Just finished reading Christopher Hitchens's "God is not great". Is atheism the trend now? Or agnosticism? What is your rough estimate of atheists vs agnostics vs believers in % in your country?

About 10% in the US. It has increased slightly over time but not as much as one would expect based on the recent heightened publicity of atheism.

There is also the fraction of the population consisting of what one might call "practical atheists," meaning people who say they believe in a god but have little or no religious or "spiritual" practice to speak of. It's my impression that this is growing at least as fast as declared atheism or agnosticism.

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Originally posted by Vector A "practical atheists," meaning people who say they believe in a god but have little or no religious or "spiritual" practice to speak of

Don't quite understand. How are they "atheists" if they believe in god? In which part is it practical? Can you elaborate on this some more please?

Meaning they say that they are not atheists, but behave about the same as the average (non-evangelical) atheist. "In practice," they might as well be atheists.

I think you're right VA; there's more and more people not practicing and althought they may "believe" many are becoming so far removed that for all intents, they might as well be athiest or agnostic.

But Boris, you're a little behind the curve; that book came out in 2007 Hitchens has since died, but even then it really came after Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion which was probably the biggest selling athiest subject book in history.

In the UK it's now calculated that less than 1m people still go to church (out of a population of 65m).

The states is a lot more religious but historically speaking, it's currently less religious than it's ever been (although certain news outlets would have you believe the opposite).

Reporting for France:
35% of the population is atheist, and one of two people from 18 to 35 y.o is atheist. By 2030, more than 50% of the population will be atheist.

It's not a surprise at all, since the French State and the Church became two separate institutions in 1789, when the Revolutionaries took over the Monarchy.

Altough there's still a church in every town (about 50 000 churches), French is definitely not a religious population.


Personally, I was baptize when I was a child and went to catechism classes for a few month, but it was bothering me to wake up at 8 on Sundays to sing for 2 hours in church.

Btw, my parents aren't religous at all, I don't exactly know why they decided to get me baptized.

Last edited by bluegmt on Aug-19-2015 at 06:37

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Originally posted by bluegmt Btw, my parents aren't religous at all, I don't exactly know why they decided to get me baptized.

Might be like here in Quebec. A lot of non-religious parents still baptize their newborns because of community pressure to do so.

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But as far as % of atheists in Canada I'm really not sure.

As far as my province is concerned since Vatican II the majority of French Catholics here basically said fuck you to the religious institution in this province and despite the fact that there's a church and priest in every town I would find it unlikely if 10 people showed up on Sundays.

Even our beautiful cathedral in downtown Montreal is completely empty on Sundays.

However, the English Catholic churches in Montreal are, for whatever reason, thriving.

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Originally posted by bluegmt It's not a surprise at all, since the French State and the Church became two separate institutions in 1789, when the Revolutionaries took over the Monarchy.

The irony is that just before, the USA did exactly the same thing - the war of independence was actually really about ridding America from an "appointed by god leader" and move towards enlightenment.

So much of the constitution is based on separation of church and state for this very reason and the founding fathers were nearly all Deists (however I'm inclined to believe that Jefferson was actually a full on Atheist).

It's ridiculous that certain factions now try to paint the constitution as some kind of religious right that was delivered by Jesus to protect faith. It was quite the opposite.

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Originally posted by DJ RANN Boris, you're a little behind the curve; that book came out in 2007 Hitchens has since died, but even then it really came after Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion which was probably the biggest selling athiest subject book in history.

Maybe, but I watched a few videos featuring Dawkins, including this documentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nAos1M-_Ts and I must say that his rhetoric was somewhat simplistic and even provocative. I mean what was he expecting when he said to Ted Haggard that his preaching on stage reminded the Nuremberg Rally?

Dawkins is a belligerent prick. It's unfortunate that he's the "face of atheism" to so many people. He is a preacher for the converted (or rather, the uncoverted) and his methods are only going to make religious people more hostile to the idea of atheism.

As for the question, depending on which survey you believe, around 25% of the UK's population categorise themselves as atheists. To be honest, aside from a few middle aged coworkers, I'd struggle to name a single person I know who is actually religious in an orthodox sense. Most people who do have any faith would say some variation of "I believe in something, but not the God you'd find in the Bible."

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I think identifying as an atheist is just as dumb as identifying as religious. I agree with Sam Harris that it's probably best to just identify as non-religious.

Last edited by Floorfiller on Aug-19-2015 at 13:38