There are countries where the majority are atheist, like Sweden. How do those people live their lives? What do they think about?

Sounds like paradise to me.

Depends of the country! I'd rather live in Utah than have leved in Stalinist Soviet Union or in China under Mao.

Compulsory atheism has never turned out well:
Cuba, North Korea, Russia, Maoist China, and the Soviet satellite states being the best examples of what happens when the government tries to dictate the belief system (or, as with the Kims, the government *is* the belief system).

Additionally, Sweden is not majority atheist according to most demographic analyses. See the wiki here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Sweden

Only 13% self-identify as atheist in Sweden.

Religious oppression is completely different than a nation in which the population is predominantly atheist by choice.

If you had actually read the whole link you posted, you would have found that while only 13% self-identify as atheist,

18% of Swedish citizens responded that "they believe there is a god".
45% answered that "they believe there is some sort of spirit or life force".
34% answered that "they do not believe there is any sort of spirit, god, or life force".

and only 17% consider religions to be an important part of daily life.

This paints a very different picture.

I read all the stats, thanks.

The OP posted on atheism, which is why the only stat I wrote out in its entirely was regarding atheism. Even if you want to stretch things out, only 34% do not believe in some kind of supernatural / god-like force. That's still not a majority.

I *am* an atheist, but I don't presume to bucket others into that category unless they wish to identify as such.

Fair enough, but given that English is not the primary language spoken in Sweden, wouldn't a measure of religiosity and it's influence be more indicative of the question than how many people identify with a particular term that doesn't necessarily translate exactly?

Alpiner Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Compulsory atheism has never turned out well:
> Cuba, North Korea, Russia, Maoist China, and the
> Soviet satellite states being the best examples of
> what happens when the government tries to dictate
> the belief system (or, as with the Kims, the
> government *is* the belief system).
>
> Additionally, Sweden is not majority atheist
> according to most demographic analyses. See the
> wiki here:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Sweden
>
> Only 13% self-identify as atheist in Sweden.

Compulsory Marxism is more akin to religious fundamentalism than atheism.

Marx's writings were essentially interpretive observations of the world and unscientific projections about the course of human history--heavy on the metaphysical. While many Marxist leaders rejected belief in a traditional god, they maintained fanatical belief in dialectical materialism, the state, their supremacy, etc.

It's an oversimplification to call certain countries atheist when they maintained nonsensical, magical beliefs and behaved like religious fundamentalists with strict adherence to non-scientifically proven philosophies.

I live in Australia, only maybe a very small % would goto church every week, and I would say it's a very good society to live in, very low crime rates. Prostitution is legal but not many guys partake. We do have a bit of a drinking culture. And drug use is quite common but having access to a stable job means it is no real problem.

That's my two cents

The majority of people in Sweden are not affiliated with a specific religion. That is not the same as being atheist. Lots of people believe in a god of some sort without identifying with or attending a church

16.6% report no religious affiliation in Toronto. But people keep their religion to themselves. I work in a very culturally diverse office. I've no idea what the religious affiliations of my co-workers are. It just doesn't come up.

If you walked up to someone here and asked, "Have you been saved?" they'd probably look at you like, "What?" It just isn't done.

Religion is a private thing. Personally, I can't imagine living in a place where religion comes up constantly. That would be very strange to me.

No such thing exists.
Nor will it, in my view.

Religious beliefs/god beliefs are long ingrained in the human brain, it seems.

We can, however, live our personal beliefs, one way or another most places in most countries.

In the Czech Republic, only 16.0% believe in God, and only 20.5% claim any religion. A veritable atheist paradise, and a nice clean country too.

According to this online article, the least religious countries, in order, are: China, Japan, the Czech Republic, France, South Korea, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Iceland, Australia, and (surprisingly) Ireland.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/23/most-religious-countries-least-religious_n_3640033.html

I hear the Soviet Union kind of sucked.

There would still be snobs and exclusive people.

Religion is just some people's excuse to be nasty, exclusive, and prideful. But they'll find other excuses if they need to.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/03/2014 01:34AM by nonsequiter.

I'm assuming we're talking about bottom up and not top down.

I think it would be weird. I don't think we'd be better or worse people. I don't think people would behave differently because they no longer worried about some divine final judgment.

However, it would be nice to see Westboro Baptist and assholes of their ilk go the way of the dinosaur.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/03/2014 01:54AM by Beth.

Unbelievable.

haha

My friend told me how hard it was to preach the gospel in the czech republic. There is no way Czechs would sacrifice their beer over TBoM

FWIW.

The beer statement sounds Mormony to me.

Czech culture respects and values intelligence for men and women. Culture, study, and society (beer is in that mix) are important.

If Mormonism were a factual Truth as it claims to be. Czechs would forego beer.

Since Mormonism is a proven fraud they reasonably would not, as beer is lovely and Mormonism is not. Very sensible.

Not drunken, beer-loving dismissal.

Nobody said anything about drunk except you. Beer is a major part of socializing in the CR. Tea is a major part of socializing and common good manners in India. No way people there are going to give up their chai for Mormonism.

It's not about the beer. The problem is disrupting a working social structure and replacing it with a 3 hour block.

Consider this quote that is attributed to Benjamin Franklin --

"Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards, there it enters the roots of the vines, to be changed into wine, a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy."

(Source: Isaacson, Walter. Benjamin Franklin: An American Life. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2003. p.374.)

http://urbanlegends.about.com/b/2008/09/15/misquote-ben-franklin-on-beer.htm

Some of us feel that there is no harm in the consumption of tea and coffee, nor in the responsible consumption of alcoholic beverages. We feel that no loving nor just God would demand that of us.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/04/2014 10:44AM by summer.

They may not be drunkards, but they are very proud of their beer, I swear every town has its own brewery (for that matter so does every beer hall).

I went there once back when I was a TBM and when I'd tell people I didn't drink they would look at me like I had two heads.

No country is truly atheistic. Every society has its fair share of superstitious religious maniacs due to the fact that most humans are barely evolved chimps.

America and the Middle-East and other third-world countries just have more of them than elsewhere.

It would depend on what else the country has going for it. Atheism alone is no guarantee that things would be better, though I like to think so. It would just be nice to live in a country that is not defined by any religion--where religion takes its proper place as a personal issue.

I hear North Korea is lots of fun, especially if you like parades!

I do not understand the question. Nor do I understand the frequent comparisons to communist countries, a dictatorship is not the same thing as atheist rule. Besides, isn't the US government "atheistic"?

Basically stated, the US should behave like an "atheist country". Thanks to the constitution, the government should not be making laws and judgements based on religious beliefs, i.e. the "country" should be atheistic, not caring about religion or god or the beliefs of it's citizens.

Many of the people who live in this country are believers and they do sometimes influence law, but time and time again, religious laws are shot down (yes, yes, there's the whole Hobby Lobby thing, but I think and hope in time that will be rectified).

Where the majority of the population are atheists, why would that make a difference to how they live their lives or what they think about? Do atheists not have to work? raise their children? read books?

These questions sound like you expect the country to be a hedonistic, apocalyptic environment where no one has any morals. I rather think this isn't the case. As has been stated above there are several countries with a higher population of atheists and they are pretty normal to live in without much difference to other locations, the difference being that atheists probably aren't the most hated group in the country. So, that would mean that most people would probably live their lives a bit happier and more equally with their fellow citizens, rather than feeling like they have to hid their thoughts on religion like people do here in the states.

As someone who's been living for more than 30 years in one of those "least religious countries" cited earlier in this thread (France), I'd say the best things about the relative absence of religion are the lack of moralizing in public life (not the same as moral values), coupled with a respect for the privacy of people's private lives...

In other words, of course some people think they're better than others, etc., but they cannot use religion as an argument in the public debate, as often appears to be the case in the US, for example.

SO maybe the public debate is a bit more rational.

And the respect for privacy means that we don't have the prurience so often seen in the British press, pretending to be shocked because people have sex, etc.

But it doesn't mean life is paradise, just that some people have less of a stage on which to be @ssholes.

Tom in Paris

Great perspective from the front lines. Makes a lot of sense.

Free of tyranny of religion...
But, that is a wishful thinking with overwhelming gullible believers dominance

Should be easy to find out. Ask Russian Christians how they fared during the Commie years. Ask the Jews, too. Both groups were banned from meeting or instructing their children. Jews built secret mikvahs under their houses.

Anyone who violated the atheist law was sent to Siberia for several decades of hard labor.

Just ask them.