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Americanism:The Fourth Great Western Religion

I recently bought a Kindle from Amazon via my Amazon account. (It's Amazon's amazing new wireless e-book that uses electronic ink, really cool. And worth the 4 week delivery backlog when I got mine earlier this year.)


I love the concept of potentially hundreds of books, blogs, daily newspapers, etc. just showing up (for a small fee to Amazon & partners) on my Kindle when I get up in the morning. I also love having nearly infinite degrees of freedom in directing the Kindle's wireless delivery service (initially free) to send me just the stuff I want. The Kindle'e product hardware is still rough dispite it's $500 price tag (e.g. the Kindle freezes up quite frequently and has to be rebooted manually) but by and large it's worth the price.

But, the Kindle is also a little dangerous. It enables easy access to certain online media (books, DVDs, CDs, etc.) via the "Kindle Store" which is a subset of the real Amazon store. The Kindle store has been modified to exploit the product's features and push the convenience of owing an e-book. Personally, I find it addictive to be pursued so often by so many good books and at such relatively low prices. I've responded by buying many more books on Kindle than I ever did on Amazon and that I ever intended to on Kindle. It's just too easy.


The first book I read on my Kindle was (Yale Professor) David Gelernter's new book; Americanism - The Fourth Great Western Religion. As always, Prof. Gelernter's work is thoughtful and well written. I particularly liked the history lesson (on Puritanism) and the way he summed up Puritanism's influence in shaping Americanism in these lines:

"Tolerance is American but secularism is not"

"Religious freedom is American but contempt for religion is not"

"Religious doubt is American but religious indifference is not"

"Religious debate is American but cold academic disdain is not"

"Chivalry is American but complacency is not"

"America is a blblical republic, and Americanism is a biblical religion."

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