> As every vestige of social space and social relation is lost or
> broken, of course, "religion" as a means of recreating transcendent
> ties, social ties, a "reliable" other world gathers force. Everyone is
> afraid, alone, and here comes Jebus to save the day! On some level,
> everyone knows that at the rate we're going, we are heading for dust
> and ashes, so we long for "heaven," for "forgivness," for
> "righteousness," but more than all this, we long for unconsciousness
> which institutionalized religion is willing to give us in spades.
>
> So where's the puzzle? I assume the diff between Europe and US in
> terms of religiosity is that life in Europe is not yet as
> fragmented/destroyed as life in the U.S. "As countries get
> richer"....my ass.
Except that I don't think the above-average religiosity of the U.S. population can be explained by contemporary developments -- it was noted by many 19th-century European visitors, and probably can be traced back to pre-Revolutionary times. Perhaps it is due to a tendency for the more religiously devoted Europeans to migrate to the colonies, leaving their more free-thinking contemporaries behind? (Just a wild guess.)
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ A sympathetic Scot summed it all up very neatly in the remark, 'You should make a point of trying every experience once, excepting incest and folk-dancing.' -- Sir Arnold Bax