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"Most Americans who describe themselves as atheists, for instance, nonetheless believe that their souls will survive the death of their bodies." Wait, what? Ho
by kschrader 18y ago
"Most Americans who describe themselves as atheists, for instance, nonetheless believe that their souls will survive the death of their bodies."
Wait, what? How does that make sense?
- kirse 18y agoThat, and: "The Danes and the Swedes, despite being godless, have strong communities. In fact, Zuckerman points out that most Danes and Swedes identify themselves as Christian. They get married in church, have their babies baptized, give some of their income to the church, and feel attached to their religious community—they just don't believe in God." Any Danes or Swedes want to weigh in on this? I don't understand this at all.
- lhorn 18y agoMakes perfect sense: they've clearly separated traditions and habits from religion. The tradition of getting married in church is no different from a habit of screaming "jesus motherfucking christ!" when faced with a scary chance of seeing Texas Tech playing in a national championship game: no reason to call someone religious on both grounds.
- kirse 18y agoOK, but you can't "identify yourself as Christian" and then not believe in the existence of God. That's mainly my confusion, maybe it's a poor choice of words for the writer.
- netcan 18y agoAgain, these things are the kinds of definitions that are fuzzy. People identify themselves (& others) as Jews regardless of their beliefs. In areas where religion has become the current tribal banner such as N. Ireland, India, Iraq, etc., people do something similar. Often they mean association with a group. Sometimes they mean ancestry/heritage. 'Identify as a Christian' tends to mean different things in different places.
- baltoo 18y agoI'd say that in Sweden "identifying" oneself as Christian should be interpreted as having a value-system based on the traditional Christian one. What would be the alternative to identify oneself as Christian? As atheists? Where non-belief is overwhelmingly common there is little need to spell out you non-belief (that's taken almost for granted) and focus is instead put on what cultural aspects you feel in line with and which you don’t. Although people don't believe in God they still acknowledge that the Scandinavian cultures are heavily influenced by Christianity.
- netcan 18y agoOr even the habit/tradition of getting married full stop. This is also a tradition that has it's roots in religious heritage. Many institutions including Universities, States & many others have their roots in a religious foundation. If you asked 200 years ago, they may have been considered completely inalienable from each other. What happens if you take a Church & surrounds & remove God? You keep the building where a community of mixed age demographics but roughly stable across the long term meet weekly and talk about ways of living ethically or just hang out? People are welcome to join. Community activities are run there. There are a few people responsible for keeping the community together, caring for members in temporary or permanent need, spiritual well being of the members (can mean psychological well being if you're more comfortable with that). They do this full time & are committed to it. This religiony thing has ceremonies & traditions attached to it. Particularly those that are 'public' like weddings & funerals. What has belief in God got to do with any of that?
- rokhayakebe 18y agoIt makes a lot of sense. Think of Christians who go to Church and are very devoted, but deep inside they do not believe that Hell exists. They will not say it out loud, but they truly believe that Hell does not make sense. It is a bit of a Dichotomy, but Religion, Life, Atheism are all dichotomies themselves.
- laut 18y agoSome are christians some are not. I don't know why Danes or Swedes are labeled godless. In the surveys I have seen, most, but not all, Danes say they believe in God. I know that in many other countries some a lot of people say they are Christian even though they are not very religious. By the way it has been my experience that people in the US are very hospitable and offer to help strangers. I think more so than in Denmark. Additionally people in the US are more polite, which is nice, even though some people say it's just a superficial thing. I don't think this article is very good. It states that there is a welfare state in Denmark, but what does that have to do with being nice? The majority are beneficiaries, so they just vote that the minority should fund the system. I don't think it's being nice. The welfare state works on the basis of coercion, not voluntary help. - a Dane living outside of Denmark P.S. Are people going to upvote lolcats next? I think lolcats are funny, but for I can go to icanhascheezburger for that.
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- netcan 18y agoIn the technical sense it makes sense: Atheism means non-belief (or disbelief) in theism (& maybe also deism). You can hold all sorts of supernatural beliefs without a god-equivalent. So you can vaguely believe in souls, reincarnation, afterlife, spiritual energies, qi, prana, karma, darma, etc & still be an atheist. In the looser sense of common usage, people often call themselves atheists if they do not believe in a formalised or institutionalised set of beliefs & do not explicitly believe in (a) god.
- SwellJoe 18y agoAs you've noted, "atheist" is a very specific term, which simply means one affirms the non-existence of a god or gods. "Skeptic", of course, is probably the word that would best describe one who does not believe in any supernatural things, including god, elves, gremlins, and Eskimos.
- blurry 18y agoHuh? Having grown up in Siberia, I assure you Eskimos are very real.