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I lived for some time in France and I haven't met ONE person my age (I was in my early twenties then) who did believe in god, or some higher spirit for that matter.
People who think that there is a god, but have never even read the bible are considered religious, and people who go to church on Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, Ascension.. are considered very religious. If you go to churches on Sundays you will find maybe 20 elderly people or immigrants from more religious parts of the world and double the number of tourists.
Most people consider themselves agnostic but still follow catholic traditions. People do get married in church, baptize their children and let a priest hold a speech at their funeral, but not because they believe in the blessings, but because it's simply a nice tradition for families to get together on those occasions.
I lived in Germany for 18 years. Religion is not as important, but in some rural towns the church is important.
Like a previous poster it sure is a relief that religion is not shoved into everyone's face and kept out of politics. For this reason Western Europe is socially more progressive than America.
From the Germans I learned a witty phrase: "Everybody for himself, and God against everyone!"
I have read articles that say Christianity is almost dead in Europe. They say that in some countries the majority of people are atheist and only a small minority of Europeans are Christian. If a European does believe in god they only believe in a "life force" and not the Judeo-Christian god.
I question the above statements because I used to live in New England and everyone said that people there weren't very religious. The only difference I noticed between New England and Virginia was that the Christians in Virginia had the bad habit of combining church and state. I am a Christian but I think this is wrong. I like that New Englanders Christians were more tolerant of non-Christians.
How true do you think these statements are? I would be very interested in hearing from Europeans or people that lived in Europe for a very long time. I'm sure that it verys from country to country but what is your experiance?
It's not only Christianity but religion in general, here's a poll from 2005 which I found on wikipedia that shows the percent of people who still believe:
It's not only Christianity but religion in general, here's a poll from 2005 which I found on wikipedia that shows the percent of people who still believe:
I have no bone to pick about the figures, but what would be interesting to see is how the question about believing in god was phrased, and - of course - how the positive responses were phrased.
I have more than a few times been very surprised when someone who professed to "believe in god," actually explained what that meant to them. Not a few times it has simply seemed to boil down to a vague idea that there must be something out there....and since there must be, that something is called god.
I guess because this is so anemic compared to the traditional ideas of god that I am familiar with from my youth that I find it difficult to take such statements seriously.
Northern nations of Europe have by and large disreguarded religion as having any practical meaning to their life.
Denmark,i seem to recall being the least believing country,but all the way down until the Catholic world,one will find a lot of skepticism towards religion.
Europe has almost lost it's Christianity and if people don't wake up they will pay. big price in the near future.
I think most will return back in believing into Christ the Savior when they realized that it's too late.
Whatever you say. Maybe you'll pay the price of not believing in Santa, you will realize it's too late and, boom, no presents for you!
Do you ever think that, perhaps, only perhaps, this whole thing that you believe in is just made up? perhaps a way for mankind to deal with mortality? Probably not.
Anyway, back to topic, corcorangirl pretty much summed it up perfectly: "Most people consider themselves agnostic but still follow catholic traditions. People do get married in church, baptize their children and let a priest hold a speech at their funeral, but not because they believe in the blessings, but because it's simply a nice tradition for families to get together on those occasions."
I was baptized (large gathering, party, presents), had a First Communion (large gathering, party, presents), went to a Catholic school for several years (my grandmother's idea)... And yet both my parents are atheists, as am I.
It's just force of habit. And we like to gather, party and give/receive presents lol.
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