I was thinking that was the case, too - I am also descended from Mennonites who were mostly Dutch who came to Canada for more religious freedom.
Canada doesn’t sound as religion-free as Australia, but at least we have the sense to make religion a private issue here - nobody knows how religious we actually are. 
So, if someone doesn’t self-identify as agnostic or atheist, they’re foaming-at-the-mouth Bible-thumping evangelists out to convert and save you, Muslims who end every sentence with “God willing”, or Orthodox Jews who mumble in Hebrew and daven non-stop as if they’re autistic?
Why do many non-believers think the only type of Christians out there are the uber-religious conservative evangelical variety? Do they see little old ladies carrying casseroles to their Lutheran-Missouri Synod church ladies guild meeting as foaming fundamentalists? Do they go so far as to see the stocky gray-haired women leaving a UU service in their Subarus and Honda CRVs as screaming Bible thumpers?
Elmwood, I think you misunderstood the nature of the sarcasm in Malancandra’s post. He is a non-fundamentalist Christian; in fact if I recall correctly, he is a church organist. From what I’ve seen, he is quite offended (and perhaps feels a wee bit persecuted) by the attitude toward Christianity he perceives here at the dope. I believe the hyperbole in his post was his way of striking back at us uncharitable, ungrateful non-believers.
True. My friend’s parents came over in the 1950’s and they still have a war-time mentality. Apparently, when her mother used to go back to the Nederlands to visit family, her language, behaviour and attitudes branded her as old fashioned, even with her siblings of similar age who remained there.
And in Canada, yes there are Christians of all stripes but having The United Church of Canada as the major Protestant denomination gives our flavour of Christianity a more left-leaning feel. Of course individual churches vary, my parents go to a rather grey-haired elegant stuffy church attended mainly by upper middle class and wealthier people in the city, very formal in dress and manner, while I briefly attended St Augustine’s UC in Winnipeg where not only were they blessing same sex partnerships before legalization in Canada but they are very social justice oriented, and open to almost anything. (One woman used to wear a leather skirt, corset and fetish boots to church on Sunday. With a camoflage print jean jacket over her corset.
Sorry PRR, hope we are not hijacking too much
No, you aren’t hijacking at all. You’ve given PRR some valuable insight: He should move to Canada.
Oh, I don’t expect anyone to be grateful, but a little charity never hurt. Some Christians are more given to proselytising than others; for me, I tend to heed the advice about casting pearls before swine. It’s just that Broomstick’s snark about greenstamps was wide of the mark, although there are certainly some folks - I may be right about JWs, but I’m not one and wouldn’t presume to speak for them - who do have a positive duty to go out and seek converts, if not for greenstamps then for some other direct reward AIUI. For the rest of us, it’s purely altruistic. And like I say, what would you have us do who think we know how to get to Heaven? Keep it to ourselves? That would make us look better in your eyes? :dubious:
Monstera deliciosa, you remember right - a fact I don’t think I’ve mentioned all that often.
Really, all the multiple choice categories should have a “… and serious about it” option so that they can be screened out more easily.
As for **Salamanderman’s **problem, when I was doing OK Cupid one of my first chat questions was, “When was the last time you went to church?” I was just as likely to cross someone off the list if they said, “All religion is a steaming pile of crap” as I was someone who said, “Last Sunday, and every Sunday for the last 30+ years.” I’m not a believer, but I also don’t need belligerence in my life. The one gal I was really getting serious with had answered something like, “Every time I go hiking.” Made my heart skip. But then I met evlkitty whose idea of church is a well-appointed garage.
Living at the buckle of the bible belt (mid-south USA), my chances of a man listing himself as Christian gives me about a 45% chance that, yes, he is a foaming at the mouth evangelist type, a 45% chance that he is a “backslider” who will use his religion when it suits him (the ones mentioned who view going out with an agnostic as a better chance to get laid) and about a 10% chance that he is a more reasonable mainstream or theologically liberal Christian. Face it, the odds aren’t good.
Other religions have their own issues (much of the time, more cultural) that make their practicioners an ill suited match for me for the most part.
I’m not saying that I hate all religious folks, I’m just saying that the vast majority who list one on a singles site are not a good match for me. Like the OP, I just wish they’d leave me the fuck alone.
If you don’t go to church/synagogue/temple/whatever, the only people you’re likely to see and know what religion they are are people whose religion is obvious to the casual observer. That’s your constantly-davening Orthodox Jews, your Bible-thumping Christians, and so on.
If you met me in person, you probably wouldn’t know I was Jewish, unless I happened to be wearing some Judaica jewelry (which I do sometimes, but not every day).
This is actually enough of a hijack to be worthy of its own thread entirely, but I am in fact (I think) already a Canadian citizen, and need to find documentation
of my father’s having been born there to make it official. I also applied for a job a few years ago teaching at the U. of Sydney (did an on-campus interview) and would have applied for Ozzie citizenship if I’d gotten it. I’d love to live somewhere where religion wasn’t nearly made so big a deal as here.
I just put something in my profile like “if you’re religious and want to discuss the bible, don’t bother contacting me because you won’t like what I have to say”.
Seems to have worked. I’ve not been contacted again 
Also, the US and especially Canada are/used to be (for the last 50 years or so) popular emigration targets for Dutch farmers - the land is far cheaper and the farms are much bigger. Dutch farming is not a very profitable business proposition - pretty much all farmers over here can only afford to run a farm because they inherited the land. And AFAIK religiousness is higher for rural Dutch. Farmers are the most reliable voters for the (mainstream) Christian party.
OTOH a (low-level religious) farmer friend of mine spent a few months working on a farm in Canada, and was completely horrified by their fundamentalism.
Not only individual churches may vary, but, as always, YMMV depending on what you’ve been exposed to. I’m a Winnipegger as well (holy crap, there’s a lot more Peggers here than I thought!) but since we moved here 30 years ago we’ve attended a church that at least is labelled “evangelical” - the church makeup has a good portion of Mennonites in it (the core, longtime membership of the church anyways, I think we were spun off of a Mennonite church) and I’m acquainted with a few “bible thumpers”, most are somewhere between “keep it to yourself” and “bible thumping evangelizer”. We’re also a larger church (much larger than St. Augustine if I know that church at all), and there’s a few other larger churches in the city like ours (but without the evangelical label). Our statement of faith, by the way, is here to give you an idea. (And no, I don’t agree with all of it, but the cool thing about my church is that they’re quite willing to have me there, and I’m quite willing to serve where I can (primarily in the drama ministry) and 90% of the stuff that’s preached there I feel isn’t off base at all.
Now, coming from that background, I’ve always thought Winnipeg was a bit on the conservative side, and I’ve always known about the relatively large Mennonite population in Winnipeg and southern Manitoba that adds to our conservatism. That’s why I’ve been surprised to find Christian newspapers that I’ve found are more left-leaning than I thought our church was in the church, plus a good buddy of mine is a missionary sponsored by our church and also seems to be a bit more left leaning than the average adherent here. (I am of course more of the “social justice” Christian than the “convert em all” Christian)
Emphasis mine.
I am actually back in Thunder Bay right now, but I lived in Winnipeg for a year and a half or so in '99-2000. I happen to LOVE Winnipeg (not a popular opinion, I know) and I always figure I will end up back there some day. In the mean time I visit when I can.
Anyway your last sentence really resonates with me. When I was 8 years old, I asked the minister of our UC church if Adam and Eve were cave people, and where did dinosaurs fit in. The minister though for a moment then sat down with me and replied that they probably were like cave people, but these stories were written down a long time later and not all the facts are necessarily what happened. And that the different “days” in the bible could be considered times between ice ages and dinosaurs didn’t make the bible because nobody in the days of writing down the Bible really knew about them, or about radio carbon dating.
Years later I was in a teen youth group and we actually talked with one of the Moderators, (I cannot remember if it was Robert Smith or Clarke McDonald) I told this story of my childhood questions. He told me “Never stop asking questions.” This is probably the main reason why I am still (an irregular) church attendant, and not an atheist.
If you know where he was born, just file a request for a copy of his birth certificate, and you might be surprised what the authorities can manage to dig up, even with incomplete or partially incorrect information. My grandmother was born in Winnipeg, and through a long and convoluted series of circumstances I even had her birth name wrong (thuogh I did have her date of birth and her parents’ names), and they still managed to unearth her birth certificate. You can find info on where to write away here (scroll down to the Country Documents section).
I’ve dated a few religious girls over the years, they all tried to get me to attend church or convert me to some extent. One I quit dating but stayed friends with. We often had religious debates but neither of us ever convinced the other. She has went to a couple different churches since I’ve known her and left them after realizing the leaders were mere mortals and didn’t really know what they were talking about. Hate to tell her but that’s really going to happen at every church.
I don’t know where you live, but it’s not as if the entire US has the same religious fervor as the Bible Belt. Seriously, check out the Northeast, Great Lakes region, Rocky Mountain west outside of Utah, Minnesota, or the Pacific Northwest.
In the Northeast, there are times where I’ve felt out of place because I’m not Catholic, but nobody tries to preach to or convert me. Yeah, there’s the lawn shrines, but it’s not nearly as in-your-face as parts of the country that are more evangelical Protestant.