"For 50 years, the big enemy out there that was against our way of life was communism, which was atheistic, so the average American saw secularism and atheism as being attached to a hostile force. Now the forces that are arrayed against our way of life are religious...it's militant fundamentalism, and now the average person in our society is attaching the idea of religion with being anti-democratic...and because of that, increasingly people are saying, "If you understand that Jesus is the only way, you're not going to be a good citizen in a pluralistic, democratic society; you're going to impose your views on people." And that has really, really gained a lot of traction with the average non-Christian in a place like New York since 9/11."
–Tim Keller, author of The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism in an interview on The White Horse Inn, November 1, 2009.
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6 comments:
Of course, the "average" person in our society is religious.
So you disagree that the average person is now more skeptical about religion's compatibility with democracy than they are with atheism's incompatibility?
The U.S. is 70% to 80% Christian and approximately 90% theistic. 25% of Americans would not vote for an atheist. We are banned from holding public office in six states, and although these bans are not enforced, we still occupy a disproportionately small number of political offices. I think the average person is skeptical about religion's compatibility with democracy, that is, skeptical of all religions except their own (eg Obama is a Muslim...Oh No!).
LB said: So you disagree that the average person is now more skeptical about religion's compatibility with democracy than they are with atheism's incompatibility?
Why would Atheism be in any way incompatable with Democracy?
In the previous generation it was consider so due to the connection between communism and atheism. Guilt by association, mostly.
LB said: In the previous generation it was consider so due to the connection between communism and atheism. Guilt by association, mostly.
Or a simple (and indeed typical) case of right-wing propaganda......
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