Jds22 Posted December 28, 2012 Share Posted December 28, 2012 Not really a rant but I thought this was interesting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator florduh Posted December 28, 2012 Super Moderator Share Posted December 28, 2012 We always knew there was a Bible Belt. I'm not really surprised at all, but it's creepy seeing it graphically represented. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vigile Posted December 28, 2012 Share Posted December 28, 2012 That's a nice graphic. Glad to see my hometown, Boise, is represented in big blue. Also, I think it's a good lesson for the rest of us who have never lived in the sea of red. We just don't KNOW what it is you guys are really going through. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
movingon Posted December 28, 2012 Share Posted December 28, 2012 I never really thought about that, its interesting. If there wasn't the internet, idk how the people in the sea of red would do anything as far as getting information.I guess that is the point.lack of access allows for more believers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator florduh Posted December 28, 2012 Super Moderator Share Posted December 28, 2012 It does support the notion that education and intelligence are the natural enemies of religion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sybaris Posted December 28, 2012 Share Posted December 28, 2012 Those same "red" states also have the most smokers and the most obese Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator florduh Posted December 28, 2012 Super Moderator Share Posted December 28, 2012 Those same "red" states also have the most smokers and the most obese Statistics, studies and conclusions are so interesting..... http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/201010/why-intelligent-people-smoke-more-cigarettes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mwc Posted December 28, 2012 Share Posted December 28, 2012 Thing is bookstores are a dying breed as they move online but churches continue to live on in the real world. Around where I live the bookstores have all nearly died out for both new and used. All the churches are still around and we now have these "Life" churches that are in the local cinema each week. mwc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator florduh Posted December 28, 2012 Super Moderator Share Posted December 28, 2012 Thing is bookstores are a dying breed as they move online...... I considered that, too. Still, as of this compilation in 2008, the ultrahip, what's happening now, latest techno, state of the art, digitally savvy areas of the country continued to have a shitload of bookstores despite Internet availability of texts of all kinds. Perhaps the red areas are populated by those who don't read much, if at all. They certainly are religious, though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mwc Posted December 29, 2012 Share Posted December 29, 2012 Thing is bookstores are a dying breed as they move online...... I considered that, too. Still, as of this compilation in 2008, the ultrahip, what's happening now, latest techno, state of the art, digitally savvy areas of the country continued to have a shitload of bookstores despite Internet availability of texts of all kinds. Perhaps the red areas are populated by those who don't read much, if at all. They certainly are religious, though. Could be why the death of the brick and mortar bookstore is more noticeable in certain areas as well? If you don't have so many, or any, to begin with you don't notice so much when it's gone. So when we've lost lots around here it's noticeable. Maybe this is why some places lament the loss of a church more than others? We sure don't really give much of a shit when one goes away but it seems to mark the end of days in some places. I wonder what the distribution of sex related business is now? Does it follow churches or book stores? mwc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sheerbliss Posted December 29, 2012 Share Posted December 29, 2012 When I showed up for jury duty last month, there was a pretty sharp group of people there (except for most of those involved in the case). We have several used book stores around here, even one that's open all night. In Colorado Springs, home of Focus on the Family and other such groups, last time I stayed there (several years ago), I noticed that fireman and paramedics on their way to an emergency used a bullhorn to tell drivers to get out of the way. I've never seen that anywhere else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sheerbliss Posted December 29, 2012 Share Posted December 29, 2012 I wonder what the distribution of sex related business is now? Does it follow churches or book stores? mwc There was a Richard Dawkins video (maybe Sex, Death and the Meaning of Life) where someone said that the most porn use was in Utah and Alabama. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onyx Posted December 29, 2012 Share Posted December 29, 2012 Ugh, I think there should be more bookstores in America and elsewhere that admits to a high degree of religiosity because if we had more bookstores and more forms of entertainment that admits more openness to the world like that then we might not have the need to resort to holy books that we do not even read. As a ironic bonus, you do get to read the Bible more often if you read more often but you do get truly fresh new perspectives on the same bible. As much as I despise the Holy Bible - for more often than not, its irrelevancy to the modern world - it is still an extraordinary book, taken secularly. It's a compendium of one mythology amongst many of the fertile crescent, abeit heavily edited and censored. It's so old (ranging from 1200 BCE to 2nd century CE at the very least) that it's like a foreign world to us. Cutting foreskins? Odd and it's like we are two different cultures. Visitations through flaming bushes? A fever dream in the modern world. Extermination of neighbouring tribes? Either it's Bronze age warfare or these biblical people were big boasters with a nasty streak. Some wisdoms here and there, but not quite enough of them for this modern world, whose parts of it aren't as enamoured of Christianity as the Christians themselves are. The true value of the Bible for today's world is that it influenced great art of all kinds, as can be seen in Shakespeare, Chaucer, Machiavelli, Michelangelo, Milton and etc. Within this context, I have to say America shot itself in the foot! It should have been a truly new land, free of the old religious shackles, but they messed up with Puritanism and such stupidity which they mistook such religious thoughts for freedom and beauty, when they got kicked out of England for being gigantic fundamentalists even for the English. The American landscape is one of the most metaphorical that I've ever seen. Wide open cornfields, huge ranges of mountains, the scorching desert and the quintessential land symbols of America: The forgetful beach and the awe inspiring canyon/mesas. How did that huge and freeing landscape of America ever did get mistaken for the cramped confines of the Bible and the chaining words of the elderly Puritan Preacher? A bloody tragedy if I ever saw one. Remember, The Tempest, the final solo Shakespearean play is said to be set in the an uninhibited island of The Bahamas by some scholars. Miranda could have been talking of the Americas when she said the famous (admittedly ironic) quote of "O wonder!How many goodly creatures are there here!How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,That has such people in't." Unfortunately, ironic or not, that sentiment was often proven wrong in the case of America. Even in response to her exultation of the beauty of the immediate surroundings, Prospero somehow mirrors the tragedy of America too. I just fucking hope America become like Europe eventually and finally catch up to Australia. Australia was the land America should have been like. Australia were at first full of people who were forced to make a new start just because of their mostly petty crimes.Not very much piety in existence when Australia began, honestly. Gold miners drank and swore, convicts were worked to death and some of them were extremely cruel to others. But Australia is extraordinary because it was one of the first countries to be settled without an overt religious agenda. It was actually the agenda of law and order that started Australia, not religion and authoritarianism inherent when America started. Both countries weren't perfect in their beginning, but Australia has the freedom and liberty America was promising now, sadly. I hope America can fulfil its potential eventually - it is a truly extraordinary potential indeed - because if not, America would take us all down with its fecklessness and fundamentalism while throwing knowledge and sensibleness to the curb otherwise! This tragedy can be prevented. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ExCBooster Posted December 29, 2012 Share Posted December 29, 2012 Wow. That's a great map. And loads of good points. I kind of see it as illustrating a cultural/political trend - in a representational democracy the way the US is set up, culture and politics end up nastily in bed together. It becomes a badge of belonging to be ignorant AND religious as part of a cultural constellation of markers that define the voting lines. The other thing I'd blame, in conjunction with Onyx's point above, is the USA's age, and massive population, some 311,500,00 or so of us by 2011. We've had almost 240 years - depending on how you measure it - to play the "us" vs "them" game, as subsequent waves of immigration got caught up in this socio-political game. The usual plan: come up with some social "common ground" to unite a faction and defend the interests of the strong. Spice with moral panic and fear-mongering to taste. Hence Jim Crow laws, and the Immigration Act of 1924, which barred all "asians" entirely. Oh, and let's not forget Japanese-American Internment during WWII. As for Australia, it's not like they haven't had some of the same: The "White Australia" Policy for starters. I see the conservative Christian harping in this country on their pet bogeymen - "homosexuals" "atheists" and "liberals" as more of the same, honestly. And it's not like there's not racism just under the surface, or, you know, just right there on top... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
msipsy218 Posted December 29, 2012 Share Posted December 29, 2012 See that big cluster-fuck of nothing but red right in the middle of the bible belt?!! Home sweet home The closest bookstore to me is a barnes and noble 45 minutes away. We used to have a used bookstore in town, but it shut down and the 7 times I went in there it was 95% "religious" (xtian only) books. In the same town that has the Barnes and Noble there is a Books-a-Million and 4 xtian bookstores. We buy our books from Walmart 'round here Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blue elephant Posted December 29, 2012 Share Posted December 29, 2012 What about the places that have neither blue nor red? Are they just full of cows or something? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vigile Posted December 29, 2012 Share Posted December 29, 2012 What about the places that have neither blue nor red? Are they just full of cows or something? Pretty much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sheerbliss Posted December 29, 2012 Share Posted December 29, 2012 What about the places that have neither blue nor red? Are they just full of cows or something? The different colors show differences between listings of churches v. bookstores. There are a lot of medium-sized cities out west that apparently have about as many churches as bookstores. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inorbit Posted December 30, 2012 Share Posted December 30, 2012 I'm just going to leave this here... http://xkcd.com/1138/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OpheliaGinger Posted December 30, 2012 Share Posted December 30, 2012 Pretty much everything that one would attribute as being bad is concentrated in the South. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Akheia Posted December 31, 2012 Share Posted December 31, 2012 CAN I HEAR AN AMEN BROTHERS AND SISTAS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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