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New And up here in the real north, we're even more atheist.
Yeah, chicks all wanna get married in church, but that's mainly for tradition(*) and Mendelssohn and being the Virgin Mary for one last day. Pretty much the only reason for a bloke to go through confirmation; the main reason why I went along with having my sprog baptised.

Sure, there are of course Laestadians and Seventh-day Adventists and Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses and various Pentecostals and Muslims and probably some Jews and apparently even quite a few ordinary Church of Finland (Sweden, Denmark, Norway) "Christians" who actually believe in all that stuff the Church is supposed to be about... But most of them, you don't know it from looking at them, and there aren't that many to begin with.

Here's how to spot religious people in Sweden and Finland: Witnesses you recognise when they come knocking at your door and politely ask if you want some leaflets, or maybe even talk about God and Jesus and salvation. When you decline, they politely take their leave. (Hm, come to think of it, there also used to be a couple distributing leaflets at the central Metro station below Railway Square, but I haven't seen those for a few years now.) Mormons show up on he street or in public transportation every other year or so, a couple clean-shaven and well-behaved young American men -- new ones every time -- far too young for their title of "elder". The Laestadians are recognisable mainly by the minibuses -- a class larger than minivans -- they have to drive in order for all their eight or ten children to fit in, but most of them live in Ostrobothnia, so you don't see them all that often. The Muslims are often recognisable by their dress, mostly the shawls or veils or burqas or niqabs they make their women wear, more rarely the baggy pyjama pants of the men. That's about it, because the pentecostals don't speak in tongues outside their churches; the Jews don't wear their kippas outside the synagogue (and I'm not about to ask people to drop trou to check if they belong to either of the Levant faiths); and nobody, but nobody, would be so uncouth as to talk about faith in public.

But when you talk to people in private, you notice that's usually -- i.e, almost always -- because they're just like you: They have no faith to speak of. (Some of them, usually women, claim to vaguely "believe", usually "not in an old guy with a white beard up in the clouds but, you know, in, like something".)

Nobody ever goes to church, except for weddings and possibly Christmas.


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(*): Also, being crap at their own history and having seen too many Yank movies, many of them are fucking up Nordic tradition by wanting to be "given away" by their fathers, which was never the way it was done in Scandalahoovia: Here, a free woman and a free man have walked into church side by side since the time of the Vikings, to get their knot hitched as equal partners.
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Christian R. Conrad
Same old username (as above), but now on iki.fi

(Yeah, yeah, it redirects to the same old GMail... But just in case I ever want to change.)
New When you wrote about what women believe, I heard it in valley girl voice
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Drew
New Well done! That's the voice that kind of person (man or woman) thinks in.
     Creationism in ... ... Europe?! - (Ashton) - (12)
         Your error . . . - (Andrew Grygus)
         Heh - (pwhysall) - (9)
             And up here in the real north, we're even more atheist. - (CRConrad) - (2)
                 When you wrote about what women believe, I heard it in valley girl voice -NT - (drook) - (1)
                     Well done! That's the voice that kind of person (man or woman) thinks in. -NT - (CRConrad)
             And yet, there is still the Church of England. -NT - (mmoffitt) - (5)
                 And? - (pwhysall) - (4)
                     About that - (drook)
                     Ah, the queen. YAN vestige of a (happily) bygone era. - (mmoffitt) - (2)
                         On the contrary, perhaps: If anybody cared, they might need to get rid of it? -NT - (CRConrad)
                         Now don't be a grouch. I have it on the Highest authority that, - (Ashton)
         Grateful to hear that bolt-holes persist in your areas, - (Ashton)

Better than a VBF, any day of the week.
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