Dawg,
What a great post, my feelings exactly.
Awakened007,
Great post as well, and I will have to say the "crutch" comment came out of frustration. Maybe a little juvenile tit for tat.
Concerning the "born again" thread
by startingover 32 Replies latest jw friends
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sustainedhaze
What I find most bothersome to me is the fact that when I tell people that I no longer believe in God they stare at me like I must be loco. But when they are asked for the proof, the answer much of the time is because the bible tells me so. I enjoy my freedom from the oppressive witness org. and perhaps that ultimately led me to my present beliefs or rather the lack of them, but in no way did the bad taste of the org. influence my leaving of christianity. It was many things, lack of proof leading the way. No global flood, no stopping the sun at Jericho, on and on. I think our nature makes us want to believe that perhaps there is more, something beyond the present, that we matter more than we do, and that our short time alive on earth isn't all we get. I think that thought is too much for some, making them cling to some type of belief in god, just in case.
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MissingLink
Dawg and StartingOver - we should get together and have a beer. I agree with what you're saying, and glad you have the balls to say it.
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hmike
The bottom line is that, here, religion is really a private matter and people are not expected to pose as "believers" in public space. In such a context a strong religious commitment is rather the exception than the rule, requiring genuine conviction, and the high level of atheism and agnosticism simply reflects the majority's lack of such conviction in the absence of social constraint. Weren't people expected to declare themselves "believers" in America it would not be so different, I suppose.
Part of this, in American Protestant churches, is due to the emphasis pastors and preachers place on Matt. 10:32. Many call out in prayer, "Lord, give us boldness!" Many worship services are geared to bringing the faithful "out of their shell" (as I brought up in the "Worship" thread). Part of it may also be the independent, in-your-face approach in social contact that is more a part of this culture than elsewhere. Finally, it may also be a reaction to the assertiveness of atheists, who were only reacting to their own situation in a "Christian" culture. The theme today seems to be, "Don't let others walk over you!"—resulting in road rage and a host of other ills. I don't know what happened to humility and meekness.
Our church sponsors missionaries in Europe, specifically Switzerland, I think. There is very, very little progress there. Over here, in some quarters, Europe—and I'm sorry, but especially France—is seem as spiritually dead. The concern for some is that America is headed that way, so the push goes on for "revival."
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Forscher
I might add an important difference in the American and European experience which Nakissos didn't mention,
The fact that State churches continued to dominate the European landscape long after we rejected them on this side of the pond. I think we have Madison to think for that one. The famous story is that he had an experience which turned him into an activist for complete freedom of religion. He was traveling in Virginia and saw some Baptist ministers who were in jail for "preaching without a state license." Since one had to be credentialed by the Church of England to get a license to preach in Virginia because that church was the state church, Bsptist couldn't get a license and their faith was essentially banned.
So Madison insisted that his own home state and the Constitution of the United States include provisions guaranteeing each individual his natural right to follow whatever faith he thought was right. The provision in the US Constitution was placed in what became the First Amendment.
Europe, on the other hand, continued the institution of the state church supported by the funds and power of the state right into the twentieth century. The use of the state's police powers to support institutions such as the Roman Catholic Church and others increased the resentment of the populace towards those churches and encouraged the rise of atheism in a way which the first amendments guarantee of freedom of religion prevented over here. I think having to be careful about publicly expressing opinions counter to the teachings of state churches over in Europe probably also contributed to the tradition of keeping one's religion to oneself and considering religion a private matter. The US tradition of an open religious freedom negated any such need.
So the European and United State's religious experiences followed quite divergent pathways.
Forscher
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MissingLink
I heard on the radio the other day that a recent survey showed 25% of Irish don't believe there is a god (even though most of these are technically Catholic)
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Narkissos
Forscher,
I did briefly allude to the formal diversity of European secularisation. The French Revolution of 1789 was strongly anticlerical (i.e. anti-Catholic), but then the Napoleonian empire turned to an institutional deal of support and control of both Catholic and Protestant churches, which globally lasted throughout the 19th century until the final and radical separation of Church and State in 1905. During the same period the formal institutional links between Church and State remained practically unchanged in Germany, England, or Lutheran Scandinavia. In spite of those institutional differences the process of cultural secularisation was common to all (except perhaps the UK, in part), and you now have similar (i.e. "high," from a US perspective) levels of agnosticism and atheism in all those countries. So I don't think your analysis stands for the present situation.
The big difference of America, I think, is that its strong concept of freedom is unseparably tied in with tolerance of religious sectarianism (or, if I dare say, tolerance of intolerance) right from the start. Freedom from religion is a fashionable motto but actually an odd concept (if not a contradiction) to most Americans -- while it was essential to the early development of European democracy (regardless of the formal relationship of Church and State) through the French Revolution over 200 years ago. So in a sense you are right: European freedom was initially wrought from and built against State churches, and originally anticlerical; you are just two centuries late.
Again, my impression is that the rational Deism of the Founding Fathers who built the American secular democracy, and were very close in fact to the European philosophy of Enlightenment, died out. And now the sectarians whose "freedom of religion" it initially protected are taking its place, although their philosophy of church and state relationship is closer to an interdenominational theocracy than to a really secular democracy...
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nvrgnbk
their philosophy of church and state relationship is closer to an interdenominational theocracy than to a really secular democracy...
Terrifyingly true.
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Forscher
I find the phrase "tolerance of intolerance" a rather odd way to characterize our concept of religious freedom over here Narkissos.
It misses the whole point of religious freedom completely. It was not about tolerating sectarianism at all. The whole point was to make it the official policy of the new government that everybody could do his or her thing as long as they did not harm others. Mormonism was not tolerated since its polygamist stance was seen as both morally wrong and harmful of women and children.
Out of the founding fathers, only one, Jefferson, can be called a deist for sure. George Washington is a bit harder to peg because his wife destroyed their personal correspondence after his death and he was very careful to keep his own views private because he did not wish his personal views on religion to become an issue during his service to the country he helped found. Franklin admitted to deist leanings as a youth, but kept his own views to himself as his stature rose. They were only a few of the founding fathers, and Jefferson was on the sidelines in France while the republic was founded and had little to do with the finished product.
The vast majority of the founding fathers were "sectarian" by your definition. However, the most influential on religious issues were the Quakers, who both preached and practiced tolerance. They were the ones largely behind the inclusion of religious freedom in the First Amendment, though I've already acknowledged Madison's role. I think it a given that they were securing their own right to practice their own faith as much as securing the same for others.
Forscher
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Narkissos
Forscher,
Thanks. Your points are appreciated.
"Tolerance of intolerance" was a bit caricatural indeed (that intent was clear in my previous post, I think), but it does somehow reflect our perception of the American notion of freedom of religion, as still perpetuated by the yearly report of the US Department of State which defends the "rights" of all "religions" worldwide, including JWs and Scientology for instance -- regardless (that's the point) of how intolerant those may be to their own members or society at large.
We tend to consider the common secular public space as basically non-religious while you tend to consider it as basically inter-religious. Freedom from religion is built in our version of secularism (which indeed was initially, I mean two centuries ago, wrought from one or two dominant religions -- freedom forother religions being only a by-product, as it were. It seems to me that the American type of secularism works exactly the opposite way -- almost as if atheism, agnosticism or free thought were construed as "other religions" and tolerated as such (pardon again the exaggeration in that statement, but it may help making my point clearer).
I still think the extinction of Deism (which is not particular to America) had a dramatic effect on US secularism, while it was structurally unimportant to the European one. One detail I find symptomatic is the shift of popular opinion about Freemasonry, for instance. One century ago it was probably stronger and more respected in America than it was in (at least continental) Europe, now it is one of the favourite targets of conspiracy theorists over there. Maybe I am completely wrong, but the message I receive is the following: the current social norm in America (essential for political offices, in particular) requires not only that you claim to believe in "God," but that your belief is "certified" by membership into one of the socially accepted theistic confessions (the adventure of the Mormon candidate shows how the limit is moving -- slowly).