The tranformation into a secular society

[Fredrik]

I'm new here (as anyone who can check my post count will soon notice) and I'll surely put in an introduction shortly enough, but there's a topic that I'd like some other peoples' take on. In short, it's this:

I live in Sweden. Arguably one of the most secular countries, albeit still predominantly Christian. My wife is from America, a country which while not entirely on the other end of the spectrum is still quite a ways from my own. After browsing these forums yesterday, I spent the half-hour walk home pondering why Sweden and America turned out so differently over the past century in terms of secularization.

Now, whether Sweden is a more secular country than America is not a trivial question because it requires you to define secularist in a very specific way. America is, based on their constitution, a secular country. Sweden, on the other hand, is a constitutional monarchy, where our regent is required to be a Lutheran. But in practise, it seems Sweden is the more secular one. I'm raised in a Christian home, I was even active in the church as a teenager, but "bible study groups" were virtually unheard of. My mother in law, on the other hand, attends one quite frequently, and I haven't gotten the impression that she's out of the norm for American Christians. I might be suffering from sample bias, of course, but that's why I carefully use the term "gotten the impression."

Examples of how America is a more religious country than Sweden are too many to try to list. I don't think I'll meet much resistance on that point in either case, so I'll leave it at that for now.

What is it that makes America so religious?

I originally asked myself the question what it is that makes Sweden secular, but I'm not sure I can easily come up with an answer. That the socialist party has been in rule for the vast majority of the last 70 years is certainly part of it; religion and socialism don't go hand in hand. But there was never any sort of "atheist revolution" that occured, it seems that religion simply just gradually faded out. Not all of it is gone, and the process has been pretty slow; when I grew up, we had our school graduation ceremonies in church. And it was only 10 years ago that the Church of Sweden officially parted from the state. And you can still, on the government run TV channels, watch a live broadcast of mass on Sunday morning (but no corresponding broadcast from a mosque or a synagogue is aired).

So perhaps socialism is part of it.

America, then. My best guess (and I believe it's a contributing factor, but not necessarily all of it) has to do with the cold war. In the name of patriotism, America painted itself as the Christian nations, up against the Evil Godless Soviets. "In God We Trust" and "One Nation Under God" originated during the cold war if I'm not mistaken. Religion became a uniting symbol in the "us vs them" rally.

Are there more explanations? As far as I can estimate, the "level of religion" (however you'd measure that) wasn't very different in the US as compared to Sweden 100 years ago. I contemplated the possibility that because America was such a young country with many small towns, that the church would have served as a natural gathering point, but I don't think this would be a great contributor, because I think that was true in most Swedish towns as well, before.

Going to church is also certainly a more social activity in America than it is here, but again, cause and effect aren't really clear, here.

The reason I bring it up at all, is because I was watching various debates and discussions (most notably the 07 AAI conference where Prof. Dawkins brings up what we can do to stop the religious influence) and thought "huh, I don't think we had to do much of anything to bring about a more secular society." That's not to say that there's nothing left to fight for in Sweden, but I thought it was an interesting topic enough for discussion to serve as my first post.

Cheers,
Fredrik

[Bitchfinder General]

Hi Fred, welcome to the forum.

You got me on that. I'm from Britain; we also have a constitutional monarchy, also have an official religion, also pretty secular.

I guess if America wants to become properly secular they should try starting an official church /shrug.

[Fredrik]

So that any animosity directed at the government will automatically spill over on the state church?

"Raise my taxes? SCREW YOU, then I won't go to service on Sunday!"

[Brokendoll]

I live in Norway, also a fairly secular society, also with a state-backed church. also a monarchy.
I think part of the reason state-backed religious organizations can actually make a (civilized) society more secular is because as time progresses and more and more laws are passed making sure everyone is treated the same (more or less), the "official" religion -has- to become more bland to adapt. Hence, it won't inspire the same amount of black and white points of view that a more confrontational faith might. As the religion becomes more and more for everyone, it in fact becomes more and more a religion for nobody. It becomes uninspired, has no real opinions and confronts nobody.

In my view an important "value" of being a part of a religious faith is so that you can say "Well, at least I'm better than those heathens..." It is, in short, another aspect of tribe mentality, one that has been deeply ingrained into human consciousness over hundreds of thousands of years. It is hard to break free from for some people, at least if that is all they have (statistics show that when people are suffering, they become more attached to faith).

At least, that's my theory.

[ayyini]

I've been thinking about this for a while, and, for whatever it are worth, here is my opinion.

1) No state religion. As Brokendoll discussed, an official (and, in some places, compulsory) religion/church tends to liberalize and water-down over time. People become less interested and it just kinda fades quietly into the night, as it were.

2) No history of religious violence. While there have been isolated incidents throughout the history of the United States, it has been (uniquely, I think) almost free of religious physical violence. After the brutal explicit religious wars and the usage of religion to support other wars...people just get tired of it. See Thirty-Years' War.

3) Imported belief. The US is a country of immigrants, primarily of people from troubled areas of the world. These people brought nothing with them into a strange land and had to bond with people the only way they knew how - with churches. Immigrant groups tend to stick together, and this creates a cycle of internal culture separate from the outer world, with religion often at the center. It takes a long time to integrate and assimilate, and many groups actively fight against it.

4) The founding. Officially, the US was colonized by the British (with a few areas by the French and Spanish). But who came here? Many of the settlers in the beginning, and even to this day, are political and religious refugees, essentially. The Europeans either forced dissident religious groups to colonize, or the groups decided to flee the oppression of the state and official church. This created a place of extreme diversity from the outset.

5) The hands-off approach. Ironically, the thing that probably led to the flourishing of religion in the US is something that many of the religious despise - The Establishment Clause, and the First Amendment in general. Without government interference, religions are free to do almost anything they please. The mass fracture of religion (I've heard figures of 20,000-30,000 branches of Protestantism alone) means that there is a non-trivial size of believers of just about anything that someone could believe.

edit: 6) Population density. People in rural areas tend to me much more religious. I think that it has to do with homogeneity of surroundings and lack of exposure to opposing viewpoints and peoples. In any event, the average population density of the US is 31 (people per square km) with Europe's at something like triple of that. Netherlands 295, UK 246, Germany 232, Italy 193, Switzerland 176, Denmark 126, France 110, Sweden 20, Norway 12.

How is it that so many of the religious want a state church (1) and no separation (5)? It seems to me that these are major factors that allow them to exist in the first place.

My two cents.

[Spacetime Inhabitant]

America, then. My best guess (and I believe it's a contributing factor, but not necessarily all of it) has to do with the cold war. In the name of patriotism, America painted itself as the Christian nations, up against the Evil Godless Soviets. "In God We Trust" and "One Nation Under God" originated during the cold war if I'm not mistaken. Religion became a uniting symbol in the "us vs them" rally.

This certainly seems like it could be a big factor (but building on a pre-existing foundation of religiosity).
Here is a weak hypothesis - those nations that have a "divinely inspired" monarch can easily see that their king or queen is humanely flawed, so that the divine must also be flawed.
My own country has much in common with America [including constitutional alleged separation of church and state), and yet in regard to religion we are like the European nations.
I think explanations must be found in some unique attribute of USA as compared with other western nations, and possibly also by comparing it with other similarly theocratic states (which are generally not first world nations).

[Fredrik]

This certainly seems like it could be a big factor (but building on a pre-existing foundation of religiosity).
Here is a weak hypothesis - those nations that have a "divinely inspired" monarch can easily see that their king or queen is humanely flawed, so that the divine must also be flawed.
My own country has much in common with America [including constitutional alleged separation of church and state), and yet in regard to religion we are like the European nations.
I think explanations must be found in some unique attribute of USA as compared with other western nations, and possibly also by comparing it with other similarly theocratic states (which are generally not first world nations).

I know so little about religion in australia that it's difficult for me to comment. If there's an influence from noticing flaws in the monarch, I think it's a minor one. But it may not be negligible. If you have dislike Queen Elizabeth, perhaps you're less likely to want to be a part of the Church of England?

I've been thinking about this for a while, and, for whatever it are worth, here is my opinion.

1) No state religion. As Brokendoll discussed, an official (and, in some places, compulsory) religion/church tends to liberalize and water-down over time. People become less interested and it just kinda fades quietly into the night, as it were.

I think this is a fascinating point with interesting implications. I need to do a little more thinking about it.

2) No history of religious violence. While there have been isolated incidents throughout the history of the United States, it has been (uniquely, I think) almost free of religious physical violence. After the brutal explicit religious wars and the usage of religion to support other wars...people just get tired of it. See Thirty-Years' War.

I think this is good but minor point. But it's true that there hasn't been any "turn-offs" associated with American churches in the same way that might have happened in many other countries. Will be interesting in a decade or so to see what kind of effect the somewhat recent Catholic church scandal had on religiousity. Is that a word? Ah, well.

3) Imported belief. The US is a country of immigrants, primarily of people from troubled areas of the world. These people brought nothing with them into a strange land and had to bond with people the only way they knew how - with churches. Immigrant groups tend to stick together, and this creates a cycle of internal culture separate from the outer world, with religion often at the center. It takes a long time to integrate and assimilate, and many groups actively fight against it.

This argument certainly has merit. Religion has been a symbol to gather around. I have more thoughts on this, but saving them for further down.

4) The founding. Officially, the US was colonized by the British (with a few areas by the French and Spanish). But who came here? Many of the settlers in the beginning, and even to this day, are political and religious refugees, essentially. The Europeans either forced dissident religious groups to colonize, or the groups decided to flee the oppression of the state and official church. This created a place of extreme diversity from the outset.

Closely connected with #3. I think this is a very important point.

5) The hands-off approach. Ironically, the thing that probably led to the flourishing of religion in the US is something that many of the religious despise - The Establishment Clause, and the First Amendment in general. Without government interference, religions are free to do almost anything they please. The mass fracture of religion (I've heard figures of 20,000-30,000 branches of Protestantism alone) means that there is a non-trivial size of believers of just about anything that someone could believe.

Also closely connected with #3 and #4. I think we're on to something of importance here.

edit: 6) Population density. People in rural areas tend to me much more religious. I think that it has to do with homogeneity of surroundings and lack of exposure to opposing viewpoints and peoples. In any event, the average population density of the US is 31 (people per square km) with Europe's at something like triple of that. Netherlands 295, UK 246, Germany 232, Italy 193, Switzerland 176, Denmark 126, France 110, Sweden 20, Norway 12.

I considered this, and while I think it could be a contributing factor, I think it's also a minor one.

How is it that so many of the religious want a state church (1) and no separation (5)? It seems to me that these are major factors that allow them to exist in the first place.

My two cents.

Yes, interesting, isn't it?

Thank you for some very well thought out points. I think you're definitely on to something in regards to diversity and spread, and I think that it's quite plausible that people who live in a country with a state religion simply get turned off because that particular brand of religion is unlikely to fit specifically them. In a country like America, where you have plenty of different churches and denominations to pick from - a veritable smorgasbord - there's a much better chance (risk, depending on the perspective) that if you feel that your church doesn't have it quite right, you'll find something else that fits your particular bill better.

I think that might be one of the two major differences between the more secular countries and America: My country is perhaps not any less prone to religion than America, most of us simply don't agree with the one choice that's offered to us so many of us stay home and ignore religion instead.

The other major difference, and I'm really just expanding on your arguments here, would be that the diversity also creates groups much more effectively. And people just love to be part of groups. It's certainly more exciting to be a part of a small group who are separate from "all the others" than to be a part of the group that everyone is a part of anyway. Smaller churches have more closely nit communities (or I get the impression that that's the case, anyway) and that would certainly contribute.

[Fredrik]

Oh, and I should add this:

It may be dangerous of me to think of Sweden as a secular country, because if the argument that people skip church simply because they don't have access to the particular flavor of church that they might actually enjoy going to holds true, then we're not really a "role model" for atheists at all. We're just a dormantly religious country who don't go to church because we haven't found the right one yet. Ideally, we'd have replaced religion with reason but I'm not convinced that that's the case. I feel like most non-religious people in Sweden didn't replace it with anything at all, except maybe a longing for something else. Hopefully science and reason can fill that void.

[Fredrik]

[Sorry for the bump - but I wanted to add this]

I'm on a God Delusion-reread (it was a year or two since I read it) and discovered that Dawkins actually covers this to some extent in his book, although briefly. His guesses as to why the US has turned out so differently from the UK (in his example) are close to what we said here, with the only real exception perhaps being that the variety offered might be an influencing factor. He does say, however, that because there's no state religion, US churches have to compete on the open market, so to speak, and are therefore likely to be more aggressive in reeling in new "customers" and making sure to keep the existing ones, by various incentives and marketing probably not at its core unsimilar to any other company. It's tied to the smorgasbord idea, but with a capitalist take on it, if you will. I think it makes a lot of sense and I think I'm satisfied with that as an explanation.

Thanks.

Fredrik

[Globe]

Hi fellow Scandinavians.
(Don't let my location fool you. Next month it will be Denmark, and late april it will be London. )

This is something I have pondered over as well.
There are several factors in this I think.
One is to look at the history of the countries that are least religious. That would be Sweden, Norway and Denmark.
All 3 have a history of the Monarchy fighting with the church for power, rather than being allies. That is especially true after the reformation. But even before then, the local Monarchies tried to curb the churches power as much as possible. Not for anti-theistic reasons, but for plain old financial reasons.

Second factor I think is very important is the social structure in Scandinavia. There are minor differneces, but in principle and pracis the 3 countries are almost indestinguisable from eachother.
We have a high leve of social security and rarely, if ever, have to rely on network and charity to get us through the day. Much of this was started by the socialist movement and the Unions, but as time has passed both conservative governments and companies have seen the benefir of having workers that felt safe and well taken care of.
When you biggest problem is wether or not to save a little extra for the new car or take 2 weeks on Ibiza rather than one, you don't really need to lean on anything much.

Third is: We ARE Scandinavians. (walks away, hands in pockets, whisteling a happy tune while giggeling evil inside)

[Brokendoll]

Oh, and I should add this:

It may be dangerous of me to think of Sweden as a secular country, because if the argument that people skip church simply because they don't have access to the particular flavor of church that they might actually enjoy going to holds true, then we're not really a "role model" for atheists at all. We're just a dormantly religious country who don't go to church because we haven't found the right one yet. Ideally, we'd have replaced religion with reason but I'm not convinced that that's the case. I feel like most non-religious people in Sweden didn't replace it with anything at all, except maybe a longing for something else. Hopefully science and reason can fill that void.

As I written about earlier (under the username Truant), one major problem I see in Norway (and elsewhere) is that people seem to replace religion, not with science and reason, but with all kinds of alternative mumbo-jumbo. We have healers, tarot-readers, astrologers and others running amok, apparently without challenge. I tried appealing to the Consumer Counsel to see if there were any laws that could be thrown at them, but apparently the marketing laws are too vague to be effective in this case.
And all the while the media seems to think (perhaps rightly so) that the supernatural sells better than critical thinking. As I argued earlier, being an expert on crystal healing (or whatever), and thus talking about to everyone you know, is a lot easier that being an expert on, say biology. Science is hard, and since it is based on facts you have to actually study to be able to say anything useful about it, whereas with the so called supernatural or "alternative" you don't have to study at all. You can just make stuff up.

We need more James Randis...

[History_Junky]

Canada is a constitutional monarchy as well and we are also very secular. Its strange really, the americans have a strangle hold over our culture yet our society is different. For example gay marriage and abortion are legal here and the opposition is small albeit seems large because its organized.

This is a great question.

[Fredrik]

Brokendoll: I think superstition seems genetically coded into human beings, so if organized religion is not there, then something else will often fill the void. But even if religion isn't replaced by reason, it's still better from my perspective that religion isn't there, because people with a spiritual hole to fill at least don't have a preacher telling them not to listen to the scientist. It's easier to reach people like that.

Globe: What you're saying reminds me of the Magnus Betnér stand-up in New York where he said that "I know you Americans are really religious. I guess that's what happens when you don't have social security." But that aside, it's certainly not JUST the poor and unemployed who are religious in America.

When there's a huge difference between two cultures that are seemingly very similar, then the difference is pretty likely to be due to a tipping point of some sort (see Malcom Gladwell's book The Tipping Point). Very minor things can have a huge impact, is basically the message of the book, because behavior isn't gradual. I think the most telling example in the book was the New York subway, where in order to clear out the rampant criminality the chief of police made two changes:

1. Stop people from just jumping over the gates and get them to start paying.
2. Have a zero-tolerance policy for graffiti, taking any cars that are sprayed out of service and cleaned immediately.

Strangely, this stopped crime. I call it the "Broken Window"-theory, after another example in the book: A deserted house can stand for a long time without anyone doing anything to it - until the first window is broken. Then it will usually be just a matter of weeks before the whole house is trashed. Draw a parallel to Swedes and how "clean" it feels on the streets here compared to many other countries. It's not because we're such well-behaved citizens - in fact, I think we mess up as much as anyone when we're on vacation abroad - but there's a much bigger threshold to pass to be the FIRST one to throw an empty can on an otherwise clean sidewalk.

I could see the Cold War being the tipping point for religion. You showed up at church every week, because you were a patriot and wanted to distance yourself from the godless commies. Your neighbors would frown upon you not going. Peer pressure set in and it spread quickly.

My point in this is perhaps one of hope: If relatively small changes can make a nation like the US be extremely religious, then perhaps it's a matter of small changes to take away the crazy.

[elroywillis]

I could see the Cold War being the tipping point for religion. You showed up at church every week, because you were a patriot and wanted to distance yourself from the godless commies. Your neighbors would frown upon you not going. Peer pressure set in and it spread quickly.

Tied to this is the enormous size of the US military and its powers. Many religious people tend to see this as having god on their side, to spread freedom and democracy by the force of a divinely-protected military force, most of whom are Christians with a "soldiers for Christ" attitude.

[oddman]

Hej Fredrik, välkommen! (Hi Fredrik, welcome!)

So perhaps socialism is part of it.

Regarding your opening post: yes I do think this had a major role to play in the decline of religion in Sweden. Being only 24 years old I can only speak about what I've heard from my parents and grandparents; something obviously happened in the late 60's and the 70's. Both of my parents were socialists (Marxists even) "back in the days" and niether of them is connected to any belief system to my knowledge.

This is a speculation from my part but I think it's a fair one: if you would compare church attendance in the 50's with the late 70's I suspect there has been a decline with at least 50% (propably more!). Do you have any information about this? If I compare the generations of my grandparents (which all, more or less, consider themselves christians) with the generation of my parents there is a major change in attitudes. It's the "old" versus the "new", so to speak.

Something happened, but what happened?

[the_heretic]

australia and new zealand are completelly secular...

1) No state religion. As Brokendoll discussed, an official (and, in some places, compulsory) religion/church tends to liberalize and water-down over time. People become less interested and it just kinda fades quietly into the night, as it were.

+1 for aus and nz.

2) No history of religious violence. While there have been isolated incidents throughout the history of the United States, it has been (uniquely, I think) almost free of religious physical violence. After the brutal explicit religious wars and the usage of religion to support other wars...people just get tired of it. See Thirty-Years' War.

+1 for aus and nz

3) Imported belief. The US is a country of immigrants, primarily of people from troubled areas of the world. These people brought nothing with them into a strange land and had to bond with people the only way they knew how - with churches. Immigrant groups tend to stick together, and this creates a cycle of internal culture separate from the outer world, with religion often at the center. It takes a long time to integrate and assimilate, and many groups actively fight against it.

+1 for aus and nz.

4) The founding. Officially, the US was colonized by the British (with a few areas by the French and Spanish). But who came here? Many of the settlers in the beginning, and even to this day, are political and religious refugees, essentially. The Europeans either forced dissident religious groups to colonize, or the groups decided to flee the oppression of the state and official church. This created a place of extreme diversity from the outset.

aus and nz are brittish colonies as well...though aus is a convict colony which might mean something.

5) The hands-off approach. Ironically, the thing that probably led to the flourishing of religion in the US is something that many of the religious despise - The Establishment Clause, and the First Amendment in general. Without government interference, religions are free to do almost anything they please. The mass fracture of religion (I've heard figures of 20,000-30,000 branches of Protestantism alone) means that there is a non-trivial size of believers of just about anything that someone could believe.

+1 for aus and nz pretty much.

edit: 6) Population density. People in rural areas tend to me much more religious. I think that it has to do with homogeneity of surroundings and lack of exposure to opposing viewpoints and peoples. In any event, the average population density of the US is 31 (people per square km) with Europe's at something like triple of that. Netherlands 295, UK 246, Germany 232, Italy 193, Switzerland 176, Denmark 126, France 110, Sweden 20, Norway 12.

australias population density is 2.6 and new zealands is 15.