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Why did Europe become less religious over time and the US didn't?
- enriquto 6y agoI do not think this is actually the case. Is there any hard data saying that Europe is "less religious" than the USA?
- sammalloy 6y agoU.S. adults are more religious than Western Europeans (2018) https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/09/05/u-s-adults-are-more-religious-than-western-europeans/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/09/05/u-s-adults-...
- rayiner 6y ago> In fact, by several measures of religious commitment, religiously unaffiliated people in the U.S. are as religious as – or in some cases even more religious than – Christians throughout Western European countries. For example, while 20% of U.S. “nones” pray daily, only 6% of Christians in the UK do so.
- hashtagmarkup 6y agoHave there been any studies about whether U.S. adults are more likely to lie to pollsters than Western Europeans?
- hashtagmarkup 6y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_effect
- enriquto 6y agoBut this concerns only western Europe, that is precisely the least religious part.
- Barrin92 6y agoLots of Eastern Europe is even less religious due to the Communist legacy. Czechia is pretty much the most atheist place on earth if I had to make a guess. I think pew in 2015 or something placed 70%+ of the population as irreligious. If you've spend a day there and met someone under 40 who is religious I'd be impressed There's one exception which is Poland due to the intimate ties of nationalism and Catholicism. But even so even in places that are religious in Eastern Europe it's almost more political or nationalistic than it is 'spiritual'.
- willvarfar 6y agoGoogling finds lots of surveys and studies and statistics that say that the USA is indeed substantially more religious than Europe, especially Western Europe.
- elric 6y agoI was wondering the same thing. The US isn't a homogeneous blob, neither is Europe. For instance you'll likely find that religion is much more important in Poland than it is in France. In much the same way, I suspect, as in Alabama vs California.
- brummm 6y agoThe US is orders of magnitude more homogeneous than Europe, though.
- jobigoud 6y ago> For instance you'll likely find that religion is much more important in Poland than it is in France. In much the same way, I suspect, as in Alabama vs California. And I'm willing to bet that Poland, the most religious state in the EU, is less religious than whatever is the least religious state in the US. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/12/23/americans-are-in-the-middle-of-the-pack-globally-when-it-comes-to-importance-of-religion/ft_15-12-17_religioussalience/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/12/23/americans-a...
- elric 6y agoI'll take on that bet. The graph you linked is a bit silly. The values are skewed by a bunch of African nations with a very low Human Development Index. Europe & the US are much more balanced in that regard, and you might want to consider comparing like for like. Wikipedia's "Importance of Religion by Country" [1] page seems to rank Poland squarely above the US in terms of how important religion is -- based on a Gallup poll. There's a page [2] ranking the US states by similar metrics in case you're interested. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Importance_of_religion_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Importance_of_religion_by_coun... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_religiosity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...
- type0 6y agoWestern Europe is more secular than US, but as a whole there are still plenty of religious places, a lot of basement mosks in the outskirts of cities, you won't find that in US because of the difference in demographics.
- bigmattystyles 6y agoOne datapoint; My maternal grandmother is from the north of France and is now well into her 80s. While very Catholic herself she never pushes me or any of her ((great)grand)kids towards it. My wife and I never had our son baptized, never even entertained the idea and I have not heard her complain about it. When she came to visit me in the US in the early 2000s and asked to go to church, I found and took her to a local Catholic church; all went well. She even noted how 'comfortable' the church itself was. I get that; the church from her town was built in the 15th century and it reflects that. It's cold and dark and when you step out, it's probably cold and rainy. The one here was bright, warm and in warm and sunny California. The most interesting part, in the process of looking up a church for her, I showed her a brochure (it was the early 2000s) for an evangelical megachurch (by California standard); she was not into it at all. She seemed to have seen right through it with the flashy local pastors. Commented about how it was just tricking people. I didn't have the heart to tell her.
- rayiner 6y agoInterestingly, this doesn't mention immigration. I would strongly expect immigrants to be more likely to hold onto religious traditions than folks back home. For example: American Muslims are significantly more educated than the population as a whole: 39% have a college degree, versus 27% of all U.S. adults. While college education is usually correlated with less religion, American Muslims are more religious than the average American: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/08/28/u-s-muslims-are-religiously-observant-but-open-to-multiple-interpretations-of-islam https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/08/28/u-s-muslims.... Almost 60% pray daily, with 42% saying all five prayers daily. Meanwhile, 48% of Americans overall pray daily.
- brnt 6y agoA lot of migrants, the Pilgrims in particular, left Europe for religious freedom, and specifically for the freedom to practice stricter forms. In my family the descendants that migrated in the fifties are still fervent protestants, but here (Netherlands) only a handful are still religious, and I would say not very strongly so.
- willvarfar 6y ago“ the freedom to practice stricter forms” is an odd way of saying they migrated in order to reduce the freedom of their children.
- Banana699 6y agoIt's called the freedom to curtail other people's freedoms, it's a well known right recognized in the universal declaration of fundamental(ist) rights /s
- Traster 6y agoI'll openly say this is based on nothing - but my Jewish family is both highly educated and still religious, but religion holds a cultural significance and the significance of a community rather than a true 'belief' significance- a Jewish Atheism. I could see the same being true of Muslims - they are holding on to their traditions (which happen to be religious).
- throw0101a 6y agoThe religiosity of the US seems to have been of a different kind than elsewhere. There's a good book that explains how America seems to have always been a land of magical thinking, including in the secular realm: > America was created by true believers and passionate dreamers, and by hucksters and their suckers, which made America successful—but also by a people uniquely susceptible to fantasy, as epitomized by everything from Salem’s hunting witches to Joseph Smith’s creating Mormonism, from P. T. Barnum to speaking in tongues, from Hollywood to Scientology to conspiracy theories, from Walt Disney to Billy Graham to Ronald Reagan to Oprah Winfrey to Trump. In other words: Mix epic individualism with extreme religion; mix show business with everything else; let all that ferment for a few centuries; then run it through the anything-goes ’60s and the internet age. The result is the America we inhabit today, with reality and fantasy weirdly and dangerously blurred and commingled. * https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/how-america-lost-its-mind/534231/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/how-ame... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasyland:_How_America_Went_Haywire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasyland:_How_America_Went_...
- pavlov 6y agoThe mythology around the American Constitution is another example of deeply ingrained magical thinking. A group of holy men came together to produce a perfect piece of secular scripture whose meaning "originalists" try to extract from outdated verbiage. Anywhere else in the world, having to rely on 250-year-old legal code for important present-day judicial decisions would be considered a deep failure of lawmaking.
- dternyak 6y agoWith this logic, most of the world is exhibiting deeply ingrained magical thinking by honoring 3000+ year old commandments like "You shall not murder". Just because an ideology is honored and held in high esteem by its adherents (and to steelman your argument - even in higher esteem than it may deserve) does not mean we have better alternatives to the ideology.
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- goatinaboat 6y agoEurope, with its "regulated religious market", people couldn't switch religions as freely so organizations had no incentive to provide good services. Demand dropped because quality fell This is certainly true, the CofE has the status of Official state religion and makes absolutely no effort to “recruit and retain” churchgoers, if anything it views ordinary churchgoers as a massive inconvenience for the bishops who would rather swan about their palaces enjoying centuries of accumulated wealth and privilege.
- zwieback 6y agoComing from Germany to the US that's my impression as well, here churches, especially non-catholic are free to market to various demographics. In Germany people are mostly either Catholic or Protestant but generally stay home on Sunday (at least when I left 30 years ago). What's interesting is that a lot of Germans happily pay "church tax", the two churches take in billions, which they spend on social services in addition to their own overhead. So in Germany churches are regarded as a mix of service providers (for the eldery, daycare, etc.) with a preaching service most everyone ignores.
- k__ 6y agoI had the impression this is because most people who went to the America from Europe where religiously repressed (or religious nutjobs, depending on your perspective).
- bcrl 6y agoOne thing I noticed in the US compared to other countries is that its media is very much focused inward, at least from my experience in travelling to the US on business trips in the late 1990s and onward. It was very jarring the first time I experienced it. International news that was being covered by mainstream media in Canada and Europe was barely even a footnote in many US news broadcasts. My theory is that other countries rely much more on interactions with their neighbours, but that's just a guess.
- cj 6y ago> My theory is that other countries rely much more on interactions with their neighbours, but that's just a guess. I think that's on target. This probably plays a role in that as well: US population: 330 million (1 country) EU population: 446 million (dozens of countries bordering each other)
- ASalazarMX 6y agoUSA has always had a large propaganda effort (be it intentional or not) to sell itself as the greatest nation of the world to its citizens, and it might be why it's so overly important compared to the "lesser" countries. The USSR was seen as an evil peer until it collapsed, but now it is China. USA is the biggest, and if anyone dares to become as big, USA is still the best. This propaganda might have worsened its insular worldview.
- agumonkey 6y agofunny to see US afraid of propaganda but only if it's red.
- marcusverus 6y agoThe view of the USSR as evil wasn't unique to the US, nor is the prevailing negative view of China.[0] [0]https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/10/06/unfavorable-views-of-china-reach-historic-highs-in-many-countries/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/10/06/unfavorable-vi...
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- cblconfederate 6y agoThe answer in the subreddit is missing the historic dimension. The French Revolution toppled old powers , including religion and it labeled it as superstition. Universal rights were proclaimed (not granted by god), contrary to every religious doctrine. Secularism became a dogma. This had huge influence in the nascent new nations of europe. The spread of socialism and communism ensured further that christian religion would never recover. If there was demand for religion in europe, there would probably be a more vibrant market, but it that demand wasn't there.
- jgwil2 6y agoA couple Reddit comments posed the question of population density. Western Europe is extremely urban; the US much less so. How does the difference look once we control for this?
- idoubtit 6y agoThis reddit thread lacks numeric data. Here is a survey from the Pew Research Center (their methodology is sometimes arguably biased, but the overall tendencies should be OK). > How important is religion in your life? > (I summed "very important" and "somewhat important") > USA: 82% > Germany: 57% > Spain: 46% > UK: 42% > France: 37% > Source: https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2008/09/17/chapter-2-religiosity/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2008/09/17/chapter-2-reli... On the same page, the graph that correlates Purchasing Power with Religiosity is also very interesting. The correlation is obvious, with the USA an outstanding exception. This anomaly probably has multiple causes, as the main Reddit answer explained, and especially the "unsafe environment": many people live in the USA with social conditions worse than in most western countries.
- knbknb 6y agoMy estimation: Germany - Former GDR (East) : 2% Germany - Protestants (North) : 10% Germany - Catholic (South and West): 20% optimistic values, added lots of slack. Based on gut feeling.
- disown 6y agoIt's so funny watching people trying to ignore the obvious answer and desperately try to make up nonsense. Why did China, Russia, etc become less religious? Why did northern europe become protestant? Why is indonesia muslim? The answer is because the elites wanted it that way. Religion is a way for the elites to control the population. Maybe Europe, China, Russia, etc found better ways of controlling the population? If the elites need religion again to control the population, we'll have a revival. But modern societies have other tools for population control. It's why we are becoming less religious in the US. Maybe more religious than europe but less than we used to be.
- jrm4 6y agoNo mention of "white supremacy?" Curious, I think that's a big factor. Each European nation has its own claims to identity; whereas America more-or-less loses much of these individual identities in favor of "Whiteness" which sort of unifies and (badly) smooths those differences out among them, at the expense of black folks and others. I don't think you can maintain something like that without some kind of religious "glue" to support it, i.e. to be the veneer of goodness over the racism that lurks underneath. I'm sure this crosses over with a lot of that "protestant work-ethic" type stuff, especially as it allows some people who didn't do a lot of work to make claims to have done so, e.g. "Thomas Jefferson built Monticello."
- AndrewDucker 6y agoMy guess is that it's correlated with urbanisation. The USA still has lots of people living in more rural areas, and those tend to be more religious. Cities give people more options and places to hide - it's very hard for a church to exert that much influence, compared to a small town. So people can split off and do their own thing.
- JPKab 6y agoI heard some famous intellectual on Bill Maher one time say something like this: "When it comes to the British colonies, the US got stuck with the Puritans, Canada the French, and Australia the convicts."
- tathougies 6y agoMy parents fled their home country for freedom of religion in the USA. Many other immigrant groups have as well.
- Simulacra 6y agoI think it goes hand in hand with Europe's embracing of vice that has diluted the impact of religion on society. Not just alcohol and elicit drugs, but sexual libertine and pushing to legalize prostitution, which over time has possibly eroded those moral underpinning of religion that kept people tied to the church.