Hello everybody.
A couple of days ago, I was talking to some Mexican, Ecuadorian and Colombian friends of mine who didn't understand why most Europeans were so reserved about their religion and considered it a private and personal matter or a taboo, especially if compared to Latin Americans or Americans from the USA . They told me even staunch and die-hard atheists and agnostics talk about it in their countries and mention God in every conversation on a daily basis as a common habit due to their family upbringing and no one will roll his eyes about it or frown upon it because they've got the theory thank most Europeans think religion is something backwards and old-fashioned.
For example, it is less likely in Europe for people to ask strangers on the subject (What's your religion?/Do you believe in God?) as a conversation topic or when making small talk in the street, at the bus stop or in a pub or asking during a job interview. Besides, European celebrities like singers, actors or sportspeople are not as prone, open, vocal and outspoken as Latin Americans or Americans to talk openly about their faith or even to thank God for their success when winning an award, a medal or a championship, probably because some people may feel offended or maybe because they're ashamed or get a complex about it, but context and cultural differences will probably play an important role in this case as always.
Sorry for my controversial question and enjoy your summer holidays
Carlos M.S. from Spain
34 comments
I noticed this too. It may be that in the Western Hemisphere there is more influence of charismatic Protestantism, which encourages people to preach more and be an “active Christian”, while the Orthodox, Catholics and traditional Protestants treat their religion a little like a culture.
A) Most European countries these days are less religious than their settler colonial counterparts
B) Because, for the most part, religion *is* meant to be something deeply personal, not something you’re supposed to shove in people’s faces, and nor are you supposed to judge people on their choice of religion. Asking “what religion are you” often implies that they *have* a religion in the first place, or if they don’t, that you’re judging them for not having one.
C) Religion has been a source of deep division in many European countries. There are countries where, until recently, you could have been murdered for belonging to the wrong branch of Christianity.
Id say you have to divide this up by regions, both in America and in Europe. Someone from the Southern Cone might be even more irreligious than a southern european but the nordics will beat everyone else. Add socioeconomic group division and it gets even more complex (singers, actors, sportspeople for example will tend to come from lower socioeconomic groups where religion is more alive).
“…ven staunch and die-hard atheists and agnostics talk about it in their countries and mention God in every conversation on a daily basis…” Totally disagree. Yes of course religion is more present in the Americas on average than europe on average but thats just a very extreme exaggeration. Religion stopped playing a role in my life and my friends life after being teenagers and no one ever batted an eye.
“(What’s your religion?/Do you believe in God?) as a conversation topic or when making small talk in the street, at the bus stop or in a pub or asking during a job interview.”
— Never ever had that conversation come up in Mx either, I think it’d be universally considered impolite. I remember there was even a scandal when there were rumors that Corona would ask that at interviews.
In short, there are differences of course. Europe has become much more irreligious on average than the americas but your friends are blowing up that difference IMO.
Because:
1. Christianity is not the only religion in the world and not evereyone in the world is Christian – shocking, I know
2. Even if they are one of the Ten Commandments says not to use the God’s name without reason, and using it every 2nd sentence is definetly overusing it
3. Religion and beliefs is private buisness and often intimate: I don’t care about yours, you keep away from mine. People that preach to random strangers are considered loons.
4. If I go to bar I want to have fun, the last thing I want to think about is religion and if just met person start to quiz me about it it’s a red flag and reason to hightail it from them
5. Asking about religion in job interwiev is forbidden by law and can be sued
6. I may thank a deity if I survive a plane crash, but if I won a medal in championship I won it because I worked hard
I’m from country considered to be one of the most Cathlic in Europe and we talk about religion – with WILLING participants.
A job interview is the last place you should be talking about religion, unless you’re applying to be a priest. It sounds like the perfect way to get sued for religious discrimination if you end up rejecting the candidate.
Besides that, I think the reason is that religion isn’t as prevalent in Europe. People who are very religious will often talk about it, there just aren’t that many.
Because Europe has seen literal genocides and religion wars. So religion = private thing = safer and more stable for everyone.
Wars and civil revolutions have been fought over religion. In the end this has led to the seperation of stately and religious matters, which in turn means that religion is something personal.
Also, I’ve heard that colonizers and such who moved to the New World were more fanatical in their religion.
Religion used to be pretty oppressive in most of Europe for centuries. The continent slaughtered itself in religious wars. After the worst, the 30 years war, it slowly started to become a little less contentious, by stating that a ruler may decide the religion of the country. That means that for centuries mostly everyone had the same religion anyway or had to hide it to avoid negative repercussions. That made it a complete non-topic of conversation, because the answer was either boring or dangerous. Other than that, church and state were super intermingled, the church ruling closely into people‘s private lives. So getting rid of that level of control was a long and strenuous fight, so people are wary of religion. That’s why nowadays it’s private and that’s why a lot of people are super suspicious of Islam, because it doesn’t follow these societal keep it private rules, therefore being considered a threat.
Religion played a very big role and was put on focus for a very long time and we just killed each other over it, even just for a different branch of it, turns out that when people keep their religion to themselves everyone is much more chill.
For Spain specifically, the dictatorship put a very strong emphasis on religion so once it was over a lot of people resented it and moved away from it.
I’m Catholic, not really that practicing though, but if I get a random person asking me about my religion I assume they are a bit too religious. I don’t care about your religion.
The southern code of America is very irreligious.
I’m not sure people are guarded about religion, it is more that in the northern and western nations religion just isn’t seen as important anymore. I know nobody in my age group (mid 40s) that goes to a church, the church in our village of 1000 souls attracts maybe 5 very elderly parishioners on a Sunday. Funerals are often without religion involved, same for weddings.
Nobody bats an eyelid if people do get married in church, but there’s no expectation that people do either.
Add to that the (sad) fact that most religious contact these days is from hardcore branches of the church, people are annoyed with getting Jehovah’s witnesses cold-selling religion or, as I saw recently, an American with megaphone in the middle of Dundee yelling in people’s faces that they should repent for their sins or face eternal damnation. Like fuck mate, have you tried growing up in Lochee? Eternal damnation is the last of their worries.
The last remaining bastions of religion here in the UK are muslim communities and they tend to be pretty inward focussed.
i kinda feel it depends in which part of Europe do you go. Eastern Europe is the most religious part of the continent, and the people will openly talk about Christianity. A lot of singers from my country sing about God, (though more than often in a funny context) at least when it comes to the tradition music. People love to debate the theological differences, and they are pretty conservative and religious by comparison with the rest of europe. But indeed, a huge difference between Christian orthodox and the Christians from America, even the Catholics, is the lack of evangelization.
We dont go in missions to convert people the way others do like going on the streets and all and sitting with books on the side of the streets or debate in public like i see on the american tiktok, is not part of the religion/culture. We dont have Christian orthodox schools in the traditional sense of catholics and evangelists. But you will have non violent clashes between the religious and the lgbt at the pride parade every year for example. Orthodoxy in the same doesnt impose on the women to stay at home and pour children as much as evangelism does in the US. Our priests can marry and most of their wives either have a job or own a bussiness. We also cant just create a new church and interpret the bible like we feel like it happens there. We also dont have those obligatory bible reading stuff at universities.
Religion is divisive and people don’t want to be judged, if you follow the only true god by the only and true way that means that the ones who doesn’t are mistaken, in general people don’t want to engage in those discussions so nobody brings the topic.
Also even being believer in some form of deity related with the traditional religions, religiousness might be seen kind of anachronical for a lot of Europeans, it’s supposed to be something personal.
Superstitious believes are by far less common in most western european countries, especially the northern ones.
Italy is still pretty Catholic (although actual practicing Catholics are very few) and yet if you mention God in a conversation, like: “I’m glad God exists” or something, people will probably think you’re weird or a bigot, or you’re trying to guilt-trip them for not believing. This doesn’t mean that talking about spirituality is frowned upon though. Some people do like sharing what they think might happen after we cross the border to the afterlife, even if they’re not Christian. I’m an atheist btw and so is my inner friend circle/close family. Oh, and Italians insult God a lot, so…
We’re taught that faith/religion is personal. In the more Catholic areas (Southern Germany), it’s more open/public. I prefer it more private, I don’t really care what fantasy figure you believe in.
It’s because most western Europeans are either atheists or agnostics, it’s become uncool, so even those who are religious prefer to keep quiet about it (most of the time).
At least in Western Europe, we are simply not religious, we don’t have strong feelings about it. Indeed we see it as something old-fashioned and backwards. It’s just not a conversation topic because it plays no role in a person’s life. We don’t mention God because we don’t believe and don’t have the habit. Religion is dying out, no one is going to church. The most religious people in Europe are non-Christians, mostly Muslims, and we see their religion as a very negative thing.
* We are much less religious. Even those who are still member of a church are oftentimes not really religious in the sense of how some people in the US bible belt are. NB there are small Bible belt regions in Europe, IIRC the Netherlands have one and the religious people are called black socks due to their traditional dresses. Germany nowadays has the Pietcong area around Karlsruhe where some weird religious people live.
* We created the law of nations after the most devastating war in our history, which was started due to religious reasons. And one of the main principles was Cuius regio, eius religio. So the region where you lived determined which religion you had. There were very small exceptions, mostly for Jews, some Moslems and later French Huguenots. But it was usually also very visible which religion someone had. Even the German armies in WW1 where still separated by religion, at least in the beginning.
* The only people who are asking about religion are those weird US Mormons on their mission trying to proselytize. And they are often baffled that religion here plays no role in your daily life.
* My federal state has the highest rate of atheists in Germany, which is kind of interesting considering that Wittenberg is here and the capital is known as *Our Lord’s pulpit*.
* Talking about religion is an absolute no go at a job interview, unless you work directly for the church. Unfortunately, the churches have their own employment law, which allows for discrimination due to religion. A catholic hospital was able to fire a physician because he divorced and remarried. However, here in East Germany they have to completely ignore their religious laws, since they simply cannot find enough employees for hospitals or Kindergärten at all. And they would even find much less if they looked into the religion of employees.
The last time we got really interested into what religion our neighbour had, 40% of germanys (or what was generally seen as german principalities, republics and kingdoms) population died.
Europeans have been killing each other for religious reasons for longer than any country in Americas exists, at some point we decided everyone should mind their own business for the good of everyone. I think that’s why.
Many Europeans think people should demonstrate their beliefs by how they live not by pushing their faith onto others. Based on this they don’t feel a need to continuously talk about it.
We see no improvement in the actions and behaviors of people professing a faith and in many cases it’s simply used as justification for intolerance.
Who wants to be associated with something backwards and intolerant?
I honestly don’t think the restraint on religion that you notice in Europe is due to religious wars centuries ago.
Simply in Europe asking “what religion are you” is a trivial question, because there tends to be only one dominant religion in each state (because of the aforementioned religious wars). Now with immigration and secularization this is changing, but until the 2000s an Italian would have answered 99% “Catholic” thinking the question strange, similar in banality to “what language do you speak in Italy?” So would a Frenchman or a Pole, while a Greek would answer “obviously Orthodox” and a Swede “Protestant, what else?”
Even in states without a majority religion such as Germany or Switzerland, the interior regions are distinctly either Protestant or Catholic.
It’s a personal thing and I don’t really met people who talk about God as a smalltalk. I do discuss religion with friends sometimes. I’m an atheist, some of my friends believe in a different branches of Christianity, some agnostic.
The most religious people in my town now are Syrian Christian Orthodox refugees, but that I know from the newspaper, I don’t have any connection with them
Religion is like a penis:
It’s nice to have one and fine to be proud of.
Just don’t whip it out in public or shove it down someone else’s throat.
It depends on the country in Europe we have religious persons ofc (hi im a Pagan here) however as i said the situation is different in Poland and in Sweden for example
Because religion is the main cause for wars, and unlike the poor new worlders – particularly South America which was genocided by the Christians, who seem to have learned it but forgot it somehow, we did retain it.
Maybe it’s because it happened a lot more recently – war in Spain in 1936 and Salazar’s dictatorship only ended in 1982.
Maybe it’s because South American cultures were indeed uprooted and destroyed, being replaced by the christian ersatz.
Maybe there are some other factors, namely when you have nothing and come from nothing, like many of the sports or pop celebrities – you do tend to thank the supernatural and be supersticious in public.
Maybe because the overal educational attainment is lower in the Americas & don’t even mention Africa and the Middle East.
Honestly part of it is probably how long Europe has had it, and let’s face it in this case we’re not talking religion but rather specifically Christianity, for the most part. Europe has had a lot longer to work it out and after centuries of close church authority the attitude towards faith has definitely changed somewhat, in part also because how close they are to the center of it all. And how often they’ve fought over it.
Thanking God for achieving something is weird to me. God doesn’t buy your records, your fans do. It wasn’t God who practised every day and worked hard to get you to win an Olympic game. It wasn’t God that found you a job. Recently Beyoncé made a speech during one of her concerts in which she said she was thankful for her success and I was sure she was going to say thank you to her fans, but no, she thanked God. While standing in front of one hundred thousand people who bought the tickets to her show and supported her for almost three decades. I thought it was disrespectful.
Maybe we should ask in an american subreddit why Americans talk about religion so much ?
How is it relevant ? Why Americans consider religious freedom more important than say, healthcare, education, freedom to form a union ?
Europe in general is not as religious. Also, a history of religious wars and persecution resulted in a deeply rooted tradition of separation of state and religion (at least nominally, we try, okay). Religion is considered something that matters to no one but the religious person. What you believe in is a personal matter, like e.g. medical history. Sure it’s something you can talk with people close to you, but it isn’t something to just ask strangers about because… why would it even matter?
I also think that people over here do tend to think that one’s achievements are due to one’s actions and not divine intervention so thanking god(s) is like. Uh.
Britain’s religious loonies realised they weren’t going to be able to convert everyone else to their beliefs, so buggered off to the North American colonies where they could do their thing to each other, leaving everyone else in peace.
The corner of the UK which does have a lot of god botherers isn’t a great advert for it.
Also, England has (in theory) a legal requirement for compulsory collective Christian worship in state schools. This has turned generations of people against religion in a way a bolshevik propagandist could only dream of.
From a British perspective, we generally avoid talking about personal matters with people we don’t know well. That’s why we talk about the weather a lot. I talk about religious and philosophical beliefs quite a lot with my family and close friends, but not usually on the bus or in the tearoom at work!
I think that, especially today, in a society where more than 50% don’t believe in gods and, especially the Catholic Church is publicly associated with pedophile scandals, its best for those who do believe to keep it to themselves to avoid embarrassment.
PS: in Germany the Catholic Church sued some one for publicly calling it a “kids f#ckers sect”. And lost. The court ruled it to be slightly vulgar, but factual and therefore permissible in the context.
PPS: general consensus is, “your religion is like your penis. It’s ok to be proud of it, but don’t talk about it public or push it in other people’s faces (without prior consent)”
It’s a taboo to ask about religion on a job interview. Straight illegal. And otherwise, it’s nobody’s business. More and more people are becoming atheist/agnostic so what should they do? Listen to someone talking about their beliefs and politely nodding along? Or actually questioning them?
For many young people religion is either something their families show down their throat or something they simply don’t do. It’s a non-point. So it’s mostly because Europe is turning away from religion because of many issues with itself.
We’re not ashamed, we’re just uninterested. In Europe, religion is like a penis. It’s nice to have one and fine to be proud of. Don’t whip it out in public or shove it down someone else’s throat.