Hmmm.... Most people are unbelievers (and what, church attendance is
something like 3%?), but there's illiberal intolerance of them in England??
That's surprising.
> I can't see that happening
> in the States
> though, rather the opposite, a majority trying to impose their
> beliefs on the
> minority.
This sounds like a tired cliche to me. Can you give examples of this? In
most cases, it seems more the other way around, if not wrt laws in general
(which aren't so much about beliefs, but behaviors, and are controlled by
elected representatives), certainly wrt policies regarding education, and
until the last decade or so wrt moral and religious court issues. (E.g.,
leftish academics imposing their world view on students, or the liberal
Warren court replacing original intent and strict construction with
"emanations" and "penumbras" of heretofore undiscovered liberal policies
apparently deeply buried in the constitution; or even today, the NJ State
Supreme Court declaring the Boy Scouts in America's moral opposition to
homosexual leaders of boys unconstitutional if it affects their selection of
leaders [fine otherwise -- I mean, it's a free country].)
Remember: (1) Kansas is the extremely rare exception, not the rule. And
while I disagree with their decision, (2) it's an egregiously simple
caricature to call it "a majority trying to impose their beliefs on the
minority."
Far too often on -every- side, what "intolerance" and "coercion" boil down
to are "making laws/policies/recommendations I disagree with", whereas
"freedom" and "tolerance" and "enlightenment" mean simply "making laws/etc.
I agree with." (It's as Mark Shields says about religion and politics
[paraphrasing]: "Religion should play ABSOLUTELY NO ROLE WHATEVER in
politics, except under ONE STRICT CONDITION: it supports my position." This
very accurately sums up most politicians' views, especially on the left
[where in ACLU fundraising letters Pat Robertson, a somewhat odd {I think},
shoot-from-the-hip right wing television minister, is the secular equivalent
of the Antichrist, but clergy on the left are open minded and enlightened
contributors to political debate. I say "especially on the left" because
the right, being statistically significantly more religious than the
left, -tends- not to criticize political figures for their religious
principles, though there are exceptions, and they'll certainly criticize a
real or perceived -anti-religious stance wrt policy matters.)
> You are fooling yourselves if you think that the answer to this country's
> problems is more religion. Do you think that the most religious
> countries in the
> world have the least repressive regimes and the lowest crime
> rates? (Obviously
> no correlation but then it demonstrates what a state controlled
> religion *can't*
> do).
>
Do you have any evidence for this? Or by "religious" do you mean to be
lumping together, say, Christianity and Islamic Fundamentalism (in which
case you have a true but irrelevant point)? This is a very complicated
issue -- very clearly, religious belief can seriously improve personal and
social life; but just as clearly, it depends a lot on the particular beliefs
in question, and can indeed make things worse (e.g., Islamic Jihad, or the
Taleban, or Satan worship, or cults, or the IRA [though I'm not sure to what
extent, if any, their actions are theologically motivated: religion
functions more as a proxy for nationalist or unionist beliefs]).
RE: state control again: I suspect actually that one of the main reasons
Christian belief in particular is strong in America is that is -lacks- state
support. In England and most of Europe, the church was and is effectively
on welfare, which leads to complacency, dependency, and sloth, intellectual
and behavioral, for either individuals and organizations. I pray we never
get Church Welfare here. That would be terrible.
John