Religious Belief in America - Please no Christians

I've noticed some disturbing parallels between the phenomena being discussed in this thread and similar phenomena that happened in Britain in the late 19th century. I'm reading a history of Britain in the 19th century at the moment and it mentions the effect of evangelical Christians in Victorian England. Later I will write a couple of excerpts and a reference to the book as it's very interesting. At one point in the book there is an allusion to science possibly threatening religion. I don't have the book with me right now but I will check it again later. As I read that part of the book I thought about this thread. Anyway it also made me think about Aquinas. And that started me thinking about faith and reason.

I believe the two can co-exist. I also believe that American Christian fundamentalist have privileged faith over reason and are doing their best to destroy reason in the public discourse.

Acquinas, the heart of the matter.

Jespah wrote:



I didn't doubt that you could take it - I only doubted that everyone else wanted to hear it . I'll respond to your points briefly. I don't want to debate it here (seeing as it's not the point of this thread). If you want to debate, I'll start a new thread.



What you describe here is adaptation and survival of the fittest, which are not exclusive to the evolutionist theory. Drug-resistant streptococcus pyogenes is still the same bacterium - it's just a different strain (same organism). It's as simple as you say (those that didn't die off have filled the niche). That doesn't contradict the creationist theory.



I can't judge if it would or would not work. However, this is an appeal to ignorance (logical fallacy), which assumes something to be false just because it cannot be proven true. You can't prove either theory because the only evidence we have is that sheep's insulin does work.



A creationist (believing in an all-powerful God who can create as He chooses) could easily say that God could have created the light beam as well as the stars, simultaneously. Of course, there's nothing to prove it, but it's not too big a leap of faith if you already believe in a creator God. My point is that there are other (maybe less obvious) explanations (which, if so, indicates the false dilemma fallacy).



The creationist (if he is a Christian or Jew, as is typical) believes that imperfection in the human body (injury and disease) is a result of the collective world's sin. You said: "do not function well unless perfect." According to the Bible, perfection ended with man's sin. The human body is constantly moving toward eventual death, and in that process, things wear out and function poorly.



I don't know what is particularly intelligent or unintelligent about it. It works, doesn't it? So you don't like the way they reproduce... That doesn't necessarily determine whether it evolved or was designed.

I'll toss in my 2 cents here. Teaching ID in schools wouldn't bother me that much, IF, it emphasized that there is ABSOLUTELY NO SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE for a recent origin of the earth. Without such a disclaimer, ID advances the cause of Biblical Literalists.

There may be aspects of religion which might explain its relative popularity in the US given the "melting pot" history.For example It might be working in place of a set of "old historical traditions and customs" which in longer established less mixed cultures give common group values and nuances of communication. Taken to a hypothetical extreme, it is the cultural predominance of the "the one nation under God" syndrome.

When we concentrate on the "contents" of religion, like some of its anti-scientific aspects we tend to ignore its predominantly social/tribal function. People want "identity" and yearn for psychological stability especially in a nation where individuals have the "solitude" of individual freedom thrust upon them. Suspension of normal* scientific rationality is the joining fee.

Perhaps a PhD thesis here for somebody !

*(By "normal" I mean science based on the separation of "observer" and "world". We should note that more recent moves in "science" have questioned this and the meaning of "evidence", allowing for some, such as David Bohm anf Fritjof Capra, a backdoor into "spirituality" rather than "God", but this esoteric issue is irrelevent to the main point)

I believe it is possible for religion and science to coexist, but only if the fundies back off trying to undermine the findings of science and foist it on the rest. I don't have to undermine their belief to be whole and full, but giving in inside the schools is cowardly and counterproductive. Sooner or later, we have to get past this logjam of emotion and get on with progress.

A few posts back I mentioned a book I was reading. Anyway here's my take on it. The author is discussing religion in Victorian England (as he puts it mid-Victorian). He suggests that the dominant form of Christianity in mid-Victorian England was evangelicalism. He goes on to indicate that it was biblically based, its highest virtue was self-improvement and it emphasised organisd prayer and preaching and strict observance of Sunday. He suggests it lasted in this form until the 1870's when...."Gradually it was weakened by the growth of free-thinking and rationalist movements connected with the development of scientific thought, by the growth of facilities for luxury and pleasure and of greater indulgence in these facilities by the more ritualistic, Anglo-catholic movement...."

There's not a great deal more on that topic but I was interested to read where the author suggests that evangelicalism was weakened by the development of scientific thought. That's what I was trying to remember in my previous post.

The book is "England in the Nineteenth Century" by David Thomson (apparently no lightweight historian), it's a Pelican paperback published in 1950 and the quote is at p.107.

Chris from Maryland: "I know people who are forced to participate in prayer at work just to keep their jobs. I'm often reminded of a comment made by Bush Sr. during his run for the presidency when a reporter from the American Atheist news journal asked him if he recognized the equal citizenship and patriotism of Americans who are atheists. Bush responded, "No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.' Imagine if he had made that comment about blacks or any other minority.St Petersburg Times

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By way of bookmarking, I'll say that I am not at all interested in having ID taught in schools. I am dead set against it being taught in science classes. I am less offended by it being taught in theology or in social studies.