"Priest kicked me out of Mass because of Obama signs"

almost non-existant.

 

Ireland - I love that place!

Religion in Ireland - wheeeeeeewwwww.... what a complicated subject.

 

Have you ever been to Europe? Do you know anyone or have family there?

I don't have any figures but what do you think the churches per capita in Europe is versus the US? Now remove the really old churches that are only their for historical relevance and lets see what the numbers look like. What do you think the agnostic\athetist numbers look like in Europe compared to the US?

Regardless, what people in Europe consider religion versus what people in the US consider religion is COMPLETELY different. It's not anywhere close to the same.

 

absolutely! that crap is why I'm a US citizen, generations later.

 

Yeah I have been to europe.

Well there are figures and going from the bottom you would think non-existant would mean the agnostic/atheist is 100% from there almost would mean very close to 100% agnostic/atheist like 90% or so.

If you want the real numbers feel free to check out the wiki article titled Religion in Europe.

 

And before MB came in pulling stuff out of his butt my original point was America is not some arcane country in all areas like people prefer to think of it.

When it is painted like that, it makes me mad.

 

Religion has a diminished role in Europe outside of Italy and Ireland. Here is something from wikipedia regarding the subject.

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

According to the most recent relevant Eurostat Eurobarometer poll, in 2005, 52% of European Union citizens responded that "they believe there is a God", whereas 27% answered that "they believe there is some sort of spirit or life force" and 18% that "they do not believe there is a spirit, God, nor life force". Results were widely varied between different countries, with 95% of Maltese respondents stating that they believe in God, on the one end, and only 16% of Estonians stating the same on the other.[10] Several studies have found Sweden to be one of the most secular countries in the world. According to Davie (1999), 80% of Swedes do not believe in God.[11] In the Eurostat survey, 23% of Swedish citizens responded that "they believe there is a God", whereas 53% answered that "they believe there is some sort of spirit or life force" and 23% that "they do not believe there is any sort of spirit, God, or life force". This, according to the survey, would make Swedes the third least religious people in the 27-member European Union, after Estonia and the Czech Republic. In 2001, the Czech Statistical Office provided census information on the ten million people in the Czech Republic. 59% had no religion, 32.2% were religious, and 8.8% did not answer.[12]

A 2006 survey in the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten (on February 17), saw 1,006 inhabitants of Norway answering the question "What do you believe in?". 29% answered "I believe in a god or deity", 23% answered "I believe in a higher power without being certain of what", 26% answered "I don't believe in God or higher powers", and 22% answered "I am in doubt". Still, some 85% of the population are members of the Norwegian state's official Lutheran Protestant church. Part of this deviance is because Norwegians are signed into this church at birth, and that signing out, if they are even aware of being signed in, is a time-consuming, bureaucratic affair yielding no immediate gains.

In France, about 12% of the population reportedly attends religious services more than once per month. In a 2003 poll 54% of those polled in France identified themselves as "faithful", 33% as atheist, 14% as agnostic, and 26% as "indifferent".[13] However, either the poll results are flawed or the categories were not mutually exclusive, as the total percentages add up to 127%. According to a different poll, 32% declared themselves atheists, and an additional 32% declared themselves agnostic.[14]

In the United Kingdom, a poll in 2004 by the BBC put the number of people who do not believe in a God to be 40%, while a YouGov poll in the same year put the percentage of non-believers at 35% with 21% uncertain.[15] In the YouGov poll men were less likely to believe in a god than women and younger people were less likely to believe in a god than older people.

In early 2004, it was announced that atheism would be taught during religious education classes in the United Kingdom.[16] A spokesman for the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority stated: "There are many children in England who have no religious affiliation and their beliefs and ideas, whatever they are, should be taken very seriously." There is also considerable debate in the UK on the status of faith-based schools, which use religious as well as academic selection criteria.

In Spain, 81.7 % are believers, 11 % are non-believers and 6 % are atheists (according to the 2005 poll of the public Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas [17]).

Russia has a high prevalence of atheism. According to a 2002 survey by the All-Russia Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM) 32% of those surveyed self-described as non-religious, agnostic or atheist. Of the 58% self-describing as Russian Orthodox Christian, 42% said they had never been in a church.

 

Wikipedia, good job. You have no idea what you are talking about.

Perhaps with Italy and Ireland being the exceptions, religion is not a big deal in Europe. You can quote all of the wiki articles you want, it's just the way it is.

 

= almost non-existant

yeah, dude I wish MB would be the guy checking my truck for inspection failures in high school.

"well Mr. Mullegun you have not cat-converter, no mufflers, limo tint and no front plate, Id say any violations are almost non existant"

 

I still don't think someone here is understanding the subtle differance between "influence" and "statistical data".

 

Ok, this is funny though.

 

One thing to note is that believing in god or higher being does not equal religion. From my personal experience, I go to Europe 4-6 times a year, most people are like me and DD. They believe in god but are not religious. To quote DD from another thread.

"God created man... man created religion"

 

I have to say with all respect to DD that he deserves, it seems to me he basically hates anything faith based and is intent on disproving anything spiritual. I don't think such a person would reply to a pollster that they believe in "God"

 

Can you explain what you mean by that last sentence? Admittedly, I'm not well-versed in topics concerning religion (or maybe much else either in the D&D), but it's difficult for me to get past the surface that while Christianity has a more than dubious past, I don't hear much about extreme Christian fundamentalists blowing people up in modern day as I do with Islam. It probably has something to do with me living in America, so I'm sure I have some inherent bias in looking more favorably upon Christianity, but I just don't see it at the moment.

Please don't take anything I've said as confrontational/sarcastic. I just want to know where you're coming from.

 

Believing that there is a God versus believing in all of the bull**** in religion are TWO COMPLETELY SEPARATE THINGS. Are you that freaking dense? There are a ton of people that believe that God exists but no in the form of Jesus and the Bible and everything else. I NEVER SAID THAT PEOPLE DO NOT BELIEVE IN GOD. I said that religion is virtually non existant and guess what, I'm right. People from Europe come over to the US and are frightened by what they see here because of how freakish it is.

 

no you are not right. almost non-existant is a joke of a statement.

 

I would and I have a very poor opinion for most organized religions especially Catholicism.

 

I think you misrepresent me sir.

I think religion is mythos, yes.

However, I look around and see God in all things.

I just do not think man understands, nor has the capability to understand God, and the journey of life is the discovery of what God intends.

I do not for one second believe in the Bible, the Torah, the Koran, or any other religious book written from the view that it is actually from God.

Now a philisophical discussion of God is great...but I believe it has to be tempered with the reality that it is coming from a man's perspective which makes it inherently flawed.

I hope that clears up my stance a bit for you.

DD

 

My two cents: Christian radicals in America are in many cases just as vehement/violent/zealous as many of the muslims commonly decried in the national media - they're just tempered by a government/upbringing/history that heavily discourages physical action as a methodology to bring about change. If you go to Iran, you won't find a government jailing islamic radicals for blowing up ba'hai followers - those islamic radicals are often within the government itself.

 

tl;dr