UK politician comes out atheist.

It may well be that atheism has already become less taboo than we realize.

I heard an interview with Richard Dawkins promoting his recent book in which he said that he'd wanted to write The God Delusion for a long time, but until recently his publisher/agents had told him not to bother because it won't sell in America. Perhaps this change in attitude is a backlash against Bush, who provides an obvious example of why being religious doesn't make you a good person.

In Britain it seems to me that until recently the main taboo is to have really strong beliefs. Some say that compared to the UK, the US has everything bigger, better, worse and more extreme. I can't argue that "burglarized" is not a bigger word than "burgled". ;)

Two Cents

California Lawmaker Becomes Highest-Ranking Official To Say He's a Nonbeliever

I was pleasantly surprised by the high percentage of positive and supportive reactions in both of them. It may well be that atheism has already become less taboo than we realize.

And the examples cites, the UK and Sweden, have plenty of freedom of religion, so that someone discontented with the state church can always find another church more to their liking. In the UK, you don't become a second-class citizen if you belong to some church other than the Church of England; a good fraction of the population has other religious affiliations.

Steve Bruce also finds cities to be less religious than rural areas, despite the greater choice of religions usually available in cities.

He considers the question of why the US is so exceptional, and concludes that it's due to the US having long been a patchwork of areas that are relatively homogeneous in religion. The southeastern "Bible Belt" is an obvious one, as is Mormonism in Utah and nearby; some northern Great Plains states are largely Lutheran, and northeastern states are largely Catholic.

For me, I find it ironic that Canada, with no explicit separation of church and state is a far more secular country than our neighbours.

I've heard a theory in a couple of places (might have even been here, I forget) that the fact that the US could never set up an official state religion made religion operate like a free market, with churches trying to outgrow and outcompete each other, so they become more assertive over time.

Compare that to, say, England, or until recently Sweden, where the state religion doesn't need to do anything to stay there, so it just stagnates until it becomes a background tradition.

Ironic is definitely the word for it.

You mean you just can't "tell", eh? ;o)

For me, I find it ironic that Canada, with no explicit separation of church and state is a far more secular country than our neighbours. We never aimed for the "melting pot", instead we've been content with a cultural salad and I think our country is stronger for it.

Not that I'm trying to put the United States down, or say that Canada is some kind of atheist utopia. We have our own messes to clean up, and Mr. Harper's "base" is not part of the solution, it's part of the precipitate.

Yeah things are a lot less worse up here then in the US, the fundies are a *much* smaller percentage of the population, except in certain areas.

Unfortunately the currently governing party gets a large amount of it's dedicated support from the religious right, a lot of the rest just came from people that were PO'd at the Liberals in the last election. But they aren't nearly as brazen, they don''t get away with abject blatant insults towards homosexuals and crap like that like the Replubicans do.

We just don't have it that badly in Canada. Not that believers don't have a lot to answer for, but Canadian politics don't have this constant threat of theocracy.

I hope I don't sound smug, but I can't imagine what it's like to live "down there".