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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
 Posted - 02/24/2008 : 12:51:08 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by HalfMooner
I think there is probably going to be a "punctuated equilibrium" event happening with atheism becoming "normal" and acceptable, Kil.
Maybe Mab or one of our other Euros can confirm (or contradict) this, but I think that in some European countries, atheism is already a mainstream (non-"outlaw") belief. |
Perhaps not atheism, but at least agnosticism.
The Swedish version of Wikipedia cites that bout 65% of children born in Sweden are baptised in the Church of Sweden (Lutheran Church). But most of those are due to tradition rather than religion. Christianity used to be a State Religion here, but people are no longer obligated to be members. Member rates are dropping fast with about 1 percent each year, even including the 65% inflow of baptised children.
As members of the Swedish Church, tithing is done automatically with the help of the Swedish version of the IRS. A small percentage (I think around 0.8-1.2% of the salary) is transferred from the tax-account to the church. As soon as youths are starting to earn their own money, they usually realise there's a gain to be made by leaving the church.
Membership in the Church of Sweden is 75.6%, but as I hinted at, attendance to services in the Lutheran Church is low, probably not more than Sweden's largest "free Church" (a free Church is any denomination not Church of Sweden or Catholic, like Pentecostal, Baptist, Methodist, Salvation Army etc. ), which is about 90'000.
220'000 members in traditional Swedish Free Churches.
Another 220'000 (including 92'000 Roman Catholic, 23'000 Jehovah's Witness, and 9000 Mormons) in Churches of specific immigrant tradition.
All in all, that would be about 500'000 compared to a population of 9'000'000 would result in ~5%. Participating in religious ceremonies and believing in God could of course be done without actually being registered members of any church, but even if the number is three times as high, we're still talking about only 15% of the population.
Christianity is dominating among the World Religions, so I haven't bothered with Islam.
The Swedish page http://www.ateism.se/faq.html says that 20-30% are agnostics or atheists in Sweden as per a Gallup ordered by Sweden's largest (only?) Christian daily newspaper. Depending on how you design your questionnaire you'll get very different results. Other studies say everything from 40% to 70% "unbelievers".
A study conducted by the largest Christian book-house said 45% believed in "a higher power" (not necessarily any of the World Religions, but including pagans and supernatural believers).
The web page http://www.adherents.com/ is liked from the Swedish atheism page, which says that the numbers of Atheists in Sweden should be 35% but warns that the number may not be reliable.
A really interesting note about the Lutheran Church of Sweden, is that it has decided that same sex partnership may be blessed. Debate is ongoing (with growing support) for actual same sex marriage. Women may become priests or even Bishops in the Church of Sweden.
| Such an advancement of atheism would be uneven geographically, but I suspect that such a Golden Age of tolerance for atheism is coming in the near future for the US and Canada. |
I hope it will, however after seeing the poor state of the media in the US, I'm afraid it's going to take at least one more generation. Call me cynic but too many idiots are in charge of the power structure... I'm afraid the system has to come down before radical changes can be made. In ten years when China has passed America as the leading economical (and scientific) super-power, and the economic decline of America will accelerate will the power structures be starting to feel stress enough to enable that.
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Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 02/24/2008 : 13:27:53 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by marfknox
Show me evidence that religion is the direct cause of so much human suffering. Show me evidence that atheists are more likley to help other people and less likely to harm other people. This idea that atheism is morally superior to religion is bullshit in my opinion. |
Haven't we had discussions on SFN where we reached the conclusion that American Prison population has a distict over-representation of theists vs atheists?
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Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 02/24/2008 : 13:28:10 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by marfknox
Atheist societies aren't more likely to be more humane than the current secular democracies. |
The only "truly" secular democracies I know of are Scandinavian. I suppose some European countries could be considered secular too. Are there more?
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Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 02/24/2008 : 13:31:20 [Permalink]
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Opps, double answers because I didn't realise that this was a rather old thread that was resurrected. (blushing)
Anyway, I think I'll re-read my own old answer to see how much different my new answer is.
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Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 02/24/2008 : 13:34:35 [Permalink]
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Mab said: In ten years when China has passed America as the leading economical (and scientific) super-power, and the economic decline of America will accelerate will the power structures be starting to feel stress enough to enable that.
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Well, I hope it doesn't take that much to stimulate us to change. But you may be right. The level of ignorance here grows all the time it seems. Its painful to some of us.
I hope the last 8 years have been enough of a lesson to the majority here that they will start to get off their asses this year and take part in the process of governing this country. We have a good system, but it only works well if a lot of people participate. As it is now, apathy and incompetence are sending us down the drain.
Wonder what the max age for emigration to New Zealand is? hehe.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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skeptic griggsy
Skeptic Friend
USA
77 Posts |
Posted - 03/17/2008 : 07:15:47 [Permalink]
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| How do you find the god-term lacking substance and lacking no use for knowledge? We can understand the Mulitverse without a god, and it needs no god to sustain it as Aquinas and others thought . |
Fr. Griggs rests in his Socratic ignorance and humble naturalism. Logic is the bane of theists.Religion is mythinformation. Reason saves, not a dead Galilean fanatic. |
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moakley
SFN Regular
USA
1888 Posts |
Posted - 03/17/2008 : 10:21:52 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by skeptic griggsy
How do you find the god-term lacking substance and lacking no use for knowledge? We can understand the Mulitverse without a god, and it needs no god to sustain it as Aquinas and others thought .
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It is easy to believe when the nature of that belief is incredibly consoling. The sheer volume of positive testimonials allows god to remain viable as an explanation for all that is good. The weekly bi-weekly marketing helps too. |
Life is good
Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned. -Anonymous |
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skeptic griggsy
Skeptic Friend
USA
77 Posts |
Posted - 09/14/2008 : 12:03:13 [Permalink]
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And we know that without our brains , we could not have our minds, so how can a god have a disembodied mind? That seems to another guess of the scam of natural theology!
I find the ignostic challenge as part of our arguments against theirs and our positive ones.It is meaningless to speak of a first cause as Existence is all, and no first cause could possibly therefore transcend it.It is meaningless to speak of a supreme designer as we note patterns,not designs. To see design is to use a pareidolia like seeing Yeshua in a tortilla. It is meaningless to speak of miracles as they are all natural. Meaninlessness pervades God-notion and the mysteries surrounding it like the Trinity.
I use meaningless as Michel Martin does in his "Atheism: a Philosophical Defense." In "Atheism Explained," David Ramsay Steele takes us ignostics to task for using the term meaninglessnes. he says the God-notion might be incoherent but not meaningless.
We no more need God as an explanation, not even a personal explanation al Richard Swinburne, than we need Thor in addition to meteorology to explain the weather, gremlins in addition to mechanics for mechanical failure and demons for my personality disorder and depression! So, the Ockham shows that [ This point goes with the thread on theistic evolution.].
Contrary to Alister McGrath the redundancy of God provides no beef. Anon on haughty Haught and Smotlczyk and the imcompatabilites of the attributes of God. How theists make our ignostic case!
Selah.
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Fr. Griggs rests in his Socratic ignorance and humble naturalism. Logic is the bane of theists.Religion is mythinformation. Reason saves, not a dead Galilean fanatic. |
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skeptic griggsy
Skeptic Friend
USA
77 Posts |
Posted - 02/02/2009 : 09:31:56 [Permalink]
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| Peole accuse Dawkins of avoiding top notch writers like Keith Ward or Haughty John Haught but those two are as creationist as any other: they find God in spite of no evidence or useful meaning.Mumbo-jumbo is still that when theistic evolutionists practice it. |
Fr. Griggs rests in his Socratic ignorance and humble naturalism. Logic is the bane of theists.Religion is mythinformation. Reason saves, not a dead Galilean fanatic. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 02/02/2009 : 21:31:38 [Permalink]
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| People accuse Dawkins of not addressing "sophisticated" arguments in favor of God, but when asked to present a sophisticated argument, those critics typically don't have a response. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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the ignotist and Occam arguments
