hi folks

i'm writing my undergrad thesis on why the united states and western europe, two regions that are similar in terms of their economic development compared with the rest of the world, differ so strongly in terms of their religiosity. religion is a powerful political and social force in america but not in europe. why? i have some thoughts, but i'd like to hear what others have to say as well

For some relevant numbers on this topic, see also:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian#Demographics

Well, i remember in one of my college philosophy courses, we covered the psychological impact of WWI and WWII on Europe. The birth of existentialism arose. Theistic beliefs dropped at record levels, and throughout history no countries have ever been more involved in religious bloodshed than those of western europe. Eastern europe was always economically a step back compared to the west, explaining why in more impoverished nations, a higher level of theism exists. The disparity between upper,middle, and lower class is also quite big in the US, which is why you could maybe reason, there is a much larger population of believers in the US. You also have much more seperation of church and state in western europe than the US, where it seems that every legal controversy that arises is of some religious nature. Im not 100% certain, but this is what i remember of the class discussions.

That is so ridiculously flawed which is most obvious with the UK figure where its clearly counting people christened as being christians.

Even the religious people here, those who call themselves christian and not agnostic or atheist, are a lot like my parents who dont own a bible, never pray and only go to churches for the big three christenings/weddings/funerals.

America's religiosity, which is what OP is talking about, is WAY different to Europe in ways that table you linked to doesnt even come close to discussing.

I think the media in America plays a large role in their religious beliefs. The President of the USA being a "god-fearing American" is the standard. I don't think an open atheist could successfully run in the USA, but when you say America, you probably don't mean North America... Here in Canada we would elect a muslim or a jew if they talk a good talk.

This is not clear to me. Can you cite a source for your claim?

How about citing a source for this too? Meaning something that lets us deal with data, rather than your personal impressions, and have a productive discussion.

I don't know what this means. The linked article is only meant to be about the numbers, not styles of religiosity.

I've heard this narrative spun a few times, so maybe there's something to it.

I'm not sure why you think this, and AFAIK it's not correct - depending on what you're calling Eastern Europe, rates are comparable to or higher than Western Europe - Croatia's the lowest I can see at a glance, with 30%. Historically there's a strong Soviet influence in EE, which may be a factor.

The second part makes me think you must be using 'separation of church and state' in some eccentric or at least casual way - it is in your constitution, after all, and it's not in ours (Ireland's that is). And the English monarch cannot be a Catholic nor marry one.

Maybe you mean that religion is used as a rhetorical tool in political discourse more, or invoked more when people talk about these issues. I think that's probably true but that it's an inevitable result of greater religiosity in a society, rather than some independent feature of distinction between US and Europe.

Im just trying to point out that religion, generally, is a poor man's game. Hope for the hopeless, right?



yes and no. Among the more common issues in the US, such as abortion, gay marriage, stem cell research, etc...the government(state and federal) takes a far too ideological stance in many cases. This is what i mean by separation.

Something that has been proposed before is that because America has no official religion and England (have no idea about the rest of Europe) had the church of England, religion grew more in America. In America churches competed with each other a lot and thus sought to attract new members more assiduously than did the chruch of England, creating a country with more christians who were, on average, more committed to their faith. No idea if it's true or not, but I thought it was interesting

Gallup from 2007 - Would not vote for atheist: 53%

^ That's an interesting stat. I would've expected gays to be less popular than atheists.

Whats shocking is that mormons are actually more popular than gays and atheists.

As a start, along with my own experiences:

http://www.churchofengland.org/about...cts-stats.aspx
http://www.thepapalvisit.org.uk/The-...key-statistics
So the two biggest religions in the country amount to around 1 in 30 people going to some kind of weekly service.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religio...rch_attendance
As for the last bit, as i say the whole point of the thread is religiosity. Posting a link that shows 71% of people being "Christian", where the vast majority arent going to church achieves nothing.

In Britain more people self identify as Christian because of the social attachment to the term than any deep spiritual beliefs.

http://www.humanism.org.uk/campaigns...titudes-survey
As i say my parents self identify as Christian yet i dont even think we own a bible anywhere in the house, we have never prayed as a family, we never went to church other than the big three occasions and yet when the census forms came last week im sure they ticked the box that said Christian. Being a "Christian" is just very different here than in America.

Another example as someone mentioned is that religion plays zero part in our politics. For example in 2009, long after becoming opposition leader, David Cameron talked about his religion in an interview and it was news that he was talking about god.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/poli...-my-faith.html

Would an American politician, especially the president, even dare to admit he isnt reading the bible nightly and praying to god for guidance constantly? The last election one of the controversies was that Mitt Romney was the wrong kind of Christian and Obama's critics cant work out if he is a secret Muslim or an atheist because he isnt constantly at church and constantly talking about god.

Btw i only knew about that because it was actually newsworthy to print that one of our politicians has talked about religion. I have zero clue who else in British politics is religious and to what degree. Like i say, its a none issue at best and a negative at worst to mention religion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Europe

So what? Plenty of Christians, including me, rarely see the inside of a church building except when visiting it as a student or tourist. This has no bearing on the stats in the Wiki article.

See previous.

This is basically what I understood you to be claiming earlier. I'm still waiting for one relevant citation, as opposed to an irrelevant several. Meaning a source that makes the same distinction you are making, not one that addresses a different topic which you then repurpose. Here is the British government (headed by a monarch who must belong to the Church of England by the way, though this is a different subject) website which confirms the Wiki figure:

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=954

You haven't meet the burden of justifying a reinterpretation of the plain meaning of this data by means of other data. I'm taking your citation of a survey by the openly agenda-driven British Humanist Association as a piece of humor.

Let's keep to publicly available evidence rather than anecdotes, if you don't mind.

I doubt it since the people's documents these public servants take oaths to uphold mention God all over the place, so the appearance of atheism would be incongruous to say the least.

I just gave links to a study done last year that showed over 50% describe themselves as having "no religion" and you counter by showing 10 year old data that was questionable even back then due to the wording on the census from which it was sourced.

You have to be kidding.

Political meddling by the church in Europe never happened in the USA

I would assume history explains a lot. Religious refugees fleeing from persecusion (by other Christian faiths and some state oppression) in Europe constituted quite a big portion of the early settlers in the US...and let's not kid anyone; the US as it exists today - melting pot or not - owes the chief part of its culture to this early settlement and later colonization of the US.

So in essence people with strong enough faith to embark on crossing the atlantic in the early days of cross-atlantic voyages made up a big part of this early US culture...I don't think its a stretch to say they likely left quite a big impression.

As for Europe, Christianity in Northern Europe owes a lot of its spread to the oppression of existing faiths and cultures, which manifests today in a very noticable skepticism towards organized Christianity in big parts of the populaces....you also see the trend somewhat in continental/eastern/southern Europe, but it is far less noticable....likely because large scale Christianity is a near 500-800 year older in those regions.

If you have an hour... (or more)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEBaG...eature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6bUnmVwojY

Could you give brief cliff notes..? I like to know what I would spend an hour on.

Its a good narrative. Which is wrong. Early settlers were religious, but the waves that followed were less so and early America turned away from religion to a fair degree.

It is said the turning point in America was the Civil War. Both sides embraced religion as being on their side and it just grew from there. If i were researching it that is what id start with and i know there are a few academic articles talking about this as one of the root causes.

Canada as a whole is less religious than the USA, and the province of Quebec is the least religious part of Canada. Perhaps not coincidentally, the Roman Catholic church was seen to be attached at the hip with the hated government of Maurice Duplessis during the 1930's, 40's, and 50's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Duplessis

The 1800s boom in religion coincides with the 2nd major wave of immigrants from Europe, also a likely culprit.

"Wrong" is also a rather silly choice of words. I find it dubious any historian would deny that religious settlers had major impact on American culture, but if you can find a credible one that does I shall certainly read it with interest.

Nor did my post in any way suggest this immigration was the only cause, merely a factor that explained "a lot" (to use my post's words).

I find it less than credible that some single-factor cause as you seem to suggest could be sufficient explanation.

You are correct, the word there should be "incomplete" rather than "wrong".

Religious freedom, historically, wasn't introduced in America though, but far earlier, in Poland. It went even as far as Jews having their own state within Poland for centuries (so the Biblical prophecies, if they were true, would actually refer to the Statute of Kalisz and not Israel and the three Anti-Christs as the ones responsible for the three partitions of Poland ). Many of the western christian sects flew to Poland from persecution in their home countries. So that's another similarity. And Poland is known as the nation which not only defeated the Teutons (the eastern "wing" of the Crusaders, which were promised land in Poland by the pope and terrorized the people living there), but also for protecting Europe from the Ottoman invasion, twice.
A quasi-democracy existed for ages, religious freedom and an anti-papacy "ideology". So it may be not a big surprise that the Poles have been the second with a democratic constitution. Religious freedom, anti-papacy position and an overall "melting point and multi-cultural society" are probably the reasons why the Vatican (and its co-conspirators) were so keen on destroying it. It might be some interesting bit of trivia that the Nazi SS saw themselves as ones following the footsteps of the Teutons and that's one of the reasons why they were so brutal to the Poles. If you look at the history of Europe in general and the history of religions in Europe, this might be (I think it is), the single most important country in its history, if you look at more than the last 200 years.