My 2 cents More about 2001 census: Apoštolská církev (4 584) Bratrská jednota baptistů (3 641) Církev adventistů sedmého dne (9 787) Církev bratrská (9 971) Církev československá husitská (99 356) Církev Ježíše Krista Svatých posledních dnů (1 375) Církev řeckokatolická (7 704) Církev římskokatolická (2 748 918) Českobratrská církev evangelická (117 540) Evangelická církev augsburského vyznání v České republice (14 914) Evangelická církev metodistická (2 705) Federace židovských obcí v České republice (1 527) Jednota bratrská (3 443) Křesťanské sbory (6 955) Luterská evangelická církev a.v. v České republice (5 420) Náboženská společnost českých unitářů (302) Náboženská společnost Svědkové Jehovovi (23 260) Novoapoštolská církev v České republice (451) Pravoslavná církev v českých zemích (23 053) Slezská církev evangelická augsburského vyznání (14 038) Starokatolická církev v České republice (1 614) others (197 742) all together : 3 298 300 (app 31 %) So it is app. 70% for atheists and believers in "something above us" There are two "unanswered questions" or hard to be answered questions: 1. How many of that 70% percent majority are real atheists? 2. Is the number of 2 748 918 people who stated to be members of Roman Catholic Church true? Or to be more precise: 1) How many people from that 70% can easily change their mind and choose in next census Roman Catholic Church as their religion and how many people will never do it (real atheists)? 2) How many people who stated that they are Roman Catholics could easily choose "no religion" in next census? (real Catholics will never do it) So How many atheists live in CZ ?!
Hi, This seems like a very interesting topic. I have not had time to look at links to missionaries diary posts, but intend to do so. dzurisovak said What a thoughtful saying. So many Christians in the US seem to be bickering about how to worship Jesus or who is right about worship styles. Sometimes maybe it looks like "how can they come here and tell us how to worship when they can't agree how to worship in their own country". Might this be correct? I like your whole story you told about your wedding day. The Lord does work in mysterious ways :wink: . eso said Even as an American I started to doubt if I was saved, since this was not a big loud event. But people need to realize that this is how some peoples experience is, but not others. A quiet feeling is just as good as a loud feeling. If that made any sense :? . I hope people don't stay away from Christianity just because they don't have loud feeling.
You are right, these are hard to be answered questions. Maybe something could be deduced from comparison with 1991 census ( Roman Catholic 39.2%, Protestant 4.6%, Orthodox 3%, other 13.4%, atheist 39.8%) or fact that only estimated 5 percent of the population attend Catholic services weekly (source: http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2002/13928.htm). Ad real atheists - this is question, if atheist is someone, who don't believe in god, or someone, who believe that god doesn't exists. Anyway, not all people in "no religion" group are atheists. As I said, there are agnostics and somethingists, too) I'm not sure if you live in Czech republic or not and if you experienced general point of view on this topic across population here (or in Europe generaly).
I imagine most Catholics are only nominally Catholic, like in Western Europe. They identify themselves that way because of family tradition rather than any real belief. My Czech ancestors were Roman Catholics, and they were very Catholic, and even now one of my relatives who lives near Prague has a kitschy little souvenir from Fatima in her house, a statue or snow globe or something. My father visited about 10 years ago and told us she (his second-cousin) bought it on her first trip outside of Communist Europe when travel restrictions were lifted. It might not be a symbol of her faith, more a symbol of new-found freedom of movement, but that ugly thing has a place of honor in her living room. So even if Jesus isn't accepted as much as you might like, his mom is. :wink:
Yes I am living in CZ and I am aware of general point of view on it in Bohemia. I think (my personal opinion) that these percentages are nearest the truth: 15-20 % christians and 30-40% real atheists, rest goes for people which we can call less/more christian agnostics. Less/more christian agnostics are people who believe in something better than we are (God), some of them could sometimes identify themselves with church (roman catholicism) but they do not know much about it, they also do not know single prayer I am not sure. Atheists just do not believe. Lets-Call-Them-Agnostics understand/believe in one god, but they usually have problem to undestand what Jesus and his mother mean religionaly. I wory they doubt it. Another thing that they (most of them) do not believe in, is the statement that trusting Jesus is the only way to heaven.
I know a good proverb : "není každý svatý, kdo o práh kostela otírá si paty." It means something like that: "If some people go to church, it don't have to mean that they all are good people." I belive in God, but I think that many people who belive, too, can sin (and think that it's good at the same time) and - on the contrary- many people who don't belive, help other people and they are good people...and after their death won't get to the hell only for their atheism or beliving in only "something above them"...
I found incidentally this article about Czechs, religion and other things. I believe it's very interesting (though long) http://www.svu2000.org/issues/kuras4.htm
I thought it interesting that it was said that religion was associated by many in CZ to oppressive political parties. I understand that is one opinion and may not reflect most in CZ. Maybe or maybe not. I could not say. In the USA, the word, religion, is usually not associated with Christianity but with different faiths. The word, relgion, is regarded by many Christians in a pejorative [unfavorable] cast, particularly in protestant circles. The wars of religion in Europe were not really affairs of true Christianity but of greed by men trying to establish or protect their territories, namely the Roman Catholic Church. Men of the reformation found themselves being hunted down, tortured, and even burned at the stake all over Europe. Those actions are truly fearful, as a writer observed, for they are meant to terrorize and subdue. However, they are not Christian activities as the New Testament gospels will quickly affirm. By the way, true Christianity cannot be related to the crusades, a series of relatively minor events in history, irrespective of all the brouhaha over them. Christianity does not advocate gain of converts by the sword. Religon does. Islam's establishment came entirely by the sword and they seek today to maintain it the same way. There is little tolerance at all in Islamic countries for Christian witness, while they have come and settled in Christian countries, maintaining their faith system in western Europe and the USA. It was noticed in the USA that radical Islam in its 2001 attacks upon New York City and the Pentagon received hardly any rebuke from so-called moderate Islam. It is clear that such behavior is little different from that of the Nazis or the Communists at their worse. While it is a terrible thing not to understand and know the Lord Jesus and what He came and did for mankind, no Christian will or ever has sought to terrorize anyone to Christ. Religion does that sort of thing. I trust these remarks will not give offense and they are not intended that way. Thank you for your ears. Wanda Landowska
You are right that belief in god and belief in church are two separate things. No actions of church can explain atheism, that is actual disbelief in god. I believe, that history is insufficient in explaining the atheism of Czechs and that explanation provided by eso (popular as it is) is somewhat deceptive. As far as I am concerned I find the whole idea of "explaining" cultural traits as downright silly. Granted, that is mostly based on experience; how many times for example someone writes on this forum "it is because of communism", when it is clear they know nothing about communism, Czechs or whatever it is they are trying to explain (I am just waiting, when someone says Czechs are atheist because of communism). In short the statement, that "Czechs are atheist because of history" is simplistic and probably wrong. Other nations have similar history and they are not atheists. As a sidenote I heard that a lot of people turned from god after world wars, but apparently in some countries this effect was exactly the opposite!
This is a logical statement, and I can hardly argue with it; however, people very often (perhaps more often than not) base their actions/opinions on false logic. Therefore, I don't think that one can dismiss the historical context entirely. To keep in context, during the Hus era (for example), Catholicism was equated with Christianity, religion, and belief, rather than treated as a subset of Christianity, religion, and belief. So one should not surprised that a rebellion against Catholicism might also be accompanied by a rebellion against Christianity, religion, and belief in God altogether.
Well, it really depends. When someone since his childhood going to church, where priest teachs him, that there is god and afterwards he learn, that other things, which priest did and said (maybe not connected with religion) were false, then his belief in god can shake too, I guess.
The point is, eso, that a person may profess to be a follower of a religion, when in fact he/she isn't and acts contrary to the beliefs/values of his/her religion. It makes no sense logically to claim there is no god because of such an occurence(s), i.e. if all people acted logically all the time, BlackBox's statement should hold true. Do people always think logically? No. My previous comment actually made exception for the fact that people do not think logically in general, and that was the point that I was trying to get across to BlackBox. People are more creatures of emotion, rather than logic, and allow emotions to influence our thoughts and reasoning.
Religion is something that can be taught by a priest. Christianity is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. The first question a person asks when considering the gospels fo the New Testament is Who is Jesus? Is He who He claims to be? Nicodemus came to Jesus at night in the third chapter of the Gospel of John and said to Jesus, "These miracles could not be done except God be with him." That was quite an insight for the head of the Pharisees, religionists of the time. Nicodemus and all the countryside had seen the miracles. Nothing like them had ever occurred before. Jesus said to Nicodemus, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Nicodemus then tried man's logic and said ,"How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time the mother's womb, and be born?" Jesus then told Nicodemus, "Except a man be born again of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God." This is explained as flesh [water is a metaphor of flesh] and spirit is a man's spirit. The next verse says, "That which is of the flesh is flesh and that which is of the Spirit is spirit ." [The capital indicates Holy Spirit and the small letter indicates a man's spirit.] "Marvel not that I said unto you: You must be born again. The wind blows where it will and you hear the sound of it but you cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes: So is everyone who is born of the Spirit," Jesus told Nicodemus. This is logical but it is not from man but from the Holy Spirit to man. The Spirit searches all things even the deep things of God. Then the great classic verse, "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should have everlasting life." We are far, far beyond "cogito ergo sum" here. A great English preacher, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, often made the point that Christianity and Christ is based on hard facts. Lloyd-Jones was a medical doctor in the early 1920's at St. Bart's in London. Lord Horder, the queen's physician, asked Lloyd-Jones to join his clinic on Harley Street [internal medicine]. Lloyd-Jones soon became his chief diagnostic assistant at the clinic. In 1928, Lloyd-Jones announced he would be leaving the clinic and medicine to preach the gospel at Aberavon on the Irish Sea in Wales. This would be like voluntarily going to Sobidor from Prague. Clearly a logical man as D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones had see a great light. By the way, Lloyd-Jones was a Welshman and preached in Welsh and English. Light of Spiritual revelation produces some amazing things in history. History, by the way, is a record of things. It doesn't produce things. Events affect things, of course, and history is the record of these things. It is not often realized that a grave battle of evil and light is underway among men, orchestrated by the devil and his demons. Mikhail Bulgakov has written an excellent novel on the machinations of the devil called The Master and Margarita. I highly recommend it. Maybe some here have read it. Even Stalin commended this man for his other work [state theater] because he didn't see what Bulgakov was really saying. It would have been a dismal end in the gulag had Bulgakov failed at such cleverness. I mention Bulgakov because he had a very interesting theology interwoven in his masterpiece. Forgive me, I digress. Jesus was a real man born of woman and yet God. The incarnation is truly one of the many great Godly mysteries. God is omniscient but man is vastly finite, so clearly we need some help. God is willing. I must go. I have enjoyed the remarks preceding. Thank you for your ears, dear readers.[/u]
Well, strictly speaking, the English word history is too vague. Its meaning is mix of several concepts (dějiny, dějepis, minulost, záznam, příběh...). It's impossible to think in such unclear terms.
