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| Why has the US been free of sectarian violence? by Commander Tansin A. Darcos 02/14/2014, 8:52am PST | ||||
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| All over the world, from the UK and "The Troubles" where Catholics and Protestants routinely killed each other and it was probably one of the safest places in the word to be a Jew, to the Jews fighting the Muslims and, the Sunni Muslims fighting Shiites in the Middle East, to Mainland China torturing Tibet and persecuting Falun Gong, why is it that even with all the guns we have, it is extremely rare to almost unheard of for there to be violence or attacks inflicted against religious organizations (other than the occasional kook going rogue)?
I mean, the near-lack of even threats to other religions is so dominant that if someone merely paints a swastika on a synagogue (or something else offensive on some other church) you'll almost certainly hear about it on your local evening newscast. Could it be because we are one of the few countries where our laws specifically prohibit a state church and actually mandates that religion is a private affair? And that the only official religion is no religion at all? No person in this country is required or forbidden to support any religious organization, or they may choose to support none at all. The government is required to stay the hell out - pun unintentional - of people's religious affairs and, in general, to keep its hands off religion entirely. As a result, we have both a thriving religious culture and, in general, even when one guy believes in something you think is crap, the usual response is that the other guy's religion is a bunch of garbage but hey, that's his opinion. We typically almost never see violence relating to religion in this country. And perhaps because our country's culture is based on a non-sectarian mandate, it has maintained its vibrancy and its near-total absence of violence in the religious sphere as opposed to the near-constant warring and factions afflicting so many other places where they do have state-mandated religions, state-sanctioned religions or where the state is allowed to have an opinion on which religions are valid and which are not. One time I was inquiring at a bank to ask what they required a church that wanted to open an account what paperwork they required. The usual, signature card, charter if incorporated and so on, but the woman (who was Indian, as in from Asia, not as in Cherokee), said also they'd need a copy of their business license. She was shocked when I pointed out that in this country, not only are churches not required to have a license, the government is forbidden to require churches to be licensed. |
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Why has the US been free of sectarian violence? by 02/14/2014, 8:52am PST  You're absolutely right. The US could use a good house cleaning by 02/14/2014, 1:11pm PST |
