Why Are Conservative Religi...

If you read the polls, those who believe that God created the world have nothing to fear in the United States, only about 10% of the population believes that the universe had an entirely natural origin and only about 4-10% of the population is atheist, depending on who's polls you read. On the face of it they have little to worry about, they are firmly in control of public life in the United States, from the local churches to the White House. Only that pesky establishment clause in the Constitution prevents them from consolidating complete control. But a little further reading reveals something else...

Closer analysis of a couple items does reveal something I am certain is not lost on conservative religious leaders, their core population of believers is aging. If you examine an age breakdown of beliefs the percentage of atheists/agnostics jumps to 15-30% for the under 30 age bracket! A similar jump is seen for those that believe in a completely natural origin of the Earth. Not all polls agree as to the exact magnitude, but all show a similar trend based on age. Is this a trend that will continue? Is it merely the same wax and wane cycle we have seen over the history of this country? There is no way to know, but these sort of numbers would certainly grab the attention of religious leaders.

Does it come as any surprise that they are recently trying so hard to push their beliefs at the youngest and most vulnerable members of our society. The church has always known that a young convert stays converted, the Spanish missionaries working in the New World knew this, present day missionaries in Africa and Asia know this. What is the first thing missionaries do after building a church? They build a school. Sometimes the school comes first.

Is there a trend towards attacks on the establishment clause? In this I can not be certain, my information is strictly anecdotal. It seems as if efforts to get creationism, and thereby religion, into schools have increased or at least become more organized. Possibly this is because the environment is more favorable to such attempts due to the religious stance of so many political leaders. But this leads to the same interesting idea, are the leaders and motivators of the conservative religious organizations reading the same poll data and drawing the same conclusion? Have they formulated and acted on a specific courses of action? Certainly they see evolution as a specific example of secular teaching impacting religious beliefs of the younger generations, so much so that many vilify evolution as a root cause of many evils in the world. Evolution is simply one front in this effort, school vouchers, religious expression in the public space, and the upcoming presidential elections all feature in this struggle for the minds of America's children.