Atheism in Australia
The Age has an interesting article about atheism in Australia, where atheism is even more rare than in the US. The article relates the issues with the new "atheist" books coming out in increasing numbers.
Against God
From what the article explains, Australians are more relaxed about religion than Americans, but also less willing to publicly declare themselves atheists. The new books by Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens etc. make more Australians embrace atheism publicly, and increase the debate about religion, but there is still a long way to go before Australia is anywhere close to Europe.
Against God
From what the article explains, Australians are more relaxed about religion than Americans, but also less willing to publicly declare themselves atheists. The new books by Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens etc. make more Australians embrace atheism publicly, and increase the debate about religion, but there is still a long way to go before Australia is anywhere close to Europe.
Labels: atheism, Australia, religion, The God Delusion
posted by Kristjan Wager at 11:22 PM
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3 Comments:
Huh. I grew up in Australia, and I'd have bet Aus had more atheists than the US. (I wonder how the comparison goes if you assume the Australians who registered "Jedi" are actually atheists?)
Australians are certainly much, much less public about religion than Americans. Any Aus politician who did one-tenth the handwringing about "my faith" that US politicians do, would be out at the very next election. It would be seen as hugely embarrassing.
The people who call themselves "Jedi" would not make any major difference in the number of atheists compared to the US.
It's worth noticing that 15% of Australian say they don't hold any faith, which might be understod as either agnostic or atheist. That's a much larger percentage of the population than in the US.
As I said, Australians are generally more relaxed about religion than Americans.
to be honest what i think sends alot of people to atheism is that if you believe in god or hold a religion in many cases you are seen as stupid or ignorant and also poeple dont want the idea of maybe changing their lifestyle for something their still not 100 percent sure about.
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