Arfa

I am an atheist living in the UK and as such have very little exposure to a "religious right" and serious breaches of government policy by the church. Tony Blair has made no secret of his faith yet appears to apply rationality and constraint before applying these beliefs. The Religious community within the UK is largely silent and religious individuals consider their faith a very private matter. The recent controversy concerning creationist science being taught in a private school was quickly delt with in favour of the secular community, with no outcry from the established church when the majority favoured evolutionary principles being taught as the standard. My question is why do our relative countries ( UK and America ),handle the subject of religion so differently and why America as a whole has embraced and enforced its version of christianity upon its own people. As I understand America was not built upon chrisitian principles yet they are prevalent throughout not only the majority of its citizenship but more worringly its leadership. As an atheist in the UK I do not have to fear speaking out or expressing my "godless" views, I may have to explain myself more thoroughly but I do not worry of intimidation or personal attack, but I feel this is not generally the case in America where the term seems to be "Closet Atheist" and if it wasn't for organisations like the Secula Web, atheism would be talked about in hushed tones. I of course in my ignorance may have misread the situation , but it would still be interesting to know why there exist such differences in attitude and acceptance of religion.

Perchance

I've wondered this, too. Here's the best answer I've been able to come up with:

Everybody talks about the USA as a "changing" nation, but I think things like technology are a lot quicker to change than things like attitudes and beliefs. Someone might be using a computer, writing e-mail, be aware of spaceships even if he's never seen one- and still be stuck in the mindset he was raised with, because enough people haven't challenged him to force him to change or modify it.

Then, too, religion in the USA seems to get a special kind of "protection," for which there doesn't exist a rational reason (that I've heard). Questioning someone's beliefs isn't the kind of thing a "polite" person does. Everyone has the right to believe what he wants to. And while this is a good thing, the lack of open discussion means that some people sink into complacency and follow the things their parents taught them rather than look around and decide for themselves.

Then, too, the new furor over hate speech has made religious discussion even more complicated, I think. In the same way that most people are reluctant to discuss race if they aren't part of a minority for fear of offending someone, I think that people outside a religious group or denomination don't feel they can criticize it because they're "outsiders." Again, I think the right to private and personal belief is a great thing- but the people who actually obey the principle are not, I think, obeying it for the principle of freedom of religion. Offending someone, at least in the college culture where I've spent the last five years of my life, is a greater crime than almost anything else. Open criticism of religion can be viewed as hate speech.

The problem is, there's no objective standard for what isn't a "hate crime" and what isn't. You could even argue that all crimes are hate crimes, because they're probably committed out of hatred for a particular person if not a particular group.

Something like that, anyway. Some attitudes are unchanging, and the ones that have changed seem to only make open discussion more difficult.

-Perchance.