On The Nightly Show Larry Wilmore discusses with his panel the above topic, sparked by the fiasco in Kentucky. What is interesting is not the answer but the fact that these kinds of discussions are becoming common on TV and other forms of popular media. The grandstanding by Kim Davis and her allies may have been a warning sign to many people that religious extremism and a sense of entitlement, that is manifesting itself as a persecution complex if they cannot do whatever they want, is getting out of hand.
Comedian Chloe Hilliard (whom I had not heard of before) had some great things to say.
Get More: Comedy Central,Funny Videos,Funny TV Shows
(This clip aired on September 15, 2015. To get suggestions on how to view clips of The Daily Show and The Nightly Show outside the US, please see this earlier post. If the videos autoplay, please see here for a diagnosis and possible solutions.)
It may seem to people who live in big cities that religion is becoming outdated in America, but I have attended three public high school graduation ceremonies in small towns in Arizona in the past four years and every single one of them had an invocation prayer, even though it is illegal to do so.
You mean the vast majority of the US population? According to the US census, the US is one of the most urbanized countries on the planet with 84% living in metro areas.
Small town American is mostly a myth. A lot (but not all) rural areas are now sinks of crime, drugs, alcoholism, poverty, and ignorance. It’s to the point where average lifespans are falling for the first time in a century in rural areas of the south and west for reasons not clearly understood.
1. From the Pew survey and other data, US xianity is losing 2 million a year and this has held steady for many years.
2. I get a local fundie xian newsletter. They are losing members and money. They’ve had to lay off people and defer maintenance on their buildings. They claim this is terrible. I just smile.
3. As many have noticed, and Amanda Marcotte wrote about, the xians are trapped in a positive feedback loop. The dominant US perversion, the fundies are ugly. This drives normal people away. To compensate, they are getting even uglier. Repeat as needed.
4. Based on current trends, US xianity will go below 50% around 2035, that is 70% losing 1% a year.
Do you have sources for the urbanization statistic, the crime/poverty/alcoholism claim, and the falling life expectancy thing? That sounds pretty interesting.
Yes. This is all widely known. You could look it up on Google in a few seconds, which is where I got it all.
Brookings.edu: these days, we’ve become a thoroughly metropolitan nation. … lives in the top 100 metropolitan areas, and 84 percent of Americans live in all metro areas…
The hardest hit demographic are rural, white women, a fundie xian group.
I’ve seen what dysfunctional rural areas look like up close.
Thanks 😀