In Turkey, this refer somone who judges women for not covering their hair, criticize couples for flirting in public, criticize youth for not be grateful for what they have…etc
it interests me because big majority of you have a different religion than us.
Note: I am talking about generalizations they might not fit everyone.
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I think it is one of those things that is hard to see in Denmark. Of course we have Jehovah’s Witnesses, who go around knocking on doors, but they aren’t the norm in Denmark, and a lot of people don’t think about them that much.
A more “domestic” group of “ultra-religious”(though they aren’t necessarily _more_ religious than others) is the association for the Inner Mission: a subgroup of the National Church. While they have much of the same theology as the “mainstream” church, which has around 70% of the population as members, it also has some things that set it apart. This includes somewhat of a break with some of the common Lutheran ideas about forgiveness, and thus, when they emerged in the 19th century, many of their detractors called them “the Redeemed,” “_de frelste_,” as part of what they preached, was how people who weren’t true believers would burn in Hell. Nowadays, they’ve shelved that sort of preaching, and are much more mild, and a lot more focused on things like salvation, like most churches are. As said, they belong to the national church, along with 70% of the population.
There’s also a widespread religious existentialism, especially among the educated. With a huge focus on Søren Kierkegaard philosophy and Lutheran ideas, it stresses an independent relationship to God. Generally, Lutheran ideas are extremely entrenched in Denmark, and thus the most religious people here perhaps never go to church, and never talk about their religiosity. I am more than willing to bet, that if you set out searching, some of the people with the deepest faith in Denmark, are people who haven’t gone to church since they were confirmed or married.
It is hard to get a good measure of religiosity in Denmark. But common for all, is that (Lutheran) religiosity is largely based around salvation in God’s grace alone (*Sola Gratia*), through faith alone (*Sola Fide*), on the basis of Scripture alone (*Sola Scriptura*). As such, religion isn’t necessarily something people act out on.
Someone who goes to church every Sunday would be seen as very religious.
The Free Church on Lewis had a very strict interpretation of everything and a very patriarchal structure until very recently. See Lars von Trier’s film Breaking the Waves for a brutal (fictional) depiction. They were also in the news a few years back for opposing ferry crossings on the sabbath, and, back in the 80s, for the practice of [padlocking](https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-children-s-swings-locked-up-to-stop-children-playing-on-the-sabbath-18951525.html) the swings at children’s playparks on Sunday so that no allegedly “sinful” ungodly play was to be had among the island’s toddlers!
We have laestadians in our bible belt. They look pretty normal but have some wacky rules. No TV, no contraception so the families are big, no sex before marriage at least on paper, so they marry young. No competitive sports. They shun their members pretty bad who decide to leave and it usually leads to exclusion from family and social circles.
We have our own ‘bible belt’, which is home to many small towns with extremely conservative religious people. Orthodox Calvinists, to be specific. They’re basically fundamentalist Protestants.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_Belt_(Netherlands)
> The church plays a central role in the life of Bible Belt communities and they typically oppose the liberal practices of mainstream Dutch society, such as euthanasia, gay rights, abortion, prostitution, pornography, etc. In Staphorst, for instance, swearing is discouraged, many women wear skirts or dresses, and the automated bank machine is closed on Sundays. In Bible Belt communities, strong religious tone in public life is accompanied by conservative outlook, preference for large families (the region has relatively high fertility rates), and an emphasis on traditional values. An aspect of Bible Belt society that has drawn the attention of the Dutch general public in recent years (when concerns of a measles epidemic emerged) is the suspicion of parents towards state-run vaccination programmes.
> The Bible Belt provides a base of support for the small Christian parties SGP and ChristenUnie.
Someone who would _tell_ you that they are religious would be seen as very religious.
Well, it’s not just Bible Belt, I know a very religious Muslim person whose characteristics may be very familiar to you and very close to what you might be describing here. This person is very conservative and likes to criticise the Western worldview, the emancipation of women, same sex marriage etc.
And of course, this person wouldn’t be shown on a Bart de Pau video about the Dutch, but not every Dutch person is blonde and wears clogs.
There’s a difference between “very religious” and “ultra-religious”. To me someone “very religious” cares about lots of things connected to faith and church but doesn’t attack others. Someone “ultra-religious”, on the other hand, usually attacks others.
“Ultra-religious” people are generally against abortion, against people who aren’t heterosexual, blindly follow whatever the priest or the bishop says, watch the TV Propaganda, vote for PiS, don’t like foreigners, are often racist, usually homophobic, go very often to the church (at least every Sunday) and like to say how religious they are (only for show, and that’s not what a truly religious person would do).
They tell you they are religious. Normal people don’t talk about religion or how religious they are at all.
It’s usually a person that actually goes to church on Sunday. Im not kidding.
In Spain our main religion is Christianity. There is a sub-branch called Opus Dei, their people usually only see sex acceptable if it is done to have children (so no sex before marrying and no condoms). They usually have a lot of children and they are like a small society who helps each other (so, if you are inside Opus, you probably will get contracts/get hired from people from Opus). Most of them (I am pretty sure that 99%) are against divorce, abortion (even when the fetus is not going to make it or it is going to be born but with a lot of disabilities) and gay couples.
I know a family like that who is ultra-Catholic. They obviously go to church every Sunday and if possible during the week. At their home, a Catholic radio channel (Radio Maria) is playing 24/7. Most of their friends and people they hang out with are also ultra-religious and they meet for prayers or sit around a campfire and read Bible-quotes to each other and talk about them. They also go on group pilgrimages to significant Catholic places with whole busloads of other people.
Their views are definitely conservative and they are against sex outside of wedlock and anti-abortion. Women should definitely dress decently and not ‘provocatively’. From their point of view divorce is not possible.
Since that family turned religious (from being not religious before) they lost many of their old friends because they steer *any* conversation towards God and Jesus and try to convert pretty much anyone they come across.
Also, they have a distinct victim-complex in that they think everyone looks down on them for being religious and that modern society is actively anti-religious.
They are not evil or anything and their heart is probably in the right place but I have also pretty much lost touch with them because it’s impossible to talk to them about anything else but God and I am atheist/agnostic myself.
Edit: There are also sects like Jehova’s Witnesses but other than knocking on people’s doors to spread their message they tend to keep to themselves. AFAIK they think that everyone who isn’t JW will be going to hell at some point.
“Ultra” would be a family who are members of a so called “free church”. They have 12 kids because contraception bad and they home school them because bad things are taught in school. “Normally religious” would be typically someone living in the country, going to Catholic mass every week, don’t eat meat on Friday, vote conservative and have a traditional family life.
I think in our case (we are one of the top3 least religious countries in Europe by pretty much every metric) it is either
* [Jehovahs Witnesses](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jehovah%27s_Witnesses_practices), because they come knocking on your door doing mission work and this is very very out of place for Estonia (and most places, probably);
* Some more hardcore “new church” members (might be [adventists](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventh-day_Adventist_Church#Culture_and_practices), [pentacostals](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentecostalism), [baptists](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baptists#Baptist_beliefs), or similar, not shaming any of them, they all have normal members, too), that publicly speak about homosexualism being unnatural, banning abortions, gender stereotypes being for everyone’s own good and how a man should always make all family decisions etc.
If we’re talking about christians then that to me would be someone who is in a sect or cult like Jehovas Witnesses, tho I never met one, only heard of them in documentaries. They are rare.
– Has joined a controversial Catholic congregation
– Has joined a Protestant church (JW, some variation of the ones present in Latin America)
I suppose it’s someone who looks at their calendar, sees that it’s 2022 and *still* thinks Catholics and Protestants shouldn’t marry (each other).
ultra-religious ppl believe that not only abortion but even IVF or morning-after pills kill babies and using contraceptives, even as a married couple is a sin
Usually engages in forms of ambigiously orthodox mysticism (think regular pilgrimages to Lourdes or Medjugorje; extreme devotion to a specific saint; the like); is against divorce and sex outside marriage; abhors abortion and euthanasia; listens to the Vatican’s Radio (Radio Vaticana) or Radio Maria (AKA the only radio in all of Italy that you can tune into everywhere) on the regular; goes to Mass every Sunday and at least one other day, usually Friday; doesn’t actually believe in the need for a parallel culture.
*Παλαιοημερολογίτες (Old Calendarists).* They are a group of Eastern Orthodox Christians divided from the mainstream Orthodox Church, that follow the old Julian calendar. Not to be confused with the Russian Orthodox who also use the old calendar. The Greek Church follows the new (aka revised Julian) calendar.
They have hardcore conservative opinions. They are extremely anti-abortion, anti-gay, anti-vaccine, pretty much anything anti-*common sense*, on a much higher level than most super religious “mainstream” Orthodox. They often get aggressive and confrontational when discussing social or religious topics, and they are quick to remind everyone how they are the *true* Christians.
One of dad’s cousin is an Old Calendarist, and she accepts her husband beating her and her daughter because “a woman’s place is to be submissive to her man” or some bullshit like that.
It’s pretty rare to meet really religious people in the UK and if they are, you probably won’t know about it. The only people I’ve ever met who ever even displayed so much as a religious inclination at work were Muslim and had the obligation to pray 5 times a day. Beyond that you might very very occasionally see someone with for e.g. crucifix necklace or an icon on your desk, but most people wouldn’t even notice and you can bet it would never come up in conversation; it’s just not the done thing to talk about religion much.
If you move in certain circles you tend to meet more religious people – it’s usually more well off people that attend these days in my experience, or people who are much older. I went to church (Catholic) semi regularly as a student and that was unusual, although there are often quite large student communities though that depends a lot on the denomination of Christianity too. Within both the Church of England and Catholicism there are kind of weird evangelical/charismatic movements, and there are also splinter Protestant movements which tend to be much more hardline conservative though they appear kind of friendly on the outside. People rightly give the Catholic Church some stick on issues, but if they met people from these and talked to them about their beliefs they’d get a shock, they’re almost cult like.
There’s a cross denominational evangelical course for people interested in Christianity called “Alpha” which seems to attract a lot of people though not sure how successful it is – it certainly was less successful at the church I used to go to than something called “RCIA” which was more like adult converts who had already decided but needed to go through some level of instruction to understand the background of Christianity, etc.
In general I would say the general public have a really poor understanding of religion, both Christian and non-Christian. People know when Easter and Christmas is but very few people would be able to name any other important dates in the Christian calendar, let alone know when they fell. Most people below the age of 30 I doubt would be able to explain the significance of for e.g. Ash Wednesday
Usually super annoying. I’m not kidding. I had a co worker who was evangelical christian. God, she was annoying. She criticized everyone for everything. She tried to quote the bible to me once and when I told her that I’m an atheist and don’t care about the bible, she went off how I’m a sinner and how I’m going to hell and stuff like that. She was a firm believer of no sex before marriage, jacking off is a sin, no smoking or drinking etc.
It’s good that she quit 5 months ago. The office became quiet.
Someone from the far-right, nostalgic of Franco’s dictatorship o directly nazism. Anti-jews, anti-muslism, anti-immigrants, anti-independentists, anti-anylanguagebutspanish… Also, another stereotype could be somehow more civilized, not so obvious but more sectarian, richer, with lots of kids and member of the Opus Dei. Wife at home, of course, taking care or the many kids, husband working in a high position thanks to all the contacts they have. The kids studing in a unisex private school where they dress in a uniform.
In general the only really “ultra” religious people in the U.K. are either in NI or in our minority communities. Even in NI it’s mostly just a my team vs your team thing rather than a true devotion.
An old lady who goes to mass every morning, has a grotto in the front garden where she says the rosary every night, and who kneels down to say the Angelus at twelve and six every day…