Let's take, for example, a country like Sweden. 85% of the people there are non-believers, of which most people are Atheists. It's safe to say it's an atheist country.
Which means a maximum of 15% of the Swedes are Christians.
Yet these 15% manage to keep Sweden have such high morals. It amazes me. I hardly hear anything bad about Sweden, Swedes don't run around the streets with guns, they never start wars on terror, they even have equal human rights! Yes, even between straight and homosexual people. It's awesome.
How can 15% of the peoples morals become so dominant? Christian morals, amazing...really.
2006-12-11 09:43:13 · 15 answers · asked by Thinx 5 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
Swedes are a little hard to pin down when it comes to religion.
According to the most recent Eurostat "Eurobarometer" poll in 2005, only 23% of Swedish citizens responded that they "believe there is a god," whereas 53% answered that they "believe there is some sort of spirit or life force" and 23% that they "do not believe there is any sort of spirit, god, or life force."
According to Norris and Inglehart (2004), 64% of those in Sweden do not believe in God.
According to Bondeson (2003), 74% of Swedes said that they did not believe in “a personal God."
According to Greeley (2003), 46% of Swedes do not believe in God, although only 17% self-identify as “atheist.”
According to Froese (2001), 69% of Swedes are either atheist or agnostic.
According to Gustafsoon and Pettersson (2000), 82% of Swedes do not believe in a “personal God.”
According to Davie (1999), 85% of Swedes do not believe in God.
2006-12-11 09:58:36 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
Mark, I don't know if your question is bait for the Christians. but
I do know that morals existed well before Christianity. Philosophy and ethics encompass the subject of morals without any discussion of religion. The majority of people (99%) in prison in the old USA belong to some religion. Frankly, I see no relationship between religion and morality besides lip service. AS a post script, I just read what the Encyclopedia Britannica has to say about the religion of Swedes- 90% are evangelical Lutherans. I am an atheist by the way. You are just trying to get the religious up in arms. Just for ingenuity, I'll give you a grade of a D+.
2006-12-11 17:53:25 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
The thing is, a lot of Christian morals are common sense and they bring about love, joy, peace patience, kindness etc.
People love these things and, as the Bible says, "against such things there is no law."
So this 15% of morals easily become the majorities morals because they make sense and make life enjoyable and fair for everybody.
2006-12-11 17:58:24 · answer #3 · answered by bezzy_mack 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I think most of them realize at least that they are held accountable to a higher power, that being God of course, but the gospel may be scarce in that country.
If they were all out Atheists or even Agnostics, that country would be in bad shape because nobody would believe they were held accountable morally to anything or anyone.
From the very mouths of Atheists and Agnostics, they believe they can do anything they want because they believe there is no God to exercise judgment for the way they live.
http://www.handlethetruth.net
2006-12-11 17:49:33 · answer #4 · answered by truth_handler 3 · 0⤊ 2⤋
maybe you should re-evaluate your information because here in america where they say christianity is such a high percentage of the populace we do all of those things you say the swedes don't... so maybe it has nothing to do with christians, or maybe it does, maybe it's that there are so many people who are filled with the illusion that god will forgive all their wrongdoings in the blink of eye that they are "sinning" all over the place and hoping to "repent" on their deathbeds..
2006-12-11 17:54:42 · answer #5 · answered by bensbabe 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Lutheran 87%, Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Baptist, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist
These statistics are from the world fact book. It says that Sweden is mostly Christian. Doesn't say anything about AthEIst.
https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/fields/2122.html
Love & Light
Sharon
One Planet = One People with a lot of different statistics. I wonder who has the real numbers?
2006-12-11 17:54:45 · answer #6 · answered by Soul 5 · 0⤊ 1⤋
how strange
i was just talking about the low crime rate in sweden today with my dad in law
and how they managed to achieve it
give that in America atheists only make up 2 % of the prison population and now this info on sweden that i was not aware of ....
i am starting to see a pattern ....
are you sure it is Christian morals that are making the difference ?
2006-12-11 17:47:01 · answer #7 · answered by Peace 7 · 4⤊ 2⤋
Our morality is as filthy rags to God. Who is righteous enough to judge their morality to be so high? What measure do we use? Are we saying that their morality based on God's law is high? Apparently they have homosexuals if thay have equal rights huh? so whos standards of morality are we using to decide them so moral?
2006-12-11 17:52:29 · answer #8 · answered by djmantx 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
That's one thing I never understood why Christians couldn't grasp.
Who is a more moral person: A person who does unto others because it is right, or a person who does unto others because he'll be punished if he doesn't?
And I wonder how many Christians would go crazy and start attacking people if they lost their belief.
2006-12-11 17:48:12 · answer #9 · answered by Dennis_Yates 2 · 5⤊ 2⤋
I am pretty sure sweden has more than 1 type of religion.
I am aslo pretty sure that you know nothing about Sweden.
Way to suck.
2006-12-11 17:46:58 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 3⤋