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Last edited Wed Jun 11, 2014, 12:49 PM - Edit history (1)

** Trying to influence the religious with factual argument, however, just doesn't work.**

Of course, nothing is this simple. Every person, to some extent, falls into both of these groups, although one or the other of the two tendencies usually dominates. So if you predominately fall into one of these groups and you come into conflict with someone of the other type, resist the temptation to vilify him/her, because there's some degree of him/her in you too.

But the conflicts that arise between these groups are serious, because their resolutions are often impossible, and legislative or judicial attempts to resolve them often prove to be ineffective.

An example of such a conflict is same sex marriage. This issue cannot be solved, and if a solution is imposed on the public, the opponents of that solution will continue to harbor resentment and make continual attempts to undo it. Issues like these are only resolved by time during which both the evidence and belief-structures slowly change.

The issue of slavery illustrates such a resolution. Lincoln imposed a solution on the issue by emancipating the slaves. But it took a long time for belief-structures to change for that solution to become accepted as the right one. Today, hardly anyone would defend slavery."

So when I say that Americans are religious, I don't mean religious in any conventional sense. What I mean is this:

There are people whose lives are pretty much lived in accordance with belief-structures. These people have never thought seriously about these structures, never questioned their validity, never have sought any evidence for them. None of these are thought to even be necessary. These belief-structures take on the attributes of absolute truths that are unquestionable, and no amount of evidence that contradicts these structures ever changes their minds. People who live this way are religious."

http://www.jkozy.com/Are_Americans_a_Religious_People__Emphatically_Yes_.htm