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Religion in America; is it really tribalism?

In light of the Evangelical "unfailing" support for Trump despite his multiple marriages and (it would seem) too numerous to count affairs you start to wonder about what religion in America is about.

As a Canadian, the way Americans talk about their religion (and boy oh boy do they talk about their religion) is somewhat unsettling.  Granted that Canadians have a very "private & personal" view of their religion (at least on the east coast.  It is not spoken about, God is not thanked every two minutes and generally, religion (or the lack thereof) is a very private affaire.

Years ago, a friend invited me to join his family to a vacation home on the coast of main for the July long weekend.  First, we were surprised that such an amazing house would even be available at that time of the year, what my friend told me was that the owners were Jewish and because the "enclave" was Presbyterian no children would play with theirs! 

All of us, it was a very large house -- we called it the "9 TV house" because there were nine televisions -- which we all thought was really really excessive!  Anyway, all of Canadian could not for a minute think of a similar situation in Canada.  Granted there is in Quebec the "two solitudes" or at least the divide between French and English speaking population was substantial -- although in large part it was caused by a language barrier -- few of us (as youngsters) spoke both languages fluently.

Returning to our subject, and the advent of Trump on the political scene.  if you believe in the literal words of the Bible (as many evangelicals preach too) then Trump's alleged moral turpitude would make him ineligible for their support, and yet they forgive everything!

Could it be that most Americans use their "religious belonging" as a form of tribalism -- keeping the others away.  they don't really care about religion they care about their tribe and their agenda -- and little else.  There is little doubt that Obama was religious and had for years gone to church on Sunday -- the real deal as it were, yet the evangelicals were convinced that he was a secret Muslim -- not that they cared that he was or not, he was just not part of their tribe.

So now the support from Graham & friends for people whose morals are loose (Trump and Moore) is understandable, they don't care about these people, they care about their tribe and its agenda.  Right now the evangelical tribe cares about the GOP's master plan; the first part has been enacted: Fewer taxes for the rich, the second part is destroying the fifth estate (the press) and the actions against Amazon are entirely driven by that idea -- if the GOP can destroy the Washington Post it will be a warning to the others.

The next is to re-start the Tea party zeal and address government expenses:  Obamacare, Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security and food stamp -- so that these programs can go back to the religious organizations that ran them until the 1950s.


Ok maybe the last one is a bit thick, but if you believe that those who failed just didn't try enough then


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