# Why is the US so religious? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 14, 2005, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-us-so-religious/303846 "2005-05-14T18:04:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2005, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-us-so-religious/303846/61 "2005-05-17T17:05:19Z")
> [@Shalmanese](#): > > I think, in part, it may have to do with population densities. America has vast swathes of land where there aren’t many people living there but, taken cumulatively, form the bulk of the American population. But what makes you think they form the “bulk”? Of the total U.S. population of 288 million, more than 116 million live in our 25 largest metropolitan areas ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan\_Statistical\_Area](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Statistical_Area)) – the largest of these being New York-Northern New Jersy-Long Island (pop. 18.3 million) and the smallest being Kansas City-Overland Park (1.8 million). Add in the populations of medium-to-small cities, and I’m sure we’d find more Americans live in cities and suburbs than in small towns or the countryside. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2005, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-us-so-religious/303846/62 "2005-05-17T17:41:44Z")
Sorry, probably not bulk, but if you look at how people voted in the 2000/2004 elections, it’s startled me to see how segregated the US was in terms of political belief. The fact that theres very little mixing between the religious core of the southern US heartlands and the secular cities dotting the coast might be a rather significant reason. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2005, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-us-so-religious/303846/63 "2005-05-17T18:18:15Z")
I have read that Christianity and other religions that promote obedience to a set of rules and an authority tend to do well in unstable social environments: they help to bring stability and order to lives that need (self-) discipline. Could the greater amounts of crime and poverty, and the resultant instability, in some US demographics have provided greater oppurtunity for this type of religion? ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2005, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-us-so-religious/303846/64 "2005-05-17T18:24:58Z")
> [@Sunspace](#): > > I have read that Christianity and other religions that promote obedience to a set of rules and an authority tend to do well in unstable social environments: they help to bring stability and order to lives that need (self-) discipline. > > Could the greater amounts of crime and poverty, and the resultant instability, in some US demographics have provided greater oppurtunity for this type of religion? Hmmm…Prison Ministries are credited with a great deall of success. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2005, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-us-so-religious/303846/65 "2005-05-17T19:17:48Z")
> [@Spatial Rift 47](#): > > In the United States, there is a 90% turnover rate of religion from one generation to the next. In other words, of those parents who describe themselves as being part of some religious group, 90% of the time their children describe themselves as being part of the same religious group. I think this may be part of the misperception of the religiosity (?) of the US. Many people will self-identify as part of a religious group, yet be pretty much non-practicing. For example, I’ll say I’m Methodist, but I haven’t been to church in years, and when I did, it wasn’t a Methodist church. Methodists just happen to be the ones that line up the most with my personal beliefs, and where I’ve felt most comfortable. I think there are more people showing up as belonging to a denomination, but who are not active than people think. There’s also a certain stigma against atheism/agnosticism here that tends to have people who are probably best identified as atheist/agnostic identifying themselves as whatever denomination their parents were, just for the sake of not causing a ruckus. While many people identify as Christian, significantly fewer actually attend church regularly or look to it for guidance on political or social issues, at least in my experience. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2005, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-us-so-religious/303846/66 "2005-05-17T19:28:34Z")
Short answer: God hates America. Religion is His way of punishing us. Every country comes in for some, but God **really** hates America. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2005, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-us-so-religious/303846/67 "2005-05-17T20:43:19Z")
Gives new meaning to “God bless America,” then. “God, bless America. _Please!_” 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2005, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-us-so-religious/303846/68 "2005-05-18T04:13:56Z")
> [@Malodorous](#): > > Won’t flame you, but I strongly disagree. I know a lot of folks who want prayer in school, and they want it because they honestly belive encouraging christian values etc. amonst the young is beneficial. I highly doubt that anything close to a majority use it as some sort of code word for segregation. I dunno. It’s clear to me that calls for “traditional values” harken back to an imaginary past, and it’s a mistake to ignore the fact that one major difference between now and then is black civil rights. Remember, the Black Power movement happened during the second half of the sixties, right during that period that social conservatives blame for everything from gun violence to dry, itchy skin. I’m not saying everyone who believes in “traditional values” is a covert racist, but I definitely believe that it’s part of the dialogue of covert racism, and expresses a particular message to people who want to hear it. > [@Futurama](#): > > Do you remember when cookies came fresh from the oven? > Petridge Farm remembers. > > Remember when women couldn’t vote and certain folk weren’t allowed on golf courses? > Petridge Farm remembers. ---
**Author:** ![MidnightRadio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecd19e/32.png) [@MidnightRadio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MidnightRadio)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2005, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-us-so-religious/303846/69 "2005-05-18T04:57:37Z")
That “Futurama” quote reminds me of a “Mad TV” skit from a few years ago. This white couple goes to one of those Fifties-themed diners with another, black, couple. They sit down and start talking about how much they love these kinds of places, but when the waitress comes over to take their orders, she points to the “No Coloreds” sign and tells the black couple they have to leave. ---
**Author:** ![sewalk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@sewalk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sewalk)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2005, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-us-so-religious/303846/70 "2005-05-18T06:29:03Z")
My personal belief is that the fundamentalist Christian segment of our country has a voice all out of proportion to its size. The size of this voice instills fear in many of the rest of us. My home state is one of the hot spots of fundamentalism in the US and intolerance here is remarkable. Even within my own family, I keep my own beliefs (a sharp lack thereof, actually) private as not to disturb the vocal minority in the family. My own brother has gone from being a nearly faithless savage in his younger days to being a zealot today (I think he harbors much guilt and embarassment about his younger days). My mother and I quietly discuss our own beliefs without involving anyone else - she is pretty much agnostic and I am leaning more and more toward atheism. Many in her extended family probably feel the same way but my matriarchal grandmother is an evangelical Southern Baptist. Dad’s family is even worse; his parents are devout Church of Christ cultists. Do I believe that a majority of Oklahomans are bible-thumping evangelical militaristic christians? No, it seems that the silent majority is more agnostic than evangelical. But this doesn’t stop them from heaving stones when the tribal shamans demand it. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2005, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-us-so-religious/303846/71 "2005-05-18T11:19:21Z")
> [@JThunder](#): > > You omitted the critical part, “… respecting the establishment of religion.” The religious groups in question contend that the First Amendment is frequently bandied about even in situations where a religion is NOT being established. You may personally disagree with that assessment, but that’s immaterial to the topic at hand. I hope this doesn’t seem off subject, but why do we assume that religious means good, or better, than someone who is not? I know a lot of people who would not be considered religious, who are very moral, kind,and considerate of others and their beliefs. Monavis ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2005, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-us-so-religious/303846/72 "2005-05-18T12:21:23Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > The point made above about southern and other predominantly non-urban cultures growing around churches is an extremely important one. The role of the church in black culture for centuries also cannot be underestimated (the one place where they could be relatively free to gather and commune without white people present) and thus civic organization and identity became fused with religion. In the south as well the heavy loss of life and crippling socioeconomic changes during and following the Civil War caused much introspection that even strenghtened the church:state bond, as well as an intense distrust and despising of anything northern or otherwise an affront to “tradition” (evolution, civil rights for blacks and gays, etc) was an invasive body that had to be repelled because they’d lost too much of their identity already. > > I’ll be flamed for saying this, but I honestly think one reason that politics has become so intensely religion oriented in the south is that it’s a substitute for open racism. While a politician can no longer shout “N\*GGER!” and hope to get elected, he _can_ say “Remember when we had prayer in schools? Things were so much better then…” > > Prayer left schools in the south not terribly long after (in some places before) they were racially integrated. “When we had prayer in schools” translates as “back when schools were all-white” or “back before black empowerment”. To the older generations it’s also “remember when your body was young and you still had hopes and dreams you thought you would fulfill and above all you knew how everything worked and what the natural order should be back before the paradigm shifted every Tuesday”. And “remember a time when there was moral certainty, back before you were forced to confront the fact that your world was based on a blood soaked history of inequities and that the people you revered in your youth were actually racially opressive bigots”? > > Trent Lott’s fall was related to this: he made traditionalist Southerners lose the euphemism that sustains them for a moment and that was fatal. It’s one thing to talk about how wonderful the nation was when you had the post WW2 patriotism and the “prayers in school”, but when he parised not just a vague lost Eden but specifically the bid for the presidency of an ardent racial separatist, he laid naked the ugliness of that aspect of southern culture and unintentionally removed the _Magnolia Myth Interface_ of happy black people living below poverty level because they didn’t want any better and a rigidly uniform rural caste system that was that way because “dad gum we liked it that way” rather than mass media condemning it was still suppressable and economic vassalage to husbands and companies would allow nothing else, etc… It’s the job of any nostalgist to eliminate the negative aspects and he hiccoughed on the job. You show contempt like this for us, and then you wonder why we don’t vote for your candidates. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2005, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-us-so-religious/303846/73 "2005-05-19T00:30:22Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > You show contempt like this for us, and then you wonder why we don’t vote for your candidates. :rolleyes: No I never wondered why “You” don’t vote for the same candidates I do (I don’t really have candidates per se). However, I personally think it has more to do with gross inner prejudices, a civilly negligent ignorance on Constitutional issues and political history (the fault in part of the education system), and the psychological need for scapegoating and return-to-an-Eden-that-never-was moreso than the fact that “I” hold you in contempt (which I really don’t). ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2005, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-us-so-religious/303846/74 "2005-05-19T01:06:35Z")
Here’s something I haven’t seen addressed yet: What is the **generational** component of religiosity in America? Is, say, the 20-35 age cohort any less religious than the 36-50 or 51-65? If so, we could expect religious influence to gradually decline in the culture as a whole as the older, more religious generations pass from the scene – unless impiety is simply a typical characteristic of youth and people generally grow more traditionally religious as they age. I’ve never seen any studies or statistics on any of these questions. Have any of you? ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2005, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-us-so-religious/303846/75 "2005-05-19T01:29:24Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > You show contempt like this for us, and then you wonder why we don’t vote for your candidates. :rolleyes: Some ideas are contemptible, like Lott’s holding up Strom Thurmond’s stubborn support for racial segregation by law as a example of much better things used to be. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2005, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-us-so-religious/303846/76 "2005-05-19T02:11:37Z")
> [@Priceguy](#): > > In [this Pit thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=316481), I asked a question which I will rephrase to better suit Great Debates. > > How come religion is such a big issue in the US? I don’t know, really. One would think, given our history and the progress we’ve made since 1776, that we would have left it behind in the dust long before now. ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2005, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-us-so-religious/303846/77 "2005-05-19T11:56:07Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > I don’t know, really. One would think, given our history and the progress we’ve made since 1776, that we would have left it behind in the dust long before now. Clearly, for many people, religion has not declined in its usefulness in the modern world. If you feel that it has, I’m not sure why you haven’t put forth an argument to support that. ---
**Author:** ![lee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lee/32/7455_2.png) [@lee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lee)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2005, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-us-so-religious/303846/78 "2005-05-19T15:00:35Z")
America has had a few religious revivals, known as Great Awakenings. This, for many, was like being converted to Christianity for the first time, so here we have the established religion filled with the passion of new converts every other generation or so. Each time it happens, it is just long enough away so that those involved can act like this time it is the first time, the real time. Also, historically Americans who get fed up with local politics or family can simply move away, especially while there was west left unsettled. Even now there are many places for malcontents to move to. It is much easier to act like you believe in the one true religion straight from olden times and sustain the passion of the newly converted if you don’t have parents and grand parents who pretty much share your religion but not the zeal, or neighbors that aren’t riled up about religion and aren’t doing much evil either. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2005, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-us-so-religious/303846/79 "2005-05-19T15:24:56Z")
> [@Sage Rat](#): > > The Bible Belt is the big issue. > > But not sure of the history of that area which caused it to become “The Bible belt”, so I can’t comment other than to point thataway. Oh bullshit. Unless you consider Minnesota, Wisconsin and Kansas to be part of the Bible Belt, that is: > [@](#): > > Across the country, there has been increasing opposition to teaching evolution. Peters said officials at two other Minnesota school districts have asked her not to talk about the book [a children’s book on evolution] in visits over the past year… > > …In Kansas, the State Board of Education is expected to require that teachers tell students that evolution is controversial… > > …Last year, the Grantsburg, Wis., school district drew widespread attention when a new policy urged teachers to explore alternative theories to evolution… [Cite.](http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0512-08.htm) And when the [US house votes 333-27](http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/news/aa062800a.htm) to support **Ohio** ’s state motto (“With God all things are possible”), I don’t think you can pin that on “the Bible Belt.” ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2005, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-us-so-religious/303846/80 "2005-05-19T15:42:52Z")
> [@David Simmons](#): > > I think so and I think this is why religion has become important in politics. It seems to me that the super-religious notice the decline in church attendance, equate that with weakening religion and become politically super-active because they fear the loss of religion. That’s certainly my impression on the ground. If anything, the South in particular is much **less** religious than it was during my childhood 30 years ago. I can think of a number of churches that have just closed their doors as membership drifted downward. I think the political activism of religious groups is the result of this. They feel their grip on things slipping and they’re trying desperately (and very noisily) to do something about it. (Unfortunately, politicians can’t tell the difference between noise and numerosity. They hear all the screaming from the religious right and they feel compelled to respond to it.) I think religiosity is a product of isolation. The South and much of the Midwest were for many years physically and culturally isolated. As they have become less so over the past few decades, with the advent of TV, and then cable TV, and then the internet, religion has declined in importance. I think most folks would still tell you they believe in God, but how many regularly attend church these days? I sense that number shrinking fast. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-us-so-religious/303846.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-us-so-religious/303846.md?page=5)