Tuesday, March 17, 2015

God and Sweden

Sometimes, following Phil Zuckerman, people will say "People can be ethical without God, look at Sweden. They have a low rate of religiosity but also a low violent crime rate."

A Jewish philosopher thinks this is problematic. Here. 

2 comments:

Heuristics said...

I'm Swedish, 32 years old. In (government) school we sang christian songs, ended the school year in church and had education on religion.

In the city I live in now the (government) high schools employ school priests (evidence here: http://www.lund.se/Gymnasieskolor/Katedralskolan/Personal/Kuratorer-SYV-och-skolskoterska/ (search skolpräst=schoolpriest). The Swedish King must abide by the protestant faith by law. You must be buried by some religious institution etc.

Sweden is not a secular nation.

As for personal religion, the Swedish population has always adapted quickly to whatever religion the ruling class recommends. Currently they are recommending some kind of merchant environmentalism, so that's the religion most people have, but many (I would say about 30-40%) also add some form of theism to it.

Anonymous said...

heheh ... not much from the resident gnus here