Sure, lets weigh in the confounding variables by comparing two equivalent cultures, one largely theist, one largely atheist. I'll pick Russia as the atheist one, since Russians seem particularly resistant to religious indoctrination and have a strongly atheistic society. Which theistic culture do you consider as equivalent and comparable to it? Also, what the hell happened to this thread? I just realised its the one about the movie Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
The communists did their best to root out Christianity, but even then most Russians privately held silly superstitions. My parents were just there a couple of years ago and they say it's stark raving mad now. The Russians have all these creepy traditions, like kissing coffins with saints in them. My parents were visiting one cathedral and there was a saint there behind a glass case whose face and body had been "miraculously preserved" for hundreds of years. Oh, the body and face were covered in a burial shroud though, so one couldn't exactly check to see.
You could say quite the equivalent for atheism in say, the US.You could check out St Francis at the Basilica Bom Jesu in Goa, India.
I lived in the Soviet Union for almost a year on an exchange program. I couldn't live there for a number of reasons. Most everything in certain cities, especially the one I stayed the most, was destroyed in the Victory War (WWII) and rebuilt under Soviet regime. Terrible workmanship in most buildings with the worst hot water and electrical systems you could imagine. We used to call the building we lived in "Tarakan Hotel" (Coachroach Hotel)
Anyway, if Russia is taken as the atheist country, a comparable theistic country would be Iran right next door. Ok, despite everything bad I've ever said about Russia, no matter how far you go down on the food chain, there's always lesser detritus lying further down the pyramid. Russia is bigger, more powerful, more educated, more free, more innovative, richer, and healthier. Atheists win!!! :yay:
You've clearly never met any Iranians. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! But its quite telling that you consider Iran, a country with no nuclear weapons and under 30 years of international sanctions, as equivalent to the Russians with a permanent seat in the security council and a stature as one of the top five most influential nations in the world.
I've met lots of Iranians, and they're very smart and successful. But almost all of them were already among Iran's class of elite before they even came here. I have no doubt if every Iranian had western-style education and freedoms, they would leave Russia behind in the dust.
Anyhow, Russia's not even close to atheist anymore in any sense. Maybe Putin is, but supposedly he's done a dandy job hasn't he? The Russians certainly think so. If you want to pick a country with a very large atheist composition, let's go with... I dunno... Sweden. Yes, lots of prosperous theocracies we could throw against Sweden, right?
Going to church once a year means you're a theist? You think atheists take scalpels to their brains and cut out the whole part that remembers upbringing and family traditions? Your article says 2% of Swedish churchgoers regularly attend Sunday services, and Sunday services I presume are the most attended. No, counting people as religious because they hold membership in some church doesn't cut it, I know lots of atheists who go to religious temples now and then for community functions. Wikipedia says 23% of Swedes believe in God, 53% believe in a spirit or life-force, and 23% basically don't believe in anything supernatural whatsoever. It's hard to collect demographic info on religion, and they're still not very rigorous about it. For starters, there's no such thing as an atheist country anywhere on this planet. Anywhere you go in the world, including communist China, you will find most people subscribe to a healthy dose of superstition in one form or another. In North Korea, for instance, Kim Jong Il is God. So all we can conclude is that in societies like Sweden that lean closer to atheism than nearly every other country in the world, quality of life standards are also very high.
Maybe they could edit that wiki so the rest of us could also know about it, from what I have seen of the Netherlanders, its not that they call themselves atheist [most do NOT], its that they just consider God and religion as private issues. They get baptised, they get married in church, they rarely or never talk about it in public. But they don't define themselves as atheists.\\\\\ Sure. How many Muslims you think pray 5 times a day everyday? How many Hindus follow all the rituals? How many Christians attend mass every week? How many theists follow religion when it interferes with their work or family schedule? You guys need to get out more.
Well I can tell you wouldn't find that to be the case in Denmark or Sweden. I have yet to meet one that believed in god, taught their children about god or went to church. They are the most completely atheist people especially those from the age of 50 down. Danes and Swedes have no nothing of discussing religion or god...only to find it silly.
You know, they still get officially counted as muslims by their government even if they're nonbelievers, right? In Saudi Arabia you can't even legally leave the religion.
Here are some stats for you Sam: http://www.adherents.com/largecom/com_atheist.html Source: Zuckerman, Phil. "Atheism: Contemporary Rates and Patterns", chapter in The Cambridge Companion to Atheism, ed. by Michael Martin, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK (2005). Evidently Sweden is has the largest population of atheists.
