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Only Americans Have a God Gene?

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Just one gene? Some special combination of genes?

Could this same 'need' find expression in something like BDSM?

Is evolutionary psychology akin to postmodern critical theory?

Behavioral geneticist Dean H. Hamer in The God Gene: How Faith is Hard-wired Into our Genes says that the average person can't escape the need to have faith in something supernatural.

Um, or is that just an American perspective?

Could it be that people simply can't help but be religious? I can't imagine the question being posed seriously in Europe, where religion is overwhelmingly ignored. In the Netherlands, Britain, Germany, Sweden and Denmark, fewer than one in 10 citizens enter a church as often as once every month.

Moreover, according to the Gallup Millennium Survey of religious attitudes, 49 percent of Danes, 52 percent of Norwegians and 55 percent of Swedes acknowledge that God doesn't matter to them at all. In America, by contrast, 82 percent of respondents acknowledge that God is "very important" to them.

Debating the existence of the 'God gene'

Richard Evans Lee
September 20, 2005 •
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I'll declare up front my total atheism. I'm in Europe - living in Ireland at the moment, which is still a very religious country. The god gene article set me to thinking....is there a link between social status (class, if you will) and religiousness? I'd postulate that the poor and underprivileged are easier to control and manipulate than others. Decades or centuries of inbreeding would encourage those who stayed within the acceptable beahviours. Now think of America's "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." ethos. Did the grand experiment reinforce all those god genes, and raise their occurrence above the European background level?

Posted by: Paul Hands | September 21, 2005 7:20 AM

One of the things that made Christianity so pervasion amongst African-Americans was that slave owners realized it was a good form of control. The state of my birth, Georgia, was originally settled buy people from debtors prisons. The earliest colonies were largely populated by Puritans who found the Church of England too Papist. A heritage this country has never escaped.

Posted by: Richard | September 21, 2005 8:15 AM

How do you feel?

Feel free to share your feelings about Only Americans Have a God Gene?. Please stick to the theme of the entry. Disagreement is fine. Homophobia, racism, and kindred expressions of hatred will be deleted. This site is one of my hobbies. I genuinely enjoy hearing from people and hate moderating or killing comments. Forthright disagreement is fine as long as it is civil.
My thanks,
Richard

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