Thread: What divides the United States more: Politics or Religion?

I thought before Reagan it was mostly religion, but in the 80's until the present time, it seems like politics gets into every aspect of life in the U.S. and divides the American people moreso than religion ever did.

I still think its religion. Just do a study on this site. It takes about one response on religion before someone starts throwing stones and calls believers stupid. I think on average its about five posts on politics.

religion doesn't divide people.
political religion does.

Both seem to play an equal role as of late.

Both are equally divisive because neither can be proven right or wrong. Religion gets a slight advantage in my opinion though, because of how personal and life-altering the Spirit filled life can be...

I think that that is not the right question to be asking.
The right question to ask is how to decipher in so many cases where religion ends and politics begins.

I think that they both play an equal part. Although people try to keep the two seperate, they ultimately let their religious beliefs guide their political decisions to a great extent.

I think religion out weighs politics.

Religion is politics. It's all about control.

Originally Posted by Common Sense Craig

I thought before Reagan it was mostly religion,

How was religion the greatest force dividing Americans? Before the sixties
religion was not a political focus.
If your thinking of issues grown out of the sixties where questioning our
countries morality was popularized... even with the activists it didnt
specifically start about religion, it was about rights for blacks, equal
status for women, and protesting wars. Those are moral issues, but at
the time it was not morality itself that was being attacked, it was
supposed to be a quest for morality.
People werent concerned with the source of morality, but only to
have it apply to everyone.

but in the 80's until the present time, it seems like politics gets into every aspect of life in the U.S. and divides the American people moreso than religion ever did.

When the Democratic party inherited the political actors of the sixties
they made the "morality play" their platform for authority. The only way
to "own" morality in America is to take it away from the Church. The
best way to do that was attacking religion through the debates over
gay rights and abortion. Even though most people have always had
strong feelings about the preservation of life, and homosexuality, the
Dems now associate the oppositions views with religion. It serves to
portray themselves as having the "true morals" and those on the right
to be misled practitioners of spiritualism.