A Merica, the most modern nation, seems increasingly permeated by something that modernity―the demystification of the world by reason―was expected to make decreasingly salient: religion. But in The Public Interest, two academics cast a cool eye on current manifestations of public religiosity and come to striking conclusions about several meanings of today's public piety. In "The Soul of a Nation," Wilfred M. McClay of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga notes that September 11 caused some persons to conclude that religion, and especially monotheism, is a dangerous residue of mankind's infancy. If people worshiped, as some once did, collections of gods that varied over time, would they crash planes into buildings for religious reasons? Religion, say those who recoiled from it after September .11, celebrates irrationality and demonizes others in implaca- ble conflicts over unsplittable differences.
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机译：梅里卡（Merica）是最现代的国家，似乎越来越渗透着某种东西，即现代性-由于理性对世界的神秘化-日益凸显：宗教。但是在《公共利益》一书中，两位学者对当前的公共宗教表现形式保持了冷静，并就当今公众虔诚的几种含义得出了惊人的结论。田纳西大学查塔努加分校的威尔弗雷德·麦克莱（Wilfred M. McClay）在《民族的灵魂》中指出，9月11日使某些人得出结论，认为宗教，尤其是一神论是人类婴儿期的危险残余。如果人们像某些人一样崇拜随时间变化的神灵，他们是否会出于宗教原因将飞机撞毁在建筑物中？那些在9月.11日之后从中退缩的人说，宗教是在庆祝非理性，并在不可抗拒的分歧的不可抗拒的冲突中妖魔化了其他人。
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