AHC: America as religious as possible following World War II
Marc
Donor
It did, in 1956.
"A law passed in a Joint Resolution by the 84th Congress (P.L. 84-140) and approved by President Dwight Eisenhower on July 30, 1956, declared "In God We Trust" must appear on American currency. This phrase was first used on paper money in 1957, when it appeared on the one-dollar silver certificate."
All the rest would be footnote.
"A law passed in a Joint Resolution by the 84th Congress (P.L. 84-140) and approved by President Dwight Eisenhower on July 30, 1956, declared "In God We Trust" must appear on American currency. This phrase was first used on paper money in 1957, when it appeared on the one-dollar silver certificate."
All the rest would be footnote.
That's pretty much OTL. The civil rights movement was led by ministers. Atheism was identified with Communism and the 1950s were when the Cold War really took off.
Avoid Vietnam and the associated social upheaval. Anti-war activism on the part of many preachers/ministers/chaplains resulted in many of their members joining evangelical churches and the christian right, which in turn proceeded to push many of those not on the right against religion in general. The situation that had lasted for a long time, in which liberal church leaders had churchgoers who were broadly conservative, broke down.
Avoid the courts ending school prayer.
Avoid the GOP becoming the pro-life party, resulting in many Catholics staying democrat. Religion becoming associated with a political faction tends to result in a decline of religiosity on the other side due to partisan reasons. Plus Democrats will watch their step more on religious issues if they have more religious voters in their ranks.
Avoid the courts ending school prayer.
Avoid the GOP becoming the pro-life party, resulting in many Catholics staying democrat. Religion becoming associated with a political faction tends to result in a decline of religiosity on the other side due to partisan reasons. Plus Democrats will watch their step more on religious issues if they have more religious voters in their ranks.
To quote Wiki
"According to the Pew Research Center in a 2014 survey, self-identified "atheists" make up 3.1% of the US population, even though 9% of Americans agreed with the statement "Do not believe in God" while 2% agreed with the statement "Do not know if they believe in God".[4] "
I would have to poke around for the figures but last time I checked most of the US considers atheists immoral and incapable of being good people. Being an atheist is such political poison that Wiki can literally list the important ones.
Like most Western nations the US is more religious than they like to admit and the US is more religious than most Western nations.
"According to the Pew Research Center in a 2014 survey, self-identified "atheists" make up 3.1% of the US population, even though 9% of Americans agreed with the statement "Do not believe in God" while 2% agreed with the statement "Do not know if they believe in God".[4] "
I would have to poke around for the figures but last time I checked most of the US considers atheists immoral and incapable of being good people. Being an atheist is such political poison that Wiki can literally list the important ones.
Like most Western nations the US is more religious than they like to admit and the US is more religious than most Western nations.
That's pretty much the 1950's in OTL. "Churches and schools were being greatly expanded to accommodate the growing population, and organized religion was in its heyday. On a typical Sunday morning in the period from 1955-58, almost half of all Americans were attending church – the highest percentage in U.S. history. During the 1950s, nationwide church membership grew at a faster rate than the population, from 57 percent of the U.S. population in 1950 to 63.3 percent in 1960." https://news.usc.edu/25835/The-1950s-Powerful-Years-for-Religion/
It's interesting that, the way many social/cultural conservatives put it, you would think that everybody went to church on Sunday.
With 'Blue Laws' keeping most businesses from opening on Sundays that was often true. People would be ostracised for not attending. My father worked in the restaurant industry for a chain and had to work Sundays on a regular business. We had some neighbors who made a point of telling him or my mother that they 'would pray for him'' since he couldn't attend.
Funny thing is that some of businesses that fought to kill the Blue Laws found out that having the stores open on Sundays did not increase business but just spread existing business across an additional day which increased their costs
i've noticed a recurring theme/topic if not on the same level of [x alternate railroad path] scheme threads of religious left/"faith and freedom left" or prude left timelines on here
If having IGWT on the currency is as religious as America can get, then America was arguably a lot less religious that the UK and the Scandinavian nations, which, never mind just having theistic slogans on the money, had(and in some cases still have) actually established state churches. But I think by most reckonings, the USA is more religious than those places.
Mind you, I suppose there is a difference between a nation keeping a state church on the books just because it's an historical inheritance that no one has gotten around to axing, and making an active choice to put religion on the money, when none existed before. The latter really strikes me as goofy rah-rahism, politicians going out of their way to demonstrate how religious they are, for the benefit of folks who are impressed by that sort of thing.
Whatever effects the elimination of Sunday laws may have had on businesses, its effect on my mental well-being was nothing but salutary. Back in the day, there was nothing more disspiriting than a Sunday afternoon when everything was closed. I sometimes think it was an evil capitalist plot to make workers pine for Monday morning.
Let me cast a dissenting vote.
Something like a prayer written by the New York Board of Regents is going to be perceived by the kids as pretty phoney-baloney.
Well, it's certainly much closer to the teachings of Jesus than the "fuck you got mine" mentality embraced by OTL self-proclaimed "conservative Christians".
Have more Christian and Jewish leaders reasonable and realistic about sexuality. For example, here’s James Dobson:
On the other hand, if religion is clumsily and mechanically anti-sex, people might decide it’s just as clumsy and mechanical in other areas. Pushed too hard to make a choice and pressured to feel guilty over something as normal about masturbation, I think a fair number of people do make a decision for “the world.”
I think Jim’s dad said this to him before he started adolescence. And it is kind of phenomenal.
On the other hand, if religion is clumsily and mechanically anti-sex, people might decide it’s just as clumsy and mechanical in other areas. Pushed too hard to make a choice and pressured to feel guilty over something as normal about masturbation, I think a fair number of people do make a decision for “the world.”
That would have the opposite effect imo. No bans on school prayer/biblical instruction in public schools would mean less reason for protestant evangelicals to be riled up or involved in politics. A US where the SC bans school prayer 20 or 30 years later or doesn't touch it is a more secular nation than OTL.
The creator of the pill was a catholic who thought the pill was just a continuation of the "rhythm method" of family planning that the Church already endorsed.