There are three religions: Liberal, Moderate and Conservative Religion.

[CJCRANE]

IMO people of faith of all religions, whether Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu etc. seem to fall into three categories:

Liberal religionists
Moderate religionists
Conservative religionists

They all get on with each other except for the extreme end of conservative religion - fundamentalists - who generally dislike fundamentalists of other religions even though they are the most similar!

The similarities between these interpretations of various religions is greater than the differences between them IMO.

I would like the MSM to do more to acknowledge that religions are not monolithic, for instance that Sarah Palin or the Duck Brothers do not represent Christianity and Christians, they occupy just one of many interpretations.

[lostincalifornia]

1. Orthodox, conservative, and reform with regard to Jewish.

Islam have different flavors, Sunni, Shia, and within various religions some are traditional, but I am not sure most are broken down formally

[CJCRANE]

3. I'm not talking about schisms or denominations.

I'm talking about personal interpretations, how people live their religion in their everday life.

The people I meet generally fall into one of the three categories, whatever religion or lack of religion.

[lostincalifornia]

8. Is political tilt the same as religious tilt?

[CJCRANE]

11. I think it is generally speaking.

Maybe the terms could be changed slightly but I think people interpet their religion based on their personality.

In terms of the Abrahamic religions you have the continuum between Love/Mercy and Wrath/Punishment.

Some people live their religion more towards the Love/Mercy pole while others others lean toward the Wrath/Punishment pole.

[lostincalifornia]

16. Thanks, that clarifies for me the hypothesis you are making

[cbayer]

2. I would like DU members to do more to acknowledge that religions are not monolithic,

and thank you for your post pointing that out.

[Warren Stupidity]

4. I would like some DU members to admit that liberal christians are a small minority of US

christians, and that conservative christians are in fact the majority, rather than the other way around.

However I am not holding my breath waiting for honesty to break out.

[hrmjustin]

6. And you know this how?

[Warren Stupidity]

9. well, for example

source http://www.pewforum.org

[hrmjustin]

10. Interesting data but nit everyone votes so...

[Warren Stupidity]

12. I know, it is just evidence that supports an argument.

Feel free to find some evidence that contradicts it.

[hrmjustin]

13. I am not looking to contradict it.

[AtheistCrusader]

27. If they aren't voting, or can't be motivated to vote, then they are irrelevant

for the purposes of a political discussion site.

[hrmjustin]

44. This was a religious question I think but I might be wrong.

[CJCRANE]

15. That shows religious attendance

rather than the proportions of different types of people of faith.

You still might be correct, but that isn't clear from the survey.

[Warren Stupidity]

22. I agree, it is just one data point

that correlates regiousness with conservatism. More difficult is adding up liberal versus conservative denominations, because if the fuzziness of which is which.

However, the fact that aclear plurality of Americans profess creationist beliefs suggests that conservative Christian institutions are dominant.

[rug]

21. That assumes those elections offered a liberal choice.

It's true only in comparison to the given choices.

Furthermore, binary election results are meaningless in comparison to positions on issues.

[kwassa]

23. Here is a better chart, also from Pew. I think it disproves your point

[muriel_volestrangler]

31. What that does show is the Christian vote went to Romney; especially white Christian

With the table for religious makeup of the electorate, also here: http://www.pewforum.org/2012/11/07/how-the-faithful-voted-2012-preliminary-exit-poll-analysis/ , we can work out that 21.1% of the electorate were white Christians who voted for Obama; 35.1% white Christians who voted for Romney (not sure where Mormons are in that, since they're not in the religious makeup table). 34.8% were Christians who voted for Obama; 42.2% Christians for Romney.

If we define 'liberal' as 'voted for Obama', liberal Christians aren't a small minority, but they are a minority.

[kwassa]

46. I agree that they are a minority, and not a small one.

with quite a difference between evangelical and non-evangelical in terms of percentages.

and, a majority of Catholics voted for Obama.

[Warren Stupidity]

35. No really it doesn't show that.

It shows, for example, that "Protestant affiliated voters" voted overwhelmingly for Romney, despite black Protestants voting for Obama 95-5. It also shows that Catholics voted for Obama, but apparently only because Hispanic Catholics did so by a landslide, non-hispanic Catholics were more conservative than Protestants. How you get from that that liberalism is not a minority faction among the religious is a mystery.

[kwassa]

47. I am objecting to your description of them as a small minority, which is certainly not true.

and Hispanics and Blacks are Christians, too, so you can't separate them out, even if you want to.

[muriel_volestrangler]

32. 19% religious progressive, 38% religious moderate, 28% religious conservative, 15% nonreligious

http://publicreligion.org/newsroom/2013/07/news-release-1-in-5-americans-are-religious-progressives/

[pinto]

33. And they note that the % breakdown is not static - a good thing if the trend holds.

“However, the percentage of religious conservatives shrinks in each successive generation, with religious progressives outnumbering religious conservatives in the Millennial generation.” (Dr. Robert P. Jones, CEO of Public Religion Research Institute)

[muriel_volestrangler]

34. A note: in the full report, they say 'religious ...' is a combination of 'theological', 'economic'

and 'social'. P.31:

In order to evaluate the relative sizes and profiles of religious progressives and conservatives, we combined the three scales above (theological orientation, economic orientation, and social orientation) into a single scale, where each of the three individual scales carried equal weight.

Respondents who scored consistently low across all three scales were categorized as religious progressives, while respondents who scored consistently high across all three scales were categorized as religious conservatives. Those with mixed scores (low on one scale and high on another), or with scores in the middle range of the scales were categorized as religious moderates. As with the theological scale above, nonreligious Americans were excluded.

http://publicreligion.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/2013-Economic-Values-Report-Final-.pdf

The proportions for 'theological' were:
Theological conservative: 38%
Theological moderate: 28%:
Theological liberal: 19%
Nonreligious: 15%

[pinto]

37. Ah, yeah. I checked out their methodology to determine the three scales. Interesting.

Appendix 2, pg. 49

[kwassa]

48. More from the report: 83% of Democratics are religious believers.

Religious progressives and conservatives are distributed in very different ways in the two major political parties. Among Democrats 28% are religious progressives, 42% are religious moderates, and 13% are religious conservatives; additionally 17% are nonreligious. Among Republicans, a majority (56%) are religious conservatives, 33% are religious moderates, 5% are religious progressives, and 6% are nonreligious

I would point out that the 83 % of Democrats identify themselves as religious in some way, while 17% do not. In other words, even those who are not theologically liberal vote Democratic, and those that do identify as religiously progressive are fully 11 percentage points higher than nonbelievers in the Democratic party. This is significant.

[el_bryanto]

50. I would admit that;

I don't know about small minority (I'm not sure what constitutes a small minority), but definitely the minority.

Bryant

[hrmjustin]

7. You know that will never happen.

[cbayer]

14. Well, it did just happen, I would just like to see more of it.

[Aerows]

69. Many of us have been damaged by religion

that finding strength in faith is difficult. I'm merely pointing out why it is difficult for many, and I mean no slander or criticism.

[cbayer]

70. I know, Aerows. Some people have been very badly damaged and

I certainly do not expect people to find strength in faith. And I know it's difficult not to generalize when you've been hurt.

[LiberalAndProud]

5. Do you ever wonder what kind of religionist Roger Ailes is?

When I pause to think about it, I figure he's probably whatever kind will make him the most money. In the same vein, I figure the MSM will acknowledge only that which garners more advertising dollars.

[cbayer]

17. Is he a religionist at all?

There is surpassingly little about this on searches for him.

He was raised evangelical, then Presbyterian, but I can't find anything about a religious affiliation at this time.

He gives to Catholic and Jewish charities, but purposefully does not give to Muslim ones.

[LiberalAndProud]

18. I think you will find that same sort of information

if you try to find the Koch brothers' or Peter Peterson's religious affiliations. You will find charitable donations, but little about their own religiosity. That may, or may not, speak volumes.

[cbayer]

19. It's really hard to know what to make of that.

Are they non-believers? Agnostic?

Or maybe they are satanists!!!

[Starboard Tack]

20. Excellent post! I couldn't agree more

But you left out atheists, who fall into the same 3 categories and the same rule applies. Only the extremists/fundamentalists are unable to get along with anyone who dares to think differently.

[skepticscott]

25. "Unable to get along" meaning what, exactly?

Are there groups of "fundamentalist atheists" (ok, all but a few people here recognize that's an asinine concept, but I'll use your term anyway) out there oppressing, persecuting and slaughtering religious believers who think differently than they do? No...that's what religious groups do to each other. Are there "fundamentalist atheists" out there trying to get governments to take away the right of freedom of religion? Nope..not that either.

What, then? Saying things that hurt other people feewings? Telling real fundamentalists that they're bigoted for fighting against gay rights? Telling creationists that they're dumbasses for trying to force their mythological crap into public school science classes? THAT kind of not getting along?

[Warren Stupidity]

36. And in response to your post you get called a bigot by one of our best.

[skepticscott]

42. NOW I know what he meant

by "unable to get along". Nice of him to volunteer to be a living example.

[kwassa]

24. I agree with this OP, after watching the culture wars in churches ...

I used to believe it was a difference in theological views, but I think it is simply part and parcel of the culture wars going on in the rest of American society.

Different denominations, particularly older ones, have different percentages of liberals, moderates, and conservatives. Most of the mainline denominations are generally moderate-to-liberal, with some being very liberal.

[AtheistCrusader]

26. But they all lend each other credence

as each starts with the unproven assumption that a god or gods exist.

[CJCRANE]

28. I'm more concerned about their actions in the world.

I don't care what name a person calls their God (or doesn't), it's what they do in their everyday lives (and voting) that counts.

There are liberal christians, jews, muslims, buddhists, atheists etc.

What we have in common outweighs our differences.

[cbayer]

30. In terms of sharing a single belief, they do lend each other credence.

But if you try to extend that to something more than simply "credence", the argument fails.

[AtheistCrusader]

43. It's the foundation upon which all of them are built.

Starting point: X intelligence exists, and wants us to do stuff.

Position A) Intelligence wants us to do Y
Position B) Intelligence wants us to do Z


All three claims are unverifiable, not just between me, the non-believer, but between members of Position A and Position B.
Let's say Position A is love everyone, judge not, very reasonable stuff. Let's say Position B is 'stone the unbelievers'.
How can anyone resolve either claim? They are mutually exclusive. They are both sourced to an acceptance of the idea of X intelligence existing at all. A presupposition. They differ only on the nature of sub-claims made about that intelligence.


Position A strengthens B, by accepting the premise that X exists, and has something it wants us to do, instead of EVERYONE lining up and telling people of Position B that they are full of bollocks to the eyeballs.

[cbayer]

51. It's a shared belief and that is it.

So what?

Starting point: Electoral politics is important for determining the direction of the country

Position A) Democrats want to elect liberal/progressive candidates

Position B) Republicans want to elect conservative/libertarian candidates

They are mutually exclusive, but the are both rooted in the belief that electoral politics are important. They differ only in the sub-claims.

Position A does not strengthen position B just because it accepts the same premise. In fact, it counters it, even though both groups have the same foundation.

Your proposition if full of bollocks to the eyeballs.

[AtheistCrusader]

52. Sociology is a real thing. Votes are real things. Political affiliation to party/platforms, all real

things. Can be measured. Studied. Examined. Altered.

That is the biggest face-flop analogy I've seen in a long time.

[cbayer]

53. Religious affiliation is a real thing.

Belief and faith are real things.

The analogy holds.

Bad as you want to conflate conservative believers with liberal believers, it's going to be a face-flop failure. It's far from the biggest I've seen in a while, but you keep working at it.

[AtheistCrusader]

54. I didn't conflate them.

You keep doing this. It's getting old.

Spelled out PRECISELY how one group of religious believer's faith reinforces another's. It is not a difficult concept. I also SPECIFICALLY separated the cross-acceptance of specific beliefs beyond the acceptance of the existence of a supernatural whatever.

So. Stop that.

A political position on, say, the legality of Abortion, as a political issue, is much more 'real' than anything 'faith based' you just suggested. One has direct real-world implications. The other only MIGHT have real world implications.

[cbayer]

55. You always say it's getting old when I make a good argument.

It's getting old, lol. So. Stop that.

I disagree that one group of religious believer's faith reinforces another. Completely disagree.

What do you suggest? Should liberal/progressive believers give up their beliefs in order to discredit the religious right? That makes zero sense.

[AtheistCrusader]

56. It wasn't a good argument, as I detailed.

What is the foundational premise that supports left and right political affiliation? That politics is a real thing? It is. We pass and enforce laws every damn day.

What I am getting tired of, is you misrepresenting my statements. You do it all the time.

"Bad as you want to conflate conservative believers with liberal believers"
I did no such thing. And you fucking know it.

Electoral politics is a thing. Codified in law. Measured in tangible votes. Put into effect by force of arms.
It has no parity to the example I gave.

[cbayer]

57. No need to get all worked up.

If I misinterpret something you have said, I merely misunderstood it. That could be for many reasons, including the way you expressed it, but there is nefarious motivation at work.

Religious affiliation is a thing and also measurable. Political positions are inextricably tied to certain religious affiliations. The differences are clear and, again, measurable.

I ask again, what would you have progressive/liberal religious people do that they are not doing? The only thing I see you saying about this is that by having religious beliefs at all, they support the religious right. I completely disagree.

Since the political/social issues are so vastly different, I think that the religious left is most effective when they distance themselves from the religious right on issues. The fact that they both belong to the huge category of "religious" is meaningless in that context.

[AtheistCrusader]

58. Substantiate their claims.

"I ask again, what would you have progressive/liberal religious people do that they are not doing?"

Substantiate said claims, or keep them away from politics entirely. Because ANY group that conflates the two, supports another, no matter how reprehensible.

It shouldn't BE a question whether Hobby Lobby can deny workers contraception-providing health insurance on religious objection.

The firewall between church and state is breaking down in critical ways, and one path out of that morass is for, for instance, liberal Christians to substantiate their view as correct, and the others as malformed, etc. Another would be to withdraw faith from their interactions with the public square (government) in any sense, and leave them as the only outlier, so we can ALL attack their position together.

"Religious affiliation is a thing and also measurable."

Affiliation yes. Political party yes. But they do not correlate to the electoral ACTIONS of the entire nation, as you suggested.

"Political positions are inextricably tied to certain religious affiliations."

No, they aren't. Some people do hold that they are, but that doesn't make it so. Render unto Caesar, remember? I would very much prefer Christian liberals source their political motivations to politics, not religion. Let the conservative Christians standing there holding the bag of faith as a moral basis for law, alone. Makes things easier for the supreme court to light their ideas on fire.

[cbayer]

59. Substantiate what claims? That there is a god?

That Jesus was the Messiah?

When religious ideas impact negatively on politics, I agree that we should keep them out. But many important liberal/progressive causes have greatly benefitted from the participation of religious people and organizations. Many times, they cite their religious beliefs as the driver for their passionate involvement in these movements. You may wish for them to source their political motivations to politics, but they are not going to do that. So what?

I'm not sure how liberal/progressive christians can "substantiate their view as correct"? Their religious beliefs, based on faith, can't be substantiated. Do you want substantiation for their political views? The ones we all here share? If they use their religious beliefs to do that, that's just fine with me.

The complete separation you seek is not possible or desirable. It is not more acceptable to tell religious people to just shut up then it is to tell atheists that.

[AtheistCrusader]

60. Because

"When religious ideas impact negatively on politics, I agree that we should keep them out. But many important liberal/progressive causes have greatly benefitted from the participation of religious people and organizations. Many times, they cite their religious beliefs as the driver for their passionate involvement in these movements. You may wish for them to source their political motivations to politics, but they are not going to do that. So what?"

Doing so lends equal credence to the opposition. For instance, abolitionists that cited Christian dogma as preventing the possibility of holding humans as property in effect gave platform and opportunity for other, opposition elements to take the stage and espouse their own religious beliefs that allowed slavery.

If that's your motivation, fine, but if your unsupportable religious claim is your only public basis for XYZ legislation, you are granting your opponent sanction and equal footing to combat it.


It is precisely because it is subjective and unsupportable, that it fails/does more harm than good.

"The complete separation you seek is not possible or desirable. It is not more acceptable to tell religious people to just shut up then it is to tell atheists that."

It is possible. I have seen, with my own eyes, people work up entirely secular justification/impetus for complex social problem solving legislation. To make an issue about something OTHER than subjective interpretation of religious morals. It's actually quite easy to do.

If religion drives you in an issue, fine, be bold with that confidence, but if you publicly base your actions on that, within the political sphere, you are building an all-purpose subjective interpretation soapbox for your opposition to occupy.

Subjective interpretation - subjective interpretation = null.

Better to not advance that sanction in the first place. Because all breath spent on those subjective interpretations are wasted.

[cbayer]

61. Well, we clearly disagree on this point and I'm not sure it's worth

going around in the circle again.

You think that the religious left using their beliefs to pursue causes gives credibility to the religious right. I think the opposite.

While often motivated by their beliefs, the religious left generally does not try to legislate their beliefs. In fact, I can't think of any example of that happening.

So, I'm still not clear on what you would have them do. Pretend that their religion has nothing to do with their motivations for being engaged in a specific movement?

[AtheistCrusader]

62. Yes, but I wouldn't use the word 'pretend'.

I'd say 'keep it to yourself.'. Source the position to something material.

This is really just an extension of the Entanglement prong of the Lemon test, as the Supreme Court uses. A religious basis for the law in question would be viewed as excessive entanglement.

"3.The government's action must not result in an "excessive government entanglement" with religion. (Entanglement Prong)"


For instance, on the abortion fight, the religious left does not base their support for a woman's right to choose, upon anything faith-based. Let's have that consistency across the board.

The fact that the right ONLY has a religious objection is telling, and a fatal flaw in their argument. (And why secular people who oppose abortion are so incredibly easy to defeat in debate.)

[pinto]

63. I think there's a difference. The religious left doesn't look to codify religion into secular law.

The religious right definitely does, as in the creationist legislation cropping up under the guise of "religious freedom". It's a total ruse. An attempt to legislate a religious belief into law.

Though liberal religionists and conservative religionists may both be spurred by their faiths to engage in the political sphere, their goals are completely different, imo. The left has a secular goal, the right has a religious goal.

See your point to an extent but, fwiw, I think this horse has left the barn - the religious right has taken to the legislatures and the courts to push a religious agenda. Blatantly.

[cbayer]

64. How hypocritical, AC.

You are saying that religious people should keep their religion to themselves, while you sport a user name proclaiming yourself as an atheist crusader and spend a great deal of time pushing your atheist agenda.

What gives you more of a right to do this than anyone else? Can you not source your position to something material?

I agree about excessive entanglement. That is not the same thing as expressing your religious beliefs while supporting a specific cause.

Religious people use religious arguments in supporting GLBT civil rights. What's the problem with that?

I agree that it is a fatal flaw of the religious right to have only a religious objection, but the solution to that is not for the religious left to just "keep to themselves" the religious motivations for supporting or objecting to political issues.

[AtheistCrusader]

65. Le sigh.

"Religious people use religious arguments in supporting GLBT civil rights. What's the problem with that?"

Doing so is entirely subjective, and carries no more weight than those that use religious arguments to oppose it. Worse, it grants sanction that such religiously inspired positions have any place in government/political discourse.

It's like you haven't heard a thing I've said.



"You are saying that religious people should keep their religion to themselves, while you sport a user name proclaiming yourself as an atheist crusader and spend a great deal of time pushing your atheist agenda."

My username on a interwebs forum has nothing at all to do with my political activism in meatspace. We have repeatedly discussed 'my atheist agenda' and my acceptance of divorcing religious faith from politics being sufficient to cause me to take no further interest in the idea of religion. So, pretty disingenuous there.

[cbayer]

66. I didn't say it held more weight, but it does hold weight.

And, again, I disagree that it grants sanction to anything else. It does so only to the degree that arguments about non-believer rights do.

If you think I haven't heard anything you say, you might consider that you are not saying it clearly, but I think it's just more likely that you are frustrated that your arguments do not sway me.

The argument about how your user name and positions on religion are different than a religious person taking positions based on their religious affiliation is what is pretty disingenuous, imo.

[AtheistCrusader]

67. I grow weary of your bullshit.

it holds the same weight, meaning it is a null, and time spent discussing it is wasted, where it could be better spent on the actual merits of legislation.

Make whatever hay you like of my username, I don't give a flying fuck.

[cbayer]

68. And I of yours. Adios.

[MellowDem]

38. I see it differently...

Here's how I would generally see your 3 when it comes to the Abrahamic religions:

1. Liberal believers: Intellectually dishonest about their own religion, almost complete dissonance and contradiction, almost no consistency.

2. Moderate believers: Intellectually dishonest about their own religion, moderate dissonance and some contradiction, some consistency.

3. Conservative believers: honest about their own religion, no dissonance or contradiction beyond that caused by their own religious texts, consistent.

The US is mostly moderate believers, conservative believers are terrifying the world over.

I wish the MSM would do more to point out what religions really say in their own texts and calling out dishonest and convenient apologetics, but the MSM thrives on both, given their market is moderate believers.

[CJCRANE]

39. Except that religion is like literature, there are lots of different interpretations.

I don't see any interpretation as more or less valid than the others.

For the mosr part many conservative religionists don't know their holy books or traditions very well. Christian and islamic fundamentalism are modern phenomena, followed by people who often know little about religion or history.

For my part, I will argue my corner as a liberal using liberal/compassionate quotes which religion has a lot of. I think my religious viewpoint is just as valid as the conservative one. As a result I think liberal and moderate interpretations of religion deserve as much coverage as conservative ones.

[Goblinmonger]

40. All interpretations of literature are not equal.

Please stop using that as a comparison, please. As a literature teacher, I find that just plan ignorant. Can you have variations on how you interpret a piece of literature? Sure. Is it just as valid to say The Great Gatsby is a book written to extol the virtues of alcohol as to say it was a book about the death of the American Dream? No. Not at all.

The problem with Christianity is that you/they need to look at The Bible as a monolithic whole which it isn't. It is a set of various fictions written over time by different people in different locations. Each one has meaning and you can see if you are correct in that by intertextual verification. The problem comes when you convince yourself that Leviticus is part of the same whole as the Gospel of Luke. Now you have to contort Leviticus to fit into the whole. And that's not how it was written.

The end result of that is not that "everything is valid" but that the Bible is not a coherent piece of literature written by or inspired by god.

[CJCRANE]

41. But who decides which interpretations are more valid?

Both literature and religion have different interpretations and the more you study them the more interpretations you can find.

Ultimately there is no single arbiter of what is correct and what isn't, although there may be accepted interpretations within particular groups and communities.

[MellowDem]

45. People...

through critical thinking and evaluation. And the conclusion that makes the most sense, by far, IMHO, is that none of the interpretations are more valid because they're all wrong, and the base premise that the Bible is the word of god is wrong.

That's the intellectually honest answer at least. But confirmation bias allows for endless roundabouts of interpretation to fit or excuse any valid point. And that's just looking at a small part of the apologetic's tool belt. There are so many different ways of excusing biblical contradictions and falsehoods that it's a profession itself, with thousands of years of testing to see which forms of intellectual dishonesty work best on people.

[Warren Stupidity]

49. step one is "what does the text say within the context in which it was written"?

That is where all analysis of literature starts. The problem with that approach and the bible, or any other currently in use sacred book, is that the text becomes ridiculous and/or horrific, it assaults our modern sensibilities with a bronze age world view. Thus "liberal Christians" are compelled to toss the text and its clear intent and invent new myths to overlay the old. The logic for doing this is rather circular: it is the word of God, it doesn't make any literal sense or the sense it makes is unacceptable, God must have meant this instead.