American is basically a Christian country right? Other countries such as Iraq and middle eastern countries mostly believe in other religions. So my question is, is there a country that is regarded as religionless? Or the majority of inhabitants don’t believe in religion? Or where Science, Darwinism, ect… so on… is the main principle of the citizens lives?
You’re going to get a long list of communist countries that are or were officially atheistic.
However, it’s important to note that the local version of communism serves in virtually every way as a state religion, designed and imposed to circumvent the underlying religions of those living there before the regime took over. More than this would take me into GD territory.
There is also the issue of countries whose majority population technically belongs to a religion, but seldom practices, as in Britain.
Conversely, the fact that the majority of people in the U.S. are nominally Christian does not in any way make the U.S. a “Christian country.”
Let the fun begin.
If you want a list of countries where religion has little or nothing to do with people’s everyday thoughts or habits, then most of western Europe is your home. If you want countries enacting specifically non-religious legislation, look no further than France and Turkey.
I’d say the U.S. is a Christian country in the same sense tha Norway is a blond country.
I guess what I’m asking, and you may have already answered… is these countries, such as France or Turkey or wherever. Is there a country where religion is more or less refered to as mythology rather then religion or fact, ect? Like the way in which in school we are told about Greek and Roman mythology. That the Bible and Koran, or other counterpart is considered a fable. Good storys that teach a message, but hold no relevance to a litteral translation? I know a good many people do feel that way in the US; but a large Christian sector of america still believe the bible line for line. I know there are varying levels of this, but I think you get what I mean.
Example:
I as well as many was brought up believing Genesis pretty much describes how the world and man got to this life. I know other familys that don’t, but most people I’ve met do. (This board excluded) Even if you where brought up believing genesis is a metaphor for the big bang, or you don’t believe in it at all, it certainly was a part of everyones understand and general knowledge.
Now is there a country where the oppisite is true? Where Most kids are told we basically evolved and think that us American nut-cases are so gulliable in believing in an imaginary friend, based out of a “moral-of-the-story” childrens book?
Those of us who aren’t Christian, but were born and live here in the USA, would like to point out that we are Americans, no matter what words they stick in the Pledge of Allegiance specifically to say that we aren’t. Not that I’m bitter about being told that I shouldn’t be allowed to be a citizen because of my beliefs.
Since this is GQ, though, I’ll just state that the USA is, by the Constitution that grants our government its power, actually forbidden from being a country “of” any specific religion. Note that this is allowed to change, as a result of amending that same Constitution, so this may not be the case in the future. I’ll leave to the GD folks the discussion of whether this is currently happening, and whether that’s a good thing or not.
I don’t have the list now, and therefore can’t support what I’m saying, but I’m pretty sure my former roommate showed me a list a few years ago that said that the Czech Republic was the only country in which the majority of the population described themselves as being of “no religion”.
I’m pretty sure you’ll find the vast majority of Brits see it that way. Including plenty of Anglicans.
Do “Jedi Knights” count as a real religion? 
A couple years back in Canada, it came out that Stockwell Day (that’s his name) the leader of the official opposition, believed in the bible as literal truth-- the world is less than 7,000 years old, yada yada. He was essentially laughed out of office.
That’s true, but only with Catholics and Protestants counted separately. The trouble with these types of statistics is that it relies on people’s self-description, and plenty of people will reply ‘C of E’, ‘Catholic’, or whatever, simply because that’s what they have always said. I know people who don’t believe Jesus was the son of God, don’t believe in miracles, don’t believe in the virgin birth or the resurrection, yet still describe themselves as Christian.
Back to the question…I’m pretty sure Albania was the first officially atheist state, declaring itself so in about 67. North Korea I think is atheistic too. It’s certainly weird. Does Kim Jong Il worship count?
What was Russia, later the USSR, from 1917 to 1967 if not an officially atheistic state? What about China, and Cuba, and Yugoslavia, and the eastern European countries controlled by Russia?
Sure… I guess… I’ve met more people under that denomination then alot of others! 
So you’ll have to excuse me for a second while I babble for a second.
Has the religion-less state in these countrys afforded them to pursue science and technology a greater level? I believe often religion even though it is supposed to be seperate here in American often prevents progress. For example stem cell research, cloning, human rights, ect. Has these countries ability to embrace science allowed them to exceed the rest of the world, or perhaps just US in these areas? I’ve really never heard of any of the countries breaking-through in technology on any matter that would get the American bible beaters undies in wad. But has there. I’d like to ask if we’d be better off if we didn’t have such a foundation in religion but of course that would make this a great debate; but you see where I’m going.
There’s a wide difference between these two examples. I was floored when I discovered that biblical litteralism was widespread in the USA, and that people would argue about evolution. I was perhaps 20 when I read the first mention about the theory of evolution still being an issue in the US, and only when I began visiting the US internet boards I realized how common it was. Before that, I would have assumed that arguments about evolution died down a century ago or so in all industrialized nations.
On the other hand, a large part of the population believing in some religion doesn’t appear weird to me. American people are obviously way more religious than european people, but still most europeans, or at least french people, have some religious belief, even if they don’t actually go to the church and rarely mention religion in conversations.
I remember reading the results of a poll about relious beliefs in my favorite paper some years ago. They asked people what was their religion and then various questions about their exact beliefs. Like for instance, do you believe in hell, etc…
To my surprise, a significant percentage (like perhaps 5-10%) of the self-described “catholics” answered that they didn’t believe in God (with of course larger numbers not believing that Jesus was divine, etc…)
So, I assume they answer “catholic” because they’ve been baptized, and maybe would be married in a church out of traditon (two of my brothers, despite them and their wives being atheists got married in a church. One couple even told upfront to the priest they didn’t believe in god, and he still agreed to marry them).
In their mind of these respondents, the word “catholic” probably is a cultural marker and has few to do with actual religious beliefs.
Maybe he should have changed his name to Doris. You know, to draw attention away from that little gaffe.
And I must say, this is as close as I’ve ever seen a thread to being borderline MPSIMS and borderline GD.
Originally posted by GorillaMan
Ditto to the Dutch and including plenty of Protestants.
clairobscur brings in an excellent point, which has tangency on the OP’s statement about “a Christian country” and the people who take exception to the description.
The USA as a Nation-State is officially religion-neutral and perhaps Deist. However American society IS socio-culturally Christian-oriented, and so are many other western societies. That is, elements of identification with Christian traditions and ideological concepts have thoroughly perfused the social and cultural discourse. (Even in the many threads in this board where in a supposed debate of religion v. atheism, the descriptors of what’s so bad about “religion” are almost all about what’s wrong with Christianity specifically).
As clairobscur points out, once you exceptuate fundamentalism, nothing prevents there being a level of moderate civil religiosity, involving having individual spirituality be a private affair and its public practice being a matter of mostly weddings and funerals and Xmas and Easter and an ocassional singing of “God Bless/Save _(who/whatever)__” , at the same time as a generalized acceptance of reason and the scientific method as the explanations for the physical world and the proper bases for intellectual discourse, education and lawmaking. Modern Japan or Western Europe are examples of societies where, for major segments of society, religion has been mostly refocused in that manner. And lest we forget, many in the USA population are ALSO in that position. The fundamentalists are just really loud and powerful.
As far as providing an advantage for progress, AFAICT it’s not atheism or irreligiosity but an environment of tolerance or openness that makes the difference. Thus the tolerant (for the time) but definitely Muslim Caliphate of Spain was the most progressive place in W. Europe in the Middle Ages; while in post-Renaissance times the Spain of official Inquisition-enforced Catholicism stagnated, and we know how well are strict-Islamist nations doing progress-wise. Or, the tolerant (for the time) Netherlands were an extremely progressive society since the 17th Century, but definitely not an “atheist society”.
The officially-atheist, officially pro-science Soviet Union, OTOH, was a rigid society where dissent was stifled and it gave us Lysenkoism. Maoist China gave us the Cultural Revolution. Not exactly Great Moments in Fighting Ignorance.