True Secularist

Yet the larger perception in Europe is that American religiosity is backward, anachronistic. Are we behind or ahead?
Ahead and behind are value terms. I look at the fact that creationism is not an issue anywhere in Europe, and Darwin is fully accepted everywhere, and I say, why is the United States so behind? We are behind in a lot of things, and you can pull your hair out sometimes. I think gender equality is a great idea, but for a lot of conservative religious people it's not. If they have enough influence to stop progress in that direction in this country, that puts us behind Europe in significant ways. Yet on the issues of pluralism and tolerance, I think we're way ahead of Europe.

© 2008