Everything else being equal, the more religious the individual in the U.S. today, the higher the probability that the individual identifies with or leans toward the Republican party. I called this the “R and R rule” in my 2012 book on religion, found the phenomenon alive and well in my 2014 review of Gallup data, and now, nine years later, Gallup’s data confirm that this religiosity gap is more evident than ever.
Americans’ political identity is a powerful correlate of a wide range of Americans’ attitudes and behaviors, including, in particular, a wide range of attitudes about hot-button political and social issues. And we know that political identity is related to views of the national economy, views of the nation’s institutions, happiness, perceptions of the nation’s most important problems, and a variety of other measures. It is thus not surprising that political identity would also be related to religion.
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Fuck religion. So incredibly devious to spin the (normal) fear of death into a lifetime of obligation. Taking advantage of the curious intellectual property of human nature in order to plasticize the population. So gross.
Ewww, I stepped in religion.
Couldn’t have said it better myself 👏
Of course. Sects like The Religious Society of Friends and the UUs are definitely brainwashing and oppressing people. That’s not at all an overgeneralization based on your experiences with the strictly hierarchical and imperialist forms of religion that are most dominant in the culture.
I’m not taking any school of thought that encourages magical thinking seriously.
It’s all brain poison, maybe your brain poison is less harmful but it’s still brain poison.
I’m not religious. I just don’t hate all religion because some of them are harmful.
My favorite part of this ridiculous interaction is how you took my blanket statement and tried to make spcific examples fit into my generalization, which you already have convinced yourself are not worth metal effort. but here you are letting whatever the fuck you just said, live rent free, and spew out randomly and awkwardly. Have fun with that.
So you made a sweeping generalization, and I came up with some counterexamples, and you think insulting me is an effective response? Wow, your skill at analysis and argument is literally indescribable.
This is interesting:
University of Pennsylvania political scientist Michele Margolis, in her 2018 book, From Politics to the Pews, makes the case that political identity is the primary causal factor in determining Americans’ religious identity, more so than the other way around.
Republican first, religious second. That explains why the supposed religious right can be as cruel and hateful as it is while still calling themselves religious. The Bible fits into their political ideology rather the other way around. So, they can reject a type of compassion as satanic rather than be unconditionally compassionate.
I mean it’s been clear for a while. The culture of American Christianity has long had little to do with the text of the Bible, the traditions of the Hebrews, or anyone else who had traditionally held the religion.
Religion in the US has long been part of a larger culture of being a “good” American. A good American buys a new car every couple years, votes republican, raises their daughter to be a good housewife, goes to church 15 times a year, and just thinks American culture should be more like it used to. It’s always been so empty.
It’s sad that we don’t teach the history of symbolism / society media consumption patterns. Multimedia presentation of Fox News is way more televangelism than a dusty old book named The Bible. We just let advertising and marketing media act upon the population and people behave as if there are no side-effects or conflicting influence systems. We could educate everyone on the world-wide patterns of this and the history, but we do not. We behave somehow as if the Middle East / Levant is a role model of people fighting it out over their favorite story patterns.
the history of symbolism / society media consumption patterns.
I feel like this could be a college-level class all by itself!
Of course. Moreover, people who aren’t dicks grow up and move on from religions whose dogma justifies dick moves, while the dicks remain. It’s only natural.
I always hear American evangelicals cry about being shown “hate” and being “persecuted” because of their faith. But, honestly, I think very few people hate or would have any interest in persecuting Christians or any other faith group.
However, evangelicals have gotten themselves so thoroughly into bed with the Republican Party that it’s often hard for others to see the difference. And a lot of people do hate the Republican Party. At this point, what evangelicals feel is hate by proxy.
The solution seems simple: Get out of bed with the Republican Party. Spread the gospel of spiritual hope instead of a political gospel of hate.
The issue is that there just often aren’t non political churches to go to in many areas anymore.
In the seattle area, I think the only new church that has gotten built in the last 30 years has been prosperity gospel while the ones that serve the poor have been in the area for a hundred years or operate on weekends out of a high school gymnasium.
The story of Christianity on the west coast is one of land deeds.
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