Wait, what? Renaissance humanism was in many ways a rebellion against the Church.
Not really, and certainly not in the sense of tending towards atheism. No Renaissance humanist was even remotely tempted by atheism.
In this context, “humanist” means, essentially, a scholar of the humanities. Renaissance humanism has nothing today with the modern atheistic quasi-religion known as humanism, that exalts the value of the human race.
That said, however (and although I agree with his broader point), I am not sure that Apollon is giving a very relevant example here. At the time of the Renaissance, atheism or even agnosticism was not really an available intellectual option for anyone. The culture was so was so saturated with religiosity, that it was just unthinkable, for even the most intellectually adventurous (even those prepared to challenge traditional Christianity quite strongly, and promote alternate gods, such as those of Hermeticism) that there might be no God at all. That only becomes thinkable with the Enlightenment. (The Enlightenment was largely inspired by, Newton’s scientific work, despite the fact that Newton himself was deeply, if eccentrically, religious.)
Oops! I never replied again.
Zenbeam, thanks for the defence.
I did not mean to suggest that climate or even snowfall had anything to do with it. That would be rife with exceptions. For instance, many places in the USA are much more snowy than where I live. My area on the Canadian prairies gets about 1.6 meters or 62 inches over 7 months. Streets here are clear 95% of the time, and the average temperature in winter is -10 C, or 14 F, chilly, perhaps, but not a problem for walking, let alone driving.
You could compare that to areas of Anchorage, Alaska, USA at 1.9 meters or 75 inches. As well, there are states around the great lakes region that get immense snow fall, as does Maine, right?
So no, It cannot be something simple like “Cant get to church for all the snow, lots of the time, thus god is a big phony”. Otherwise Anchorage Alaska should be an secular something something.
I brought up the question because something feels off about the correlation to wealth. There seems to be some connection, but maybe its inverted: perhaps religiosity limits wealth(unless you are a famous evangelist).
From what little I know of history, it doesnt seem like the northern traditional religions were particularly evangelical. The vikings didnt seem to offer “the sword or Odin” when doing their raids, did they?
I’d like to know how pious they were at home though. I know of the idea of Jante law, but did they mind if someone wasnt observant enough of the gods?
Nor do I recall the Mongols sparing anyone who offered to follow their faith, though I am sure it was tried. T’was booty that thrilled the beast it seems.
So I guess I am googling reading material on that. I’m puzzled by Europe, because if poverty and hardship promote faith, then what happened to Europe after the world wars? They went or stayed secular. The US became a powerhouse, entered its golden age, but kept its faith.
Canada grew too, but split the difference between the US and Europe.
I think there is more to a people’s religiosity than their location with respect to the poles.
Sometimes there seems to be a correlation - but is it real? Because, at the same time, there are cultural underpinnings in a people that tend to reinforce religiosity or at least the degree to which religious belief is considered important in their society. I would argue that these cultural underpinnings are more relevant indicators of what a society ends up doing, than is, say geographical placement relative to the poles.
As far as modern Italians go, they may be technically Catholic and call themselves such, but actual church attendance has gone down over the years and the number of applicants to join seminaries and convents in Italy is in decline and has been for some time. This phenomenon may well reflect the corollary to the premise that poverty and hardship promote faith because, until the current economic crisis, Italy had enjoyed many years of economic prosperity. Italians were better off than they had been in generations. That may well have led to a declining interest in participating in church rituals and observances. At the same time, cultural and social tradition prevents most Italians from admitting that they have, for all intents and purposes, evolved into agnostics or even atheists.
In the former Soviet countries, a different variation may be seen. The Communists crowed to the world that they had stamped out religion in the Soviet Union. True enough, after 1917 churches were converted to other uses or demolished entirely, some priests collaborated with the secret police to identify dissidents, traditional church holidays were overlooked or converted to something else…and this state of affairs lasted for almost 80 years. But once the Soviet Union was no more, the churches enjoyed a resurgence of popularity, formerly closed ones were re-opened, destroyed ones were re-built and the Orthodox Church in the former Soviet lands is back, almost as strong a factor in daily life as it once was. True, not many people are devoutly religious, but a sizable portion of the population of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus call themselves “Christians,” and see themselves as “believers” and “spiritual” people who attend church on some basis, if not regularly. That is an example of what I would argue is a cultural affinity towards religiosity. The tendency to be religious could not be entirely stamped out of the Russian people during all the bad old days of Communism and, when the opportunity presented itself, they returned to their churches as if the intervening 80 years had not even happened.
It is a complex issue but it is my opinion that a tendency towards religious belief in a given society has much more to do with culture and tradition than with geography.
That’s not the point: they were all willing (in differing degrees) to question the Church.
As far as religiosity and wealth, I’d say sudden extreme increases in wealth, that do NOT result in income equality, like in the OPEC nations over the last few decades, probably increase religiosity. However, slow consistent increasing of wealth that DOES result in income equality appears to correlate with LESS religiosity, like in Scandinavia.
I idly wonder if this holds true elsewhere, like East Asia, Latin America, etc…
You might be right. That is a good point.
On the other hand, sudden decreases in prosperity dont always seem to create religiousness. For instance, Europe suffered pretty badly through the world wars and for several years after. They didnt turn to god(s) for the most part.
Using a large North/Soouth geographic country like the US or Chile or Russia or China might be really helpful in such a survey. Are the people living in the more equatorial regions more religions than those in the more polar regions? You could assume they have largely the same culture, so one key difference would be geography.
What would be your causal relation? Temperature? Or some sort of innate human trait that is correlated to latitude?
Another interesting study goup would be people born near the equator who move towards the polar regions. I assume you would expect them to become less religious over time.
Personally, I don’t think you’d find a causal relation between latitude and religion. I don’t understand what would drive that. I could see a case for temperature and religion or wealth and religion, but not latitude.
Out and proud atheist as our Prime Minister might have something to do with it.
Aussies are pretty laid back and the amount of grief we give happy clappers is incredible.
Yeah the problem with these stats is that most people say they are Christian but don’t really believe in God as outlined in the Good Book. Just like me and nearly everyone I know. To say you have not religion to an Aussie is to say there is nothing beyond this mortal world and that just doesn’t sit right with most people.
Really? Which countries are you looking at in Asia? Are you suggesting that Taiwan is significantly more religious than Japan? What is the relative difference between Korea and Japan? How does Canada compare with Argentina?
I’d want more data points before running of to study anything.
In the west we seem to overlook many countries in Asia. Places such as Bhutan, Myanmar, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines. All pretty religious…
Mongolia on the other hand, much less so.
What you describe is massively CULTURAL, not religious. The cultures you name had prior cultures and faiths that were absorbed by Christian faiths over the centuries, but not TOTALLY eliminated.
The best paper I saw, which I cannot find currently was discussing the differences between desert cultures/religions and rainforest cultures. The desert culture being more aggressive, due to their harsh environment, the rainforest cultures were not wanting for food and raw products for their sustainment lacked that drive, therefore lost.
Fair enough. To flip it around then, it looks as though about twice as many Kiwis are prepared to state “no religion” on the official census than are Aussies, but that says very little about the degree of belief of the rest. And much as you say, almost all of the nominally “Christian” believers I know are of the “Christmas and Easter” or the “I believe in something” variety.
The sort of fundamentalists that the US Dopers often describe are vanishingly rare around here (thankfully). 
Amen to that!
This. Those cold countries aren’t necessarily less religious; they may be as ethical and as “believing,” just in different ways, and believing in different things.
And some of it is a fluke of the present era. The Czech Republic went through a precipitous collapse in religious identification in the last generation, and now seems to be less religious than Scandinavia. It happens.
_
I will note that hotter countries are historically likelier to suffer from endemic diseases with biting fly/mosquito vectors, whereas colder countries may have to deal with things like frostbite, everything freezing over, and the like. This may have had some effect on the development of a cultural worldview in the pre-modern era. Are you more likely to be killed by something easily preventable with clear cause and effect, or some little thing that just gets you for no obvious reason? Which encourages “self-reliance” more? Which encourages superstition more?
But that’s a wild-ass speculation that just popped into my head. Means nothing, most likely.