Is US religious fundamentalism declining?

[Lenina Rosenweg]

In the 90s and early 2000s Christian fundamentalism appeared huge and growing in the US. There was a constant media barrage implying the necessity of having a "faith community". Mega-churches were big.This was while liberal Protestant and "mainline" denominations were dramatically shrinking.

I feel Christian fundamentalism is dangerous, on several levels. For obvious reasons it fit in with the needs of imperialism.

I could be wrong but it appears that this movement, which seemed close to remaking America a few years ago, is now suffering a dramatic decline. Its still big of course, particularly in US bible belt states, but its lost its "vanguard" appeal.Politicians like Santorum (and much of the rest of the Republican right) have been an embarrassment. Many or most youth today are much more accepting of lgbt rights and "alternate sexualities". Groups like the Westboro Baptist Church serve to drive more and more people away from Christianity.

Under Obama's faux "multiculturalism" fundamentalism isn't seen as important by the US ruling classes.

Atheists are becoming more open and assertive in the "national dialogue".

According to bits and pieces I've read young people are now leaving religion in droves. I',m not really connected to mainstream America-most of my friends are leftists or at least very liberal and I don't fully understand US society, to be honest.

I thought about posting this in religion but I put it here because it touches on many other aspects of US society.

Is it my imagination or is this movement finally imploding or at least receding?

[Ocean Seal]

I disagree what we've seen is more atheist and more hardcore religious people in the past few years, but I'm pretty young so I don't remember the 90's too well.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I don't know about actual numbers, but I think the observable difference now is that the right-christian coalition is not as dominant in mainstream politics right now. Numbers matter less than the position within the balance of social forces when it comes to mainstream politics in the US.

Part of this is a sort of break up of the New Right and so some of the right are distancing themselves or even blame the right-Christians for electoral losses or decline in credibility. Another issue is that in the 1990s many of the attacks on the working class were framed as "family values" and other "culture war" ways and the ruling class used the religious-right as their main vehicle for organizing, popularizing, and justifying these measures. Since we are no longer in the "stable" economic conditions of the mid 1990s, the right-wing rhetoric and attacks have become a little more direct and so groups like the tea-party have emerged as possible vehicles to give a (right-)populist tint to the harsher versions of the ruling class agenda.

I think from out side, it hasn't been atheists as much as the persistence and sense of momentum around gay rights that have contributed to any decline in the influence of the religious right. Feminism and Gay Rights were essentially the things that the christian section of the new-right organized in opposition to as far as social issues. There were the more secular tax revolts, "tough on crime", and anti-bussing parts of the new right, but opposition to gay rights and women's rights were the big push among the christian right.

If they are no longer able to "put people in their place" on this issue (if they can't help the ruling class to create a sense of fear of nonconformity to "social order" through anti-gay bigotry), then they loose some of their value as a social force for the ruling class and become less attractive and they will favor other analogous right-wing social forces to use to sell the business agenda.

But it's still a big group which could potentially be mobilized. I think if there were new wars in the middle east, the ruling class could use the religious right to push Islamophobia more--but I think as long as the main focus is on austerity (something which probably divides mainstream religious groups more than social issues--for example in the Bay Area the Catholic Church organized the anti-gay marriage initiatives while other priests were fighting against anti-immigrant and anti-homessless measures) then the ruling class will want to rely more on tea-party and minutmen type groups that can oppose street-protests by workers if needed and give a sense of right-populism to the anti-union attacks and service cut-backs (even though there are more union members in the US than tea-party protesters, the media often characterized the tea-party as representing "real America").

[MuscularTophFan]

I swear I can't make up my mind. America is truly a bizarre case. On the one hand gay marriage is more accepted(53%) now than in the past and yet more Americans consider themselves "pro-life" than pro-choice.

The religious right has only gotten stronger and more batshit insane in America. And yet American youth are generally secular and atheistic.

And yet more Americans consider themselves creationist now than ever.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/155003/hold-creationist-view-human-origins.aspx

I just don't see the religious right in America dying out anytime soon. It seems like America is forever doomed to be a religious shit hole. 16% of Americans are non-religious and yet I can't even name five US politicians who are non-religious. Hell US politicians can never stfu about god or religion. And it's not right wingers either. I mean nancy pelosi thanks god for pro abortion and Obama recently said the golden rule of the bible is the reason he support gay marriage. Name me a single US politician who would ever have the guts to say "religion is the root of all evil."

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

I swear I can't make up my mind. America is truly a bizarre case. On the one hand gay marriage is more accepted(53%) now than in the past and yet more Americans consider themselves "pro-life" than pro-choice.

The religious right has only gotten stronger and more batshit insane in America. And yet American youth are generally secular and atheistic.

And yet more Americans consider themselves creationist now than ever.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/155003/hold-creationist-view-human-origins.aspx

I just don't see the religious right in America dying out anytime soon. It seems like America is forever doomed to be a religious shit hole. 16% of Americans are non-religious and yet I can't even name five US politicians who are non-religious. Hell US politicians can never stfu about god or religion. And it's not right wingers either. I mean nancy pelosi thanks god for pro abortion and Obama recently said the golden rule of the bible is the reason he support gay marriage. Name me a single US politician who would ever have the guts to say "religion is the root of all evil."

It isn't

[DasFapital]

I would say the emerging younger generation is far more secular and rational minded than the middle aged and elderly population. I think is scientific thinking is being more accepted among this generation than any other before it and of course things such as LGBT rights brought up earlier. Even among the rural working class people that Christianity has relied on for its converts, I have noticed religion being openly mocked. In some ways I has become "cool" to be an atheist contrary to what the news media has tried to portray.

[MuscularTophFan]

It isn't
Prove it.

[Mr. Natural]

Religious fundamentalism, evangelism, escapism, etc., is increasing in the US. In the absence of understanding, there will be ignorance, and in the US, there is no understanding.

The Tea Party has become a font of political-religious conservatism, and it is now driving the increasingly reactionary and "religious" Republican Party. In my region of northwestern California, the sheriffs of the seven regional counties just held a well-attended townhall gathering in which they rather nakedly promoted extreme political views. They are obviously aiming toward the creation of a de facto reactionary "State of Jefferson" (an old separatist movement of this region).

Here is local newspaper's partial account of the remarks delivered by the sheriff of the county where I reside: "In order to avoid the imminent destruction of rural America's way of life, Wilson urged people to teach their families about the Constitution and 'teach them about our history so they know that free housing, free health care, free, free, free is not freedom', he said. 'Freedom is only given to you by one thing: by God and by birth and not by government or a king'."

The Tea Party locally and nationally is pushing the opiate of the people, and locally at least, there is no opposition. It just frustrates me beyond adequate expression that an extreme right is getting going and nothing is happening on the left. Nothing.

I revere Marx and Engels and their materialist dialectic and historical materialism and penetrating analysis of the nature of capitalism. However, they did not know how to organize, nor have subsequent Marxists managed to develop an adequate revolutionary organizing theory. For this to happen, Marxist would have to engage the new sciences of organization that they have been so "religiously" avoiding.

Marxists are trying to find a "religious" refuge in the classics, while regular Americans are increasingly retreating into fundamentalist religion from an increasingly unworkable and unsatisfying world they do not understand.

Somewhere Marx said or wrote that we must become the gods we have created. To do so, though, Marxists will have to engage the new sciences of the organization of life and society and thereby acquire the "godlike" ability to organize in the manner that brings matter and people to life.

My red-green best.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

Prove it.

Capitalism is.

[Kenco Smooth]

Capitalism is.

Top Quality proof....


Prove it.

The catholic church quite often comes out as a relatively progressive force in Latin America in comparison to secular US satellite states.

[Permanent Revolutionary]

Prove it.

Yeah, I think you're anti-religion crusade is getting a bit out of hand. Mind you, I'm an atheist myself, but you're just rambling for the most part.

PS: And surely there are non-religious politicians in the US, but by announcing that, they'd lose votes. So that's a no can do.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

Top Quality proof....



The catholic church quite often comes out as a relatively progressive force in Latin America in comparison to secular US satellite states.


I thought it was common knowledge among leftist (to be fair he is a non-violent anarchist) that capitalism is worse than the church, and the church is just doing it's part in capitalism.
If the church was the worst thing, we are wasting our time wanting to overthrow capitalism, aren't we?

[MEGAMANTROTSKY]

I swear I can't make up my mind. America is truly a bizarre case. On the one hand gay marriage is more accepted(53%) now than in the past and yet more Americans consider themselves "pro-life" than pro-choice.

The religious right has only gotten stronger and more batshit insane in America. And yet American youth are generally secular and atheistic.

And yet more Americans consider themselves creationist now than ever.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/155003/hold-creationist-view-human-origins.aspx

I just don't see the religious right in America dying out anytime soon. It seems like America is forever doomed to be a religious shit hole. 16% of Americans are non-religious and yet I can't even name five US politicians who are non-religious. Hell US politicians can never stfu about god or religion. And it's not right wingers either. I mean nancy pelosi thanks god for pro abortion and Obama recently said the golden rule of the bible is the reason he support gay marriage. Name me a single US politician who would ever have the guts to say "religion is the root of all evil."
I think you may benefit from reading Lenin's take on the matter, which was contained in "The Attitude of the Worker's Party to Religion (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1909/may/13.htm)". He argues against those tactics by socialists that hammer on atheistic propaganda with the mindset of "religion is the root of all evil":

And so: “Down with religion and long live atheism; the dissemination of atheist views is our chief task!” The Marxist says that this is not true, that it is a superficial view, the view of narrow bourgeois uplifters. It does not explain the roots of religion profoundly enough; it explains them, not in a materialist but in an idealist way.If it does not change your mind, I hope you will at least reconsider your viewpoint. Placing religion at the center is just the easy way out, not the correct way out.

[m1omfg]

Indeed, many communists repeat the "Religion is the opium of the people" phrase even through it means that religion is one of the few things than can remedy the pain of working class existence in a capitalist society. Overthrowing organized religion in a socialist society is all good and fine, but being ridiculously anti-theist in a capitalist society is just taking away one of the few things that poor people draw psychological support from.

[Sea]

Prove it.please read
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/burden-of-proof.html
and for that matter
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fallacy

The one making the assertion needs to supply the proof. You assert that religion is the root of all evil; you are making the assertion.

Obama recently said the golden rule of the bible is the reason he support gay marriage.Singing a lullaby to the religious right. Do you not know better than to take the POTUS at face value?

more Americans consider themselves "pro-life" than pro-choice.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/118399/more-americans-pro-life-than-pro-choice-first-time.aspx

Only when you divide the debate into always legal vs. always illegal. Scroll down a bit on that page. But this isn't the first time you didn't bother to read your sources:
And yet more Americans consider themselves creationist now than ever.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/155003/hold-creationist-view-human-origins.aspx

The prevalence of this creationist view of the origin of humans is essentially unchanged from 30 years ago, when Gallup first asked the question.Direct quote from the first fucking paragraph of the article you linked. More than ever my ass.