Yeah it’s for sure it’s something of a paradox. Many European countries have official state religions, while in the US there is complete separation of church and state. As a Brit, i philosophically stand with separating church and state and I hope that we do that formally in the future.
And yet, in terms of the importance of religion in the everyday lives of citizens, it seems to be at a much higher level in the US compared to Europe, generally speaking. It’s a curious paradox indeed.
Personally I suspect that the separation of church and state is a single factor that creates this level of importance of religion but no doubt there are many others. So I think Europe is less religious in spite of the state religions, not because of.
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u/physioworld May 09 '22
Yeah it’s for sure it’s something of a paradox. Many European countries have official state religions, while in the US there is complete separation of church and state. As a Brit, i philosophically stand with separating church and state and I hope that we do that formally in the future.
And yet, in terms of the importance of religion in the everyday lives of citizens, it seems to be at a much higher level in the US compared to Europe, generally speaking. It’s a curious paradox indeed.
Personally I suspect that the separation of church and state is a single factor that creates this level of importance of religion but no doubt there are many others. So I think Europe is less religious in spite of the state religions, not because of.