Quote:
Originally Posted by Sheriff Gonna Getcha
You make good points and I do not care for the harcore religious right, but I still see hypocrisy in that view of America. Again, many people abroad bash us for our narrow-mindedness, inability to understand foreign cultures, and belief that anything that is not inherently American is not any good. I don't see how they can bash us for our arrogance and simultaneously bash us for our culture (which includes religion).
Something tells me that many of the people who bash America for its religiosity think the Dalai Lama (sp?) is great, believe we must respect Islam, and think that poor countries should preserve their cultural identities in the face of free trade and global integration. I find that interesting.
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SGG, I think you are incorrectly conflating American liberals with people overseas. What you are describing is your average University of Pennsylvania English major. The animus towards religion - all religion - runs deeper than you realize, and no religion is more reviled than Islam, particularly in Europe where religious inspired terrorism looms over daily life the same way it does in the States. Moreover, the kind of liberal political correctness you allude to is largely an American phenomenon.
Living overseas has taught me that America means a lot less to people than we as Americans think. At the end of the day we are just another country. The rest of the world is not obsessed with us. When we step on people's toes, as Tony Soprano would say, they might get upset. When we release an interesting movie they go see it. They like some things and dislike others, but at the end of the day they have to put food on the table, and America has nothing to do with that.
Anyway, the point I was trying to make is that America is going one way religiously while our first world contemporaries are going another.