A recent Gallup poll ranked the 50 states by religiosity—based on worship attendance, frequency of prayer, and belief in God—and Utah came in 2nd place, with Mississippi taking the pious cake.
For me, the most immediate humor of this poll was how backwards the religious of each state think the other is. For instance, all the Bible-thumping, praise-the-Lord-ing, saved-by-grace-ing evangelicals look at those non-Christian, Jesus-and-Satan-are-brothers Mormons in Utah with a moderate amount of disgust; and the baptize-the-dead, only-true-church Mormons look at those eccentric, misguided evangelicals in Mississippi and shake their heads.
At the end of the day, each group is saying of the other, “Our level of religiosity is good because we’re right; it’s too bad those other religious people are going to hell.”
Of course, our little blog is about Utah so, of course, we want to appeal to you Utahns so, of course, let’s talk about how backwards Mississippi is—especially all their ridiculous religion-inspired legislation.
It’s the kind of state that preemptively bans any and all online gambling, since people shouldn’t be allowed to do what they want in the privacy of their own home with the money they’ve rightfully earned.
It’s the kind of state that strictly limits which privately owned businesses can and can’t sell alcohol.
It’s the kind of state that requires a couple to wait at least 90-days to get a divorce, since divorce is almost always a spur-of-the-moment endeavor, just like eloping to Vegas.
Wait, what was that? Those aren’t recently passed laws in religiously oppressive Mississippi, but actually in free-agency loving Utah—a state whose religious proclaim an eternal plan of happiness based on the principle of individuals having this divine gift of being able to choose for themselves?
Maybe we shouldn’t take pride in how religious we are, especially if we’re being so overtly hypocritical about it.