Everyone's prejudiced in some way, but I agree that it's a very American dynamic. (Our fandom also skews American, for obvious reasons.)
Catholics in the United States don't take every word of the Bible at face value either. That's a belief of evangelical Protestants, and most of the fundamentalist-Christian craziness in the U.S. comes from them. People who view Catholicism in that way are usually conflating it with evangelical Protestantism, which is definitely an American phenomenon.
The plurality of religions dates from a time when members of minority religions could be legally burned at the stake. If everyone had been secure in their own faith back in the day, we wouldn't have needed to enact laws about freedom of religion. If everyone were secure in their faith now, we wouldn't have crazy fundamentalists. Unfortunately, people have doubts, probably exacerbated by the presence of members of other faiths (who are visibly moral, ethical, and good, no less!), and fanaticism is overcompensation for doubt.
No need to apologize; I could talk about this all day ^_^
no subject
Catholics in the United States don't take every word of the Bible at face value either. That's a belief of evangelical Protestants, and most of the fundamentalist-Christian craziness in the U.S. comes from them. People who view Catholicism in that way are usually conflating it with evangelical Protestantism, which is definitely an American phenomenon.
The plurality of religions dates from a time when members of minority religions could be legally burned at the stake. If everyone had been secure in their own faith back in the day, we wouldn't have needed to enact laws about freedom of religion. If everyone were secure in their faith now, we wouldn't have crazy fundamentalists. Unfortunately, people have doubts, probably exacerbated by the presence of members of other faiths (who are visibly moral, ethical, and good, no less!), and fanaticism is overcompensation for doubt.
No need to apologize; I could talk about this all day ^_^