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Old 09-23-12, 05:34 AM   #72
joea
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Originally Posted by Skybird View Post
I am aware of this "rift" in American history, between the motivation of the pilgrims to escape European supression - and the spirit that is expressed in America's founding papers and the writings of the early leaders.

Maybe this rift - I don't know a better word for it - is the reason why in America religious and antireligious seem to clash more bitterly than over here. The old debate: was America founded as an explicitly Christian or religious country, or not? By referring to the Pilgrims, you can say: the first hundreds wanted that. By referring to your historic and legal papers, you must say: no, it wasn't. Later that got confirmed again in the infamous treaty of Tripolis.

For us non-Americans it is sometimes difficult to understand why in America these two camps seem to clash so fanatically. However, with the arrival of Islam in Europe, we have shifted into a similiar situation, just that the conflict here is not between Christian fundies and atheists, but between Muslim supremacists and Western secularists. You will get that conflict breaking out in America as well, sooner or later, once a critical population mass of Muslims has been acchieved and their pro-Sharia demands necessarily will collide with secularism.
Quite so-but I am not sure there will ever be enough Muslims to worry avbout that though, the largely Christian immigration from Mexico and other Latin American countries has put them in a far stronger position demographically. They have high birthrates too.
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