Not trying to equate Soviet Russia and the United States today regarding this experience. But one wonders how did the Soviets wipe out religion (in a very religious country)? With power.
Perhaps a bit overdramatic and the situations are vastly different, but all this reminds me of the Church's experience under the new Soviet regime in Russia:
*The Orthodox church suffered terribly in the 1930s, and many of its members were killed or sent to labor camps. Between 1927 and 1940, the number of Orthodox churches in the Russian Republic fell from 29,584 to fewer than 500. The watershed year was 1929, when Soviet policy put much new legislation in place that formed the basis for the harsh anti-religious persecution in the 1930s.
Anti-religious education was introduced beginning in the first-grade in 1928 and anti-religious work was intensified throughout the education system. At the same time, in order to remove the church's intellectuals and support official propaganda that only backward people believed in God, the government conducted a massive purge of Christian intellectuals, most of whom died in the camps or in prison.
The church's successful competition with the ongoing and widespread atheistic propaganda, prompted new laws to be adopted in 1929 on 'Religious Associations' as well as amendments to the constitution, which forbade all forms of public, social, communal, educational, publishing or missionary activities for religious believers.
*
Not trying to equate Soviet Russia and the United States today regarding this experience. But one wonders how did the Soviets wipe out religion (in a very religious country)? With power.
Perhaps a bit overdramatic and the situations are vastly different, but all this reminds me of the Church's experience under the new Soviet regime in Russia:
*The Orthodox church suffered terribly in the 1930s, and many of its members were killed or sent to labor camps. Between 1927 and 1940, the number of Orthodox churches in the Russian Republic fell from 29,584 to fewer than 500. The watershed year was 1929, when Soviet policy put much new legislation in place that formed the basis for the harsh anti-religious persecution in the 1930s.
Anti-religious education was introduced beginning in the first-grade in 1928 and anti-religious work was intensified throughout the education system. At the same time, in order to remove the church's intellectuals and support official propaganda that only backward people believed in God, the government conducted a massive purge of Christian intellectuals, most of whom died in the camps or in prison.
The church's successful competition with the ongoing and widespread atheistic propaganda, prompted new laws to be adopted in 1929 on 'Religious Associations' as well as amendments to the constitution, which forbade all forms of public, social, communal, educational, publishing or missionary activities for religious believers. *