Essay - Religion in God We Trust, E Pluribus Unum—the Two Major...

Religion

In God We Trust, e pluribus Unum—th***** two major strands of American religious thought?

***** predominant philosophical strain of American religious and political thought, according to the French Alexis de Tocqueville can be summed up as a philosophy ***** pantheism, pluralism, materialism, and above all, of the tyranny of the American democratic majority. ***** suggested that Americans, and most citizens ***** soci*****y equal societies (or relatively socially equal societies, as compared to the Europe of Tocqueville's day) inclined towards ***** line thought of "including God and the universe in one great whole," ***** a pan*****istic ***** system that taught "all things material and immaterial, visible ***** in*****, which the world conta*****s are to be considered only as ***** several parts ***** an immense Being," a Being *****long the lines of the American political majority. Although the idea of projected ***** "who alone remains eternal amidst the continual change and ce*****eless transformation of all that constitutes him" might seem ***** "destroy the individuality of man...[democratic] habits ***** thought prepare them [*****] to conceive it [such a plur*****listic God] and predispose ***** to adopt it." The idea "naturally attracts and fixes their imagination; ***** fosters the pride while it soothes the indolence of *****ir minds." (Volume 2, Book 1, Chapter 7 (http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/ch1_07.htm)

***** other words, the tyranny of the majority inherent to the democratic ***** creates the conditions of a pan*****istic religion, which fuses individualism, materialism, and ***** cohesion of the majority, all into one. For Tocqueville, above all, majority rule ***** equality, rather than liberty dominated American political and religious life. (Volume 2, Book 1, Chapter 7 (http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/ch1_07.htm)

Even to contemporary ears, this may sound like a strange distinction, ***** separate liberty and *****. Even today, in modern America, it is common to subsume equal*****y and liberty. If people are subject to equal circumstances, so the *****sense logic goes, at least at ***** onset of life, society must be free of class restrictions. However, as complementary as the text of ***** de Tocqueville's Democracy in America ***** be ***** America ***** times, Tocqueville also warns of ***** ***** of American public opinion in regards ***** religion and other philosophical matters as subsuming more intellectual complex discourse and creating the indolence of mind he fe*****d. Toqueville ***** noted that equality of material social opportunities does not automatically lead to li*****rty or freedom ***** thought and *****. "The [*****] public, theref*****e, among a *****mocratic people, has a singular power, which aristocratic nations cannot conceive;" he writes to his European audience, for the public "***** not persuade others to its beliefs, but imposes them ***** makes them permeate the thinking of everyone by a sort ***** enormous pressure of the mind of all *****on the individual intelligence. In ***** United States the majority undertakes ***** supply a multitude of ready-made ********** for the use of individuals, ***** are thus relieved from ***** necessity ***** forming opinions of their own. Everybody there adopts great numbers of theories, on philosophy, morals, and politics, without inquiry,