I have been thinking a lot about the spontaneous secularism that has swept most western cultures. One of the greatest kinds of movements, this one occurred on an individual level without any kind of central figures. The individual choice just happened to happen in roughly the same time as everyone else making the same choice, unbeknownst to one another.
Cultures are making a liberal (In the traditional sense of the word, not the taint modern American political entertaiment has applied to it.) jump, a liberal progression for religion beyond even reformation, the ability to denounce a supreme being in public without being ridiculed, or worse.
This also happened when most western cultures were snug as bug in a rug with their universal health care and eduction. Feeling secure in this never before heard of safety net, they no longer felt the need to go to church. Their prayers had been answered, they had found sanctuary. But as a people they had provided it. God was MIA again.
And then there is America.
America is still a little to theocratic for my taste. I don’t know what is worse. Knowing the theocrats would never allow Brazilian MTV to be shown in America, or that they use people’s love of Jesus to justify their wars. This small minority is oppressive to American culture as a whole. They dominate almost every facet of our lives, and will continue to do so until we get universal health care and education like every other civilized western culture.
See, that is why the the theocrats and the corporate Right are in cohots. For outdated economic reasons, the corporate Right thinks universal health care is a bad idea. The theocrats though, they don’t want America to get health care because then people might flee the pews. How very Christian.
So basically, until we get universal health care, we live in a theocracy.
Merry Christmas Franklin and Jefferson!