Religious Divide Between U.S. & Canada
According to Canadian pollster Michael Adams, the divide between America and Canada is large and growing larger, with fewer and fewer Canadians expressing interest in defining their society along religious lines:
...Adams used a recent Canada-U.S. poll to demonstrate the divide. The poll shows 58 per cent of Americans saying that it is necessary to believe in God in order to be a moral person, while only 30 per cent of Canadians agree to this.
And while 45 per cent of Americans now say they go to church every week, only 20 per cent (down from 85 per cent in the 1950s) of Canadians can say the same thing.
“In the United States, I guess you can say that there is one category of person who cannot be elected, and that’s an atheist. And in Canada, there’s a category of person who can’t be elected and of course that is a person who is an ostentatious religious person,” said Adams. ... He noted that former Canadian Alliance leader Stockwell Day suffered at the polls in the 2000 federal election after it was revealed that he questioned evolution because of his Christian fundamentalist beliefs.
As well, he showed that 69 per cent of Canadians believe in heaven but only about 43 per cent believe in hell and the devil. Meanwhile, in the U.S., 81 per cent believe in heaven and 70 per cent in hell and the devil.
Source: Couchiching
In America, a fundamentalist Christian who reveals that they question evolution would probably get more votes in an election, not fewer and certainly wouldn’t lose because of that. I don’t think that it's coincidence that there is also less support in Canada for traditionally patriarchal attitudes:
Adams also told the conference that while Canadians and Americans identify with people who put their family above everything else, there is a growing gap when it comes to believing that the father of the family must be master of his own house.
While the percentage has grown from 42 per cent to 49 per cent in the U.S. between 1992 and 2000 in support of a father-first household, the number has gone the other way in Canada, from 26 per cent to 18 per cent during the same period. ...
The pollster ended his presentation with a chart comparing the results of polls performed on patriarchy, church attendance and gun ownership. For instance, he showed polling results that 49 per cent of Americans saying they own a gun compared with only 22 per cent of the residents north of the Canada-U.S. border saying the same thing. “I have a picture of Sunday morning (in the U.S.), dad getting up, pulling out his .357 Magnum, saying OK kids we’re going to church,” he said.
Canada, it seems, has gone much farther in terms of fostering a secular attitude among it citizens. Is it possible that Canada has improved while America has declined because Canadians are reacting to America's bad example? I also wonder to what extent these developments are a natural evolution of Canadian society and to what extent it's due to active leadership from Canada's political, social, and cultural leaders. Such information would be helpful in making a difference in America, don't you think?
American institutions may be generally secular, but a great many people don’t entirely respect that and would even like to reverse the trend that has been going in the secular direction for the past couple of centuries. Although few are willing to use the term, many Christians actively support the introduction of increasingly theocratic elements to American society. This is a danger for everyone, especially if people believe that these theocratic elements are at all compatible with genuine liberty or democracy.
Comments
it’s a good thing i live in canada then cause I think god’s a load of ****
O Canada, my home and native land.
While I do agree that Canada is indeed much less religious than the US, it still has some changes to make. The biggest in my books is that private christian schools recieve government funds, tax payers should NOT be paying for religious schools and we need to tell that to our politicians. So please inform your MP, you kind find contact information at http://canada.gc.ca/home.html
I’ve always said that when it comes to religious issues (among others), The U.S. is one of the least intelligent nations in the western world.
So Canada is a more secular society? Does that make it superior to America and if so in what ways? While it is clear that you personally prefer a secular culture for the U.S. you have failed to establish it beyond said personal preference as superior. I fear you will find it highly difficult to quantify any type of societal advantage on the basis of secularism. In fact, I fear you would find it as impractical as trying to prove God exists. Ironic I suppose.
Dan, search the site. The answers to all the questions you ask are on it. You can’t expect Cline to elaborate on these things in this article because it’s not the point of the article to do so.
Like Charles says, that’s outside the scope of this article.
However, if you do the research, you’ll find that more secular western nations rank far above America in terms of education, health care, happiness, satisfaction, etc.
Your fears are unfounded and uninformed.
What’s more, you wouldn’t need to do any research in order to know better. Which society has more advantage: a more theocratic society like Saudi Arabia or the more secular USA?
“Like Charles says, that’s outside the scope of this article.”
Outside the scope? Without a conclusion the premise is pointless. You might as well write an article that Canadians like hockey more than Americans. So what? To each his own I suppose.
“However, if you do the research, you’ll find that more secular western nations rank far above America in terms of education, health care, happiness, satisfaction, etc.”
If I do the research?! Why should I do the research? I’m not implying superiority in a secular society. That is the inferential nature of your words not mine.
Furthermore, simple correlation does not equate to causation. If it is deemed that the Japanese make superior cars does it follow that it has to do with their prominently rice based diets? While it maybe true that the Japanese make the best cars in the world and that their diets are rooted heavily in rice dishes the two may have absolutely nothing to do with each other.
It seems using the correlative link you are actually practicing a little witch doctor science of your own.
“Your fears are unfounded and uninformed.”
Care to elaborate or must I do that too? While you managed to insult me you certainly haven’t backed it up with any factual data.
“What’s more, you wouldn’t need to do any research in order to know better. Which society has more advantage: a more theocratic society like Saudi Arabia or the more secular USA?”
Simply saying something is intuitive doesn’t make it so. Certainly we could subjectively say the USA has more “advantage”s but forgetting the subjectiveness of this conclusion we can’t necessarily prove causation. Once again your basic ‘it just makes sense’ appeal feels like faith rather than fact.
Surely the formerly secular Soviet bloc could also be said to have less advantages than America. Care to explain? Or do I need to do that research as well?
Yes, the scope is a description of some of the differences.
You shouldn’t, if the impact of these sorts of differences don’t matter to you.
True, but the consistency of the correlation is worth serious consideration.
I thought it was obvious: the advantages which secular societies have, have been quantified.
True, but I thought you might want to ponder the difference. Apparently not.
I’d also like to add lower crime rates and higher life expectancy to the list of factors where more secular Western countries outrank the U.S.
Canada vs. the US? Try contrasting New England vs. the rest of the US, and you’ll probably find a similar religious divide. Our Great Republic is not a monolith of orthodox belief.
I don’t blame Canadains for not supporting a satanic cult,I don’t either.If evil from the sky is entering peoples home,it needs to be stopped,dead cold,at the source.I like”star wars”myself,may the force be with you?Considering the incest of Adam and Eve’s kids,how many years of incest does it take to end the incest process?maybe thousands?
From a Canadian perspective, here are a few comments on this article.
Firstly, there is much less overt Christian religiosity here than it seems to me there is in US. Christians here do get more indifference, and less mutual admiration than in the US. Stockwell Day did receive an electoral backlash from being a fundie, something that Prime Minister Stephen Harper certainly learned from. He is an evangelical Christian who we haven’t heard a peep from about his religion. Interestingly, his wife does NOT attend his church. Like most Canadians (politician or otherwise), they just don’t talk much about religion.
Our hospital system is state-run, not church run. Our churches run charities, but our largest charities are all non-religious: Cdn Heart and Stroke Fdn, Cdn Cancer Soc, United Way, etc. I regularly refute “charity” claims from Christians on the internet. They are always from American Christians. Canadian Chrisitans make many fewer claims, because our state is more active, and our charities are more secular, including the ones that matter most to people. So Americans could benefit from more national, unifed, non-religious charities. Do you have a national cancer or national heart disease charity? United Way?
Canadians do not really like it when you speak out on religion, pro or con. This is a societal difference that applies to lots of things, not just religion. That sort of difference isn’t going to be changed soon. There seems more room for compromise and shades of grey in Canada than the US, which affects how religion is discussed.
As a vocal anti-theist, I do ruffle some feathers. I also get some support from people, often when unexpected. Some of the people who bug me a bit, or try to get me going, are actually not very religious themselves. Overall, there is less religios belief in Canada (2008 Harris-Decima poll showed 22% said “no” and 6% more said “no comment” when asked “do you believe in a god”?). There is also less religiosity: those who are religious are less fundamentalist, less overt, less vocal, and receive less societal reinforcement for their views. They talk less about their beliefs. I see and read lots of Americans talking about how important “faith” is. Here such people would be met with silence, even from other religionists, and would receive as many snorts of comtempt as unreserved comments of agreement. When Canadian Christians complain of “persecution” they are, of course, using the wrong term; but they clearly do not receive the constant public affirmation of their beliefs that exists in the US.
That said, religious non-belief here isn’t THAT much lower than in the US. What needs to happen is for US atheists to be activist, and change will come. You are very close to the tipping point that we have already passed.
Church attendance numbers are half those of the US, and on par with the UK, Europe, and Aus, ie 20% claim to attend weekly and 10% actually do so (US numbers are 40% and 20%). The moderate churches here are dying, but are still a larger part of the Christian community than in the US, where they are moribund. US Christian writers seem to be exclusively fundy closet perverts like Ted Haggard, while Canadian ones seem to be people like Gretta Vosper, a United Church minister who recently wrote “With or Without God: Why What We Do Is More Important Than What We Believe”.
Ms Vosper, the United Church minister I know, and others I talk to about religion have me convinced that there are more deists than theists left in Canada among the 75% who are not atheists. This is, I think, a big difference between Europe/Canada and the US. Of course, most deists do not even know what the term means. They attend a moderate church, or more likely no church at all; yet they project onto the word “God” whatever they want to, and can agree enough with theists to think that they are “Christian” when they actually reject all Christian dogma. Increased deism IS a good thing: deists have a fuzzy, relatively harmless form of religious belief, and although they lend legitimacy through numbers to Christian belief, they believe virtually no Christian dogma. They think that if they are “nice” to people, they will get eternal life. They usually don’t oppose gay or women’s equality; they usually don’t oppose real biology in high schools; usually don’t think that people should commit violence for their beliefs. Their ethics and morals are more compatible with atheist Humanists than with fundamentalist Christians.
Maybe I’m just used to where I live, but I don’t consider where I live to be “socialist” in the way that many Americans use the word as an insult. Canada is a free-enterprise society, but one which does regulate it’s industries. The recent global financial collapse has illustrated that a middle path, which Canada uses, is much preferred to the US model, which prided itself as right-wing until it recently became far more socialist than Canada, by nationalising all those mortgages. In contrast, the Canadian banking system has recently been ranked among the best in the world in a few sober sources. The US is too extreme one way for Canadian tastes, just as Europe is too extreme the other way.
Where Canada is similar to the US is in how even many atheists still refuse to realise that is what they are. Both my father and his American wife are agnostic atheists; yet they consider me to be militant just for being unapologetic and non-deferential to religion. They argue with me when I explain that an agnostic atheist is an atheist. They were raised to be deferential to religion, and talk about respecting the “values” of religion, even after I have dismantled this argument with them comprehensively (which values? Slavery? Misogyny? Killing people you disagree with? etc). This is similar to the “Cultural Christians” of the Anglican Church in the UK, who can’t figure out that their values are separate from their religion. Their generation still does the work of the priests and preachers, despite no longer belieiving in their god. Oh well, my generation does so less, and our children will do so even less. However, this attitude of my father means that it is difficult to get people to do much needed things, like remove payments to religious schools, or unite everyone against Sharia law, or remove the “God” reference in our national anthem/hymn.
White Canadians are becoming ex-Christian at a good clip, and will soon reach levels currently seen in Europe; ie fewer believers than atheists. Our Chinese immigrants are largely non-religious, and their children constitute a largely atheist demographic. Indian Hinduism and Sikhism are entirely ethnic and are non-missionary, and are destined to die off as their children acclimatise to Canadian culture. I mean, a blue Elephant god named Ganesh? That won’t withstand extinction any better than Thor or Zeus did. We have the biggest concern with Islam and Muslim immigration, as does everyone. However, studies show that within 2 generations all of these groups adopt Canadian norms, so as long as we continue to have balance, and continue to be inclusive, there should be little chance of theocracy. Ontario recently rejected Sharia law. The only thing that could cause us to adopt such segregation would be the campaigning of Christians and Muslims for religious privelege, which Muslims would then use to insulate their children from Canadian values through segregated schools. Christians need to be careful what they wish for! This is as much a problem of misdirected “white guilt” as it is of religious campaigning for privelege.
We are lucky that a lot of our non-white immigration is not from mostly Muslim sources, as is the case in Europe. Europe has imported too many Muslims to safely absorb in too short a time, and without absorbing other groups. Christians in Europe are also not allying with secular atheists as they should be, but are instead supporting Muslim claims for religious segragation in schools (especially in the UK). This will have disastrous consequences, as Muslims can prevent their children from adopting European values by this means. Religious clashes, always politely referred to as “ethnic” ones, are the inevitable result of failing to integrate immigrant children into the host society. Hopefully Canada won’t follow suit. This is why I support public education, warts and all.
In Canada we are past the tipping point (Malcolm Gladwell is Cdn, FYI), and barring massive economic and ecological disaster (which is VERY possible), religious belief in Canada will not increase. It declines annually both in numbers and in intensity. Within my lifetime religious belief will be a minority view in Canada, as it is just becoming in Europe. I’m not sure it will progress that far in the US, because all of the above factors have an effect.
Many Americans villify the “Canadian” way as foreign, mysterious, and socialist; but really, Canadian society is very similar to that of the US PNW and New England. Attitudes in both places are similar. I’ve seen a YouTube video which doesn’t divide the continent at the 49th parallel, but rather into “The United States of Canada” with the Blue States added to Canada, and the Red States which it labels “Dumbf**kistan”. This joke is funny precisely because it’s half-true. People in New England, Washington, and Oregon would probably be more comfortable among Canadians than Texans.
I wouldn’t say that Canada “fosters” secularism; I would say that Canadians just actually apply it, rather than giving lip service to it. Don’t get me wrong, lots of Christians grumble about “PC” rules. We get “keep Christ in Christmas” letters every year too. Lots here don’t understand what secularism is. But what we don’t have is people calling for more “God” everywhere to the same degree, because when they do so they are isolated voices. Maybe that comes from being created through political evolution rather than revolution. Maybe it comes from wanting to be different than our large southern neighbours. Maybe it comes from a larger charity, education, and social role for government.
The path forward for American atheists? Be vocal. Use “as an atheist, I . . . ” in conversation, and when donating to charity. Smile and treat people with respect and humour. Be active. Be unapologetic about self-labelling as atheist. Talk to moderate Christians. Talk about what deism is, and how it differs from theism. Explain what secularism really is, and that the only alternative to it is theocracy. Don’t assume that atheists are also Democrats, liberals, and lefties. Don’t bow your head when others pray. Do your research, and have both short one-liners and longer, respectful arguments at the ready. Tell my family and friends about your atheism, and I will do the same for yours: ie wear atheist t-shirts, write letters to the editor, put comments on the internet.
Lastly, remember that you are winning the war, no matter how slow the process is!