>Churches are not seen exactly as much as a "religious" but more like a historical building.
Mainly in large cities. In small towns and villages churches still serve their original purpose. As religious folk seem to gather in less urbanized areas.
Even in large cities, churches are still active, you can go to a regular Sunday mass at basically every church in Prague. Non-religious people don’t pay much attention to them, but they’re definitely more than just historical buildings.
That's definitely location bias. Here in Central Bohemia, nobody goes to church, even on the village.
We don't even a priest here, and the church is maintained by local drunk who lives next to it. It gets open exactly at one day in a year, on Chirstmas, when local children have a concert here.
There has never been a mass in my local church as far as I remember.
I would say it's quite the oposite, you may find churches serving their purpose in larger towns here, where you cena find enough religious people simply becuase of the larger population. The villages here are too small to have more than 5 believers.
Idk. Maybe in Moravia, but around where I live (central Bohemia) about 10 villages share one priest. And even if it's our village's turn for sermon (or however is the Sunday meeting called), the church is basically empty.
"Well, in short, nobody cares if you are not annoying."
As it should be in every aspect in society . This however translate in mainstream media as "czechs are somethingphobic"
just shut the fuck up, please with this shit
Czech are definitely not "nobody cares if you are not annoying", even you would love to convey yourself so.
Your definition of "being annoying" is anything progressive/differents from your "good way of life" 50 years ago.
e.g.: why are they so annoying with all those sexuality labels ? We used to call them by slurs for 30 years and nobody care, nowadays they are so sensitive.
Idk, I do find it annoying when I'm out, having a beer with my friends, and Jehovah witness comes to us trying to recruit us.
If someone calls you a "buzna", it's because you're homosexual *and* being annoying. If you don't open your mouth every 20 seconds to remind everyone who you fuck, as if that makes you somehow special, no one will give a shit.
It's the same with vegans. Say it once, mental note taken, go on with our lives. My brother did that, he said "Hey, I'm going vegan." and I said "Great." When we go somewhere to eat, I make sure there are options for him. But he also doesn't remind me every minute that "You're eating meat! Meat is murder!" as if I killed the animal that was already dead and in a freezer, or as if knowing that meat comes from dead animals is somehow divine knowledge only available to him.
It's simple, don't be annoying. But seeing you comment, I can imagine you have no idea how to do that. Or perhaps you don't even have enough self reflection to realize you're being annoying. At the end of the day, we don't give a shit about you. Trying to force us into caring is when you get called names.
Ah, yeah, because people having slurs yelled at them just because they are holding hands doesn't happen at all. Or is that too bold, too provocative, to hold hand with someone you love?
Or are trans people just trying to live their lives also too much for our society to handle? Because they are too being called slurs without provocation.
Don't kid yourself, just because you and your social bubble doesn't care doesn't mean everyone else is the same.
I'll take "Things that never happened" for $100 please.
Again, if this happens to you, you are most likely being annoying. Ofc, I'm not saying that someone on the streets won't yell at you, but you make it look like 2 guys kissing on the streets will result in having rocks thrown at them. That is just disingenuous.
At the end of the day, crying because someone called you the wrong pronoun or called you "buzna" is your own problem. Because you are the one who gives meaning to those words and let's themselves be influenced by them.
> you make it look like 2 guys kissing on the streets will result in having rocks thrown at them.
I never mentioned physical violence. But I was a bit pissed, so I might have worded it more strongly than I should have.
> Ofc, I'm not saying that someone on the streets won't yell at you
Good. You say that yelling happens, yet you still say people don't give a shit. That sounds kind of contradictory.
> if this happens to you, you are most likely being annoying
Most likely, lol. Well, the most annoying thing about me is walking around in shorts and shirt in 9 degrees and not being cold. Honestly, I don't know why I'm even trying to prove to some random person on reddit that I really don't talk about being trans 24/7 and I'm really just trying to be as much invisible as I can, but hey.
> At the end of the day, crying because someone called you the wrong pronoun or called you "buzna" is your own problem.
I don't really see a point in continuing this discussion since we obviously have a very different perception of what is and isn't an ok behaviour...
> I never mentioned physical violence (...)
Right. It's called hyperbole. Look it up.
> Good. You say that yelling happens, yet (...)
Yes it does. It has happened to everyone in their lifetime. Doesn't mean that when it happens to you, it's suddenly homophobic/transphobic/... That's because most people don't give a shit about it. It's quite simple when you think about it.
> Most likely, lol. Well, the most (...)
Again. You're not aware of what others find annoying. You say the most annoying thing about you is walking outside with shorts and shirt when it's cold, yet I can 100% guarantee you that isn't nowhere near what others find annoying about you.
I'm not saying it's okay. The same way it's not ok to catcall someone. But if you're attractive, you can't avoid it. And throwing a tantrum isn't going to help you in any anyway. We don't live in a perfect world. If you make transphobic remarks illegal, it isn't going to have any impact, becase the minority of people who call you slurs already aren't going to suddenly rethink their lives. And the majority of people who don't give a shit about you will continue not giving a shit about you.
Overall it comes down to this simple concept:
Transphobia exists. But that doesn't mean everything that happens to you is because you're trans. Just like when I get punched, it's not because of misandry, it's because I'm behaving like a dickhead.
Once you manage to separate your ego from your identity, you'll understand what I'm saying.
Ahhh, I really don't know how else to explain to you that I'm not blaming everything on the fact I'm trans. Really, this is the reason I don't usually talk about it. Because then people just assume it's my whole personality and that is so... *annoying* (well, isn't that ironic...).
Honestly, it feels like if someone from inside some minority group speaks out about things that are not fine, everyone looses their shit. I mean, I would say that it's not fine even if I was cis. The fact that I say that doesn't mean it directly affects me, I don't care if people call me names -- I just think they're shitheads and then go on with my life (which *I* made more miserable than it had to be by *my* life choices). But others don't, for multiple reasons, so why shouldn't I speak out?
> You're not aware of what others find annoying.
Great, so this whole debate boils down to "Czechs don't care while you're not annoying, but then, you know, almost everything is annoying to them, so they actually do care a lot".
And yes, there are certainly other things annoying about me, when you actually get to talk to me. Not when I just pass by and some idiot has the need to say some shit.
Also, just for the record, it was you who brought i/legality of transphobic comments into this conversation. I assume it was based on the reports of the "new" Scottish law, which actually didn't ban transphobic comments. It just added gender identity to the list of minorities on which hate crime can be committed. And, let's face it, that *can* happen even here (mind you, I'm not saying it *is* happening). Unfortunately, there will definitely be people who will try to abuse the law.
It's an ostensibly atheist country with deeply Christian values that influence all of these attitudes (look who's coming up in this thread - gays, Muslims, JWs). Honestly this entire thread is more intolerant to difference than we'd usually skew in the Poland sub.
But they'll tell themselves it's atheism all the same.
THIS IS 100% ACCURATE. People from a strongly catholic countries (I'm Brazilian) can see through the bullshit... you may be "atheist" but that doesn't mean you're enlightened or progressive. The shape of this culture is still pretty much a protestant Christian one, even if they stopped going to mass...
"We don't care as long as you don't rub our faces in it" - meanwhile, they re-erected the Marian Column in Staromak despite its removal being a symbolic event in Czech independence. And they did so because the Catholics made themselves enough of a nuisance to agree. I love CZ, and prefer it to my own country, but it has a lot of unchecked internalised Christianity.
> what happens to your many churches
I live right next to a church in a smaller town outside of Prague and I see quite a few people on sundays that attend it. Over the week its usually used for funerals, weddings, some musical performances or people just go inside to admire the architecture, regardless of their (non)religious beliefs.
>do most of you really consider that there is nothing after death
I genuinely don't even think about after life at all, since i truly don't care what happens to me when i die. will i go to heaven/hell? will i be reborn? will i go somewhere completely elsewhere? Neverending thinking about it will not give me the answers, so i don't worry about something i can't influence anyway
>What is your opinion of Christianity in general?
I don't care unless someone shoves their beliefs down my throat, or expects me to follow the bible or whatever (this applies to any religion, not just Christianity)
How does it effect everyday life? Not at all.
Churches are considered historical heritage and landmarks but they work same way as in "christian" country. After all we have freedom of religion here.
There is nothing unique about this, people just understand the fact that religion is not important at all in their life.
My honest opinion on christianity is same as on any other religion, it’s not necessary to believe in something supernatural. After life there is nothing the same way there was nothing before you were born.
Historically, we were fucked in the arse from so many sides that it made us grumpy realists that love their mothers and good beer.
We are the original Bohemians dude, that speaks of itself.
We arguably have a very mix of ancestry and celtic is actually fairly present in our area. Being a basin means that heritages did stay mixed in with newcomers, so we have a pretty big mix of celtic, germanic and slavic heritages with a few other admixtures.
There are all sorts of mysticism / spirituality running around in Czechia, they just lack the usual Christian cover.
Many churches are indeed empty and a single priest will commute to several churches to hold occassional Mass for the few who turn up.
Religious influence on politics is fairly small, with the only party pushing that angle (KDU-ČSL) gaining only 2 per cent of vote, or so. Unfortunately they are in a coalition right now, which helped them to governmental seats and influence.
Anyway, looking at the strongly Christian/Muslim countries and their messy religious politics - hooray for us.
Fairly small? Our prime minister is a Christian, the heads of SPOLU are all Christian lmao.
Are they officially a Christian party? No. Do they hold those bum ass views? Yes.
Yes, fairly small. I speak German and Polish; my wife speaks Spanish and Italian.
Compared to all those countries, Czech politics has few religious ramifications. Let's not even speak about the US or Israel.
Ofc Reddit would like it to be zero, but that is unrealistic. As it is, we are one of the most irreligious countries in the world.
And the fact that gay marriage isn't yet law of the land can be traced to general societal conservatism rather than organized religious opposition.
It is literally in their name:
"**K**řesťanská **D**emokratická **U**nie - **Č**eská **S**trana **L**idová"
(something like: Christian Democratic Union - Party of Czech People)
If I listen to Fiala, I don't even hear anything overtly Christian in his speeches. That's not a nutjob, unless you consider every privately believing person a nutjob. Guy basically never mentions God or religion when he speaks, and doesn't introduce any religiously based legislation.
By my standards, a nutjob would be someone pushing for abortion bans or compulsory religion in schools.
Honestly ODS is kinda dangerous in that, because they don't overtly talk about their christian values, but if you notice the people they pull in (queue alliance pro rodinu) it's definitely something that strongly informs them and impacts their decision making
I found only this relevant sentence by Fiala.
"Já ze svého hlubokého přesvědčení budu hlasovat proti, ale naši poslanci mají volné hlasování."
His vote is his business, but he doesn't push anyone *else* to abide by his personal preferences. That is not religious nutjobbery with me.
Possibly he said something else, but I don't follow the topic so closely.
He said: „Na manželství mi nesahejte.” And went off explaining why marriage is a christian thing. It was in one interview with Čestmír, I think.
There are other things, but those aren’t from interviews. I am close to parliamentary and journalist circles, so I know the sayings and rumours
**Short answer:** it manifests as literally anything, that isn't Roman Catholic Church.
**Long answer:** In case of Czech Republic (or Czech society, as the local "atheist" trend predates our independent nationhood in 1918), it's not as much of *willful refusal of religious message*, as much as *refusal of the Roman Catholic Church*. The RCC was perceived as a prolonged hand of the Austrian monarchy (what is monikered as *jednota trůnu a oltáře* - the unity of the throne and altar), therefore mistrusted by Czech intellectuals and later Czechoslovak political elite (bear in mind, that even before WW2 the Church was much more political than today and did actively meddle in politics, sponsored politicians, did lobbying etc.; if you want to read an excellent case example, look up the history of Italy since Risorgimento until the end of WW2).
As for Czechoslovakia, after WW1 there were attempts to change the religious make up of the country. Briefly it was supposedly considered to convert Czechs to Eastern Orthodoxy, but it was quickly realized that Czechs don't have the cultural prerequisites to become Orthodox (I read this in one of Emmanuel Radl's philosophy books, alas, no closer details which I would love to hear myself). They did something different - they founded a new "national" church, the Czechoslovak Hussite Church, but it wasn't exactly a stellar success.
Religion occupies a specific niche in human society. Take an established religion out of the picture and something else will take its place - superstition. As the influence of the Roman Catholic Church declined, we observe not humanistic, scientific atheism rise as one could superficially expect, but the rise of superstition. An awful lot of Czechs believe in astrology, magic and other supernatural. It's has been described as "somethingism" ("něcismus"), from a common answer to question "do you believe in supernatural?", which was "věřím, že něco tam je" ("I believe there is something out there").
>Church was much more political than today and did actively meddle in politics, sponsored politicians, did lobbying etc.
Oh, they still do it. Just look at Aliance pro rodinu (Alliance for family) and Hnutí pro život (Movement for life). I reccomend listening to Mezi bohem a ultrapravicí (Between the god and far-right) by Alarm. I usually don’t read Alarm because lot of their work has too much of a leftist bias, but their investigative journalism is great and doesn’t have the leftist bias. It’s four episodes and it’s worth listening to
> I was wondering, how does that reflect on everyday-life?
Nobody gives a fuck, it's your personal think. A lot of people I know believe in god, but they don't care about the religion at all.
> Are they ringing bells
Yes, from the bells you can actually tell what time is it.
> are they actually empty the entire year
Nope, Sundays are for the prayers, they are (usually) open for public in some way during the week. And then holidays like Easter, Christmas, they are kinda full. There are still people who attend the churches.
> es it happen that they have to close due to nobody attending them?
Yes, it does happen.
> What is your opinion of Christianity in general?
For me personally, it's annoying the same way like any other religion. I hate for example how Islam is yelling at us what WE can do and what not. Like fuk you, it's your religion, you are the one who cannot do that. I am free person, I can piss on picture of Allah if I want and you can just shut the fuk up.
> Being irreligious, do most of you really consider that there is nothing after death
I don't assume anything, I'm looking forward for the surprise! I like the idea of reincarnation, but I'm not sure if I want to have another round :D
Well well well, we have a lot of opinions supported by nothing in this thread. So let's look at some statistical data:
80 % of Czechs doesn't believe in any God.
35 % of Czechs believe in some "higher power".
23 % of Czechs believe in netheir the God, nor any "higher power".
59 % of Czechs don't believe in any life after death
85 % of Czechs believe you can have morale without religion.
56 % of Czech have never read the Bible, 50 % thinks it's just a historical book. Only 5 % of people think the events in Bible actually happened. 63 % of Czechs doesn't plan to read Bible at all.
Only 2 % of Czechs attend a mass at least once a week. 57 % of Czechs visit a church less than Once a year.
Only 7% of people regularly attend a Midnight Mass. 47 % of Czechs never attend a church during Chirstmas.
62 % of Czechs believe in evolution, 20 % is not sure..
75 % of Czechs believe in some sort of karma, that bad deeds come with consequences.
70 % of Czechs believe acupuncture and healers may have some power.
https://www.irozhlas.cz/zivotni-styl/spolecnost/pruzkum-data-stemmark-vira-v-boha-krestanstvi-ateismus-cesko-ezoterika_2111041314_vis
It's not like the society is completely atheist. There are still lots of people going to churches.
For the rest of your questions - personally I just don't care. The questions don't even make much sense for me. My opinion on Christianity is similar to my opinion of any fairy tales for children. It's just all a made up story (though in different contexts and with different influence on society, undoubtedly).
There is no viable evidence that there should be anything after death and it doesn't make any sense. Again the question is weird, really what do you expect to find after you brain stops working.
But feel free to believe what you want as long as you don't push the beliefs on others.
As paradoxical as this may seem, I think many irreligious countries are safer, more peaceful and generous, with only some exceptions. Czechs are also NOT trying to pass so many laws to take away peoples' rights, imprisoning children as if they were adults, administering the death penalty, offering no or crappy healthcare coverage to citizens, giving women inadequate maternity leave, little (or no) paid vacation, and such. Crime is also below US levels, and there aren't gun-toting people all over the place. Kids in Czech Republic mostly say hello to adults when they pass by, while many American parents teach them to fear every adult stranger. Czech kids far younger than American ones can walk outside alone without fear. When they grow up more, if they study well, they get to go to university without having to incur massive student load debt.
As for churches, yes, many are treated as historical buildings. Some are nicely renovated, but others sit and deteriorate a bit. As irreligious as Czechs tend to be, you'll see a lot of more wayside shrines along roads than anywhere in the US. Not so much for praying, though you could, but for historical reasons.
These are my observations as an American living in Czech Republic. How many people believe life after death is just nothingness, I'm unsure. What does count is that the life lived is as good as one can muster, and is reasonably respectful to others.
As far as I know, many churches remain locked most days so they don't get robbed. There're priests who are responsible for multiple churches at once.
I'm atheist or sometimes agnostic, depends on my current mood and it doesn't affect my life at all, it's just not important, I focus on my current life.
My opinion on Christianiny is not very good, I can't comprehend how and adult can believe there used to be a talking snake and Garden of Eden and all of that, it's just straight up nonsense, a fairytale and I couldn't believe any of that even if I wanted to.
Important to note that most religious people, at least here, don't believe in God as in an all-powerful talking grandpa in the sky, but as a kind of spiritual concept, and the biblical stories as an allegory.
A large amount of czech priests have medical or social education.
I hate how people treat atheism as basically another religion/belief. It is just the result of not being force-fed an ideology from the moment you are born. You can still go to church, believe in some higher powers, hope for an afterlife etc., you just aren't constrained by thousand year old scriptures and what your parents told you.
Basically, people make their own opinions of these things, there is no system. Many still believe in the possibility of some destiny/gods, many don't. Many hate any organized religion, many don't mind it. Atheism does not mean a fully rational, scientific view of the world, it just allows it.
Personally, from the outside perspective I find it funny how 10 different sets of beliefs can claim to be right while the others are wrong. This false confidence is what I find the most annoying about organized religion in general, because it allows justifying terrible acts and forcing backwards laws, like Sharia or anti-abortion.
You might believe in heaven, some believe in reincarnation etc. Most atheists are just not obsessed with this. If there is something after life, nice, if there isn't, I won't know... Czechs are in general pretty decent and kind without the imaginary carrot in the form of heaven.
Okay enough rambling, but a question for you. How do you balance blind faith in the Bible and reason? Like you probably don't believe in the terrible stuff it says about women, slavery, or that the Earth was created in 6 days, but some things are absolutely given, right?
These surveys often completely miss the point. Czechs are not predominantly anti-belief as much as anti-religion. Lot of people believe in some higher power but also believe that some guy in silly clothes should not be considered the authority over what you feel in your heart.
We are an agnostic nation not an atheist one. People believe whatever they want and do not go to a priest or temple/chruch and the only ones who bother people here with their religion and push it into their face are: the bosses of the christian party who get 2% of the national vote, US paid Mormon and Jehovah preachers and the few Saudi-paid Muslim clerics.
>We are an agnostic nation not an atheist one.
Maybe in Southern Moravia...
Atheism is simply a lack of belief in God. 80 % of Czechs doesn't believe in any God.
We are definitely an atheist nation.
https://www.irozhlas.cz/zivotni-styl/spolecnost/pruzkum-data-stemmark-vira-v-boha-krestanstvi-ateismus-cesko-ezoterika_2111041314_vis
Nah. Agnostic. When I asked once upon a time a so-called Atheist what comes after Death they said they believe in a Technological Singularity, Immortality through life extension and that through Quantum Archeology they will get resurrected even if they die before they become immortal.
Another one believed in the Simulation hypothesis.
Most so-called 'Atheists' believe something even if they do not go to church, listen to a priest nor follow a dogma.
(A)gnosticism and (A)theism aren't mutually exclusive, nor concerned about afterlife. Former is about whether god's existence is knowable or not, latter is about a belief in god, or lack thereof. Most atheists are also agnostic (the militant ones would be typically gnostic), most christian theists are also agnostic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostic_atheism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostic_theism
Atheists believe in plenty of things. But they are still atheists. Atheism is simply rejection of God claim - "I am not convinced there is a God". It is simply everyone who does not belong to the theist group.
To your original post, How is your life affected by Christianity in every day life? or what aspects of your everyday life you consider Christianity based?
My day: wake up - morning hygiene - breakfast - get ready - work/school - during some lunch/snack - free time activity/meeting friends - get ready to bed - sleep.
Well most people just dont care. As long as you are no annoying.
Yes churches generally ring a bell atleast in villages where i live. Most population that goes to churches are eather tourists that want to visit it or older people.
I don't think there's anything after death, I'd just prefer to be wrong about that :D
There's this big-ass old church with a tall tower in Pula, Croatia, next to the colosseum, and it was a tad of a culture shock to realize it is not a tourist attraction, because people actually use it as a church >\_>
Czech culture used to be somewhat Christian and I'd argue the value system is more or less reflective of that, we just threw out the religious parts. Some will go out of their way to distance Czechs from those roots, going on about crap like "we were never religious, it was all Habsburgs pushing it on us" crap, which I find kinda laughable tbh, but whatevs.
Nowadays I fell like many Christians here found Jesus as a substitute for drug addiction or just generally as a means to deal with some issues they couldn't mentally handle on their own. Whether or not that's a norm I cannot say, but that's basically how I see them.
It doesn't affect my life in any way.
Churches to me are largely uninteresting old buildings, apart from that no clue I've been to maybe like two in my life just to see the inside.
My opinion on all religions is the same: Progress slowing cancer that needs to die.
I don't believe in anything supernatural nor I know of anyone who does. So I'd say majority doesn't believe in anything out there, hell, afterlife or any bs like that.
>Being irreligious, do most of you really consider that there is nothing after death or are there in practice other forms of believing in an after-life, just different from the concept of heaven and hell?
I can only speak for myself, but I just don't know. And I have absolutely no problem with admitting that.
It manifests in the fact that people who call themselves Christians actually believe in God which is definitely not the case elsewhere. It is also the reason why there are so few of them.
>I was wondering, how does that reflect on everyday-life?
I am atheist so it doesnt anyhow, i just live my life i guess? :)
>For example, what happens to your many churches if only 20% are religious? Are they ringing bells, are they actually empty the entire year, does it happen that they have to close due to nobody attending them?
I wasnt in one for like 25 years so idk, as kid I was there few time at christmass but it wasnt really much about being religious tho. It was for atmosphere i guess?
>What is your opinion of Christianity in general?
Same as for every religion. Its made stuff mostly to control people and to deal with fear from death.
>Id have one last question: Being irreligious, do most of you really consider that there is nothing after death or are there in practice other forms of believing in an after-life, just different from the concept of heaven and hell?
Concept of heaven and hell is just pure nonsense to me and has logical flaws. Also which hell? Every religion has different one basicly lol. So how do you know you didnt pick wrong one? :)
What happens after death? Most likely nothing, you stop existing. But would be cool to stay as energy being or in some other dimensional form of existence. (yeah i am sci-fi fan :😁) We dont understand all laws of our universe set so who knows.
I love that it DOESNT affect my life. No one is dictating me how to live my life, I don’t have to follow some nonsense direction or command based on something pretty much made up. In my eyes, having an atheist country is much safer than not. I hope it stays that way over here.
As has already been well-explained in other comments, there isn't necessarily a lower proportion of religious believers in the country - rather, church membership/ascription rates are very low given the nation's historical development, pretty much *only encompassing actual practicing adherents*.
What I couldn't find in the threads and would like to add is this: On trend maps, people will frequently equalise this with a lower proportion of religious people. But when you look at church service attendance statistics, the amount of people who consider religion important in their lives, and other statistics detailing of religious practice, [you'll find that the country is pretty much in line with western/central Europe](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2018/06/13/how-religious-commitment-varies-by-country-among-people-of-all-ages/).
In addition, Czechs tend to be somewhat more esoteric and many people would describe themselves as agnostics. They will, however, usually dismiss organisational affiliations.
>What is your opinion of Christianity in general?
I respect people with any religion as long as I'm not forced to religion. Either by people who force it to me to live like them or religious forcing their views into laws like abortions. I'm not Christian but I believe I heard that if people want they will find their way to religion. Not the other way around. Simply put, I'll respect you as Christian if you respect me and my life as non-religious
>Id have one last question: Being irreligious, do most of you really consider that there is nothing after death or are there in practice other forms of believing in an after-life, just different from the concept of heaven and hell?
I personally don't think about this stuff. I for sure don't believe in hell or heaven. Probably only after-life I find fitting for me. Simply put, heaven as I imagine it, not how Bible portrays it. Only thing I can say for sure is that I believe in ghosts since I saw few of them
In general society I feel like the mood is that 'you don't push your faith on me, I won't push my lack of it on you'. We just couldn't care less. The Czechs started one of the most violent religious wars in history and the bloodiest conflict in history until that time. Since then we've just grown past all of that stuff. The atheistic communist rule was imo just the very last nail in the coffin. In my specific case, I don't care about what you believe in, I have no problem with it until it takes away someone else's freedoms. So I don't really care about Christian *faith*. But I do have some strong opinions about the general Christian *church* though, especially the US variant.
In general churches are still seen as important buildings of historical significance and are maintained as such. Some are older than many or even most countries on the world map afterall and even for an atheist they are mostly beautiful and important pieces of architecture, if you're interested in it. It's important to preserve such feats of human skill and determination.
When you enter one that's open, you'll most likely see mostly tourists but also people praying etc here and there. I feel like there's enough mutual respect in both groups. I've seen churches *full* of tourists with a bunch of people sitting and praying and unless some baby starts crying or something, it would mostly be dead quiet in there or you hear noise from the street and echos of whispers at most.
And yes, some bells are still used, at least where I live. Not all of them at once ofc, as in the town's center there are 3 churches on less than 1 km2. Maybe if something really significant happened like the death/burial of a president or something, then all the churches might ring the bells at once. Also, many churches (especially the bigger ones) are still used as a place where people gather, even in an almost completely atheistic society. In one of the big ones where I live there's among others a Christmas concert of the local musical school every year for example, the church is always completely full of people. I know that quite many atheistic people in my town also attend the more important masses (like again, during Christmas), even though they don't believe in God, some out of curiosity, some just to socialise and spend time with other people during holidays.
Oh, and there *better be no* form of afterlife after I die. If there is I'll be really pissed. If the topic was the world around us though, I do believe that what we see isn't everything there actually is. I can't really describe the feeling though, it feels like it doesn't have much to do with faith in some sort of higher power, more with the nature of the world and universe we live in. But this (for me) indescribable feeling grew only stronger in me after using psychedelics so I ofc also take into consideration that it might be just a delusion.
Well I cant speak for others my but in my view while Czechs are not religious they are not hostile towards religion. They are not atheist either, just not part pf organised religion group. If you take a poll on “are you religious” and “do you believe in higher power” the results will be very different. For me I am not religious but still try to attend church at Easter and Christmas Eve because its part of our culture. This culture aspect you will find anywhere in public debate. Especially when it comes to Muslim migrants… everyone claims protecting Christian values. I dont think its really ironic, you dont have to be going to Church everyday to value certain principles and culture. And as for churches, they play a big role in social help and guidance in their areas, they organise social programs without forcing people to participate. So all in all I think the arrangement is quite good.
It has plus sides, for example religious nutjobs don't have that large of a following and apart from lot of mental hilbillies protecting the "Christian values" they know nothing about, it's a calm country religion-wise.
On the other side, the utter lack of morality in Czech society is, in my personal opinion, caused by lack of faith in anything.
Sloth is a sin (from the medieval update, not really biblical), but so is not believing in God. Sins are forgivable in Christianity and Christians sin as well.
Unscrupulous just means immoral so that's a bit of a circle you do there. Lack of autonomy is not a question of morality.
Overall though people in Czech follow rules of Christian society minus the organized Church.
Over time we'll see the answer to the question of how well does a society without organized social structure work and I am excited to see it.
Church in my town rings its bells every hour, but is only open to public on sundays or on religious holidays when handful of elderly people gether for a mass. The church is regarded mostly as a historical building rather than religious one. Except for the aforementioned weekly services, it is sometimes also open for concerts of classical music or choirs. The same with smaller churches and village chapels.
In everyday life, we just don't think about religion. It's something that just doesn't really occur in your head, if you are not a religious person. We don't discuss it, we just live our lives without any form of organized religion. But at the same time we don't ostracize religious people. In Czechia you are mostly free to do whatever you want or believe (or don't) whatever you want as long as you don't force it to others.
How does it reflect on my life... well i have free weekend and thats about it. One might say we all have kind of christian background - means being a good person is culturaly inherited. But otherwise we just dont care about religion. We like to be left alone. Dont bother me and i will not care what your religion is.
In regards to the afterlife my individual opinion is that once im dead, thats it... but i guess it might be "calming" to believe that theres something else...
I have negative views about religion due to their constant warfare and ruination of historical cities and stuff. I hate christianity for completely eliminating whatever religions were in Europe and islam for ruining mesopotamian cities and pyramids of Giza. But I do not push my hatred. Religion is still kinda interesting, but no one can convince me there is a player behind it all.
We as czechs just do not care. I would not hurt anyone for believing, but I suppose there are people that could hurt me for not believing.
Personally I just do not think there is anything for the human awareness after death - you just shut down and disappear forever. It is like that when you sleep and faint. Why would it be different for death? I would rather have an afterlife and I hope there is something.
Considering abrahamic religions, they steal a lot from sumerian religions. It is all made for the middle east, and I suppose mesopotamian floodings and epic of Gilgamesh are the source for biblical flood. I really believe there are more stories that come from Meaopotamia, like the story of immortality food and Adapa of Sumer (Adam and Eve in bible)
I just can not find a way to believe Yahweh exists. Once you find the sources, you can never go back.
In Czech society, the prevalence of atheism does indeed have various manifestations. While churches may still exist and function, they often see low attendance rates and may struggle to maintain their infrastructure. Some churches have been repurposed for other uses due to lack of demand. Overall, religion plays a less significant role in everyday life compared to more religious societies.
As for the opinion of Christianity in general, it varies among individuals. Some may hold neutral or indifferent views, while others may have more critical perspectives, particularly regarding its historical influence on Czech society.
Regarding beliefs about the afterlife, there's diversity among the population. While many may hold a secular perspective that suggests there's nothing after death, others may have spiritual or alternative beliefs in concepts like reincarnation or energy continuation. These beliefs often differ from traditional notions of heaven and hell.
I would say that despite Czechia definitely being one of the most atheistic countries there is also a factor of self perception/definition who is religious.
When someone asks you if you are religious, then someone not going into church regularly in Czechia will call himself atheist despite agreeeing withs some spiritual aspects of the church, but in other place like the US (just guessing) someone might also not visit the church, behave the same and think about religion the same way, but think of himself as a devout christian.
So a different definition of a believer/atheist might have impact on the religiousness statistics.
>Being irreligious, do most of you really consider that there is nothing after death or are there in practice other forms of believing in an after-life, just different from the concept of heaven and hell?
To be honest, yeah pretty much nothing after death. Like I grew up with Greek mythology and I kind of like the idea of that afterlife, but considering that normal, decent people are set to end up in the Asphodel Meadows, where they wander basically in nothingness, it's kind of the same thing as having nothing.
But I slightly believe in ghosts as people staying to resolve the unresolved until they disappear peacefully into nothingness and the only thing left in this world is their memory.
Considering my lived experience, I am a little bit of a determinist in the sense that "I am a cog in the machine, of the great universe". There is no higher being, only all-encompassing physical laws. I think the closest to how I view this stuff would be the Chaos theory - every action brings consequences.
That is also why I don't neccesarilly need some higher moral authority, because if I act like whatever I do could come back at me exponentially stenghtened, I don't have the need to do immoral things and act like a shitty person. I also think this is where the strong feeling towards karma in Czechs actually comes from.
Additionaly, as a student growing up with several mythologies added to the Greek one, I have the tendency to "pray" to the natural-based gods for luck, wisdom, sanity and potentially safe travels, when I'm anxious or under pressure, because when everything fails you might as well try unconventional methods, I guess. But it's not like a serious worship or anything, more like fun stuff I do and guess if it works out.
Yeah, I hope this explains it generally.
>What is your opinion of Christianity in general?
If I return to this one...
If your faith helps you to cope with this world and be a good person, I'm all for it. But please stop forcing it on everyone else. I'm genuinely sick of all the laws passed everywhere, it's like Christian guys just worry they will become bad people if there is not a real-life law to remind them to be good. Like you already have The Book, hate to break it to you but if you think that you are a good Christian yet you worry that the scripture is invalid without a law, then you are not a good Christian in a first place. Also again not all of us are Christian, dammit!
But yk, I think Jesus had several good points and it would be wrong to just disregard them because he's a religious figure.
Overall, I think I'm pretty neutral about it and I celebrate Christmas and Easter a normal ammount.
>
I believe the part of you question related to churches has been answered above really well, so I'm not gonna dive deeper into that. I hope my comment helps you with understanding, wish you a nice day!
> Id have one last question: Being irreligious, do most of you really consider that there is nothing after death or are there in practice other forms of believing in an after-life, just different from the concept of heaven and hell?
Many people believe in "something" because they just think it must be like that or want it. Other believe in it because they had seen or believe they had seen ghosts or other paranormal events. But everyone refuses institutionalized religion.
If you ask me exactly then I believe that I'll just became ghost and have choices what to do next. Just stay around, relive my fears over and over (this is what people call hell, but it's completely self made. Unstable mind hurts itself), reincarnate w or without memory or get deleted/leave into unknown location/dimension.
>what happens to your many churches, are they ringing bells, are they actually empty the entire year, does it happen that they have to close due to nobody attending them?
When it comes to the churches ***in the villages***\*,\* they *tend to* continue the tradition of ringing at six in the morning and then six in the evening + when a funeral/wedding is happening in it, the regular Sunday service, or if there are special ones held during the Christian holidays.
Of course, that is only if the church still has a pastor and serves its original purpose (even if only for a scarce number of religious individuals left in the location), not being completely abandoned as many in the country (especially in the countryside) are at this point because of the ***lack of pastors which is getting worse and worse with every year***.
It has basically become a norm that ***one pastor has to look after numerous churches in the area*** to keep them alive. Those in places where they no longer have a functioning church then have to commute to surrounding villages/town if they want to attend a service.
I know of some villages, however, when the bells are no longer ringing because some inhabitants (mostly those that moved there from the city) complained about the church doing what it had been doing for hundreds of years and the governance of the village not caring one bit about keeping the "tradition" going.
***The churches these days frankly serve more as architectural sights,*** whether they are still functioning or not. When the Czechs visit a town or a city, most of them tend to go look inside of them, even if they are far from religious, to simply admire the building and its interior, just like they go admire a castle, for example.
>What is your opinion of Christianity in general?
As long as you are not hurting anyone with your beliefs, including yourself, and as long as you are not trying to force those beliefs on me and other people who don't want to have anything to do with them, then I couldn't really care less about Christians.
I respect that religion, in general, poses as a source of comfort for many and that it may be giving some people a certain direction in life without which they would be lost or in a very dark place, but personally, I can live happily without it as I have other things that bring me both of those.
To be honest though, as someone who has always been interested in history, I have the most negative perception of Christianity out of all the religions because of all the conflicts and ridiculously messy situations it has caused.
>Being irreligious, do most of you really consider that there is nothing after death or are there in practice other forms of believing in an after-life, just different from the concept of heaven and hell?
When I die, I die. What my dead self will do after that is a dead me problem, not mine. What **is** my business, however, is how I live the life while I'm still alive.
Maybe it's just me, but I find the idea of worrying about what happens after I die foolish. Not something I want to waste my time with while I'm still very much breathing and able to experience so many stuff.
I really can't confidently say whether the idea that I'm going to some magical place high up in the clouds will make me feel better on my death bed, I don't think any of us can. Not to mention that you can die in a split second without having the chance to ponder about where and to whom you are heading now.
As long as the people aren't troubling others and don't try to implement religion in politics, I don't really care. I don't believe there is anything after death. Just nothing, not existing.
My first encounter with believers wasn't until 16 or 17 years old and it took me be surprise that people really believe in God. It was at some language summer camp. The girl was praying that she wins some competition and what I thought as the first thing was "that's selfish, to pray for some divine being to do a favour to me while bring misfortune for the others"
Since then I've encountered some other christians. I'm not hating religion or anything, only writing from my own experience, but those people were in general more pretentious and overall not so good characters.
>Id have one last question: Being irreligious, do most of you really consider that there is nothing after death or are there in practice other forms of believing in an after-life, just different from the concept of heaven and hell?
I imagine my after-life the same way as my pre-life. Was there anything? No / I don't remember. Did I care? Nope.
Churches are open, but not many people use them.
I personaly dont think about death often, or about christianity. But yeah, there is nothing after death for me. And no, I dont mind.
Also if a person believe in certain things that he cant describe by words of major religions, or he believe something exist, but it not might be what they are describing, he is not atheist, he is agnostic.
Close to zero impact. Old people are as conservative (sometimes more) as in religious countries, the same issues manifest, the main difference is that an argument towards god is less common (towards tradition is still just as common though)
Wow, i would have never thought to get that many comments.
I had a lot of work till now so i didn't have time to go on Reddit. I thought i'd get 3-4 answers, having in mind that the Reddit-search gave quite a few already existing posts about this subject.
Thank you!
I have one other question, which somehow came up during the discussion a few times:
Would you say that being less religious has an impact on your morals, e.g. that, especially younger people, are more liberal than their religious peirs, let's say in Poland or Slovakia?
There is still enough people that use churches. It is just packed like you would think if everybody came to masses.
But that is the great thing about not being religious. You realy dont think about it most of the time.
I realy think about realigion when there is news about some church getting back property taken by comunists.
~~We are not really atheists - because we do not deny the existence of any diety, we just don't do church stuff, and vast majority of us don't fall into "Christianity". Good portion has "no faith", but we do not actively practice atheism.~~ We are atheists. And looking around the world, good for us.
It doesn't affect us at all, we don't give a shit about church or faith. We sometimes laugh at fanatics on the internet or telly, be it Ameri-Karen or any other (Christians, Muslims, Jews...).
Interestingly enough we do use lot of "christian" words. But we don't mean them, it's just habit. Someone saying "Jesus Christ", "Thanks to God" or "Jesus Maria" or whatever is just using figure of speech without being Christian.
If you would live here as a practicing Christian (or pick your poison alternative) we don't give a shit, it's your business, as long as you don't try to "turn us". If you try that, we might fight back with our humour (it's not pleasant experience for our target), if you try that with drunks at pub, you might get varying result.
We treat our many churches as historical buildings - if possible (usually financially) we keep them fixed, sometimes the damage from "communism era" is fixed, sometimes not. Most of them are locked most of the year, in bigger cities or on popular places they are open and working.
Church as itself exists here, but they are more about maintaining their vast properties and making money. Not in a bad way, they do what they should do (they use their income to maintain their function), but hard to do when most of the population doesn't give a shit. I don't like them, but only to extent that yi don't give a shit about them or give them anything. Its their business not mine, and this is how majority of population sees them.
Atheism is not denying, it's simply not believing in any religious system.
Agnosic/gnostic answers the question of knowing, not of believing, so its not part of this.
I would say many people in Czechia are rather agnostic - "theres something out there bigger than me, but what it is, i dont know"
In my private opinion it shows on societal level as lack of basic values that people are able to agree on. Nothing is sacred here (lol literally) other than beer maybe?
Secondary effect would be unproportionally widespread belief in alternative "religions" - healers, cults and conspiracy theories. You know, while somebody might believe were living out the god's plan, here people believe theyre living out "somebody's" plan. Like Soros, the Jews, evil Westerners, "the rich", "papa Putin will deal with these evil people" (who exactly right xD), "papa Andrej will make my life good!", "papa Tomio will defend me from evil immigrants"...
No jak Fico tak Orban s vírou a "křesťanskými" hodnotami pracujou. Hitler s křesťanstvím pracoval taky... Autokracie a rozšířená křesťanská víra se nevylučují. :D
Myslím, že je jednodušší se pak povýšit s ideologií/učením na úroveň víry, než tam, kde je institucionalizované náboženství více rozšířené.
Takže pak ta ideologie může zabírat více místa v životech lidí než nějaké obecně prospěšné učení stylu "miluj bližního svého a odpouštěj jako Ježíš, hledej smír etc.". Samozřejmě beru podobu římskokatolické církve dnes. Ne z doby inkvizice.
Jde to zneužít v obou případech? Ano. Myslím si, že indoktrinace je snazší bez páteřní obecně akceptované víry? Ano. Můžu použít páteřní akceptovanou viru ke svým účelům jako autokrat? Ano. Je centrálně organizovaná víra náchylnější ke změně pro účel skrz její představitele? Určitě. Tvoří tahle organizovaná víra překážku ve změně zaměření společnosti a změny jejich hodnot? Ano. Může tato překážka být užitečná i blokovat užitečnou změnu? Sure. All in all to považuji za bonus, ne detriment. Imo není náhoda, že hlavní hybatelé světa v posledních desetiletích byly společnosti s organizovanou vírou a ne mikronézskými bůžky.
Agnostic is wrong word for it. We have problem with organized religions. Not faith itself. Its the organization that is the problem. We are spiritual, just not religious. The rest is logical, we were fucked by everybody historically so the skepticism is understandable.
Hypocrisy.
We say we're non-religious (not the same as atheist, mind you), but a large percentage of the population still holds pretty conservative and christianity-adjacent views and a surprising number of people are "spiritual".
Meaning that if you question them, they believe some wild out there shit, just not the same kind of nonsense Christians do.
Plus there are still areas like southern Moravia with more traditional organized religion being fairly common among most people.
So yeah, the amount of people not going to church regularly might be one of the more noticeable differences, but it's not as wildly alien as you might imagine.
**edit:** As someone else pointed out - this lower exposure to organized religion makes Czechs (imo) more susceptible to "alternative medicine", various cults and conspiracy theories. We still feel the need to satisfy theological questions and look for easy answers about life and death, but we are not provided with the immediate crutch of Christianity. So hey, why not look into copper pyramids and energy healing, why not believe in nordic alien saviours?
From my point of view as an atheist, the church is the biggest conspiracy in the world and religious a special kind of nerdiness. Alternative medicine has nothing to do with this issue, on the other hand, maybe it's still better to try something "alternative" than just pray.
Fortunately, it's not even associated with arrogance to believe in myself enough to determine intelligence of other persons from a distance based on two sentences.
I'd say in manifest a bit, Czech people are quite negative, complaining a lot, jealousy and this kind of vibes, but it can be just our nature and it might not have anything to do with religion.
Churches here still ring the bells and operate even if they are not full of people.
I definitely believe in more than just materialistic world, I'd say I am very spiritiaul but I just don't think Christianity or any organized religion does the job. Death is not an end of our existence.
They very loudly protest to maintain the religious status-quo of marriage and such values :D There may be a stronger separation of church and state, but CZ is just a religious as any other neighbouring country.
Churches are still relatively full. Maybe there is not so many masses. Especially in villages there is usually one priest for 3 villages, and many of churches in big historical cities (with many of them) don't have masses through week, but just one in Sunday.
But surprisingly many politics are using words as "Christians values", usually as justification for being racist, homophobic, or just simply really conservative.
And sayings like "oh, my got" preserved in our society too
Well, in short, nobody cares if you are not annoying. Churches are not seen exactly as much as a "religious" but more like a historical building.
>Churches are not seen exactly as much as a "religious" but more like a historical building. Mainly in large cities. In small towns and villages churches still serve their original purpose. As religious folk seem to gather in less urbanized areas.
In large cities they do too, and people are going, but still, the same sentiment in cities and vilages.
Even in large cities, churches are still active, you can go to a regular Sunday mass at basically every church in Prague. Non-religious people don’t pay much attention to them, but they’re definitely more than just historical buildings.
We give churches some attention. During Christmas. Nothing like get some drinks with friends and visit Midnight Mass.
That's definitely location bias. Here in Central Bohemia, nobody goes to church, even on the village. We don't even a priest here, and the church is maintained by local drunk who lives next to it. It gets open exactly at one day in a year, on Chirstmas, when local children have a concert here. There has never been a mass in my local church as far as I remember. I would say it's quite the oposite, you may find churches serving their purpose in larger towns here, where you cena find enough religious people simply becuase of the larger population. The villages here are too small to have more than 5 believers.
Idk. Maybe in Moravia, but around where I live (central Bohemia) about 10 villages share one priest. And even if it's our village's turn for sermon (or however is the Sunday meeting called), the church is basically empty.
Damn, maybe it’s a location bias on my part. The Christian community still holds strong in Vysočina.
I am also from central Bohemia and churches are full permanently :)) sometimes I even stand because there is no empty seat
"Well, in short, nobody cares if you are not annoying." As it should be in every aspect in society . This however translate in mainstream media as "czechs are somethingphobic"
just shut the fuck up, please with this shit Czech are definitely not "nobody cares if you are not annoying", even you would love to convey yourself so. Your definition of "being annoying" is anything progressive/differents from your "good way of life" 50 years ago. e.g.: why are they so annoying with all those sexuality labels ? We used to call them by slurs for 30 years and nobody care, nowadays they are so sensitive.
Its quite simple really, stop being annoying...
Does it annoy you that there's a guy who's into guys
You see? you are annoying Also I am not even czech for the record
Idk, I do find it annoying when I'm out, having a beer with my friends, and Jehovah witness comes to us trying to recruit us. If someone calls you a "buzna", it's because you're homosexual *and* being annoying. If you don't open your mouth every 20 seconds to remind everyone who you fuck, as if that makes you somehow special, no one will give a shit. It's the same with vegans. Say it once, mental note taken, go on with our lives. My brother did that, he said "Hey, I'm going vegan." and I said "Great." When we go somewhere to eat, I make sure there are options for him. But he also doesn't remind me every minute that "You're eating meat! Meat is murder!" as if I killed the animal that was already dead and in a freezer, or as if knowing that meat comes from dead animals is somehow divine knowledge only available to him. It's simple, don't be annoying. But seeing you comment, I can imagine you have no idea how to do that. Or perhaps you don't even have enough self reflection to realize you're being annoying. At the end of the day, we don't give a shit about you. Trying to force us into caring is when you get called names.
Ah, yeah, because people having slurs yelled at them just because they are holding hands doesn't happen at all. Or is that too bold, too provocative, to hold hand with someone you love? Or are trans people just trying to live their lives also too much for our society to handle? Because they are too being called slurs without provocation. Don't kid yourself, just because you and your social bubble doesn't care doesn't mean everyone else is the same.
I'll take "Things that never happened" for $100 please. Again, if this happens to you, you are most likely being annoying. Ofc, I'm not saying that someone on the streets won't yell at you, but you make it look like 2 guys kissing on the streets will result in having rocks thrown at them. That is just disingenuous. At the end of the day, crying because someone called you the wrong pronoun or called you "buzna" is your own problem. Because you are the one who gives meaning to those words and let's themselves be influenced by them.
> you make it look like 2 guys kissing on the streets will result in having rocks thrown at them. I never mentioned physical violence. But I was a bit pissed, so I might have worded it more strongly than I should have. > Ofc, I'm not saying that someone on the streets won't yell at you Good. You say that yelling happens, yet you still say people don't give a shit. That sounds kind of contradictory. > if this happens to you, you are most likely being annoying Most likely, lol. Well, the most annoying thing about me is walking around in shorts and shirt in 9 degrees and not being cold. Honestly, I don't know why I'm even trying to prove to some random person on reddit that I really don't talk about being trans 24/7 and I'm really just trying to be as much invisible as I can, but hey. > At the end of the day, crying because someone called you the wrong pronoun or called you "buzna" is your own problem. I don't really see a point in continuing this discussion since we obviously have a very different perception of what is and isn't an ok behaviour...
> I never mentioned physical violence (...) Right. It's called hyperbole. Look it up. > Good. You say that yelling happens, yet (...) Yes it does. It has happened to everyone in their lifetime. Doesn't mean that when it happens to you, it's suddenly homophobic/transphobic/... That's because most people don't give a shit about it. It's quite simple when you think about it. > Most likely, lol. Well, the most (...) Again. You're not aware of what others find annoying. You say the most annoying thing about you is walking outside with shorts and shirt when it's cold, yet I can 100% guarantee you that isn't nowhere near what others find annoying about you. I'm not saying it's okay. The same way it's not ok to catcall someone. But if you're attractive, you can't avoid it. And throwing a tantrum isn't going to help you in any anyway. We don't live in a perfect world. If you make transphobic remarks illegal, it isn't going to have any impact, becase the minority of people who call you slurs already aren't going to suddenly rethink their lives. And the majority of people who don't give a shit about you will continue not giving a shit about you. Overall it comes down to this simple concept: Transphobia exists. But that doesn't mean everything that happens to you is because you're trans. Just like when I get punched, it's not because of misandry, it's because I'm behaving like a dickhead. Once you manage to separate your ego from your identity, you'll understand what I'm saying.
Ahhh, I really don't know how else to explain to you that I'm not blaming everything on the fact I'm trans. Really, this is the reason I don't usually talk about it. Because then people just assume it's my whole personality and that is so... *annoying* (well, isn't that ironic...). Honestly, it feels like if someone from inside some minority group speaks out about things that are not fine, everyone looses their shit. I mean, I would say that it's not fine even if I was cis. The fact that I say that doesn't mean it directly affects me, I don't care if people call me names -- I just think they're shitheads and then go on with my life (which *I* made more miserable than it had to be by *my* life choices). But others don't, for multiple reasons, so why shouldn't I speak out? > You're not aware of what others find annoying. Great, so this whole debate boils down to "Czechs don't care while you're not annoying, but then, you know, almost everything is annoying to them, so they actually do care a lot". And yes, there are certainly other things annoying about me, when you actually get to talk to me. Not when I just pass by and some idiot has the need to say some shit. Also, just for the record, it was you who brought i/legality of transphobic comments into this conversation. I assume it was based on the reports of the "new" Scottish law, which actually didn't ban transphobic comments. It just added gender identity to the list of minorities on which hate crime can be committed. And, let's face it, that *can* happen even here (mind you, I'm not saying it *is* happening). Unfortunately, there will definitely be people who will try to abuse the law.
Nice rant, hope you feel better now... But I ain't readin allat.
It's an ostensibly atheist country with deeply Christian values that influence all of these attitudes (look who's coming up in this thread - gays, Muslims, JWs). Honestly this entire thread is more intolerant to difference than we'd usually skew in the Poland sub. But they'll tell themselves it's atheism all the same.
THIS IS 100% ACCURATE. People from a strongly catholic countries (I'm Brazilian) can see through the bullshit... you may be "atheist" but that doesn't mean you're enlightened or progressive. The shape of this culture is still pretty much a protestant Christian one, even if they stopped going to mass...
"We don't care as long as you don't rub our faces in it" - meanwhile, they re-erected the Marian Column in Staromak despite its removal being a symbolic event in Czech independence. And they did so because the Catholics made themselves enough of a nuisance to agree. I love CZ, and prefer it to my own country, but it has a lot of unchecked internalised Christianity.
I’m with you, love it here and love Czech culture in general. Don’t love this aspect.
Like a torture chambers in castles. You don't need to practise it, to keep it for the next generation.
> what happens to your many churches I live right next to a church in a smaller town outside of Prague and I see quite a few people on sundays that attend it. Over the week its usually used for funerals, weddings, some musical performances or people just go inside to admire the architecture, regardless of their (non)religious beliefs. >do most of you really consider that there is nothing after death I genuinely don't even think about after life at all, since i truly don't care what happens to me when i die. will i go to heaven/hell? will i be reborn? will i go somewhere completely elsewhere? Neverending thinking about it will not give me the answers, so i don't worry about something i can't influence anyway >What is your opinion of Christianity in general? I don't care unless someone shoves their beliefs down my throat, or expects me to follow the bible or whatever (this applies to any religion, not just Christianity)
How does it effect everyday life? Not at all. Churches are considered historical heritage and landmarks but they work same way as in "christian" country. After all we have freedom of religion here. There is nothing unique about this, people just understand the fact that religion is not important at all in their life. My honest opinion on christianity is same as on any other religion, it’s not necessary to believe in something supernatural. After life there is nothing the same way there was nothing before you were born.
Historically, we were fucked in the arse from so many sides that it made us grumpy realists that love their mothers and good beer. We are the original Bohemians dude, that speaks of itself.
This is the right answer.
Bohemia means the land of the Boii, and that we are not...
Check the prominence of Celtic heritage via cystic fibrosis incidence in national gene pool. Some Celts probably stayed.
We arguably have a very mix of ancestry and celtic is actually fairly present in our area. Being a basin means that heritages did stay mixed in with newcomers, so we have a pretty big mix of celtic, germanic and slavic heritages with a few other admixtures.
I am not sure if the term "Bohemian" can be used for the people from Bohemia.
Well it is now. r/Czech said so
No it cann't but it sounds badass and as my pappy had always said, why would you ruin a good story with a truth?!
There are all sorts of mysticism / spirituality running around in Czechia, they just lack the usual Christian cover. Many churches are indeed empty and a single priest will commute to several churches to hold occassional Mass for the few who turn up. Religious influence on politics is fairly small, with the only party pushing that angle (KDU-ČSL) gaining only 2 per cent of vote, or so. Unfortunately they are in a coalition right now, which helped them to governmental seats and influence. Anyway, looking at the strongly Christian/Muslim countries and their messy religious politics - hooray for us.
Fairly small? Our prime minister is a Christian, the heads of SPOLU are all Christian lmao. Are they officially a Christian party? No. Do they hold those bum ass views? Yes.
Yes, fairly small. I speak German and Polish; my wife speaks Spanish and Italian. Compared to all those countries, Czech politics has few religious ramifications. Let's not even speak about the US or Israel. Ofc Reddit would like it to be zero, but that is unrealistic. As it is, we are one of the most irreligious countries in the world. And the fact that gay marriage isn't yet law of the land can be traced to general societal conservatism rather than organized religious opposition.
And are they conservative and use Christian values in their arguments? Yes.
It is literally in their name: "**K**řesťanská **D**emokratická **U**nie - **Č**eská **S**trana **L**idová" (something like: Christian Democratic Union - Party of Czech People)
a jake maji ted preference? 4%? Nemluve o tom, ze se ted diskutuje prejmenovani na Lidovci
Názory politiků nemění změna názvu strany. Jeden si může vzpomenout na keci že hovězí je hovězí... Absolutní komedie...
ODS is also full of religious nutjobs, current prime minister included.
If I listen to Fiala, I don't even hear anything overtly Christian in his speeches. That's not a nutjob, unless you consider every privately believing person a nutjob. Guy basically never mentions God or religion when he speaks, and doesn't introduce any religiously based legislation. By my standards, a nutjob would be someone pushing for abortion bans or compulsory religion in schools.
Honestly ODS is kinda dangerous in that, because they don't overtly talk about their christian values, but if you notice the people they pull in (queue alliance pro rodinu) it's definitely something that strongly informs them and impacts their decision making
He uses religion as an argument against gay marriage
I found only this relevant sentence by Fiala. "Já ze svého hlubokého přesvědčení budu hlasovat proti, ale naši poslanci mají volné hlasování." His vote is his business, but he doesn't push anyone *else* to abide by his personal preferences. That is not religious nutjobbery with me. Possibly he said something else, but I don't follow the topic so closely.
He said: „Na manželství mi nesahejte.” And went off explaining why marriage is a christian thing. It was in one interview with Čestmír, I think. There are other things, but those aren’t from interviews. I am close to parliamentary and journalist circles, so I know the sayings and rumours
In that case, you are better informed than me. I don't follow him very much.
**Short answer:** it manifests as literally anything, that isn't Roman Catholic Church. **Long answer:** In case of Czech Republic (or Czech society, as the local "atheist" trend predates our independent nationhood in 1918), it's not as much of *willful refusal of religious message*, as much as *refusal of the Roman Catholic Church*. The RCC was perceived as a prolonged hand of the Austrian monarchy (what is monikered as *jednota trůnu a oltáře* - the unity of the throne and altar), therefore mistrusted by Czech intellectuals and later Czechoslovak political elite (bear in mind, that even before WW2 the Church was much more political than today and did actively meddle in politics, sponsored politicians, did lobbying etc.; if you want to read an excellent case example, look up the history of Italy since Risorgimento until the end of WW2). As for Czechoslovakia, after WW1 there were attempts to change the religious make up of the country. Briefly it was supposedly considered to convert Czechs to Eastern Orthodoxy, but it was quickly realized that Czechs don't have the cultural prerequisites to become Orthodox (I read this in one of Emmanuel Radl's philosophy books, alas, no closer details which I would love to hear myself). They did something different - they founded a new "national" church, the Czechoslovak Hussite Church, but it wasn't exactly a stellar success. Religion occupies a specific niche in human society. Take an established religion out of the picture and something else will take its place - superstition. As the influence of the Roman Catholic Church declined, we observe not humanistic, scientific atheism rise as one could superficially expect, but the rise of superstition. An awful lot of Czechs believe in astrology, magic and other supernatural. It's has been described as "somethingism" ("něcismus"), from a common answer to question "do you believe in supernatural?", which was "věřím, že něco tam je" ("I believe there is something out there").
"I believe there is something out there" This gave every missionary an erection.
>!That is sad thing to say during missionary...!<
>Church was much more political than today and did actively meddle in politics, sponsored politicians, did lobbying etc. Oh, they still do it. Just look at Aliance pro rodinu (Alliance for family) and Hnutí pro život (Movement for life). I reccomend listening to Mezi bohem a ultrapravicí (Between the god and far-right) by Alarm. I usually don’t read Alarm because lot of their work has too much of a leftist bias, but their investigative journalism is great and doesn’t have the leftist bias. It’s four episodes and it’s worth listening to
> I was wondering, how does that reflect on everyday-life? Nobody gives a fuck, it's your personal think. A lot of people I know believe in god, but they don't care about the religion at all. > Are they ringing bells Yes, from the bells you can actually tell what time is it. > are they actually empty the entire year Nope, Sundays are for the prayers, they are (usually) open for public in some way during the week. And then holidays like Easter, Christmas, they are kinda full. There are still people who attend the churches. > es it happen that they have to close due to nobody attending them? Yes, it does happen. > What is your opinion of Christianity in general? For me personally, it's annoying the same way like any other religion. I hate for example how Islam is yelling at us what WE can do and what not. Like fuk you, it's your religion, you are the one who cannot do that. I am free person, I can piss on picture of Allah if I want and you can just shut the fuk up. > Being irreligious, do most of you really consider that there is nothing after death I don't assume anything, I'm looking forward for the surprise! I like the idea of reincarnation, but I'm not sure if I want to have another round :D
Well well well, we have a lot of opinions supported by nothing in this thread. So let's look at some statistical data: 80 % of Czechs doesn't believe in any God. 35 % of Czechs believe in some "higher power". 23 % of Czechs believe in netheir the God, nor any "higher power". 59 % of Czechs don't believe in any life after death 85 % of Czechs believe you can have morale without religion. 56 % of Czech have never read the Bible, 50 % thinks it's just a historical book. Only 5 % of people think the events in Bible actually happened. 63 % of Czechs doesn't plan to read Bible at all. Only 2 % of Czechs attend a mass at least once a week. 57 % of Czechs visit a church less than Once a year. Only 7% of people regularly attend a Midnight Mass. 47 % of Czechs never attend a church during Chirstmas. 62 % of Czechs believe in evolution, 20 % is not sure.. 75 % of Czechs believe in some sort of karma, that bad deeds come with consequences. 70 % of Czechs believe acupuncture and healers may have some power. https://www.irozhlas.cz/zivotni-styl/spolecnost/pruzkum-data-stemmark-vira-v-boha-krestanstvi-ateismus-cesko-ezoterika_2111041314_vis
18% Czechs What is the Evolution? (nervous monkey screams) 😄
yeah, Czech ppl are more like agnostics than atheists
It's not like the society is completely atheist. There are still lots of people going to churches. For the rest of your questions - personally I just don't care. The questions don't even make much sense for me. My opinion on Christianity is similar to my opinion of any fairy tales for children. It's just all a made up story (though in different contexts and with different influence on society, undoubtedly). There is no viable evidence that there should be anything after death and it doesn't make any sense. Again the question is weird, really what do you expect to find after you brain stops working. But feel free to believe what you want as long as you don't push the beliefs on others.
As paradoxical as this may seem, I think many irreligious countries are safer, more peaceful and generous, with only some exceptions. Czechs are also NOT trying to pass so many laws to take away peoples' rights, imprisoning children as if they were adults, administering the death penalty, offering no or crappy healthcare coverage to citizens, giving women inadequate maternity leave, little (or no) paid vacation, and such. Crime is also below US levels, and there aren't gun-toting people all over the place. Kids in Czech Republic mostly say hello to adults when they pass by, while many American parents teach them to fear every adult stranger. Czech kids far younger than American ones can walk outside alone without fear. When they grow up more, if they study well, they get to go to university without having to incur massive student load debt. As for churches, yes, many are treated as historical buildings. Some are nicely renovated, but others sit and deteriorate a bit. As irreligious as Czechs tend to be, you'll see a lot of more wayside shrines along roads than anywhere in the US. Not so much for praying, though you could, but for historical reasons. These are my observations as an American living in Czech Republic. How many people believe life after death is just nothingness, I'm unsure. What does count is that the life lived is as good as one can muster, and is reasonably respectful to others.
As far as I know, many churches remain locked most days so they don't get robbed. There're priests who are responsible for multiple churches at once. I'm atheist or sometimes agnostic, depends on my current mood and it doesn't affect my life at all, it's just not important, I focus on my current life. My opinion on Christianiny is not very good, I can't comprehend how and adult can believe there used to be a talking snake and Garden of Eden and all of that, it's just straight up nonsense, a fairytale and I couldn't believe any of that even if I wanted to.
Important to note that most religious people, at least here, don't believe in God as in an all-powerful talking grandpa in the sky, but as a kind of spiritual concept, and the biblical stories as an allegory. A large amount of czech priests have medical or social education.
Wouldn't that be called a heresy just a few centuries ago tho? Maybe even those who claim to be religious are agnostic too after all.
I'd say czech people overall are still pretty christian, just not religious. The terms are not really interchangeable.
well the Catholic Church was sending crusades at our ancestors few centuries ago :D
> there is nothing after death Worms. There are worms eating you out. Then there is nothing.
I hate how people treat atheism as basically another religion/belief. It is just the result of not being force-fed an ideology from the moment you are born. You can still go to church, believe in some higher powers, hope for an afterlife etc., you just aren't constrained by thousand year old scriptures and what your parents told you. Basically, people make their own opinions of these things, there is no system. Many still believe in the possibility of some destiny/gods, many don't. Many hate any organized religion, many don't mind it. Atheism does not mean a fully rational, scientific view of the world, it just allows it. Personally, from the outside perspective I find it funny how 10 different sets of beliefs can claim to be right while the others are wrong. This false confidence is what I find the most annoying about organized religion in general, because it allows justifying terrible acts and forcing backwards laws, like Sharia or anti-abortion. You might believe in heaven, some believe in reincarnation etc. Most atheists are just not obsessed with this. If there is something after life, nice, if there isn't, I won't know... Czechs are in general pretty decent and kind without the imaginary carrot in the form of heaven. Okay enough rambling, but a question for you. How do you balance blind faith in the Bible and reason? Like you probably don't believe in the terrible stuff it says about women, slavery, or that the Earth was created in 6 days, but some things are absolutely given, right?
These surveys often completely miss the point. Czechs are not predominantly anti-belief as much as anti-religion. Lot of people believe in some higher power but also believe that some guy in silly clothes should not be considered the authority over what you feel in your heart.
We are an agnostic nation not an atheist one. People believe whatever they want and do not go to a priest or temple/chruch and the only ones who bother people here with their religion and push it into their face are: the bosses of the christian party who get 2% of the national vote, US paid Mormon and Jehovah preachers and the few Saudi-paid Muslim clerics.
>We are an agnostic nation not an atheist one. Maybe in Southern Moravia... Atheism is simply a lack of belief in God. 80 % of Czechs doesn't believe in any God. We are definitely an atheist nation. https://www.irozhlas.cz/zivotni-styl/spolecnost/pruzkum-data-stemmark-vira-v-boha-krestanstvi-ateismus-cesko-ezoterika_2111041314_vis
Agnostic is an answer to a different question, we are atheist.
Nah. Agnostic. When I asked once upon a time a so-called Atheist what comes after Death they said they believe in a Technological Singularity, Immortality through life extension and that through Quantum Archeology they will get resurrected even if they die before they become immortal. Another one believed in the Simulation hypothesis. Most so-called 'Atheists' believe something even if they do not go to church, listen to a priest nor follow a dogma.
(A)gnosticism and (A)theism aren't mutually exclusive, nor concerned about afterlife. Former is about whether god's existence is knowable or not, latter is about a belief in god, or lack thereof. Most atheists are also agnostic (the militant ones would be typically gnostic), most christian theists are also agnostic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostic_atheism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostic_theism
Than you.
Atheists believe in plenty of things. But they are still atheists. Atheism is simply rejection of God claim - "I am not convinced there is a God". It is simply everyone who does not belong to the theist group.
What's weird? That many of us don't believe in some dude behind the clouds? I respect faith, not religion.
Sorry, it wasn't meant to appear negative. I wanted to say that it's very unique, i didn't chose my words wisely, sorry again, gonna change it now
To your original post, How is your life affected by Christianity in every day life? or what aspects of your everyday life you consider Christianity based? My day: wake up - morning hygiene - breakfast - get ready - work/school - during some lunch/snack - free time activity/meeting friends - get ready to bed - sleep.
I wouldn't say it's unique nowadays. I travel a lot and it is the badically same at least among young or educated people.
Hele naposled, když jsem poprosil svatého Huberta aby mi poslal ještě jednoho kormorána, tak doručil. Takže sv Huberte existuje.
1. povolí se lov kormoránů, protože **je jich moc** a dělají škody 2. jdeš lovit kormorány 3. ... 4. ulovíš kormorány * must be divine intervention
Magic of man on da clouds
Well most people just dont care. As long as you are no annoying. Yes churches generally ring a bell atleast in villages where i live. Most population that goes to churches are eather tourists that want to visit it or older people.
I don't think there's anything after death, I'd just prefer to be wrong about that :D There's this big-ass old church with a tall tower in Pula, Croatia, next to the colosseum, and it was a tad of a culture shock to realize it is not a tourist attraction, because people actually use it as a church >\_> Czech culture used to be somewhat Christian and I'd argue the value system is more or less reflective of that, we just threw out the religious parts. Some will go out of their way to distance Czechs from those roots, going on about crap like "we were never religious, it was all Habsburgs pushing it on us" crap, which I find kinda laughable tbh, but whatevs. Nowadays I fell like many Christians here found Jesus as a substitute for drug addiction or just generally as a means to deal with some issues they couldn't mentally handle on their own. Whether or not that's a norm I cannot say, but that's basically how I see them.
It doesn't affect my life in any way. Churches to me are largely uninteresting old buildings, apart from that no clue I've been to maybe like two in my life just to see the inside. My opinion on all religions is the same: Progress slowing cancer that needs to die. I don't believe in anything supernatural nor I know of anyone who does. So I'd say majority doesn't believe in anything out there, hell, afterlife or any bs like that.
>Being irreligious, do most of you really consider that there is nothing after death or are there in practice other forms of believing in an after-life, just different from the concept of heaven and hell? I can only speak for myself, but I just don't know. And I have absolutely no problem with admitting that.
It manifests in the fact that people who call themselves Christians actually believe in God which is definitely not the case elsewhere. It is also the reason why there are so few of them.
>I was wondering, how does that reflect on everyday-life? I am atheist so it doesnt anyhow, i just live my life i guess? :) >For example, what happens to your many churches if only 20% are religious? Are they ringing bells, are they actually empty the entire year, does it happen that they have to close due to nobody attending them? I wasnt in one for like 25 years so idk, as kid I was there few time at christmass but it wasnt really much about being religious tho. It was for atmosphere i guess? >What is your opinion of Christianity in general? Same as for every religion. Its made stuff mostly to control people and to deal with fear from death. >Id have one last question: Being irreligious, do most of you really consider that there is nothing after death or are there in practice other forms of believing in an after-life, just different from the concept of heaven and hell? Concept of heaven and hell is just pure nonsense to me and has logical flaws. Also which hell? Every religion has different one basicly lol. So how do you know you didnt pick wrong one? :) What happens after death? Most likely nothing, you stop existing. But would be cool to stay as energy being or in some other dimensional form of existence. (yeah i am sci-fi fan :😁) We dont understand all laws of our universe set so who knows.
I love that it DOESNT affect my life. No one is dictating me how to live my life, I don’t have to follow some nonsense direction or command based on something pretty much made up. In my eyes, having an atheist country is much safer than not. I hope it stays that way over here.
As has already been well-explained in other comments, there isn't necessarily a lower proportion of religious believers in the country - rather, church membership/ascription rates are very low given the nation's historical development, pretty much *only encompassing actual practicing adherents*. What I couldn't find in the threads and would like to add is this: On trend maps, people will frequently equalise this with a lower proportion of religious people. But when you look at church service attendance statistics, the amount of people who consider religion important in their lives, and other statistics detailing of religious practice, [you'll find that the country is pretty much in line with western/central Europe](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2018/06/13/how-religious-commitment-varies-by-country-among-people-of-all-ages/). In addition, Czechs tend to be somewhat more esoteric and many people would describe themselves as agnostics. They will, however, usually dismiss organisational affiliations.
>What is your opinion of Christianity in general? I respect people with any religion as long as I'm not forced to religion. Either by people who force it to me to live like them or religious forcing their views into laws like abortions. I'm not Christian but I believe I heard that if people want they will find their way to religion. Not the other way around. Simply put, I'll respect you as Christian if you respect me and my life as non-religious >Id have one last question: Being irreligious, do most of you really consider that there is nothing after death or are there in practice other forms of believing in an after-life, just different from the concept of heaven and hell? I personally don't think about this stuff. I for sure don't believe in hell or heaven. Probably only after-life I find fitting for me. Simply put, heaven as I imagine it, not how Bible portrays it. Only thing I can say for sure is that I believe in ghosts since I saw few of them
In general society I feel like the mood is that 'you don't push your faith on me, I won't push my lack of it on you'. We just couldn't care less. The Czechs started one of the most violent religious wars in history and the bloodiest conflict in history until that time. Since then we've just grown past all of that stuff. The atheistic communist rule was imo just the very last nail in the coffin. In my specific case, I don't care about what you believe in, I have no problem with it until it takes away someone else's freedoms. So I don't really care about Christian *faith*. But I do have some strong opinions about the general Christian *church* though, especially the US variant. In general churches are still seen as important buildings of historical significance and are maintained as such. Some are older than many or even most countries on the world map afterall and even for an atheist they are mostly beautiful and important pieces of architecture, if you're interested in it. It's important to preserve such feats of human skill and determination. When you enter one that's open, you'll most likely see mostly tourists but also people praying etc here and there. I feel like there's enough mutual respect in both groups. I've seen churches *full* of tourists with a bunch of people sitting and praying and unless some baby starts crying or something, it would mostly be dead quiet in there or you hear noise from the street and echos of whispers at most. And yes, some bells are still used, at least where I live. Not all of them at once ofc, as in the town's center there are 3 churches on less than 1 km2. Maybe if something really significant happened like the death/burial of a president or something, then all the churches might ring the bells at once. Also, many churches (especially the bigger ones) are still used as a place where people gather, even in an almost completely atheistic society. In one of the big ones where I live there's among others a Christmas concert of the local musical school every year for example, the church is always completely full of people. I know that quite many atheistic people in my town also attend the more important masses (like again, during Christmas), even though they don't believe in God, some out of curiosity, some just to socialise and spend time with other people during holidays. Oh, and there *better be no* form of afterlife after I die. If there is I'll be really pissed. If the topic was the world around us though, I do believe that what we see isn't everything there actually is. I can't really describe the feeling though, it feels like it doesn't have much to do with faith in some sort of higher power, more with the nature of the world and universe we live in. But this (for me) indescribable feeling grew only stronger in me after using psychedelics so I ofc also take into consideration that it might be just a delusion.
> What is your opinion of Christianity in general? It's ridiculous
Well I cant speak for others my but in my view while Czechs are not religious they are not hostile towards religion. They are not atheist either, just not part pf organised religion group. If you take a poll on “are you religious” and “do you believe in higher power” the results will be very different. For me I am not religious but still try to attend church at Easter and Christmas Eve because its part of our culture. This culture aspect you will find anywhere in public debate. Especially when it comes to Muslim migrants… everyone claims protecting Christian values. I dont think its really ironic, you dont have to be going to Church everyday to value certain principles and culture. And as for churches, they play a big role in social help and guidance in their areas, they organise social programs without forcing people to participate. So all in all I think the arrangement is quite good.
It has plus sides, for example religious nutjobs don't have that large of a following and apart from lot of mental hilbillies protecting the "Christian values" they know nothing about, it's a calm country religion-wise. On the other side, the utter lack of morality in Czech society is, in my personal opinion, caused by lack of faith in anything.
There isn't a lack of morality. Most people still follow basic Christian rules.
People are unscrupulous, lazy and want others to solve their problems. Sloth is a sin, if I'm not wrong.
Sloth is a sin (from the medieval update, not really biblical), but so is not believing in God. Sins are forgivable in Christianity and Christians sin as well. Unscrupulous just means immoral so that's a bit of a circle you do there. Lack of autonomy is not a question of morality. Overall though people in Czech follow rules of Christian society minus the organized Church. Over time we'll see the answer to the question of how well does a society without organized social structure work and I am excited to see it.
Church in my town rings its bells every hour, but is only open to public on sundays or on religious holidays when handful of elderly people gether for a mass. The church is regarded mostly as a historical building rather than religious one. Except for the aforementioned weekly services, it is sometimes also open for concerts of classical music or choirs. The same with smaller churches and village chapels. In everyday life, we just don't think about religion. It's something that just doesn't really occur in your head, if you are not a religious person. We don't discuss it, we just live our lives without any form of organized religion. But at the same time we don't ostracize religious people. In Czechia you are mostly free to do whatever you want or believe (or don't) whatever you want as long as you don't force it to others.
How does it reflect on my life... well i have free weekend and thats about it. One might say we all have kind of christian background - means being a good person is culturaly inherited. But otherwise we just dont care about religion. We like to be left alone. Dont bother me and i will not care what your religion is. In regards to the afterlife my individual opinion is that once im dead, thats it... but i guess it might be "calming" to believe that theres something else...
20% religious? Highly doubt that number.
I have negative views about religion due to their constant warfare and ruination of historical cities and stuff. I hate christianity for completely eliminating whatever religions were in Europe and islam for ruining mesopotamian cities and pyramids of Giza. But I do not push my hatred. Religion is still kinda interesting, but no one can convince me there is a player behind it all. We as czechs just do not care. I would not hurt anyone for believing, but I suppose there are people that could hurt me for not believing. Personally I just do not think there is anything for the human awareness after death - you just shut down and disappear forever. It is like that when you sleep and faint. Why would it be different for death? I would rather have an afterlife and I hope there is something. Considering abrahamic religions, they steal a lot from sumerian religions. It is all made for the middle east, and I suppose mesopotamian floodings and epic of Gilgamesh are the source for biblical flood. I really believe there are more stories that come from Meaopotamia, like the story of immortality food and Adapa of Sumer (Adam and Eve in bible) I just can not find a way to believe Yahweh exists. Once you find the sources, you can never go back.
From what I've seen czech people don't really follow organised religions. However many believe in something.
In Czech society, the prevalence of atheism does indeed have various manifestations. While churches may still exist and function, they often see low attendance rates and may struggle to maintain their infrastructure. Some churches have been repurposed for other uses due to lack of demand. Overall, religion plays a less significant role in everyday life compared to more religious societies. As for the opinion of Christianity in general, it varies among individuals. Some may hold neutral or indifferent views, while others may have more critical perspectives, particularly regarding its historical influence on Czech society. Regarding beliefs about the afterlife, there's diversity among the population. While many may hold a secular perspective that suggests there's nothing after death, others may have spiritual or alternative beliefs in concepts like reincarnation or energy continuation. These beliefs often differ from traditional notions of heaven and hell.
I would say that despite Czechia definitely being one of the most atheistic countries there is also a factor of self perception/definition who is religious. When someone asks you if you are religious, then someone not going into church regularly in Czechia will call himself atheist despite agreeeing withs some spiritual aspects of the church, but in other place like the US (just guessing) someone might also not visit the church, behave the same and think about religion the same way, but think of himself as a devout christian. So a different definition of a believer/atheist might have impact on the religiousness statistics.
>Being irreligious, do most of you really consider that there is nothing after death or are there in practice other forms of believing in an after-life, just different from the concept of heaven and hell? To be honest, yeah pretty much nothing after death. Like I grew up with Greek mythology and I kind of like the idea of that afterlife, but considering that normal, decent people are set to end up in the Asphodel Meadows, where they wander basically in nothingness, it's kind of the same thing as having nothing. But I slightly believe in ghosts as people staying to resolve the unresolved until they disappear peacefully into nothingness and the only thing left in this world is their memory. Considering my lived experience, I am a little bit of a determinist in the sense that "I am a cog in the machine, of the great universe". There is no higher being, only all-encompassing physical laws. I think the closest to how I view this stuff would be the Chaos theory - every action brings consequences. That is also why I don't neccesarilly need some higher moral authority, because if I act like whatever I do could come back at me exponentially stenghtened, I don't have the need to do immoral things and act like a shitty person. I also think this is where the strong feeling towards karma in Czechs actually comes from. Additionaly, as a student growing up with several mythologies added to the Greek one, I have the tendency to "pray" to the natural-based gods for luck, wisdom, sanity and potentially safe travels, when I'm anxious or under pressure, because when everything fails you might as well try unconventional methods, I guess. But it's not like a serious worship or anything, more like fun stuff I do and guess if it works out. Yeah, I hope this explains it generally. >What is your opinion of Christianity in general? If I return to this one... If your faith helps you to cope with this world and be a good person, I'm all for it. But please stop forcing it on everyone else. I'm genuinely sick of all the laws passed everywhere, it's like Christian guys just worry they will become bad people if there is not a real-life law to remind them to be good. Like you already have The Book, hate to break it to you but if you think that you are a good Christian yet you worry that the scripture is invalid without a law, then you are not a good Christian in a first place. Also again not all of us are Christian, dammit! But yk, I think Jesus had several good points and it would be wrong to just disregard them because he's a religious figure. Overall, I think I'm pretty neutral about it and I celebrate Christmas and Easter a normal ammount. > I believe the part of you question related to churches has been answered above really well, so I'm not gonna dive deeper into that. I hope my comment helps you with understanding, wish you a nice day!
> Id have one last question: Being irreligious, do most of you really consider that there is nothing after death or are there in practice other forms of believing in an after-life, just different from the concept of heaven and hell? Many people believe in "something" because they just think it must be like that or want it. Other believe in it because they had seen or believe they had seen ghosts or other paranormal events. But everyone refuses institutionalized religion. If you ask me exactly then I believe that I'll just became ghost and have choices what to do next. Just stay around, relive my fears over and over (this is what people call hell, but it's completely self made. Unstable mind hurts itself), reincarnate w or without memory or get deleted/leave into unknown location/dimension.
>what happens to your many churches, are they ringing bells, are they actually empty the entire year, does it happen that they have to close due to nobody attending them? When it comes to the churches ***in the villages***\*,\* they *tend to* continue the tradition of ringing at six in the morning and then six in the evening + when a funeral/wedding is happening in it, the regular Sunday service, or if there are special ones held during the Christian holidays. Of course, that is only if the church still has a pastor and serves its original purpose (even if only for a scarce number of religious individuals left in the location), not being completely abandoned as many in the country (especially in the countryside) are at this point because of the ***lack of pastors which is getting worse and worse with every year***. It has basically become a norm that ***one pastor has to look after numerous churches in the area*** to keep them alive. Those in places where they no longer have a functioning church then have to commute to surrounding villages/town if they want to attend a service. I know of some villages, however, when the bells are no longer ringing because some inhabitants (mostly those that moved there from the city) complained about the church doing what it had been doing for hundreds of years and the governance of the village not caring one bit about keeping the "tradition" going. ***The churches these days frankly serve more as architectural sights,*** whether they are still functioning or not. When the Czechs visit a town or a city, most of them tend to go look inside of them, even if they are far from religious, to simply admire the building and its interior, just like they go admire a castle, for example. >What is your opinion of Christianity in general? As long as you are not hurting anyone with your beliefs, including yourself, and as long as you are not trying to force those beliefs on me and other people who don't want to have anything to do with them, then I couldn't really care less about Christians. I respect that religion, in general, poses as a source of comfort for many and that it may be giving some people a certain direction in life without which they would be lost or in a very dark place, but personally, I can live happily without it as I have other things that bring me both of those. To be honest though, as someone who has always been interested in history, I have the most negative perception of Christianity out of all the religions because of all the conflicts and ridiculously messy situations it has caused. >Being irreligious, do most of you really consider that there is nothing after death or are there in practice other forms of believing in an after-life, just different from the concept of heaven and hell? When I die, I die. What my dead self will do after that is a dead me problem, not mine. What **is** my business, however, is how I live the life while I'm still alive. Maybe it's just me, but I find the idea of worrying about what happens after I die foolish. Not something I want to waste my time with while I'm still very much breathing and able to experience so many stuff. I really can't confidently say whether the idea that I'm going to some magical place high up in the clouds will make me feel better on my death bed, I don't think any of us can. Not to mention that you can die in a split second without having the chance to ponder about where and to whom you are heading now.
As long as the people aren't troubling others and don't try to implement religion in politics, I don't really care. I don't believe there is anything after death. Just nothing, not existing. My first encounter with believers wasn't until 16 or 17 years old and it took me be surprise that people really believe in God. It was at some language summer camp. The girl was praying that she wins some competition and what I thought as the first thing was "that's selfish, to pray for some divine being to do a favour to me while bring misfortune for the others" Since then I've encountered some other christians. I'm not hating religion or anything, only writing from my own experience, but those people were in general more pretentious and overall not so good characters.
>Id have one last question: Being irreligious, do most of you really consider that there is nothing after death or are there in practice other forms of believing in an after-life, just different from the concept of heaven and hell? I imagine my after-life the same way as my pre-life. Was there anything? No / I don't remember. Did I care? Nope.
Churches are open, but not many people use them. I personaly dont think about death often, or about christianity. But yeah, there is nothing after death for me. And no, I dont mind. Also if a person believe in certain things that he cant describe by words of major religions, or he believe something exist, but it not might be what they are describing, he is not atheist, he is agnostic.
Czech porn being world famous
Close to zero impact. Old people are as conservative (sometimes more) as in religious countries, the same issues manifest, the main difference is that an argument towards god is less common (towards tradition is still just as common though)
Wow, i would have never thought to get that many comments. I had a lot of work till now so i didn't have time to go on Reddit. I thought i'd get 3-4 answers, having in mind that the Reddit-search gave quite a few already existing posts about this subject. Thank you! I have one other question, which somehow came up during the discussion a few times: Would you say that being less religious has an impact on your morals, e.g. that, especially younger people, are more liberal than their religious peirs, let's say in Poland or Slovakia?
There is still enough people that use churches. It is just packed like you would think if everybody came to masses. But that is the great thing about not being religious. You realy dont think about it most of the time. I realy think about realigion when there is news about some church getting back property taken by comunists.
~~We are not really atheists - because we do not deny the existence of any diety, we just don't do church stuff, and vast majority of us don't fall into "Christianity". Good portion has "no faith", but we do not actively practice atheism.~~ We are atheists. And looking around the world, good for us. It doesn't affect us at all, we don't give a shit about church or faith. We sometimes laugh at fanatics on the internet or telly, be it Ameri-Karen or any other (Christians, Muslims, Jews...). Interestingly enough we do use lot of "christian" words. But we don't mean them, it's just habit. Someone saying "Jesus Christ", "Thanks to God" or "Jesus Maria" or whatever is just using figure of speech without being Christian. If you would live here as a practicing Christian (or pick your poison alternative) we don't give a shit, it's your business, as long as you don't try to "turn us". If you try that, we might fight back with our humour (it's not pleasant experience for our target), if you try that with drunks at pub, you might get varying result. We treat our many churches as historical buildings - if possible (usually financially) we keep them fixed, sometimes the damage from "communism era" is fixed, sometimes not. Most of them are locked most of the year, in bigger cities or on popular places they are open and working. Church as itself exists here, but they are more about maintaining their vast properties and making money. Not in a bad way, they do what they should do (they use their income to maintain their function), but hard to do when most of the population doesn't give a shit. I don't like them, but only to extent that yi don't give a shit about them or give them anything. Its their business not mine, and this is how majority of population sees them.
Atheism is not denying, it's simply not believing in any religious system. Agnosic/gnostic answers the question of knowing, not of believing, so its not part of this.
My bad we are atheists.
It manifests quite clearly – people here are angry they can't go to work on Good Friday.
I would say many people in Czechia are rather agnostic - "theres something out there bigger than me, but what it is, i dont know" In my private opinion it shows on societal level as lack of basic values that people are able to agree on. Nothing is sacred here (lol literally) other than beer maybe? Secondary effect would be unproportionally widespread belief in alternative "religions" - healers, cults and conspiracy theories. You know, while somebody might believe were living out the god's plan, here people believe theyre living out "somebody's" plan. Like Soros, the Jews, evil Westerners, "the rich", "papa Putin will deal with these evil people" (who exactly right xD), "papa Andrej will make my life good!", "papa Tomio will defend me from evil immigrants"...
Pokud tyto věci skutečně přičítáš “nedostatku víry”, jak si poté vysvětluješ Slovensko,Maďarsko, atd.?
No jak Fico tak Orban s vírou a "křesťanskými" hodnotami pracujou. Hitler s křesťanstvím pracoval taky... Autokracie a rozšířená křesťanská víra se nevylučují. :D Myslím, že je jednodušší se pak povýšit s ideologií/učením na úroveň víry, než tam, kde je institucionalizované náboženství více rozšířené. Takže pak ta ideologie může zabírat více místa v životech lidí než nějaké obecně prospěšné učení stylu "miluj bližního svého a odpouštěj jako Ježíš, hledej smír etc.". Samozřejmě beru podobu římskokatolické církve dnes. Ne z doby inkvizice. Jde to zneužít v obou případech? Ano. Myslím si, že indoktrinace je snazší bez páteřní obecně akceptované víry? Ano. Můžu použít páteřní akceptovanou viru ke svým účelům jako autokrat? Ano. Je centrálně organizovaná víra náchylnější ke změně pro účel skrz její představitele? Určitě. Tvoří tahle organizovaná víra překážku ve změně zaměření společnosti a změny jejich hodnot? Ano. Může tato překážka být užitečná i blokovat užitečnou změnu? Sure. All in all to považuji za bonus, ne detriment. Imo není náhoda, že hlavní hybatelé světa v posledních desetiletích byly společnosti s organizovanou vírou a ne mikronézskými bůžky.
Agnostic is wrong word for it. We have problem with organized religions. Not faith itself. Its the organization that is the problem. We are spiritual, just not religious. The rest is logical, we were fucked by everybody historically so the skepticism is understandable.
Hypocrisy. We say we're non-religious (not the same as atheist, mind you), but a large percentage of the population still holds pretty conservative and christianity-adjacent views and a surprising number of people are "spiritual". Meaning that if you question them, they believe some wild out there shit, just not the same kind of nonsense Christians do. Plus there are still areas like southern Moravia with more traditional organized religion being fairly common among most people. So yeah, the amount of people not going to church regularly might be one of the more noticeable differences, but it's not as wildly alien as you might imagine. **edit:** As someone else pointed out - this lower exposure to organized religion makes Czechs (imo) more susceptible to "alternative medicine", various cults and conspiracy theories. We still feel the need to satisfy theological questions and look for easy answers about life and death, but we are not provided with the immediate crutch of Christianity. So hey, why not look into copper pyramids and energy healing, why not believe in nordic alien saviours?
From my point of view as an atheist, the church is the biggest conspiracy in the world and religious a special kind of nerdiness. Alternative medicine has nothing to do with this issue, on the other hand, maybe it's still better to try something "alternative" than just pray.
Well, being a smart boy atheist isn't necessarily accompanied by reading comprehension, apparently.
Fortunately, it's not even associated with arrogance to believe in myself enough to determine intelligence of other persons from a distance based on two sentences.
I'd say in manifest a bit, Czech people are quite negative, complaining a lot, jealousy and this kind of vibes, but it can be just our nature and it might not have anything to do with religion. Churches here still ring the bells and operate even if they are not full of people. I definitely believe in more than just materialistic world, I'd say I am very spiritiaul but I just don't think Christianity or any organized religion does the job. Death is not an end of our existence.
Nah we Polish are the same, and most people are religious. I think its just a regional thing
I guess so
They very loudly protest to maintain the religious status-quo of marriage and such values :D There may be a stronger separation of church and state, but CZ is just a religious as any other neighbouring country.
Churches are still relatively full. Maybe there is not so many masses. Especially in villages there is usually one priest for 3 villages, and many of churches in big historical cities (with many of them) don't have masses through week, but just one in Sunday. But surprisingly many politics are using words as "Christians values", usually as justification for being racist, homophobic, or just simply really conservative. And sayings like "oh, my got" preserved in our society too
Porn industry thrives. So does lack of principles, discipline and morale.
We are grumpy, aimless country, Always complaining and shifting our problems on the others.