Huckabee's quote, religion, politics & the US

[Djinn]

"I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution," Huckabee told a Michigan audience on Monday. "But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living god. And that's what we need to do — to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view."

Anyone saying that in my neck of the woods would be laughed out of the race. It is astounding to hear from a serious Presidential contender in the 21st century.

Reading it got me thinking about the differences in attitudes to religion between the US and elsewhere.

Whilst in the US recently quite a few people were surprised to hear I had absolutely no religious affiliation growing up, neither did my family. Only one friend throughout primary and high school came from a family twho practiced any kind of religion or attended any kind of service. Atheism and agnosticism are very normal here whereas Americans seemed to find such an absence of religion strange.

Does anyone have any theories on why the US is pretty much alone amongst developed nations in having such a large majority of religious believers and on questions like "is there a devil" & "did God create life" the US lines up with some of least developed.

Why has the US remained predominantly religious whilst comparable populations have largely given it away?

[LeftishBrit]

1. It would be inconceivable in the UK..

anyone who said something like that would be considered nuts. Well, perhaps it might have happened when Bloody Mary was burning 'heretics'; or when Cromwell and the Puritans ruled the land and really did wage war on Christmas as well as anything else that might be fun. But not nowadays. Someone tell this loony that it's 2008, not 1608!

[Djinn]

6. Agree

I'm actually a dual citizen UK/Australian so when I say my neck of the woods I generally mean both woods.

Honestly I think the Puritans are still running things in much of the US. In Hartford I couldn't buy take-away alcohol after 9pm on a Saturday or AT ALL on a Sunday WTF??

[RebelOne]

11. Here in Georgia, you cannot buy any alcohol at all on Sunday

except in some restaurants that serve alcohol. But, of course, this is Georgia, a red state in the bible belt.

[madinmaryland]

13. You can't buy alcohol on Sunday in CT, also.

:shrug:

[TheMightyFavog]

8. IN my expereince with the UK...

The only people who'd say anything remotely like that are the evangelizing loonies at Speaker's Corner.

[groovedaddy]

2. It probably has something to do with the fact that most of the people

who first came here from Europe did so for religious reasons, mainly to escape persecution, not for being non-believers but for what they did believe in.
The number of "church going" people in this country has steadily declined over the years and that trend will probably continue. The real question should be: how can these people have gained so much political power? I think it has something to do with the background of the people who bother to vote. For the most part, people who don't give a rat's ass about religion also don't seem to care much for politics either!

[Djinn]

9. that's what a few people have said

when I've asked but I really don't think it holds up to scrutiny. The overwhelming majority of those who emigrated to the US since it's "founding" were not escaping religious persecution. Those that did were a tiny minority and only in the earliest waves of migration.

Very few of the millions dragged from Africa would have considered themselves religious refugees, the large groups of migrants from Europe/Ireland in the late 19th and early 20th century were economic or political migrants as are most now.

I don't think that explains the huge disparity in the standing of religion between America and the rest of the first world.

[groovedaddy]

12. I agree that most of the immigration to the U.S. (not the colonies)

was not based in religious reasons, but as I said most of the people
who first came here from Europe came to escape persecution. Even though most came here for economic reasons (even slaves, against their will), the religious foundations were firmly laid down. Look at the 19th century in the U.S. - there were more kooky religious cults that sprang up here than probably any where else in the world.

[sam sarrha]

3. i see no difference in oSama and oHuckabee, ..

[MedleyMisty]

4. We're kept ignorant as hell by design

Plus we seem to have way more than our fair share of people who are genetically stupid and authoritarian.

[Blarch]

5. Fuck Huckabee

and anyone like him.

Being an Atheist, I will dance on their graves. Long Live The USA.

[MannyGoldstein]

7. There Are Two Americas

I live in the Northeast (outside of Boston), and anyone in this neck of the woods would be laughed out of the race as well.

The US has had a strong religious divide from our start. Even at the time of the Revolution, the northerners were not particularly religious - many or most didn't go to church. After we gained independence, "blasphemous" and quasi-religious sects took hold here, such as the Congregationalists and Unitarians. I think that religion in the North followed the same egalitarian spirit that started the Revolution and remained thereafter.

The South was a different story entirely. Religion was very important at the time of the Revolution, and has continued to remain so. Organized religion and its themes of hierarchy and "accept your shitty lot in life - god wants it that way" work well for plantations of slaves. Somehow, most of the South has never pulled out of that mentality.

I once went to a local church service where a guest minister presided who happened to be from the South. Even though he was from the same denomination, the local folks found his sermon to be appalling and absurd - he was claiming that McDonald's latest promotion was a tool of Satan, etc. The South is very, very different.

"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter." - Thomas Jefferson

[Djinn]

10. I recently returned from 5 weeks

in New England and even in those areas (stayed exclusively in cities as well) religion is FAR FAR FAR more common than ANYWHERE in the rest of the developed world. The friends I stayed with are all atheists but ALL of them went to church as kids and so did all their friends.