Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2001
United States vs. Europe
Thomas M. Miovas, Jr.
> From Tore Boeckmann:
>
>In regard to religion in Europe, and especially
>in the Nordic countries (Iceland, Denmark, Norway),
>the situation is not that large numbers of people
>are declared atheists (although this is true of
>committed Marxists). It is that religion plays no
>role in their daily lives or thinking, even in the
>hypocritical conformist sense.
While I don't count myself an expert on Icelandic ways, I did live in
Iceland nearly 30 years ago at Keflavik for a year and a half, was a member
of the Boy Scout Troop there, met some of the locals, and took some
Icelandic language courses (but don't remember any of it).
As has been pointed out in this thread, religion per se is not the only way
to stop rational progress. The Icelandics were very socialistic and
eventually kicked the US off their island, closing down the US Naval Base
where I lived (though it may be back?). They were very tradition oriented,
going so far as to impose state restrictions on changes to their language
and ways. If I remember correctly, they didn't want to introduce any new
words to their language, preferring (by law?) to put old Icelandic words
together, coming up with something like "metal bird" for "airplane." I have
no idea how they would have put Icelandic words together to come up with
words like "computer," "Internet," "integrated circuits," etc.
But that was thirty years ago, and maybe things have changed.
On a similar note, while I was dating a Korean immigrant to the US, I was
amazed at how tradition-bound they were, and how close this "family
oriented" tradition came to being communism in practice. I even made a
comment to her that it is no wonder North Korea become communist, since the
two ideologies were so similar -- she agreed.
So, if we are going to compare the United States to Europe (and beyond),
let's not forget that religion is not the only anti-rational ideology out
there -- and they all lead to the same thing: the enslavement of the human
mind.
