non-religious religion
A friend alerts me to this: Scandinavian Nonbelievers, Which Is Not to Say Atheists
Two comments:
Well documented though they may be, these two sets of facts run up against the assumption of many Americans that a society where religion is minimal would be, in Mr. Zuckerman's words, "rampant with immorality, full of evil and teeming with depravity."
Which is why he insists at some length that what he and his wife and children experienced was quite the opposite: "a society - a markedly irreligious society - that was, above all, moral, stable, humane and deeply good."
I have to wonder if this particular framing speaks not so much to the actual assumptions that Zuckerman thinks most of his readers hold, but rather the assumptions he assumes his readers hold about about what others must naturally assume. If that makes any sense.
And:
The interviewees affirmed a Christianity that seems to have everything to do with "holidays, songs, stories and food" but little to do with God or Creed, everything to do with rituals marking important passages in life but little to do with the religious meaning of those rituals.
This is, honestly, not too far off from the Christianity I find that most of my American students hold. I do sometimes hear their concerns about the moral implications of their faith, but I sometimes wonder if this is simply because being in a Religious Studies class has them self-consciously confronting the fact that they don't really think about those questions with any regularity.
Two comments:
Well documented though they may be, these two sets of facts run up against the assumption of many Americans that a society where religion is minimal would be, in Mr. Zuckerman's words, "rampant with immorality, full of evil and teeming with depravity."
Which is why he insists at some length that what he and his wife and children experienced was quite the opposite: "a society - a markedly irreligious society - that was, above all, moral, stable, humane and deeply good."
I have to wonder if this particular framing speaks not so much to the actual assumptions that Zuckerman thinks most of his readers hold, but rather the assumptions he assumes his readers hold about about what others must naturally assume. If that makes any sense.
And:
The interviewees affirmed a Christianity that seems to have everything to do with "holidays, songs, stories and food" but little to do with God or Creed, everything to do with rituals marking important passages in life but little to do with the religious meaning of those rituals.
This is, honestly, not too far off from the Christianity I find that most of my American students hold. I do sometimes hear their concerns about the moral implications of their faith, but I sometimes wonder if this is simply because being in a Religious Studies class has them self-consciously confronting the fact that they don't really think about those questions with any regularity.