| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Christopher A. Lee" |
| Date: |
06 Apr 2004 05:12:25 PM |
| Object: |
Re: The godless consitution |
On Tue, 6 Apr 2004 18:37:19 +0000 (UTC), "Mike Dworetsky"
<platinum198@pants.btinternet.com> wrote:
I agree, that's the same picture I see. Although the laws and structure are
supposed to create and maintain a state-church connection, in fact religion
is not pushed on anyone in the UK, and the average Brit is unreligious. In
the US where there is a legal separation of church and state, religion is
much more important to many people. Unfortunately there are a lot of people
there who seem to think that they have some sort of divine right to breach
the barrier and force their religious ideas down other people's kids throats
in the schools.
I've seen Britain go through three phases.
When I was at primary school in the early 1950s everybody was expected
to be religious, and if you weren't there was something wrong with
you.
Then in the 1960s there was a major influx of immigrants from the
Commonwealth - people of different colours, cultures and religions to
do the jobs native born British wouldn't do at a time of full
emloyment.
The older generation didn't like it, and there were race riots. But to
a kid growing up what mattered was that a class colleague was a good
cricketer or footballer (soccer) , not what his colour or religion
was. And a pretty girl was a pretty girl.
In a densely populated country like Britain, the way out of this
trouble was to become more accepting of other cultures. So a
generation of kids grew up far more tolerant of the things that divide
the US.
Funnily enough as the older generation is aging, it is becoming more
conservative and less tolerant in spite of what it went through 30-40
years ago. I see this when I phone the people back home.
.
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