This is anecdotal based on your personal experience. But you don't live in the Bible Belt. Even if you did, humans are hardwired to handle a maximum of about 200 social relationships (
Dunbar's number). Among those, even if all the people you knew well were fundamentalist Christians, I doubt that you would have discussed with all of them openly and truthfully what they thought of Atheists (especially if they knew you were not religious). And since you don't live in a fundamentalist Christian environment, I doubt that your personal experience representative of the 100+ million Christians in the Bible Belt. So let's look at the statistics instead.
Pew Research asked Americans of every religious denomination in every state
how they interpreted the holy scriptures. By definition a fundamentalist Christian is someone who believes that the Bible is the Word of God and should be taken literally. 31% of respondents nationwide fall in this category. Fundamentalism was highest among
Historically Black Protestants (59%),
Evangelical Protestants (55%), Jehovah's Witnesses (47%) and Muslims (42%). Follow the links to see the distribution of the two first denominations by state. They are of course mostly found in the Bible Belt.
The problem I have with Fundamentalists is that, since they take the Bible literally, they believe passages like these:
- Leviticus 20:9 If anyone curses his father or mother, he must be put to death.
- Exodus 35:2 For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day shall be your holy day, a day of sabbath rest to the Lord. Whoever does any work on it is to be put to death.
- Ezekiel 18:13 He lends at interest and takes a profit. Will such a man live? He will not! Because he has done all these detestable things, he is to be put to death; his blood will be on his own head.
- When men fight with one another, and the wife of the one draws near to rescue her husband from the hand of him who is beating him, and puts out her hand and seizes him by the private parts, then you shall cut off her hand. Deuteronomy 25:11-12
- Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man intimately. But all the girls who have not known man intimately, spare for yourselves. Numbers 31:17-18
On slavery;
- Exodus 21:20-21 – "If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished, but he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the slave is his property."
On rape:
- Deuteronomy 22:28-29 - "If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, he shall pay the girl's father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the girl, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives."
On hating your family;
- Luke 14:26 – " If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple.
On killing children;
- Hosea 13:16 - "The people of Samaria must bear their guilt, because they have rebelled against their God. They will fall by the sword; their little ones will be dashed to the ground, their pregnant women ripped open."
On adultery:
- Genesis 38:8-10 - "Then Judah said to Onan, "Lie with your brother's wife and fulfill your duty to her as a brother-in-law to produce offspring for your brother." But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his; so whenever he lay with his brother's wife, he spilled his semen on the ground to keep from producing offspring for his brother. What he did was wicked in the LORD's sight; so he put him to death also."
- Leviticus 20:10 - “If a man commits adultery with another man's wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death.”
Now can you say with absolute certainty that there is no link whatsoever between holding such believes and the fact that the crime rate (including homicides) is so high in Bible Belt states? These are people who openly admitted to academics that they took the Word of God literally and 85% of them said that religion is 'very important' for them, so they are not going to take these 'instructions' lightly. Furthermore, those people are poorer (46% earning less than $30,000) and less educated (56% high school or less), two factors that also correlate with higher crime and homicide rates.
Add to this that
gun ownership rates in Bible Belt states are among the highest nationwide (from 29% in North Carolina to 58% in Arkansas, but average in the 40%) and you'd got a dangerous cocktail. In New York State only 10% of people own a gun, about the same as New Jersey (11%), but still higher than Rhode Island (5%). Big contrast with the Deep South.
Maciamo, I hope you take this in the spirit in which it is offered, but that is a hugely distorted view of even fundamentalist Christians. I don't know how you could have formed such conclusions.
First of all, no, it's not just my anecdotal experience from the bastion of a basically non-fundamentalist area like New England and the Mid-Atlantic states that tells me fundamentalist Protestants don't "hate" atheists, and don't want to harm them. Do you think that our liberal, mostly atheistic or at least agnostic members of the media wouldn't broadcast that if there were any indication of it. I've never heard of such a thing being reported anywhere in this country except maybe a group of a few hundred survivalist fanatics holed up in some mountain valley, or that weird cult that was going around disturbing the burials of war dead.
It just doesn't exist, period, and as a matter of fact I do know fundamentalists. My father's sister scandalized her entire family by marrying for the second time a man from Kentucky and converting to his religion. He was a member of the Pentecostal Church. I don't think you can get more fundamentalist, Bible Thumping, southern Evangelical than that. She annoyed the hell out of us by constantly trying to convert us, and yes, we found it beyond strange that an Italian would no longer drink a glass of wine, and her girls weren't allowed to wear make up and go dancing, which of course they wound up doing eventually anyway. Two members of my husband's family, in small town upstate New York have converted to a fundamentalist religion, and two cousins of mine, who moved to, and married, respectively, in West Virginia and Georgia, converted to the spouse's religion. And yes, we do discuss religion, and it can get a bit heated at times, but never, ever have I heard anything so outlandish as to wish to harm atheists. I'm telling you; they just want to persuade them to "see the light", and that includes non-fundamentalists Christians.
I think you have a "fundamental" misunderstanding of what is meant in modern religious parlance by "taking scripture literally". It's a term of art that has to be understood in context: you have to know what they mean by that. Fundamentalist Christians don't believe in ANY of those things: not one. Likewise they don't follow the dietary laws in Leviticus. What is meant by taking the Bible "literally" is actually not literally at all other than in the sense that SOME of them believe that the "story" of creation actually happened in the way described, that all the miracles that are described, such as the parting of the waters during the Exodus, the giving of the Ten Commandments, Jonah and the whale, Joshua and the towers of Jericho etc. Likewise they believe in Christ's miracles. It absolutely doesn't mean that they follow the rules of the Old Testament.
As for guns and gun violence, there is no "causative" relationship between that and religiosity. It's correlation, not causation. Some southern states, where, if you ask people, black or white, if they believe that the Bible is literally the word of God, almost all of them, imo, would say yes, although as I pointed out they really don't mean "literally" in the way you think. Those states also have vast rural areas where hunting is a way of life, as is sport shooting etc. Even urban dwellers are recently from farm areas or still remain close ties to it. Lots of military bases and retired military personnel there too. There are also, especially in the large cities, but also in small towns, black areas where there is incredible poverty and alcohol and drug addiction. Close to 50% of the population in some southern states is black. They also have guns, bought illegally for the most part. The kind of young men who are deeply committed Christians and go to church every Sunday and go to Bible classes during the week and are highly involved in church social activities, are quite unlikely to go robbing liquor stores and shooting the owner or having a gang war over drugs.
Then there's the case of the southwest. There's a huge percentage of Latinos, Mexicans, mostly, in the large urban centers. Usually Catholic, although Evangelicals are making inroads in some places. Again, if you ask them if they believe the Bible is the word of God they'd say yes, but Catholics aren't fundamentalists. The suburbs are lovely, but the inner city of a place like Phoenix? It's hell on earth: poverty stricken, drug and gang infested, and yes, there's a lot of gun violence, mostly with weapons trafficked through our open border with Mexico, which is where a lot of the drugs flow from as well. Now perhaps you get why so many Americans in the southwest want some sort of barrier or at least much stricter enforcement.
Now, it's true that when there is spousal abuse, and things get out of hand, if there's a gun in the house, that will be used rather than strangling her to death or beating her to death, but frankly, who cares? I've seen the bodies of the victims of all three and I'd prefer the first. The same goes for male suicide, btw. It does make it easier.
A better example might be the far western states, where there is high religiosity, high gun ownership, but low gun violence. Utah is a prime example. Mormons can't smoke, drink, or "God forbid" do drugs.
The joke is there's an anesthesia level for Mormons and one for the rest of Americans. As I said, although I regret having said it, their religion's tenets make absolutely no sense to me, but by and large they seem, on average, very nice, very peaceful, and very law abiding citizens. Btw, some traditional Protestant fundamentalist sects follow the same lifestyle. I've also found most westerners cordial, friendly, peaceful people.
When you don't know the social dynamics of a country from the inside out, statistics, which are almost always just averages, can be highly uninformative and just downright wrong in terms of the perception created.
Saying 'God bless you' is not what annoys me. Are you really saying that you would be fine having to socialise on a daily basis with people who do not believe in evolution and therefore also deny the existence of genetic mutations and the whole concept of genetics? These are people who would prefer to let their children die rather than cure a genetic disease with genetic engineering, either because they don't "believe in it" or because it would be "playing God". Not to mention that by denying evolution they are far more likely to be racist (as all races were created by God and not the result of adaptations to local environments) and understand history the way White Supremacists do (again it's not a coincidence that there happen to be far more of them in the Bible Belt).
Maciamo, people who wouldn't get medical treatment for their children are predominantly Jehovah's Witnesses; they're a splinter group from a splinter group. They're not "at all" representative of most fundamentalist Christians. Of course evangelicals get medical help for their children. They also believe in the power of prayer, of course. Believing that there is a God who can change the laws of nature if he so chooses doesn't necessarily have anything to do with believing that God gave men brains to make medical discoveries.
No, religious belief is not more likely to make you racist. Not today. In my experience, all I've ever heard in church is about the "brotherhood" of man. Again, it's correlation, not causation. Southerners are more traditional in every way. That doesn't mean that one traditional belief causes the other traditional belief or behavior. Fundamentalist preachers don't get up and preach about how the Bible says blacks should be enslaved. It just doesn't happen. It's true that blacks have their own fundamentalist churches, but that started years ago under segregation. The blacks I know, including my dearest friend, a Jamaican immigrant, value the history and the solidarity of their black churches, and she has no interest whatsoever in joining a white Protestant church. She doesn't "get" Catholicism at all; finds the services very boring.
As for socializing with people on a daily basis who might not believe in evolution, why not? When would the subject come up? If the neighbor, for example, is considerate, polite, sociable, even kind and helpful, why the heck would I care what he or she believes about evolution. I have fundamentalist friends now, people who have converted. We just don't discuss religion. It's a free country; you can believe whatever you want to believe so long as you don't hurt other people. It's the same where homosexuality is concerned. I have gay men friends whom I adore. I don't want to hear about how they're cruising for anonymous sex in gay bars. We don't discuss it. It doesn't impact my life.
Really, that's your argument? New York is very hot in summer and frigidly cold in winter. The Deep South is even hotter in summer, but much milder in winter, even inland (I double checked it for numerous cities - I found no exception).
Maciamo, I live in Long Island. I know "precisely" what the weather is like. It snows maybe three or four times a year if you mean something other than a few inches. We have a beautiful, long, autumn, and our springs are cool. We don't get really hot weather until the end of June to the end of August. There's absolutely no comparison to South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas etc. and I've been in all those places in summer. I could never, ever, live there year round no matter what other benefits they might have. Same goes, obviously, for Florida.
I could also, btw, never, ever, live in the Pacific northwest. The sun never shines there practically. It's always raining, and if not raining, it's grey and overcast. Yes, the weather in Paris isn't so different (I found it extremely disappointing in terms of the weather), and I would never want to live there either, or in England or Ireland. Maybe I have seasonal affective disorder or something, but weeks of that kind of weather make me extremely depressed. I absolutely hate it. Give me cold winters any time, so long as the sun is shining. My first cousin moved there for her oncology residency, married and stayed. I can't tell you how many times she's said if she had it to do over again she wouldn't choose it.
That's over and above the politics there, which I detest. I really, truly couldn't live in a place where Anti-fa thrives. I also couldn't live in Vermont: full of aging 60s radicals and hippies still with their huge weed gardens and wearing birkenstocks and long hair. YUCK!
One can't assume everyone's tastes are the same in weather or in politics.
That was wartime. Entirely different story. People shouldn't need guns to defend themselves in peace time in a developed country.
Maciamo, was Germany a developed country in the 1930s? I would say yes. Yet, they elected Hitler and the Nazi party. Within a few years they were living in a totalitarian regime. Even if they wanted to resist, to protect their disabled children from the gas chamber, they didn't have the means to do it. Why is that? It's because once again they took away everyone's firearms. Mussolini wasn't "elected" but the same thing happened there.
Our founders were correct. NO government should be trusted implicitly. Europeans seem to have very short memories.
That's the thing. There are lots of dangerous neighbourhoods and that's why people feel they need guns. So you do not deny that insecurity is more of a problem in the US in general (not in your New York neighbourhood) than in Western or Northern Europe?
There's a lot of guns in minority communities. Most of them were illegally purchased. In communities in the south, midwest, southwest, even in perfectly nice working class and middle class communities where there's not much danger at all, if any, people still have traditionally felt that it's their right under the Second Amendment not only to have hunting firearms of various sorts and how every many they choose, but to have rifles etc. for self defense in their homes should it be necessary. I think part of it is a hangover from the settlement of this country when in many communities in the south but even more so in the midwest there were no police. I'm talking about periods up until the late 1800s. It's a pioneer mentality I suppose you could say. You protected your own homes. Somebody came on your ranch to steal your cows or even chickens; you came out with your shotgun.
It's different to some degree in the northeast. It's much more settled, much further from pioneer days, much less rural. There's much less legal gun ownership, although there are people who still go hunting. I'll tell you one thing, though, after seeing the riots in New York City, the looting of the flagship Macy's store, the bands of anti-fa and BLM young people harassing diners on the street etc. gun ownership is shooting up.
What I don't understand is why it didn't shoot up, pun not intended, in France after all those riots and killings in Muslim ghettos. People here would have been up in arms, again, pun not intended. Americans just won't put up with that for long.
