Fun fact: If you google why the pilgrims went to America in English, the answer is for religious freedom. If you google the same question in german, it says because the wanted to live out their radical religious beliefs.
I'd simplify even further and say that the problem was that they wanted to shape society by their religious beliefs, which usually doesn't end well for either them or the rest of society. Nothing bad with believing what you want, it's the actions involving others that can be bad.
And they imposed these beliefs (based on the dispiriting and ridiculous predestination dogma of John Calvin) on others, with nasty consequences. "Freedom" was only for the Puritans, not for others.
They left England because the English in general were tired of Puritan Bu11_$hi% since they had just gone through several decades of Puritan rule after beheading King Charles, then experienced Puritan rule under "Lord Protector" Oliver Cromwell, and then his replacement was deposed, and the Stuart dynasty reinstalled as the British monarch. The "Christmas Carol," "The Twelve Days of Christmas" was actually a Roman Catholic catechetical ditty devised to teach children the essentials of the Catholic faith in an "underground" setting because of Puritan rule and persecution in which Christmas was officially outlawed and prohibited. The Anglicans reestablished themselves in control of England, no doubt with the help of the bankers, and re-imposed the Stuarts and off to the Netherlands the Puritans went, bellyaching the whole way about how mean everyone was to them, with no sense of remorse or recollection of persecuting anyone else themselves. "General Magruder (a Confederate General and Roman Catholic in Texas) is known to speak quite contemptuously of the puritans, referring to them as "that pestiferous krewe of the Mayflower!""
I moved to Georgia in the 4th grade. When the very first friend I made in my neighborhood found out my family didn’t go to church his mom wouldn’t let him hang out with me anymore.
Yeah, I grew up an atheist in the South in the 70's and 80's. Religious bigotry is definitely a thing in the South, and it's not the people who complain most loudly that their religious freedoms are being violated who are the victims.
Anyone who pushes someone away due to a lack of belief is not a Christian. In fact, that sort of behavior is the direct antithesis of Christs message. People like that are doing the devils work. He loves nothing more than to twist believers and subvert God's love for ALL people. Sinners and the saved.
My southern friends and their parents always viewed me as a "project," trying to convert to their religion. It didn't work out for them, so they eventually gave up. We're still friends though.
Mormonism is kinda its own special thing tho, and not really a part of regular Christianity. I mean, it’s not as far out as Scientology, but it has to be the most heterodox flavor of quasi-Christianity out there (in all due respect to those guys - maybe it’s the one true faith? Hell if I know…).
Y'all don't understand the scale of just how religious the south is compared to the rest of the country. Im from Mississippi and my bus ride to school I counted ~20 separate churches. When I moved to California that number fell to less than 5. Edit: apparently I started a war, I'm all for discussion just be civil y'all
I think I’ve actually left almost this exact comment on a different video I’m from Mississippi as well and my hometown of 2000ish people has 16 churches and that’s in the city limits the county I would guess it’s 60+ and the people who go to all those churches are fanatical churchgoers. People really believe that they can pray hard enough to fix everything win the football game and the lottery and that god would never let anything happen to them until it does and then it’s a test.
It's all in how you look at it. A native of a state where, say, 80% of the population was avowedly religious might see a state in which 29% were as a cesspool of atheism.
that map is a joke really. Like even California, one of the less religious states in the US is still around 2/3 Christian. I dont know why but a lot of atheists tend to view themselves as a "silent majority", even in a lot of countries where they control the government (like famously the USSR) they still often form a minority. I cant count how many Californians I've met who talk about their state like it's filled with agnostics and atheists even though the state is packed with Catholics.
@@arthas640 Most atheists support separation of church and state. Karl Marx, who "invented" the form of communism that took hold but morphed dramatically when actually put into practice, believed that religion was a tool of capitalism and was used to oppress the public, which was true some times but not others, of course. Many atheists today, including me, believe that, by the time Stalinism, Maoism et al came around, these men who formed "cults of personality" around themselves supplanted the role of religion, by making the people worship them themselves. By not allowing people the choice not to believe in their supremacy, they acted like demi-gods, rather than allowing freedom of thought. In the U.S., the goal should be to allow each individual person freedom to believe what he or she wishes to believe, without pressure of being an outcast from society or cast out of the family house. I don't think many atheists think of themselves as a silent majority - instead many of us believe that there are lots of people out there that don't believe what they feel compelled to say they believe because of the pressures within their communities. Some might believe there is no god, some might not be sure. Others might think there are aspects of their religion that are far-fetched, such as the existence of hell or Satan. Many people who have such beliefs feel there is a great pressure on them to stay silent. They feel they won't be loved or supported by their families if they "come out" as atheist, or pro-gay, or agnostic, or something else considered unacceptable. They could lose their jobs, their spouses, everything they've worked hard to build. And many times, this actually happens - I've known people it's happened to. So they stay silent and pretend.
Nickname of modern megachurches (complete with indoor playgrounds, book stores, coffee shops, etc., like a giant mall in which is a stadium for preaching) is "Six Flags Over Jesus." I was told this by a Christian who experienced it for herself.
The irony of seeking a "personal relationship with God" in an enormous crowd of others who are seeking the same thing ... then paying a millionaire preacher to make that connection for you.
We have one of those in Memphis. "Six Flags Over Jesus" with three gigantic crosses right off the interstate overlooking their admittedly nice baseball fields. Worked a few gigs there. Also known as the "Mall O' God"
I think they are getting more people saved. That's what counts. As long at they are staying God focused. And preaching God's Word. My church has changed over the past 10 years or so. But, there are more younger families. Nothing wrong with a bookstore, or a coffee shop. We don't have a playground. Just a lot of children's camps and teen camps. Mostly at summer.
As a Brit who only goes to church for weddings and funerals, if even then as many are non-religious, I'm constantly amazed at how many Christians there are in America, how literal their interpretation of the Bible is, and how little their lifestyle matches Christian values.
How little their lifestyles match Christian values? Have you been to the south and see how they live? Or do you just confuse Americans you see through the media with the other 350 million people in America. Europeans lack of understanding to just how big America is, has always been funny to me.
Southern communities were few and far between thanks to agrarian culture. People went to church for opportunities to socialize as much as anything, and the popularity of team sports in the south has the same root. Additionally, I want to point out the difference between attending or being a member of a church and actually being religious -- 2 vastly different animals.
Thank you for such an enlightening video for people from other nations. Had the evangelical churches in the deep south not suported slavery, perhaps the US would still be a christian country. Greetings from Chile.
Farms in the North were just as isolated. Read some Robert Frost poems for a sense of equal physical isolation, especially in winter. And the church there started out as a far more important kind of spiritual and social glue. The difference is the Puritans also valued education, a personal work ethic, and relatively egalitarian ways of treating each other instead of that highly unequal cavalier nonsense with wannabe gentry and lots of indentured or enslaved peasants. It's ironic that the Yankees are now the LEAST religious--and even by 200 years ago had devolved into Unitarianism, in which the main residue of religion was social and personal responsibility rather than getting off on an anti-intellectual Jesus trip justifying one's personal beliefs.
@@pablobanados6552 they were following the Bible. It unquestionably supports slavery, and provides instructions on the correct methods, prices and rules for it. *Also how much violence is acceptable to inflict on your slaves.
This is so important that we decided to make Election Day on a Tuesday. Enough time for farmers to attend church and then travel to their polling places.
I'm from Savannah, and I remember going to church in the pre-air-conditioning days. All the ladies used fans during Mass, and the fans were almost always from local funeral homes.
hahaha true that ! I mean, how mant times I have prayed this prayer: 🙏❤✝️ Dear LORD ! I can't ! I JUST CAN'T go to h3ll! I can't even bear the temperature here!
Fun fact: even if you are not religious, Americans religious or not still hold a lot of Puritan beliefs. Such as one's value as a person is linked to their work. Everything has to be a hustle including art and sports because not being productive = sloth = sin. That's a puritan belief. Or how Americans are very conservative and skittish about nudity, because any and all depictions of nudity MUST be sexual and therefore is a sin, even in an artistic or educational sense. I think it's ironic that you'll find more nude depictions in Europe's museums, in Italy and places that are deeply Catholic, but America has no such equivalence in their museums with their own art. As someone who is not religious, it blew my mind that I still unconsciously hold those beliefs because it's so deeply ingrained in our culture.
It's not just art, but TV commercials too - a shampoo or shower commercial was always an opportunity to see a nipple. I think there is less of it nowadays - but that is more to do with 'PC' that religion.
European TV allows bare breasts on TV (even in the '70s) but if one nipple (with a pastie!) flashes on US TV-- its time for Congressional investigation.
@@capitalb5889 It wasn't called "PC" back in the day, it was based on morality codes, or better said, good taste. There are people who honestly believe that showing private parts of human anatomy, using foul language, being crude, showing sex in public, especially on television, in movies, in theatre and where kids can view it isn't classy or good for society or our culture (and it could be argued that the decline in our social structure since visual media, especially since social media, has been so accessible, proves that point). I don't think this is a totally religious issue, it had to do with how people have been raised from generation to generation, with each becoming more loose, relaxed, generous in what they tolerate because the media pushed the boundaries constantly until more graphic things are accepted by people who either have to quit watching completely or ignore it (which in essence condones it). It's a tough situation because there's a huge difference between the statue of David or Venus deMilo and watching a commercial for condoms/tampons or for his/hers lubricant that you didn't expect to air suddenly at 7pm while eating dinner with the kiddos.
@@zuzuspetals9281 The fact that you could see breasts quite harmlessly in a French TV commercial was not about some poor absolute moral standard, but about a less uptight obsession about nudity that exists in countries with puritan heritages, such as the USA.
Im From the UK and when going to Mississippi i was Amazed by the sheer amount of Jesus everywhere, Gas stations, mechanic shops, even in Japanese restaurants, side of the roads have crosses and Jesus billboards. My fiancé is from Mississippi and worked in a school at one point, She told me that when the teachers had a meeting they offered to do a pray before, And when school started back up a local priest would walk around the school and bless all the class rooms. I find that so fascinating. More power to you.
And to think I was taught that it was due to their children learning Dutch and Dutch customs, you know the whole xenophobia issue that runs strong in the religious in the US.
@@PeteOtton their children learning dutch customs is part of the 'too much freedom'. They would prefer to be in a place where their children will either obey or die alone in the woods.
I’m an Englishman who lived in Georgia for a year, was a fun experience, I’ll always remember this guy told me in his thick accent: “Buddy, if this is the Bible Belt, you’re in the buckle!”
In the very beginning of my electronics class, my professor showed us a slide of where the most lightning strikes happen in the US. They concentrated through the South and up into the Heartland. I started laughing out loud. The instructor asked why I was laughing. With my finger pointed at the screen I said, "It's the Bible Belt!" LOL, still cracks me up
Not all Baptists believed in free will, even back then. Baptists were divided between General Baptists (non-Calvinists) and Particular Baptists (Calvinist/Reformed).
Even Methodists were divided, with John and Charles Wesley's Methodists being Arminian and George Whitefield's (which he mispronounced; it's said as "Whitfield") Methodists being Calvinists.
Somewhat unrelated but I’ve always thought it was funny how people who believe in predestination conveniently never believe that they are destined to not go to heaven.
@@jaxcrax9644 Jim Crow Baptists used to take trains to see the lynchings and burnings of blacks after the Civil War. They're all pro-life, but lobbied for Stand Your Ground laws to allow the killing of unarmed fleeing black men without a mob or noose.
I would say one big demographic factor that was left out from this video was the later migration of northern Britons specifically from the borders of Scotland and England and protestant Irish. These groups were to settle in the areas of what is today the Bible Belt and would shape a huge part of southern and Appalachian identity.
Excellent! I find the history offered here a little questionable, although I lack the credentials to be certain. I seem to recall, when reading "Albion's Seed", by the Brandies History Professor, David Hackett Fisher, that the Scots-Irish immigration of the 1700s had, perhaps, the greatest contribution to religion and culture in the southern US. While some of the Scots-Irish settled in Maine, and western PA, their arrival begat a vast movement down the Appalachian trail into North Carolina, and across the mountains into KY, TENN, WV, AL and GA, and eventually into southern IN and IL. They brought a Scots-Irish tradition of southern tent revivals with them, and shaped religion, traditions, music, as well as superstitions that permeate southern culture. If this topic interests anyone, I would highly recommend this remarkable and insightful book. (And I welcome corrections regarding the book's content, or from the research of academic historians), as well as opinions of others.
yes, Scots-Irish Protestants w. "Some Lives Matter" neo-Calvinism + "Rapture" / "Premillenialism" -- a stratum from the Carolinas to Bakersfield CA !! think John Wayne & Ronnie RayGun
@@strandedstarfishin standard historiography Briton continues to the P-Celtic speaking peoples throughout the Roman and Anglo-Saxon era until the Norman conquest of England. And in common usage Briton has been used for centuries as a synonym for Brit, referring to anyone native to the Isle of Britain, although maybe a bit old fashioned nowadays. So if you're going to be a smart alic at least get your facts right.
My scotch-Irish Presbyterian ancestors arrived in Pennsylvania in 1720. That’s pretty early. In fact, at the time of the Revolution about 25% of Americans were Scotch-Irish.
I live in the deep South and grew up in the church. As an adult, I can't bring myself to listen to apologists anymore. Many things have led me to this: education, issues with the othering the church does to people, the hypocrisy, etc.
There is something missed here. In New England, there was no religious freedom. You had to go to the community church, or you would be punished. The founder of Rhode Island, Roger Whitaker, was invited to preach, he had some radical ideas about freedom of religion. It got to the point where he had to leave Massachusetts Bay Colony, or he would be arrested. The Mohican tribe of Conn, took him in, and helped him set it up. In Providence he allowed Jews, Quakers, anyone was welcome. He took it further by separating the church from the state. This is the basis of the Constitution. The colonies didn't allow for any religious freedom. Only in Rhode Island.
Not only Rhode Island but they were the OG. Pennsylvania, under William Penn (himself a Quaker), also allowed religious freedom. From Pennsylvania, the Quakers started West Jersey and had a significant presence in New Jersey. Along with Delaware, these places did not have an "established church". From Rhode Island, the Baptists spread to Eastern Connecticut and pushed there also for the separation of church and state. (Remember that the established church taxed ALL citizens regardless of religion. Talk about taxation without representation,) How effective were these non-conformists? The US Bill of Rights made it official. The 1st Amendment with its establishment clause was enacted before Rhode Island was the final signatory to the Constitution.
One should not confuse the Pilgrims with the Puritans. The Plymouth Colony had no major beef with Williams, but by then had been absorbed by the Bay Colony, so Williams had to leave because the rest of the colony wouldn’t have him. The Pilgrims did indeed come for religious freedom, but the Puritans came to try an experiment with theocracy. That doesn’t lend itself to toleration.
Back around 2000-2001, I was living in Kentucky after spending the previous three decades in the PNW and working as a handyman for a retired lawyer/politician. I can't remember the exact reason why it came up, but at some point he advised me not to mention anything to do with prehistory as my coworker believed the world was only 5000 years old. I still remember being floored that anyone could believe in a young Earth.
My ex-husband (in thePNW) believes the Earth is 6000 years old. He does not believe in evolution. If he knew our granddaughter is dating a girl he wouldn't let his granddaughter in the house. He bases decisions on what the Lord tells him. He's a grown man! God bless his heart, and I mean that in the Southern way.
@@ToddMiller-nl2wnit says ‘days’ but that could just be a misinterpretation of the original works. If I’m not mistaken, the Hebrew/Greek (I can’t remember) doesn’t actually mentions ‘days’ at all, but just periods of time
I think your reaction is a little strange. The fukked up thing here is not that he believes the Earth is 5000 years old; people believe weird/stupid stuff all the time. The fukked up thing is that OTHERS have to PROTECT HIM from other points of view...Even at HIS OWN JOB! What if a client mentions it? Does he storm off? Imagine being told not to talk about God, or ghosts, because your coworker is an atheist, or a skeptic, or not to talk about aliens, because your coworker doesn't believe they exist, or crypto, because they think it's a scam (ok, that last one wasn't the best example, but you get the idea)
does it matter? They're all Christians. We want to pretend that people choose. It's like having a fast food preference: It's all just some starchy coating on low quality meat.
Im relocated to the South from the North semi-recently. Its sort of foreign to menhearing things like "as a good Christian", and "if you dont go to church, youll burn in hell".. I remember as a kid in the 80s seeing Billy Graham on TV and thinking " what kind of fool believes this shit" and as a child feeling it was a money scam..
Voting with your feet is another major reason. A lot of atheists in the south have moved to the Northeast or West Coast since the 90s. Likewise many Christians in New York and California have moved to Tennessee or Texas (especially since the pandemic)
Exactly, it becomes self-fulfilling. If an area is already known to be religious, the people most likely to move there are going to also be religious, and the non-religious are probably going to avoid moving there. It's not as if there has been 0 change, but it would take a mass migration to notice any real difference, and we don't see much mass migration anymore.
You are right about voting with your feet. It actually is not something that only started in the 90's, however. It's been happening since the early 1900's. Mark Twain did it, for example.
The Catholic states in the Northeast are very similar to France culturally. The style of Catholicism is very liberal, very Gallican, and church attendance rates are relatively low. I honestly haven't compared them to Europe but I do know that 1 in 4 people in the NY City metro area do not profess a religion, and a number of the religious ones do not attend church every weekend. I'd say that's about on par with Europe.
Okay, after a quick search it seems that around 30% of people in the New York metropolitan area attend church once a week. In France it's only 12%, in Ireland it's about 30% (same as NY), in Italy it's under 20% and in Germany it's only about 4%. You seem to have a point. I'd still say it's significant that the vast majority of people in this region (and some other US regions) do not attend weekly religious services, which is more consistent with Western Europe than the rest of the US. In the Bible Belt, something like 90% of the population goes to church every week.
As of the end of the Civil War the entire U.S. was primarily Christian, and largely Protestant Christian, throughout, to the extent people were religious at all. The Civil War devastated the South economically, and, to make matters worse, the railroads and shipping lines were controlled by bankers and industrialists in the Northeast, who had grown wealthy as a result of the war and who were able to get control of most of the railroads throughout the country, including the railroads in the South. They created a system of freight rate discrimination that made it more expensive to ship produce and manufactured items from the South and West to other parts of the country, than to ship from the Northeast to the rest of the country. The purpose was to impel people, wherever they lived, to buy from factories in the Northeast and eliminate competition elsewhere. Put "discriminatory freight rates" in a search engine in quotation marks to read about it. When the Interstate Commerce Commission was created in 1887, because of the political influence of the industrialists of the Northeast, the discriminatory rates were written into regulations. The result was that the economy of the South was stifled for decades. Part of the Reconstruction program forced on the states that had made up the Confederacy was that they had to repudiate the Confederate war debt. Yet, the Union war debt was to be fully funded. Post-Civil War, the southern states paid their proportionate share of federal taxes, and the taxes were used to pay off the Union war debt, the securities of which were held almost exclusively by northerners and westerners. This constituted a transfer of wealth from the southern states to the other states. The U.S. Congress provided pensions for those who served in the Union army, but none for those who served in the Confederate army. The southern states, again, paid their proportionate share of federal taxes, and the taxes were used to pay the pensions of Union veterans, most of whom lived in the north and west. This constituted an additional transfer of wealth from the southern states to the other states. The bulk of the immigration into the U.S. came after the Civil War. These newer immigrants had a variety of religions, to the extent they were religious, and many came for reasons that had nothing to do with religion. Because of the depressed economic conditions in the South, almost all of these later immigrants gravitated to the North and West. This influx diluted the influence of Christian and Protestant Christians in the North and West, while having little effect on religious affiliation in the South. One of the most fundamental beliefs of Christians and Protestant Christians is preaching and spreading their religions to others, while this is somewhat less important in other religions, or not important at all. The overall result has been that religion is more heavily preached in the South than in other places.
Yup. The South has always been backwards and with all immigration going to the North and West the South stayed true to it's roots. Industry lagged and they remain relatively poor at least in the deep south. The deep South use to be wealthiest region in the United States. The civil war changed all that for obvious reasons. The main one being no more slavery. Of course the North knew that would destroy them and make them reliant on the north which of course it did.
While economics is the key, entrenched slavery and poverty prior to the Civil War is the bigger reason. Much of the South was the same in 1964 as it was in 1864. Religion keeps people at bay (i.e., stupid). Plus, it's not as if there are no churches in New York or California.
@@breft3416 How can one ever generalize in one single comment on a YT video among millions of other videos, in a world with a population of almost 9 billions, and *"state"* that //Religion keeps people at bay//. Isn't that just a *stupid* statement per se? Just sayin'... 🤔
If you look up religion numbers on PEW Research, you will find that since 1990, all religions in America have decline dramatically and the "nones" are by far the fastest growing demographic group in this country. And those "nones" are in the South though not nearly as numerous as in the west and the northeast. "Nones' now make up around 30% of the country.
I remember when a co-worker and I flew into Memphis from Denver on a Saturday night. Sunday morning, we got up and started driving looking for mcdonalds so we could have breakfast. We were wondering why there was so much traffic and then when we got up to the Baptist Church we realized that it was Sunday and people were going to Church - something that generally didn't happen in Denver.
Memphis, everyone praying not to get capped. Neck and neck with Detroit as the most violent trashy city in the US for the longest. It never got any better, other places just deep sixed. Misfortune of growing up there, on break at work saw a game show where the couple "won" a trip to beale street. Break room erupted in laughter: "They gonna divorce!" That and Prince Mongo & Scientology weirdos. Scientology fought da hood and da hood won.
I'm European. This was quite interesting because I was thinking that most Americans were terribly religious. Many even sort of Christian fundamentalist. If one is reading American comments, there are always people talking about God or the bible, even if the subject has absolutely nothing to do with it.
My father and grandfather were ministers (pastors). There are five children in my family and only one of us attends church. The rest of us are agnostic or atheists. I live in a conservative, Republican state and there are many churches around me that have closed in the past few years. Religion is rapidly declining in the US. Our political problems are a big reason why.
You forgot two things: Slavery and the Civil Rights movement. Enslaved people were expected to practice Christianity, with their enslavers deliberately emphasizing biblical teachings that condoned slavery and encouraged submission to earthly masters. The enslaved themselves often found comfort in the belief in the afterlife. After slavery, the Black church provided services and community to parishioners who couldn't get it elsewhere. Second, the Black church played a significant role in organizing the Civil Rights movement; MLK, Ralph Abernathy, Jesse Jackson, Rosa Parks, etc., either preached or were active members of churches. And white churches in the South often led the reactionary movements against civil, women's, gay rights movements. The politicization of religion plays a key role in the religiosity of the South.
Some interesting parallels there with the Islamic mosque and community being a safer place for people opposed to the current political regime in Egypt and the Middle East to organize in the 1970s and later. Thus drawing people opposed to the regime further into into religion as part of their rhetoric, goals, and ideology.
Ignoring slavery makes the video completely useless. Justifying the enslavement and torture of other human beings is the very basis of white southern Christianity.
The white churches significantly outnumbered the black churches especially in support of those rights. By themselves, the civil rights movement would have fell flat on its face without the help of the white religious people. The same goes for the abolition of slavery which was spearheaded by white Christians and considered a radical religious stance at first. All of these movements with the exception of "teh geys" relied heavily on white Christians to do the heavy lifting when it came to marching, funding, and pushing legislation. Ironically often cut out of the movements histories much much later. Yes, politicization did play a role but you're only giving one side of it.
@@fluffskunk Completely false. White Christianity is what started the abolitionist movement. Even in the South it was a controversial topic. Money played a larger role that religion and the very rich plantation owners had more political sway that the scattered religious groups in the south of the time.
American religion is pretty complex. My Italian grandfather came to the States and became a Northern Baptist minister. He had graduated from Yale Theological Seminary, in Connecticut. I grew up in the Northeast as a Congregationalist. I’ve now lived in the South for the last 40+ years (Central Florida, Texas and now South Carolina). I’m still a Yankee at heart and am part of the Nones (not affiliated). Both my sons have converted to Catholicism, while one daughter-in-law is Jewish. We are fortunate in this country that each of us is allowed to find our own spiritual path.
I’m from Michigan, moved to NC for 4 years and it was mind blowing how the church parking lots were filled on Sundays. Moved back to Michigan 1 1/2 yrs ago and the difference is very noticeable. I haven’t been inside a church for over 30 yrs but the lifestyles are very different as well.
As someone who has spent four decades working with humanitarian organizations preparing care packs for those who are homeless and hungry, I can confirm that these folks did not voluntarily choose to be stuck to stay out in freezing temperatures and blistering hot temperatures starving.
I do not see evangelicals are doing much for the poor and disadvantaged other than condemning them politically. I don’t see child care, etc happening while they get pumped up on prosperity doctrine and creating multi million dollar churches. The mainstream churches and Catholics understand Matt 25 and provide for them through Catholic Charities, episcopal lunch kitchens and other mainstream church organizations. It is actually liberal organizations that are doing much to help in my experience. I don’t know of any homeless people who love what’s happening. Many of them don’t know how to function or have lost hope, are mentally ill, addicted or our precious vets with major PTSD problems etc. At one time, Vietnam vets constituted a major percentage of homeless. They still do along with the kids coming back as combat vets from the sandbox. Thanks for knowing where real spirituality hits the road. And giving of yourself to help others.
the people who go at it with that mindset have taken over the problem has gotten worse by an order of magnitude at this point it doesn't even matter if it's true; it's failed catastrophically
@@FourOf92000 I understand where you’re coming from but I’m not the type who can just tip the king over and give up. The ratio between those who have that “voluntarily poverty” mentality is far less than those of us who are working diligently in our communities to make sure that our fellow human beings are fed, clothed, sheltered, and get the medical care they deserve. There’s more of us than there is them.
Proud Vermonter. Come from an old traditional Presbyterian family. I'm now agnostic and Buddhist. I actually live in Asia now but no way I could ever live in the South.
I'm struggling to figure out his accent! I think it's a Brummy British accent but he switches between pronouncing his Ts like Ds and pronouncing them clearly. His accent is closer to that of a North Eastern American which is weird because he's obviously British. I'm guessing maybe one of his parents was British and the other was American, or he moved to America and has lived there for a while. Somebody help me out here!
@@smelly1060 Yea, Afrikaans has roots in 17th century Dutch. There are a lot of words that are Dutch as well as San, Arabic, Malaysian, French, Portuguese and Indonesian.
Southern Christian here: I wanted few make a few points: Although Billy Graham was very friendly with the Baptists, he was officially Presbyterian (my Grandfather was a personal friend of his and is from the same town in North Carolina). He also caused a stir because a few cities wanted to segregate the audience in the 1960 for his revivals, and he cancelled the event if he heard that the local organizers insisted on segregation. Unfortunately Chattanooga, TN (where I grew up), was one of those cities who had the dishonor of having a cancelled revival. Also as far a current landscape, I would argue that "spiritual, not religious" is the predominant thought with young people opposed to Atheisms or agnostics like it was 20 years ago...I would also say the amount of "cultural Christians" in the bible belt because it was what everyone else did used to be pretty high a few generations ago. Now that its more culturally acceptable not to believe, the a larger majority of people who call themselves Christian in the bible belt are actually genuine believers and aren't just doing it for social clout. Everyone else mentioned it, but the amount of Catholic imagery in this video is hilarious. Just for backdrop there is 1 Catholic church in my town, and the congregants are either Hispanic or from up North. Also, growing up so many of my peers went to church on Wednesday night that Teachers stopped giving out homework on Wednesdays...in a public school :)
Thats a confusing sentence. He insisted on segregation but threatened to cancel if the local town insisted on segregation? Do you mean he insisted on integration. From what I understand Billy was relatively progressive on race.
Today it seems (not really it's rather obvious) the left needs to replace God with their own version be it, the state as god (communists/socialists) mother nature as god (the greens) or DEI as god (academia) But all of them to be successful must remove God.
Presentation may not be perfect, but so much was covered in just 21:00 minutes. Great results considering the complexity involved. Most was reliably conveyed. Thank you. 🤞 🙏 ✝
I’m from the South. Someone once told me that two things not to mention and avoid in a conversation is religion and politics if you don’t want to get in a disagreement or argument wether it be a family member, friend or stranger. I can definitely tell you that is the truth. I’ve seen it happen many times. Not saying this about everyone, but there are some here in the South who can be pushy about their beliefs and act like they’re better than others just because they don’t share the same beliefs, values, etc. Just saying.
Yes, this is how the South is. I've lived in the south all my life, first in Ark. where Baptists were predominant & then in N.O. where most are Roman Catholic. Although most Catholics don't try to convert you (that is a job for N priests & other church officials), most assume you're like them & are shocked if u tell them you're not a Christian. Baptists are also usually shocked if they learn you're not a Christian. It's as if neither Baptists or Catholics can conceive of anyone not being Christian. It's as if you're an alien from another planet. But what's worse are the "born agains", who tend to really push their religion on you, even in the most mundane circumstances. For example, every time I speak even briefly with my born-again neighbor, she inevitably is going to repeatedly tell me she'll be praying for me. Repeatedly. In a 5 minute conversation, she'll tell me this at least 4 or 5 times. It would seem that since I never reply to her "I'll pray.." , she might get some idea that maybe I don't agree with her beliefs. (When she tells me she'll be praying for me, I never reply with a thank you. I simply ignore her remarks & go on with the conversation. ) Growing up, I was forced to attend church with my mother at least twice a week till I left home at 17. My mother was Northern Missionary Baptist & the small country church was just down the road from our house. My father wasn't a Christian and in fact detested organized Christianity, but my mother had made him promise that their children would be brought up in her religion, that he wouldn't say anything to the children about his own beliefs---this was the promise my mother required from my father as a precondition to marrying. In this church, it was taught that you must be "saved" when u reached "the age of accountability", which meant adolescence. In order not to burn in hell forever, u had to plead with Jesus to save your soul, to swear your total belief in him as God's son. This act of "being saved" had to be carried out with the total baring of your soul, which for most meant at least hours of praying & pleading. It was, for myself as for everyone I knew who went through it, intensely emotional. It required you to give yourself completely to Jesus/God. I was 12 when I went through this act of being "saved." It's hard to describe how intense this experience was. But in my mother's church, it was taught that once you'd been "saved," you could never doubt it even for a minute, that if u doubted at all it meant u weren't really "saved." After the first time, I tried not to doubt it but eventually I'd wonder if I'd really been "saved," so then I'd have to start all over. Even as a child I'd had doubts about the religion, particularly when I learned that only humans would be allowed into Heaven. No dogs, no other animals would be there. This caused me a lot of problems because I loved my dog as much as I loved anyone else---he'd been my best friend since I was 4, when my aunt gave him to me as a tiny puppy. The more I heard about Heaven, the worse it sounded---no dogs or other animals, no one other than the "born again" humans who'd been "saved". And in Heaven, it would be an eternal life with God's chosen few who would sing his praises forevermore. Nothing like life on Earth, no plants or animals or lakes & mountains. As I'd grown up with many miles of forest to play in & since I'd always lived the woods & all life within the woods, the idea of a Heaven divorced from nature disturbed me. But it was a choice between "being saved" & going to Heaven or else forever burning in hell. After "being saved" a number of time but each time afterwards unable to have some doubt, I began to question the religion. It was at first very frightening to question anything about it, but I gradually became braver & questioned more & more. Before I was 14, I had rejected the religion and its Jesus/God. But since most people I've lived around were Christians (Protestant or Catholic), all my life I've had to endure their intolerance. If they find out I'm not a Christian, they're shocked & usually distance themselves. But that's not the main problem. The main problem (for the 60+ yrs since I rejected the religion) has been that I've had to live in a society in which Christianity is dominant. There are constant reminders to let u know Christianity is the only acceptable way to be. And although in the US there's supposed to be separation of church & state, this is not the reality.
@@janegarner6739 Good Day, to a person who isn't actually "Afraid to Think". All religions are the result of Lifetime Indoctrination into Delusion and Fear. The "bible" stories read like The Brother's Grimm. Wild and Absurd creations, that can't and couldn't actually happen. Fear is what keeps it's believers captive in it's cruel and unrelenting grip. Religion invented Evil and perpetuates it. Until the last person who even knows the word "Religion" has died and the last written and visual display of anything "religious" has disappeared, humanity is trapped in this Scourge. Best Regards to All Rational Thinkers.
The south is the only region of the US I've lived in where people regularly and openly talk about religious beliefs and politics at work. It's truly bizarre. A lot of people in the south can be very push about both.
i remember at baseball batting practice when i was like 8 telling someone when they asked what church i go to that i wasn't a christian. he slapped me and the coach who saw it told me "well don't say that"
As someone from upstate NY I was quite shocked by the friendliness of Appalachians. When my car was having problems in rural Georgia everyone was willing to help. I can't see that happening in my state. I won't pretend the south has no issues but I admire things about them.
@@mehdihatami3391 Ive worked all over the south, but the last time was actually when trump was elected. I was in Alabama at the time. So I imagine things have changed a bit
I will say that I have seen a growing trend of people interested and converting to more liturgical Christian branches, mainly Roman Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity. I myself converted from Methodism to Orthodoxy and I’ve seen more people my age doing the same. Just an observation that I’ve seen in the past couple of years.
That’s mainly because Protestant denominations, mainly due to trying to reach out to as many people as possible, and to some extent because of the lack of a strong hierarchy like the Catholic or orthodox churches, have started leaning more and more to progressive Christianity. So these people who don’t agree with the progressivism go to churches like the Catholic and orthodox, which are very traditionalist and not progressive
I was a protestant, but converted to Catholicism. The lack of any orthodox beliefs among the denominations, plus the "seeker sensitive" presentations were among the main reasons. Church isn't meant to be a pop concert with a motivational speech at the end.
I lived in Lafayette, Indiana for about 18 years and I've currently lived in Johnson City Tennessee for almost eight years. I can definitely confirm that the number of religious people where I am now is way higher than what was out in Indiana.
I grew up in Florida (non-religious) and at age 30 I moved to California. The only time I stepped foot back in the south was a visit to Atlanta one time. I found a mom/pop Mexican restaurant to eat dinner and the owners/staff were all Mexican. You would have thought I had 2 heads by the stares I got from other diners when I spoke to my server in her native language. She was so happy to see a white person speaking Spanish and even gave me a free dessert from the chef. Every other white families dining there held hands and said their prayers before that started eating. I hadn't seen this in 18 years, mind you. Then I realized...oh yeah! I'm really back in the bible belt. I felt so out of place like I was in a foreign country.
Same thing here. I'm basically a pair of pink eyes away from being an albino, but I speak the Mexican flavor of Spanish pretty good. And my white face speaking street Spanish is something of a surprise from time to time. My Spanish was good enough that I was "El Ninero" for my nieces and nephew when we visited Mexico. Some of my Mexican friends (the ones that I learned most of my bad words from - the rest came from the group Molotov) complained that I spoke Spanish like a gangster. My response was "Mira quienes son mis maestros." If I run across some Spanish speakers whom I suspect aren't from Mexico, I'll ask them "Arroz con Popote?" If they laugh, they're from Mexico. :) Getting back to the issue at hand, Statista had a graph that showed religious affiliation by faith from the years of 1948 to 2022. Protestants saw a reduction of their share from a high of 70% in 1948 to a low of 34% in 2022. And another Statista graph shows that by percentage based on age, the largest group of "church-goers" are in the 65 and up demographic. So it's only going to get worse (for Protestants in particular).
Seems one of YT's AIs decided your post is too something. I see it in the notifications but not in the thread itself. Then again, given my low social credit score they may have blocked me from seeing it.
The Old South also went through an interesting revolution when it came to secularism: at the time of the American revolution, the South was at the forefront of secularism's advocacy (consider the Virginians Thomas Jefferson and James Madison); however, in the 1800s, Southern culture came to resist secularism. It just so happened that at this time the controversy over slavery was emerging, and Southern leaders had come to use the Bible as a defense of this "peculiar institution."
@@JohnJackVancouverIsland It seems to me religion holds greater sway among rural folks as a general rule. Why? Religion offers otherworldly power. Such may be easier to discount in urban areas if only because worldly power is centered there, and that would tend to make intervention from another realm superfluous. But rural areas are removed from urban areas and thus worldly power. Accordingly, the sense there of a need for an agency beyond worldly power tends to be more keenly felt.
Lack of faith is the ultimate privilege of the wealthy. For poor rural ppl so often their faith is necessary to keep them going. As a Jew I know that the New Testament has often been misused and quoted out of context to justify anti semitism as well as slavery
A pity you missed the puritans original emigrated to the Netherlands. Only a part of them moved to America, because they found the Dutch Protestants too easy. So it’s a special branch of the puritans that went away.. the crazy ones. The rest stayed
'Splains a _lot_ about the general f**ked-upness of our culture & whatnot here in the States, don't it? In other countries around the world they censor violence, here it's nudity/sex that gets the kaibosh. I think we got things back-a$$wards. Based on my observations & interpersonal interactions whilst traveling overseas for 2-4 weeks every 1.5-2 years from my infancy to mid-30s, I can say with some degree of certainty that us Americans are waaay more f**ked in the head than people in the UK/EU. I'm not excluding myself from that judgment, either, 'cuz it'd be a lie to say I'm 100% right in the head. I do think the demonization of human beings' natural bodily impulses, particularly that of women, has quite a bit to do with why I & many Americans aren't as well-adjusted as folks across the pond & beyond.
@@AnEpicFatalityArchives because MORE knowledge and understanding makes us wiser. That the New England Puritans were a "subset" of the English Puritans in Dutch exile helps explain the effect on the USA.
yeah but the Puritans all lived in the Northeast and assimilated into less extreme groups within the Northeast over the course of the following decades.
It's theology as social identity, not necessarily actual religiosity. When researchers did an actual count in churches, it turned out that a large number of those claiming to go to church weren't actually doing so. This theology is more about politicized culture war. This has been seen with how MAGA became identified with evangelicalism. This led to 'evangelicalism' being the fastest growing religion. But the problem with this claim is many of the self-identified evangelicals aren't associated with any church congregation. It's simply about political cheerleading.
You're right. I live in the south among lots of churches. Church congregations are usually representative of a particular socio-economic-social group. The religious part is mostly background noise to the real function of the church, which is to give an excuse for all the various groups and social club-type activities to exist.
Great video! I have lived in The South for many years and there are churches EVERYWHERE! I cannot drive for 30 seconds on any road without seeing a church. I literally have two churches of different denominations within eyesight of my kitchen window.
I lived in the south all my life. I have lived in seven different southern states. Believe me, it really depends on where you live in the South that matters. in the large cities religion is not that big a factor. It’s mostly in smaller towns and rural areas that people go full-blown Jesus crazy.
Contrary to what your oversimplified maps show, sociological trends, like religious ones do not neatly follow state or regional lines. For example the Lower Midwest--Missouri, Indiana and downstate Illinois--were primarily settled by people from the Upper South. Consequently, trends there in the Lower Midwest would tend to follow trends in the Upper South much more than those occurring in say, New England.
I agree with the adverb in the video title. I may not be in the buckle but I am in the bible belt. I live 2.2 miles from work. During my daily commute, I pass by no less than 4 churches, one Christian childcare, and one closed church (formally a bowling alley and now a city bus storage lot). My place of employment even has a chapel in the facility and chaplains on staff. I have coworkers that literally believe in Noah's Ark and planned a group trip to visit the Ark Encounter. During my lunch break, receptionists are listening to preachers talking in tongues on their cell phones.
Southerners have to advertise their virtue. It’s like wearing makeup. Or driving a pick up with a chapter and verse number from the Bible. In the town I live in there is 1:15 enormous 60 ft. cross in front of a buffet restaurant. Small businesses have those fake stone Ten Commandments at the front door. Huge billboards advertise Christian roofers, ambulance chaser lawyers, and there are In God We trust slogans plastered on store fronts, utility trucks, fire trucks, and even ambulances. You can’t run for public office without advertising the church you go to and claiming to be born again. And it’s all window dressing. Children are indoctrinated from daycare on. Hellfire and brimstone are alive and well. Churches have become giant warehouses that obliterate the charm of small towns. And for the love of God don’t say the word evolution out loud. And keep your tv tuned to Andy of Mayberry reruns.
Check out the correlation between income and religious fervor and educational status and religious fervor. That's a far greater explanation of why the South is so insanely religious than 16th and 17th Century history.
I can agree that correlation is true sometimes but in general it has to be something else. Is the adoctrination of children what makes people be religious. Look at muslim countries, they are very adoctrinated from very young.
Don’t paint with such a broad brush. Not everyone in the South is stupid. We have Duke, UNC, Emory, Vanderbilt, UVA, to name a few. Come visit and broaden your horizons. Being a Baptist here is just some kind of good manners. And you have to say you’re born again to be ejected to political office. Everyone knows it’s a sham.
Finally someone brought it up. Educated people are less religious, and uneducated people are more religious. This inverse relationship is true worldwide. The South is famous for being the most uneducated part of the country which is still true to this day. You don’t really need to look that much further
Granted you have to look at the curriculum to see the flaw in the correlation. College promotes secularism and has been for more than a century. Critical thinking isn't taught as most of those humanities classes have been cut out of the basic curriculum. Just watching some of these kids struggle in a Logic 101 class is striking. I can't imagine them having to learn classic western philosophy instead of the post modern garbage they're peddling now. Instead, we see a dogmatic approach which many point out to the hallmarks of indoctrination rather than free thinking. The ego, narcissism, and entitlement present is also a huge thing we see common in college grads. The "I'm better than religious people" mindset is extremely prevalent.
@@randallsanchez3161that attitude does exist indeed but Critical thinking is not class worthy… this is something naturally everyone should learn as part of any study. If you took literally any science class (as long as it was taught well which is a whole other story) you know how to think critically, since that’s what the scientific method is all about. Critical thinking is just about examining evidence to accept or reject an explanation. That’s it. No need for a class for that… religion should be perceived as a more spiritual thought process, so it would not belong in any school. Since your spirituality is your own business really and no one else’s. That’s what churches are for…. Schools are for learning and debates and thinking. Believing myths literally from writings centuries old that have been changed multiple times is a good indicator of a lack of critical thinking, which many Americans are guilty of.
I haven't seen anyone else say it but please look up a pronunciation guide for Appalachian. It's my homeland and It is pronounced nothing like how you pronounced it. I would take the northern pronunciation over what you said.
I live in rural(ish) Oklahoma. Back in the early 90s I started doing audio/video work and to find clients who may need installations or repairs I bought a mailing list from one of the first online places where you could search for specific businesses. I searched for churches, within 10 miles from my home, only in the north, south, and east quads so not to get inside city limits. I found 99 results inside that 30 square mile area.
I'm at 0:15 but I would say it's just a contrarian culture. At this point, being stupid has become their identity and they ain't gonna let the Yanks do anything about it.
@kdub6593 0 seconds ago None of this video is true. The culture of the South, including religion, is due to the Cracker/Redneck Culture. These Crackers and Rednecks were distinct groups from the north of the UK and the Scottish Highlands. Redneck is obvious. Cracker comes from Gaelic craic. These groups immigrated mostly to the Southern US. These people brought the fire and brimstone preaching with them. Also, their proclivity for a lacking cultural standard made them readily acceptable to slavery.
So. A note one the Bibel belt, the Bibel belt is not the entire south, it’s just Georgia Alabama and Mississippi, as it has the black belt. An area of black soil, which is very good for growing cotton. That combined with the heavy religious beliefs is where the term “Bibel belt” comes from.
I'm not even 2 minutes in yet, but just... holy shit, whoever did the art/graphic design for this video, congratulations! The level of production and clarity in visual communication is just insane for a TH-cam video.
@@haroldcampbell3337It’s more about politics and gaining power and money. They disregard anything Jesus said that contradicts their methods or desires. I listened for years and that’s what I learned.
We worship God. You apparently worship progressive atheists....is that what you're saying? BTW, shouldn't it be National Public Radio, with the first letters capitalized? Oooops.....!
When I worked at a public school in Reno NV, some of the teachers used to pray in a circle outside the door to the admin building in the morning. I just smiled and walked past them and told myself they had that right and just ignored them but this video discussion makes me wonder if the difference is that down South I would be the one who stood out for not joining their circle and praying with them?
I'm an athiest that grew up in Utah, you could stand anywhere in town and throw a rock to three different churches but had to drive hours to go to a club
I don’t know what it means when you say you atheist? Please no one can actually be telling the truth to say they don’t believe there is God created all this? That would be as so impossible! That doesn’t even make any sense at all?
As someone born and raised in New England, there was significant culture shock the first time i travelled south of PA. On the way to NC for a family wedding, we started to see crosses and these massive churches lining the highway the further we went. The way the south presents christianity, you'd think that they valued shallow representations of faith and symbols, over the actions of members to make the positive change that Jesus actually stood for.
In rural Indiana (same as the South, and the home of the resurgent KKK) I saw a GM car dealer with one of those big plastic signs up on a pole. Below the name and car logos there was a white space for changeable letters. Did it say "Used Car Sale!" or "New Models are Here" or something like that? Nope. "Jesus Saves".
The more religious people are, the more ignorant, scared, paranoid, closeminded, dangerous they are. Those crosses are a warning to outsiders. Their Christ was killed, so they are allowed to retaliate against anyone they want to (with a lynching tree, instead of a cross).
@@roberthunt1540 You obviously understand nothing. Jehovah is the name for Jesus Christ, the Son. And God is not an angry drunken father. Evangalism isn't always clearly presented in the best way because of evangelicalism because in every generation there are people who distort the message of Salvation. But that doesn't mean the message is wrong, it means the person delivering the message is wrong. If someone really wants to understand how to have a relationship with God, how to have eternal life through salvation, how Christ died for their sins, they will find the truth in the noise shouted out by any evangalist or preacher. Hopefully, they'll seek the truth from someone who knows how to explain it clearly in a manner they will understand.
That's mostly untrue. The South does have a lot of churches, small ones and large ones. But they are more about supporting their communities and families in the church, helping people in times of need, coming together during disasters, offering free food and clothing pantries, giving financial assistance, offering space for local social groups to meet. They don't just have fancy buildings to show off, they support overseas missions, go to other countries to build schools, put in wells, help with disaster relief, load trucks with food and supplies for US and foreign disaster response organizations. Before making assumptions you need to do some research, or at least go into one or two churches and ask questions. I moved to NC from California in 1978 and it was a huge change. I'd gone to church my whole life in CA, small independent churches. When I came here I didn't for the first years, then attended a small Methodist church for seveal years. I haven't attended a church for about 35 years, but have had contact with several because of the volunteer work I do. They have all been kind, supportive, open, helpful, and willing to help me with requests for the caregivers I support. I am a believer, a Christian, and find it interesting that people make judgements about people before knowing them or talking to them. It's sad really because we're all more alike than we're different.
Lots of comments about how prosperous Utah is. I don’t know. That drive to Zion National Park presented a lot of shanty town trailer parks, so southern Utah seems excluded.
@@dalecaswell4217 There is no "dark side" of the moon, only a far side which can't be seen from Earth. Both sides face the sun in turn as the moon goes through iits orbit, with two weeks of sunlight and two weeks of darkness.
@ericlipps9459 ... plus a slight wobble, so over the months we see a bit more than 50% ... (Dark Side is a casual phrase for the Far Side -- "dark" to our view / communications PRC ptobes landing on the Far Side are hidden / Dark to U.S., for example
A LOT of non-religious people have moved into Utah over the years and with them comes their "values". Drug use/addicition has become more prevalent and drugs are one of the biggest causes of homelessness.
I would be interested to see the religiosity map extended north to include Canada. I suspect it would show most Canadian provinces to be well under 40%. In 1835, in his famous book Democracy in America, De Tocqueville called the United States the most religious Christian country in the world. Though its degree of religiosity has declined, I suspect this is still the case. In Canada you will never hear a Canadian politician asked what church they go to. Indeed, being viewed as “too” religious is likely to hinder your chances of being elected. That said, Tommy Douglas, the leader of the NDP and the premier who brought medicare to Canada, was a Methodism Minister and the most loved of all Canadian politicians. (He also said the bible is an old fiddle on which you can play any tune).
Macleans magazine used to do an annual report on the difference btw Canada and the states.The religiosity of america. ..and their gun obsession(a strange mix) were the 2 major differences.
I moved to the Appalachian Mountains in Burnsville, North Carolina and the locals pronounce it as a ch sound! Whereas I pronounced it more as Appalasheean.
I remember being in public school in 3rd grade in Texas around 2000. My teacher was reading Little House on the Prairie and they made a reference to the rosary, and nobody in my class knew what it was. Our teacher told them it was something Catholics do, at least two kids said something bad about catholics, and I silently chimed in, "I'm Catholic." I swear to God the whole class turned and looked at me like I was the devil himself and said, "You're Catholic!?" As if I had enough problems being the smart kid that sure as hell didn't help.
Funny. I went to grade school in rural western New York and was raised in a protestant denomination. At the time (1968?) there was an option for students to got for religious programming at local churches. Every Wednesday the room would clear out and the rest of the class went to THE local church which was Catholic. Just me and a Jewish kid stayed and went to the library instead. I remember in social studies class the teacher mentioned that about 70% of New Yorkers were protestants. One of my classmates just blurted out "well where the hell are they?" In my specific location it was almost exclusively Irish Catholic and I literally knew about 5 kids my age that were not. Interesting times.
I live in the Pacific Northwest and it’s very liberal, but the Midwest states are similar to the south they are very religious in the Midwest but where I live in Seattle, it’s a lot of left leaning liberal people does not a lot of religious people here
Midwest is hit or miss with religion. My small town church I attended closed down for lack of parishoners and I can only think of two classmates that were from particularly religious families. 20 miles east it's evangelicals everywhere and 30 miles north there are Amish farms for miles. 50 miles west it's seriously Dutch Calvinist to the point where they burned the Harry Potter books for promoting witchcraft. To the south it gets less and less religious until you hit Indiana.
Happily live in the "spine" of the Bible Belt - Appalachia. I have some areas near me with population densities of 5 people per square mile. In these areas we still have 1 Church every mile. On average in my community I'd say there's 1 Church for every 10 people. Church is more than just Religion as well. It's an opportunity for the whole community to get together. In Appalachia it is THE one and only way to meet all of your neighbors in one place. It is the gateway into the community. If you don't go to Church, you will not get "in" with the community.
“If you don't go to Church, you will not get "in" with the community.” Ha! Your statement says everything anyone needs to know about Christian “love”. Hypocrites!
None of this video is true. The culture of the South, including religion, is due to the Cracker/Redneck Culture. These Crackers and Rednecks were distinct groups from the north of the UK and the Scottish Highlands. Redneck is obvious. Cracker comes from Gaelic craic. These groups immigrated mostly to the Southern US. These people brought the fire and brimstone preaching with them. Also, their proclivity for a lacking cultural standard made them readily acceptable to slavery.
as a person who lives in north louisiana, every town I’ve been to, and even the bigger cities like shrieveport have MANY churches. christianity is by far the dominant religion in the south. and i’ve never met a person irl who has said they are not christian
It's so true. I have a separate channel were I was uploading videos with my own songs. No ads by me. Now these videos have ads in the beginning and in the end...
Plymouth Colony was NOT establishd by the Puritans. It was established by the PILGRIMS, who were religious LIBERALS. Boston, established ten years after, WAS established by the Puritans. The two did not get along becuase of the differences in their beliefs.
I don't know about "liberals", but they were Separatists. The distinction has been lost, at this point. As you might know, Puritans wanted to purify the Church of England, i. e., were Anglicans. The Pilgrims had separated from the CoE.
@@JESL_Only_1Yeah, when they say Liberals that means they tolerated you for being a different type of Christianity. I think people do not realize that freedom of religion basically meant freedom of denomination. They were not pro satanic spread your arms to anyone that OP insinuate that they were.
All pilgrims are "Puritans". but not all Puritans are Pilgrims. Pilgrimage is a subcategory of Puritan. Just like all, hornets are wasp but not all wasps are hornets.
Interesting quote. And it does address a human problem, creating god in your image rather than God's creation of you in his. How many have used God/or gods as a justification of their actions. (joke about the definiton of a Puritan; a person who lives in mortal fear that someone, somewhere is enjoying themselves.)
God is not good. Jesus wants all other religions and nonbelievers to spend an eternity in hell, just as they can't believe in a fairy tales. That's just one problem with religion.
@@cinaedmacseamas2978 Please do! And engage with the Christians who have a problem with it. There's a similar one from Susan B. Anthony I drop: “I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.” ~Susan B Anthony
Back in the late 60's, I took my wife back to Missouri so she could revisit her relatives and I could meet them. I had recentlly became aquainted with the term 'Bible Belt' and asked her uncle if MO is part of the the Bible Belt (It is) He had NO idea of what I was talking about and thought a 'Bible Belt' was some kind of special belt someone would wear so they could tote their bible around with them!
Fun fact: If you google why the pilgrims went to America in English, the answer is for religious freedom. If you google the same question in german, it says because the wanted to live out their radical religious beliefs.
Too much religious freedom
I'd simplify even further and say that the problem was that they wanted to shape society by their religious beliefs, which usually doesn't end well for either them or the rest of society. Nothing bad with believing what you want, it's the actions involving others that can be bad.
And they imposed these beliefs (based on the dispiriting and ridiculous predestination dogma of John Calvin) on others, with nasty consequences. "Freedom" was only for the Puritans, not for others.
@vegetableman3911 Freedom is often a loaded term. By "freedom" they meant a lack of obstacles to achieving their agenda
They left England because the English in general were tired of Puritan Bu11_$hi% since they had just gone through several decades of Puritan rule after beheading King Charles, then experienced Puritan rule under "Lord Protector" Oliver Cromwell, and then his replacement was deposed, and the Stuart dynasty reinstalled as the British monarch. The "Christmas Carol," "The Twelve Days of Christmas" was actually a Roman Catholic catechetical ditty devised to teach children the essentials of the Catholic faith in an "underground" setting because of Puritan rule and persecution in which Christmas was officially outlawed and prohibited.
The Anglicans reestablished themselves in control of England, no doubt with the help of the bankers, and re-imposed the Stuarts and off to the Netherlands the Puritans went, bellyaching the whole way about how mean everyone was to them, with no sense of remorse or recollection of persecuting anyone else themselves. "General Magruder (a Confederate General and Roman Catholic in Texas) is known to speak quite contemptuously of the puritans, referring to them as "that pestiferous krewe of the Mayflower!""
I moved to Georgia in the 4th grade. When the very first friend I made in my neighborhood found out my family didn’t go to church his mom wouldn’t let him hang out with me anymore.
Yeah, I grew up an atheist in the South in the 70's and 80's. Religious bigotry is definitely a thing in the South, and it's not the people who complain most loudly that their religious freedoms are being violated who are the victims.
Good parenting there.
Anyone who pushes someone away due to a lack of belief is not a Christian. In fact, that sort of behavior is the direct antithesis of Christs message. People like that are doing the devils work. He loves nothing more than to twist believers and subvert God's love for ALL people. Sinners and the saved.
Southerners are not perfect, but we do LOVE OUR JESUS.
My southern friends and their parents always viewed me as a "project," trying to convert to their religion. It didn't work out for them, so they eventually gave up. We're still friends though.
I love how Utah is mapped as non-religious in the thumbnail.
Not so fast, Utah is nothing as non-religious
How about Florida? It's part of the South.
Not non just a lesser cult. Unfortunate if you're a 13 year old girl but otherwise not part of the political project.
Mormonism is kinda its own special thing tho, and not really a part of regular Christianity. I mean, it’s not as far out as Scientology, but it has to be the most heterodox flavor of quasi-Christianity out there (in all due respect to those guys - maybe it’s the one true faith? Hell if I know…).
Came here too only cause I saw that...
I've lived in the south, its a trip, they dont want gov telling em what to do, but they'd gladly pass a law telling you what to do 😅
Cool stay away and enjoy wherever you moved to. ✌️
Exactly ! They're hypocrites.
@@geewhiz5926 Gladly. No room for yokels or abortion deniers.
@@geewhiz5926god forbid i want freedom i should just lay there and take the pounding
@@geewhiz5926way to represent the closed minded south so accurately!!
Y'all don't understand the scale of just how religious the south is compared to the rest of the country. Im from Mississippi and my bus ride to school I counted ~20 separate churches. When I moved to California that number fell to less than 5.
Edit: apparently I started a war, I'm all for discussion just be civil y'all
This was in 2018 I believe, I've graduated from highschool by then
@Booz2020no thanks
@Booz2020 No thanks.
@@itsohaya4096 CA has lots of churches too. But there they are called ''universities'' ''colleges'' ''NGOs''
I think I’ve actually left almost this exact comment on a different video I’m from Mississippi as well and my hometown of 2000ish people has 16 churches and that’s in the city limits the county I would guess it’s 60+ and the people who go to all those churches are fanatical churchgoers. People really believe that they can pray hard enough to fix everything win the football game and the lottery and that god would never let anything happen to them until it does and then it’s a test.
It's pretty wild to me that the number of people that attend church weekly are still as high as 22 and 29% in states that aren't considered religious.
It's all in how you look at it. A native of a state where, say, 80% of the population was avowedly religious might see a state in which 29% were as a cesspool of atheism.
Im from nl, imagine how suprised i am
consider the TV audience of "home attendance" multiple times a week ... making "donations" to cult followings.
that map is a joke really. Like even California, one of the less religious states in the US is still around 2/3 Christian. I dont know why but a lot of atheists tend to view themselves as a "silent majority", even in a lot of countries where they control the government (like famously the USSR) they still often form a minority. I cant count how many Californians I've met who talk about their state like it's filled with agnostics and atheists even though the state is packed with Catholics.
@@arthas640 Most atheists support separation of church and state. Karl Marx, who "invented" the form of communism that took hold but morphed dramatically when actually put into practice, believed that religion was a tool of capitalism and was used to oppress the public, which was true some times but not others, of course. Many atheists today, including me, believe that, by the time Stalinism, Maoism et al came around, these men who formed "cults of personality" around themselves supplanted the role of religion, by making the people worship them themselves. By not allowing people the choice not to believe in their supremacy, they acted like demi-gods, rather than allowing freedom of thought. In the U.S., the goal should be to allow each individual person freedom to believe what he or she wishes to believe, without pressure of being an outcast from society or cast out of the family house.
I don't think many atheists think of themselves as a silent majority - instead many of us believe that there are lots of people out there that don't believe what they feel compelled to say they believe because of the pressures within their communities. Some might believe there is no god, some might not be sure. Others might think there are aspects of their religion that are far-fetched, such as the existence of hell or Satan.
Many people who have such beliefs feel there is a great pressure on them to stay silent. They feel they won't be loved or supported by their families if they "come out" as atheist, or pro-gay, or agnostic, or something else considered unacceptable. They could lose their jobs, their spouses, everything they've worked hard to build. And many times, this actually happens - I've known people it's happened to. So they stay silent and pretend.
Nickname of modern megachurches (complete with indoor playgrounds, book stores, coffee shops, etc., like a giant mall in which is a stadium for preaching) is "Six Flags Over Jesus." I was told this by a Christian who experienced it for herself.
Thats a long way from giving up ones worldly possessiions and waiting in a forest clearing for the second coming.
The irony of seeking a "personal relationship with God" in an enormous crowd of others who are seeking the same thing ... then paying a millionaire preacher to make that connection for you.
We have one of those in Memphis. "Six Flags Over Jesus" with three gigantic crosses right off the interstate overlooking their admittedly nice baseball fields. Worked a few gigs there. Also known as the "Mall O' God"
@@madmaxfzzSix Flags over Jesus. 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂🤭
I think they are getting more people saved. That's what counts. As long at they are staying God focused. And preaching God's Word. My church has changed over the past 10 years or so. But, there are more younger families. Nothing wrong with a bookstore, or a coffee shop. We don't have a playground. Just a lot of children's camps and teen camps. Mostly at summer.
As a Brit who only goes to church for weddings and funerals, if even then as many are non-religious, I'm constantly amazed at how many Christians there are in America, how literal their interpretation of the Bible is, and how little their lifestyle matches Christian values.
You'd be surprised to find out that a lot of the stuff you see in the media does not reflect the lives of a bunch of Christians.
Thats not entirely fair but you have a point lmao
As an American in Pennsylvania, I am also amazed by it. But indoctrination is difficult to overcome.
If Jesus were to come back today the fundamentalist Christians in the Southern USA would be the first to nail him back up again for being too woke!
How little their lifestyles match Christian values? Have you been to the south and see how they live? Or do you just confuse Americans you see through the media with the other 350 million people in America. Europeans lack of understanding to just how big America is, has always been funny to me.
Southern communities were few and far between thanks to agrarian culture. People went to church for opportunities to socialize as much as anything, and the popularity of team sports in the south has the same root. Additionally, I want to point out the difference between attending or being a member of a church and actually being religious -- 2 vastly different animals.
Thank you for such an enlightening video for people from other nations. Had the evangelical churches in the deep south not suported slavery, perhaps the US would still be a christian country.
Greetings from Chile.
Farms in the North were just as isolated. Read some Robert Frost poems for a sense of equal physical isolation, especially in winter. And the church there started out as a far more important kind of spiritual and social glue. The difference is the Puritans also valued education, a personal work ethic, and relatively egalitarian ways of treating each other instead of that highly unequal cavalier nonsense with wannabe gentry and lots of indentured or enslaved peasants. It's ironic that the Yankees are now the LEAST religious--and even by 200 years ago had devolved into Unitarianism, in which the main residue of religion was social and personal responsibility rather than getting off on an anti-intellectual Jesus trip justifying one's personal beliefs.
@@pablobanados6552 they were following the Bible. It unquestionably supports slavery, and provides instructions on the correct methods, prices and rules for it.
*Also how much violence is acceptable to inflict on your slaves.
@@donnarichardson7214 Inject education in the presence of religion and, most of the time, it will be left behind.
This is so important that we decided to make Election Day on a Tuesday. Enough time for farmers to attend church and then travel to their polling places.
It's so humid and hot in summer down south that we need faith just to make it through to the next season!
Give me some of that please! The UK has too many winter months to enjoy weather that only Ducks like.
I'm from Savannah, and I remember going to church in the pre-air-conditioning days. All the ladies used fans during Mass, and the fans were almost always from local funeral homes.
hahaha
true that !
I mean, how mant times I have prayed this prayer:
🙏❤✝️
Dear LORD !
I can't !
I JUST CAN'T go to h3ll!
I can't even bear the temperature here!
Dumb excuse
@@One_with_bodie You know they're joking, right?
Fun fact: even if you are not religious, Americans religious or not still hold a lot of Puritan beliefs. Such as one's value as a person is linked to their work. Everything has to be a hustle including art and sports because not being productive = sloth = sin. That's a puritan belief. Or how Americans are very conservative and skittish about nudity, because any and all depictions of nudity MUST be sexual and therefore is a sin, even in an artistic or educational sense. I think it's ironic that you'll find more nude depictions in Europe's museums, in Italy and places that are deeply Catholic, but America has no such equivalence in their museums with their own art. As someone who is not religious, it blew my mind that I still unconsciously hold those beliefs because it's so deeply ingrained in our culture.
It's not just art, but TV commercials too - a shampoo or shower commercial was always an opportunity to see a nipple. I think there is less of it nowadays - but that is more to do with 'PC' that religion.
European TV allows bare breasts on TV (even in the '70s) but if one nipple (with a pastie!) flashes on US TV-- its time for Congressional investigation.
@@capitalb5889 It wasn't called "PC" back in the day, it was based on morality codes, or better said, good taste. There are people who honestly believe that showing private parts of human anatomy, using foul language, being crude, showing sex in public, especially on television, in movies, in theatre and where kids can view it isn't classy or good for society or our culture (and it could be argued that the decline in our social structure since visual media, especially since social media, has been so accessible, proves that point).
I don't think this is a totally religious issue, it had to do with how people have been raised from generation to generation, with each becoming more loose, relaxed, generous in what they tolerate because the media pushed the boundaries constantly until more graphic things are accepted by people who either have to quit watching completely or ignore it (which in essence condones it).
It's a tough situation because there's a huge difference between the statue of David or Venus deMilo and watching a commercial for condoms/tampons or for his/hers lubricant that you didn't expect to air suddenly at 7pm while eating dinner with the kiddos.
The Protestant work ethic fits very nicely with self servitude to capitalist overlords.
@@zuzuspetals9281 The fact that you could see breasts quite harmlessly in a French TV commercial was not about some poor absolute moral standard, but about a less uptight obsession about nudity that exists in countries with puritan heritages, such as the USA.
Im From the UK and when going to Mississippi i was Amazed by the sheer amount of Jesus everywhere, Gas stations, mechanic shops, even in Japanese restaurants, side of the roads have crosses and Jesus billboards. My fiancé is from Mississippi and worked in a school at one point, She told me that when the teachers had a meeting they offered to do a pray before, And when school started back up a local priest would walk around the school and bless all the class rooms. I find that so fascinating. More power to you.
It's idiotic,for sure.
That sounds horrific, such a cult!
@@elenahauser6617Kind of like The Climate Change Cult.
That's very interesting considering that the deep south is notably hostile towards Catholicism.
Mississippi is the poorest, uneducated and unhealthy state in America.
I see we've cut out the part where the puritans went to the Netherlands first, then left because it had too much religious freedom
And to think I was taught that it was due to their children learning Dutch and Dutch customs, you know the whole xenophobia issue that runs strong in the religious in the US.
@@PeteOtton their children learning dutch customs is part of the 'too much freedom'.
They would prefer to be in a place where their children will either obey or die alone in the woods.
Obviously, not an exhaustive documentary
And they were perceived as heretics.
@@yurisonovab3892YiKeS
The way you showed Catholic imagery while speaking about Southern Baptists (18:11) was almost too funny.
@jimmyguitar2933 - It's just another example of how ill-informed and ill-prepared the author of this video was.
Yeah, that jumped out at me, too. A literally startling piece of inappropriate stock footage.
We all make mistakes, Jimmy Guitar2933.
He made a lot of mistakes in his English too.
Shows he does not know as much as he thinks he does. (Labels Utah "non-religious" in the start of the vid.)
Utah: am i joke to you?
Me: well... yes. But i see what youre saying.
😆🤣
Corny 😬
Lmfaooooo 😂
Mormons are not Christian except in name. They deny fundamental Christian beliefs.
Mormon is a cult, not a religion.
I’m an Englishman who lived in Georgia for a year, was a fun experience, I’ll always remember this guy told me in his thick accent:
“Buddy, if this is the Bible Belt, you’re in the buckle!”
That's funny!
Lol I like that.
hahahaha
they have vivid playful way with language in the south
Lol that is a very Georgian thing to say, yes.
I live in the Bible Belt. The best part about all the churches is that its easy to turn around in them if you've gotten lost
huh?
@@notanother7396 Lot of parking lots due to all the churches
In the very beginning of my electronics class, my professor showed us a slide of where the most lightning strikes happen in the US. They concentrated through the South and up into the Heartland. I started laughing out loud. The instructor asked why I was laughing. With my finger pointed at the screen I said, "It's the Bible Belt!"
LOL, still cracks me up
@@inklingsun "Lightening" is not the same as "lightning."
@@encycl07pedia- TY
Not all Baptists believed in free will, even back then. Baptists were divided between General Baptists (non-Calvinists) and Particular Baptists (Calvinist/Reformed).
Even Methodists were divided, with John and Charles Wesley's Methodists being Arminian and George Whitefield's (which he mispronounced; it's said as "Whitfield") Methodists being Calvinists.
👏
You forgot the Southern, or Pro-Slavery Baptists.
Somewhat unrelated but I’ve always thought it was funny how people who believe in predestination conveniently never believe that they are destined to not go to heaven.
@@jaxcrax9644 Jim Crow Baptists used to take trains to see the lynchings and burnings of blacks after the Civil War. They're all pro-life, but lobbied for Stand Your Ground laws to allow the killing of unarmed fleeing black men without a mob or noose.
I would say one big demographic factor that was left out from this video was the later migration of northern Britons specifically from the borders of Scotland and England and protestant Irish. These groups were to settle in the areas of what is today the Bible Belt and would shape a huge part of southern and Appalachian identity.
Excellent! I find the history offered here a little questionable, although I lack the credentials to be certain. I seem to recall, when reading "Albion's Seed", by the Brandies History Professor, David Hackett Fisher, that the Scots-Irish immigration of the 1700s had, perhaps, the greatest contribution to religion and culture in the southern US. While some of the Scots-Irish settled in Maine, and western PA, their arrival begat a vast movement down the Appalachian trail into North Carolina, and across the mountains into KY, TENN, WV, AL and GA, and eventually into southern IN and IL. They brought a Scots-Irish tradition of southern tent revivals with them, and shaped religion, traditions, music, as well as superstitions that permeate southern culture. If this topic interests anyone, I would highly recommend this remarkable and insightful book. (And I welcome corrections regarding the book's content, or from the research of academic historians), as well as opinions of others.
Albion's Seed is an excellent book!
yes, Scots-Irish Protestants w. "Some Lives Matter" neo-Calvinism + "Rapture" / "Premillenialism" -- a stratum from the Carolinas to Bakersfield CA !!
think John Wayne & Ronnie RayGun
@@strandedstarfishin standard historiography Briton continues to the P-Celtic speaking peoples throughout the Roman and Anglo-Saxon era until the Norman conquest of England. And in common usage Briton has been used for centuries as a synonym for Brit, referring to anyone native to the Isle of Britain, although maybe a bit old fashioned nowadays. So if you're going to be a smart alic at least get your facts right.
My scotch-Irish Presbyterian ancestors arrived in Pennsylvania in 1720. That’s pretty early. In fact, at the time of the Revolution about 25% of Americans were Scotch-Irish.
I live in the deep South and grew up in the church. As an adult, I can't bring myself to listen to apologists anymore. Many things have led me to this: education, issues with the othering the church does to people, the hypocrisy, etc.
There is something missed here. In New England, there was no religious freedom. You had to go to the community church, or you would be punished. The founder of Rhode Island, Roger Whitaker, was invited to preach, he had some radical ideas about freedom of religion. It got to the point where he had to leave Massachusetts Bay Colony, or he would be arrested. The Mohican tribe of Conn, took him in, and helped him set it up. In Providence he allowed Jews, Quakers, anyone was welcome. He took it further by separating the church from the state. This is the basis of the Constitution. The colonies didn't allow for any religious freedom. Only in Rhode Island.
roger williams. not whitaker.
Interesting... I didn't know this.
Not only Rhode Island but they were the OG. Pennsylvania, under William Penn (himself a Quaker), also allowed religious freedom. From Pennsylvania, the Quakers started West Jersey and had a significant presence in New Jersey. Along with Delaware, these places did not have an "established church". From Rhode Island, the Baptists spread to Eastern Connecticut and pushed there also for the separation of church and state. (Remember that the established church taxed ALL citizens regardless of religion. Talk about taxation without representation,) How effective were these non-conformists? The US Bill of Rights made it official. The 1st Amendment with its establishment clause was enacted before Rhode Island was the final signatory to the Constitution.
One should not confuse the Pilgrims with the Puritans. The Plymouth Colony had no major beef with Williams, but by then had been absorbed by the Bay Colony, so Williams had to leave because the rest of the colony wouldn’t have him. The Pilgrims did indeed come for religious freedom, but the Puritans came to try an experiment with theocracy. That doesn’t lend itself to toleration.
@@eileendesandre8316 Thanks. My blood pressure soared when I saw "Whitaker," the guy who sang those '70s songs.
Back around 2000-2001, I was living in Kentucky after spending the previous three decades in the PNW and working as a handyman for a retired lawyer/politician. I can't remember the exact reason why it came up, but at some point he advised me not to mention anything to do with prehistory as my coworker believed the world was only 5000 years old. I still remember being floored that anyone could believe in a young Earth.
My ex-husband (in thePNW) believes the Earth is 6000 years old. He does not believe in evolution. If he knew our granddaughter is dating a girl he wouldn't let his granddaughter in the house. He bases decisions on what the Lord tells him. He's a grown man! God bless his heart, and I mean that in the Southern way.
Especially since the idea is nowhere in the Bible.
@@ToddMiller-nl2wnit says ‘days’ but that could just be a misinterpretation of the original works. If I’m not mistaken, the Hebrew/Greek (I can’t remember) doesn’t actually mentions ‘days’ at all, but just periods of time
I’m reminded of the Patton Oswald sketch…
“Listen, Im glad you like a book..”
I think your reaction is a little strange. The fukked up thing here is not that he believes the Earth is 5000 years old; people believe weird/stupid stuff all the time.
The fukked up thing is that OTHERS have to PROTECT HIM from other points of view...Even at HIS OWN JOB!
What if a client mentions it? Does he storm off?
Imagine being told not to talk about God, or ghosts, because your coworker is an atheist, or a skeptic, or not to talk about aliens, because your coworker doesn't believe they exist, or crypto, because they think it's a scam (ok, that last one wasn't the best example, but you get the idea)
The video uses a lot of Catholic images, icons and churches while only talking about protestants. Confusing.
Versed doesn't know the difference.
does it matter? They're all Christians. We want to pretend that people choose.
It's like having a fast food preference: It's all just some starchy coating on low quality meat.
@@ElliotKeaton Versed knows little of what he speaks of ...
It's all the same thing anyways. It's an organization designed to take your money and keep you stupid.
Catholicism is Christian as well as is Protestantism. Been around in the US since colonial times.
Im relocated to the South from the North semi-recently. Its sort of foreign to menhearing things like "as a good Christian", and "if you dont go to church, youll burn in hell"..
I remember as a kid in the 80s seeing Billy Graham on TV and thinking " what kind of fool believes this shit" and as a child feeling it was a money scam..
Voting with your feet is another major reason. A lot of atheists in the south have moved to the Northeast or West Coast since the 90s. Likewise many Christians in New York and California have moved to Tennessee or Texas (especially since the pandemic)
Idaho is looking like Jesustan because of California bigots who moved there.
Exactly, it becomes self-fulfilling. If an area is already known to be religious, the people most likely to move there are going to also be religious, and the non-religious are probably going to avoid moving there. It's not as if there has been 0 change, but it would take a mass migration to notice any real difference, and we don't see much mass migration anymore.
It's a beautiful thing.
Good riddance.
You are right about voting with your feet. It actually is not something that only started in the 90's, however. It's been happening since the early 1900's. Mark Twain did it, for example.
Even the regions considered not very religious have church attendance levels way higher than in Europe.
The Catholic states in the Northeast are very similar to France culturally. The style of Catholicism is very liberal, very Gallican, and church attendance rates are relatively low. I honestly haven't compared them to Europe but I do know that 1 in 4 people in the NY City metro area do not profess a religion, and a number of the religious ones do not attend church every weekend. I'd say that's about on par with Europe.
@@themaskedman221 If those were number for Europe it would be a very religious part of it.
Okay, after a quick search it seems that around 30% of people in the New York metropolitan area attend church once a week. In France it's only 12%, in Ireland it's about 30% (same as NY), in Italy it's under 20% and in Germany it's only about 4%. You seem to have a point.
I'd still say it's significant that the vast majority of people in this region (and some other US regions) do not attend weekly religious services, which is more consistent with Western Europe than the rest of the US. In the Bible Belt, something like 90% of the population goes to church every week.
There is nothing wrong with being religious. There is everything wrong with being theocratic.
@@delta5297 Religion requires group think. What else makes people believe things based on "faith"?
As of the end of the Civil War the entire U.S. was primarily Christian, and largely Protestant Christian, throughout, to the extent people were religious at all. The Civil War devastated the South economically, and, to make matters worse, the railroads and shipping lines were controlled by bankers and industrialists in the Northeast, who had grown wealthy as a result of the war and who were able to get control of most of the railroads throughout the country, including the railroads in the South. They created a system of freight rate discrimination that made it more expensive to ship produce and manufactured items from the South and West to other parts of the country, than to ship from the Northeast to the rest of the country. The purpose was to impel people, wherever they lived, to buy from factories in the Northeast and eliminate competition elsewhere. Put "discriminatory freight rates" in a search engine in quotation marks to read about it. When the Interstate Commerce Commission was created in 1887, because of the political influence of the industrialists of the Northeast, the discriminatory rates were written into regulations. The result was that the economy of the South was stifled for decades.
Part of the Reconstruction program forced on the states that had made up the Confederacy was that they had to repudiate the Confederate war debt. Yet, the Union war debt was to be fully funded. Post-Civil War, the southern states paid their proportionate share of federal taxes, and the taxes were used to pay off the Union war debt, the securities of which were held almost exclusively by northerners and westerners. This constituted a transfer of wealth from the southern states to the other states.
The U.S. Congress provided pensions for those who served in the Union army, but none for those who served in the Confederate army. The southern states, again, paid their proportionate share of federal taxes, and the taxes were used to pay the pensions of Union veterans, most of whom lived in the north and west. This constituted an additional transfer of wealth from the southern states to the other states.
The bulk of the immigration into the U.S. came after the Civil War. These newer immigrants had a variety of religions, to the extent they were religious, and many came for reasons that had nothing to do with religion. Because of the depressed economic conditions in the South, almost all of these later immigrants gravitated to the North and West. This influx diluted the influence of Christian and Protestant Christians in the North and West, while having little effect on religious affiliation in the South. One of the most fundamental beliefs of Christians and Protestant Christians is preaching and spreading their religions to others, while this is somewhat less important in other religions, or not important at all. The overall result has been that religion is more heavily preached in the South than in other places.
Yup. The South has always been backwards and with all immigration going to the North and West the South stayed true to it's roots. Industry lagged and they remain relatively poor at least in the deep south. The deep South use to be wealthiest region in the United States. The civil war changed all that for obvious reasons. The main one being no more slavery. Of course the North knew that would destroy them and make them reliant on the north which of course it did.
Never realised that. Thanks. (Not American.)
While economics is the key, entrenched slavery and poverty prior to the Civil War is the bigger reason. Much of the South was the same in 1964 as it was in 1864. Religion keeps people at bay (i.e., stupid). Plus, it's not as if there are no churches in New York or California.
@@breft3416
How can one ever generalize in one single comment on a YT video among millions of other videos, in a world with a population of almost 9 billions, and *"state"* that //Religion keeps people at bay//. Isn't that just a *stupid* statement per se? Just sayin'... 🤔
If you look up religion numbers on PEW Research, you will find that since 1990, all religions in America have decline dramatically and the "nones" are by far the fastest growing demographic group in this country. And those "nones" are in the South though not nearly as numerous as in the west and the northeast. "Nones' now make up around 30% of the country.
“Is it even a problem at all?”
*Looks at the state of the country*
Yes.
All the con people coming out to hustle the religious rubes. A basic criminal like Trump being seen as a real leader.
I remember when a co-worker and I flew into Memphis from Denver on a Saturday night. Sunday morning, we got up and started driving looking for mcdonalds so we could have breakfast. We were wondering why there was so much traffic and then when we got up to the Baptist Church we realized that it was Sunday and people were going to Church - something that generally didn't happen in Denver.
Fascinating
Christians and their pollution... Probably learning to hate on Muslims and sell weapons to foreign interests.
We plan our Sundays around church traffic here in west-central Ohio
@@brokenrecord3523 that sounds mad.... can't you just WALK to your nearest church?
Memphis, everyone praying not to get capped. Neck and neck with Detroit as the most violent trashy city in the US for the longest. It never got any better, other places just deep sixed.
Misfortune of growing up there, on break at work saw a game show where the couple "won" a trip to beale street. Break room erupted in laughter: "They gonna divorce!"
That and Prince Mongo & Scientology weirdos. Scientology fought da hood and da hood won.
I'm European. This was quite interesting because I was thinking that most Americans were terribly religious. Many even sort of Christian fundamentalist.
If one is reading American comments, there are always people talking about God or the bible, even if the subject has absolutely nothing to do with it.
True, but I think (and hope) that's just a loud minority.
@@Captain_Nightspore Yeah, our dumbest are our loudest.
@@Captain_Nightspore40% of us are creationists, so yeah I think far too many of us are genuinely that brainwashed.
What's wrong with that believing in nothing is better 😂😂😂😂
My father and grandfather were ministers (pastors). There are five children in my family and only one of us attends church. The rest of us are agnostic or atheists. I live in a conservative, Republican state and there are many churches around me that have closed in the past few years. Religion is rapidly declining in the US. Our political problems are a big reason why.
You forgot two things: Slavery and the Civil Rights movement. Enslaved people were expected to practice Christianity, with their enslavers deliberately emphasizing biblical teachings that condoned slavery and encouraged submission to earthly masters. The enslaved themselves often found comfort in the belief in the afterlife. After slavery, the Black church provided services and community to parishioners who couldn't get it elsewhere.
Second, the Black church played a significant role in organizing the Civil Rights movement; MLK, Ralph Abernathy, Jesse Jackson, Rosa Parks, etc., either preached or were active members of churches. And white churches in the South often led the reactionary movements against civil, women's, gay rights movements.
The politicization of religion plays a key role in the religiosity of the South.
Some interesting parallels there with the Islamic mosque and community being a safer place for people opposed to the current political regime in Egypt and the Middle East to organize in the 1970s and later. Thus drawing people opposed to the regime further into into religion as part of their rhetoric, goals, and ideology.
Ignoring slavery makes the video completely useless. Justifying the enslavement and torture of other human beings is the very basis of white southern Christianity.
Fact
The white churches significantly outnumbered the black churches especially in support of those rights. By themselves, the civil rights movement would have fell flat on its face without the help of the white religious people. The same goes for the abolition of slavery which was spearheaded by white Christians and considered a radical religious stance at first. All of these movements with the exception of "teh geys" relied heavily on white Christians to do the heavy lifting when it came to marching, funding, and pushing legislation. Ironically often cut out of the movements histories much much later.
Yes, politicization did play a role but you're only giving one side of it.
@@fluffskunk Completely false. White Christianity is what started the abolitionist movement. Even in the South it was a controversial topic. Money played a larger role that religion and the very rich plantation owners had more political sway that the scattered religious groups in the south of the time.
This is excellent. I'm gonna watch it twice! Comments are so interesting also.
American religion is pretty complex. My Italian grandfather came to the States and became a Northern Baptist minister. He had graduated from Yale Theological Seminary, in Connecticut. I grew up in the Northeast as a Congregationalist. I’ve now lived in the South for the last 40+ years (Central Florida, Texas and now South Carolina). I’m still a Yankee at heart and am part of the Nones (not affiliated). Both my sons have converted to Catholicism, while one daughter-in-law is Jewish.
We are fortunate in this country that each of us is allowed to find our own spiritual path.
For now, anyways.
For right now. The major peril with democracy is that it can vote in dictatorship.
@@josepherhardt164 That's right. So in order to defend democracy, we obviously need to ban voting!
@@josepherhardt164 Well, we're not a democracy. What peril are you concerned with?
For now. If the plans of Project 2025 are implemented, that religious freedom goes **poof**.
I’m from Michigan, moved to NC for 4 years and it was mind blowing how the church parking lots were filled on Sundays. Moved back to Michigan 1 1/2 yrs ago and the difference is very noticeable.
I haven’t been inside a church for over 30 yrs but the lifestyles are very different as well.
That's interesting. I've been gone from Michigan a long time. I really miss it but I'm afraid of right wing Bible brains.
Christofascism is out of control taking aim at our founding documents. It's both un-American and blasphemous.
@@noname-by3qz their actuality pretty cool i figured out they are mostly right and yep healing are real go figure
@@overbuiltautomotive1299
I'm sorry I didn't know what you meant?
@@overbuiltautomotive1299 you should proofread your sentence. We cannot understand it.
As someone who has spent four decades working with humanitarian organizations preparing care packs for those who are homeless and hungry, I can confirm that these folks did not voluntarily choose to be stuck to stay out in freezing temperatures and blistering hot temperatures starving.
Yeah the phrase voluntary poverty used here I'd never before heard, tho r's assume that.
I do not see evangelicals are doing much for the poor and disadvantaged other than condemning them politically. I don’t see child care, etc happening while they get pumped up on prosperity doctrine and creating multi million dollar churches. The mainstream churches and Catholics understand Matt 25 and provide for them through Catholic Charities, episcopal lunch kitchens and other mainstream church organizations. It is actually liberal organizations that are doing much to help in my experience.
I don’t know of any homeless people who love what’s happening. Many of them don’t know how to function or have lost hope, are mentally ill, addicted or our precious vets with major PTSD problems etc. At one time, Vietnam vets constituted a major percentage of homeless. They still do along with the kids coming back as combat vets from the sandbox.
Thanks for knowing where real spirituality hits the road. And giving of yourself to help others.
Mindlessness is a choice even tho the effects might not be.
the people who go at it with that mindset have taken over
the problem has gotten worse by an order of magnitude
at this point it doesn't even matter if it's true; it's failed catastrophically
@@FourOf92000 I understand where you’re coming from but I’m not the type who can just tip the king over and give up. The ratio between those who have that “voluntarily poverty” mentality is far less than those of us who are working diligently in our communities to make sure that our fellow human beings are fed, clothed, sheltered, and get the medical care they deserve. There’s more of us than there is them.
Proud Vermonter. Come from an old traditional Presbyterian family. I'm now agnostic and Buddhist. I actually live in Asia now but no way I could ever live in the South.
I don’t know why, but I love how the narrator pronounces “flip flop.” 😁 0:39
I'm struggling to figure out his accent!
I think it's a Brummy British accent but he switches between pronouncing his Ts like Ds and pronouncing them clearly. His accent is closer to that of a North Eastern American which is weird because he's obviously British. I'm guessing maybe one of his parents was British and the other was American, or he moved to America and has lived there for a while. Somebody help me out here!
Sounds south african to me.
@@stuartleerichardjohnson8189 Same! He sounds a bit Afrikaner to me.
@@sirkermitthefirstoffrogeth9622my first thought was Dutch
@@smelly1060 Yea, Afrikaans has roots in 17th century Dutch. There are a lot of words that are Dutch as well as San, Arabic, Malaysian, French, Portuguese and Indonesian.
Southern Christian here: I wanted few make a few points: Although Billy Graham was very friendly with the Baptists, he was officially Presbyterian (my Grandfather was a personal friend of his and is from the same town in North Carolina). He also caused a stir because a few cities wanted to segregate the audience in the 1960 for his revivals, and he cancelled the event if he heard that the local organizers insisted on segregation. Unfortunately Chattanooga, TN (where I grew up), was one of those cities who had the dishonor of having a cancelled revival.
Also as far a current landscape, I would argue that "spiritual, not religious" is the predominant thought with young people opposed to Atheisms or agnostics like it was 20 years ago...I would also say the amount of "cultural Christians" in the bible belt because it was what everyone else did used to be pretty high a few generations ago. Now that its more culturally acceptable not to believe, the a larger majority of people who call themselves Christian in the bible belt are actually genuine believers and aren't just doing it for social clout. Everyone else mentioned it, but the amount of Catholic imagery in this video is hilarious. Just for backdrop there is 1 Catholic church in my town, and the congregants are either Hispanic or from up North. Also, growing up so many of my peers went to church on Wednesday night that Teachers stopped giving out homework on Wednesdays...in a public school :)
Graham was a psycho
Thats a confusing sentence. He insisted on segregation but threatened to cancel if the local town insisted on segregation? Do you mean he insisted on integration. From what I understand Billy was relatively progressive on race.
Today it seems (not really it's rather obvious) the left needs to replace God with their own version be it, the state as god (communists/socialists) mother nature as god (the greens) or DEI as god (academia) But all of them to be successful must remove God.
@@adenjones1802 I'm afraid you misread it. A few CITITES wanted to segregate.
@@TheJman423 I think this might have been after the edit. The origional said he not cities. At least i think.
Presentation may not be perfect, but so much was covered in just 21:00 minutes. Great results considering the complexity involved. Most was reliably conveyed. Thank you. 🤞 🙏 ✝
I am 53. 5x combat vet. Saved. I would love to contribute to ur mission, if possible.
I like what u are doing.
I’m from the South. Someone once told me that two things not to mention and avoid in a conversation is religion and politics if you don’t want to get in a disagreement or argument wether it be a family member, friend or stranger. I can definitely tell you that is the truth. I’ve seen it happen many times. Not saying this about everyone, but there are some here in the South who can be pushy about their beliefs and act like they’re better than others just because they don’t share the same beliefs, values, etc. Just saying.
That's good advice no matter where you are. Until you get to know someone and ascertain that they are open to discussion, of course.
Everywhere...
Yes, this is how the South is. I've lived in the south all my life, first in Ark. where Baptists were predominant & then in N.O. where most are Roman Catholic. Although most Catholics don't try to convert you (that is a job for N priests & other church officials), most assume you're like them & are shocked if u tell them you're not a Christian.
Baptists are also usually shocked if they learn you're not a Christian. It's as if neither Baptists or Catholics can conceive of anyone not being Christian. It's as if you're an alien from another planet.
But what's worse are the "born agains", who tend to really push their religion on you, even in the most mundane circumstances. For example, every time I speak even briefly with my born-again neighbor, she inevitably is going to repeatedly tell me she'll be praying for me. Repeatedly. In a 5 minute conversation, she'll tell me this at least 4 or 5 times. It would seem that since I never reply to her "I'll pray.." , she might get some idea that maybe I don't agree with her beliefs. (When she tells me she'll be praying for me, I never reply with a thank you. I simply ignore her remarks & go on with the conversation. )
Growing up, I was forced to attend church with my mother at least twice a week till I left home at 17. My mother was Northern Missionary Baptist & the small country church was just down the road from our house. My father wasn't a Christian and in fact detested organized Christianity, but my mother had made him promise that their children would be brought up in her religion, that he wouldn't say anything to the children about his own beliefs---this was the promise my mother required from my father as a precondition to marrying.
In this church, it was taught that you must be "saved" when u reached "the age of accountability", which meant adolescence. In order not to burn in hell forever, u had to plead with Jesus to save your soul, to swear your total belief in him as God's son. This act of "being saved" had to be carried out with the total baring of your soul, which for most meant at least hours of praying & pleading. It was, for myself as for everyone I knew who went through it, intensely emotional. It required you to give yourself completely to Jesus/God.
I was 12 when I went through this act of being "saved." It's hard to describe how intense this experience was.
But in my mother's church, it was taught that once you'd been "saved," you could never doubt it even for a minute, that if u doubted at all it meant u weren't really "saved." After the first time, I tried not to doubt it but eventually I'd wonder if I'd really been "saved," so then I'd have to start all over. Even as a child I'd had doubts about the religion, particularly when I learned that only humans would be allowed into Heaven. No dogs, no other animals would be there. This caused me a lot of problems because I loved my dog as much as I loved anyone else---he'd been my best friend since I was 4, when my aunt gave him to me as a tiny puppy. The more I heard about Heaven, the worse it sounded---no dogs or other animals, no one other than the "born again" humans who'd been "saved". And in Heaven, it would be an eternal life with God's chosen few who would sing his praises forevermore. Nothing like life on Earth, no plants or animals or lakes & mountains. As I'd grown up with many miles of forest to play in & since I'd always lived the woods & all life within the woods, the idea of a Heaven divorced from nature disturbed me. But it was a choice between "being saved" & going to Heaven or else forever burning in hell.
After "being saved" a number of time but each time afterwards unable to have some doubt, I began to question the religion. It was at first very frightening to question anything about it, but I gradually became braver & questioned more & more. Before I was 14, I had rejected the religion and its Jesus/God.
But since most people I've lived around were Christians (Protestant or Catholic), all my life I've had to endure their intolerance. If they find out I'm not a Christian, they're shocked & usually distance themselves. But that's not the main problem. The main problem (for the 60+ yrs since I rejected the religion) has been that I've had to live in a society in which Christianity is dominant. There are constant reminders to let u know Christianity is the only acceptable way to be. And although in the US there's supposed to be separation of church & state, this is not the reality.
@@janegarner6739 Good Day, to a person who isn't actually "Afraid to Think". All religions are the result of Lifetime Indoctrination into Delusion and Fear. The "bible" stories read like The Brother's Grimm. Wild and Absurd creations, that can't and couldn't actually happen. Fear is what keeps it's believers captive in it's cruel and unrelenting grip. Religion invented Evil and perpetuates it. Until the last person who even knows the word "Religion" has died and the last written and visual display of anything "religious" has disappeared, humanity is trapped in this Scourge.
Best Regards to All Rational Thinkers.
The south is the only region of the US I've lived in where people regularly and openly talk about religious beliefs and politics at work. It's truly bizarre. A lot of people in the south can be very push about both.
Lol mormonland being unreligious in thumbnail
Mormonland xD
Also the map is just the "african american" map.
Mormonism is not true Biblica Christianity. Long live the nondenominationals!!
I thought you said Muhammed
Check the stats. Yes Utah is a less religious state.
18:48: Maine & Vermont are labeled the wrong way around. +Great video & thank you.
Appalackkya
i remember at baseball batting practice when i was like 8 telling someone when they asked what church i go to that i wasn't a christian. he slapped me and the coach who saw it told me "well don't say that"
As someone from upstate NY I was quite shocked by the friendliness of Appalachians. When my car was having problems in rural Georgia everyone was willing to help. I can't see that happening in my state.
I won't pretend the south has no issues but I admire things about them.
Im a city boy, Liberal and agnostic. I work all over the south. If you dont talk politics then southern hospitality is a real thing
@@jeffwatts1126And if you do talk politics, they spit in your food or talk behind your back. Real hospitable.
@@mehdihatami3391 Ive worked all over the south, but the last time was actually when trump was elected. I was in Alabama at the time. So I imagine things have changed a bit
@@mehdihatami3391 Do you have such experience or you just lie as atheists are used to do?
@@ingus5552 - Do you have experience of atheists lying more than theists or is your intellectual honesty as poor as your English?
I will say that I have seen a growing trend of people interested and converting to more liturgical Christian branches, mainly Roman Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity. I myself converted from Methodism to Orthodoxy and I’ve seen more people my age doing the same.
Just an observation that I’ve seen in the past couple of years.
That’s mainly because Protestant denominations, mainly due to trying to reach out to as many people as possible, and to some extent because of the lack of a strong hierarchy like the Catholic or orthodox churches, have started leaning more and more to progressive Christianity. So these people who don’t agree with the progressivism go to churches like the Catholic and orthodox, which are very traditionalist and not progressive
I was raised Catholic, baptized, became an atheist, and then went back to being Catholic after realizing how wicked the modern world is.
@@batataooo6937Catholics are comparatively more progressive than most Protestants in my experience.
As a Protestant, i blame that on Progressive Theology.
I was a protestant, but converted to Catholicism. The lack of any orthodox beliefs among the denominations, plus the "seeker sensitive" presentations were among the main reasons. Church isn't meant to be a pop concert with a motivational speech at the end.
I live in Georgia and I counted atleast 11 churches and a few other religious buildings ON TOP OF THAT ON THE SAME STREET ‼️
I lived in Lafayette, Indiana for about 18 years and I've currently lived in Johnson City Tennessee for almost eight years. I can definitely confirm that the number of religious people where I am now is way higher than what was out in Indiana.
When my mom heard of the wrestler Billy Graham, she asked “Does he wrestle, too?”
Loved the video, objective, to the point, without insulting anyone
I grew up in Florida (non-religious) and at age 30 I moved to California. The only time I stepped foot back in the south was a visit to Atlanta one time. I found a mom/pop Mexican restaurant to eat dinner and the owners/staff were all Mexican. You would have thought I had 2 heads by the stares I got from other diners when I spoke to my server in her native language. She was so happy to see a white person speaking Spanish and even gave me a free dessert from the chef.
Every other white families dining there held hands and said their prayers before that started eating. I hadn't seen this in 18 years, mind you. Then I realized...oh yeah! I'm really back in the bible belt. I felt so out of place like I was in a foreign country.
We need to make the South and CA less white.
Same thing here. I'm basically a pair of pink eyes away from being an albino, but I speak the Mexican flavor of Spanish pretty good. And my white face speaking street Spanish is something of a surprise from time to time.
My Spanish was good enough that I was "El Ninero" for my nieces and nephew when we visited Mexico.
Some of my Mexican friends (the ones that I learned most of my bad words from - the rest came from the group Molotov) complained that I spoke Spanish like a gangster. My response was "Mira quienes son mis maestros."
If I run across some Spanish speakers whom I suspect aren't from Mexico, I'll ask them "Arroz con Popote?" If they laugh, they're from Mexico. :)
Getting back to the issue at hand, Statista had a graph that showed religious affiliation by faith from the years of 1948 to 2022. Protestants saw a reduction of their share from a high of 70% in 1948 to a low of 34% in 2022. And another Statista graph shows that by percentage based on age, the largest group of "church-goers" are in the 65 and up demographic. So it's only going to get worse (for Protestants in particular).
Seems one of YT's AIs decided your post is too something. I see it in the notifications but not in the thread itself. Then again, given my low social credit score they may have blocked me from seeing it.
Bible is the truth
@@olg7483 And dinosaurs are the work of the devil! Except the watermelon eating ones. Can I get an amen!
Bra I know you’re from South Africa with this accent😭 we love it man🇿🇦
The Old South also went through an interesting revolution when it came to secularism: at the time of the American revolution, the South was at the forefront of secularism's advocacy (consider the Virginians Thomas Jefferson and James Madison); however, in the 1800s, Southern culture came to resist secularism. It just so happened that at this time the controversy over slavery was emerging, and Southern leaders had come to use the Bible as a defense of this "peculiar institution."
The Great Awakening type movements seemed to have some good sway with rural folks, too.
@@JohnJackVancouverIsland It seems to me religion holds greater sway among rural folks as a general rule. Why? Religion offers otherworldly power. Such may be easier to discount in urban areas if only because worldly power is centered there, and that would tend to make intervention from another realm superfluous. But rural areas are removed from urban areas and thus worldly power. Accordingly, the sense there of a need for an agency beyond worldly power tends to be more keenly felt.
@@Primitarian And the Old South was primarily agrarian, too, correct?
@@JohnJackVancouverIsland Correct.
Lack of faith is the ultimate privilege of the wealthy. For poor rural ppl so often their faith is necessary to keep them going. As a Jew I know that the New Testament has often been misused and quoted out of context to justify anti semitism as well as slavery
Excellent overview! Many thanks.
A pity you missed the puritans original emigrated to the Netherlands. Only a part of them moved to America, because they found the Dutch Protestants too easy. So it’s a special branch of the puritans that went away.. the crazy ones. The rest stayed
'Splains a _lot_ about the general f**ked-upness of our culture & whatnot here in the States, don't it? In other countries around the world they censor violence, here it's nudity/sex that gets the kaibosh. I think we got things back-a$$wards. Based on my observations & interpersonal interactions whilst traveling overseas for 2-4 weeks every 1.5-2 years from my infancy to mid-30s, I can say with some degree of certainty that us Americans are waaay more f**ked in the head than people in the UK/EU. I'm not excluding myself from that judgment, either, 'cuz it'd be a lie to say I'm 100% right in the head. I do think the demonization of human beings' natural bodily impulses, particularly that of women, has quite a bit to do with why I & many Americans aren't as well-adjusted as folks across the pond & beyond.
A pity why is it a pity
@@AnEpicFatalityArchives because MORE knowledge and understanding makes us wiser. That the New England Puritans were a "subset" of the English Puritans in Dutch exile helps explain the effect on the USA.
yeah but the Puritans all lived in the Northeast and assimilated into less extreme groups within the Northeast over the course of the following decades.
So...Dutch Puritans, sane; American Puritans, insane? Where do you draw the line?
I think it has a lot more to do with socializing than theology.
I'm from the South and no, it's theology.
Theological indoctrination.
It's theology as social identity, not necessarily actual religiosity. When researchers did an actual count in churches, it turned out that a large number of those claiming to go to church weren't actually doing so. This theology is more about politicized culture war. This has been seen with how MAGA became identified with evangelicalism. This led to 'evangelicalism' being the fastest growing religion. But the problem with this claim is many of the self-identified evangelicals aren't associated with any church congregation. It's simply about political cheerleading.
Nailed it.
You're right. I live in the south among lots of churches. Church congregations are usually representative of a particular socio-economic-social group. The religious part is mostly background noise to the real function of the church, which is to give an excuse for all the various groups and social club-type activities to exist.
Great video! I have lived in The South for many years and there are churches EVERYWHERE! I cannot drive for 30 seconds on any road without seeing a church. I literally have two churches of different denominations within eyesight of my kitchen window.
I lived in the south all my life. I have lived in seven different southern states. Believe me, it really depends on where you live in the South that matters. in the large cities religion is not that big a factor. It’s mostly in smaller towns and rural areas that people go full-blown Jesus crazy.
I'm Full-Blown Jesus Crazy. I want that on a T-shirt. Praise God !
Contrary to what your oversimplified maps show, sociological trends, like religious ones do not neatly follow state or regional lines. For example the Lower Midwest--Missouri, Indiana and downstate Illinois--were primarily settled by people from the Upper South. Consequently, trends there in the Lower Midwest would tend to follow trends in the Upper South much more than those occurring in say, New England.
Truly spoken…and personally experienced 😊
@@julienielsen3746bless your fear and I hope you get your t shirt 😅
@@DGP653 No fear in me. Jesus has redeemed me from fear. Fear is of satan.
Super informative. Thanks.
I agree with the adverb in the video title. I may not be in the buckle but I am in the bible belt. I live 2.2 miles from work. During my daily commute, I pass by no less than 4 churches, one Christian childcare, and one closed church (formally a bowling alley and now a city bus storage lot). My place of employment even has a chapel in the facility and chaplains on staff. I have coworkers that literally believe in Noah's Ark and planned a group trip to visit the Ark Encounter. During my lunch break, receptionists are listening to preachers talking in tongues on their cell phones.
It’s a cult my guy
Jesús!
Wow that is so disturbing
Southerners have to advertise their virtue. It’s like wearing makeup. Or driving a pick up with a chapter and verse number from the Bible. In the town I live in there is 1:15 enormous 60 ft. cross in front of a buffet restaurant. Small businesses have those fake stone Ten Commandments at the front door. Huge billboards advertise Christian roofers, ambulance chaser lawyers, and there are In God We trust slogans plastered on store fronts, utility trucks, fire trucks, and even ambulances. You can’t run for public office without advertising the church you go to and claiming to be born again. And it’s all window dressing. Children are indoctrinated from daycare on. Hellfire and brimstone are alive and well. Churches have become giant warehouses that obliterate the charm of small towns. And for the love of God don’t say the word evolution out loud. And keep your tv tuned to Andy of Mayberry reruns.
@@Elizabeth-lj2vv How is that disturbing? they ain't hurting no one.
Very nice and informative, but you mixed up Vermont and Maine at 18:47
Still a great video though!
Holy crap this was informative. Thanks!!!
What a delightful turn of phrase. Enchanté !!
Check out the correlation between income and religious fervor and educational status and religious fervor. That's a far greater explanation of why the South is so insanely religious than 16th and 17th Century history.
I can agree that correlation is true sometimes but in general it has to be something else. Is the adoctrination of children what makes people be religious. Look at muslim countries, they are very adoctrinated from very young.
Don’t paint with such a broad brush. Not everyone in the South is stupid. We have Duke, UNC, Emory, Vanderbilt, UVA, to name a few. Come visit and broaden your horizons. Being a Baptist here is just some kind of good manners. And you have to say you’re born again to be ejected to political office. Everyone knows it’s a sham.
Finally someone brought it up. Educated people are less religious, and uneducated people are more religious. This inverse relationship is true worldwide. The South is famous for being the most uneducated part of the country which is still true to this day. You don’t really need to look that much further
Granted you have to look at the curriculum to see the flaw in the correlation. College promotes secularism and has been for more than a century. Critical thinking isn't taught as most of those humanities classes have been cut out of the basic curriculum. Just watching some of these kids struggle in a Logic 101 class is striking. I can't imagine them having to learn classic western philosophy instead of the post modern garbage they're peddling now. Instead, we see a dogmatic approach which many point out to the hallmarks of indoctrination rather than free thinking. The ego, narcissism, and entitlement present is also a huge thing we see common in college grads. The "I'm better than religious people" mindset is extremely prevalent.
@@randallsanchez3161that attitude does exist indeed but Critical thinking is not class worthy… this is something naturally everyone should learn as part of any study. If you took literally any science class (as long as it was taught well which is a whole other story) you know how to think critically, since that’s what the scientific method is all about. Critical thinking is just about examining evidence to accept or reject an explanation. That’s it. No need for a class for that… religion should be perceived as a more spiritual thought process, so it would not belong in any school. Since your spirituality is your own business really and no one else’s. That’s what churches are for…. Schools are for learning and debates and thinking.
Believing myths literally from writings centuries old that have been changed multiple times is a good indicator of a lack of critical thinking, which many Americans are guilty of.
I haven't seen anyone else say it but please look up a pronunciation guide for Appalachian. It's my homeland and It is pronounced nothing like how you pronounced it. I would take the northern pronunciation over what you said.
I live in rural(ish) Oklahoma. Back in the early 90s I started doing audio/video work and to find clients who may need installations or repairs I bought a mailing list from one of the first online places where you could search for specific businesses. I searched for churches, within 10 miles from my home, only in the north, south, and east quads so not to get inside city limits. I found 99 results inside that 30 square mile area.
I'm at 0:15 but I would say it's just a contrarian culture. At this point, being stupid has become their identity and they ain't gonna let the Yanks do anything about it.
They are free to cry in this country.
Very well thought out and informative perspective.
And when the rest of the world calls Americans "arrogant", they're thinking of yanks 😅
@@Michael-uc2pn "Arrogant" isn't in the top 5 words I'd think of when it comes to Americans. I'd much sooner label the French like that.
the irony in your comment
Dude you are so underrated
Nope, You are wrong
@kdub6593
0 seconds ago
None of this video is true. The culture of the South, including religion, is due to the Cracker/Redneck Culture. These Crackers and Rednecks were distinct groups from the north of the UK and the Scottish Highlands. Redneck is obvious. Cracker comes from Gaelic craic. These groups immigrated mostly to the Southern US. These people brought the fire and brimstone preaching with them. Also, their proclivity for a lacking cultural standard made them readily acceptable to slavery.
Not! Over rated and baseless in his presentation.
This was really informative 🙏🏻
the imagery is misleading and the words oversimplified. the gist of it is fine, if a little biased toward the end.
So. A note one the Bibel belt, the Bibel belt is not the entire south, it’s just Georgia Alabama and Mississippi, as it has the black belt. An area of black soil, which is very good for growing cotton. That combined with the heavy religious beliefs is where the term “Bibel belt” comes from.
I'm not even 2 minutes in yet, but just... holy shit, whoever did the art/graphic design for this video, congratulations! The level of production and clarity in visual communication is just insane for a TH-cam video.
In the north east, we have national public radio on our low frequency FM channels, in the south they have religious channels.
National Propaganda Radio, and btw we have NPR here too
@@RedWolfenstein Is National Propaganda Radio better or worse than the Christofascist radio stations in the south?
You should listen to one. It might do you some good.
@@haroldcampbell3337It’s more about politics and gaining power and money. They disregard anything Jesus said that contradicts their methods or desires. I listened for years and that’s what I learned.
We worship God. You apparently worship progressive atheists....is that what you're saying? BTW, shouldn't it be National Public Radio, with the first letters capitalized? Oooops.....!
Great video but I found it funny that when talking definitely about Protestantism- catholic imagery was used like 18:12 😆
Maybe person(s) putting together video not very familiar with Christianity?
When I worked at a public school in Reno NV, some of the teachers used to pray in a circle outside the door to the admin building in the morning. I just smiled and walked past them and told myself they had that right and just ignored them but this video discussion makes me wonder if the difference is that down South I would be the one who stood out for not joining their circle and praying with them?
I'm an athiest that grew up in Utah, you could stand anywhere in town and throw a rock to three different churches but had to drive hours to go to a club
Dont worry, the bishop and priest were at the club aswell😂
Just go to Ogden . We've had one of the best party spots since the 1860's.
Is it that little blues club? I can't remember the name but it was amazing
Pretty much anywhere on historic 25th.
I don’t know what it means when you say you atheist? Please no one can actually be telling the truth to say they don’t believe there is God created all this? That would be as so impossible! That doesn’t even make any sense at all?
As someone born and raised in New England, there was significant culture shock the first time i travelled south of PA. On the way to NC for a family wedding, we started to see crosses and these massive churches lining the highway the further we went. The way the south presents christianity, you'd think that they valued shallow representations of faith and symbols, over the actions of members to make the positive change that Jesus actually stood for.
In rural Indiana (same as the South, and the home of the resurgent KKK) I saw a GM car dealer with one of those big plastic signs up on a pole. Below the name and car logos there was a white space for changeable letters. Did it say "Used Car Sale!" or "New Models are Here" or something like that? Nope. "Jesus Saves".
Modern evangelicalism has everything to do with the angry drunken father Jehovah, and little to do with Jesus.
The more religious people are, the more ignorant, scared, paranoid, closeminded, dangerous they are.
Those crosses are a warning to outsiders.
Their Christ was killed, so they are allowed to retaliate against anyone they want to (with a lynching tree, instead of a cross).
@@roberthunt1540 You obviously understand nothing. Jehovah is the name for Jesus Christ, the Son. And God is not an angry drunken father. Evangalism isn't always clearly presented in the best way because of evangelicalism because in every generation there are people who distort the message of Salvation. But that doesn't mean the message is wrong, it means the person delivering the message is wrong. If someone really wants to understand how to have a relationship with God, how to have eternal life through salvation, how Christ died for their sins, they will find the truth in the noise shouted out by any evangalist or preacher. Hopefully, they'll seek the truth from someone who knows how to explain it clearly in a manner they will understand.
That's mostly untrue. The South does have a lot of churches, small ones and large ones. But they are more about supporting their communities and families in the church, helping people in times of need, coming together during disasters, offering free food and clothing pantries, giving financial assistance, offering space for local social groups to meet. They don't just have fancy buildings to show off, they support overseas missions, go to other countries to build schools, put in wells, help with disaster relief, load trucks with food and supplies for US and foreign disaster response organizations. Before making assumptions you need to do some research, or at least go into one or two churches and ask questions.
I moved to NC from California in 1978 and it was a huge change. I'd gone to church my whole life in CA, small independent churches. When I came here I didn't for the first years, then attended a small Methodist church for seveal years. I haven't attended a church for about 35 years, but have had contact with several because of the volunteer work I do. They have all been kind, supportive, open, helpful, and willing to help me with requests for the caregivers I support.
I am a believer, a Christian, and find it interesting that people make judgements about people before knowing them or talking to them. It's sad really because we're all more alike than we're different.
Lots of comments about how prosperous Utah is. I don’t know. That drive to Zion National Park presented a lot of shanty town trailer parks, so southern Utah seems excluded.
One could say the same about Los Angeles, San Francisco, and several other big cities filled with leftist elitiss and run by Democrats.
Did you expect to see wealth & prosperity on the dark side of the moon?
@@dalecaswell4217 There is no "dark side" of the moon, only a far side which can't be seen from Earth. Both sides face the sun in turn as the moon goes through iits orbit, with two weeks of sunlight and two weeks of darkness.
@ericlipps9459
... plus a slight wobble, so over the months we see a bit more than 50% ...
(Dark Side is a casual phrase for the Far Side -- "dark" to our view / communications
PRC ptobes landing on the Far Side are hidden / Dark to U.S.,
for example
A LOT of non-religious people have moved into Utah over the years and with them comes their "values". Drug use/addicition has become more prevalent and drugs are one of the biggest causes of homelessness.
very informative, thanks .
I would be interested to see the religiosity map extended north to include Canada. I suspect it would show most Canadian provinces to be well under 40%. In 1835, in his famous book Democracy in America, De Tocqueville called the United States the most religious Christian country in the world. Though its degree of religiosity has declined, I suspect this is still the case. In Canada you will never hear a Canadian politician asked what church they go to. Indeed, being viewed as “too” religious is likely to hinder your chances of being elected. That said, Tommy Douglas, the leader of the NDP and the premier who brought medicare to Canada, was a Methodism Minister and the most loved of all Canadian politicians. (He also said the bible is an old fiddle on which you can play any tune).
I know that the Catholic Church is pretty much dead in Quebec province as far as its Catholic population actively observing Catholicism.
I mean 69 percentage of our population is Xitain arround 27 Million 😂
Tommy Douglas was several decades ago as well.
Macleans magazine used to do an annual report on the difference btw Canada and the states.The religiosity of america. ..and their gun obsession(a strange mix) were the 2 major differences.
@@mathewpt4478 Only 53.3% Christian according to the 2021 census. And that's with exceedingly few American-style evangelicals.
At 12:50: The "ch" in "Appalachian" is pronounced like the "ch" in church. Enjoyed the video. Great job.
I always correct folks on this too. 😊
The pronounciation is entirely dependent on the region. There’s no correct way just preference
@@MireValeth-cam.com/video/uxOt2D2DSaw/w-d-xo.html
@@MireVale There are regional differences, but I have never heard the "ch" pronounced as a hard "k".
I moved to the Appalachian Mountains in Burnsville, North Carolina and the locals pronounce it as a ch sound! Whereas I pronounced it more as Appalasheean.
I remember being in public school in 3rd grade in Texas around 2000. My teacher was reading Little House on the Prairie and they made a reference to the rosary, and nobody in my class knew what it was. Our teacher told them it was something Catholics do, at least two kids said something bad about catholics, and I silently chimed in, "I'm Catholic."
I swear to God the whole class turned and looked at me like I was the devil himself and said, "You're Catholic!?"
As if I had enough problems being the smart kid that sure as hell didn't help.
Funny. I went to grade school in rural western New York and was raised in a protestant denomination. At the time (1968?) there was an option for students to got for religious programming at local churches. Every Wednesday the room would clear out and the rest of the class went to THE local church which was Catholic. Just me and a Jewish kid stayed and went to the library instead. I remember in social studies class the teacher mentioned that about 70% of New Yorkers were protestants. One of my classmates just blurted out "well where the hell are they?" In my specific location it was almost exclusively Irish Catholic and I literally knew about 5 kids my age that were not. Interesting times.
Rookie mistake. Serves you right believing in fairy tales.
@@incumbentvinyl9291 I was in third grade bro, go touch some grass
This is incredible work
I live in the Pacific Northwest and it’s very liberal, but the Midwest states are similar to the south they are very religious in the Midwest but where I live in Seattle, it’s a lot of left leaning liberal people does not a lot of religious people here
Midwest is hit or miss with religion. My small town church I attended closed down for lack of parishoners and I can only think of two classmates that were from particularly religious families. 20 miles east it's evangelicals everywhere and 30 miles north there are Amish farms for miles. 50 miles west it's seriously Dutch Calvinist to the point where they burned the Harry Potter books for promoting witchcraft. To the south it gets less and less religious until you hit Indiana.
Happily live in the "spine" of the Bible Belt - Appalachia. I have some areas near me with population densities of 5 people per square mile. In these areas we still have 1 Church every mile.
On average in my community I'd say there's 1 Church for every 10 people.
Church is more than just Religion as well. It's an opportunity for the whole community to get together. In Appalachia it is THE one and only way to meet all of your neighbors in one place. It is the gateway into the community. If you don't go to Church, you will not get "in" with the community.
“If you don't go to Church, you will not get "in" with the community.”
Ha! Your statement says everything anyone needs to know about Christian “love”. Hypocrites!
And Mormonism is growing fastest in the South than in any other region.
@@roberthill799 This gotta be the dumbest comment in this section by far lol
excellent work i enjoyed that
None of this video is true. The culture of the South, including religion, is due to the Cracker/Redneck Culture. These Crackers and Rednecks were distinct groups from the north of the UK and the Scottish Highlands. Redneck is obvious. Cracker comes from Gaelic craic. These groups immigrated mostly to the Southern US. These people brought the fire and brimstone preaching with them. Also, their proclivity for a lacking cultural standard made them readily acceptable to slavery.
as a person who lives in north louisiana, every town I’ve been to, and even the bigger cities like shrieveport have MANY churches. christianity is by far the dominant religion in the south. and i’ve never met a person irl who has said they are not christian
You left out Connecticut and Rhode Island when you highlighted New England.
Maine and Vermont are switched too
Good!
@@AshtarMichael - It's only Maine and Vermont, who cares?
@@marcokite there not real anyway
thank you for this instructive video!
This video is SO interesting, but TH-cam is near unwatchable with the ad density now.
It's so true. I have a separate channel were I was uploading videos with my own songs. No ads by me. Now these videos have ads in the beginning and in the end...
The "uBlock Origin" extension on Firefox (and mostly likely also on Chrome) is absolutely divine to fend off the demons of ads 😅
i'm always surprised to find people who still don't use adblock
@@smitty1647 But I bet they could list at least 30 genders.
@@sweatt4237 ok
Fascinating. Thank you
The town I went to school in was too small for a gas station or a stop light, but it had two churches
Amen.
That sounds terrifying
Plymouth Colony was NOT establishd by the Puritans. It was established by the PILGRIMS, who were religious LIBERALS. Boston, established ten years after, WAS established by the Puritans. The two did not get along becuase of the differences in their beliefs.
No sects got along, that’s why the founders wanted to keep religion out of government.
I don't know about "liberals", but they were Separatists. The distinction has been lost, at this point. As you might know, Puritans wanted to purify the Church of England, i. e., were Anglicans. The Pilgrims had separated from the CoE.
@@JESL_Only_1Yeah, when they say Liberals that means they tolerated you for being a different type of Christianity. I think people do not realize that freedom of religion basically meant freedom of denomination. They were not pro satanic spread your arms to anyone that OP insinuate that they were.
@@matttheradartechnician4308not sure how you got from “religious liberals” to “open your arms to Satanists.” That’s a bit of a leap.
All pilgrims are "Puritans". but not all Puritans are Pilgrims. Pilgrimage is a subcategory of Puritan.
Just like all, hornets are wasp but not all wasps are hornets.
Feels like listening to a history student read his final paper, accompanied by an over-loud, too urgent music bed.
The music is giving revival vibes on its own.
Excellent video. I would like to know who produced it. The design and animations are beautiful. Could you put the credits?
The description "insanely religious" is exactly right.
Insane being the operative word
Hmmm......I was puzzling on another question: Why is the Left so insanely atheistic?
Thanks for an interesting video.
that is for you
Very well done. Great topic.
“You can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”
~Anne Lamott
Interesting quote. And it does address a human problem, creating god in your image rather than God's creation of you in his.
How many have used God/or gods as a justification of their actions.
(joke about the definiton of a Puritan; a person who lives in mortal fear that someone, somewhere is enjoying themselves.)
Stealing this.
God is not good. Jesus wants all other religions and nonbelievers to spend an eternity in hell, just as they can't believe in a fairy tales. That's just one problem with religion.
@@cinaedmacseamas2978 Please do! And engage with the Christians who have a problem with it.
There's a similar one from Susan B. Anthony I drop:
“I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.”
~Susan B Anthony
@@frosty3693and that while no one has been able to demonstrate if there is a God. never mind what that God wants from us
Excellent video. Great content great graphics and editing. Subscribed.
Fantastic production style! Really helps to keep our attention.
Back in the late 60's, I took my wife back to Missouri so she could revisit her relatives and I could meet them. I had recentlly became aquainted with the term 'Bible Belt' and asked her uncle if MO is part of the the Bible Belt (It is) He had NO idea of what I was talking about and thought a 'Bible Belt' was some kind of special belt someone would wear so they could tote their bible around with them!