What country best fits the term "Post-Faith Society"?

[eppur_se_muova]

Particularly, one in which an elected representative warping legislation to fit his/her own religious views would be totally impermissible?

[Beacho]

1. Japan comes to mind

It was my understanding that they have the highest rate of Atheists in their population.

[stray cat]

2. Is corporatism or greed a faith?

[eppur_se_muova]

5. I prefer to think of it as a mental disorder ...

unfortunately one which seems to affect all modern societies to some degree.

[alfredo]

3. Sweden

[Jackpine Radical]

7. Scandinavia in general, I think.

[alfredo]

14. Those long winters allows them to think about things.

[Jackpine Radical]

15. Somebody once said, if you want to understand what the Viking movement was all about,

Spend March in Denmark.

[alfredo]

18. Or August in Toledo

[Douglas Carpenter]

19. on how the society actually operates probably yes..still Sweden is a Christian monarchy

just as is Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway. And there is no particular desire to change that constitutional status. I believe most of these countries have an official state-recognized church as well.

It seems as to me that American secularist (remembering America is officially a secular state) get hung up over symbolic issues surrounding religion - like whether or not phrases such as "in God we trust" are on the coins or if there is a religious statue in front of a public building or if a religious music piece is performed at official state events while the officially secular United State of America is full of extremist fundamentalist nuts holding very real power and openly declaring their agenda of being driven by the most backward religious motives to actually implement domestic and even foreign policy.

On the other hand countries, such as the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway and Denmark grant religion it officially and state-sanctioned place of respect while implementing policies far more secular and far more liberal-humanist than anything remotely close to what the secular Republic of the United States of America can even remotely hope to see in the foreseeable future.

I cannot help but think the approach taken by the Netherlands and most Scandinavian societies isn't more politically prudent in actually building a more secular-humanist society.

[Kerrytravelers]

4. This is just my general impression, and I am willing to stand corrected,

but I always get the sense that Canada and New Zealand both seem this way.

When Bill Mahr took Religculous to the Toronto Film Festival, I believe it was the Canadian press who seemed a bit shocked.

An acquaintance described New Zealand as very low key. There are extremely religious people there, but they seem to understand that religion in private and politics is public.

[polly7]

13. Stephen Harper is the first PM we've had here

in a long time I've even heard of even being mentioned in the same sentence with religion ...... (also the first warmonger, strange how that works).

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=c3437b79-d0eb-4157-b4ae-ad11de38755c

'Keep religion out of politics, Canadians say'

[Ozymanithrax]

6. No such place exists.

Where you have relgious people elecetd to office, their religion will inform the legislation they support.

Even the non-religious can belived crackpot theories and ideas. And those crackpot ideas will inform legislation they support.

[OutNow]

8. France, Germany, Holland, Belgium, England, etc.

The European countries don't put up with, much less pander to, the religious wackos. In France, for example, they've had some experience with religion-based education and government. It didn't work out so well.

[Meldread]

9. Believe it or not, the United States.

I define Post-Faith Society as a Society in which freedom of religion (and that includes non-belief such as Atheism) is allowed to prosper. Of course, cultural heritage has a HUGE amount of influence on things, but the United States has freedom of religion as one of the bedrock foundations upon which it is founded. We've also come a long way culturally as well, and made huge strides that other nations simply have not been able to make.

If you look at Europe, there is still a great deal of anti-semitism there as well as anti-Muslim views. anti-semitism used to be fairly open and accepted in the United States, but over time it's become culturally unacceptable. While we saw a spike in anti-Muslim sentiment after 9/11 as a whole our nation is still very open to Muslim's compared to other nations.

I noticed someone mentioning Japan... but the Japanese are fairly xenophobic in general. Although this hasn't typically played out in the context of religious views, it has played out in terms of immigration. Therefore, I think it would be reasonable to conclude the Japanese would not be as welcoming to various faiths or non-faiths into their nation as the United States.

[depakid]

10. Australia (according to the Pope)

Pope singles out 'faithless' Australia

THE Pope has issued a dire warning about the state of religion in Australia, saying mainstream Christianity is dying more quickly here than in any other country.

In remarks to priests in Italy, Pope Benedict spoke of a crisis for the main Christian churches as people in the Western world felt self-sufficient, with less need for Christ and Christianity.

"Certainly this is a suffering linked to the present historical moment in which generally one sees that the so-called mainstream churches appear moribund," he said. "This is so in Australia above all and also in Europe but not so much in the United States." He said the Catholic Church was not as badly off as the mainstream Protestant churches, which were in a "profound crisis" because of sects.

Many people felt Christianity was antiquated, he said. But it actually represented the future because it responded to socio-ethical problems that could not be handled by an approach based solely on a scientific mentality.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/pope-singles-out-faithless-australia/2005/08/21/1124562753623.html

[hyphenate]

11. Not one in particular

But I'd say much of Europe, except for maybe Italy and Spain? This is more of a question, I guess, but The Netherlands, Great Britain and (all?) of the Scandinavian countries are pretty much past their religious prime nowadays, wouldn't you say? Germany? Austria?

[Kickin_Donkey]

12. Northwestern European countries come first to mind ...

Japan ... after having lived there for 10 years after college, I can say that religion plays absolutely zero role in legislation.

[Odin2005]

16. The Nordic countries.

[clear eye]

17. The Netherlands?