This is a good point, and it does apply (perhaps on a smaller level) to the UK. Parts of Scotland in particular have a very strong religious presence - only a couple of years ago, the first-ever Sunday flights into the island of Lewis met with full-scale demonstrations by locals who considered this an affront to their observance of the day of rest.
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That is indeed a very interesting article. I was especially interested in the part about religion in schools (page 4 of the article). I went to a German school and we did indeed have “Religionsunterricht” (religion class) divided into two groups. One class was for the Catholics and the other for the Protestants. Since I’m Lutheran I was in the second class. We spoke mostly about the history of the Protestant church in Germany, discussing things like Martin Luthers 95 theses, and other church reformers like Hus and Calvin. My younger sister later had the general class “Lebensgestaltung – Ethik – Religionskunde (LER)” which took a more “general” approach to religion and also taught about other world religions like Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism.
When I was old enough for my “Konfirmation” we had half a year of classes every Sunday, where we were not only taught about the Lutheran catechism, but also about other religions. This was very interesting, because as part of the classes we visited a mosque, a midnight Easter mass at a Russian Orthodox church, a synagogue, and a Catholic mass. I think one main difference in European churches is the general tolerance we have of other religions. Some of the fundamentalist Christian ideas you hear about in the States, especially from so-called “reborn Christians” would just be deemed silly here.
We (especially the Lutherans) don’t think someone is condemned to burn in hell forever if he doesnt belíeve the same way we do. I think this one of the reasons the churches do have quite a bit of power in Germany, but generally stay away from politics.
Could’ve been worse. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070917/
[QUOTE=Mycroft Holmes]
When I was old enough for my “Konfirmation” . . .
[QUOTE]
The Klan has a Netherlands chapter?
I’ve got a friend who comes from from the arse-end of Lewis. He says he’s never quite sure that film’s entirely fictional.
Nope, that’s how confirmation is spelled in German. The Catholics call it communion.
Do we? As far I’m aware, we have both - we take our first communion at about 7, then we’re confirmed at 13/14.
I could be wrong though - I took my first communion, but was never confirmed - by 14 I was having serious doubts about my faith.
Nope that’s my experience as well. I was confirmed when I was about 12-14. Everybody wanted to be confirmed because (over here at least) you make lots of money by going around your relatives 
Jennyrosity writes:
> Yes, I understand that. But the impression I have is that religious beliefs are
> given far greater precedence by both national and state government then
> would ever be tolerated in the UK. Indeed, in many cases it seems to be not so
> much tolerated as expected.
Revenant Theshold writes:
> And I seem to have the same view as Jenny on Bush’s religiousness; if a
> candidate brought up and made an issue of his/her religion to the same extent
> that Bush does, they wouldn’t get voted in. We still want to know their religion,
> though, because it is in most cases a religious person’s duty to act a certain
> way and put emphasis on certain things, and thus it’s going to have an affect
> on their policies and style of governorship.
Religious beliefs may be “given a far greater predecence” by certain blocks of voters, but they aren’t given any recognition by the governments themselves. There are certain blocks of voters in the U.S. who would tend to vote for candidates with certain sorts of religious rhetoric, but there are also voters who would tend to vote less often for such candidates. Bush and his political advisors have made the decision that the voters who want religious rhetoric are more useful to his political coalition at the moment.
The difference here is the rhetoric that a political candidate uses, not his beliefs themselves. Blair is, as far as anyone other than himself is qualified to judge, as religious as Bush, and he’s been religious longer than Bush has. He didn’t suddenly return to religion and sobriety in his forties, like Bush did. Bush just talks more publicly about his religious faith than Blair does. Of course, I am not qualified and neither is anyone else here to say whether Bush really returned to religion and sobriety because of a sincere religious conversion or because his daddy told him that only as a sober, religious candidate was he going to get elected. Similarly, neither I or anyone else here is qualified to say whether Blair’s religious faith is sincere.
The real quality of their religious faith is irrelevant though. The difference between American and British politics is that certain blocks of voters in the U.S. expect a politician to talk about his religious beliefs, while certain blocks of voters in the U.K. expect a politician to never talk about his religious beliefs. This does not mean that Americans think about their religious beliefs in voting while Britons don’t. Every voter thinks about their religious and philosophical and political and cultural beliefs when they vote. And, in any case, religious beliefs are not “given precedence” by governments in the U.S. Separation of church and state means that the government in the U.S. has to be careful never to give the impression of favoring a single religion.
The difference between Americans and Britons on religion is more a difference in rhetoric, I think. In both countries, a vast majority say that they believe in God and a clear majority claim to be Christians in some at least vague sense. More people go to church regularly in the U.S. than in the U.K., but I wonder if that’s a matter of rhetoric too. It’s as though going to church regularly is expected of someone in the U.K. with at least vague beliefs, while it’s not expected in the U.K.
Indeed, I think that the uncomfortableness Britons have with the public declarations of religious belief by Americans (whether politicians or anyone else) is just part of the British dislike of the American tendency to make brash, forthright, passionate statements about anything (regardless of the question whether such statements are really sincere or not). In the U.K., over-the-top rhetoric about anything is looked down on. Americans who make immoderate statements about anything are considered to be, at best, embarrassing and, at worse. dangerous. There’s a suspicion that they aren’t really sincere anyway. And in this, I’m actually closer to the typical British tendency than the typical American one, since I tend to be suspicious of overblown rhetoric too.
[q]In both countries, a vast majority say that they believe in God[/q]
This is not an inference that can be accuaretly drawn from the 75% CofE census figure - something I explained much earlier.
I like that quote attributed to F.E. Smith, Lord Birkenhead, or someone of that ilk in Chariots of Fire when Eric Liddell, a true Christian (in the sense that he believed in what a Christian is generally considered to believe in - I’m not playing God and saying he’s a sheep rather than a goat), refused to run on a Sunday, thus denying Great Britain an almost certain gold medal: “In my day it was King first, and God second.”
GorillaMan writes:
> This is not an inference that can be accuaretly drawn from the 75% CofE census
> figure - something I explained much earlier.
Can you give me the exact percentage of Britons who say that they believe in God and the exact percentage who say that they are Christians? I don’t find those numbers in your earlier posts. Then we need to compare them with the exact percentages for Americans. The questions should be posed something like:
Do you believe in God?
Do you consider yourself a Christian?
This wording is necessary because it avoids any discussion of what it means to believe in God and to be a Christian. I suspose that we could argue about what the terms “vast majority” and “clear majority” mean also. I think that if we actually look at the numbers that they aren’t different much in the U.S. and the U.K.
Bear in mind though, that a large proportion of English people (I’m specifying English because I don’t know if this true for other UKers) will say they’re C of E when asked mainly through a rather English horror of standing out from the crowd. At all. For any reason. 
Jennyrosity writes:
> Bear in mind though, that a large proportion of English people (I’m specifying
> English because I don’t know if this true for other UKers) will say they’re C of E
> when asked mainly through a rather English horror of standing out from the
> crowd. At all. For any reason.
And a large proportion of Americans will say that they are Christians because that’s what they’ve always been expected to say. Not because their beliefs are particularly Christian (or even particularly coherent). Not because they participate in any religious actions other than occasionally going to church services where they keep their mouths shut for fear of disagreeing with anybody outspoken there.
Does anybody have statistics on attendance? I’ve heard that in England, during a typical week, more people kneel in mosques on Friday than sit in pews on Sunday.
(And if true, what effect will it have on British culture inf the future? But that’s a different thread…)
Actually, all that wording does is emphasise how difficult it is to define and quantify demographic breakdowns of such beliefs.
Here’s some alternative statistics, which throw up different results to the census - probably in part due to the questions being asked in different ways, and in a very different context.
Statistics are often so fuzzy, as they can comingle the questions (a) Do you believe in God? with (b) Are you a member of a church? and © Do you attend services?
I find it fascinating that countries with no concept of separation of church & state have managed to keep them well separated; and the country (the US) where it’s written into the constitution has religion & politics thoroughly intertwined.
But largely, religion in the US is (I think it was Gore Vidal, in The Best Man who said it) like catsup — poured liberally over everything. For the most part, though, that means merely ending speeches with God Bless America, almost as a formality like God Save the Queen.
IMHO in the U.K. there are quite a lot of people who are actually Christian but don’t go to church. This is probably because the services are boring and - bluntly - many of the clerics are a bunch of tossers who wring their hands a lot but offer no leadership, instead spending their time on innumerable pointless church committees.
In post #49 I wrote:
> It’s as though going to church regularly is expected of someone in the U.K. with
> at least vague beliefs, while it’s not expected in the U.K.
Geez, can’t I ever write a post without screwing it up? I meant:
> It’s as though going to church regularly is expected of someone in the U.S. with
> at least vague beliefs, while it’s not expected in the U.K.
Also in that post, “considered to be, at best, embarrassing and, at worse. dangerous.” should be “considered to be, at best, embarrassing and, at worse, dangerous.”
Um, you do realise that there are parts of Europe that are very Catholic, don’t you? Every European country is different from every other. And I think people should have the right to worship whatever god they choose in whatever method.