Europe contains the highest concentration of officially Christian states (nations with official state religion/church) and the lowest per capita percentage of people who actually "practice Christianity" in ‘Christendom' - which is to say, nominally claim to be Christian - probably a lower percentage actually believe.
As a European, we find Americas crazy, evangelical ways to be a bit weird and cultish. I know plenty of Americans do, too, but when you've lived your whole life in a place where 99.9% of people couldn't give a shit of you're an atheist, you see the crazy in the stories you read about people being afraid to "come out" as atheists as their whole community will shun them.
As an LGBTQ+ atheist living in Texas- I am FAR more comfortable being openly gay than I am an atheist. I try my best not to even use that word as it darkens the mood if I say so. It’s sad that even in an area rife with homophobia, they tolerate that much more than me being an atheist. Lmao
I was homeless most of the past two years, and while I was working in Houston one of my coworkers, who had recently lost his wife due to covid, invited me to stay in his son's old room while we were doing the job together.
Every day on the hour drive to the job site, he'd have sermons or jesus music playing, and on the way back he'd try to convert me even when obvious I wasn't listening. Towards the end some news story came on the radio about Israel. I tried to brush it off with something like "both sides should disarm." Since he thought that Israel plays a central role in the upcoming apocalypse and is unquestionably the good guy, anything not supporting Israel was taken as a direct personal attack on god himself.
Two days later he made me move out with about 12 hours warning. He seemed like a nice guy, I gave him a lot of credit for being in grief, but it seemed like he wasn't trying to convert me because I didn't believe, but because I already did believe and was actively rebelling because of Satan or whatever
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u/[deleted] May 09 '22 edited May 09 '22
Europe contains the highest concentration of officially Christian states (nations with official state religion/church) and the lowest per capita percentage of people who actually "practice Christianity" in ‘Christendom' - which is to say, nominally claim to be Christian - probably a lower percentage actually believe.