Comment by mixmax | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mixmax | Hacker News Reader

"The American observer of Europe is often baffled at European claims to secularism since official expressions of religion are so public and yet -- apparently -- so taken for granted. A 10th-century depiction of the crucifixion, for example, is part of every Danish passport, regardless of whether its bearer is -- as many nowadays are -- a pious Muslim."

There's a difference between culture and religion. Having a 10th-century depiction of the crucifixion in my passport doesn't imply that I'm religious, but it does remind me that I come from a country with a long and rich history and culture. In Northern Europe religious artifacts are primarily seen as cultural heritage, not as a way of showing your devotion to a god. I can't speak for Southern Europe, but from my limited experience of living there it doesn't seem very different.

"American church attendance and religious belief is not off the European scale if one compares it with Europe's Catholic regions. A smaller percentage of Americans consider themselves religious than the Portuguese and Italians. Proportionately fewer Americans say they believe in God than the Irish and Portuguese."

The article compares all of America to a small very religious part of Europe. That would be like saying that Americans produce 20 times as many cars as Europeans because the average number of cars produced per capita in Detroit is far above the average number of cars produced per capita in Europe.

The US is the country with the smallest percentage of non-believers (3%), and as stated in the article Portugal and Italy aren't far behind(4% and 6%). The article doesn't however mention Sweden or France that are 46% and 43% non-believers.

Source: http://www.swivel.com/graphs/show/8244121

Spiegel should really know better than manipulating numbers like this.

>There's a difference between culture and religion.

That's an interesting statement. Only in the West, and only in the last few hundred years can religion be conceived of as a discrete object, separate from culture.

Indigenous American and Hindu culture, for example, have traditionally had no such division between religion and culture. With the rise of global capitalism we may be starting to see a secular/nonsecular divide in traditionally Hindu areas (India, duh) but this is a very modern development.

edit: I should say, none of the above necessarily negates anything you said. I just think it's interesting.

edit number 2: Also, the above could also be further illuminated in a short description of the differences between orthodoxy and orthopraxy. Worth checking out each concept on Wikipedia if y'all are interested.

Lots of Asian countries have a common culture that spans groups following different religions: Indonesia, India (and particular Indian regions), Sri Lanka etc.

Also, most of the major religions spread to different cultures a long time ago: A thousand years ago a Russian and a South Indian could have both not only been Christians, but both Eastern Orthodox, or an Indonesian and a Libyan could both be Sunni Muslims, or a Sri Lankan and Laotian could both be Theravadan Buddhists.

If people of disparate cultures could share common beliefs, sure religion and culture have always been separable. Especially pertinent to your examples are the South Indian Christians who have undoubtedly shared the culture of the Hindu majority for 2,000 years.

What you say is true, as far as I know. It is entirely possible to share the culture of the people who one lives nearby and yet practice a different religion. It is also true that this has been going on for a long time. In the case of the spread of Abrahamic offshoots (Islam and Christianity), a couple of thousand years. In this sense religious expression has always been fluid. However, I think that is different than viewing religion as an object. It is a modern move to split culture into many different categories: public, private, family, government, religion, education, medical, etc, etc. This way of understanding and ordering the world is a particularly Western (some might say Germanic) form.

Furthermore, there are languages that still survive to this day that have no word for "religion" as such, something I talk elsewhere in this thread. This says to me that in some cultures religion cannot even be conceived of as separate from culture because the language does not provide the imaginative capacity to understand it that way.

So, always fluid, yes. Separable, I don't know.

"Indigenous American and Hindu culture, for example, have traditionally had no such division between religion and culture."

Isn't that just a bias from watching too much discovery channel? We are used to seeing other cultures presented as being preoccupied with fancy rain dances, perhaps because they look good on television. But they must have a "normal day routine", too, which I would consider to be culture as well? It might be the "bag of rice in china phenomenon" - mundane daily life might not make for interesting movies, so we disproportionally often get to see special events from other countries.

I don't think so. I do think there is a problem when we view other cultures from the outside, and when we focus only on the "fancy" aspects of culture because it's more interesting than how people arrange their bedding, or whatever.

However, I think you are focusing too much on religion as ritual specifically. Yes, indigenous Americans, for example, have certain rituals, rites, and special events that stand apart as specific expressions of their unique culture. If those rituals seek to connect the individuals who participate in them, and the community as a whole to an "ultimate reality" or an unseen world, we in the west call it a religious ritual. Most indigenous American people (all, as far as a I know) do not even have a word for "religion," however, so the mundane and the "fancy rain dance" are each simply forms of culture with no defining boundary.

Christianity in the US is also very different. I have met very few Creationists in Europe or Asia, and almost all those I have met have been members of evangelical churches of a type that has American roots.

> Spiegel should really know better than manipulating numbers like this.

I read the magazine since I was about 8 years old (24 years ago). They used to do top-notch invetigative journalism. Over the course of my lifetime I could wittness a big decline in quality.

I was actually surprised to see this article from Spiegel. I don't read it on a regular basis, but to me they have an excellent brand. It was very disappointing.

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