How long before religious war in the USA?

[Pharaoh Cat]

Any predictions? 

As atheism, agnosticism and apatheism become ever more prevalent and open in the USA, the Christians here will feel ever more threatened.  Meanwhile, Muslims are immigrating here in droves and multiplying once they get here, another threat to the Christians.  Religious war seems inevitable, the only question in my mind being, when?  Will I, fifty years old, see it in my lifetime?  Will thirty-somethings see it?  Twenty-somethings?

I train in the martial arts and own a handgun and know how to use it.  The first I do primarily for health and physical fitness and the second arose out of an instinct for liberty more primal than rational, almost chemical.  Yet it isn't lost on me that one could argue I have prepared myself as best I could for combat.  Am I prescient?   

[Tank]

This is a question I first posited in Jan 2006 at RDF. I think it was my first serious post there and was (still is) one of my main concerns about religion.

As the moderate centre believers are eroded away one will be left with the increasingly isolated fanatical extremists who will feel persecuted and attacked. To my mind it's just a question of how long this extremist residuum takes before they start shooting (in Gods name) not when. So how long do we have? I'd guess three generations. Each generation is less religious overall while those that are religious are more fanatical as they have to hold their beliefs in the face of increasing overwhelming evidence that there are naturalistic explanations for the way the world works and supernaturalism becomes more ridiculous.

So 60 years before the guns come out.

[Happy_Is_Good]

Pharoh,

This is a really good question! 

Now...when many people talk about wars, they mean "shooting wars" - but these aren't the only types of wars available.  In addition to "shooting wars", there are Intellectual Wars - the so-called "Cultural Movements" and these can be really intense, too.  For example, the Civil Rights struggle was no less that an Intellectual Civil War - and so were the Gay Rights and Women's Movements.

I think since the early part of the last decade, that Atheists have been in an intellectual war with Christianity and Islam (more so Christianity because it's so much closer).  Nevertheless, I do believe an intellectual war is being fought throughout the West (Europe and America, especially). 

I think the Atheists have been very successful in the last 10 years, and I think if they can carry forth this success for another 10-15 years, then I believe Christianity will be a dead force in the political realm.  Already, the Republicans are loosing those self-loathing evangelist Christians known as "The Base" and these people are not being replaced by other Christians.  Within the last few years, feel-good Megachurches Churches without "Christ or Hellfire" are popping up all over the country and diluting the hardcore religious voting bloc.  Furthermore, criticisms of religion that would previously brought forth cries of "Blasphemy" are uttered daily throughout our media.  And even need I mention the the awesome work of dozens of atheist comedians who mock religion at every opportunity?

Yeah...there's a war going on, and the Atheists are winning, and Atheists need to keep the pressure on until religion is culturally pathologized (i.e., society believes that only crazy people would believe in a man in the sky).

[OldGit]

I have no direct experience of this.  I hope Happy_Is_Good is right - it's not the impression we get over here, but I get most of my information from atheist forums, so that's hardly surprising.

If the christian threat is indeed receding, what about the moslems?  Over here in Europe, a lot of us feel that armed conflict is only a matter of time.  It would mainly be moslem fanatics against everybody else, and the opposition would not be mainly christian, just anti-moslem.

When will it come?  Seems to me that depends mainly on the economy.  While people are prosperous they don't get discontented, but they will when they're out of work and poor.  I can't speak about the US, but in Europe I'd say the conflicts are already starting.

[Tank]

Yes there is a 'cold' war going on at the moment. I think Pharaohs question is really if/when one thinks it is going to turn hot? Well in the UK I really doub't it'll turn hot in any significant manner. There simply are not enough people with access to guns. However Amaerica is full to bursting with guns so it'll take far less for a nutter to fire the first shot and then to other teams nutters will shoot back.

[OldGit]

Yes there is a 'cold' war going on at the moment. I think Pharaohs question is really if/when one thinks it is going to turn hot? Well in the UK I really doub't it'll turn hot in any significant manner. There simply are not enough people with access to guns. However Amaerica is full to bursting with guns so it'll take far less for a nutter to fire the first shot and then to other teams nutters will shoot back.

True, ordinary folks are not armed at the moment, however I'd be surprised if some moslem extremist groups aren't already hoarding weapons.  When it kicks off, you'd find that the opposition's shotguns and pipe bombs would soon be supplemented with more serious stuff.

[Recusant]

A good friend of mine began predicting that a "race war" would begin "soon" in the US. That was nearly 20 years ago. I think predictions of a religious war within the US may be in the same category (overly alarmist). Of course there will be groups like Hutaree which will rise now and again, and they may become more common as time goes by, and there will likely be incidents of such groups taking action. This may come in the form of domestic bombings, or things like the Waco/Branch Davidian standoff. I don't think that it will ever get to be so widespread that it's deserving of the name "war" though. Obviously this is just my opinion, and I could very well be wrong. I hang out at a large, fairly extreme right-wing/evangelical Christian forum on a more or less regular basis, and a lot of those people talk as if they're hankering for a violent encounter with the government. But then again, they too have been predicting an imminent uprising for years. Talk is cheap.

[xSilverPhinx]

My main concern is Iran, with their race to gain nuclear weapons, and the Arab Spring, which is going through the tendency to turn to religious dictatorship (perhaps?) just after overturning their dictators. Religion usually wins when there's a power vacuum, and when it's one that believes that it needs to conquer the world, problems are a very real possibility. Whether teocratic governments are just a passing through phase to something better, I don't know.  

On the plus side, if Iran does make its own weapons, there could be more peace between the West and Muslims. That's also a very real possibility.

[Happy_Is_Good]

I have no direct experience of this.  I hope Happy_Is_Good is right - it's not the impression we get over here, but I get most of my information from atheist forums, so that's hardly surprising.

OldGit,

I think I can understand where you are coming from.  BTW, you mentioned guns in another part of this thread, so I'll start there.

There are a lot of Guns in the US.  I live in a state that I believe has more guns than people.  I don't know anyone around me who doesn't own a gun.  A lot of people carry guns.  Every now and then when I'm out on an overnight fishing trip,  I carry a gun.

There are a lot of Blowhards in the US, too.  Guys who pretend Guns are the answer to most all of life's problems and post their crap on the internet, too.  Most of the time, these "Blowhards" are new and inexperienced gun owners.  They haven't yet figured out that a gun is the last line of defense...not the first (and then only when the circumstances are dire).  Most blowhards overcome their stupidity without causing any damage - the rest overcome their stupidity when they acidently shoot themselves in the arse one day, or get arrested for brandishing (guns are a great teacher that way).  By far, the vast majority of gun owners have a tremendous respect for guns and use them responsibly.  

Now...I'm not saying everything is perfect - there are some real arseholes out there.  But I've seen both sides of the equation (guns vs no guns) and I like the way we are going now - because people (at least in Texas) are finally developing a deep aversion to physical violence.

In a gun culture, an adult Bully or Thug has a very short timeline.  Things like road rage becomes rare.  Street riots where the innocent are the targeted just don't happen - not ever  [Can you imagine the ensuing carnage if rioters started setting fire to businesses and cars on the streets of Dallas, Texas?]  Also...people are more willing to forgive and forget, and common civility improves.  People aren't more hesitant to yell at one another, and they certainly no longer use the one-fingered salute.  Texas used to have a problem with Gay bashing, but this problem ended overnight when the gays started packing guns.

I once heard Richard Heinlein say that "an armed society is a polite society".  At one time, I may not have believed Heinlein, but I believe him now for I am seeing it slowly evolve.  Therefore, I just can't imagine that an armed conflict - or any violent conflict - between neighborhood groups would be tolerated no matter what their religious differences.

I hope this helps.

[Too Few Lions]

I've gotta agree with Recusant and SxPhinx, I think it's alarmist and can't see a full blown civil war based on religion happening in either the US or Europe. Civil war would destroy a country's economy, and I'm sure the people in power know that, so would do everything they could to stop any small outbreaks of violence escalating. Plus as crazy as some Christians and Muslims are, I imagine only a small percentage would want a war either with each other or with atheists.

Iran would currently seem to pose a much greater threat to the US and Europe right now. An Iran with nuclear weapons is a very scary thought indeed.

[Crocoduck]

Any predictions? 

I've never been given the gift of prophecy. Not even when I was a Christian.
I do take your meaning though and think this is a talk worth having. I just try to not predict (guess) the future. Thats not to say we can't see the path we're on is dangerous. Just that predictions are supernatural.

Sorry if that sounded like a preachy atheist.

[Whitney]

I don't think there will be a war in the US over religion...if anything like that happens it will either be the US itself imposing religion via military control (as bad as the conservative wrong is I don't picture this as possible; frankly if that happens it's the end of freedom and there are worse things to worry about than forced religion) or yet another uprising of fringe groups that the FBI takes out compound by compound.  I just don't see there being enough crazies for a religious war to actually occur (they'd have to be religiously crazy and military crazy...most aren't both) in any way that couldn't be stamped out by government fairly quickly.

[Ecurb Noselrub]

There is little chance of an actual religious war in the USA.  There may be some scattered violence, but the vast majority of Christians I know are not in any mood for actual violence.  The biggest mega-pastor in the USA is Joel Osteen, and his style of preaching is totally contrary to the fundamentalist style that would lead to violence.  Yes, there will always be some crazies, but I simply predict a gradual change where there are more atheists and it just becomes another somewhat accepted worldview, along with the religious ones.   

The prospect of civil violence, IMO, is much greater in Europe.  Maybe not a war, per se, but violence as Islamic culture runs into more and more problems with Western culture. 

[Crocoduck]

I think change can happen in the U.S, without major war breaking out. I also think that most of the time the U.S. does change without a civil war. The pendulum swung on race with Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King and some blood was spilled but not anything one could call "War".
Attitudes in the U.S. have started to change about gays U.S. and many clam thats it"s because of a TV show called Queer eye for the Straight Guy.
Yes Americans do own guns...I have way too many, but I just don't believe all the doomsday stuff. I could be wrong though 2012 is only 16 days away. 

[Crow]

I don't think that America will have a religious war in the near future, especially not against atheism. If the US went to war with Pakistan (which is actually a real possibility, more so than Iran) then that could cause an upsurge of aggression from those within the States that come from a Pakistani background and some that associate themselves with the Sunni branch of Islam, however if they were deemed a threat I am sure the government would take similar measures like they did in WW2 with the Japanese.

If civil war was to break out even though religion would have a role to play it wouldn't be solely because of the religion it would be due to multiple factors such as mass immigration, a worsening of economic decline, exacerbated racial relations due to extremists from all sides, a weakening of government control over the wealthy states, a president that has lost total respect from the public, and religious fundamentalists feeling they are being marginalized.

Its not something I would like to see, due to the diversity of the population and availability of guns it would most likely go the way of Yugoslavia rather than that of Croatia. Which wouldn't be beneficial for any side.