[AdmiralRalwood]

http://freethinker.co.uk/2013/08/28/christianity-is-dying-in-england-and-in-france-catholic-priests-are-only-preaching-to-pensioners/

I'd like to discuss why this trend is happening all across Europe, not just in England and France, but not in the United States. Does it have to do with a lack of urbanization?

Both the US and Europe are pretty urbanized, so why it should be a lack of urbanization ?

I think somebody doesn't realize just how much acreage the United States covers, and just how much of it is sparsely populated... if populated at all.

To paraphrase Douglas Adams, the US is big. Really big.

[MP-Ryan]

To paraphrase Douglas Adams, the US is big. Really big.

Your point about urbanization is well put, but I'd like to point out that the US really isn't all THAT big...

=)

[AdmiralRalwood]

To paraphrase Douglas Adams, the US is big. Really big.

Your point about urbanization is well put, but I'd like to point out that the US really isn't all THAT big...

=)

Yes, the US really is all that big. The thing about Canada is that the vast majority of the population is right along the US border.

Besides, I mostly meant in comparison to Europe.

[Lorric]

To paraphrase Douglas Adams, the US is big. Really big.

Your point about urbanization is well put, but I'd like to point out that the US really isn't all THAT big...

=)

So, Canada really isn't all that big.

Canada is a potentially interesting addition to the subject, but I have no idea how thinly spread it's populous is, despite it's vast land mass, or what it's religious demographic is like.

[MP-Ryan]

Yes, the US really is all that big. The thing about Canada is that the vast majority of the population is right along the US border.

Besides, I mostly meant in comparison to Europe.

I know what you meant, I was just having fun with you as many Americans don't realize that their northern neighbour is a quite a bit bigger country in terms of total land mass

Lorric, Canada is the second largest country in the world, but is 228th in terms of population density.  More people live in cities here than rurally, so the country itself might be considered heavily urbanized, but those urbanized areas are spread quite far apart.  According to the 2011 census, 81% of the population is urbanized.  And our religiosity is also dropping like a stone, though religion has never played much of a role in our politics (with the exception of Quebec).

[Lorric]

Thanks for the information. I guess you can't use Canada as a counter to the urbanisation argument then. More like it's following the trend in the same way as all the others.

[karajorma]

Just as an aside to the urbanisation debate.

http://mapsontheweb.tumblr.com/post/58924412797/world-map-adjusted-for-population-size

[Sandwich]

I'll just add here that Christianity - for whatever reason - has always moved West. Started in Israel 2k years ago, moved into Europe, then the Americas, and more recently, China, Iran, and other dictatorships. Personally I think it's more than just an interesting fact, but I'll leave it at that.

Post-Christian Europe and getting-to-be post-Christian America don't seem to be doing very well, though. There's the overall feel that things are crumbling.

[The E]

Post-Christian Europe and getting-to-be post-Christian America don't seem to be doing very well, though. There's the overall feel that things are crumbling.

In case you were unaware, western civilization has been in decline since the time of the old Greek. There are always bits and pieces that are crumbling, but they're generally the old disused parts that we no longer need or care about.

[Black Wolf]

Post-Christian Europe and getting-to-be post-Christian America don't seem to be doing very well, though. There's the overall feel that things are crumbling.

Oh no Sambo, you don't get to post that and just walk away.

Norway. Sweden. Australia. Denmark. Belgium. New Zealand. All "post-Christian" nations with very high standards of living and highly desirable to live in. Evidence of "crumbling" please.

[Phantom Hoover]

The fact that every civilisation ever, from the dawn of time, has been obviously about to collapse (regardless of actual or future growth). Generally it's the fault of the damn youth (who have lost all respect for their parents) or those newfangled computers/cars/writing/fire making everyone forget how to think/walk/remember things/freeze.

[MP-Ryan]

“Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.”

People have been complaining about the demise of Western civilization since a time before it was even called "Western civilization."

In other words:

The report of my death was an exaggeration.

[AtomicClucker]

I also do not think that the appreciation of christian art will ever be a problem.

No one really cares about the cult of Athena or the cult of Isis or whatever anymore, and we all know everyone loves the Parthenon, Ancient Greek and Ancient Egypt culture, art, architecture, philosophy, etc.,etc.

So don't worry too much on that front!

And many of the those buildings were built as religious structures. To put it succinctly, you can't preclude the influence of Christianity upon the growth of Western Society, despite some jabs of modern amateur philosophers and so-called intellectuals.. Modernism was built entirely on the notion of "leaving the past in the ditch," and the movement ground to a halt in the 1960s as artists ran out of ideas. We live in a Post-Modern world of aesthetics, theory and design. The problem is much of the intellectual and scientific community has yet to receive the Post-Modern eureka that happened in the 1970s.

And I would argue our pop culture, even games to a good extent, has openly embraced its roots from ritualistic cave paintings to brightly colored blue slabs of paint. The argument you need to always look forwards fails to grasp the monuments and ideas of the past has failed quite often, and more than ever, we turn our gaze to what we where, and how it means we can be in the future.

[Luis Dias]

Oh come on it's obvious we are utterly becoming more and more degenerates, depressed and crumbling overall. Not only the kids are nowadays becoming a rarity, we are even barred to have any meaningful interactions with them, lest anyone starts looking at you with funny eyes thinking you are a peadophile. Guns are everywhere, and soon wmds will be a privatized thing. Look at Global Warming! And over pop. And then there's the relentless crescendo of idiocracy-level tv shows whose barriers are being shattered every year so that we never really get to say that this year's shows are the dumbest you'll ever see in your lifetime. No, for next year new barriers will be shattered. You have robots and AIs taking over jobs, governments taking over the networks and creating the most efficient secret police ever, pollution going bonkers, resource limitations starting to have a slight impact in the economies, until it gets worse and worse and you end up having scumbags with a lot of resource-power in their hands (wait that's happened already? darn!). Some religious folks are getting more and more polarized and just fkin crazy.

Yeah, ****'s tough to be positive sometimes. Just look at movies. Which "blockbusters" do not incorporate the end of the world as a plot device? Gimme one of them. We dream of it. We desire it, at a masochistic (low key) level.

And of course it's all coz Christianity is going down. I mean, just look at the Bible and tell me it's not such a positive story!

[MP-Ryan]

Oh come on it's obvious we are utterly becoming more and more degenerates, depressed and crumbling overall. Not only the kids are nowadays becoming a rarity, we are even barred to have any meaningful interactions with them, lest anyone starts looking at you with funny eyes thinking you are a peadophile. Guns are everywhere, and soon wmds will be a privatized thing. Look at Global Warming! And over pop. And then there's the relentless crescendo of idiocracy-level tv shows whose barriers are being shattered every year so that we never really get to say that this year's shows are the dumbest you'll ever see in your lifetime. No, for next year new barriers will be shattered. You have robots and AIs taking over jobs, governments taking over the networks and creating the most efficient secret police ever, pollution going bonkers, resource limitations starting to have a slight impact in the economies, until it gets worse and worse and you end up having scumbags with a lot of resource-power in their hands (wait that's happened already? darn!). Some religious folks are getting more and more polarized and just fkin crazy.

Yeah, ****'s tough to be positive sometimes. Just look at movies. Which "blockbusters" do not incorporate the end of the world as a plot device? Gimme one of them. We dream of it. We desire it, at a masochistic (low key) level.

And of course it's all coz Christianity is going down. I mean, just look at the Bible and tell me it's not such a positive story!

Your Poe-slaw/sarcasm gets a B for length-effort, but a D for delivery

[Phantom Hoover]

oh **** it, [redacted]

mp-ryan handled it better anyway

[AtomicClucker]

Trying to think of cute response to Luis sarcasm, but meh.

[swashmebuckle]

Let it be known: the forum has concluded that "Reducto ad Nuke" posts get weaker and weaker the further they stray from typical Nuke post length. Venture here at your own peril.

[Grizzly]

* -Joshua- simply decides to bear-hug everyone instead.

[Luis Dias]

meh, I kinda tried to give nukeism a try but at the end of the very first sentence I was actually getting more and more depressed. That kinda took my sarcasm out of the loop at it just dwindled into a miserable list of depressing realities shoved off without wit, emotion or intelligence.

I agree with the rating. Perhaps Im just tired.