Kinda fond of predestinarian Calvinists, myself. Premise: since God knows everything, and I do mean everything, He knew before you were born you were going to fuck up total and go straight to Hell. And did it anyway. Because God is a Total Dick.
I bet religious people will once again condemn those damned **47 **per-centers. 
That one third minority seems to include all of the crazy people that are mentioned in the Crazification factor:
I’d like to see a poll of how many people think Obama wants to make Islam the official religion of the US.
Huh. I thought the pilgrims fled England because they wanted a state religion that happened to be different from England’s state religion.
I suspect they represent all sorts of different notions of what it would mean for Christianity to be the official religion. Some of them may want the government run along “Christian” lines (according to their varying notions of what that would be), some may have been thinking of the way the Church of England is England’s “official religion,” and some may have thought that they were just hitting a “Like” button for Christianity.
In any case, I think the thread title is inaccurate, simply because people who are not absolute morons all too often do or support things that are absolutely moronic.
OK. they are provisional morons.
The stupidity enters into in it when ignorant and stupid gets equated with evil, that’s where.
I think that 1/3 of Americans probably are very provincial and very unaware of things outside of their very small geographic area and circle of people- if all they know is their little crowd of equally ignorant religious people and stay in their little area, then they may have no idea that it’s a bad idea to impose that sort of thing on everyone- as far as they know, everyone’s just like them so what’s the issue?
Of course, that doesn’t make it right, but it hardly makes it evil.
I hate to hear what Monty thinks of most Europeans since many if not most European countries have state religions.
He must think virtually all Swedes are complete morons.
The Swedes are a pretty sharp bunch. (Now those Danes, on the other hand…)
I was wondering this too. I doubt we’ll get an answer.
Nothing breeds apathy and antipathy among the religious as much a state church.
I would bet you will get an answer from Monty sooner or later, but just on the off chance he does not come back, allow me. The melting pot that is the United States is not the homogeneous country that is Sweden. Anybody who tries to make arguments about state religions being good for one and thus being good for the other (or vice versa) is firmly in the 33% that Monty was highlighting.
No one asked me about this. The only time I’ve participated in any poll is on The Straight Dope. Where did they ask these alleged Americans? Probably exiting churches and in nursing homes.
I wasn’t making the argument that they were better and as most would gather from my user name I’m a fan of the idea of a secular state. I was merely pointing out that the US with it’s belief in separation of Church and State is in the minority, not the majority of both the world and the west and that most Western countries, including countries like the UK, Australia, Canada and most of Europe have some level of the mixing of government and religion.
By Monty’s logic, if the people of North Carolina who want Christianity to be the official religion of their state are complete morons then so are the people of Norway who actually have an established Church.
Simple, really. Just amend the constitution to state that an official religion may be established if a specific denomination of a specific faith wins a majority on a public referendum offering all the possible options and that a 5% minority of the voters call for a new referendum at any time when there is an official established religion (if there is no official religion, the referendum will require 25% to get on the ballot).
Many? Maybe.
Most? No.
from MEBuckner’s link:
So it’s a good thing, then?
I’m a Christian, fairly devout too. And I adamantly oppose prayer in schools and “a state religion”.
the problem with prayer is, whose prayer is it going to be? Even if it’s given by a Christian, what is they throw in some doctrinal quibble I disagree with? Even if I *had *kids I want to be teaching them religion, not someone else.
And what if someone wanted “In the name of Allah, the Merciful and Compassionate?” Wouldn’t the fundamentalists go absolutely insane? Or, “hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one!” *That *wouldn’t sit to well with fundies, now, would it?
The problem with the people who support prayer in schools is that they want it to be their version of prayer, not some heathen prayer!
Same thing goes for state religion.
I’m glad to be Episcopalian. As the rector said when I was taking classes “Being Episcopal means you don’t have to check your brains at the door.”
Ask swampbear, I think he’ll agree with me!
Nah. You’re ignoring context.
Monty made no claim that any nation anywhere in which people wanted a state religion was populated by morons. His specific claim was in regard to the U.S. where there is a long history both of separation of church and state and of state persecution of various religious groups.
A nation such as Norway where the state support of a specific denomination happens to extend back several hundred years and where the society has become mostly secular while leaving the state/religion entanglements as a cultural artifact that harms no one is a separate situation that provides significantly different context.
Maybe. One hypothesis about why Europeans are so much less religious than Americans is that having a state sanctioned Church makes one more suspicious of organized religion than when there are literally dozens of churches to choose from, none any more official than another.