Watch 'n Wait: So what is it you disagree with?
Anonymous: Apollonian - quiet, not given to excess, controlled, etc. Dionysian - wild, frenzied, unpredictable, etc. Not really very useful terms.
Bubblehead: Where did the 51% come from? There are studies that indicate that most, if not all European countries, are nowhere near as religious as the U.S.
Jimmy K: You mean Catholics and Lutherans never tortured or killed on behalf of their faiths?
I love you guys!
But Thanksgiving: Although I am not religious in any orthodox sense of that term I do give thanks. Not to the "Lord," but, rather, to the Great Mystery, and I do so with a great deal of awe and bewilderment. I thank the Great Mystery because I was for some reason born as an American. I suppose I could have been born a Palestinian, a Guatemalan, Ugandan, a Chinese, Korean, or an Indian chief. But, happily I was not. I don't understand why but I count my blessings and believe it was a good thing. I am very happy having been born in the United States (even though I can't say I am very pleased with the Bush/Cheney disaster). I love my country (but not in the sense of "right or wrong"). I give thanks for the fact that somehow I have lived to a fairly ripe old age and seem to be healthy enough to continue even further (when I was a young man if anyone had told me I would live to be 77 years old I would have laughed at them). I am thankful for having a wonderful wife and a marvelously intelligent and handsome son who is doing well in the University. I give thanks for always having food to eat and a roof over my head, even though I cannot say we were ever what you might describe as wealthy. I give thanks for having had the opportunity to travel widely and to live for various periods of time in other countries. I am thankful for having overcome obstacles in my path to maturity, happy to overcome the xenophobia, homophobia, sexism, and racism that I was exposed to in the small mining town where I was raised. Although there are things in my past I am not proud of I believe that I am a better person now than I was.
All in all I guess I would say I am relatively happy and content. Of course I still don't like turkey or chicken breast, eggplant, okra, or "cute." And I don't like liars, warmongers, torturers, and war profiteers. In the last twelve years or so I have developed a genuine antipathy with respect to Republicans (I guess that is putting it mildly).
Carry on. Give thanks. Tomorrow is the first day for the rest of our lives.
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If you click on the "51%" in my last comment, it'll take you to a CBS poll from last year saying that 51% of Americans don't believe in evolution. It's called a "hyperlink" -- many bloggers use them. Also, you can search through Google to find many recent studies indicating that a majority of Italians, Irish, Poles, and Austrians believe in God. I also note that your original statement implies that no Muslim country could be considered "developed".
Anyway, anthropologically speaking, couldn't one argue that the concept of "God" was invented by weaker but smarter humans to allow them to control the stronger ones who would otherwise kill them, thereby showing that religion is a natural Darwinian step in societal evolution? And that such a step was necessary to allow human society to evolve past the "bigger and stronger guys take whatever they want" stage?
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