How do you assess the state of religion in the ex-communist countries?
Certainly religion has regained some ground after communism, but most? I am under the impression the answer to this question varies hugely between countries.
Data point: In Slovakia, the religion does not seem so strong as before communism, but the problem is that the balance is only moving in one direction. Step by step, small changes in favor of religion are done, usually when some religious party wins the election. Steps in the opposite direction are never done; they would be strongly opposed by religious people. Religious people simply organize to fight strongly whenever a change against them is proposed; while non-religious people don’t organize well when a change for favor of the church is proposed. If this trend will follow for a few decades, it could go too far.
An example of such step is introducing religious education to elementary and high schools. You can get religion to schools, but you can never get it out of schools. (Funny thing, considering that one of the popular slogans in the Velvet Revolution was to “take ideology out of schools”. Yeah, we took out Marxism-Leninism… and replaced it with Catholicism. Big success!)
I usually want to avoid conflicts with religious people. But examples like these show me that an agressive opposition is sometimes necessary… otherwise the freedoms of non-believers will simply be taken away slowly, one small step (supposedly not worth fighting over) after another.
But even at this speed, it would take a few decades, maybe a century, to restore the power of religion to the level it had before communism.
How do you assess the state of religion in the ex-communist countries?
Certainly religion has regained some ground after communism, but most? I am under the impression the answer to this question varies hugely between countries.
Data point: In Slovakia, the religion does not seem so strong as before communism, but the problem is that the balance is only moving in one direction. Step by step, small changes in favor of religion are done, usually when some religious party wins the election. Steps in the opposite direction are never done; they would be strongly opposed by religious people. Religious people simply organize to fight strongly whenever a change against them is proposed; while non-religious people don’t organize well when a change for favor of the church is proposed. If this trend will follow for a few decades, it could go too far.
An example of such step is introducing religious education to elementary and high schools. You can get religion to schools, but you can never get it out of schools. (Funny thing, considering that one of the popular slogans in the Velvet Revolution was to “take ideology out of schools”. Yeah, we took out Marxism-Leninism… and replaced it with Catholicism. Big success!)
I usually want to avoid conflicts with religious people. But examples like these show me that an agressive opposition is sometimes necessary… otherwise the freedoms of non-believers will simply be taken away slowly, one small step (supposedly not worth fighting over) after another.
But even at this speed, it would take a few decades, maybe a century, to restore the power of religion to the level it had before communism.