God's country

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Tue Apr 4 13:52:51 PDT 2000


At 02:59 PM 4/4/00 -0400, Carl wrote:
>>[from Gallup's weekly update]
>>
>>Two of Three Americans Feel Religion Can Answer Most of Today's Problems
>
>Here I was, feeling pretty good about the market's nosedive. Now I'm
>depressed all over again.
>

No need to worry, Carl. This is an example of a so-called "motherhood" item (i.e. topic that everyone feels good about it) - people giving a standard culturally expected answer which in no way reflects their own attitudes, and even less so behavior. For example, studies have demonstrated that the actual church attendance is at best at the 50% level of that reported in surveys - in other words, at least half of the people who answered "yes" to the church attendance question lied.

More meaningful approach would be to ask whether and how often people consider religious teaching in making everyday life decisions, whether/how often religious considerations swayed them from engaging otherwsie attractibe behaviour (cf. having extra marital sex, rejecteing a job for ethical concerns, etc. abstaining from celeberity worship for religious reasons, etc.). I strongly suspect that the number of people who seriously consider religion in everyday life decision is truly minuscule - and those who do are generally resepctable individuals, even from the Left's point of view (cf. churches giving protection to El Salvadorean refugees despite Reagan's persecution). Most of the bible-thumpers are a bunch of hypocrites who use religion as justification of their mean-spiritedness and bigotry. (BTW, rememebr that old joke: Q: Do you know that God has been elected Satan? A: Yeah, another deed of the Christian majority in hell.)

The most influenctial "religion" in the US is consumerism - even though it is not generally acknowledged. Most US-ers would eagerly trade an SUV for Jesus (cf. the film _Hands on the hard body_) and use religion merely to feel good about themselves. This (rather than its theological-ethical aspect or rather lack thereof) is the most despicable aspect of US religiosity. In other words, I have more respect for a person who live by his/her religious convictions (even though if I did not share those convictions) than a fair-weather liberal whose only object of worship is mammon.

wojtek



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