Challenge: Secular United States, Religious Europe

Super_Cool

How do we get the roles reversed?

Make the U.S. the most secular nation on the planet, with no disputes over things like evolution or anything like that. And on the same token, have Europe still be devoted to Christianity and spreading the word of Christ. :p
Does this require an earlier POD than 1900?
 

Xen

Banned
Super_Cool said:
Does this require an earlier POD than 1900?
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Yes!

You could have the Great Awakenings in the United States during the 19th century butterflied away, or a persecution of some sort in Europe of agnostics, atheists, and other non-believers that forces them to immigrate to America.
 
Hapsburg

Hapsburg

Banned
Err...the US is a secular country. :confused:
Unless you mean American society. Completely different thing there, though.
 

General Mung Beans

Banned
Theodore Roosevelt is elected President in 1912. World War One is butterflied away. Instead without World War One the Socialist and Anarchist movements grow in strength throughout the US. Eventually the Progressives after the death of Roosevelt radicalize and unite with the Socialists forming the Progressive Socialist Party. It becomes a significant party dominating the inner cities and farm areas. The Progressive-Socialists are incresingly secular as it begins calling various religious leaders the tools of corrupt capitalists. Thus much of the US becomes secular and the Progressive-Socialists are occasionally elected President thus allowing secular reforms. Europe is worried by this secularism in the US and becomes more reactionary. For instance the Tories begin dominating politics in the UK and the Labour Party fails to gain much following. With Communists, Socialist, and Anarchists persecuted throughout Europe they migrate to the US among them Leon Trotsky, Rosa Luxembourg, and Benito Mussolini (who remains Socialist). This wave of intellectuals simply feeds into the growing secularism. The US remains neutral when a much delayed World War One begins in Europe and Russia becomes an authritarioan dictatorship under the Whites. The Central Powers win the delayed World War One and no extreme movements sweep Europe. Instead conservatives dominate France while Germany and Austria-Hungary remain quite religous. The secular movement in the US grows and grows until by 2009 the US resembles Europe in politics and religion with up to a fifth of the US being atheist or agnostic. Incidentially there is not much immigration from Latin America to the US in TTL. In Europe the stolid religious conservatism resembling that of a century before still quietly dominates.
 

Ruschurch

I like Mung Beans offering, but wouldn't seeing secularism/socialism show results in the US, wouldn't it motivate socialists to stay home in Europe and work to achieve on their own turf?
 

carlton_bach

Ruschurch said:
I like Mung Beans offering, but wouldn't seeing secularism/socialism show results in the US, wouldn't it motivate socialists to stay home in Europe and work to achieve on their own turf?
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Depends how things go in Europe. In 1848, many European democrats came to the USA because they had tried to emulate America at home and men with guns were now looking for them. It's possible that this Europe is just too repressive for any hope for change to survive.
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
The big difference is thar Europe had strong state churches in the 1800s, while the US had several different denominations. In Europe the single religous authorities condemned liberalism, and the liberal movements became secularized, in the US there were liberal denominations as well as conservative. The liberals could remain "Good Christians".
 

MerryPrankster

Super_Cool said:
Although Texas and Utah are pretty theocratic...
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Really?

I suspect there's a very strong influence of religion on government, but that's due to the religiosity of the voting public, not because there's an Ayatollah of Austin.

(Although IIRC Austin is really liberal)
 

MerryPrankster

yourworstnightmare said:
The big difference is thar Europe had strong state churches in the 1800s, while the US had several different denominations. In Europe the single religous authorities condemned liberalism, and the liberal movements became secularized, in the US there were liberal denominations as well as conservative. The liberals could remain "Good Christians".
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That's a good point.

Perhaps successful 1848 revolts or longer-lasting Revolutionary governments post-1789 separate church and state earlier?

Or perhaps state churches stay in vogue in the US--some NE states had state-backed Puritan churches as late as the 1830s. The US would go like Europe, to a point.
 

General Mung Beans

Banned
carlton_bach said:
Depends how things go in Europe. In 1848, many European democrats came to the USA because they had tried to emulate America at home and men with guns were now looking for them. It's possible that this Europe is just too repressive for any hope for change to survive.
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Well a lot of European countries might decide to ban or persecute Socialists, Communists, and Anarchists if they're paranoid that their countries might turn out like the US.
 

mcdnab

fascinating discussion but i wonder if you need to go right back to the beginning - and forgive my ignorance cos its not really my field - but here's one way - the puritan members of Elizabeth I's council persuade her to a more liberal approach to the varying protestant sects that were beginning to emerge, in turn this forces the Anglican authorities to permit freedom of worship as long as it remained protestant and reform, James VI and I with his presbyterian upbringing find himself therefore less enamoured of the far more hierarchical Anglican Church when he succeeds Elizabeth and in turn he and his son also take a more liberal line with the puritan sects (who in turn are less radicalised) - less protestant emigration to the new world in order to gain freedom of religious expression - America's development would be significantly altered she would appeal less to people escaping religious persecution and therefore her development would be more along the lines of most of the current liberal protestant european nations where most countries who had established churches have embraced a more secular age it would also mean that England in particular would still be home to all those puritan sects who may have had much more influence on life in the 18th and 19th centuries which might have meant a reduction in the growth of liberalism - although that would also mean its far less likely that Britain would have a civil war in the mid 17th century of course which would mean significant political differences today aswell and i don't know whether that would mean a religious europe and a secular America - perhaps just a secular world!!
 

General Mung Beans

Banned
mcdnab said:
fascinating discussion but i wonder if you need to go right back to the beginning - and forgive my ignorance cos its not really my field - but here's one way - the puritan members of Elizabeth I's council persuade her to a more liberal approach to the varying protestant sects that were beginning to emerge, in turn this forces the Anglican authorities to permit freedom of worship as long as it remained protestant and reform, James VI and I with his presbyterian upbringing find himself therefore less enamoured of the far more hierarchical Anglican Church when he succeeds Elizabeth and in turn he and his son also take a more liberal line with the puritan sects (who in turn are less radicalised) - less protestant emigration to the new world in order to gain freedom of religious expression - America's development would be significantly altered she would appeal less to people escaping religious persecution and therefore her development would be more along the lines of most of the current liberal protestant european nations where most countries who had established churches have embraced a more secular age it would also mean that England in particular would still be home to all those puritan sects who may have had much more influence on life in the 18th and 19th centuries which might have meant a reduction in the growth of liberalism - although that would also mean its far less likely that Britain would have a civil war in the mid 17th century of course which would mean significant political differences today aswell and i don't know whether that would mean a religious europe and a secular America - perhaps just a secular world!!
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Great but that's a POD before 1900.
 

Dathi THorfinnsson

Super_Cool said:
How do we get the roles reversed?

Make the U.S. the most secular nation on the planet, with no disputes over things like evolution or anything like that. And on the same token, have Europe still be devoted to Christianity and spreading the word of Christ. :p
Does this require an earlier POD than 1900?
Click to expand...
WWIII? The few scattered remnants of Europe's population cling desperately to their faith, hope in the next world as there is non in this; while the US, shattered, has a crisis of faith 'if God is good, how could he have allowed this', and most people abandon the faith.

Aside from a total revolution like that, no I don't see any way to do it.
 

Berra

There is this movement to have EU put in it's non-constitution that it's based on christian values but it might not count since they always fail. Which leads me to my point, we need a different social democracy.
 
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