Why are better educated people less religious?

The population of Ireland (if one ignores the loonies in Ulster) is overwhelmingly Catholic, and has been throughout the period in which the Irish were the largest immigrant group to the United States. In Canada, there was heavy Irish immigration, but the balance between Catholic and Protestant there was more nearly equal--in York/Toronto and in Montreal, there were commonly riots and street battles between the Orangemen and the Paddies. In the United States, the immigrants were overwhelmingly Irish Catholics, after the Revolution. (There was significant Protestant Scots-Irish immigration before the Revolution, but it dropped off pretty rapidly after the Revolution).

The fundamentalists of the United States are largely Protestant. There are some ultramontane Catholics in the United States, though far fewer than, for example, one finds in France. There are a handful of lunatic fringe fundamentalist Catholics whom even the ultramontane Catholics will not own. But the funamentalism of the United States is rooted in Protestant sects.

There have been many revivalist movements in the United States, and early on, they usually (both before and after the Revolution) first originated in England. But the last revivalist movement which originated in England and became popular in the United States came from the evangelical movement which was popularized in England by William Wilberforce and the Clapham sect of evangelical Anglicans. But Wilberforce was dedicated to the abolition of "vice" (as he and his co-religionists defined it--one clever historian has described it deploring the poor for "dirt and a lack of table manners") and particularly to the abolition of slavery. The evangelical movement became popular in the United States, and in the Northeast, so did the abolition movement. For obvious reason, the revivalism was popular in the American South, but not the abolition movement.

Revivalism, and particular the peripatetic preachers and their "tent meetings" became popular in the South before the Civil War. During the war, the American military "heroes" Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson and J. E. B. Stuart (an evangelical Anglican, in addition of being a "dashing cavalier") started a chaplains' service in the Army of Northern Virginia, and "tent meeting" revivalism became popular among the largely Protestant soldiers in Confederate armies. After the war, itinerant preachers started up the tent meeting racket again, and increased their appeal by denouncing Capet Baggers (Northerners who came South to work for the Freed Man's Bureau, and became associated with the worst abuses and exploitation in the South as the North took its revenge) and newly freed black men and women.

By the 1880s, an entirely new racist Protestant movement had begun in the South, and they were known as and proudly described themselves as "Lily Whites." The "lily" portion referred to the fact that they were Protestant, and they had an anti-Catholic and anti-Jew agenda. The "white" portion should be obvious--they were racist and had an agenda to oppress blacks and describe them as "sub-human." They made traditional religious bodies nervous, and there were many rifts in traditional churches such as the Baptists and the Congregationalists, from which new sects were formed by the racist and fundamentalist members who flocked after the revivalist ministers. The man who re-founded the Ku Klux Klan in Georgia in 1915 was a discredited minister, William Simmons. The silent motion picture The Birth of a Nation was based on a novel, The Clansman, which glorified the "night riders," and depicted them as heroes who protected chaste southern women and valuable southern institutions from the depredations of the depraved and vicious blacks and their Capet-Bagger masters. It was a very popular motion picture, in the North and in the South, and many people were also motivated by the trial and lynching of Leo Frank, a Jew accused of rape and murder, who had been the subject of "media feeding frenzy."

The new Klan was glorified both by the motion picture and in the press. The iconography of the modern Klan comes directly from Griffith's movie. Woodrow Wilson, the President, and an academic historian, was touted as recommending the film for its historical accuracy, and if he didn't tout it, he never denied the claim. One of the panels in the silent movie quoted him as saying that the Klan arose to protect the culture of the South. William Simmons had been "defrocked" by the Methodist Episcopal Church for "inefficiency," Simmons was motivated by the motion picture, and when anti-Semitic feeling rose to a frenzy in Georgia after the lynching of Leo Frank in 1915, he put out a prospectus to revive the Klan, and a way they went.

This is not to say that all or even any significant number of fundamentalists are racist or supporters of the Klan. But the era of the Great War was a time when many of the fundamentalist sects were established as members broke away from traditional churches, and the trend has continued right up to the present. Even the splinter sects give rise to other splinter sects--David Koresh and his Branch Davidians who died in the firely debacle in Texas in 1993 were a splinter group of the original sect, which broke away from the Davidian Seventh Day Adventists, who themselves were a splinter group of the Seventh Day Adventists who had been excommunicated in the 1930s. They, like many of the most conservative of fundamentalists, have shaped their beliefs upon a core belief that they live in "the end of days."

Many others have derived form mainstream followers of Catholicism and Protestantism who became charismatics--i.e., those who believe in manifestations of the holy spirit, such as faith healing and speaking in tongues. Once again, this is not to say that all conservative christians, or members of charismatic sects are extremist loonies--but it is to point out that christian fundamentalism in the United States has been a product of the on-going fragmentation of traditional churches.

People like Jerry Falwell (originally a Baptist) and Pat Robertson (who was an ordained minister of the Southern Baptists, although i don't believe he is any longer associated with any Baptist congregation) have basically founded their own churches, and both have exploited charismatic theology to build their followings. Any time someone such as these two, or the more lunatic fringe, such as Simmons with his revival of the Klu Klux Klan, or Koresh with his suicidal milenarian sect, establish a congregation, it represents a further sectarian fragmentation of established religious bodies, or the exploitation of religion for political purposes (as was the case with Simmons and the Klan).

To suggest that conservative religious sentiment in the United States derives from the Irish or African Americans in naive to say the least. Irish Catholics and black Americans have often been the target of the hatred of conservative Protestant splinter groups. At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th Century, anti-Catholic, Anti-Semitic and racist sentiments were mainstream, and popular, as was the case with the Lily White movement.

Fresco, it is slur to suggest that Americans are religiously conservative because of the Irish and African-Americans. Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants, and black Catholics and Protestants may make common cause with their white Protestant fellows on issues like abortion, but the fundamentalist and charismatic Christian movements in the United States are overwhelmingly white and Protestant, and spring from an anti-Catholic, anti-Semitic and anti-black racist heritage.

Theodore Roosevelt was a staunch member of the Dutch Reformed Church, and made a largely successful appeal to black American voters in 1904. He was probably sincere in his desire to improve the living conditions of black Americans. He was also as casually racist as nearly everyone else in America in that era. He publicly condemned Margaret Sanger as a "race traitor," on the principle that disseminating birth control information would decrease the white population, who had a duty to rule the dark people of the world. After the United States took over the Philippine Islands in the Spanish War, reporters at the White House were told by President McKinley that the United States would bring civilization and Christianity to the benighted Filipinos. One reported pointed out to him that he Filipinos are Catholic. McKinley responded: "Exactly."

Like all of history, the provenance of religious conservatives in the United States is far more complex than the simplistic remarks you and Eorl have made.

Setanta,

Point taken....I did admit to a "simplistic" generalization when I first posted.

But perhaps if you were able to look with the eyes of British doumentary makers like Louis Theroux who "entertain us" by intereviewing an apparently never ending variety of American religious "nutcases" many of whom are making a significant living from their followers,you might better appreciate where the "culture vacuum" concept arises.

Well, we've had, so far, just one nut case planting bombs, allegedly on a religious basis, and his targets were abortion clinics, and one quixotic trip to the Olympics in Atlanta.

Have you forgotten what some of your own home-grown religious fanatics did in the subways in July, a few years back? Or do you consider that they don't count because they're Muslim? They were all native to your nation, n'est-ce pas?

It would do well to keep in mind that your nation had an established religion for centuries. Shall we rehearse the numbers of people slaughtered in England in the name of religion in the 16th and 17th centuries? We've never had an established church--small wonder that the tent meeting preacher-charlatan thrived and prospered here, while your church supported and was supported by an aristocracy in times when the disparity between wealth and privilege on the one hand, and poverty and hopelessness on the other was so stark.

It's easy to treat Americans as fools, because so much is permissible here which long was forbidden in your own nation. I suspect that if the truth be known, there are far more religious fanatics in your nation than you would be willing to admit when speaking off the cuff.

Setanta,

I'm obviously not communicating the gist of my point, which is nothing to do with depth of fundamentalism which I agree all countries tend to "suffer from", but with range of variants for which the US seems unsurpassed. To the outsider it seems that many Americans have a symbiotic relationship with some "bandwagon" which is quite often religious in nature through which they express a need "to take themselves seriously". Compared to say Britain in which" historical traditions" form a backcloth of "social reality" against which the "self" finds "its place", in the US such traditions are less well defined and synthetic substitutes are needed.

Again....a simplistic thesis, but there must be some reason why in England religiosity is a minority pursuit associated chiefly with immigrants.

Setanta, I think you're being needlessly defensive and patriotic (not the first time I've seen it in you - it seems to skew you're ordinarily clinical and perceptive assessment of a position.)

For myself, I was not referring to the level of fundamentalism, but just to the sheer number of people who believe in a god. The USA statistics are definitely an outlier in the western world.

My country was founded mostly by English convicts (so you can hardly think I was implying anything negative against Irish immigrants) and a much smaller percentage of Irish and Scots, also by quite a few other European countries, notably Germany. I put it to you that the much higher proportion of Irish immigration in America led to a "tipping point" of religiosity where godlessness was not easily championed for much of your history, whereas here, it was always a small thing to us, even if not quite a minority. (Our immigration was also relatively recent, beginning just over 200 years to your 500)

So can you answer the question? Why do such a large percentage of Americans identify as theists? What are the differences between Australia and America that explain it?

I would like to think that after centuries of religious strife in these islands, a consensus has gradually developed around the utter futility and absurdity of conflict based on different interpretations of the unknowable. But on the other hand it could be that we are just bloody heathens.

The Irish came (in significant numbers) relatively late in American history. The first settlers came for many reasons but escaping religious persecution was one, and one that was oft-emphasized. Your initial group was made up of convicts -- our initial group was made up of religious people seeking the freedom to practice their religion as they saw fit.

I'm sure Setanta can supply many more details and nuances, but I can see how that difference could be significant.

And I always had the impression it was the potato famine.

That's the Irish -- which, again, was relatively LATE in American history.

Not the original settlers.

I think that is a rather overwrought analysis, and while not necessarily untrue, it is not as significant as it appears that you give it weight. Soz has pointed out something that i perhaps did not make clear. We have probably a wider sectarian mix than any other nation in history because both before and after the Revolution, we were seen as a haven for religious refugees. The German pietists came in large numbers beginning in the 17th century, more than a hundred years before the Revolution. Some colonies had established churches, others advertised (most notably, Pennsylvania) religious tolerance. Others became diverse for pragmatic reasons. Maryland was a colony granted to English Catholics (Lord Baltimore and the Calverts), but they were wise enough to govern it by proxy with Anglicans. They also filled the land with convicts. (Soz has missed one point, Maryland, Virginia and the Carolinas were destinations for convicts before the Revolution. Georgia was established as a penal colony, but it didn't last because all that land was too valuable. After the Revolution, England no longer could send its convicts to America, so the Australian venture was opened in 1788.)

England, with its established church, was no haven for sectaries. Many of them ended up in America. Imagine, if you will, the "Great Awakening" in the early 18th century before the Revolution. Many large, established churches in America were riven by internal strife over doctrine and revivalism. In colonies such as Massachusetts and Connecticut, the established churches used their civil power to suppress itinerant preachers, and the bitterness sank deeply, and was a major factor in politics at the time of the Revolution. The Congregationalists (formerly the Puritans), the Baptists and the Presbyterians all suffered deep divisions among their followers, and new sects began to spring up. Suppose there were a congregation of Scots-Irish Presbyterians in the back country of North Carolina, and they became enamored of an itinerant revivalist. The Synod of the church tells them that he must go, so they defy the central authority, and start their own church. Some members will think they have gone too far, others that they have not gone far enough. Soon, you will have several bodies of sectaries, each going their own way.

After the Revolution, many states began to abandon the privilege implicit in established churches, because they had to deal with diverse populations. Thomas Jefferson wrote his famous "wall of separation" letter to a Baptist congregation in Connecticut which complained off their treatment at the hands of a state government with an established Congregationalist church. By the time of the Civil War, society and practical politics had mitigated against religious establishment. Massachusetts old-liners were scandalized when a Baptist was elected Governor, but there was nothing they could do about it. With the ratification of the 14th Amendment after the Civil War, it was no longer possible to maintain a religious establishment in any state.

So the United States has always had an environment in which sectarianism flourished, while in England and her colonies, the Episcopal Church was long able to keep a lid on dissent. As for Australia, simply speculating, i can't see that a population of "criminals," many of whom were there for political dissent (Young Irish, Luddites, Chartists, etc.) were going to be anxious to confide their trust in religious establishments. As i say, though, that is just speculation.



I'd say it is because the vigorous, the pushing religious dissenters found the United States to be more welcoming than a nation which long continued to support an established church. Basically, the "Christian world" found America to be a convenient dumping ground for its religious dissenters, and they prospered here.

By the way, Eorl, i am not motivated by any blind patriotism. I suspect you resent my response because when you were new here i took you to task for an unwarranted attack on Americans. Just because you don't like the government is no good reason to vilify the population.

I found your remarks shallow and uniformed. You claimed that the Irish and African-Americans were likely responsible for the large percentage of Americans who identify themselves with a religious tradition. There not only was no good reason to make the assumption, but as i pointed out in my remarks on the Lily Whites and the modern Ku Klux Klan, Catholics, Jews and black Americans were the target of reactionary religious sects a hundred years ago. I've already explained why the United States is the home of so much Protestant diversity, and such a high degree of personal identification with religion. Your remarks, sheerly out of ignorance, attempted to suggest that two ethnic groups were responsible for this--and there was no good reason to make the assumption.

Failing that, you seem to want to suggest that there is something fundamentally wrong with Americans or with the United States which accounts for this. In fact, it is the freedom of expression, which includes religious expression, which accounts more than any other factor for the diversity of sects in the United States, and the high proportion of those who identify with organized religion.

There's nothing wrong with the water here, Eorl. If you ever visit, don't worry that a glass of tap water will give you ungovernable urges to go on a crusade.

Thank you Setanta, that's as good a theory as I've heard so far, and along with everything else you've posted here, has convinced me I should replace or at least augment my present understanding accordingly.


I'm not convinced there isn't something defensive going on with you, Set. There is certainly no resentment on my part, I learned something then as I do now, which is my reason for being here. This time, as previously, I'm completely surprised that you view my errors as "attacks on Americans".


I'm pretty sure I was taught that at school, but then the history of all the other countries in the world tends to be shallow by necessity, I guess. . (One of our previous disagreements dealt with the levels of "world" education Americans enjoy, and I'm not sure your righteous indignation won the day on that occasion).Having said that, you are probably right and I apologize.



This is where you are completely wrong. What makes you think I "seem to want to suggest" such a thing? I am a secular humanist at every turn, surely you have seen this by now? I don't take offense exactly, but it is certainly bemusing, and as I said before, surprising. (YOU seem to want to suggest that I think there is something "wrong" with the Irish "stock" that makes one vulnerable to theism. My understanding of Irish history is much better than my American history...would you be equally offended on behalf of all Italians if I suggested that Rome had a large part to play in that?

Freedom of expression is no less in Australia than in America, so that doesn't explain the difference. I'll take your previous theory, thanks. If America became know as the safe haven for those threatened by orthodox churches of their home countries (no doubt often seen as heretics who challenged the status quo), and this continued for a long period of time, then the current state of play makes a lot more sense to me.

Setanta and Eorl,


Inglehart & Norris 2003

Since "education" is inversely correlated with "economic uncertainty" it seems that this quotation provides another answer to the thread question.

What you do or don't believe with regard to religion or spirituality has absolutely no bearing on a claim advanced for why Americans may (putatively) be more religious than other nations. It is noteworthy that you have not compared the Americans to nations in Latin America, for example, where the populations are either Catholics, or new converts to fundamentalist or charismatic religions imported from the United States by missionaries. On that basis, the United States might not be so remarkable, and it might be better to examine why (and even whether) a nation such as Australia is "less" religious.



There is no good reason to have seen the Irish as being more disposed to religion than anyone else in the "British" Isles. Are we to consider the Irish extraordinary for adherence to religion, but not the Scots for their devotion to Presbyterianism? Were not the Scots and English as fervently prepared to slaughter Irish Catholics for their adherence to their faith, as was the converse? Had you mentioned Italians rather than the Irish, i'd likely have reacted in just the same way, because the Italians are overwhelmingly Catholic, and the religious fundamentalism of the United States is a Protestant phenomenon.



That's what freedom of expression means in this context--that those seen as heretical in their home countries found a safe haven in the English colonies of North America before 1783, and the United States thereafter. If one looks at the "fatal shore" realistically, freedom of expression was not a condition of the penal colony, and the penal colony lasted a long time. Charles II paid a debt to Charles Penn (by then deceased) by granting a huge territory to William Penn, in which the latter Penn established a colony (Pennsylvania) which advertised itself as a haven of religious freedom. That colony was established more than two hundred years before Australia ceased to be a penal colony. The United States was a destination for immigrants seeking religious freedom more than two centuries before the Australian continent ceased to be a dumping ground for English convicts (meaning those convicted by English jurisprudence, of whatever nationality). Australia has only been an independent nation for a little over a century. Australia has only been a favored destination for immigrants from all parts of the world since the end of the Second World War, and even then, Asian immigration to Australia only began to take off within the last 30 years.

There just can be no reasonable comparison between the freedom of expression (religious) available in the United States, as seen by prospective immigrants, and that which has been available in Australia.

Do Mssrs. Inglehart and Norris explain how they have quantified and measured "existential insecurity?"

Note my reference above the the nations of Latin America, in which the populations are at least a widely "religious," if not more so, than is the case with the United States. Are we to assume that this derives in Latin America from that same "existential insecurity?"

Setanta,

Here the source
http://www.umich.edu/news/index.html?Releases/2003/Nov03/r111703

No measure of "existential insecurity" apparent here but the authors are prolific and they may be drawing from other studies.

Just thought I'd repost my original questions on this matter. Naive and simplistic questions if you like, but questions none the less.

Set, you seem to be ignoring the "humanist" element of secular humanism. I want to make this clear because you seem stubbornly determined to ignore it: I abhor racism, and none was implied or should be inferred by anything I've said here.

Fresco, I see that in the study you posted, they propose the main reason is pretty much as Set has outlined...that the USA was a haven of religious freedom, and that the (edit) existential insecurity thing looks like a bit of an afterthought?

I acknowledge that i've been rather hectoring, and for that i sincerely regret it if anyone was personally offended. However, i have just been amazed by this entire exercise, and the absurdities have just grown, rather than lessened, as the thread progressed.

First of all, for the casual reader who does not understand this, and may think i am some religious type who is fighting a rear-guard action against the evil forces of secular humanism (you know who you are, Eorl and company)--let me point out that i'm an atheist, and have a long and bloody history at this site of taking on the religious loonies.

That being said, i was more than a little amused by the tenor of this thread at the outset. The author made a series of contentions based on no particularly compelling evidence, and ran with it. That member has continued to sidestep the issue of the definitions used and seems only to be interested in discussing the question, having already begged the question--i.e., that member decided the contention was true and seems unwilling to investigate whether or not it is true, and upon what basis one should decide it were true.

Then Hokie jumped in with an hilarious tour de force in conceit to claim that people with an interest in science are by definition better educated than anyone else, and more prone to skepticism. It may well be true that people who are interested in the sciences are more skeptical, but it may equally true that those who are pre-disposed (for whatever reason) to skepticism are drawn to science. That could be another example of begging the question--and nothing about that contention has been demonstrated, either.

So it became increasingly hilarious to me. What i saw happening was people with a devotion to the excellence of science denouncing people with a devotion to the excellence of religion in exactly the same imprecise and fuzzy terms which the "scientific types" denounce in "religious types." A lack of evidence for the contention that well-educated people are "less religious" is as pernicious a basis for an argument is the lack of evidence religious people have for their imaginary friend superstitions.

Then Eorl made his contention about why the United States might be particularly religious. Pacem, Eorl, i haven't harped on an accusation of racism against you, so you can let that rest--it isn't important to me to show that you are a racist, and i don't happen to believe that you are.

That lead, however, to Soz' cogent observation about why the United States is likely to be a particularly "religious" nation. She deserves the credit, because my historical comments prior to her remark had concerned themselves with why there was such a plethora of religious sects, and why fundamentalists and charismatics were overwhelmingly found among the Protestants. She pointed the way to lead the discussion into a rational explanation of religious adherence in the United States.

So, given that factor, the entire discussion is cast in another and more revealing light. If, as her percipient remark suggests, the United States is "more religious" because of a history of attracting religious minorities who considered themselves persecuted in their countries of origin, then the entire exercise takes on a surreal quality. Using the United States as a source of a population for such an investigation becomes rather like using Skid Row as a population in which to study alcohol abuse patterns, or using France as a population in which to study attitudes toward food.

In the end, i rather doubt that this is the kind of contention which can be demonstrated as plausible, never mind "proven." But above all, i am amused by how some people who are not religious, and might even well be described as "anti-religious" (i am here referring to the author and Hokie--i don't know whether or not this applies to Eorl or Fresco, and only refer to those two based on remarks they have made in this and other threads) have put themselves in the position of attempting to make a case about people's beliefs which is no better founded than the contentions for which religiously devout people are so commonly criticized.