What might be the cause of the perceived difference between the atheists/nontheists in Europe and in the USA?
I have the general feeling that the average atheist in the USA, when asked about religion, will be very open about believing religion to be either evil or ridiculously stupid, and will make at least a few remarks about how idiot those lunatics must be who believe that there are invisible people living on the top of the clouds. On the other hand, in Europe you are more likely to hear that “well, I’m not very religious”, but many would culturally still identify as a Christian, and will held marriages, child naming ceremonies, funerals etc. in a church, and might even rarely, but occasionally go to church on a bigger festival (like Christmas) because it looks or feels nice.
I wonder why. I know much more Europeans than Americans, so it might be that the louder voices are better heard from a group I have less contact with, or it might be that because in the USA the Christian fundamentalists are louder than in Europe, so the atheist fundamentalists are also louder.
I’m fully aware that I based this observation mostly on people I have contact with, and in at least a small part being influenced by popular culture, but I don’t know of any exhaustive research or survey comparing the cultural standpoint of nontheists specifically regarding the differences between Europe and the USA.
I guess that it is the religious freedom and religious diversity that keeps religions in USA more “alive”. Religions compete with each other, try to convert each other’s followers, keep the religious memes virulent. People work harder to signal belonging to their religion. And atheists living in the same culture work harder to signal their atheism.
In Europe historically you often had one mandatory religion per country. Without competition, priests got lazy and religion got boring. Some people lost their faith in religion, some people still believed in the religion but also saw the lazyness and corruption of the church, so you got many people who publicly identified as religious, but tried to do as little as possible about it. Those who identify as atheists are quite similar in behavior to the most lazy of those who identify as religious.
Metaphorically, the American religious landscape is a few separated shining colorful dots, atheism being one of them; the traditional European religious landscape is a gray bell curve, atheism being one of the ends. (The people you describe as “culturally still identifying as a Christian” are somewhere at 90% of the curve. There are also real atheists at the end, but they are fewer.)
I imagine that the increase of Islam might change this picture in the future; that the group of “lukewarm Christians” may decrease because (1) there will be attempts to convert them to Islam, and in response to that (2) the Christians may also wake up and start radicalizing their lazier members, and (3) some people will start identifying as atheists because they will dislike both of these options. Then, instead of the bell curve, we will have three separate groups.
I would certainly be interested in seeing data on the phenomenon as well. From what I’ve personally seen, I would think there’s a large distinction between a person who was raised atheist/nontheist and a person who had to intentionally and actively extricate themselves from a religious organization (and more importantly all the religious thought that comes with it).
Removing yourself from a social group has costs to achieve and lots of detriments socially. Removing yourself from a massive set of ways of thinking (all tied together in a convoluted memeplex) that have been embedded into you by intelligent adults since you were a small child has a high cost to pull off, is easily emotionally troublesome, and is liable to distance you quite a bit from the people, ideas, social groups, accepted customs, and general life support you grew up with. (If you don’t see an easy way to imagine this, try thinking of how difficult it might be to remove all of Rationality from your own brain. How would you even begin? What kinds of costs would that have on your thoughts, emotions, relationships, social groups, etc.?)
By the time you’re done with all of this, then you’re going to be less likely to widely respect the organization you removed yourself from and any organizations that are similar. You’re likely going to be at least a little bit annoyed at having ever been in a less preferable situation beforehand (do you relish being less rational in the past?) and you’re likely to have lost respect for people who are in the previous state that you used to exist in (those poor irrational people out there!). All of this will, of course, vary widely from person to person and some will be able to give up an organization with a weak hold on their thoughts and social contacts (holiday-only catholic churchgoer?) than others will (three times a week charismatic churchgoer?).
Overall I see Europeans existing in the first group (2nd+ generation atheists) while many Americans live in the second (1st generation atheists). This at least matches up to experiences I’ve seen in friends, though I don’t know if it’s a dominating reason or as common as I currently imagine.
True, but there are plenty of bona-fide atheists in Eastern Europe (e.g. Czech Republic) and they still don’t seem to be very loud or make a big deal of their atheism. So Val’s point is still true when we compare these cases.
In the US, religion, in particular Christianity, is seen by many atheists as distinctly lower-class, and is associated in particular with the working classes. This makes atheists work overhard at differentiating themselves from Christianity, to the extent of attempting to deny or minimize any cultural influence from religion.
And even if you’re just a later-generation atheist trying to fit in with other atheists, you’ll end up attempting to conform to that similar level of original distancing.
Yes, it seems to me that outspoken atheism is often a striver trait. Strivers typically feel the need to draw a sharp distinction between themselves and the lower class they come from.
On the other hand, in Europe you are more likely to hear that “well, I’m not very religious”, but many would culturally still identify as a Christian, and will held marriages, child naming ceremonies, funerals etc. in a church, and might even rarely, but occasionally go to church on a bigger festival (like Christmas) because it looks or feels nice.
I can’t speak to Europe. But I have a friend/fellow grad student that moved here from the Caucuses who calls himself wholeheartedly orthodox Christian despite being decidedly along the above-described ‘don’t-care’ to ‘nope’ spectrum about actual theological claims. Once called it ‘an interface for dealing with stuff that every human has to deal with’ loosely quoting.
I notice in my own brain that I have trouble defining or accepting association with religion as something that isn’t a 0 or a 1. I think that’s obviously an irrational thought, but I’m not sure how to get around it either. This may also occur with other Americans.
What might be the cause of the perceived difference between the atheists/nontheists in Europe and in the USA?
I have the general feeling that the average atheist in the USA, when asked about religion, will be very open about believing religion to be either evil or ridiculously stupid, and will make at least a few remarks about how idiot those lunatics must be who believe that there are invisible people living on the top of the clouds. On the other hand, in Europe you are more likely to hear that “well, I’m not very religious”, but many would culturally still identify as a Christian, and will held marriages, child naming ceremonies, funerals etc. in a church, and might even rarely, but occasionally go to church on a bigger festival (like Christmas) because it looks or feels nice.
I wonder why. I know much more Europeans than Americans, so it might be that the louder voices are better heard from a group I have less contact with, or it might be that because in the USA the Christian fundamentalists are louder than in Europe, so the atheist fundamentalists are also louder.
I’m fully aware that I based this observation mostly on people I have contact with, and in at least a small part being influenced by popular culture, but I don’t know of any exhaustive research or survey comparing the cultural standpoint of nontheists specifically regarding the differences between Europe and the USA.
I guess that it is the religious freedom and religious diversity that keeps religions in USA more “alive”. Religions compete with each other, try to convert each other’s followers, keep the religious memes virulent. People work harder to signal belonging to their religion. And atheists living in the same culture work harder to signal their atheism.
In Europe historically you often had one mandatory religion per country. Without competition, priests got lazy and religion got boring. Some people lost their faith in religion, some people still believed in the religion but also saw the lazyness and corruption of the church, so you got many people who publicly identified as religious, but tried to do as little as possible about it. Those who identify as atheists are quite similar in behavior to the most lazy of those who identify as religious.
Metaphorically, the American religious landscape is a few separated shining colorful dots, atheism being one of them; the traditional European religious landscape is a gray bell curve, atheism being one of the ends. (The people you describe as “culturally still identifying as a Christian” are somewhere at 90% of the curve. There are also real atheists at the end, but they are fewer.)
I imagine that the increase of Islam might change this picture in the future; that the group of “lukewarm Christians” may decrease because (1) there will be attempts to convert them to Islam, and in response to that (2) the Christians may also wake up and start radicalizing their lazier members, and (3) some people will start identifying as atheists because they will dislike both of these options. Then, instead of the bell curve, we will have three separate groups.
I would certainly be interested in seeing data on the phenomenon as well. From what I’ve personally seen, I would think there’s a large distinction between a person who was raised atheist/nontheist and a person who had to intentionally and actively extricate themselves from a religious organization (and more importantly all the religious thought that comes with it).
Removing yourself from a social group has costs to achieve and lots of detriments socially. Removing yourself from a massive set of ways of thinking (all tied together in a convoluted memeplex) that have been embedded into you by intelligent adults since you were a small child has a high cost to pull off, is easily emotionally troublesome, and is liable to distance you quite a bit from the people, ideas, social groups, accepted customs, and general life support you grew up with. (If you don’t see an easy way to imagine this, try thinking of how difficult it might be to remove all of Rationality from your own brain. How would you even begin? What kinds of costs would that have on your thoughts, emotions, relationships, social groups, etc.?)
By the time you’re done with all of this, then you’re going to be less likely to widely respect the organization you removed yourself from and any organizations that are similar. You’re likely going to be at least a little bit annoyed at having ever been in a less preferable situation beforehand (do you relish being less rational in the past?) and you’re likely to have lost respect for people who are in the previous state that you used to exist in (those poor irrational people out there!). All of this will, of course, vary widely from person to person and some will be able to give up an organization with a weak hold on their thoughts and social contacts (holiday-only catholic churchgoer?) than others will (three times a week charismatic churchgoer?).
Overall I see Europeans existing in the first group (2nd+ generation atheists) while many Americans live in the second (1st generation atheists). This at least matches up to experiences I’ve seen in friends, though I don’t know if it’s a dominating reason or as common as I currently imagine.
One straightforward theory is that a person who identifies as Christian isn’t an atheist, so you’re comparing “apples and oranges”.
True, but there are plenty of bona-fide atheists in Eastern Europe (e.g. Czech Republic) and they still don’t seem to be very loud or make a big deal of their atheism. So Val’s point is still true when we compare these cases.
In the US, religion, in particular Christianity, is seen by many atheists as distinctly lower-class, and is associated in particular with the working classes. This makes atheists work overhard at differentiating themselves from Christianity, to the extent of attempting to deny or minimize any cultural influence from religion.
And even if you’re just a later-generation atheist trying to fit in with other atheists, you’ll end up attempting to conform to that similar level of original distancing.
Yes, it seems to me that outspoken atheism is often a striver trait. Strivers typically feel the need to draw a sharp distinction between themselves and the lower class they come from.
I can’t speak to Europe. But I have a friend/fellow grad student that moved here from the Caucuses who calls himself wholeheartedly orthodox Christian despite being decidedly along the above-described ‘don’t-care’ to ‘nope’ spectrum about actual theological claims. Once called it ‘an interface for dealing with stuff that every human has to deal with’ loosely quoting.
I notice in my own brain that I have trouble defining or accepting association with religion as something that isn’t a 0 or a 1. I think that’s obviously an irrational thought, but I’m not sure how to get around it either. This may also occur with other Americans.
Where in Europe? Richard Dawkins is from England and organized things like the infamous atheist bus campaign.
Also numerous European countries used to have atheist militants, of the priest-killing or at least send-priests-to-labor-camps variety.