Religion, freedom and US history

[UndercoverElephant]

I think most people would agree that the most serious problems caused by religion are those caused by fundamentalist Christianity and Islam (I'm leaving out Judaism for the moment because of the unique history of the state of Israel and the relatively small numbers of people involved). In the case of Islam, the fundamentalist movement is connected with societies which are basically still mediaevil - no democracy, no rights for women, no cultural belief of a need to seperate religion and politics, etc... The same cannot be said for Christian fundamentalism. The United States was until recently the most powerful and advanced nation on earth - it has a constitution seperating state and church, democracy, equal rights for all, etc... So why are large swathes of the US dominated by religious fundamentalists?

I think it has to be traced back to the period in Europe when we initially battled with catholic tyrrany and other forms of religious extremism. In Europe, especially protestant Europe, the idea of freedom was always connected to the idea of "freedom from popery" . In England it wasn't just popery either - we had a civil war to get rid of the monarchy only to replace the monarch with a religious conservative who was so extreme he decided to ban Christmas (can't have people enjoying a religious festival can we?) The period in European history where we fought and won a series of battles against catholicism and other sorts of religious fundamentalism co-incided with the period when the first waves of European immigration into to North America occurred. Many of the people who went across the western ocean were the religious extremists who were no longer welcome in protestant Europe. So while in Europe "freedom" came to be associated with freedom from religion, in the US, right from the start, it came to be associated with freedom to practise our religion - freedom from the reformers and the progressive politics which was clamping down on unwelcome forms of religion in Europe. I think this attitude never changed. Regardless of what it says in the consititution about seperation of state and church, the US has always been a religious society. It still sees "freedom" as "freedom to believe whatever religious nonsense we like", "freedom from those oppressive scientists who insist on teaching evolution to our children", "freedom from lefty-atheist-feminists who kill foetuses".

Societies have long memories. "Freedom from Popery" and "freedom from religious conservatism" are deeply ingrained in north-west European culture.

What do you think of my assessment?
And if it is roughly true, is there any way forward for the US or do we to accept that these attitudes to freedom and religion will persist because they are too deeply entwined with America's view of itself and it's own history?

[Holler Hoojer]

I believe your take on US history is colored by current propaganda. At the time of the founding of the Republic, there was considerable interest in freedom from religion. You might look specifically at Pennsylvania, Virginia, Rhode Island, and New York (largely by disinterest) to see this. Although the culture of America was fairly religious, it was not Christian in the sense we see it today, and certainly not fundamentalist. There were large numbers of Friends and Mennonists who simply weren't buying the conventional wisdom, plus a number of back-slid Episcopalians who wanted a more secular society. Much of what we think of today as "American religion" dates from the second great awakening about 1830.

[Darat]

The religious aspects of the conflicts that you mention were always between different religions never for "freedom from religion". I would go further and say that concept only really gained any traction thanks to the French and American revolutions. The USA does seem to have been backsliding a little bit recently but it is still in a better position than many of the countries of the EU in regards to the official sanctioning of a particular religion.

[Beerina]

The religious aspects of the conflicts that you mention were always between different religions never for "freedom from religion". I would go further and say that concept only really gained any traction thanks to the French and American revolutions. The USA does seem to have been backsliding a little bit recently but it is still in a better position than many of the countries of the EU in regards to the official sanctioning of a particular religion.

It goes to show you how religion tries to grow itself in power (q.v. meme theory). Originally a place small sects fled to to avoid persecution by state religions, the US, having achieved freedom of religion for all, then became under attack by religion trying to reassert itself. We now have the idiotic concept of a generic Christian supra-religion trying to gather all the sects together to force the 10 commandments or some other unarguable commonality down everyone's throat.