It comes in waves. The last wave was in the 80s. But this wave is larger and more totalizing. Control of the internet and AI output is the ultimate hall monitor tool.
The short version… what do you expect from a country founded by the Puritans, the only people who looked at the repressed tight laced morality of Victorian England and said “harlots, degenerates”… they were pushed out of English society for being killjoys and too prudish… for Victorian England
My recollection (vague as it is now after decades since taking classes) is that the Calvinists and Puritans decided to leave northern Europe (remember there were more than just Brits sending boats) after being denied authority to impose their mores on the rest of society. As ever, they wanted to control those who didn't subscribe to their values.
Non-separatist Puritans who remained in England or moved to Massachusetts wanted to "reform" the Church of England instead of establishing their own. They later won the civil war and established a religious dictatorship (well obviously that's grossly oversimplified and there were many other groups besides the puritans which took part in that)...
The Plymouth colony was established by the separatists/Pilgrims while most non-separatist Puritans went to New England. The ones in Plymouth were a bit more tolerant (e.g. they didn't hang Quakers like the Puritans in Massachusetts did, only fined then and stripped them of their civil rights, so I guess that's something...)
It wasn't the Victorians who pushed them out though rather it was quite a bit earlier, it was the post-Restoration requirement in 1660 for English clergy to swear Anglican oaths which the Puritans really took issue with. They actually did suffer social disadvantages for being outside of the Church of England and were often suspected of disloyalty by other English people though not without reason since the most famous Puritan Oliver Cromwell had literally overthrown the government and imposed a moralistic religious republic in recent memory.
I also lament the poverty of philosophical debate when American refute preposterous positions held by these post modern Christians and think they have refuted the whole of human religion as bunk. All the while calling themselves Atheist with capital A. I mean, if you don't believe in something, why define your self as the opposite of that? Non existing things don't have opposites.
Science's greatest doubters tend to work in the field.
For example, peer review, (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1420798/).
The replication crisis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis).
If you're not able to call out woo in science, I assume you're also a gullible mark that simply trusts authorities in a lab coat instead of authorities in a priest smock.
And I'm not sure what "favorite woo" is, but I'm agnostic/atheist. Though I suppose those have their zealots of woo as well.
EDIT: Not social sciences, as I saw you carve that out in another comment.
Can you give a name or an example? I read a lot of athiest stuff and I've never encountered that (from a respected source at least, not from random people on facebook). Sure a lot of the writing focuses on modern Christianity, but that's a population thing and nobody I know of pretends like there isn't religion outside of that (in fact many of them specifically mention that they're going to focus mostly on Christianity but that there are plenty of other things out there). It would be largely a waste of time debunking Zeus and Jupiter in the 21st century
Maybe you should read ancient Greek mythology before saying 'Zeus is bunk'. Is there a specific claim about reality you are referring to? Or are you saying all of ancient Greek texts about Zeus have zero philosophical value?
> It comes down to the strawman fallacy
Most atheists are scientists. People talk about what they know. If you're mad because they don't talk about Greek mythology (which is a pretty different subject), are you mad that they don't discuss the correct way to make a ham and cheese omelette as well?
Also, would still like a name/example that we can evaluate your claims against.
I'm not making any claims. I'm just stating opinions.
> Maybe you should read ancient Greek mythology before saying 'Zeus is bunk'. Is there a specific claim about reality you are referring to? Or are you saying all of ancient Greek texts about Zeus have zero philosophical value?
As directed to me or the aforementioned atheists, but as a general question it has value (IMHO)
That's just marketing; no one in their right minds considers the US to be "the land of the free" that it pretends to be. And all objective measures of "freedom" give it an "above average" score - at best. Saying something very loud and very often does not make it true.
Furthermore, people have the freedom to talk about a great many things, but apparently not the freedom to enjoy actual beneficial policy changes. What use is freedom of speech then other than as an excuse to show off moral superiority? Many in the US also do not enjoy freedom of movement, as many places are dangerous, especially during certain times and for certain population groups.
I'd say that the oversimplified understanding of what freedom means, and the insistance that that one definition of freedom is the only valid form of freedom, also does a lot of damage.
But we have guns! So many guns!
My point is I agree that Americans love to impose their moral compass on each other any way they can, but I disagree that it comes in waves. It's a constant force coming from all sides.