andrel <byt### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> In the Netherlands we have sort of a state religion, in the sense that 
> our Queen is from a particular church. But all religions that were 
> present in the beginning of the 20th centuries all are treated the same. 
> Yes they have privileges, but giving a church tax breaks does not make 
> the country a theocracy.

  I don't know how it is in Netherlands, but in Finland there's an official
state church (from the Lutheran denomination) that has official special
privileges, and special legislature governing it. No other denomination nor
religion has the same status.

  It's the same in Sweden. Britain naturally also has an official state
church (which has even larger power, as they coronate the country's
king/queen, among other things). I don't know about other European
countries, but AFAIK it's pretty common in most of them.

  In fact, the US is the only western country I know that has no official
state church. I don't know what the technically official status of countries
like Canada and Australia is. (Ok, Australia isn't exactly "western", but
I'm using the colloquial meaning of the word here.)

> >    Yet something like 85% of people in the nordic countries are secular
> > (and the governments are largely secular), while something like 95% of
> > people in the US is Christian.

> can you give a reference for those numbers?

  Nope, just repeating what I have heard from sources I consider decently
reliable. The exact numbers are probably slightly different from those,
but are probably not very far from them.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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