In America, we know many Western European countries in general are much more secular than we are, but do the majority of non-Christian people just not believe in God at all? I’m sure there is probably a large group of people who don’t think about religion at all and don’t have an opinion on the topic.
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You must realize that most atheist don’t think about religion at all. For us it’s a non-existent question as there simply is lack of faith.
Do not be fooled by the few loud ones.
Most people here don’t think about religion on a daily basis, if ever. However many have some superstitions or light candles at a church even when classifying as a non-believer.
The vast majority of Italians are nominally Catholic..that is, they are baptised.Many of these will have a religious wedding and funeral.
The majority of them are not regular church attenders.But in my experience few people will say publically that they are ‘atheist’.
I think the official census statistic is something like 15% atheist or agnostic?
Yeah most atheists don’t think about any deity at all. There are also agnostics but I’d consider them to their religion and of course there are other religions. Heathens in their many forms have a come back, there are people following the eastern religions and of course Muslims and Jews.
Agnostic Atheism. o/
Thing is, most people just don’t care. They’re probably baptised, or not. And besides of Easter and Christmas, that’s it.
Religion comes in all shades from super devout to strongly atheist.
Personally I am on the atheist side maybe with a hint of agnostic. But I think the most common faith in Denmark is what we call culturally Christian, so someone who celebrate the major holidays, maybe attend service at Christmas, get married in church, gets their children baptized and have a general idea that there is a greater purpose and meaning but don’t take the Bible all that literal. Sure that believe in God if asked, but it is not something that holds any significant role in their everyday life.
A “belief in some higher power” is quite widespread, but I don’t think that most people care enough to look up what label exactly is most fitting.
I’d say if you asked, most people would say they are Christians and believe in the existence of God, even though most don’t go to church, pray, or even think about religion on a daily basis.
It’s common for people who don’t believe in God but come from Christian families to observe some Christian customs and holidays like Christmas, Easter, all saints day, and have Christian weddings, funerals, or even baptise their children.
We believe that the USA are a theocracy like Iran or Afghanistan. Maybe not so strict but on a good way
I don’t know about most (people generally don’t talk about their beliefs here), but I’m pretty sure most people interested of the subject would call me an atheist based on my views to gods. I went through a phase where I looked into religions and spirituality, and came out the other end quite disillusioned.
I think people all around the world have developed local religions to try to fill in the gaps of what could be explained based on available knowledge, and then some religions have started to mow over others. Christianity is nowadays the main religion in my country, but it was created thousands of miles away, brought here with violence, and locally developed faith systems have been stifled. I have no reason to believe that the people who believed in the local deities would have been more wrong than those who forced their faith in.
I’m not big on identity politics. I like the approach of “I’m masseryrati80, and interested of the following things”, instead of labeling or identifying myself as an atheist, a cyclist, a hiker, etc.
I think most people here don’t think about religion. We never talk about it, we just don’t care at all. We appreciate the fact that we don’t need to know if life after death is real or not before we die.
However, a lot of french people think believers are brainwashed victims. If you you are a believer, I don’t recommend to talk about it with french people. They might feel bad for you, or might even make fun of you.
To add to what people have already said, for most people church isn’t a part of their social lives unless they volunteer for a church-affilated organization.
Very few people go to services (in fact, I personally don’t know anyone who does outside of weddings/baptisms/funerals). It would be incredibly weird for a politician outside of maaaaaybe CDU/CSU to bring up God or religion in politics, our book clubs, youth groups, senior clubs, social meetings, etc. are not connected to any church unless the local amateur choir meets in one. The churches are more involved in charities (which is great) and play a bit of a bigger social role outside heavily urbanized areas, but people still do not regularly attend services. Faith is a very private thing, it’s not something you talk about at work or in business settings; that would be wildly inappropriate.
So while quite a few people would not necessarily call themselves “atheists” because they are nominally part of a church (and due to Germany being incredibly weird about the non-separation of church and state they are paying their church tax via their direct deduction from their salary, basically via paperwork filed by their employer’s accountant) they don’t think about God or participate in anything religious in their lives. It just never comes up.
> but do the majority of non-Christian people just not believe in God at all?
In Germany, IIRC, ⅓ of Protestants and ¼ of Catholics also don’t believe in God at all.
In general, many people treat God like the Easter Bunny: they like to pretend to their children that he exists, they may even have fun taking part in celebrations for him, they treat Christianity (and its traditions) as an important part of their culture and identity, but they still think of people who really believe in him as weird.
Within catholicism, there are several shades of believers. Most people are only culturally religious; they sort of are but they enter churches only for weddings and funerals.
Agnostic are there sure, as atheists.
There are also Buddhists, Muslims, Hindi, Jehovah’s witnesses, etc.
I am very much aware, that I am christian by cultural heritage, and that christian thinking affects me and my surroundings more than most of us know.
But when comes to the believe part … nah. I honestly do not get how one can. It is truly exotic to me how some people are able to believe. I am not, I never was and I doubt, that I ever will be.
I am a member of the danish state church, though, and I pay my church taxes. I do not want to sign out, even though it could save me a bit of money and I am not a believer. I support the state church as an institution for cultural heritage and as a space for tradition, rituals, aestethics and quiet.
What does that make me …
I get the impression that due to the US being very a religious society, those who don’t believe will have far more of a sense of being in opposition to the prevailing norm, or at the least be seeing very frequent intrusions of the thing they don’t believe in to their day to day life. That must present plenty of opportunities for non-Christians to consider their views in detail.
In the UK religion is very much a small background aspect to society. Despite having the trappings of a officially Christian country, in reality fewer than 5% of the population regularly go to church. More importantly, religion is seen as a topic which is a bit impolite to talk about to strangers.
The result is that religion has a very minimal impact on most people’s lives, and the majority of people – whether they believe or not – probably don’t think about it that often.
I’d bet there are a huge number of people who know that they aren’t Christian, but haven’t considered the issue enough to land on a solid self identification as atheist, agnostic, deist etc.
I would think agnosticism, in its variations, is not uncommon, at least that seems to be the case here in Norway.
Christianity has in decline for many years here.
Besides the fact that whole other religions exist other than christianity…
Most people I know who are “atheists” don’t care about separating agnostic from atheist. It’s more important that they are independent from organized religion, and that they believe they can’t know if there’s a god/gods/which is the correct religion, than that they believe whether there could be something out there. There is also often a sort of “side-belief” that organized religion is the cause of much evil and suffering in the world and the world would be a better place without these warring factions (I’m personally not too sure about that, humans have always found ways to form groups and then fight with other groups).
Spain’s definitely not just “Christian vs. atheist.” It’s a whole spectrum.
You’ve got a lot of people who areculturally Catholic, they were baptized, their family does Easter/Christmas, they might even get married in a church, but they don’t really believe or go to mass except for weddings and funerals.
Then there’s a big and growing group of people who are non religious peoples. Some call themself atheist, some say agnostic, and some just go with no creyente (non-believer). It’s less about making a strong statement and more like… they just don’t think about religion at all. For younger people it just not a big part of life.
Here its generally treated more like a personal choice. If you don’t believe, thats the end of it. Atheists here are not walking around bitter and angry at Christianity like in the USA. They still go to a family baptism or enjoy a local fiesta that has Catholic roots. It’s more cultural than ideological.
Yes, I assume the predominant approach here is not to care about any God at all. We don’t get in any contact with a religion during our daily life.
I don’t think about religion as an atheist, but I am strongly in favour of a secular state. I personally believe most religions are evil, designed to control and divide. That doesn’t mean those who follow them are evil.
It would be nice not having to think about religions or the religious at all, however that’s akin to an attempting in filtering out the loud sociopaths and mentally-ill in the world. Not that all religious people are that way, but there is a definite correlation.
I’m sure that deists and agnostics exist in reasonable numbers, but often they are people who, like atheists, haven’t got the time to waste on religious silliness. There are more important matters at hand than silly compulsions from poorly cobbled tomes and scratchings by illiterate madmen and credulous idiots.
Religion is mostly cultural. A firm believer is rare, but culture Catholics (and a few culture Protestants) are the norm. In the countryside it is still quite rare to leave the church, because even though they are not particularly religious, they still don’t want their children to be excluded from first communion celebrations and the like. Quite a number of people do leave the church, because of church tax, but most of them are not atheists (some are, of course), but more stingy or not happy with how the church handles things. A non- negligeable number comes back later for the wedding or for having their children baptized to send them to private school. Most people just don’t feel strongly about faith at all.