Why You Might Have to Choose Between Science and Faith

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51. Throughout our history, the United States has had a strong religious foundation. ...

Still it would be hard to view our nation as peaceful or for that matter well ordered or obedient to those in power. We were born in rebellion and survived a bloody civil war that threatened to divide our nation in two. We have fought many wars against other nations across the globe to spread our influence and power and to allow our corporations to profit from the blood that many brave Americans shed.

Our citizens have a strong distrust of our government and many cherish the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights as it allows us to own firearms which they feel will eventually be necessary to overthrow an oppressive government in the future. (The chances of such a rebellion succeeding are questionable at best.)

At one time during the early days of the industrial revolution, robber barons exploited their workers to amass enormous fortunes. The workers formed labor unions to fight for better pay and working conditions and the government often sided with the rich industrialists. Our nation went through a period of violence that eventually broke the power of the rich and insured that we had a large middle class in our nation.

According to a study in 1969, the United States has had the bloodiest and most violent labor history of any industrial nation in the world, and there have been few industries which have been immune.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_violence

Yet we rapidly became the most powerful country in the world largely because we were able to invent, develop and use technology to our advantage. We also timed our entry into WWI and WWII extremely well.

The Roman Empire was well ordered and fairly peaceful although it had the ability to squash any rebellion and did so for centuries. The Roman emperor Constantine the Great decided to make Christianity the official state religion possibly because he realized that it would become a unifying force that would strengthen his empire.

Religion has and is being used gain some control over societies and also often misused to launch wars such as the Crusades. In order for a nation to become a true world power it can't be well ordered, peaceful and obedient. There's a delicate balancing act involved between these three factors. However a powerful nation can be extremely religious.

In my opinion a truly peaceful world would advance far slower than a violent world such as we live in. Like it or not competition drives technology and the threat of war or actual combat is the ultimate competition. But as I pointed out, we now have achieved the ability to destroy our civilization. Our next step in our evolution had better be finding the ability for the nations of our world to get along with each other.

I hate to say it, but that might require a true world government with the might to squash any nation if necessary. That would also mean all nations would be disarmed of weapons of mass destruction and no longer have a strong standing military. I can't see this happening anytime in the near future unless we have a limited nuclear war. Such a war could be the wake up call our world needs.