Jamie_L

It's true that the U.S. had a lot of different religious groups fleeing to its shores during its founding.

With a nice, secular Constitution and no state church, all these different groups were allowed to operate and flourish without much oppression. With all sorts of religious variety (religio-diversity?), people in the U.S. have always been able to shop around for a religion that suits their own personal fundamentalist leanings.

The UK, however, is a much older country. It's state church squashed most other religions long ago. Whereas in the U.S. you could go to another church if you didn't like yours, in the UK, the options were more along the lines of: go to Church or become non-religious. So, given that dichotomy, maybe more people chose to just shrug off religion when their church started annoying them.

Of course, this is all unedcuated speculation.

Jamie

Harpy

[QUOTE]There was recently a bit of debate about the funding of religious schools. For clarification for Non UK members, In Britain Church schools receive 80% of there funding from the state

Most parents want to get their kids into these institutions because they are exclusive and there is some evidence they provide a "better" education,

This is due largely to the fact that religious schools take far fewer "special needs cases".

Although Britain is a mostly a secular society the current PM is a very religious and there have been some worrying signs of his beliefs affecting policies of late.

doubtingt

I agree with many things others have said, but we shouldn't overlook the obvious fact that American science and philosophy education is very poor in the U.S. compared to U.K. in general.
Keep in mind that it is not simply that more Americans are willing to have state sponsored religion, it is that more Americans personally believe the absurd ideas of religion and fundamentalist religion, especially. Values regarding separation do not really explain this issue. However, the fact that most H.S. (and even college) grads in the U.S. lack any real training in science, logic, critical thinking or philosophy in general could be telling.

Grad Student Humanist

Bingo!!!

Amen-Moses

Actually it does, we just don't call it a constitution.

If you ever want to come and visit I'll take you to Salisbury and show it to you.

Amen-Moses

Harpy

Being an atheist in England is I imagine like being a xtian in the bible belt, for the most part we are rebels without a cause. The xtian is the odd one out.

If your down the pub and someone metions jebus there usually follows a very uncomfortable and embarrased silence.

Born again xtians are seen as a extremely geeky and to be strenuosly avoided.

On the other hand we have Bishops sitting in our upper house who can vote on issues such as the age of gay consent and whether homosexuals and unmarried couples can adopt. We have state sponsored church schools and our head od state is also head of the CofE.

This insight into secular Britain is brought to you by the Harpy, always one to bash the Bishop

Jonte

The thing that I really cannot get my mind around about US fundamentalism is how it plays against the real technological and scientific optimism and belief in progress that is one of America’s best features. The American public seems to have no problem accepting technologies like genetic engineering whilst trenchantly opposing the philosophical basis of biology which underpins it. On the other hand almost no one in Europe has any religious problem with Darwinism, or indeed seriously doubts its validity on any grounds, yet there is deep and largely irrational opposition to genetic engineering and almost every other technological innovation. This opposition is part of a general picture of deep-rooted technological and scientific suspicion and pessimism.

The difference is really quite stark: there is a TV vote in the UK at present to nominate “the greatest Briton”. Darwin is currently standing in third place and there is not a peep out of any religious groups about this. This is no egg-head exercise either – the top ten candidates also rather embarrassingly include Princess Diana and John Lennon (who, I am told, was some kind of popular musician).

So Americans believe that science is untrue, but that it nevertheless works effectively and makes them rich. Europeans believe that science is true, but on the whole think it is leading us to hell in a hand basket. Very odd!

Grad Student Humanist

Well from what I've read and heard, the Church of England is positively enlightened in comparison to the church folks in power over here. Somehow I doubt that the bishops over there disbelieve evolution, believe in a literal flood, and think
gays/atheists/etc were responsible for 9/11.

It would be one thing if in this country it was the liberal/secular Xtians who were in charge, but it's not. It's the reactionaries, the Bible literalists, the fundies, the ones who think it's their right to live in a society which has codified their moral beliefs into the law.

xstvn

Take a look at this map from the 2000 Gore/Bush election:


Gore receieved more votes but by counties won Bush dominated. I won't say only smart people voted for Gore (personally I felt he was a poor candidate), but I think this clearly illustrates the divide in America.
Notice the blue areas, big cities, university towns, technology centers, places where freethought is tolerated if not encouraged.
Then the huge swath of red where the words "intellectual" or "wordly" are considered put downs.
I imagine if there was a county by county map of church attendance it would look similar.

Sabine Grant

I would be careful not to generalize that statement under the term Europeans as Europe is constituted of so many different cultures, economies, political system etc... for example, France promoted RU 486 long before it was accepted in the US and the HIV research is one of the most progressive in the world.In terms of technology most of the energy of France relies on nuclear plants. Dassaut produces the Airbus and was daring to co-create the Concorde with the UK. The TGV (high speed train) is another example of innovative technology.

{edited by Toto to fix tag}

[ November 16, 2002: Message edited by: Toto ]</p>