Christianity in Europe: what is its future?

[Lillefix]

Uh, wrong. The Holy Bible is God's message to man. These other works were all authored by the Enemy.

Morgoth? He's fictional I'm afraid.

edit: I wrote this before he edited the post.

 

[_random_]

It is Satan's lie that we can be like God.

I understand the authorship of 2 Peter is controversial, but I've never heard that theory.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

A decent amount of people in Romania, Poland, Greece, Cyprus, Ireland, and Portugal still believe in "a God". I imagine the numbers in Turkey would be similar, but they are not in the EU.

Is that from a survey or from records?

 

[Borachio]

It is Satan's lie that we can be like God. We can not. The message of the Bible is not that we should try, but rather, admit our sin and repent and seek mercy at the feet of Jesus.

Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+10:33-35&version=KJV

 

[Winner]

Is that from a survey or from records?

Survey.

And it's important to note that the reported lack of belief in God (as in major religions) is usually compensated by a belief in "something":

(Europe belief in Spirit Life Force.png)

For the Czech Rep., data from the last census:

Roman Catholic: 10.3 %
Protestant: 0.9 %
Other specified religion: 2.7 %
Unspecified religion: 6.7 %
No religion: 34.2 %
No response given: 45.2 %

Ten years before it was:

Roman Catholic: 26.8 %
Protestant: 2.1 %
Other specified religion: 3.2 %
Unspecified religion: -
No religion: 59.0 %
No response given: 8.8 %

You can see that this time many more people chose not to answer the question, rather than to say they have no religious beliefs. In any case, the decline of Catholicism is striking: it went from 4,021,385 people ( 39.0%) in 1991 to 1,083,899 (10.3%) today.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

Uh, wrong. The Holy Bible is God's message to man. These other works were all authored by the Enemy. The message you cite is in fact the message of the Serpent:

Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.


It is Satan's lie that we can be like God. We can not. The message of the Bible is not that we should try, but rather, admit our sin and repent and seek mercy at the feet of Jesus.

http://bible.cc/matthew/5-48.htm - tell me you havent ever red this one

 

[Borachio]

Baptists don't really do much in the way of sacraments. Baptism is seen as just a means of public profession, and communion involves pasteurized grape juice and a cracker for strictly memorial purposes. Making it all symbolic strips God of His imminence; it gets rid of the idea that we may know God is with us and interacts with us through our lives by certain signs.
Here[/url] is a rundown on mainstream Orthodox thought by the charmingly-accented Metropolitan Kallistos Ware. You'll have to dig into late pre-Revolutionary Russian thinkers if you really want the bizarre-but-intriguing stuff.

This implies that God is wholly transcendent; and therefore unknown, and unknowable. Seems a little bit extreme. Is this really what the Orthodox say?

I was expecting a Russian accent! This guy has just been to Oxford.

I read some of that Russian stuff years and years ago. You're right, it is bizarre.

 

[CELTICEMPIRE]

For the Czech Rep., data from the last census:

Roman Catholic: 10.3 %
Protestant: 0.9 %
Other specified religion: 2.7 %
Unspecified religion: 6.7 %
No religion: 34.2 %
No response given: 45.2 %

Ten years before it was:

Roman Catholic: 26.8 %
Protestant: 2.1 %
Other specified religion: 3.2 %
Unspecified religion: -
No religion: 59.0 %
No response given: 8.8 %

You can see that this time many more people chose not to answer the question, rather than to say they have no religious beliefs. In any case, the decline of Catholicism is striking: it went from 4,021,385 people ( 39.0%) in 1991 to 1,083,899 (10.3%) today.

I thought there would be more Protestants in the Czech Republic as compared to Catholics, after all, Jan Hus was from that country. I guess when the Hapsburgs came down on the Protestants after the battle of the White Mountain they came down really hard.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

I thought there would be more Protestants in the Czech Republic as compared to Catholics, after all, Jan Hus was from that country. I guess when the Hapsburgs came down on the Protestants after the battle of the White Mountain they came down really hard.

And really long - 300 years.

 

[CELTICEMPIRE]

And really long - 300 years.

For some reason I thought that the Austrian Empire allowed religious freedom by the late 18th century.

 

[Winner]

For some reason I thought that the Austrian Empire allowed religious freedom by the late 18th century.

Eventually it did, but by that point Protestantism had been utterly crushed in the Czech lands. Protestant elites had fled or been dispossessed and the remnants were drive underground. Let's be glad for that (in hindsight, I mean) - the Protestant-Catholic hatred of each other actually did wonders in de-evangelizing the population. You know, if one Christian faction keeps telling you the other Christian faction is evil, and the other does the same, you will eventually realize that they might *both* be right

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

For some reason I thought that the Austrian Empire allowed religious freedom by the late 18th century.

There have been always some sort of discrimination even while there was certain degree of rel. freedom.

 

[gangleri2001]

Survey.

Now that's closer to Southern European reality... Wait! What happened in the Czech Republic?

Something's not working in the atheist paradise.

 

[Winner]

Now that's closer to Southern European reality... Wait! What happened in the Czech Republic?

Something's not working in the atheist paradise.

Self-declared atheists/agnostic are about 35% of our population (maybe more, close to 50% depending how many of those who chose not to respond were atheist/agnostic). Believers in some kind of a defined religion or people loosely affiliated with them are another 10-15%. The rest are "something-ists", i.e. people who don't care about religion that much and have no clear religious views, but at the same time are not agnostic/atheist either.

You can see the same thing in Sweden, so we're not unique in this respect.

 

[Leoreth]

As I said, we need to get over this idea of a dichotomy between organized religion with an Abrahamic God on one side and atheism on the other. It doesn't really reflect how many people approach religion today.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

Now that's closer to Southern European reality... Wait! What happened in the Czech Republic?

Something's not working in the atheist paradise.

Atheism is also just a believe, mind you...

 

[Angst]

It may be replaced by New Age nonsense with their positive energy and auras and chi and stuff. Doubt that will be an improvement.

I hope the churches stick around though. Some look very nice.

Christianity got us Kierkegaard. New age, however...

 

[Borachio]

As I said, we need to get over this idea of a dichotomy between organized religion with an Abrahamic God on one side and atheism on the other. It doesn't really reflect how many people approach religion today.

Yes. I agree.

Agnostics too seem to get a raw deal. Neither atheists nor theists seem willing to concede there might be a third position.

 

[gangleri2001]

Self-declared atheists/agnostic are about 35% of our population (maybe more, close to 50% depending how many of those who chose not to respond were atheist/agnostic). Believers in some kind of a defined religion or people loosely affiliated with them are another 10-15%. The rest are "something-ists", i.e. people who don't care about religion that much and have no clear religious views, but at the same time are not agnostic/atheist either.

You can see the same thing in Sweden, so we're not unique in this respect.

Ok, something-ism keeps atheism from becoming the hegemonic force.

As I said, we need to get over this idea of a dichotomy between organized religion with an Abrahamic God on one side and atheism on the other. It doesn't really reflect how many people approach religion today.

You're saying that to a Neopagan.

Atheism is also just a believe, mind you...

Atheism a belief in some force or spirit?

Christianity got us Kierkegaard. New age, however...

It took 19 centuries for Christianity to give you Kierkegaard. New Age has only been around for about 40 years.

 

[rugbyLEAGUEfan]

People getting inspired by and trying to do some of that stuff that Christ guy was on about? Fortunately I don't see that going away any time soon.

Not nearly as confident in the future of what is termed Christianity though.