Ep. 0124: 2016 Election Day Special: The American Civil Religion

Ever get the sense that the government and politics in the United States is kinda cult-y? If so, CJ thinks your spidey sense is justifiably tingling, and what you’re picking up on is the phenomenon known as the civil religion.

Join CJ as he discusses:

• The concept of civil religion
• The origins of the American civil religion, and a brief word on the scholarship on the concept
• Some of the overtly religious elements that can be found in American government and politics, including: dogmas, rituals, sacred texts, holy places, sermons, sacrifices, sacred days, spells/mantras/incantations/prayers, music, sacred histories/narratives, temples, symbols/totems, priests, and saints
• The ways in which people of different cultural and ideological predilections can — just like with conventional religion — interpret the civil religion in order to make it fit their preferences
• How voting fits into this civil religion, and why CJ thinks a reasonable person should reject the civil religion — whether they are theists or not

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External Links

• Full text of “Civil Religion in America” by Robert Bellah, first published in the journal Daedalus in 1967
• Classic George Carlin bit on why he doesn’t vote
• George Carlin on “Stupid Hat Shit” (Hilarious — talks about the fixation of both conventional religion & civil religion with headgear)
• Bob Dylan, “With God on Our Side” (An excellent, haunting, live recording of one of CJ’s favorite antiwar songs of all time; this song brutally exposes the American Civil Religion)
• “Election Outcomes Affect Testosterone Levels in Men” according to Scientific American
• Wikipedia’s summary of the United States Flag Code