Things You Don't Talk About in Polite Company

Nicholas Kristof notes that belief in the Virgin Birth of Jesus has risen among Americans "in the latest poll," although he fails to note when the previous poll occurred. (He does mention that he was using data from a 1998 Harris poll here.

Kristof implies that the change has to do with the disappearance of mainline Protestants and their replacement by evangelicals. He ignores the growing number of Catholics in America, and last time I checked, orthodox Catholic belief includes the Virgin birth.

Kristof also stresses how America is uniquely religious compared to other industrialized nations. Survey data is an invention of the mid-20th century. Still, what we have on record suggests that Kristof's observation is not a growing trend, that the United States is somehow lagging in the dechristianization that some people think is the normal accompaniment of industrialization (and, therefore, progress).

Kristof makes the claim that we are in the middle of "another religious Great Awakening," leading to a "growing polarization within our society." He seems to see a necessarily antagonistic relationship between intellectional/scholarly traditions and religious/mystical realms, blaming the problems of the Islamic world on a shift towards the latter.

America is different from Europe. It's not some bizarre outlier in a theory of man to which the rest of the "civilized" world conforms. It has its own cultural context within which it must be addressed, understood, and cherished. (Yes, there is such a thing as American culture, and, yes, it can be wonderful.)

Religion is necessarily a bad influence in the Arab world, therefore, it is bad influence in America. Is Native American religion a bad influence on the reservation? Is Judaism a bad influence on Israel? Is Buddhism a bad influence on Southeast Asia?

Fine, I'll take a stand. I'm Catholic, and I believe my religion is better than Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, atheism, agnosticism, Jumbo Mumbo God of the Congo, Scientology, Moonie-ism, and many other belief systems. I'm not going to claim everyone else is going to Hell and I think there is room for dialogue and discussion, but I still think that in the end, my belief system (not necessarily the same as all Catholics) is the best. At the same time, I fancy myself an intellectual, and am willing to apply scientific standards to the study of human behavior. Which is why I get incredibly pissy when I feel like someone is making a general attack on religion, stereotyping believers as incapable of rational thought.

Sadly, it feels like too many of my fellow liberals are too interested in attacking religion in all its forms. If they'd only move away from the position that a religious person can't possibly agree with their self-styled intellectual leftism, the U.S. political landscape would instantly tilt towards the correct (rather than the right) side.