Southern culture may be conservative/tradition, but is it really that puritanical?

[Montguy]

Originally Posted by Trimac20

I mean in the Bible Belt, it seems there are a lot of teenage pregnancies, alcohol is popular - I mean whiskey and bourbon is big, not to mention moonshine, and there are many well-known watery holes. Stereotypical southern culture, especially redneck type culture and African American culture of course, seems quite a pleasure loving culture which enjoys having fun. They also really enjoy food - and have some great, gust-busting, artery-clogging chow down there.

So apart from the stereotypes, would it be fair to say that Southern culture may quite set in it's ways and outwardly religious and conservative, but not really puritanical in the sense of having lots of rules, being austere, temperance.etc like the Amish or the original Pilgrims? Would you say this is more a feature of a place like North Dakota? Or is it more puritanical than it seems?

edit: no idea how a duplicate version of the thread ended up here?

The South's inconsistencies are always fascinating, yes?

Personally, I don't think of the South as being puritanical in any genuine sense; rather, in short, I think of it as being comprised of a people who are locked in rigid denial of the fact that, perhaps, many of them really aren't doctrinal Christians, but remain culturally compelled to recognize and uphold religious institutionalism and its marriage to social/civic life. It just doesn't seem to be questioned, you know?

[jwolfer]

Originally Posted by biggunsmallbrains

We all live with our hypocrisies. The South's are just a bit more apparent. How can such a christian area put up with so much overt racism? Afterall Jesus was a Jew from the middle east. He probably looked a lot closer to Africans than northern Europeans.

What did Jesus look like?

How can teen pregnacies be so high and education so low? With many people almost prode of their ignorance.
Teen Birth Rate per 1,000 - Kaiser State Health Facts

Weird too because it almost matches the red state blue state divide.

Of course, I am generalizing a bit but the stats don't lie even though some would rather not look at them.

The puritans were in the North too so I'm not sure if you can say the South is more puritanical or not.

I would venture to say the teen pregnacy rate is lower because the "blue states" would have higher rates of abortion and birth control... not any difference in sexual activity.

Jesus looked Middle Eastern. Not too hard to fathom. Christian people all over the world think of Jesus looking like them. ( Their own personal Jesus) Lots of black families have pictures of a "black" Jesus, no one every gets upset about that. Christianity is not linked to a certain ethnic group.