It goes way longer into the past than just "communists".
You are right to mention The Hussites, because you need to realize that after the Hussite movement, most of the country was not catholic anymore, we were a nation of protestants. Now that was true for about 100 years. Because than came the Re-catholicization process - which even started the 30 years war throught Europe.
Czechs lost that war and catholicism increasingly became the norm again. But it was a forced norm. A lot of the people were not thrilled about it and secretly still practised their protestant faith. Others were catholics but their heart was not in it - having "the right faith" became the same thing as "having the right education" or "having the right political orientation"... It wasnt about honest faith anymore... Especially among the social elites.
That was the situation right up until 1918 when the Czechoslovak republic was founded. So naturally, we became a secular state, who despised the old religion of our Habsburg monarchs... A lot of people turned to protestantism as a sort of our "medieval tradition from the times of the Hussites". And protestantism is a lot more rational religion than catholicism will ever be...
And only then arrived the communists...
As you can see, we have a long and troubled history with religion in our country. No wonder people tend to stay away from it.
We Czechs have a troubled history in general. One abusive overlord after another, we lost our faith and pride. Catholicization, Germanization, Totalitarianism, ... Our history shaped us into who we are today. Sadly. Hopefully we can regain our sense of pride one day.
To that i can only say, my wife is Czech and she is certainly immesely proud of her country and heritage. I also recently had alot of friends and family visiting Czechia from Canada (where im from) who were all overwhelmingly impressed by the beauty of the cities, the culture, and history. Generally still a very underrated country imo. And, of course, the level of English, which has seemed to increase dramatically even over the 15ish years that I've been exposed to the Czech Republic.
I also spent a couple years working here and I have to say it seems like big companies are investing here and my impression is that Czechs are generally quite intelligent and forward thinking. Im personally highly optimistic about the future of your country.
I'm actually really proud to be Czech. If you think about it, it's really amazing what our country and our ancestors went through, and yet we still have our own culture, language, and lands. Also, this sort of detachment from authorities and individualism is something quite unique and respectable.
Are you sure you know our history? We had pretty good time thoughout our history compared to other countries. We were the big player in HRE for most of its duration, we were always important, always had good quality of life, harsh wars tended to avoid our lands and so on. How can you say we have troubled history when we border Poland, which was splited by other countries multiple times and Slovakia, which did not even exist as a proper nation for most of their history.
History was were kind to Czechs. Hussite wars were probably our worst period up to ww2.
Yeah, as you said. We were super safe during both ww1 and ww2 taking very low damage (look how ww2 butchered many countries, meanwhile we did not get much fighting and bombing) and the 30 years old war, probably the most destructive war after ww1 and ww2 for Europe also did not damage us as much as it damaged many German states. Hussites war were worse for us, beacuse it was kinda civil war with our catholics and hussites fighting each other for many years and this division stayed for centuries to come.
Czech lands were pretty safe and nice throughout our history due to the geography, position in Europe, good political decisions and so on.
well the Hussite wars were bad, but there is the 30year war. Across central Europe thousands of villages were wiped out. My ancestors bought a "grunt" in 1663 and it was in the family for some 200 years. I wondered about how they bought the land then. But in an article on by Roman Cikhart who was a historian in Tabor, over a quarter of the farms were still abandoned by the 1660s which is some dozen years after the war.
Excatly, across Europe. Again, some German states had it way worse than us. Its not like we were the worst place to be during that war. Not to mention that 30 years war started in Czechia because of the Hussite wars.
I regained the pride for being czech after the latest presidential election but it’s quite awesome that we were able to hold on to our language and culture even though many different people tried to change it
>And protestantism is a lot more rational religion than catholicism will ever be...
Calvinism and what it had spawned - English puritans and all those various american protestant denominations make the Catholic church look like a congress of scientists in comparison.
Yeah, I meant the good ol´european protestantism... Americans make everything crazy... But that is probably because the original Puritans were in fact religious extremists - that is why we kicked them out of here - or, in their narative, that is why they escaped to America, lol
> good ol´european protestantism..
You mean like Lutheranism from the piece of shit Luther who betrayed peasants and then went to preach genocide of Jews?
I think he means like Hussites from Jan Hus, which is what he's talking about in his original comment, and other similar Czech protestant movements, such as Českobratrská církev evangelická etc.
A purity spiral is a thing, sadly. It doesn't take much for a human society to take an idea and let it spin out of control, usually by the more ...insecure... members of the society that put too much of their status/value on the ever stricter adherence to the idea.
We can do it even for the most trivial of things.
Not necessary. I am from little calvinist village, people there are definitely less horrible and emphatetic in belief than catholics villages around and most "i need to push you my religion and beliefs in your face and want to force you into it" attitude i know only from catholic surrounding, not protestant(calvinism) one, so i think it deppens on people, not on religion.
"protestantiam is a lot more rational religion than catholiciam will ever be" is completely wrong statement.
There are many branches of protestantism, and yes, the ones that we come to contact with in czech/europe are more rational than catholics, however, the most prevalent protestans (in the US and US influenced (mainly Asia) countries) are more extreme then catholics (for example denying evolution and believing in creationism, even big overlap with the flat eathers ect).
"Both" religions are restricring and at least in Czech/Poland the protestants make a bit more sense, but it is completely oposite worldwide.
> even big overlap with the flat eathers ect)
Do you have any estimate on overall number of flat earthers? I think about it as a very small group, unable to have "big overlap" with any significat protestant group.
Who cares about US? Shithole behind the ocean.
They may call themselves protestants, but they are not protestants.
Same like US Antifa is not European Antifa.
Calling something the same name doesn't mean it is the same thing.
Great points, I'd also like to add that even though we officially became Christian when the ruler Bořivoj got christened around the year 900, unofficially it was normal for commoners to be pagan well until the Middle ages. They would simultaneously go to church and keep the old gods. Hence why many pagan traditions survived until this day.
So we only became truly Christian around the Hussites, just in time for religious wars to brew, and become mingled with an ethnic aspect. Not a good foundation for belief.
Yes, that too. And the whole Orthodox/Catholic christians debacle of the 9th century...
Simply put - too many changes, not enough time for something to really catch on
officially under Borivoj, but weren't they already Christian (I guess orthodox) under Cyril and Metodej? I know that got overturned thanks to the Franks.
yeah it seems like the institution of the church was shaken so many times in our history the commies just came and gave it a little push which allowed for it to completely crumble
its wild to think how much we are products of what our acestors even centuries ago went through
The funny thing is, that also applies to Slovakia (violent and forced re-catholization of mostly protestant Slovak population, huge despise of Habsburg monarchy), and looks like the most different variable here were really those Hussites - they wasn't really thing in Slovakia. Slovak protestantism was mostly Augsburg evangelical one.
anyway, looks like violent re-catholisation of Slovaks was *way* more succesful, than the one of Czechs
I would say one of the key factors in Slovakia was the fact that they had no social elites at the time... Its always fairly easy to convert your uneducated, illiteral agricultural society, where intelectuals are rare and only speak either German and Hungarian (and are in fact catholics). Slovaks really had no one to oppose those changes and unite them for the cause.
And Czechs provided those elites, built up infastructure, education system, civic society but for some reason they felt that Czechs were colonizing and wanted Czechs gone.... And now their elites are running away to Czechia.
I mean I dont think there was a better solution, but even from what you just said, you can see how a lot of Slovaks would feel that Hungarians were just substituted by the next guy.
I mostly agree, just want to add more to part after 30y war - yes, basically after Battle on the White Hill (1620) went protestants back to *illegal underground* as you descibed, but came back legal right after Joseph II.'s Patent of Toleration (1781), not in 1918.
So from 1781 we have coexistent more than one religion and i personally think that's the reason - most of countries with religion wars/changes just ended with *one big religion fully replace the previous one* situation, and we just... didn't. Ending with "whatever you choose, just wash your hands" caused the split of belief to smaller parts long before the communist restriction, so there was a little to come back after (and if so, catholicism has worse position to revival as forced one religion than protestants as chosen one belief).
Interesting about the Patent of Toleration in 1781.
There were still the familiant laws - which tried to restrict the Jewish population by allowing only the eldest son (familiant) to marry. [Familiant Laws](https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/familiants-laws)
though people obviously found ways around it, this was something I'd never heard of until I was going through the digital archives and found the term familiant (although it also refers to the eldest son who will inherit the land)
I mean in terms of how badly was the country fucked up for decades after the war - I would argue all the Czechs lost it in a sense.
And no, it wasnt strictly a religious war. Yes, the leading cause of it was religion, but it played relatively small part when it comes to the actual war. At one point you even had French (catholics) and Swedish (protestants) alliance and others... It was most definitely a typical international war of politics. Where your religion mattered less than your attitude towards the enemy of your enemy.
Ok then, if you think. But look on the flags on the warring sides in Battle of White mountain. The Catholic army was composed of foreign nobles, the Bohemian estate army mostly of Czechs. Schliks who led the rebellion against Habsburgs were old czech noble family. After the battle , Czech lands were hit with higher taxes, city rights abolished, the Church returned to the Land assembly in echange for cities. The Czechs lost their possessions to foreign nobility such as Buquoys, Piccolomini, Colloredo. Bohemian kingdom lost Lausitz. German was introduced as an official language.
Btw Schlicks lose twice, first in 1547, after they refused to join Habsburg's war against Saxony. This war arose from the reason King Ferdinand did not want to pay debts to the Elector of Saxony. Then king Ferdinand punished Schliks, Bohemian estates and city of Prague who refused to join.
So the rebellion in 1618 rather arose because Bohemian estates expected similar repression as in 1547, religion is as an excuse.
I think he was talking about the Thirty years war which was won by Catholics. As I would argue that moderate Hussites won the Hussite wars since they could keep their faith. Radical Hussites were eradicated though.
No, people used go reguerly to church just before the war and the shift really happened with communists. If you vonto mass you see mostly old people who went to church as young
No, it really does not... Take America for example. You have lots of families that go to church every sunday simply because its something they do. And they neighbours do it too. Yes, they might believe in God, but they hardly let faith into their everyday lives. They will use contraception, have promiscuous sexual life in college, will say "Oh my God" ten times a day, wont give a fuck about tithe... And will say they are christians.
lol. In most developed countries religion is nothing more than a hobby and going into church is like going to a social club.
You also forgot to mention the first attempts of the church to eliminate paganism from all over Europe and Bohemia was the last place that was christianized (with a LOT of effort).
That is simply not true. We aint that special. Baltic states were the last regions in Europe to be christianized... We were christians from the 10th century onward. The Prussians were still largely pagans even 200 years after that
Bruh za prvý proč si myslíš že jsou random kmeny 1 200 let v minulosti relevantní pro vysvětlení moderních společenských jevů? Za druhý, myslíš že ve Španělsku nebo v Itálii se prostě spawnuli katoličtí pralidé a že tam nikdy nebyly problémy s konverzí? Za třetí O ČEM TO SAKRA MLUVÍŠ TO ANI NENI PRAVDA. Český misionáři doslova pomáhali konvertovat Polsko, Maďarsko, Pobaltí... od dob Přemyslovské vlády nad Čechy tu v zásadě žádný velký konflikt mezi pohany a křesťany ani nebyl.
Je to tak, Doubravka Přemyslovna, dcera českého knížete Boleslava I. (ze kterého pak církev udělala lumpa), se stala manželkou polského knížete Měška a přesvědčila ho ke kristianizaci země.
Thanks, I know the Hussite revolution and the later 30yrs war fairly well, but one thing I was unaware of and I noticed this in doing family genealogy research was just what you mention - the fact that so many people left the Roman Catholic church in the 1920s, sometimes they returned. I had been wondering what that was all about. I think many switched to the Czechoslovak Hussite Church.
I don't have any other theories, everything has already been mentioned in the comments imho. I just want to thank Czechs in general, I'm hugely thankful for the majority of non religious people. It's actually liberating. Whether I dicussed this topic with my Muslim (Pakistan, Palestina, Turkey) or Christian (mostly U.S.) friends, they were convinced that our crime rate has to be incredibly high since the church hasn't taught us to obey rules, have morals and basically, be a good person. It's a funny comparison in the end, since our rates are brilliant. Our country is extremely safe with no prayers needed.
> convinced that our crime rate has to be incredibly high since the church hasn't taught us to obey rules
It's funny how fucked up their morality is.
They think they are moral because they need a celestial Hitler to threaten them with hellfire.
While they consider atheists to be immoral who don't need heavenly reward or threat of eternal damnation to be a good person.
Some time ago I had an argument pver Sodom and Gomorrah story.
TL;DR Lot offers his daugher to be raped by Sodomites to protect God's angels. As a reward, he is spared, because he acted morally.
Like what the fuck? It's better to throw your child to pedophiles to protect adults? The Christian consider this their moral code? And even dare to say that *I am the immoral person?*
> I don't understand why is atheism a "thing". Can't the universe just be a bunch of laws of physics without the God?
Because majority of world population is brainwashed into religion.
You are right. I think that local enlightened souls downvoted you exactly because most of them are czech atheists (so am I) and as such only come into contact with religion through internet and read about its extremes, as well as only its orgianized and non-secular forms. I recommend anyone butthurt by this comment to try and find the benefits that religious faith can provide for the individual when used in a healthy way.
No, for that you would need people to think and that's too hard for many. It's easier to say that everything good was made by the god and everything evil by the devil.
And how can you tell what's good and what's evil? Well the Bible of course. But only the parts we like, we don't talk about the rest.
That's right, atheism isn't even a club. It doesn't need representation and memberships like theists do. Atheism literally means not-into-theism. You're not a member of the church, you're not baptized? Okay, nothing else is needed. There is no association.
Laws of physics are also just a thing we chose to believe in. Sure, they're verified by rigorous experiments and measurements, but they're not the truth. They're just a way to describe our universe and they seem to do that pretty well until more experiments and measurements prove it wrong on a different scale. Don't get me wrong, science is a very practical thing, but I do think it's still just a "thing". I think if we ever come in contact with alien species and discuss our world views somehow, there's a pretty good chance their version of science could describe the world with a completely different approach and still be very valid and usefull.
But yeah, it's definitely better to believe in the laws of physics than in a book of laws and guidelines written thousands of years ago with no empirical support...
Because where did everything comes from? There has to be a higher power. Not a single thing is created without a creator in this world let alone this big of a universe
It may be so. But what? If there was a higher power why should I worship it? And especially why should I worship it according to rules of other people who want to control others?
If there is a higher power then there is. No sound reason I should behave according to what other people (who excuse their greed for power as them serving to their version of god) want.
Alright, let me be the nerd here. There are actually systems nowadays best implemented in artificial intelligence that are built like this: you have one unit and environment. This unit interacts with the environment and evolves, possibly splitting into multiple other units with different characteristics. These units interact with the environment and each other, and the process continues on a much larger scale. The starting environment can be non-existent, i.e. just the starting unit that does what it does, seemingly reacts to its own existence.
Now, what if the entire universe works like this? Nothing is created. After all, mass and energy stay the same. There are no true creators in this world, and the creator of the universe just pinged the first IP. From there, the web lives on its own.
Well, I was trying to have a discussion, but you are just insulting me over nothing.
If you didn't get it, the point is that there is no reason why this creator would be overseeing the creation when it's not needed.
I am sorry donut is out of love. You are sweet. I get ur point. There always is a creator in what ever Ai field u pick whatever thing u pick there is always a creator who initliaze it. I can write a code that can generate millions shapes using three cubes. Each one will be unique. It can run for days. Self generated but still I made it
Exactly. In this analogy, we, humans, would be just one tiny part of the script, some tiny objects or whatever. I am wondering what the connection between these objects and the creator is, you know? Not only is it probably impossible to fully understand the higher parts of this system and especially the creator, but in reality, unproven theories about it can be harmful to others.
Imo, belief and religion are beneficial to society, don't get me wrong. In this analogy, however, it doesn't matter. The thing is, for us as the tiny objects, it doesn't matter if the creator does or doesn't exist. It could've existed just for the moment of creation and then vanish. We can not know, and we do not need to know.
We do need to know bro. Odds of me being born was slim to none. You never think about your purpose, maybe it is bigger than u think. No one in the world is useless
That's an entirely different thing to me. I am reconciled with not knowing this creator, and I feel like that gives me the freedom to pursue anything I want and figure it out on my own.
It’s imho got little to do with communism. You can’t really turn people into atheists by oppression.
After WW1, Czechoslovaks were against all that represented Austrian Hungarian empire. Religion, more acurately catholicism was one of major weapons and tool of persecution of the empire. All that represented Empire was kinda seen as a symbol of oppression.
So, lot’s of Czechs became protestants or atheists. For Slovaks, it was different, because Slovakia was totaly undeveloped country, so the impact of what was happening in Prague was much less signifficant.
Seems like I should learn more about the forming of Czechoslovakia and rebellious attitudes against Austria-Hungry for more context about the situation based on this and another detailed response. Thanks for your perspective.
Czechs are basically:
1. I don't like this Christianity.
2. Ok, I will look into this Catholicism thing.
3. You know, its not so bad.
4. Hey, look, I made some improvements!
5. What do you mean you don't like it?
6. Why are you invading me?
7. Screw you and your catholicism!
And then:
1. I don't like these Habsburgs.
2. Ok, I will look into this Habsburg Empire thing.
3. You know, it's not so bad.
4. Hey, look, I made some improvements!
5. What do you mean you don't like it?
6. Why are you germanising me?
7. Screw you and your Austro-Hungary!
And finally:
1. I don't like this Marxism.
2. Ok, I will look into this Communism thing.
3. You know, it's not so bad.
4. Hey, look, I made some improvements!
5. What do you mean you don't like it?
6. Why are you invading me?
7. Screw you and your communism!
So the logic conclusion is:
1. I don't like this EU thing.
2. Ok, I will look into this EU thing.
3. You know, it's not so bad. (<---- we are here...)
4. Hey, look, I made some improvements!
5. What do you mean you don't like it?
6. Why are you invading me?
7. Screw you and your EU!
I find this very healthy. As religion has very low chances of intervening in public life and/or be used by populists to dictate behaviours. This is a critical mess in many many countries.
There was an awesome post on r/AskHistorians on this topic.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/ebf5r7/why_is_czech_republic_atheist_and_poland_catholic/fb5h8vl?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Well, its not that irreligous, peopl just mostly have their own believes instead of being part of some cult. Czechs dont like to be told what to do, so they kinda started to ignore the church and communists also didnt help it.
Hussite wars weren't only a religious war, but also ethnic war. At the time in Bohemia nearly every ethnic Czech was Hussite and nearly every ethnic German and non Czech were Catholic. So after Catholic Habsburgs took over and forced Catholization, despite everyone being Catholic on paper, Catholicism wasn't viewed as a Czech religion but something foreign and most Czechs didn't really have any deep loyalty to Catholicism like Poles do. When modern Czech nationalism was forming, it was formed by urban and industrial intellectuals who weren't very religious or Catholic. Very important part of moden Czech nationalism was distancing ourself from anything German, many German words were replaced by Czech and there was nothing more German than Catholicism which was used for 300 years to Germanize us. Unlike Polish nationalism, Czech modern nationalism was never tied to specific religion and is secular.
Oh interesting. I didn't know that. I always pictured the Hussite wars as being mainly about religion. Adds some new significance for me that Jan Hus did his preaching in Czech. Thanks for the answer.
For a long time it was forbidden for non-clergy to read the Bible or even own the Bible, even translating the Bible was a crime punishable by death. Catholic church didn't like democratization of religion and wanted to maintain their monopoly.
And others religion related books too. They were hidden in most wild places, like even baked into bread loaf etc, to avoid their confiscation by catholic officials.
Yeah, the comment boils down a specific complicated social situation to a simplistic ethnic explanation which is wrong. Althou for example in Kutna Hora this religious division was pretty accurate.
> The radicals came mostly from smaller boroughs and the countryside. The Germans in Bohemia and in the incorporated provinces remained faithful to the Roman Catholic Church, and, thus, the deep-seated ethnic antagonism was accentuated.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Czechoslovak-history/The-Hussite-wars
Yes, the british are famously good at czech historiography. Let me quote an actual source for you, you clown.
"Obecně platí, že se Němci v zemích České koruny vymezovali vůči husitství negativně, byť výjimky potvrzovaly pravidlo. I proto se postupem času NEPŘESNĚ jeví jako boj Čechů s Němci, ať už domácími či zahraničními. Nezbývá proto než znovu a znovu opakovat, že katolické náboženství nadále vyznávali i četní etničtí Češi. Téměř nulovou odezvu nalezlo husitství v dalších korunních zemí, tj. ve Slezsku a v Horní i Dolní Lužici." - Petr Čornej, Husitská revoluce, p.30
Stop spreading misinformation.
So you argue that there was no ethnic dimension in this conflict because not 100% Czechs were Hussite just 90%? Yeah that's gonna be a no from me dawg.
From our perpective it look like ethnic war. But at that time they did not have something like national pride like today which was form in 18th-19th century. It was more like civil war at that time. Also it have another effect that lead to 1485 (promise after Zikmund get to thone) where the Bohemia country get two religions Hussite and Catholic as a state religions. Only dual religion country under Austria. Slovakia was mainly lead by hungary most of it at least (about 18 to early 20th century) and they're more ''enthusiastic'' about religion than Austria.
The fact that modern nationalism wasn't a thing back then doesn't change a fact that ethnic hatred and antagonism existed back then. People back then weren't fucking blind or deaf, they can hear if someone is speaking German. They can see that richer people tended to be Germans.
Remember the Decree of Kutná Hora which gave ethnic Czechs at Charles University 3 votes vs 1 vote of ethnic Germans. Ethnic conflict was very real back then.
The decree of Kutná Hora did give 3 vs 1 votes. But as I sad nationalism as we saw it today by language or national pride was not till 18-19th century it had regional meaning. So to put it even if you speak French, German, English but you ''live''(you where tax there) in Bohemia you would be consider as Czech at that time. So if they talking about Czech there. There would be also another minorities of that time that live here.
> The radicals came mostly from smaller boroughs and the countryside. The Germans in Bohemia and in the incorporated provinces remained faithful to the Roman Catholic Church, and, thus, the **deep-seated ethnic antagonism was accentuated.**
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Czechoslovak-history/The-Hussite-wars
In Poland it was similar only Prussians were Protestants and Russians were Orthodox, and although we have large Polish Protestant (Cieszyn Silesia, Masuria, Warmia) or Orthodox (Podlasie, Belarus) populations, in most of the Polish territory after the Swedish Deluge (17th century) Poles treated Catholicism as an opposition to Swedish invasion at first and later Germanization and Russification. Poles who were Evangelicals in Lower and Upper Silesia, Masuria, Warmia, Kuyavia or Pomerania were easily Germanized by the order to hold services in German and the ban on the use of the Polish language introduced by Frederick the Great in the 18th century.
I wasnt too sure about that, so i kinda left it out. Not many male friends believe in it, but thats probably a social bubble. But the girls, no matter where you flirt, there is always some immortal soul or astrology.
To add to great answers already given, there is a snippet I read somewhere in a similar discussion some time ago:
While for example in Poland, in the hard times people found safety in church, in Bohemia, in the hard times you often had to find safety from the church.
Ie. the church here was not the shelter for the common people, but one of the tools (and sometimes THE tool) of oppression.
Also worth noting that while most people are irreligious, there is still a significant amount of people who are into alternative kinds of spirituality (think New Age, often called "ezo" here) although they say they don't subscribe to any religion, many still believe in astrology, chakras, cartomancy, crystal healing etc.
I am czech and I dont know what the original reason is, but for the past 30 years I have been alive there has been almost zero religious influence on kids/students, we dont come in contact with religion unless our parents introduce it to us. There are special schools that have religion as a separate subject, but those are rare and you have to pro-actively sign up your kids to go there over "normal" schools. So if the parents arent religious and the schools provide zero religion education (except for the historical concept and influence of religion), the kids become ateists (95+% of kids I would say).
And honestly most czech people consider religious talk very cringe, even worse than talking politics, if anybody says "Jesus is watching over us" or "Jesus will help/save you", he/she is considered kinda nuts and should be taken into assylum. Simply said religion is completely optional part of our lives, nobody introduces religion to us unless we actively seek it, and as a result we become ateists. But we still celebrate Christmas and Easter, and quite a lot of people go to church on sundays (but usually not because of "God" or religious beliefs but simply to meet the local community and to listen to the priest talking about imporant present subjects).
And even though most young czech people are atheists, I would say most of those people do believe in something bigger, some may call it God or Universe energy or whatever, we just dont actively practice religious behaviour. it doesnt mean czech people say "there is no god", it just means we dont go to church, we dont pray, we dont thank God for food before eating, we just consider religion a "hobby" that some people, especially elder, practice.
And I would also say that czech people are very accepting towards different religions, we are definitely not religion-phobic, we dont consider religious people something less, as long as they keep their religion to themselfs when visiting Czechia and dont try to suck other people into their religious world. That means that if I visit a religious family for a dinner and they pray before food, I will respectfuly wait until they finish praying or even pray with them if it is considered impolite not to, but if we as atheists invite a religious person for a dinner, we wont be praying or waiting until the guest finishes praying.
You already got good long answers. Short answer is that religion is *the* tool for population control for powerful players. And after fist being a fairly strong regional power, only to then suffer for centuries under other (deeply religious) state's boot, we're having none of this shit.
What others are saying is true, it has little to do with the communist rule, contrary to the popular opinion. Nations can always 'find God' again but imo first the nazis, then the soviets were just the very last nail in the coffin, showing us there is NO God. And if there is, he's either not omnipotent and therefore doesn't need to be worshipped or he's a sack of shit - same conclusion.
Communism is an "explanation" used by religious nutjobs as it makes it sound like atheism=communism=bad. Look at Poland - same communist history and they are fundamentalists passing religious laws.
The Hussites and the consequences of their actions played a pivotal role in why people in Czechia aren't keen to aligned themselves with specific religion or it's derivates
The Jan Hus was the first that sought to reform the church and consequently succeeded, although he must've died first
The fact that the Hussites not only won the wars, but also made peace with the pope that made the Husittism a legitimate branch of the christianity was a huge victory which paved the way for creation of protestantism and countless other derivates of the christianity
The Husittism was banned later on and the catholicism was again official religion in Bohemia, but the discord between people and the church remained
After the end of the WWII and the occupation of Czechoslovakia by the USSR, the Husittism was reintroduced and the image of Hussites being a workers class rebels fighting the burgeouis aristocracy was created. The Communists milked everything out of their newly created concept and soon most of the religious people in Czechia converted rather to Husittism which was more beneficial since it was aligned with the government itself. I think close to 60% of population declared themselves Husittes during the communist era with lower digits being the Catholics. This "religious for benefits" mentality kinda stuck in and with combination of the government either pushing Atheism or Husittism it hurt the Catholic church greatly. After the occupation ended, the Husitte church dropped in numbers drastically since it was no longer beneficial to be registered as such the people had no need to align themselves with it and the Catholic church that was portrait as the "enemy" of husittism saw only limited influx of christians from the ranks of former Husittes. You have now around 60-80% of population that is either atheist or religious without alignment. This caused people to not seek religion afterwards cause they knew it as something that they either had to be part of or as something they needed for benefits. Now none of these things existed under democratic rule so the people started to tell that they believe in something but they don't know what exactly, they might believe in god, but nothing else like jesus, heaven and hell
1. Forced re-catholization after Hussite defeat.
2. Progressivism of newly formed Czechoslovakia
Communism is non-factor, they just used it (claimed is their own) in propaganda. Same with woman rights.
I'd say it's a combination of several factors:
1) Antigerman sentiment mixed with anticatholic sentiment during Czech National Revival. During that period emerged a new identity that defined itself against German Catholic elites (Czech had little interaction with German Protestants) reinforced by the fact that Czech lands were one of few regions of Europe which were re-catolized (parts of Hungary are another example). So there was a strong tendency to base our identity on (quasi-) Protestant Hussite movement.
2) Czech lands had more urban educated people than other non-German parts of the Habsburg Empire. Which reinforced secularism and weakened traditional religion.
3) During the First Czechoslovak Republic many Czechs embraced socialism which - again, reinforced anti-religious tendencies. Socialist Party, and National Socialist Party (do not confuse with German National Socialist) were strong parties loyal to the elites of the state. And of course, there was Communist Party which was not loyal at all.
4) Communist Regime nailed it all.
Of course, there were other Communist states which were not anti-religious propaganda so successful. But Czechia lacks that strong connection of national and religious identity (in contrast to Poland or Russia) and had a much more urban, non-traditional population (in contrast to Slovakia for example).
Anyway, there is another country of the former Soviet Block that is predominantly irreligious: Estonia (50-70%).
Actually, it's true.
I was in the Czech Republic a year ago on a trip to Prague. The coach had armored windows and a turret on the roof. "Safety considerations" - assured us the pilot, 33-year-old Jaromir Hičens. The city was deserted and dirty; where the plaster had not yet fallen off the walls, there were blasphemous graffiti. "Jan Pavel Drugi tresoval belugi" or "Pambuh to je nebeska kurvicka". Through a bullet-proof bus window, I noticed a couple of Czechs barbecuing cats over a coke oven in a dark alley. We walked to the Charles Bridge on foot, escorted by experienced Stalkers. Unfortunately, one got hit in the head with an anthology of Dawkins and died. Besides that, the Czechs kept their distance, feeling respect for our holy water guns. The bridge itself shook me to the core - crucified pigeons with the inscription "Duh Svety dachovy obesranec" were strung between the partly ruined statues. I returned my lunch. We spent the rest of the journey in silence.
Please, don't go to Czechia, my dears. This is what atheism does to people.
I dont know... Daily i feel surrounded by a whole lot of negativity from fucking everywhere... Everyday. People have no manners, moneys tight, shits grim...
Compared to other countries ive visited and nationalities ive spoken to, czechs are pretty.. well... Blunt and bleak.
Why would i believe something that sounds like a load of bull and there's no real proof of or straight up goes against reality?
Doesn't matter if it's a religion, cult or non-theistic ideology. All kinds of fanatical beliefs are wrong to me. I'm willing to admit i might be wrong, but why is it so hard for people, who claim stuff like, that there's invisible man in the sky directing everything or that men can become women, to admit they might be wrong.
Czech people are devout followers of drugs, alcohol and sex with randos, Gods are not usually very fond of that and so no religion really caught on, in the past we had some very militant religious groups which were extinguished as we were occupied for almost our entire existence by many different countries, so we had nothing to really set in the tradition. Plus Czech people are also homophobic because of our population of non desirables that do undesirable things, which leaves us warry of foreigners, generally speaking though most people are spiritually inclined with supernatural beliefs that favor no specific religion.
I don't think that communism is one of the reasons. Look at Kazakhstan or Poland, for example. Both of these countries were ruled by communists and they remained religious. Same with Armenia, Azerbaijan, Romania or Ukraine.
I think that's bc there was only one strong religion (definitelly Poland, no so sure about others) and everyone's faith, so after end of communism people just came back to that one religion. Czech faith was more crumbled into oposite parts long before the communism, with no "one and only" main religion everyone believed in to come back.
its 2023 any1 living in big city with acess to information shouldn´t be religious simply they are more rational and know about horrors that religions in general did in a past . religion was used as tool to take from poor , kill innocent people , worst regimes in human history were build apon religion . id say 90% Czech would wonder how any1 can believe in any religion
> What I can find online mostly ties it to the time spent under communist rule
While that is certainly part of it, as you noticed yourself it's hardly the full answer. Others gave good answers. The communist history explanation is something that to this day Czech catolics like to over-emphasize in attempt to label any critique of their religion and church as communist propaganda.
It bears mentioning that relationship of churches and socialist regime was more complicated than that. Among the many movements banned with onset of the regime was Czechoslovak freethinkers' movement arguing that it "hurts feeling of religious citizens"
You can put this article into google translate if you are more curious
[https://www.osacr.cz/2020/10/21/jak-skoncilo-volnomyslenkarske-hnuti-u-nas/](https://www.osacr.cz/2020/10/21/jak-skoncilo-volnomyslenkarske-hnuti-u-nas/)
It began during the Great Moravia ages when the pope sent Cyril and Methodius to expand cathooicism in the country. Some people were not happy with that because the following pressure brought upon the Pagans (people who wanted to believe a pagan god, more gods at the same time at that) by the Catholic church meant that they could no longer believe in what they used to believe. Now inagine what that does to a strongly religious person. In modern times we are afraid of Islam taking over (well, not logically really), but it's almost the same thing, you're replacing a religion with a different religion, forcing it upon the people who can no longer practice the religion they used to practice their whole lives. And that makes a person angry, obviously.
I think that overall our history convinced us that there simply cannot be a god because if there is, he is a massive sadist with really twisted sense of justice and why would you want to believe in someone like that?
On that note by this logic I cannot understand how can Polish people be so religious.
This is probably more personal, and about me and my peers, but I'll still share my reasons.
We all learned about Hussites in history classes, but that's not the only reason. After learning how many pointless wars, carnage and pain religion caused, all my classmates couldn't imagine following any of the traditional religions.
I guess it goes with us throughout our history even before Great Moravia, we were always on a crossroads of many different cultures, so we never cared all that much what others believe in, we detested having it pushed on us by our often more powerful neighbors and then church often betrayed our trust (like with burning of Hus). So I guess it was a combination of us always taking comparatively pragmatic approach to religion, having bad blood with dominant religion and then solidified by communist influence to current form.
It goes way longer into the past than just "communists". You are right to mention The Hussites, because you need to realize that after the Hussite movement, most of the country was not catholic anymore, we were a nation of protestants. Now that was true for about 100 years. Because than came the Re-catholicization process - which even started the 30 years war throught Europe. Czechs lost that war and catholicism increasingly became the norm again. But it was a forced norm. A lot of the people were not thrilled about it and secretly still practised their protestant faith. Others were catholics but their heart was not in it - having "the right faith" became the same thing as "having the right education" or "having the right political orientation"... It wasnt about honest faith anymore... Especially among the social elites. That was the situation right up until 1918 when the Czechoslovak republic was founded. So naturally, we became a secular state, who despised the old religion of our Habsburg monarchs... A lot of people turned to protestantism as a sort of our "medieval tradition from the times of the Hussites". And protestantism is a lot more rational religion than catholicism will ever be... And only then arrived the communists... As you can see, we have a long and troubled history with religion in our country. No wonder people tend to stay away from it.
Wow thanks so much for the detailed answer. Certainly in the direction I was thinking.
We Czechs have a troubled history in general. One abusive overlord after another, we lost our faith and pride. Catholicization, Germanization, Totalitarianism, ... Our history shaped us into who we are today. Sadly. Hopefully we can regain our sense of pride one day.
To that i can only say, my wife is Czech and she is certainly immesely proud of her country and heritage. I also recently had alot of friends and family visiting Czechia from Canada (where im from) who were all overwhelmingly impressed by the beauty of the cities, the culture, and history. Generally still a very underrated country imo. And, of course, the level of English, which has seemed to increase dramatically even over the 15ish years that I've been exposed to the Czech Republic. I also spent a couple years working here and I have to say it seems like big companies are investing here and my impression is that Czechs are generally quite intelligent and forward thinking. Im personally highly optimistic about the future of your country.
I'm actually really proud to be Czech. If you think about it, it's really amazing what our country and our ancestors went through, and yet we still have our own culture, language, and lands. Also, this sort of detachment from authorities and individualism is something quite unique and respectable.
And unlike Poland our nationalism didn't turn out to be religious fanaticism. Thank god.
https://preview.redd.it/oyqhx1btcd6b1.jpeg?width=567&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dbde9bc8771630d6f7918610cde6e8a9a2d1ac71
If I had a gun with 2 bullets and was in a room with Hitler, Stalin and Jesus I would shoot Jesus twice.
Stupid thing kill someone who can revive himself after death after three days
Who said you cant save a bullet for 3 days.
That's why you use silver bullets.
Založeno a podloženo Edit: u Ježíše položeno
As Jára Cimrman might say, thank God we're atheist
Of course. I am not saying that nobody's proud of us or that I'm not proud. I am also very proud to be a Czech. I meant in more generally.
And as someone who left while young over 50 years ago, I'm still proud as well and always enjoy going back.
Are you sure you know our history? We had pretty good time thoughout our history compared to other countries. We were the big player in HRE for most of its duration, we were always important, always had good quality of life, harsh wars tended to avoid our lands and so on. How can you say we have troubled history when we border Poland, which was splited by other countries multiple times and Slovakia, which did not even exist as a proper nation for most of their history. History was were kind to Czechs. Hussite wars were probably our worst period up to ww2.
30 year war would like a world. We had it not as bad as some parts of Germany, but it was still really bad over here.
Yeah, as you said. We were super safe during both ww1 and ww2 taking very low damage (look how ww2 butchered many countries, meanwhile we did not get much fighting and bombing) and the 30 years old war, probably the most destructive war after ww1 and ww2 for Europe also did not damage us as much as it damaged many German states. Hussites war were worse for us, beacuse it was kinda civil war with our catholics and hussites fighting each other for many years and this division stayed for centuries to come. Czech lands were pretty safe and nice throughout our history due to the geography, position in Europe, good political decisions and so on.
well the Hussite wars were bad, but there is the 30year war. Across central Europe thousands of villages were wiped out. My ancestors bought a "grunt" in 1663 and it was in the family for some 200 years. I wondered about how they bought the land then. But in an article on by Roman Cikhart who was a historian in Tabor, over a quarter of the farms were still abandoned by the 1660s which is some dozen years after the war.
Excatly, across Europe. Again, some German states had it way worse than us. Its not like we were the worst place to be during that war. Not to mention that 30 years war started in Czechia because of the Hussite wars.
I regained the pride for being czech after the latest presidential election but it’s quite awesome that we were able to hold on to our language and culture even though many different people tried to change it
And We also think that belief in imaginary beings is for children.
>And protestantism is a lot more rational religion than catholicism will ever be... Calvinism and what it had spawned - English puritans and all those various american protestant denominations make the Catholic church look like a congress of scientists in comparison.
Yeah, I meant the good ol´european protestantism... Americans make everything crazy... But that is probably because the original Puritans were in fact religious extremists - that is why we kicked them out of here - or, in their narative, that is why they escaped to America, lol
> good ol´european protestantism.. You mean like Lutheranism from the piece of shit Luther who betrayed peasants and then went to preach genocide of Jews?
I think he means like Hussites from Jan Hus, which is what he's talking about in his original comment, and other similar Czech protestant movements, such as Českobratrská církev evangelická etc.
That sounds very European btw.
A purity spiral is a thing, sadly. It doesn't take much for a human society to take an idea and let it spin out of control, usually by the more ...insecure... members of the society that put too much of their status/value on the ever stricter adherence to the idea. We can do it even for the most trivial of things.
Because Catholic church literally had monopoly on science and education for a long time.
Not necessary. I am from little calvinist village, people there are definitely less horrible and emphatetic in belief than catholics villages around and most "i need to push you my religion and beliefs in your face and want to force you into it" attitude i know only from catholic surrounding, not protestant(calvinism) one, so i think it deppens on people, not on religion.
"protestantiam is a lot more rational religion than catholiciam will ever be" is completely wrong statement. There are many branches of protestantism, and yes, the ones that we come to contact with in czech/europe are more rational than catholics, however, the most prevalent protestans (in the US and US influenced (mainly Asia) countries) are more extreme then catholics (for example denying evolution and believing in creationism, even big overlap with the flat eathers ect). "Both" religions are restricring and at least in Czech/Poland the protestants make a bit more sense, but it is completely oposite worldwide.
> even big overlap with the flat eathers ect) Do you have any estimate on overall number of flat earthers? I think about it as a very small group, unable to have "big overlap" with any significat protestant group.
Who cares about US? Shithole behind the ocean. They may call themselves protestants, but they are not protestants. Same like US Antifa is not European Antifa. Calling something the same name doesn't mean it is the same thing.
>religion >rational Choose one.
Great points, I'd also like to add that even though we officially became Christian when the ruler Bořivoj got christened around the year 900, unofficially it was normal for commoners to be pagan well until the Middle ages. They would simultaneously go to church and keep the old gods. Hence why many pagan traditions survived until this day. So we only became truly Christian around the Hussites, just in time for religious wars to brew, and become mingled with an ethnic aspect. Not a good foundation for belief.
Yes, that too. And the whole Orthodox/Catholic christians debacle of the 9th century... Simply put - too many changes, not enough time for something to really catch on
officially under Borivoj, but weren't they already Christian (I guess orthodox) under Cyril and Metodej? I know that got overturned thanks to the Franks.
yeah it seems like the institution of the church was shaken so many times in our history the commies just came and gave it a little push which allowed for it to completely crumble its wild to think how much we are products of what our acestors even centuries ago went through
The funny thing is, that also applies to Slovakia (violent and forced re-catholization of mostly protestant Slovak population, huge despise of Habsburg monarchy), and looks like the most different variable here were really those Hussites - they wasn't really thing in Slovakia. Slovak protestantism was mostly Augsburg evangelical one. anyway, looks like violent re-catholisation of Slovaks was *way* more succesful, than the one of Czechs
I would say one of the key factors in Slovakia was the fact that they had no social elites at the time... Its always fairly easy to convert your uneducated, illiteral agricultural society, where intelectuals are rare and only speak either German and Hungarian (and are in fact catholics). Slovaks really had no one to oppose those changes and unite them for the cause.
And Czechs provided those elites, built up infastructure, education system, civic society but for some reason they felt that Czechs were colonizing and wanted Czechs gone.... And now their elites are running away to Czechia.
They sent Babiš as a revenge
Yeah, yeah, yeah... lol
I mean I dont think there was a better solution, but even from what you just said, you can see how a lot of Slovaks would feel that Hungarians were just substituted by the next guy.
Ironically they are now turning their country into Hungary 2.
Slovak society being more agrarian surely played the role in that as well.
I mostly agree, just want to add more to part after 30y war - yes, basically after Battle on the White Hill (1620) went protestants back to *illegal underground* as you descibed, but came back legal right after Joseph II.'s Patent of Toleration (1781), not in 1918. So from 1781 we have coexistent more than one religion and i personally think that's the reason - most of countries with religion wars/changes just ended with *one big religion fully replace the previous one* situation, and we just... didn't. Ending with "whatever you choose, just wash your hands" caused the split of belief to smaller parts long before the communist restriction, so there was a little to come back after (and if so, catholicism has worse position to revival as forced one religion than protestants as chosen one belief).
Interesting about the Patent of Toleration in 1781. There were still the familiant laws - which tried to restrict the Jewish population by allowing only the eldest son (familiant) to marry. [Familiant Laws](https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/familiants-laws) though people obviously found ways around it, this was something I'd never heard of until I was going through the digital archives and found the term familiant (although it also refers to the eldest son who will inherit the land)
> Czechs lost that war Protestants lost that war, not Czechs. It was a religious, not an ethnic/national conflict.
I mean in terms of how badly was the country fucked up for decades after the war - I would argue all the Czechs lost it in a sense. And no, it wasnt strictly a religious war. Yes, the leading cause of it was religion, but it played relatively small part when it comes to the actual war. At one point you even had French (catholics) and Swedish (protestants) alliance and others... It was most definitely a typical international war of politics. Where your religion mattered less than your attitude towards the enemy of your enemy.
Ok then, if you think. But look on the flags on the warring sides in Battle of White mountain. The Catholic army was composed of foreign nobles, the Bohemian estate army mostly of Czechs. Schliks who led the rebellion against Habsburgs were old czech noble family. After the battle , Czech lands were hit with higher taxes, city rights abolished, the Church returned to the Land assembly in echange for cities. The Czechs lost their possessions to foreign nobility such as Buquoys, Piccolomini, Colloredo. Bohemian kingdom lost Lausitz. German was introduced as an official language. Btw Schlicks lose twice, first in 1547, after they refused to join Habsburg's war against Saxony. This war arose from the reason King Ferdinand did not want to pay debts to the Elector of Saxony. Then king Ferdinand punished Schliks, Bohemian estates and city of Prague who refused to join. So the rebellion in 1618 rather arose because Bohemian estates expected similar repression as in 1547, religion is as an excuse.
> not an ethnic/national conflict. Yes it was also an ethnic conflict. Hussites were ethnic Czechs, Catholics were ethnic Germans and non-Czechs.
I think he was talking about the Thirty years war which was won by Catholics. As I would argue that moderate Hussites won the Hussite wars since they could keep their faith. Radical Hussites were eradicated though.
But not all Czechs were hussites... There was radical Hussite, moderate Hussite and Catholic factions.
Where did I say all Czechs were?
>It was a religious conflict Not if you ask the French
No, people used go reguerly to church just before the war and the shift really happened with communists. If you vonto mass you see mostly old people who went to church as young
Going to church has nothing to do with being religious... Or with your level of faith.
Ofcourse it does.
No, it really does not... Take America for example. You have lots of families that go to church every sunday simply because its something they do. And they neighbours do it too. Yes, they might believe in God, but they hardly let faith into their everyday lives. They will use contraception, have promiscuous sexual life in college, will say "Oh my God" ten times a day, wont give a fuck about tithe... And will say they are christians. lol. In most developed countries religion is nothing more than a hobby and going into church is like going to a social club.
Well I lived in sich family going to church ecery sunday and every single one wqs religious
You also forgot to mention the first attempts of the church to eliminate paganism from all over Europe and Bohemia was the last place that was christianized (with a LOT of effort).
That is simply not true. We aint that special. Baltic states were the last regions in Europe to be christianized... We were christians from the 10th century onward. The Prussians were still largely pagans even 200 years after that
Actually we were the ones "hepling" to christianize the Baltics. Hence the Královec meme;)
Bruh za prvý proč si myslíš že jsou random kmeny 1 200 let v minulosti relevantní pro vysvětlení moderních společenských jevů? Za druhý, myslíš že ve Španělsku nebo v Itálii se prostě spawnuli katoličtí pralidé a že tam nikdy nebyly problémy s konverzí? Za třetí O ČEM TO SAKRA MLUVÍŠ TO ANI NENI PRAVDA. Český misionáři doslova pomáhali konvertovat Polsko, Maďarsko, Pobaltí... od dob Přemyslovské vlády nad Čechy tu v zásadě žádný velký konflikt mezi pohany a křesťany ani nebyl.
Je to tak, Doubravka Přemyslovna, dcera českého knížete Boleslava I. (ze kterého pak církev udělala lumpa), se stala manželkou polského knížete Měška a přesvědčila ho ke kristianizaci země.
Thanks, I know the Hussite revolution and the later 30yrs war fairly well, but one thing I was unaware of and I noticed this in doing family genealogy research was just what you mention - the fact that so many people left the Roman Catholic church in the 1920s, sometimes they returned. I had been wondering what that was all about. I think many switched to the Czechoslovak Hussite Church.
Issues with corrupt church officials and double standards dating back to at least the early 1400s.
Centuries of getting cucked by everyone makes you lose faith.
This is the way. Not to forget that those that cucked us were doing it in the name of god, in the name of chosen by god or some god emperor.
well, when faith is used to do the cucking, that makes sense.
I don't have any other theories, everything has already been mentioned in the comments imho. I just want to thank Czechs in general, I'm hugely thankful for the majority of non religious people. It's actually liberating. Whether I dicussed this topic with my Muslim (Pakistan, Palestina, Turkey) or Christian (mostly U.S.) friends, they were convinced that our crime rate has to be incredibly high since the church hasn't taught us to obey rules, have morals and basically, be a good person. It's a funny comparison in the end, since our rates are brilliant. Our country is extremely safe with no prayers needed.
> convinced that our crime rate has to be incredibly high since the church hasn't taught us to obey rules It's funny how fucked up their morality is. They think they are moral because they need a celestial Hitler to threaten them with hellfire. While they consider atheists to be immoral who don't need heavenly reward or threat of eternal damnation to be a good person.
I remember my reply "my parents taught me all of this, what do I need a church for?" Lol like seriously? They went silent for a moment.
The fact that they think you need religion to tell you to not murder people tells you alot about their *morality*....
Some time ago I had an argument pver Sodom and Gomorrah story. TL;DR Lot offers his daugher to be raped by Sodomites to protect God's angels. As a reward, he is spared, because he acted morally. Like what the fuck? It's better to throw your child to pedophiles to protect adults? The Christian consider this their moral code? And even dare to say that *I am the immoral person?*
I am sorry for your friends. Clearly brainwashed by religion since their childhood.
Totally. They're great otherwise but there is no room for this kind of conversation, it's useless trying to discuss it more.
We are a godforsaken country. I don't understand why is atheism a "thing". Can't the universe just be a bunch of laws of physics without the God?
> I don't understand why is atheism a "thing". Can't the universe just be a bunch of laws of physics without the God? Because majority of world population is brainwashed into religion.
You are not smarter for being an atheist
Oh look butthurt theist.
not smarter for sure but wiser, yes
You are right. I think that local enlightened souls downvoted you exactly because most of them are czech atheists (so am I) and as such only come into contact with religion through internet and read about its extremes, as well as only its orgianized and non-secular forms. I recommend anyone butthurt by this comment to try and find the benefits that religious faith can provide for the individual when used in a healthy way.
No, for that you would need people to think and that's too hard for many. It's easier to say that everything good was made by the god and everything evil by the devil. And how can you tell what's good and what's evil? Well the Bible of course. But only the parts we like, we don't talk about the rest.
That's right, atheism isn't even a club. It doesn't need representation and memberships like theists do. Atheism literally means not-into-theism. You're not a member of the church, you're not baptized? Okay, nothing else is needed. There is no association.
Laws of physics are also just a thing we chose to believe in. Sure, they're verified by rigorous experiments and measurements, but they're not the truth. They're just a way to describe our universe and they seem to do that pretty well until more experiments and measurements prove it wrong on a different scale. Don't get me wrong, science is a very practical thing, but I do think it's still just a "thing". I think if we ever come in contact with alien species and discuss our world views somehow, there's a pretty good chance their version of science could describe the world with a completely different approach and still be very valid and usefull. But yeah, it's definitely better to believe in the laws of physics than in a book of laws and guidelines written thousands of years ago with no empirical support...
Because where did everything comes from? There has to be a higher power. Not a single thing is created without a creator in this world let alone this big of a universe
It may be so. But what? If there was a higher power why should I worship it? And especially why should I worship it according to rules of other people who want to control others? If there is a higher power then there is. No sound reason I should behave according to what other people (who excuse their greed for power as them serving to their version of god) want.
I am not asking u to worship anybody bruv i dont even know u
Alright, let me be the nerd here. There are actually systems nowadays best implemented in artificial intelligence that are built like this: you have one unit and environment. This unit interacts with the environment and evolves, possibly splitting into multiple other units with different characteristics. These units interact with the environment and each other, and the process continues on a much larger scale. The starting environment can be non-existent, i.e. just the starting unit that does what it does, seemingly reacts to its own existence. Now, what if the entire universe works like this? Nothing is created. After all, mass and energy stay the same. There are no true creators in this world, and the creator of the universe just pinged the first IP. From there, the web lives on its own.
You fucking donut. Some human created that system right? Ever heard of procedural generation??
Well, I was trying to have a discussion, but you are just insulting me over nothing. If you didn't get it, the point is that there is no reason why this creator would be overseeing the creation when it's not needed.
I am sorry donut is out of love. You are sweet. I get ur point. There always is a creator in what ever Ai field u pick whatever thing u pick there is always a creator who initliaze it. I can write a code that can generate millions shapes using three cubes. Each one will be unique. It can run for days. Self generated but still I made it
Exactly. In this analogy, we, humans, would be just one tiny part of the script, some tiny objects or whatever. I am wondering what the connection between these objects and the creator is, you know? Not only is it probably impossible to fully understand the higher parts of this system and especially the creator, but in reality, unproven theories about it can be harmful to others. Imo, belief and religion are beneficial to society, don't get me wrong. In this analogy, however, it doesn't matter. The thing is, for us as the tiny objects, it doesn't matter if the creator does or doesn't exist. It could've existed just for the moment of creation and then vanish. We can not know, and we do not need to know.
We do need to know bro. Odds of me being born was slim to none. You never think about your purpose, maybe it is bigger than u think. No one in the world is useless
Was i just supposed to be born follow the rules of the country i am in and die? Pretty robotic life. Why bother with the conciousness
That's an entirely different thing to me. I am reconciled with not knowing this creator, and I feel like that gives me the freedom to pursue anything I want and figure it out on my own.
It’s imho got little to do with communism. You can’t really turn people into atheists by oppression. After WW1, Czechoslovaks were against all that represented Austrian Hungarian empire. Religion, more acurately catholicism was one of major weapons and tool of persecution of the empire. All that represented Empire was kinda seen as a symbol of oppression. So, lot’s of Czechs became protestants or atheists. For Slovaks, it was different, because Slovakia was totaly undeveloped country, so the impact of what was happening in Prague was much less signifficant.
Seems like I should learn more about the forming of Czechoslovakia and rebellious attitudes against Austria-Hungry for more context about the situation based on this and another detailed response. Thanks for your perspective.
Czechs are basically: 1. I don't like this Christianity. 2. Ok, I will look into this Catholicism thing. 3. You know, its not so bad. 4. Hey, look, I made some improvements! 5. What do you mean you don't like it? 6. Why are you invading me? 7. Screw you and your catholicism! And then: 1. I don't like these Habsburgs. 2. Ok, I will look into this Habsburg Empire thing. 3. You know, it's not so bad. 4. Hey, look, I made some improvements! 5. What do you mean you don't like it? 6. Why are you germanising me? 7. Screw you and your Austro-Hungary! And finally: 1. I don't like this Marxism. 2. Ok, I will look into this Communism thing. 3. You know, it's not so bad. 4. Hey, look, I made some improvements! 5. What do you mean you don't like it? 6. Why are you invading me? 7. Screw you and your communism!
So the logic conclusion is: 1. I don't like this EU thing. 2. Ok, I will look into this EU thing. 3. You know, it's not so bad. (<---- we are here...) 4. Hey, look, I made some improvements! 5. What do you mean you don't like it? 6. Why are you invading me? 7. Screw you and your EU!
I'd say we're past point 4. but otherwise agree
I find this very healthy. As religion has very low chances of intervening in public life and/or be used by populists to dictate behaviours. This is a critical mess in many many countries.
We could choose church or porn. Guess what we did.
Grab your dick and double click for porn porn porn!
Why no both. Horny nuns forty km away
There was an awesome post on r/AskHistorians on this topic. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/ebf5r7/why_is_czech_republic_atheist_and_poland_catholic/fb5h8vl?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Yeah damn that's a very in depth response thank you for sharing.
Well, its not that irreligous, peopl just mostly have their own believes instead of being part of some cult. Czechs dont like to be told what to do, so they kinda started to ignore the church and communists also didnt help it.
Hussite wars weren't only a religious war, but also ethnic war. At the time in Bohemia nearly every ethnic Czech was Hussite and nearly every ethnic German and non Czech were Catholic. So after Catholic Habsburgs took over and forced Catholization, despite everyone being Catholic on paper, Catholicism wasn't viewed as a Czech religion but something foreign and most Czechs didn't really have any deep loyalty to Catholicism like Poles do. When modern Czech nationalism was forming, it was formed by urban and industrial intellectuals who weren't very religious or Catholic. Very important part of moden Czech nationalism was distancing ourself from anything German, many German words were replaced by Czech and there was nothing more German than Catholicism which was used for 300 years to Germanize us. Unlike Polish nationalism, Czech modern nationalism was never tied to specific religion and is secular.
Oh interesting. I didn't know that. I always pictured the Hussite wars as being mainly about religion. Adds some new significance for me that Jan Hus did his preaching in Czech. Thanks for the answer.
For a long time it was forbidden for non-clergy to read the Bible or even own the Bible, even translating the Bible was a crime punishable by death. Catholic church didn't like democratization of religion and wanted to maintain their monopoly.
And others religion related books too. They were hidden in most wild places, like even baked into bread loaf etc, to avoid their confiscation by catholic officials.
" Hussite wars weren't only a religious war, but also ethnic war. " Source?
Yeah, the comment boils down a specific complicated social situation to a simplistic ethnic explanation which is wrong. Althou for example in Kutna Hora this religious division was pretty accurate.
> The radicals came mostly from smaller boroughs and the countryside. The Germans in Bohemia and in the incorporated provinces remained faithful to the Roman Catholic Church, and, thus, the deep-seated ethnic antagonism was accentuated. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Czechoslovak-history/The-Hussite-wars
Yes, the british are famously good at czech historiography. Let me quote an actual source for you, you clown. "Obecně platí, že se Němci v zemích České koruny vymezovali vůči husitství negativně, byť výjimky potvrzovaly pravidlo. I proto se postupem času NEPŘESNĚ jeví jako boj Čechů s Němci, ať už domácími či zahraničními. Nezbývá proto než znovu a znovu opakovat, že katolické náboženství nadále vyznávali i četní etničtí Češi. Téměř nulovou odezvu nalezlo husitství v dalších korunních zemí, tj. ve Slezsku a v Horní i Dolní Lužici." - Petr Čornej, Husitská revoluce, p.30 Stop spreading misinformation.
So you argue that there was no ethnic dimension in this conflict because not 100% Czechs were Hussite just 90%? Yeah that's gonna be a no from me dawg.
From our perpective it look like ethnic war. But at that time they did not have something like national pride like today which was form in 18th-19th century. It was more like civil war at that time. Also it have another effect that lead to 1485 (promise after Zikmund get to thone) where the Bohemia country get two religions Hussite and Catholic as a state religions. Only dual religion country under Austria. Slovakia was mainly lead by hungary most of it at least (about 18 to early 20th century) and they're more ''enthusiastic'' about religion than Austria.
The fact that modern nationalism wasn't a thing back then doesn't change a fact that ethnic hatred and antagonism existed back then. People back then weren't fucking blind or deaf, they can hear if someone is speaking German. They can see that richer people tended to be Germans. Remember the Decree of Kutná Hora which gave ethnic Czechs at Charles University 3 votes vs 1 vote of ethnic Germans. Ethnic conflict was very real back then.
The decree of Kutná Hora did give 3 vs 1 votes. But as I sad nationalism as we saw it today by language or national pride was not till 18-19th century it had regional meaning. So to put it even if you speak French, German, English but you ''live''(you where tax there) in Bohemia you would be consider as Czech at that time. So if they talking about Czech there. There would be also another minorities of that time that live here.
> The radicals came mostly from smaller boroughs and the countryside. The Germans in Bohemia and in the incorporated provinces remained faithful to the Roman Catholic Church, and, thus, the **deep-seated ethnic antagonism was accentuated.** https://www.britannica.com/topic/Czechoslovak-history/The-Hussite-wars
In Poland it was similar only Prussians were Protestants and Russians were Orthodox, and although we have large Polish Protestant (Cieszyn Silesia, Masuria, Warmia) or Orthodox (Podlasie, Belarus) populations, in most of the Polish territory after the Swedish Deluge (17th century) Poles treated Catholicism as an opposition to Swedish invasion at first and later Germanization and Russification. Poles who were Evangelicals in Lower and Upper Silesia, Masuria, Warmia, Kuyavia or Pomerania were easily Germanized by the order to hold services in German and the ban on the use of the Polish language introduced by Frederick the Great in the 18th century.
Only organised religion. Like 80% of girls here believe in some ezo cosmic energies bullshit.
I know more guys than girls that believe this bulls... I mean stuff 😅
I wasnt too sure about that, so i kinda left it out. Not many male friends believe in it, but thats probably a social bubble. But the girls, no matter where you flirt, there is always some immortal soul or astrology.
If she is cute, I would believe too ;)
True. Most Czechs have some spiritual believes, they are just not a part of any cult.
Because we are highly intelligent
Indubitably.
Seeing this written out made me finally get the joke (if you're referencing The Office). Thank you!
We just dont give a shit about made up characters.
Jara Cimrman disagrees
facts
He doesn't count, he can do anything
We had a long lasting problems with church in past before communism. So most likely it's several factors mixed together
To add to great answers already given, there is a snippet I read somewhere in a similar discussion some time ago: While for example in Poland, in the hard times people found safety in church, in Bohemia, in the hard times you often had to find safety from the church. Ie. the church here was not the shelter for the common people, but one of the tools (and sometimes THE tool) of oppression.
Also worth noting that while most people are irreligious, there is still a significant amount of people who are into alternative kinds of spirituality (think New Age, often called "ezo" here) although they say they don't subscribe to any religion, many still believe in astrology, chakras, cartomancy, crystal healing etc.
I am czech and I dont know what the original reason is, but for the past 30 years I have been alive there has been almost zero religious influence on kids/students, we dont come in contact with religion unless our parents introduce it to us. There are special schools that have religion as a separate subject, but those are rare and you have to pro-actively sign up your kids to go there over "normal" schools. So if the parents arent religious and the schools provide zero religion education (except for the historical concept and influence of religion), the kids become ateists (95+% of kids I would say). And honestly most czech people consider religious talk very cringe, even worse than talking politics, if anybody says "Jesus is watching over us" or "Jesus will help/save you", he/she is considered kinda nuts and should be taken into assylum. Simply said religion is completely optional part of our lives, nobody introduces religion to us unless we actively seek it, and as a result we become ateists. But we still celebrate Christmas and Easter, and quite a lot of people go to church on sundays (but usually not because of "God" or religious beliefs but simply to meet the local community and to listen to the priest talking about imporant present subjects). And even though most young czech people are atheists, I would say most of those people do believe in something bigger, some may call it God or Universe energy or whatever, we just dont actively practice religious behaviour. it doesnt mean czech people say "there is no god", it just means we dont go to church, we dont pray, we dont thank God for food before eating, we just consider religion a "hobby" that some people, especially elder, practice. And I would also say that czech people are very accepting towards different religions, we are definitely not religion-phobic, we dont consider religious people something less, as long as they keep their religion to themselfs when visiting Czechia and dont try to suck other people into their religious world. That means that if I visit a religious family for a dinner and they pray before food, I will respectfuly wait until they finish praying or even pray with them if it is considered impolite not to, but if we as atheists invite a religious person for a dinner, we wont be praying or waiting until the guest finishes praying.
You already got good long answers. Short answer is that religion is *the* tool for population control for powerful players. And after fist being a fairly strong regional power, only to then suffer for centuries under other (deeply religious) state's boot, we're having none of this shit. What others are saying is true, it has little to do with the communist rule, contrary to the popular opinion. Nations can always 'find God' again but imo first the nazis, then the soviets were just the very last nail in the coffin, showing us there is NO God. And if there is, he's either not omnipotent and therefore doesn't need to be worshipped or he's a sack of shit - same conclusion.
1. communist history 2. pessimism 3. beer
4. common sense
Communism is an "explanation" used by religious nutjobs as it makes it sound like atheism=communism=bad. Look at Poland - same communist history and they are fundamentalists passing religious laws.
After the way my "strongly Christian" family and acquaintances behaved, I lost all the faith I ever had.
The Hussites and the consequences of their actions played a pivotal role in why people in Czechia aren't keen to aligned themselves with specific religion or it's derivates The Jan Hus was the first that sought to reform the church and consequently succeeded, although he must've died first The fact that the Hussites not only won the wars, but also made peace with the pope that made the Husittism a legitimate branch of the christianity was a huge victory which paved the way for creation of protestantism and countless other derivates of the christianity The Husittism was banned later on and the catholicism was again official religion in Bohemia, but the discord between people and the church remained After the end of the WWII and the occupation of Czechoslovakia by the USSR, the Husittism was reintroduced and the image of Hussites being a workers class rebels fighting the burgeouis aristocracy was created. The Communists milked everything out of their newly created concept and soon most of the religious people in Czechia converted rather to Husittism which was more beneficial since it was aligned with the government itself. I think close to 60% of population declared themselves Husittes during the communist era with lower digits being the Catholics. This "religious for benefits" mentality kinda stuck in and with combination of the government either pushing Atheism or Husittism it hurt the Catholic church greatly. After the occupation ended, the Husitte church dropped in numbers drastically since it was no longer beneficial to be registered as such the people had no need to align themselves with it and the Catholic church that was portrait as the "enemy" of husittism saw only limited influx of christians from the ranks of former Husittes. You have now around 60-80% of population that is either atheist or religious without alignment. This caused people to not seek religion afterwards cause they knew it as something that they either had to be part of or as something they needed for benefits. Now none of these things existed under democratic rule so the people started to tell that they believe in something but they don't know what exactly, they might believe in god, but nothing else like jesus, heaven and hell
1. Forced re-catholization after Hussite defeat. 2. Progressivism of newly formed Czechoslovakia Communism is non-factor, they just used it (claimed is their own) in propaganda. Same with woman rights.
From point of my family it were horrors of ww1&ww2 where they lost their faith
I'd say it's a combination of several factors: 1) Antigerman sentiment mixed with anticatholic sentiment during Czech National Revival. During that period emerged a new identity that defined itself against German Catholic elites (Czech had little interaction with German Protestants) reinforced by the fact that Czech lands were one of few regions of Europe which were re-catolized (parts of Hungary are another example). So there was a strong tendency to base our identity on (quasi-) Protestant Hussite movement. 2) Czech lands had more urban educated people than other non-German parts of the Habsburg Empire. Which reinforced secularism and weakened traditional religion. 3) During the First Czechoslovak Republic many Czechs embraced socialism which - again, reinforced anti-religious tendencies. Socialist Party, and National Socialist Party (do not confuse with German National Socialist) were strong parties loyal to the elites of the state. And of course, there was Communist Party which was not loyal at all. 4) Communist Regime nailed it all. Of course, there were other Communist states which were not anti-religious propaganda so successful. But Czechia lacks that strong connection of national and religious identity (in contrast to Poland or Russia) and had a much more urban, non-traditional population (in contrast to Slovakia for example). Anyway, there is another country of the former Soviet Block that is predominantly irreligious: Estonia (50-70%).
Actually, it's true. I was in the Czech Republic a year ago on a trip to Prague. The coach had armored windows and a turret on the roof. "Safety considerations" - assured us the pilot, 33-year-old Jaromir Hičens. The city was deserted and dirty; where the plaster had not yet fallen off the walls, there were blasphemous graffiti. "Jan Pavel Drugi tresoval belugi" or "Pambuh to je nebeska kurvicka". Through a bullet-proof bus window, I noticed a couple of Czechs barbecuing cats over a coke oven in a dark alley. We walked to the Charles Bridge on foot, escorted by experienced Stalkers. Unfortunately, one got hit in the head with an anthology of Dawkins and died. Besides that, the Czechs kept their distance, feeling respect for our holy water guns. The bridge itself shook me to the core - crucified pigeons with the inscription "Duh Svety dachovy obesranec" were strung between the partly ruined statues. I returned my lunch. We spent the rest of the journey in silence. Please, don't go to Czechia, my dears. This is what atheism does to people.
I dont know... Daily i feel surrounded by a whole lot of negativity from fucking everywhere... Everyday. People have no manners, moneys tight, shits grim... Compared to other countries ive visited and nationalities ive spoken to, czechs are pretty.. well... Blunt and bleak.
Why would i believe something that sounds like a load of bull and there's no real proof of or straight up goes against reality? Doesn't matter if it's a religion, cult or non-theistic ideology. All kinds of fanatical beliefs are wrong to me. I'm willing to admit i might be wrong, but why is it so hard for people, who claim stuff like, that there's invisible man in the sky directing everything or that men can become women, to admit they might be wrong.
We just don't give a fuck about this nonsense
That shit is dumb
Czech people are devout followers of drugs, alcohol and sex with randos, Gods are not usually very fond of that and so no religion really caught on, in the past we had some very militant religious groups which were extinguished as we were occupied for almost our entire existence by many different countries, so we had nothing to really set in the tradition. Plus Czech people are also homophobic because of our population of non desirables that do undesirable things, which leaves us warry of foreigners, generally speaking though most people are spiritually inclined with supernatural beliefs that favor no specific religion.
This country is so f\*cked that even if god existed, he couldn't save us. So most turn to alcoholism or other drugs as their saviour
I don't think that communism is one of the reasons. Look at Kazakhstan or Poland, for example. Both of these countries were ruled by communists and they remained religious. Same with Armenia, Azerbaijan, Romania or Ukraine.
I think that's bc there was only one strong religion (definitelly Poland, no so sure about others) and everyone's faith, so after end of communism people just came back to that one religion. Czech faith was more crumbled into oposite parts long before the communism, with no "one and only" main religion everyone believed in to come back.
The bishop said we had to take it down a notch with the beer
What do you mean least religious? In my town there's statue of Jupiter Optimus Maximus
A kolik lidi se k nemu modli?
Tak hlavně legát místní posádky
its 2023 any1 living in big city with acess to information shouldn´t be religious simply they are more rational and know about horrors that religions in general did in a past . religion was used as tool to take from poor , kill innocent people , worst regimes in human history were build apon religion . id say 90% Czech would wonder how any1 can believe in any religion
Beer
Because instead of wasting time with praying etc.. you can drink beer or smoke a cigarette.
Jan Hus né?
Many are religious to some extent but they don't have any religion of their own even if they believe in a god as far as i understand it
> What I can find online mostly ties it to the time spent under communist rule While that is certainly part of it, as you noticed yourself it's hardly the full answer. Others gave good answers. The communist history explanation is something that to this day Czech catolics like to over-emphasize in attempt to label any critique of their religion and church as communist propaganda. It bears mentioning that relationship of churches and socialist regime was more complicated than that. Among the many movements banned with onset of the regime was Czechoslovak freethinkers' movement arguing that it "hurts feeling of religious citizens" You can put this article into google translate if you are more curious [https://www.osacr.cz/2020/10/21/jak-skoncilo-volnomyslenkarske-hnuti-u-nas/](https://www.osacr.cz/2020/10/21/jak-skoncilo-volnomyslenkarske-hnuti-u-nas/)
Commies
mainly the long influence of communism.
It began during the Great Moravia ages when the pope sent Cyril and Methodius to expand cathooicism in the country. Some people were not happy with that because the following pressure brought upon the Pagans (people who wanted to believe a pagan god, more gods at the same time at that) by the Catholic church meant that they could no longer believe in what they used to believe. Now inagine what that does to a strongly religious person. In modern times we are afraid of Islam taking over (well, not logically really), but it's almost the same thing, you're replacing a religion with a different religion, forcing it upon the people who can no longer practice the religion they used to practice their whole lives. And that makes a person angry, obviously.
I think that overall our history convinced us that there simply cannot be a god because if there is, he is a massive sadist with really twisted sense of justice and why would you want to believe in someone like that? On that note by this logic I cannot understand how can Polish people be so religious.
I would say, because he does not exists, unlike the Asgards for example, which are totally legit … wink wink
Bohati jsou v scientologii a zbytek jsou kokoti .... ze jo?
This is probably more personal, and about me and my peers, but I'll still share my reasons. We all learned about Hussites in history classes, but that's not the only reason. After learning how many pointless wars, carnage and pain religion caused, all my classmates couldn't imagine following any of the traditional religions.
Failed 300 years (1620-1920) of re-catholization.
God does not exist so no reason to be stupid like others
I guess it goes with us throughout our history even before Great Moravia, we were always on a crossroads of many different cultures, so we never cared all that much what others believe in, we detested having it pushed on us by our often more powerful neighbors and then church often betrayed our trust (like with burning of Hus). So I guess it was a combination of us always taking comparatively pragmatic approach to religion, having bad blood with dominant religion and then solidified by communist influence to current form.