I've figured out what drives the right--it all goes back

to the Enlightenment!

Rene Descartes preached the revolutionary idea of "universal autonomy", meaning that man's fate was not subjective to a higher power--not God, not others, no one except himself. The phrase "I think, therefore I am" meant that man was defined by his choices, not preordained by essence.

I have found out that it is the idea of universal autonomy that scares the religious right, for what it means is that existence precedes essence. Man simply is what he makes himself into. There is no predetermined fate, no ultimate authority of right and wrong. We are responsible for our own choices, we are our own judge of right and wrong. The reason it scares the religious right is because it is such a heavy psychological burden--it creates anxiety, such as "Am I making the right choice?" There is also no freedom from choice, for even refusal to choose is, paradoxically, a choice.

Sorry for the philosophical droning--I'm writing a paper on this and wanted to share some of it. It's the only research I've ever done that I've found interesting.

a neighbor said she doesn't "worry about it anymore." She "leaves it up to God." She felt this was a great relief.

Same thing you are saying above.

Many people are uncomfortable (or scared as all hell) to admit that there just might not be 'someone in charge', and/or a reason for the awful things that happen to us. Leaving it up to some higher power makes it easier to deal with, because you know it's not all for nothing, or thoughts along those lines. I have seen/read this many times before, and actually used to belong to that way of thinking myself, to some extent.