Religious tribalism is tearing America apart and there is no apparent solution to this problem.

The country has not been this divided since the decades prior to the Civil War.

Unlike the conflict over slavery, this division does not follow state or regional boundaries but is largely rural vs. urban, young vs old, and non-white vs. white.

Unlike the open white supremacy pre-WW2 era, religion is now the vector to enact similar repressive laws under the guise of "religious freedom."

White Christians are no longer in the majority in America and whites be in the minority before 2050. This "top rail on bottom" fear is the underlying source of many current issues including immigration, abortion, LGBTQIA rights, climate change, etc and the opposition is based on religion to disguise the true purpose. People who fear a future in the minority are lashing out in more and more extreme ways and are using religion and adherence to religious orthodoxy as reinforcment mechanisms. The extreme far right, white nationalism, and fascism -- like the religious group "The Order" of the 1980s -- is becoming more and more mainstream.

My question to you is this:

Besides time and death, is there any solution to this problem?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/30/2018 06:10PM by anybody.

If there's no solution, why do you ask us for solutions?

I also disagree with the overly-hyperbolic, "The country has not been this divided since the decades prior to the Civil War."

In fact, periods of rapid change have *always* resulted in a very much divided nation in the US. As have some (most?) "major events." The country was VERY divided, for example, before our entry into WWI, with an almost 50/50 split between those insisting we should keep out of Europe's wars, and those insisting we should flex our military muscle on the "right" side. The arguing, rhetoric, and anger expressed were on par with the divisions of today (they just didn't have social media so that any yahoo with a computer could spew internationally in 10 seconds).

There have also been numerous times the whole "rural vs. urban" and "young vs. old" divisions have been as wide and rancorous.

I see lots of solutions. Some more likely than others. And one really, really easy one: hang on and get through the next 20-30 years, at which point a great many older people with "traditional" ideas will be gone. And then we'll have a whole new set of changes to argue about.

Look, as far as the issues themselves, I'm almost always on your side. But I do think you've shortchanged yourself on learning about our country's history...:)

It took a war to end slavery.

I have no idea what can solve this problem.

"It took a war to end slavery."

Well...let's say it took a war to end it RIGHT THEN.
There were other solutions then, too. Ones other than a war. That the people/leaders of that time chose not to pursue those doesn't mean they wouldn't have worked. :)

how brainwashed can you be? The IRS made us all slaves and it began in Lincoln's term in 1862.

vigilant Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> how brainwashed can you be? The IRS made us all
> slaves and it began in Lincoln's term in 1862.

Why doesn't it surprise me that you don't know your history?

The first "income tax" (but no IRS) was passed by congress in 1861 (not 1862). That tax was rescinded in 1872.

What we know as "income tax" didn't come until the 16th amendment was ratified in 1913.

And I'm neither a slave to the IRS nor brainwashed.

You just live on the plantation?

anybody Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It took a war to end slavery.

In your country. Not in dozens of others.

I doubt the US would survive such a war.

A war founded loosely on slavery and the break up of the nation is one thing, but a religious war is something else altogether. TBM's and others will likely fight as fundamentalists, and having seen the mess in Iraq and places like it people know how to fight an asymmetric war. A war like that would not be single set piece battles like the US Civil War.

Just once I'd like it to be "them vs. them", with "us" sitting on the fence...

How exactly is america being torn apart? Everything is fine. What's this religious end-times mentality about america being torn apart? Can you show us examples?

The country hasn't been this divided since before the civil war? Really? What's your source for that ridiculous claim? How are you measuring the division?

So you're saying religion is a mask for racism? Don't be silly.

There's so much blatantly wrong in this post. What's the true purpose you're referring to?

Also, if you think people in the majority are afraid of being the minority, then you're refuting your own argument about that fear driving issues like abortion.

You can do better than this. I'm sure of it.

http://pres-outlook.org/2018/01/new-study-millennials-genz-points-massive-religious-realignment-america/

http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/op-ed/article196601619.html

I'm saying religion is used to pass discriminatory legislation such as the Mississippi "religious freedom" law:

http://www.washingtonblade.com/2017/10/10/mississippi-anti-lgbt-religious-freedom-law-takes-effect/



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/30/2018 06:20PM by anybody.

Give it time. The courts will overthrow it. This has happened before. Yes, thencountry is divided but I think you are being too alarmist.There are.plenty of examples of religionists working together and for the good of.others



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/30/2018 08:18PM by bona dea.

but unless things change I won't be...

Look at history. There have been times in our history that have been as bad or worse and we survived.

https://www.odt.co.nz/entertainment/books/call-fight-fascist-tide-us

The danger is if enough of the people who are scared about future demographics start to aquiesce to autocracy.

They speak about "the war on Christmas" as if it were a real thing. It's not -- but they think if they have to acknowledge the religion of other people as valid and their own faith as one faith of many but not as THE faith -- then they are losing ground or have lost something.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/30/2018 09:57PM by anybody.

You are assuming that more people buy into this crap than actually do. We have always had nuts and today they are empowered by the Nut-in-Chief, but this too will pass. I am concerned too, but am not preparing for the apocalypse either. Another point,this is not the fault of all religions either. There are plenty of religious people and institutions who are fighting this bull.Tevai gave examples and there are plenty of others

What problem? The problem that people have the freedom to choose their religion? You think that is a problem?

Maybe then the solution is that you pull your head out of your ass and get a clue about the real world. OP is an idiot.

association and views on everyone else.

as for me I'm indy ex repub...

want to use federal govt. to force association.

I don't know anyone that is opposed to illegal immigration based on race of the immigrants.

That is a lie that the left side of the argument uses to bolster it's desire for open borders.

Also, religious intolerance, denial of reality, hate, racism, etc have nothing to do with responsible limited goverment



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/30/2018 07:34PM by anybody.

msfr Wrote:
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> I don't know anyone that is opposed to illegal
> immigration based on race of the immigrants.

I do, sadly. Quite a few, in fact.
They've specifically said to me that they wouldn't care if white Canadians came here illegally, it's those brown Mexicans they can't stand. And if you let them get started about Muslims, it's a double-whammy: they don't like their color OR their religion! :(

> That is a lie that the left side of the argument
> uses to bolster it's desire for open borders.

The "left" doesn't have any desire for "open borders" (you might say THAT is a lie! How ironic!).

There are certainly some on the "left" (and on the "right," too!) who want "open borders." But it's neither the majority nor the official position of any "left" political group.

third world immigration is the greatest enemy of this society. if you don't believe me ask American Indians or Palestinians about immigration

vigilant Wrote:
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> third world immigration is the greatest enemy of
> this society. if you don't believe me ask American
> Indians or Palestinians about immigration

Sure, because all those dirt-poor Jews, Italians, Irish, and other 19th-Century US Immigrants (from, at the time, "3rd-world" countries or conditions) were SO BAD for the US. Just horrible. They were the biggest enemy of this society.

Oh, wait, no they weren't. In fact, they're today's prosperous Americans who've contributed oustandingly to America's greatness.

Never mind then.

This is demented.

On the one hand you say that American Indians were devastated by immigration, which is true, but on the other you describe immigration as a threat to the United States?

How on earth could there be a United States let alone a powerful and prosperous United States if it were not for immigration?

This sounds just like Steve Bannon's favourite book "The Camp Of The Saints."

Many immigrants from developing countries have more education that average Americans:

http://www.newamericaneconomy.org/press-release/immigrants-from-africa-boast-higher-education-levels-than-overall-u-s-population/

Well, go knock on cutekitty's door for chrissake. You both need serious hugs right now.

/smartass

I'm originally from the indy area, and maybe it's the way they do the news, or the water or something, but I could feel trapped in a world gone mad, too. People walk and talk very fast there, and I didn't realize how so many wore those things like a suit, until I moved farther south. The Star was always making dire predictions, everything from bat fever to serial killers to economic meltdown. Then there was that whole business about stealing the Colts. Oh the shame. Before your time.

AND your insanely homophobic ultra religious former gov now sits in the WH. No WONDER you're on edge! You had mr. pizza shame up close and personal, and now he's taking nut job's foreign calls, lest the world explodes, ...right?

((((anybody))))

Soft, big sis voice on

You have no control over any of these things. All you can do is do your part, spread awareness to those willing to learn, and love as well as you are able. You need to force yourself to not read the news, at least a couple days a week, instead go drive through Eagle Creek, take a sandwich, Starbucks and a friend. Look for the deer and other furry things. On lunch, there used to be a pond at 82nd/Allison, where I would feed the ducks.

You have too much input right now, on things you can't control. You need to feed some ducks.

Gawd, I miss Indy sometimes. I definitely miss high-strung worry-warts like you ;) I used to be one.

Take care of you.

Maybe it's because I read Sinclair Lewis' "It Can't Happen Here" when I was at school.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/30/2018 10:02PM by anybody.

I think most of us have given up on any hope of political affiliation of any sort. The monkeys are running the zoo, no matter which side of the aisle one "sides" with on any given issue.

I think most Americans:

1) Want the corruption gone, period. Send in the army, if needed. The economic house-cleaning equivalent of MeToo. Expose them, oust them, send them away in shame, imprison them, seek US reparations from their globally-held fortunes.

2) Cival rights for all, equally. A citizen is a citizen, able to expect and partake of any activity that is available to any other citizen. It's not dependent upon which locality one may inhabit, no local law may supersede civil liberties. Any State government which tries to supersede the US Constitution by enacting a law singling out and/or segregating a "new class" of citizen, not only must pay fines and penalties to the US, but also forfeits the right to participate in Congress for a period of one year, but remain memers of and are subject to US laws and existing State laws. (We are up to *here* with explaining the Constitution to so-called lawmakers! Stop sucking our courts dry!) And, clean up those State laws within one year, scour them for existing violations.

3) Fair taxation. Corporations are not people, and every person in a corporation already has a voice and vote! They already have the right to associate and pool their funds in favor of any political entity they choose. They want more. They want to buy the candidates who will write tens of thousands of pages of loopholes in order for them to park ther katrillions$ off-shore, and make the dollars they do leave here virtually untaxable, or at such low rates, they scoff.

4) Affordable health care. Send the lying, thieving insurance bigwigs and their scum-sucking legislators to prison for usury, and institute direct pay of our insurance dollars to actual health-care providers! All the trillions in profit that insurers and lawmakers make off with from high premiums, high deductibles and denial of services can *easily* fund health care services for each and every US citizen, with much left over for R&D. Get those effing insurance con men the F out of our doctor's offices and hospitals!


What else, poster anybody? Does that pretty much cover it? Do these things, and religionists lose their power. Creating fairness, easing misery by virtue of law, enforcing the separation requirements that already exist, they would just he spittin' in the powerhouse wind that the US was intended to be.


Oh, and, I think it very important that all utilities must be owned by US entities, co-ops preferred. Just look what happens to our utility infrastructure when owned by foreigners (companies owned by foreign interests. Big surprise.)

Remember the Prop 8 fiasco?

What I am seeing is exactly the opposite...

A nation where, in ways unprecedented during the past six centuries, Americans as a whole are working together, in cooperation with each other, for mutually beneficial ends, and on every possible level:

Jewish/Muslim groups come to my mind first, but this also applies to Buddhists and Sikhs and Muslims pitching in to render disaster relief to [mainly] Christian Americans after hurricanes, etc. ...

...and straight people fighting for gay rights (think: Prop 8, or the various court issues of the last thirty years or so regarding marriage, custody, adoption, wedding cakes and such)...

...and men joining with women to fight sexism, restrictions on female rights to their own bodies, and harassment/sexual crimes in the workplace and in American society.

What you see as "religious tribalism" is mostly some very panicked Americans who are afraid of losing what they have always assumed gave them a privileged position over other Americans. They are scared...scared of change, scared of a future AS Americans that they never imagined might exist---but that does actually fulfill the best of what this country was always created to be about.

Outside of the panicked religious though, the scenery both near and far off in the future shows a very different reality: a nation where, increasingly, "an" American equals "another" American...despite religion, race, gender, sexual orientation, or genetic background.

I grew up during the Civil Rights Era, and I am SO PROUD of my fellow Americans for all that we, as a people and as a nation, have accomplished during my lifetime. To say that "religious tribalism" is "tearing America apart"---at the very MOMENT when we, as a nation, are more cooperative and interconnected with each other than we have EVER been before---is actually kind of wryly amusing.

No one on the racist side of my family would have EVER believed that the 2018 we know right now was even the most miniscule of possibilities in the future (even the FAR future, after we colonized Mars or Venus or wherever)...

...let alone during the life that I (the child they used to scream and yell at because of my "horrendous," "unbelievable," "fantastical" "CHILDISH" ideas of equality and civil rights for EVERYONE) have actually lived.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 01/30/2018 07:18PM by Tevai.

Which contradicts and giving specific examples, sort of demonstrating that any command socially or intimidation physically to not exist or to hide in the tribe prescribed by any gestalt cannot be imposed on the individual religiously in your experience at this point in time. I think I understood you s grate that you witness and heard much racial hate expressed in part of your family which is already witnessing unbelievable things racially or ethnically possible in America than they (Your most racist kin years back) ever could believe possible. Yet at church a girl who's been in primary since forever reaches out to touch my hair at girlscamp and whispered anxiously _"___ do you think you're part black , my hair doesn't tak e a curl I'm adopted too."worried fo r me, for both of us. Years later she charged to th e templ e to be at my templ e wedding. The church was the most open place about race dogmatic difference planned by priesthood power not my family or secular community to m e.

While I who was raised in a non racist mixing kin between heritage amongst folk family and friend of all color, have never heard such unfriendluness aloud in my entire life, and was always around far more gracious manners, I have never witnessed this amount of expressed fear or something is it a name to blame among others as long as it's some other, prescribing violent response or projecting expectation of it, outside the developmentally immature teenaged classroom in my life. It's as is someone gave them <the expelled continuation teens animosity the press or public voice on some days is so toned and oppositional>

But what I hear you explain is possibly it was always that way before, earlier expressed behind closed doors or at diner tables but with public manners or mind your places to talk it

? So many questions, so many perspectives ... wondering if dated historic l d s racial dogma with a date stamp is as inflammatory, because it's in the past, as some statements being made biblically pronounced today /generating device of scrambling pu kkic contentment like an egg making an omlett whip ping a front of discouraged accomplishments legal enacted safety frothed like meringue on a lemon pie where they took out the sugar (in society) with decisive words/ with deRisive statements flung like spittle in a cough spewing flu germs mouth open uncovered by manners)

Like heard a testimony of the pre-existence born on a church hallway when returning to the sacrament for the first time after child's bone marrow transplant reconstruct the tumor spot removed from the bone & l d s lady says: good to see the inactive back *ching! When I said we're back from child tumor recovery l d s lady replies: I so wonder what _____ <11 year old child> did in the pre-existence to deserve this (tilts head and smiles)*ching! Strike the points up for religious hate.

So maybe I have different memories. Tell me how it's safe again. Give me examples of our societies great achievrrments again. Make direct comparisons from pre desegregation amongst old racists contrast it with today, please Tevai. Pour some what of life hope out rising above hot spotlight the political rhetorical emotional flooding.

it wasn't civil and it wasn't right but they called it civil rights sure with 2.5 million in jail. tell me another story

What? 2.5 million in jail?

You are asserting that the 2.5 million people in prisons today are part of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement?

What on earth do you smoke?

don't put words in my mouth. the US total prison population today is about 2.5 million. and jails are not civil and prisoners do not have rights

You addressed a post on the Civil Rights Movement, saying "it wasn't civil and it wasn't right but they called it civil rights."

Now you object to my saying you were talking about the Civil Rights Movement?

Nah, I wasn't putting words in your mouth.

anybody Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> Unlike the conflict over slavery, this division
> does not follow state or regional boundaries but
> is largely rural vs. urban, young vs old, and
> non-white vs. white.

And therein lies the solution: people will get more exposure to The Others, and are likely to feel more empathy for them. The middle ground will one, and most people will become moderates.

Exactly. The more we mix it up, the more we get to know the "Other" they more they become the "Us." This has been going on very slowly for a very long time. The resistance to this by those who want to keep what they saw as their rightful advantage is just he last dying gasp of the beast.

There is always a few steps back here and there as progress is made even if it seems to run as slow as molasses.

I am more worried about a nation that cannot seem to tear their eyes off their phones.

anybody Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Religious tribalism is tearing America apart and
> there is no apparent solution to this problem.

Instead of tearing us apart it is uniting us. The absurd and outspoken nature of the ideas which most of us find offensive only serve to strengthen our resolve to change and accept. I say let the kooks, crazies, extremists, and so forth speak.

>
> The country has not been this divided since the
> decades prior to the Civil War.

And yet some of the most significant civil liberties and rights have been won in the last two decades.

>
> Unlike the conflict over slavery, this division
> does not follow state or regional boundaries but
> is largely rural vs. urban, young vs old, and
> non-white vs. white.

I suggest you read up a bit on the Civil War. It was largely a war that pitted the urban north against the rural south. The young idealists against the old conservatives. And, weirdly, non-white liberties against the liberties of whites.

>
> Unlike the open white supremacy pre-WW2 era,
> religion is now the vector to enact similar
> repressive laws under the guise of "religious
> freedom."

What recent law that has been passed and upheld by the courts has repressed your freedom? It honestly has been quite the opposite. Laws that enable freedom have been passed and upheld, laws that repress have been passed but struck down.

>
> White Christians are no longer in the majority in
> America and whites be in the minority before 2050.

And?

> This "top rail on bottom" fear is the underlying
> source of many current issues including
> immigration, abortion, LGBTQIA rights, climate
> change, etc and the opposition is based on
> religion to disguise the true purpose.

And yet. Immigration, abortion, LGBTQIA, and climate change all enjoy greater rights and protections than at any point ever in the United States. Not that there isn't more to be done. And religion has almost always been the opposition.

> People who
> fear a future in the minority are lashing out in
> more and more extreme ways and are using religion
> and adherence to religious orthodoxy as
> reinforcement mechanisms.

I would love for you to illustrate that the centuries old opposition to the causes listed above has always been the result of a majority fearing life in the minority. I would in this case pin it on a far more nefarious and obvious motive. Small minded people hate what they don't understand. And they have many times used religion as their preferred conduit for their hate.

> The extreme far right,
> white nationalism, and fascism -- like the
> religious group "The Order" of the 1980s -- is
> becoming more and more mainstream.

Straight up false. It was mainstream and it is becoming extreme.

>
> My question to you is this:
>
> Besides time and death, is there any solution to
> this problem?

Hard work, smart and motivated legislators, an educated electorate, patience, time, and a whole host of other things.