# What happens to societies with majority non-religious people?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-to-societies-with-majority-non-religious-people/667183>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [August 26, 2013, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-to-societies-with-majority-non-religious-people/667183 "2013-08-26T05:25:38Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 30

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**Author:** ![Maastricht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@Maastricht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maastricht)\
**Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-to-societies-with-majority-non-religious-people/667183/30 "2013-08-27T10:39:25Z")

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Not just in Scandinavia, but in most Western European countries atheism is the default setting. Unless you state otherwise, people will assume you are an atheist.

Seeing the crusade many religious Americans hold against atheism is incredibly… not just scary, but incredibly misguided. Holland and Germany, Norway and Denmark, have been atheistic countries for decades now. And nothing bad has happened. These countries score higher on several happiness meters. They have a lower rate of crime, poverty, abortions and teenage pregnancy then the USA does. People are spiritually aware, with or without (a kind of) God, and feel connected to their community.

Watching people feel all moral for wanting to “keep their kids away from atheists destroying their faith”… To me, it is as absurd as when they would claim that you can’t be a moral happy person and have brown eyes. Or red hair. Or like country music. Or eat spaghetti.

:: shakes head::

I have also quoted often on these boards the statistics on teenage pregnancies and abortions:  
The TLDR version is: "Religiously inspired abstinism does _not_ reduce teenage sex and pregnancies. You know what does? Freely available sex-education that demystifies and de-emphasises teenage sex. As well as freely available birth control paired with factual information on how to use it.

> [@Teenage Sex in Northern Europe vs North America](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenage-sex-in-northern-europe-vs-north-america/441695/15):
>
> These [statistics](http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/8Comparison.htm) might be of interest:
> 
> **Percent who have not had intercourse by age 20:**
> 
> ```
> Boys Girls
> 
> ```
> 
> Belgium 61 63  
> Netherlands 58 62  
> Germany 33 28  
> Norway 33 25  
> U K. 24 23  
> France 9 25  
> United States 12 16
> 
> **Percent of sexually active single 15 to 19-year olds using birth control:**  
> Germany 95%  
> United Kingdom 92  
> Netherlands 88  
> Norway 87  
> Sweden 79  
> Denmark 70  
> United States 56
> 
> **Teen pregnancies per 1,000 teenagers:**
> 
> United States 98.0  
> United Kingdom 46.6  
> Norway 40.2  
> Canada 38.6  
> Finland 32.1  
> Sweden 28.3  
> Denmark 27.9  
> Netherlands 12.1  
> Japan 10.5
> 
> **Total teen abortions per 1,000 teenagers:**
> 
> United States 44.4  
> Norway 21.1  
> Sweden 19.6  
> Denmark 18.2  
> Finland 17.9  
> United Kingdom 16.9  
> Canada 16.2  
> Japan 5.9  
> Netherlands 5.5

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