Atheism outside the US

Atheism vs. religion has been a popular topic around here for a long time and it seems to be a particularly hot issue at the moment. In the wider world too, thanks in no small part to people like Richard Dawkins, people seem to becoming more and more aware that there is this conflict of a sort going on.

I have strong feelings on the matter and I enjoy reading and occasionally participating in the threads that are posted here, but I just don’t feel as personally affected as many people seem to be. Here in the UK, religion seems to be more or less a non-issue. I wouldn’t be surprised if a majority of people identified themselves as some sort of Christian, but that’s more of a cultural thing; I rarely meet anyone who is any thing other than “not religious”. Atheism is almost too strong a term - the whole issue is just not an important part of most people’s lives. I’ve heard stories from the US of people losing friends because of their atheism, or losing jobs. Atheist families being victimised and practically driven out of town. Ridiculous things like this (Dawkins on CNN) are shown on TV and taken seriously, and it’s fairly well accepted that an atheist could never run for public office. I’ve never heard of anything of the sort happening in this country.

I don’t want to get the whole debate going again here, but I’m interested in finding what other people’s experiences have been in other countries. I’m thinking Europe in particular as it seems fairly secular in general but I’d be happy to hear from other countries too. Americans, even, is it really as bad as it seems from the outside?

It’s worse. Way worse.

I’m so glad you started this thread because it’s something I’ve often wondered about too. Like other Brits I perceive religious choice to be a private matter and unless somebody specifically says they are of a particular religion (or acts in a manner appropriate to a particular religion) I tend to assume that everyone is part of the vaguely-atheist-kinda-Christian-but-not-really-fussed grouping common to the UK. The anti-infidel/atheist thing which seems prevalent in many countries seems very odd to me and I’d be interested to find out more.

Location: Waterford, Ireland

On those (very) rare occasions when religion has been a topic of conversation people get far more mileage out of the fact that prior to my atheism I was Presbyterian than they do out of the atheism itself. If I was a Roman Catholic atheist I’d hardly warrant a mention (although I would personally distinguish between atheism by concious choice and apathism, which is the default and assumed religious stance of most Irish people you will meet). From there questions tend to develop along the doctoral differences between the various protestant sects and Catholicism rather than any discussion of atheism.

In general Irish society does not look down upon or discriminate against atheists, the only way it would matter to a voter is that they would think it unusual that the matter was being brought up at all. If a candidate made a persistent point of mentioning religious affiliation (or non-affiliation), this would definitely count against them.

Since leaving school at 18 (most schooling up until this age will have some religious element via a presence on the school board or outright control of the school) I have had no exposure to required/unwelcome religious observance of any sort. The kind of work related prayer meetings or prayer prior to a public event items that you see being mentioned on the boards here as occurring in the US would be considered bizarre behaviour over here, work is for work, home is for religion.

Same here. Most people are nominally Catholic, but they don’t practice much and it’s even questionable whether they actually believe. People just don’t think that much about religion, other than as a part of our culture. I’m an atheist (agnostic atheist), and even though that probably makes me technically a minority, I’m not out of place, and in any case I still feel that I have some sort of cultural link with Catholicism. This “assertive atheism” thing that we see in the US seems very strange to me, but that’s just a cultural difference.

I’m from Holland. “people” in general are considered vaguely christian or atheïst, and it’s very much a non-issue. Believe it or not, most Christians find it hard or simply ‘not done’ to bring up their religion in public. Losing a job for being an atheist or non-standard in your beliefs is simply unheard of. (Unless you happen to be Muslim. Obviously :rolleyes: )

(I keed. We’ve got laws that are supposed to prevent that. Getting a job as someone obviously or even vaguely ethnic seems harder, though)

The Atheist vs. Religious fighting on this board surprised me a little. Religion is a pretty minor issue in my area of NJ. The very religious are usually looked at slightly askance by the casual churchgoers. My lack of faith has never been a problem anywhere in NJ. People who bring up religion at work are usually the odd ones.

So, I would say it varies in the US. I will be blasted for this, but I think it is much more of a big deal in the South and in the “Bible Belt”.

I guess we are more like the British in our general approach than the more religious areas of the country.

Jim {I only posted this as a counter to Kalhoun, who I think lives in Texas}

Swede here. The situation here is exactly as described by wayward. It’s a tiny little issue that’s extremely rarely talked about.

Really? With a name like “What Exit”?

Maybe the joke isn’t as widely known outside NJ, but it’s there in your Location, too.

???

I not only live in NJ, I almost had it in my username. I meant, I think **Kalhoun ** lives in Texas. Actually I mentioned NJ in my post a couple of times.

Jim

Pretty much the same way here in MA, except we do tend to be a bit heavy on Catholicism. Usually a non-issue unless the subject of abortions come up. And there are certain neighborhoods where it’s unwise to be gay, but that may not be rooted in religion.

Chicago, here. It’s pretty goddy in these parts.

I think you have to take what you see on the news with a fairly large grain of salt.

I’m from Texas, and am of the identify-as-Christian-but-don’t-practice camp, meaning that if someone asks me, I say I’m Christian, but generally speaking, don’t go to church, don’t proselytize, drink, screw, and even occasionally dance.

The vast majority of the people I know are in the same situation. There’s a strong undercurrent of “it’s their own business”, even among the more devout among them. I know plenty of people who are plenty religious, but they certainly don’t try and foist it off on me, or tell me I’m wrong, or even ask about my religious status.

There is a fairly small minority of people, however, who feel it’s their business to be nosey and inquire as to your salvation status, and where you go to church, etc… They are not the majority, or even the norm in most big cities.

The other thing to remember is that there’s a lot of guilt by association going on. You may have a big church (in my neck of the woods, it’s Prestonwood Baptist), and a whole lot of people go there, and are ‘Baptists’, although if I had to guess, I’d say maybe a third of the regular attendees are probably really wacky about it, and the other 2/3 are normal folks, who just happen to go to a Baptist church. The problem comes when the nutty 1/3 go and picket porno stores, or something like that, and then EVERY person that attends that church gets tarred with that brush, when it’s not necessarily the case that they believe in doing that, or don’t have copies of
“Bush Pilots 4” in their closet.

It’s the busybodies and nuts that make it look so intolerant here, when in fact, it’s not particularly so, unless you make a bunch of noise about it. I’ve been trying to explain to my roommate for years, that when he makes noises about the “In God We Trust” being unconstitutional, people generally look at him cock-eyed because they think he’s weird and an asshole, not because they’re intolerant of atheism.

Oops, ok. In another thread about a tree, I got the wrong impression you lived down in Texas.

Jim

A non-issue here. Harper tries to pander to the (few) extremists we have but it’s only for show - hence the free vote on gay marriage. No way it was going to get repealed and he knew it.

Beyond the occasional nerve-gas cult, religion is a non-issue here, which is one reason I fully intend to stay. Most folks are nominally a mix of Buddhist and Shinto, but rarely go to temples or shrines except for festivals (and even then it’s not to take part in anything resembling mass). Even among the ones who follow one over the other, there’s little or no ‘us vs them’ mentality, and it never comes up as a political debate point (there are also Christian members of the Diet). My MIL is a stronger than normal follower of Shinto, but she never brings it up at home or mentions it in relation to us raising her grandson.

I’ve been asked if I was Christian a few times by students back when I was teaching, usually because Christianity, god and Jesus seem to come up so much in American movies and TV that they assume everyone must be. When I told them no, it was received on the same level as saying I didn’t like oysters or I’d never been to Germany.

Heck, when I applied for a job as a Christian minister and said I wasn’t Christian, they just shrugged and seemed more interested in how well I could speak Japanese.

Disagree. I live in Chicago, at least in some kind of official, technical way, and I’ve never had any kind of religious issues. On the occasion that it’s come up in a casual way among coworkers, I’ve said, honestly, that my parents are atheists and that’s how I was raised. Never had anyone say anything unkind about that.

The only time I’ve ever been bugged about religion was by a coworker when I lived in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She was so over the top religious it almost seemed like a parody. (In fact, someone who worked for a vendor my company used onced asked me about her at a corporate function. The people at her company were trying to figure out if she was serious when she’d respond “Praise god!” if you asked her how she was doing.) This coworker, upon finding out I wasn’t a Christian, seemed absolutely gobsmacked and immediately asked me if I’d tried to invite Jesus into my heart. I was so shocked that someone would talk like that in the office that I stuttered something about how I didn’t think that was an appropriate question for the workplace. She left me alone, at least for a while…

A few weeks later, I did a work favor for this coworker and she thanked me by taking me out to lunch. I should have realized - she spent the entire time talking to me about Jesus and blah blah blah. Really freaked me out and was totally awkward.

I managed a group in China and am still pretty close friends with one of them. He asked me one day if people at (insert large high tech company) really believed in God. I said yes, many of them do, perhaps even a majority. He replied “but not the managers”? It was just inconceivable to him that people in charge of a billion dollar company actually believed in stuff like that.

I live in the same metropolitan area as Kalhoun, and I haven’t experienced any persecution. Most of my friends and family are religious, but none of them bother me. I worry more about getting struck by a meteor than about being driven out of my home or losing my job. Usually, if religion comes up in conversation, it’s because I make jokes about it. (“Thank God I’m an atheist!” “I haven’t been to church since God knows when!”)

It’s true that I’d have to stay in the closet if I ran for office, which I don’t understand and somewhat resent, but fortunately I have no plans to run for office anyway. My libertarianism would disqualify even if my atheism didn’t, in any case.

Yes, we scandinavians have a very relaxed connection to religion. Its so relaxed here in Norway that there even has emerged a suggestion to release the church from the state. Noone attends church anymore, so why bother with a state church?