Religion in American compared to Europe

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I feel like here in America religion is serious business, and a lot of people are intensely faithful, easily obsessed. Is this the same way in England? Are there as many religious people, and are they as gung ho?

I suppose the only way to know this would to be familiar with both places, but even if you aren't, what do you think?

There is one MP in the House of Commons that is a US style obsessed evangelical, she is nick named 'mad Nad' by the other MP's.

She was trying to force anti abortion measures into a health bill last year and was blocked, which led to her having an outburst in the house of commons and the prime minister taking the piss out of her.

In Britain we long ago figured out that the best way to deal with loonies obsessed with sky fairies is to laugh at them, they can't take the humiliation.

Try watching the exchange:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZsC0E2IiZc[/youtube]

And this one more recently, she has been trying to force a leadership challenge and oust Cameron and oddly enough the Chancellor responds by pointing out that nobody but Nadine Dorris gives a s**t about anti abortion & anti gay marriage rhetoric, they care about the state of the economy:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17973801

You don't even have to look as far as Europe. In Canada religion plays little to no part in politics. There are some politicians who are deeply religious, but most of them don't let that effect their work. Those that do don't usually make it look that way.

Also, the most religious politicians in Canada are branded as sucking up to the US.

That's actually very interesting. But I meant not just in politics, I mean, are they more religious in general? I was wondering if they're as fervent overall.

I definitely feel that religion in the U.S. is more publicly discussed. Where I'm from, most people are Christian and have more conservative and religiously based moral and political beliefs. However, in Chicago and other large cities, I found that there has been more diversity. The vast majority of my classmates are agnostic/atheists, I myself am a lazy, socially liberal Christian.

Restricting ourselves to the non-Muslim world, it is probably the case that "churched" people in the U.S. tend to take their religion more seriously than in Europe, particularly Northern Europe. In Ireland, Catholics there probably take their religion more seriously than, say, in France which is nominally a Catholic country.

In the U.S. most mainline Protestants take their religion seriously.

About 40 percent of the adult population of the U.S. do not accept Darwin's theory of evolution and about an equal number believe in angels.

ruveyn

That high?

You get the occasional freak but no, in general religion plays a role at weddings & funerals but not much else.

Interesting really, Britain is one of only two countries in the world where religious authorities have a constitutional guaranteed place in the law making process (CofE bishops automatically get a seat in the lords) and religious education in schools is compulsory by law.

By contrast your nation's founders set up a firewall between religion and the state but you end up going nuts for it...

As far as I understand it, religion is both more and less prevalent in Europe compared to the US. It is more prevalent in the sense that it is deeply ingrained in the political culture (e.g. England has a state religion, many European countries have "Christian democrat" parties), but it is less prevalent in the sense that it is usually a more tame variety.

For " intensely faithful, easily obsessed" read brainwashed from birth.

Teaching this supstitious nonesense to under 18s should be made illegal.
Let them make their own mind up when they reach adulthood.

It depends on the religion. In the Netherlands, there are several religions. Catholics are usually not that interested in bringing their religion into politics, especially after the only viable catholic party merged with two protestant parties to form one christian democrat party. Mild protestants generally don't give their religion a political dimension, either. However, there's also the more orthodox protestants, who have two strongly-conservative parties going for them. Muslims, forming approximately 5.7% of the population, usually just vote for labour, as that is a party that helps them maintain their privileged position and generally leaves their culture alone.

It depends on where in America and Europe you live.

As I mentioned in another thread, in England religion is generally irrelevant to people's lives. The only time people go to church is (sometimes) for weddings and funerals, but even this is diminishing with many people getting married with civil ceremonies in registry offices and having non-religious funerals at crematoriums. On paper the country has lots of "Christians" but this is in name only. There is a tradition (also dying) to baptise one's children as Christians.

Religion does not enter the workplace either. Anyone mentioning Christianity there is likely to be thought of as weird. It is the total opposite of America. Religion rarely enters into conversation, and when it does it is often in a disparaging way about "religious nutters" and their latest "silliness" or bigotry.

There still are practising Christians in England, but their numbers are declining. Those attending church tend to be middle aged or elderly and churches all over the country are falling into ruin or being de-sanctified and converted into markets or other functions or simply demolished. There are some younger people involved in more evangelical Christian movements but these are very much a fringe minority.

Ironically, I think one of the things that has been instrumental in crippling Christianity in England is the legal requirement for schools to teach religion and to hold morning assemblies. I don't know if the latter is still enforced, but when I was a kid we were forced to sing hymns and say prayers aloud every morning or face corporal punishment. Having religion forced down your throat is a good way to turn kids off it.

Most people of my generation are now parents or grandparents and this anti-religious sentiment or feeling of the irrelevancy of religion is increasing and being passed on to our children and grandchildren. I don't think I've ever heard any of my younger relatives mention religion, Jesus, God or Christianity. It has nothing to do with their lives at all.

Scotland is very like England in this sense. Along with other churches, my town has four Presbyterian church buildings (this used to be the main faith in the area). Two of them are for sale, due to falling numbers. People still tend to baptise their children and get married and have funerals in churches, although they don't attend regularly. Although, in recent years, I've been to several humanist funerals.

Our schools have a duty to teach religious and moral education. In non-denominational schools, this is not supposed to be centred on any specific religion (bearing in mind that Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, etc tend to attend these schools), but in actuality, it really is Christian teaching. Jesus is mentioned a lot, although the kids are taught about other religions, respectfully. I'm not sure the kids are being taught that God may or may not exist, in fact I'm pretty certain they are being sent the message that God is real. We have Catholic schools too, which are standard, especially in the central belt (the most highly populated part of the country) and make up about a third of all schools. These are funded by the local authority. Non-Catholics can attend Catholic schools and vice versa.

Scotland has the Free Church of Scotland, which is evangelical and has been fighting to throw of its 'fire and brimstone' image. It's a minority church and most its members live in the highlands and islands. They're not 'noisy' like the US evangelical Christians and have very little say in matters of current affairs (if any) and keep to themselves really.

When I was at school (1960's and 70's) other religions never got a mention. It was 100% Christianity and it was taught as though God was real and that it was God that created the Earth in seven days etc. It was also taught as fact that we had all descended from Adam and Eve. The religious education teacher herself was a confirmed Christian. The thing that rattled my 11 year old brain the most was the way this teaching totally contradicted the teaching of evolution in science class by what I assume was an atheist/agnostic teacher. Both could not be right! Evolution or not we were still forced to sing hymns and pray to what I then perceived to be a mythical God figure; not different in a qualitative way from the Greek and Roman gods such as Zeus, Apollo, Poseidon etc who I used to like reading the mythology about (and the labours of Hurcules! ). Why this Christian god and not Zeus etc? It seemed so ridiculous at the time; however those who didn't comply and sing hymns and pray aloud got beaten with a cane (me included). So on one hand we were taught that the Earth was formed by natural processes and that life evolved from a primordial soup but every morning we were forced to pretend it was a God that did it all and give homage to this figure or be physically punished!

No wonder Christianity is on the decline with such a screwed up education policy.