Australia is the least religious

[Saren]

western country in the world (and among the most irreligious/atheist/agnostic countries in the world too.)

This freaking scares me (mind my french!)

Is religion and moral values becoming less important in western society? Is this a good or bad thing? What do you guys think of religion and Christianity and atheism and all those sorts of things? Should the U.S have a talk to Australia about their rapid decline in religion?

And has anyone noticed the weird coincidence that Australians are the least religious western country and Australians are known by us Americans to be quite lazy and in some places very backwards?

God bless their souls I guess

[Gobblemeister]

Luckily we've had religion long enough for the good parts to be norms for the most part.

However, we still have a problem with baby killers, premarital sex, and working on Sundays.

I think this will no longer be a problem though when Christ returns to the earth and turns sinners into pillars of salt.

[Saren]

God have mercy on their souls is probably a better thing to say actually*

my mistake.

[Emma]

BBS is such a bad place for thoughts like this - eventhough I agree 100%.

[Saren]

At 11/16/11 01:05 AM, Gobblemeister wrote: Luckily we've had religion long enough for the good parts to be norms for the most part.

However, we still have a problem with baby killers, premarital sex, and working on Sundays.

I think this will no longer be a problem though when Christ returns to the earth and turns sinners into pillars of salt.

Not to mention sodomy, another thing that kind of scares me is the large amount of countries in the world that are becoming more accepting of homosexual acts. Qatar only gives five years of jail for sodomy these days (I know Qatar is a Muslim country but I believe Muslims are not too much different from us Christians)

[Emma]

At 11/16/11 01:09 AM, JoeMation wrote:

At 11/16/11 01:03 AM, Saren wrote: western country in the world

Australia isn't a western country

Are you being serious?

[DoctorStrongbad]

Which is the most Religious?

[Gobblemeister]

At 11/16/11 01:13 AM, DoctorStrongbad wrote: Which is the most Religious?

Vatican City

[Saren]

At 11/16/11 01:13 AM, DoctorStrongbad wrote: Which is the most Religious?

I'm not sure but I hope it is America. I use to insult and beat up the atheists (no capital in the word 'atheist' because I don't think its a proper belief or even a proper word) in my school football team as we Americans like to do (cause its the right thing to do)

I could care less about their heathen beliefs

[Sanch]

At 11/16/11 01:08 AM, Saren wrote: Not to mention sodomy, another thing that kind of scares me is the large amount of countries in the world that are becoming more accepting of homosexual acts. Qatar only gives five years of jail for sodomy these days

aaaaand this is where your clever ruse stops being believable. nice try bro

[Emma]

At 11/16/11 01:17 AM, JoeMation wrote:

At 11/16/11 01:10 AM, EmmaVolt wrote:

At 11/16/11 01:09 AM, JoeMation wrote:

At 11/16/11 01:03 AM, Saren wrote: western country in the world

Australia isn't a western country

Are you being serious?

I am being serious.

Oh okay. I was under the impression OP was talking about cultures and not geography. My mistake.

[Wonderchild]

Australia is the least religious Western Country?

Fuck yeah!

[Jin]

At 11/16/11 01:17 AM, Saren wrote: I could care less about their heathen beliefs

Too obvious.

[akmeteor]

To be honest. Religion makes life a little bit pointless. No matter what kind it is, it's still important.

Oh, and to piss people off on this. Albert Einstein was a Deist, and Charles Darwin was a priest his entire life.

[Saren]

At 11/16/11 01:29 AM, EmmaVolt wrote:

At 11/16/11 01:17 AM, JoeMation wrote:

At 11/16/11 01:10 AM, EmmaVolt wrote:

At 11/16/11 01:09 AM, JoeMation wrote:

At 11/16/11 01:03 AM, Saren wrote: western country in the world

Australia isn't a western country

Are you being serious?

I am being serious.

Oh okay. I was under the impression OP was talking about cultures and not geography. My mistake.

I was talking about cultures...JoeMation is just being a hipster fucking retard herp

[akmeteor]

To be honest. Religion makes life a little bit less pointless. No matter what kind it is, it's still important.

Oh, and to piss people off on this. Albert Einstein was a Deist, and Charles Darwin was a priest his entire life.

I had something I needed to fix

[Haoie]

Duh, the country was founded by convicts.

[Anti-pie]

Picture is relevant to this topic.

[Mctazin]

This gave me a good laugh. I totally forgot people were still religious and shit. Also, religion should be very separate from government and culture, and Australia gets that. Everyone has freedom of religion, and people don't give them shit if they don't believe. However, anyone who does believe has a wide array of people they can talk to about that, and places they can go and what not. It's a great system.
Also, Christianity is balls.

P.S I'm Australian. :D

[Saren]

I love Australia too

way better than America

[STEM]

in a number of different irreligious countries, people will find you to be a very odd character if you say you're a christian. Best to keep your beliefs to yourself when you travel abroad

[Dogmeat]

Well, it is hell incarnate.

[HungarianSupermarket]

I don't know what the fuck is going on in this thread.

[WallofYawn]

There is a steady decline in the % of Christianity every year, however, it is only slight. Luckily for religion, Islam is becoming increasingly more and more popular, especially among ethnic groups.

The number of atheists in the world, and when I say atheist, I mean irreligious.(that excludes buddhists and toaists, who also don't believe in god), atheists and irreligious people, account for only at most 5-10% of the world population. The majority of the world is Muslim, followed second by Christianity, then Judaism, and then all the other religions after, with atheism at the bottom of the spectrum.

TL;DR version:

religion is still on the rise, and while atheism is increasing, it is increasing at a far lower and slower rate than the increase in religious followers, even in such great technological and scientific times.

[WallofYawn]

On a side note: Australia is a western country culturally, even tho it's on the other side of the Atlantic, AND it is only the size of Road Island, so the demographics are going to be less varied any way. They're a more secular country, they never have wars, they rarely have calamity, they have a small military, and a secular government, and a laid back disposition.

So, what is happening there does not surprise me.

[Halberd]

Judging by the OP's random outburst of 'I love Australia' and his other weird Poe/satirical posts I'm guessing he is a troll trying to stereotype and satirize Christians or something

Or maybe he is actually an Australian himself and he is playing with NG's irreligious userbase and trying to make us say good things about Australia

[Sweman]

VOHO! GO AUSTRALIA......i for one really don´t mind people not being religious, people have the right to chose their faith, and, i think there is nothing wrong with gay relationships, once again people have the right to chose who they want to love, hopefully Sweden is the next country to realise this, since the christian church here, lost more than half it´s members in the whole country in less then 10 years,
and people are starting to become more open minded and less prejudice against other faiths and gay relationships

[Mismo]

You're actually wrong about that buddy, Sweden is actually the least religious country in the world.

[Chumbawamba]

yo man fuck religion, that shit's whack!

[WallofYawn]

At 11/16/11 03:29 AM, Jedi-Master wrote:

At 11/16/11 02:46 AM, WallofYawn wrote:
The majority of the world is Muslim, followed second by Christianity, then Judaism...

Christianity has more followers than Islam; in fact, it has the most adherents out of any religion. Judaism has less than 20 million adherents; it is definitely not the 3rd most popular religion in the world.

The religions with the most followers are as follows

1. Christianity
2. Islam
3. Hinduism
4. Buddhism

Ok, you got me. What I meant was that Islam has the fastest growing amount of members. Not the most members. But that came out wrong.

Here is a pie chart: http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Ad herents.html

Christianity: 2.1 billion
Islam: 1.5 billion
Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist: 1.1 billion, but this includes people who believe in god, but aren't religious/don't adhere to a religion.
Hinduism: 900 million
Buddhism: 376 million

So you were correct. I tip my hat to you good sir, and purveyor of knowledge.

But hey, Islam is not exactly far behind, and I think that some day there actually will be more Muslims than Christians, maybe not so much in places like France and America, tho the numbers are steadily increasing, despite recent fear of terrorist threats. A lot of black people, for example, these days are converting to Islam.