| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"concrete" |
| Date: |
10 Jan 2005 05:56:39 PM |
| Object: |
American Fundamentalism |
American Fundamentalism
Posted by Noam Chomsky at 01:14 PM
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
There are studies, often, asking people whether religious beliefs are
“very important” to them, how often they attend religious services, etc.
There are also interesting studies relating intensity of religious
belief (by such measures) with economic development. It turns out that
there is a very close correlation: the more developed the society, the
lower the intensity of religious belief. The United States, alone in the
studies I have seen, is completely off the chart, with far higher
religious commitment than predicted by level of development. Canada is
somewhat off the chart in the same direction. You can find some
statistics and discussion in an important study by Walter Dean Burnham,
a very well-known and respected political scientists, in Ferguson and
Rogers, eds., Hidden Election.
As for “fundamentalism,” if we are using the term in a narrow technical
sense, then I suppose one could say that the US is perhaps the only
fundamentalist country, since the concept was invented here, by American
Protestants, about a century ago, to distinguish themselves from
“liberal Protestants.” All other uses are metaphoric, analogic, and
highly subjective. That’s true in the press, journals of opinion, and
most of scholarship. It is often used to refer to extreme religious
belief, sometimes to militant religious belief. In any event, there
cannot be research into the question…
There could be research into specific beliefs: belief in creationism (in
the US, about almost 50%—about a quarter believe in evolution, and most
of the rest are not sure or lean towards creationism), belief in the
devil (in the US, 70%), etc. I don’t know of comparative studies on this
(which would require translation into other belief systems), but it’s
generally assumed that one would have to go very far from the industrial
societies to find comparable results.
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| User: "navi-gater" |
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| Title: Re: American Fundamentalism |
10 Jan 2005 07:16:12 PM |
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concrete <c@n.crete> wrote in news:rlzEd.516770$2W1.45647
@news.easynews.com:
American Fundamentalism
Posted by Noam Chomsky at 01:14 PM
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
There are studies, often, asking people whether religious beliefs are
“very important” to them, how often they attend religious services, etc.
There are also interesting studies relating intensity of religious
belief (by such measures) with economic development. It turns out that
there is a very close correlation: the more developed the society, the
lower the intensity of religious belief. The United States, alone in the
studies I have seen, is completely off the chart, with far higher
religious commitment than predicted by level of development. Canada is
somewhat off the chart in the same direction.
Well there are two ways you can spin this....
1) From this result it appears that there is in fact no correlation between
religion and economic development (or you could even have an extreme
position of religion helping economic growth - not the failure of the
USSR).
2) The economic development of the USA has mainly occured in areas (Cali,
NY) where religion is not very widespread, while the "middle states" where
religion is more dominant isn't as prosperous. This probably holds for
Canada too.
Lies, damned lies, and statistics...
gater.
.
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| User: "Will Samuel" |
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| Title: Re: American Fundamentalism |
10 Jan 2005 07:20:12 PM |
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How come this isn't on Noam's website?
-----------
Will Samuel
willsamuel@hotmail.com
http://www.fft-ottawa.com/
"The pen is truly mightier than the sword, and your dreams are your own
to accomplish." - W.S
navi-gater wrote:
concrete <c@n.crete> wrote in news:rlzEd.516770$2W1.45647
@news.easynews.com:
American Fundamentalism
Posted by Noam Chomsky at 01:14 PM
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
There are studies, often, asking people whether religious beliefs are
“very important” to them, how often they attend religious services, etc.
There are also interesting studies relating intensity of religious
belief (by such measures) with economic development. It turns out that
there is a very close correlation: the more developed the society, the
lower the intensity of religious belief. The United States, alone in the
studies I have seen, is completely off the chart, with far higher
religious commitment than predicted by level of development. Canada is
somewhat off the chart in the same direction.
Well there are two ways you can spin this....
1) From this result it appears that there is in fact no correlation between
religion and economic development (or you could even have an extreme
position of religion helping economic growth - not the failure of the
USSR).
2) The economic development of the USA has mainly occured in areas (Cali,
NY) where religion is not very widespread, while the "middle states" where
religion is more dominant isn't as prosperous. This probably holds for
Canada too.
Lies, damned lies, and statistics...
gater.
.
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