[lbo-talk] religion in the US

[B.]

"If you ask what percentage [of Americans] believe in
miracles—I think it's about 75 percent. What
percentage believes that the world was created the way
it is now 10,000 years ago, it's about half. What
percentage are born-again Christians, I don't remember
the exact number but maybe a third. In fact, one of
the interesting poll results that came out this summer
is that about a third of the population of the United
States believes that we must support everything Israel
does because that's a sign of the Second Coming."

-- Noam Chomsky, Humanist magazine, January/February
2007

Am also reminded of a quote from Homer Simpson in an
episode of The Simpsons that had the family placed
ahistorically as Pilgrims about to set off to the New
World: "We must leave England and its insufficiently
Puritanical ways!"

-B.

Chris Doss wrote:

"I don't have any ideas about US religiosity other
than the obvious ones (heavy Puritan background, etc."

Carrol Cox wrote:

"If only it were 'Puritanism' that was at the roots of
current u.s. religiosity; it would lend some
intellectual vigor. But the religiosity is evangelical
and/or fundamentalist, neither of which has any
linkage to the 'Puritans' (almost as misleading a term
as 'postmodern')."