That's really just an American thing. Americans have this concept of "manifest destiny" in their culture is the final one and it is their duty to spread it to the rest of the world. The American settlers have colonized the entire continent, but the spirit of Manifest Destiny still persists, just embodied in different forms.
For example, among evangelicals there is this paranoia of anything that might be considered pagan. Some will go even so far as to consider Christmas pagan. Meanwhile in the rest of the world it's perfectly accepted that Christianity has taken some local practices and re-dedicated them to Christ. This is not a concession to pagans to make Christianity more palatable for them (pagans are not stupid, they know it's a different religion). I can recommend the YouTube Channel "Jonathan Pageau", he used to talk a lot about this sort of stuff in his older videos.
> For example, among evangelicals there is this paranoia of anything that might be considered pagan.
Many Christians also see much of value in aspects of paganism. its pretty mainstream - for example CS Lewis argues that God can reveal himself to pagans too (there is quite a bit about this in The Pilgrims Regress).
Around a hundred, hundred and fifty years ago when our understanding of the universe had finally reached the point where it became obvious that (a) all of our creation stories were just stories and (b) we actually kind of knew the actual story now, everyone had a big crisis over how to deal with that.
The two options on the table where fundamentalism -- doubling down on Biblical literalism and faith -- and modernism, taking the Bible as more a spiritual message, adapting our understanding of it for the modern world.
Some churches went one way, others the other, but over the following century the fundamentalist churches have proven to be better at attracting, retaining and motivating their members.
There are still modernist churches, but the loudest Christians in America are almost all of the fundamentalist bent.
I think the division your are referring to may be true of American evangelical churches, but its not true of Christianity globally. "Modernist" is not a good term for a view that has been around (and generally accepted) for most of two millennia.
It doesn't help that they attract power hungry sociopaths who seek to influence them for profit.
Of course, the only way I can think of to address this would be for the state to violate the first amendment & promote the concept that anyone who believes in Hell condemns themselves to Hell. (Matthew 7:1-2)
This impression has strengthened quite a bit in recent years as it’s become clear that political movements and politicians that are diametrically opposed to the teachings of Jesus are perfectly okay if they align on other more immediate secular political issues.
There’s always been a claim that the US is an outlier compared to other developed nations in terms of religiosity. I don’t really believe this anymore. I think we have a lot of politics with heavy religious veneer, but if you look only at sincere belief in the tenets of a faith I don’t think the US is much more religious than the UK for example.
Political movements tend to be ecumenical - across religious boundaries. The Civil Rights movement was a political movement, as was the labor movement, etc.
I grew up in the Bible Belt around Baptists and Evangelicals and even a few Pentecostals. I assure you it isn't an illusion.
While there may be some outliers and grifters, particularly where religion intersects with politics (I doubt Trump believes in God half as much as Evangelicals believe in him) the vast majority of these people absolutely do believe what they say, and that they're right with God.
When I lived in the bible belt, I had a hilarious idea for a "student film" project on the life and times of Jesus. Stuff like using little-kids' floaties on his ankles to walk on water, accidentally raising an undead zombie, etc. My good friend told me he couldn't morally participate in the project.
We were 18 and he should have been able to laugh at a funny project but he saw it as insulting an important deity. What a sad and limited life organized religion constructed around him.
I also remember when my father started dating and he complained to me that he always made it clear that he was an atheist but then a few dates in the women would start talking about their faith and getting all Christy. I was incredulous and explained that it had always been that way since we moved there. He just wasn't divorced yet, so he didn't notice.
These people's lives are all about their faith. It's a fucking brain rot. It's a sickness and it greatly contributes to the misery of others.
Slave. That's what you describe.
I'm not attacking you when I say this: drugs can get you there, too.
If you couldn't find flaws, you are clearly biased. Even religious institutions have found flaws. The contradictions are so well published that you have to ignore them to not know about them,
I don't think you have any true knowledge of the history of your faith (said the atheist).
I can’t speak for your friend, but as a former atheist who brcame a Christian (albeit a very mediocre one) I feel like I can see both sides of this so perhaps I can offer a perspective that might help you understand each other better.
When I was an atheist, I assumed that anyone who didn’t care for the kinds of jokes you mentioned was worried that God would zap them with a lightning bolt.
Now I see it a little differently: if you see something as being of great importance, then it simply feels off / wrong / weird / missing the point to treat it as if it’s of little or no importance. In a word, it feels cringe. If such a project holds no allure for you, then you’re not missing much by sitting it out.
Not to harsh on your sense of humor, but I hope it might help to understand your friend better.
It shouldn't come as great revelation, to an atheist, that to those infected with a mind virus it "feels cringe" when anything attacks the virus. That's its whole mechanism of action, its fangs. Besides, there's things like faith healing, and gospel churches, and the phrase "religious ecstacy", and all these other signs of the religious getting off on religion, so it should be obvious that they're defending something that feels precious, and are not merely terrorized.
However, if the atheist instead made a shallow assumption that religiosity is simple fear of a smiting bogeyman god, then it would come as a revelation that the religious are in fact having euphoric feelings, and this might be mistaken by the now ex-atheist for divine revelation of the way and the truth and the light, as the fangs sink in.
He may have been an outlier. I know that I've heard god-jokes from the pulpits of evangelical (using that in the sense it was used 30 years ago). The one I remember best is about the difference between a dog and a cat (based on evidence of how their master treats them, the dog thinks its owner is god, the cat thinks he is god--that's a synopsis, it was much funnier in the full version).
I recognize the pet-God joke. I shared a meme pic with my partner that had that. Regarding cats and dogs, it's completely accurate. Our cats are in charge more than we are (or so they think).
Did you also suggest wearing blackface, telling women to get back in the kitchen, and burning the Quran?
Edit: letter
The religiosity might be an illusion, but in many cases the religion is drifting away from Christianity. It has certainly very different from traditional Christianity in the rest of the world. Many fundamentalists themselves will say that the major churches are not really Christians, which implies they are not the same religion as the major churches. Other American groups have broken with Christian theology in major ways, such as rejecting the trinity of the incarnation. Some have their own scriptures. Many have beliefs that are not taken from either Christian scriptures or tradition.
> I doubt Trump believes in God half as much as Evangelicals believe in him
Again, if he does, his beliefs are significantly different from traditional Christianity. He seems to know very little about what Christians believe - he once tweeted "Happy Good Friday"!
Then again the Bible has a lot to say about the rich, none of it good.
I don't think using the name and trappings of a religion as a cultural label and dog whistle is the same as sincere belief.
The messages of the gospel aren’t obvious, or obviously good. Without an actual man-god preaching them, I don’t see why we should love our enemies as we love ourselves.
You can call them hypocrites, and maybe that's fair (most Christians are) but they are sincere.
It was an agency of the Spanish monarchy that aimed to strengthen the state, motivated by a history of being occupied by an empire, and fearing the the descendents of the former conquerors would be disloyal to the new state.
The vast majority of modern Christians doesn't, the influences of Greek culture are readily apparent in the conceptual language of the New Testament, John most obviously when he turns Christ into the Logos. Culturally many pre-Christian practices have been incorporated into for example, Latin American Catholicism. You can literally see it in the architecture of churches.
American Evangelical Christianity is a bit of a different beast and best viewed as a nationalist program that brings particular American tendencies to bear on the religion rather than the other way around.
To be entirely fair about it, the linkage may easily go back to the very time of Jesus in some important ways, seeing as many of Jesus's teachings were shared with the Essenes', and the Essenes in turn were quite knowledgeable about Greek/Hellenistic philosophy.