As a Christian I have always thought that America and the world needs to come to know Christ as LORD and savior, but recently I have been very surprised and interested to hear several atheists say that America needs religion for socio-political-economic reasons. I will do my best to outline these reasons here.
The political argument as laid out by Andrew Heaton and Rob Montz is that people have a fundamental need to worship and revere something. This craving has traditionally been filled by a monarch or by religion. The English have a very healthy system where the revered monarch is the queen who actually has little power. They then treat the Prime Minister with the derision due the head meter maid and tax collector in the land. In the begining the United States was very religious and gave little power to the President. Over time that office has grown in power and significance while religiosity has gone down. Everything that people used to get out of church they are now turning to politics to. This can be seen as people fight over who will be president like the Catholics and Protestants used to fight over who would be King of England.
The Economic argument was also made by Andre Heaton and Rick Unger as well as others, such as an academic paper that I got to listen to a presentation by the author. His argument was that Capitalism was originally conceived as a moral construct. It was believed that Capitalism would require fair reinstatement of customers and employees to work out. The modern "greed is good" Capitalism is not what it's founders had in mind. The only solution that the author of the paper could provide was "maybe religion?"
The Social argument goes like this: religious people are more likely to donate time and money to good causes. Religion provides a bond to the local community and promotes humility, persistence, and a sense of connection and purpose. Religious people tend to live longer and be happier. Singing in a group really helps people feel connected as well. These all came from a Ted talk I listened to a few months ago.
The political argument as laid out by Andrew Heaton and Rob Montz is that people have a fundamental need to worship and revere something. This craving has traditionally been filled by a monarch or by religion. The English have a very healthy system where the revered monarch is the queen who actually has little power. They then treat the Prime Minister with the derision due the head meter maid and tax collector in the land. In the begining the United States was very religious and gave little power to the President. Over time that office has grown in power and significance while religiosity has gone down. Everything that people used to get out of church they are now turning to politics to. This can be seen as people fight over who will be president like the Catholics and Protestants used to fight over who would be King of England.
The Economic argument was also made by Andre Heaton and Rick Unger as well as others, such as an academic paper that I got to listen to a presentation by the author. His argument was that Capitalism was originally conceived as a moral construct. It was believed that Capitalism would require fair reinstatement of customers and employees to work out. The modern "greed is good" Capitalism is not what it's founders had in mind. The only solution that the author of the paper could provide was "maybe religion?"
The Social argument goes like this: religious people are more likely to donate time and money to good causes. Religion provides a bond to the local community and promotes humility, persistence, and a sense of connection and purpose. Religious people tend to live longer and be happier. Singing in a group really helps people feel connected as well. These all came from a Ted talk I listened to a few months ago.