This is driving me crazy because i have seen the statistics on religion in Prague and it was amazing to me....BUT now i cant find it, may have it printed somewhere at home. I remember it being crazy because 36% (or something like that) were atheist and less than that were Roman Catholic and then a mixture. Not sure what the stats are on expats though. I thought for sure there would be a TON of Roman Catholics....i would not see you having a problem meeting other jewish people though.
I have no hard data on this either, but from what I`ve read, the Czechs and the Dutch are said to be the most atheistic nations in Europe. Finding a real cause of the Czech paganism is probably more difficult than just the common argument it`s because of the dark ages when under communism. The Poles underwent the same God-like proletariat brainwashing but 95% have remained Roman Catholic. There certainly are some Christians in the CR but their perception of God is a bit different from the American perception. Naom Chomsky sums it up for me: Religious fundamentalists alone are a huge popular grouping in the United States, which resembles pre-industrial societies in that regard. This is a culture in which three-fourths of the population believe in religious miracles, half believe in the devil, 83% believe that the Bible is the "actual" or the inspired word of God, 39% believe in the Biblical prediction of Armageddon and "accept it with a certain fatalism" a mere 9% accept Darwinian evolution while 44% believe that "God created man pretty much in his present form at one time within the last 10,000 years," and so on. The "God and Country rally" that opened the national Republican convention is one remarkable illustration, which aroused no little amazement in conservative circles in Europe. I swear to God the only Czech person I`ve known who believed in the devil dwelling somewhere near the centre of the earth was my granny. RIP Here`s one link (only in Czech) with a whole lot of other theistic links which you might find useful if you`re in tune with what they write about. www.vira.cz ,
According to the 2001 census results, it is even worse There are just about 30% of believers, the rest are atheists (or more precisely, people who did not indicate any religion).
well we were all right! the stats off the basic facts info on this website lists the following: Atheist 40%, Roman Catholic 39%, Protestant 4%, Other 17% I know i am not an atheist but i hate the word "religion" anyway so Prague is sounding pretty good! :lol:
Amy, The number cited on this website regarding religious beliefs were for the entire Czech Republic, not for Prague. You'll find that the percentage of religious people in Prague is significantly lower, probably around 30% as Halef pointed out. In other places of the Czech Republic, especially Moravia, the percentage of religious people is higher than in Prague.
thanx alot ...i have no prob. with jewish ppl but i was wonderin if there are czech jewish ppl? anyways i thank u all very much!
yeah cz i met a guy with these two jewish hair (i donno wt to call'em) i mean he got a short hair bt each side of his head he got small long hair tied together...u know wt i mean! i asked him if he's jewish he said no......so i was wonderin if there's a prob. abt it by the way he's czech!!!!!well may be it's just a hair style he likes!!!!
Even those 30% of believers seem far too many to me. I think hardly 5% of people in Prague or Ostrava go regularly to church, synagogue or mosque. One of the few things that could make me proud I'm Czech. Religion is bunk and should end up on the ash heap of history
If there were no religion, we would have to find it out I think that when you really start thinking about those big, cosmic questions such as "what is at the end of the space" or "why do the atoms stick together", you come to conclusion that you just cannot find out. This can drive you mad, so you have to either suppress such thoughts (which may be hard), or accept some theory that explains it everything, but requires some faith, because it cannot be proven. And I think that, for example, the "six days of hard work" theory is not worse than the "Big Bang" one. P.S. Those statistic data: Praha - 286567 of 1169106 believers (3072 Jehowa's Witnesses by the way, they are the fifth most succesful religion) Ostrava - 93400 of 316744. But I think you may be right with the 5 percent attendance. P.P.S. I get those data at http://www.czso.cz/eng/redakce.nsf/i/po ... ing_census
Well said, Halef. As a scientist, I often have these kinds of discussions. One thing that sticks out to me is that many people who believe the Big Bang was the beginning of the universe never stop to think what happened before the Big Bang, i.e. what (or who) made the Big Bang happen? Food for thought, albeit don't expect any scientific answers to that one during your lifetime. The vast majority of things in life require some level of faith, since no individual has either the experience or the logical capacity to know or understand everything. Thanks for the statistics!
As far as the world stats on scientists are concerned, believers and non-believers are equally divided. The most believers are, naturally, among mathematicians, while the most non-believers are, unsuprisingly, among biologists.
I sometimes wonder why there is such difference in spirituality between us and the Poles. Most religious Czechs are found in Moravia but none is deeper into religion than Poland. Does anyone here know the reason?
Maybe because Czechs were originally protestants and it was the Habsburgs' policy of recatholicization that caused the religion indifference. Another reason might be that religion tends to flourish more in rural areas and the Czech lands were more industrialized than Poland. :?:
Sorry i'm confused i thought jan hus was a protestnt reformer and you said he turned people on to catholicism. Which is right and which is wrong. Yes but not being able to understand what scientists are explaining isn't a good enough reason to start believing in god. Understanding the human condition is different to comprehending a scientific theory of the beginning of the universe. I remember picking up a book about the history of mathematics and coming to the realisation that the babylonians were completing problems that I couldn't even begin to think about solving. :idea:
