that wouldn't be fair, as the Saudis were goat farmers some 50 years ago; this doesn't really apply to the American fundamentalists, as I understand.

I'm sure there are lots of people on this forum with a far better understanding of socioeconomics than me, and can explain why people that at first sight would seem smart due to wealthiness, are rabid morons. Morons that send their missionaries to the American government, where they get the opportunity to harm the rest of the world.

Why are they fundamentalists? Is this phenomenon recent or just inherited from a constant Christian faith lobby that has been around for a long time (i.e could it be related to the Mayflower)? How can they get such a power hold in the USA, which was founded on the basis of secularism (at least for the time)? If they are so powerful, why are they not filling these forums, and the Internet? My impression is that the majority of communities and websites dismiss religious beliefs (maybe this could be because I mostly just visit these sites).


I would really appreciate any input on this, from all sides, as this apparent paradox has bugged me for a very long time.
 
Umm, that is a very complex issue, if i can risk to say something about it, i'd say 2 things: first, never, never, underestimate the desire some people have to control others, not only their external behavior and attitudes, but what they believe in their minds, what they would be willing to die for and more importantly, to kill for...now that, is control, and the ambitious, the ones who always want more power know instinctively that there's no greater power that that, and no greater "fix" to their hunger. Second, fundamentalism of any kind acts like a magnet to other forms of fundamentalism, such as exacerbated patriotism, and warmongerin', remember; scientific method, knowledge, historical criticism, the "spirit of science" in general, are a consequence, of equalitarian states, of republics, democracy, as Nietszche once put it (i think): "what can be more democratic than science?", in science, no single person or group opinion should matter the most if the evidence and reason indicate otherwise, so...people who want power and to control others will always resort to a form of faith (which of course only gets more and more harsh, brutal, fundamentalistic, and oppresive the more accepted it gets, the more ground it gains....just look at the religious faith known as comunism),... hope that helps, although entire books could be written on this subject.
 
victor said:
... How can a country that's one of the wealthiest in the world, one of the major sources of modern science ...
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Whow whoow ... wait a min. Are we talking here about the U.S.A ? The U ... S ... A ? The same USA?

To be more serious. I dont think "source of modern science" is that accurate. Also I am not even sure if it is the wealthiest in the world. I mean that all without any offence. And I am not a professional when it comes to US society and I am not so stupid to say they are all uneducated Hillbillys like quite a few europeans love to scream for no reason. But I think its accurate to say that much of the at least scientific and technological progress was based on sources that are not inherently from the US. Maybe today there is a biger dispersion, since of Technology transfer between most western states and the alliances.

from how I see it, the USA is not one homogenious big nation but more comparable with Europe where many societies live in one big continent. That and the system of a federal nation can somewhat explain why there are so many differences. In one state you have gays in politics, states with very liberal laws and strict policy around weapons almost comparable to the very demanding German laws while in other states death punishment and schools that dont teach the theory of evolution cause it is not in accord with the biblical creation myth.

victor said:
I would compare to Saudi Arabia's oil money-owning islamic barbarians, but that wouldn't be fair, as the Saudis were goat farmers some 50 years ago; this doesn't really apply to the American fundamentalists, as I understand.
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Which is so much different to how some (not only in the US frankly ... in the 60s they used to club students in Germany as well cause of their strikes) stick by to the gouvernement in the 50s ?

What makes one more intelligent? Only cause the one was educated in a tend and the other one had warm water and electricity?

victor said:
I'm sure there are lots of people on this forum with a far better understanding of socioeconomics than me, and can explain why people that at first sight would seem smart due to wealthiness, are rabid morons. Morons that send their missionaries to the American government, where they get the opportunity to harm the rest of the world.
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Thats really strange I guess one could also ask how some with high college education, good grades from school and even with time in universties learning about ethics, science, politic and with teachers as parents could become mass murders declaring other nations as inferior. Money and Power I guess.
 
I think your reasoning is off. From a socio-political viewpoint, religion in essence is a strength for a nation. Speaking from a context of social engineering, religion unifies the populous in a state, and makes them work and function more efficiently than without. Logic and reason appeals to people who can handle it, and have the intelligence to do so. Not everyone in a state is that way.

Also, religion in essence one of the few only things keeping the US together. The viewpoints of the citizens are so self-centered and angular from one to the next that without the effects of a unifying force such as religion the whole damn thing would probably fall into anarchy; the flaws of a free market system.
 
Dopemine Cleric said:
I think your reasoning is off. From a socio-political viewpoint, religion in essence is a strength for a nation. Speaking from a context of social engineering, religion unifies the populous in a state, and makes them work and function more efficiently than without. Logic and reason appeals to people who can handle it, and have the intelligence to do so. Not everyone in a state is that way.

Also, religion in essence one of the few only things keeping the US together. The viewpoints of the citizens are so self-centered and angular from one to the next that without the effects of a unifying force such as religion the whole damn thing would probably fall into anarchy; the flaws of a free market system.
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I think you're confusing the unifying force of an ethical system with that of a religious one, remember we're talking about fundamentalism here, that road leads always to the dark ages, to medieval systems of thinking and social hierarchy...

also, i don't think @victor is making a crittique on religion per se...
 
religion(S) are, is an ethical system.

Ethical systems can exist without religion,
Religion cannot exist without and ethical system.

Whatever social context a religion allows interprets it's own ethical system.

I think you missed it when I said from a socio-political viewpoint. Religion is a system, an ethical system with the same function with a different name.
 
::Ironic:: Yes, an ethical system can exist without religion, but not the other way around, why is that?...from a socio-political viewpoint religion is superfluous whether an ethical system is not. Religion is based on emotion and nothing else, and while a state is made "strong" when being driven by religious fever, it is not made more ethical but rather the opposite, just look at humanity's history and you'll find plenty of examples of this; the romans, nazi germany, communist russia, the pope's power through the age of the crusades, etc, etc, etc...the "one heart, one mind" philosophy can indeed make for a powerful, imposing, state or nation, but in the process ethics are completely forgotten and millions of people end up dead...to say that such is not worth it is to talk ethics...
An example quote from the original poster of this forum: how can a state or nation, specifically the US we're talking here, be made BETTER by fundamentalists groups pushing the agenda of banning the teaching of the theory of evolution from schools??

This is one, or the greatest, irony of human history, mass emotion can build, but it just as fast kills...A couple of quotes, from a great writer whose name i can't remember at this moment:

"The worst government is the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppresion."

"War will never cease until babies begin to come into the world with larger cerebrums and smaller adrenal glands"
 
Your assuming I'm meaning ethics in the traditional sense. The Aztec sacrifices to the sun are a form of ethics. Ethics go left or right mang.
 
Thank you for some very interesting replies. It cleared up a lot, but one still has to see how US fundamentalism is an irony. Especially as all other forms of religious fundamentalism are caused mostly by poverty and despair (i.e third world countries).

I know a lot of the zeal out of the US comes out of poor people, but what's odd is the massive Christian media and it's supporters, organized by people who, materialistically, are very content. I'm guessing the people at the top are just dishonest manipulators, but it's the source of support that's alarming; upper middle class whites with large houses and good jobs.
 
Who says a christian fundamentalist is a real christian anyway.

I doubt the real message of Jesus was to burn half of the world to the ground.
 
A lot of the above is bullshit.

Ok, why the US is so fundamentalists. You have to understand that the US was founded, in part, by people who came to the US to found their own church and to practice. So from its colonial origins, the US has been a very religious nation.

US history can be broken down to "great awakening" moments, in which people undertook significant hardship to pursue their faith. The founding of the country, especially in the NE was part of that. Another great awakening helped spur the country towards Revolution, the next century another helped push the movement to free the slaves. In the 20th century, we saw another great awakening in the last part of the 20th century and helped usher in a conservative period of about 40 years- spanning from Reagan to Bush 2, with republicans in control of the Congress. To understand why, you'd have to consider the conditions the US was in during the 1970s- economically in trouble, its security challenged by the USSR, the excesses of the 1960s, bankruptcy following Vietnan, oil shocks, and significant social decay in urban areas.

Take that into consideration with one of the signficant difference between the US and Europe. In Europe you had strong labor unions which led to strong welfare states with remarkable social safety nets. The US never had those strong unions, so our social safety nets are fairly weak.

Absent the role of the state, non-government organizations usually fill in. Those organizations include church groups. Most primary and secondary private schools are religious in nature.

Ok, lets make the situation more interesting. When the US was created, we had a problem of many religions co-existing. Rather than get into conflict over faith, we decided to have a free expression and non-establishment clauses. Furthermore, since the power to tax is the power to destroy, the state doesn't tax churches.

So, in the US, if you want to be a PR man for God, you don't pay taxes. That makes the churches very strong politically.

Last factor goes to the issue of education- most people are indoctrinated at an early age in their faith. Its hard to break them of that later in life. But the places that you find the strongest faith- the deep south, poor black communities, poor hispanic communities, etc- part of the problem is education and poverty. But what about your middle class?

I mentioned a revival of the religious fervor in the last part of the 20th century. A lot of that had to do the creation of big mega churches and Christian evangelicals that allowed people to experience, spiritually, the notion of rebirth that had been found in the past. A lot of folks abandoned traditional religious to go with the evengelical churches. These can be especially powerful psychologically on individuals- the sense that if you believe in Jesus you will be saved.

Just a notion counteracts much of the existential angst that Americans feel. At heart, Americans are a very lonely people. Its part of our culture- to do things on your own, to be independent, to expect no government hand outs and to defend vigorously efforts by the government to tax you.

One can overcome that sense of social loneliness through communion with a higher spirit.

But hey, one person's religion is another person's mythology. To me, its all a bunch of superstitious mumbo jumbo.

Anyway, that's basically what I have observed over 30 years.
 
I agree a lot with what Welsh said about the societal forces that have led to the rise of religious fundamentalism in the U.S. One thing that hasn't been mentioned (or hasn't been mentioned enough) is that religious fundamentalism is somewhat of a base ideological response to a world that full of all kinds of complicated situations.

Christian fundamentalism in the U.S. (in it's modern incarnation) was a reactionary response to Darwin's theory of evolution (see the Scopes trial) and it has continued with similarly uninformed responses to modern psychology, scholarly examination of scriptures, and the Big Bang theory. Many people are either too stupid or too stubborn to reconcile their religious beliefs with such complicated scientific ideas. So they put their head in the sand and believe in the most literal interpretations of the Bible.

In many ways fundamentalism is a rejection of the nuance that a rational world view can bring. In many ways it is an "easier" way to look at the world: Us vs. Them, Good vs. Evil, Values vs. Godlessness. Once in the frame of mind of Good vs. Evil conflicts are to be found in scientific claims, entertainment media (despite all TV's being equipped with V-chip), and every Middle Eastern conflict might just well be the Battle of Armageddon.

It's important to note that not all religious people in the U.S. would best be described as fundamentalist. There are many people who have reconciled their faith to the many complex issues of modern science and society. They are tolerant of other peoples beliefs and freedoms. They understand that religious texts aren't always to be taken literally.

It's just that the fundamentalists in recent years (1980 - 2008) have become a quite vocal and politically powerful force - largely due to Pat Robertson seeing the opportunity and aligning conservative Protest, Catholic, and Jewish interests and creating the Christian Coalition, which was large enough to influence major policy decisions of many Republican (and probably some Democrat) politicians by helping to turn out a motivated base of voters. Recently the financial meltdown, the prolonged Iraq conflict, ballooned deficits, and numerous scandals which all happened on the George W. Bush's watch have diminished the influence of the coalition, hopefully for good.

As far as upper and middle-class fundamentalists, I think that most of them are either fundamentalists because of their social and familial circles are also fundamentalist or they are insincere in their fundamentalist beliefs and only take on the guise of being fundamentalist to increase their standing and influence in their larger communities. I think most educated pastors, priests, etc. today realize that there are lots of different ways of looking at situations and know from their studies that a literal interpretation of scriptures is dubious at best. Some of them might just seek a more simplified version of faith to preach to their congregations, others might just like success and know that Fundamentalism sells when it comes to contributions and book deals.
 
welsh said:
Just a notion counteracts much of the existential angst that Americans feel. At heart, Americans are a very lonely people. Its part of our culture- to do things on your own, to be independent, to expect no government hand outs and to defend vigorously efforts by the government to tax you.

One can overcome that sense of social loneliness through communion with a higher spirit.

But hey, one person's religion is another person's mythology. To me, its all a bunch of superstitious mumbo jumbo.

Anyway, that's basically what I have observed over 30 years.
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I quite agree with Welsh's post. At this time i would only like to add that, as far as i as a midwesterner can tell, this social lonliness which he referred to is probably the main reason for strength of these churches. Many people here are not particularly close to their families and have transitory friendships; they feel little connection to their community or city or state, but identify themselves as Americans, and, perhaps, as loyal fans of a particular sports team. They do little outside of their work to connect with people or the world. For many of these people, church can occupy a rather strong place in their lives, and many others, aware of this isolation, stick with their church from the beginning in order not to experience it themselves.

I do tend to think that our Puritan roots, like slavery, are ghosts which which don't seem to go away.
 
Dopemine- all human organizations are fundamentally moral or ethical systems, that reflect those who have the capacity and power to decide what those systems represent.

We can break down institutions into two types. Informal institutions- normally found in norms, ethic systems, unwritten behaviors, manners. These are systems of social interaction that communicate what people are supposed to do, how they are supposed to interact and how they might be punished.

We can think of more formal institutions as those which have been given a concrete form- statutory law as defined by our law books as distinct from customary law, the institutions of the state, the organization of our churches or communities.

But those institutions are fundamentally created by people, and people are motivated by self-interested goals.

Consequently institutions, regardless of their form, exist to mobilize bias on behalf of some over others.

Now if you want to think of religion as a spiritual exercise between the individual and the spirit, fine. I actually like that but then I am generally against organized religion (despite being Catholic).

Religion, per se, doesn't make a society or a state stronger. Because states are merely institutions and the reflection of social power within a society.

So how does a religion add strength to a nation? Answer- it doesn't, in fact, it can divide and destroy a nation.

Lets think of religions as ideologically driven social institutions that benefit from tax breaks. They can use the pulpit to drive social resistance and to motivate people to act- much like the black churches did in the Civil Rights movement. Alternatively, they can use their lobby power to gain social benefits or policies that favor them

- Abortion rules
- Safe sex policies
- foreign aid programs
- preferences in social spending.
- attempts to allow churches to become incorporated (and thus limit the liability of misdeeds of religious leaders).

It is not without surprise that most of the Faith Based Initiatives have been Christian and virtually none have come from Muslim, Indian, Buddhist, or any other religious group. Why? Because Evengelicals have political power.

But what happens when one religious groups has power over others, where it gains greater benefits from distribution of power and wealth in society because of its capacity to mobilize voters?

Then the religious organization begins to utilize its political power to gain a stronger share in the distribution, it seeks domination.

WHy? It is a creature of its bias- it seeks to further that bias. Furthermore, its bias is based, fundamentally, on a system of supernatural beliefs that it seeks to spread through society. Why? Because religions are also money making enterprises and the more followers, the more money they make, the power they get, the greater their capacity.

Ideally, if can dominate society, it gains hegemony. Failing that, it seeks domination, on behalf of those who rule the institutions.

We can already see that in the US with the growth of mega churches, the creation of faith based retirement communities, the willingness of the church to pass laws that exclude people from what are otherwise public goods or be free from discrimination.

But then again, we shouldn't be that surprised. We can see variations of this throughout history and across the world- in fact, in virtually every place that religious groups have risen to prominence. At the end of the day, religious institutions are no different from others- they exist to mobilize bias in ways that benefit a small class of leaders.

How does one escape this- But not allowing the religious groups to grow to powerful, but allowing none to dominate, by keeping the power of the state and the church distinct, by allowing people to practice their faiths as they wish.

In otherwords, by allowing a multiplicity of ethical systems to co-exist and share power. Under those circumstances the religious groups are divided and weakened, but they also have to form coalitions and form alliances to further their ends.

This does not rob them of political power. People still vote based on their ethical values. But rather than having a hegemonic or dominant ideology, the churches have to compete with others for the loyalty and support of their community. This places the church in position in which it remains accountable to society.

Example- a lot of Catholics have walked away from the church because of the frequent scandales involving sexual misconduct by priests. Are the Catholics unique in this? No- you can find this in other religious organizations, NGOs involved with children and in schools. But a lot of Catholics have left the faith over this and have gone elsewhere. Consequently, many Catholic churches risk bankruptcy. Thus the Catholic Church in the US remains, to some extent, accountable ot society.
 
The whole idea that the U.S. is a heavily influenced by religious fundamentalists is very overblown. Period. And I say this as a completely non-religious person.

They exist. If you go searching for them, you can find them - in some places more than others. But politically and culturally they're impotent. They're 100% on defense. Any time they try to enact something outrageous, they lose, and then get ridiculed and treated with contempt over it for weeks afterward. In fact, I'd say fundamentalists are the targets of at least as much hatred as they produce. That's part of the reason they've become more politically active in recent years: because they themselves are constantly under attack.

Now if you're talking about religious people, then yeah, there are a lot of those - people who go to church (or whatever) every Sunday. I know many people like that, but they're hardly fundamentalists.

To say that the U.S. is "one of the main sources of religious hatred" is unfounded unless you consider religion itself to be hatred. It makes me wonder where you're getting your information, because I doubt it's first-hand.
 
victor said:
There's something I don't understand. And that's Christian fundamentalism in the USA. How can a country that's one of the wealthiest in the world, one of the major sources of modern science, be one of the main sources of religious hatred?
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You must be confusing the US with the Islamic world.

I would compare to Saudi Arabia's oil money-owning islamic barbarians, but that wouldn't be fair, as the Saudis were goat farmers some 50 years ago; this doesn't really apply to the American fundamentalists, as I understand.
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Lots of countries were underdeveloped 50 years ago, but that doesn't mean they're all full of insane fanatics. Saudi Arabia isn't the way it is because 50 years ago they were goat farmers or whatever.
 
The US is a religious cess pool and its abominations are now spilling over to Europe.

But that's just my 2 cents on the issue at hand.

You won't understand religious fundamentalism if you think of religion as something special and unique. It's a system of logic that favours blind faith over scepticism, nothing else.

The US is so full of fanatics because it is so religious. Plus, religion and nationalism go hand in hand in the US (for historical reasons).
 
Well the thing is just that in hard times people always return to core values which are religion and nationalism. Only with better health and more money people start again to develope a form of "decadence" and to open their mind for other more complicated values as well (not on a individual basis, more meant for a society).

What is just sad is that most of the time when the times become really rough, it are the minorities (gays, foreigners, religions with a minority etc.) get most of the violance and flak.
 
Except the religious fundamentalist movement in the US really picked up in the 1980s and carried through the 1990s and only really started dieing out over the last few years. These were generally periods of US economic growth, even if that growth wasn't evenly distributed across society.

Why? Because these were periods in which the church was able to utilize both media (televengelists, capital, and organization to build massive churches). It might be argued that the religious fundamentalist movement was a conservative backlash against the liberal excesses of the 1960s and 70s, but I'm not sure of that.

I tend to agree that its easy to over estimate the amount of religious fundamentalism in the US. There are a lot of secular humanists as well as agnostics, athiests and people of other faith.

As posted above, it depends were you go.

Ashmo- one of the reasons why the US is able to spread religion abroad is because it has capital and labor- it has people who want to be missionaries and it has the capital to be expansionists. Add that to an ideology that favors conversion and sees itself as both defensive, divine and righteous- that's a dangerous combination.

But the face of religious fundamentalism abroad is not really the face of religion in the US. Sure there are missionaries who go abroad and spread the gospel- just like there were Europeans who brought religion to the US- but most Americans don't.

I have lived in a number of places in the US- mostly on the East Coast and a bit on the West. I've also travelled a bit. Yes there is a lot of religion here and locally there is competition among the faiths to gain local dominance. But overall, the religions are fairly balanced and tolerant of each other.

The interesting (and I think a good) characteristic of American religion is that its diverse and incorporates a great variety of faiths and generally speaking, its fairly tolerant.
 
well I think we had quite a few pretty heavy religions wars on european ground (like the 30 years between catholic and evangelist nations) or quite the many wars between moslem and christian empires which just lead to a slightly different view over the decades.

The US as nation so far did not experienced a war directly related to religion on their ground. One could now maybe dispute that the war on terror is about religion, but thats a rather complicated topic and I have the feeling that (the stupid "we fight for god" talk from Bush junior aside ...) there are more economical issues and the questions of safety in the foreground.
 
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