Infidels Happiest?

[Inertialmass]

Danes, once again, take top spot in world happiness report
By JAN M.OLSEN  -  The Associated Press

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) ? Denmark, perhaps better known for its fictional, suicide-agonizing prince Hamlet and fierce marauding Vikings than being a nation of the happiest people, has just won that very accolade. Again...

The Scandinavian nation of 5.6 million has held the happy title twice before since the world body started measuring happiness around the world in 2012. The accolade is based on a variety of factors: People's health and access to medical care, family relations, job security and social factors, including political freedom and degree of government corruption.

Egalitarian Denmark, where women hold 43 percent of the top jobs in the public sector, is known for its extensive and generous cradle-to-grave welfare.

Few complain about the high taxes as in return they benefit from a health care system where everybody has free access to a general practitioner and hospitals. Taxes also pay for schools and universities, and students are given monthly grants for up to seven years.

Many feel confident that if they lose their jobs or fall ill, the state will support them...

After Denmark, the next happiest nations last year were Switzerland, Iceland and Norway, followed by Finland, Canada, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Australia and Sweden.   

And:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Denmark

According to a Eurobarometer Poll conducted in 2010, 28% of Danish citizens responded that "they believe there is a God", 47% responded that "they believe there is some sort of spirit or life force" and 24% responded that "they do not believe there is any sort of spirit, God or life force..."

While many Danes are technically agnostic or atheist, few choose to identify as such. It is speculated that this is because religion is such a non-issue that not believing in it does not require a specific label...           

[Mooby the Golden Sock]

You can't simply take two different things that exist in a given society and claim they are linked. That is statistically invalid and logically fallacious.

Also happiness surveys in general are bulls**t because different cultures have different attitudes with regards to happiness.

[Inertialmass]

Of course you can take Danish secularity and the Danish happiness barometer and claim that they are linked.

They are in fact, in all concrete reality, inextricably linked together.

The two facets of culture are inextricably linked by virtue of their overlap together in space and in time within the single geopolitical entity known as Denmark.  This intertwining is statistically valid and logically unassailable.

In fact it's logically fallacious to run around claiming that everything with which you personally disagree is logically fallacious.

Or did you mean to say, "Association is not causation!"?  With this I'd have to agree, but then again I never claimed any causal chain here.

[Jstwebbrowsing]

Of course you can take Danish secularity and the Danish happiness barometer and claim that they are linked.

Denmark is a non-secular state.

So don't you actually mean,  "Of course you can take Danish non-secularity and the Danish happiness barometer and claim that they are linked".

[Kiahanie]

What do you mean by "non-secular" jst?

[Jstwebbrowsing]

What do you mean by "non-secular" jst?

From his link:

"Of all the religions in Denmark, the most prominent is Christianity in the form of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Denmark (Dansk Folkekirke), the state religion. Hence, Denmark is a non-secular state as there is a clear link between the church and the state with a Minister for Ecclesiastical Affairs."

"According to official statistics from January 2016, 76.9%[6][7] of the population of Denmark are members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Denmark (Den danske folkekirke), the country's state church since the Reformation in Denmark?Norway and Holstein, and designated "the Danish people's church" by the 1848 Constitution of Denmark."

[Kiahanie]

Thank you.

I'll be going there in a few months. It will be interesting to see if the people are as nonsecular as their state.

[Inertialmass]

Hence, Denmark is a non-secular state...

... with only one-fourth its population admitting god.

The word "State" here is synonymous with "government."  The government still clings to an official State religion.   

Your association makes about as much sense as the State of North Carolina's silly official claim to being "First In Flight."




"States" make all kinds of silly, outmoded claims.  The Wrights chose Kill Devil Hills only because it was windy, sandy and flat.  The Wrights, not NC, not Ohio, were first in flight.

And Denmark's culture is about as secular as it gets.

[Jstwebbrowsing]

Hence, Denmark is a non-secular state...

... with only one-fourth its population admitting god.

The word "State" here is synonymous with "government."  The government still clings to an official State religion.   

Your association makes about as much sense as the State of North Carolina's silly official claim to being "First In Flight."




"States" make all kinds of silly, outmoded claims.  The Wrights chose Kill Devil Hills only because it was windy, sandy and flat.  The Wrights, not NC, not Ohio, were first in flight.

And Denmark's culture is about as secular as it gets.

The "state" makes and enforces laws.  You should also realize that secularism and atheism are not the same.

Plus the statistics on Wiki seem unreliable.  Compare: 

"According to a Eurobarometer Poll conducted in 2010,[2] 28% of Danish citizens responded that "they believe there is a God"

"Most people in Denmark are Christians (79%) The rest are mainly irreligious or follow other minority faiths,[23][24][25] although many people define themselves as irreligious but spiritual.

I actually checked the source for the first statement.  It's a survey about biotechnology.  I can't actually find anything about religion.

http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_341_en.pdf


Going to the "Official Website of Denmark" we find this:

"Compared with most other countries in the world, Denmark?s societal institutions and popular mentality have been shaped by Christianity to an exceptional degree. It can be asserted that religion is more firmly entrenched in Danish society than in many other countries."

"The Church of Denmark, which to a certain extent operates as an association in 2012 has nearly 80% of the population as members."

http://denmark.dk/en/society/religion/

[Inertialmass]

I actually checked the source for the first statement.  It's a survey about biotechnology.  I can't actually find anything about religion.

http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_341_en.pdf   

The Public Opinion Survey has an index at the start.  The god questions and responses are given on page 381 in the pdf exactly as cited in the OP.  Denmark's stats are listed fifth.

Going to the "Official Website of Denmark" we find this:

"Compared with most other countries in the world, Denmark?s societal institutions and popular mentality have been shaped by Christianity to an exceptional degree. It can be asserted that religion is more firmly entrenched in Danish society than in many other countries."

"The Church of Denmark, which to a certain extent operates as an association in 2012 has nearly 80% of the population as members."

http://denmark.dk/en/society/religion/

Holy f**k Jst, you went to the trouble to look this up and quote from the official State site, but then you dishonestly skipped over those several paragraphs you did not like, without ellipses.  So I'm sure that you read the very next paragraph.  It is hugely disingenuous and unchristianlike of you to have held back the actual, relevant, kicker quote in the way you've done:

Religion in Denmark

Compared with most other countries in the world, Denmark?s societal institutions and popular mentality have been shaped by Christianity to an exceptional degree. It can be asserted that religion is more firmly entrenched in Danish society than in many other countries.

In practice, Christianity today comes to the fore, however, primarily during solemnisations surrounding birth and death. That is to say like the other Nordic countries, particularly Sweden, Denmark is also among the world?s most secularised countries, in which religion and Christianity play only a minor, often indirect, role in public life... The new government of 2011 is striving for the Church of Denmark to become more independent, with a looser association to the state.  

http://denmark.dk/en/society/religion/

Please note the bolded part.  For the sake of Forum comity I have deleted several sentences of personal opinion concerning your level of honesty here.

[Jstwebbrowsing]

There is nothing dishonest about my post.  What you posted does not change what I quoted.  There is more I left out too.

"Christianity?s unique history in Denmark explains why the mutual interdependence of the people, the state, and the church has remained in place longer and more strongly in Denmark than in any other country. There has, quite simply, never been a break in this interdependence, as has occurred as a result of revolution, civil war, military occupation, cultural struggle, religious revival, and immigration in virtually all other European countries. This is not to suggest an absence of debate concerning this relationship, yet there is general popular support for Article 4 of the Constitution of Denmark, which sets forth that the Evangelical Lutheran church is Denmark?s People?s  Church and is thus supported by the state. The new government of 2011 is striving for the Church of Denmark to become more independent, with a looser association to the state."

It is quite clear that Denmark isn't/hasn't been an atheist country.

[none]

Secular, the word is secular
A secular government, until otherwise evidenced
which are you going by: a public relations piece or the science

[Inertialmass]

There is nothing dishonest about my post.  What you posted does not change what I quoted.

Your intentionally deceptive, improperly edited post radically altered the thrust of the unedited original.  Anyone can make any quote say anything they want it to say via dishonest editing.  With wholly unethical editing you changed the entire meaning of the Danish government's own little blurb.  You committed the sin of omission.  One of all y'all's alleged claims to advantage within religion is that it's supposed to provide this alleged unchanging rock of a moral foundation.  Hmmm.  Your rock is lookin' more and more like a prop made outta spray paint Styrofoam, 

http://denmark.dk/en/society/religion/

Denmark is also among the world?s most secularised countries, in which religion and Christianity play only a minor, often indirect, role in public life...   

[Jstwebbrowsing]

There is nothing dishonest about my post.  What you posted does not change what I quoted.

Your intentionally deceptive, improperly edited post radically altered the thrust of the unedited original.  Anyone can make any quote say anything they want it to say via dishonest editing.  With wholly unethical editing you changed the entire meaning of the Danish government's own little blurb.  You committed the sin of omission.  One of all y'all's alleged claims to advantage within religion is that it's supposed to provide this alleged unchanging rock of a moral foundation.  Hmmm.  Your rock is lookin' more and more like a prop made outta spray paint Styrofoam, 

http://denmark.dk/en/society/religion/

Denmark is also among the world?s most secularised countries, in which religion and Christianity play only a minor, often indirect, role in public life...   

Not so.  I am not the one trying to make a case based soley on one sentence while disregarding the rest of the page.

[Jstwebbrowsing]

At any rate, it's clear that religion is deeply rooted in this country with 80% of it's citizens that are members of the state church and with their "societal institutions and popular mentality" that have been "shaped by Christianity to an exceptional degree".

So I think that answers the question in the subject of your OP.

However, like Mooby, I disagree with the entire premise of your OP.  For what you posted in the OP, it appears "happy" has been simplified down to satsifaction with the government.  That is not really a full measure of happiness even if you could make an objective definition of happy, which you can't.

[Inertialmass]

Incidentally, did you ever go back to check and correct your surprising oversight of the relevant data presented within that Eurobarometer study?  You wouldn't be pretending that the data doesn't exist simply because you haven't personally laid eyes on it?

From your own citation, Jst:

"The Church of Denmark, which to a certain extent operates as an association in 2012 has nearly 80% of the population as members."

http://denmark.dk/en/society/religion/

What do you imagine they mean with the qualifier, "which to a certain extent operates as an association?"  My first thought was of the old guys and gals from Catholic backgrounds who continue Friday night fish fries at the "Knights of Columbus" lodge just out of inertia, and who continue to rent out the hall for weddings and funerals.  Or veterans who haven't seen service in decades but continue to socialize and get drunk at the local American Legion, because it's there, it's already established and it's convenient.

Well, we all have to derive from this or that cultural background, never of our own choosing.  The Scandinavian countries do indeed have a christer background, but it actually lasted for 600-800 years less than those in the Mediterranean region and Near East.  The road to Christianization there up North was rough and rocky with large pagan holdout pockets lasting centuries.  Often the new religion was a Viking-Christer syncretism.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianization_of_Scandinavia  Perhaps this accounts for the ease with which Denmark and its sister states have so quickly morphed toward modern secularization.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_Denmark

...Denmark is today a very secular country, but has a culture that is heavily influenced by Christianity.

Lutheranism

According to official statistics from January 2016, 76,9% of the population of Denmark are members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Denmark (Den danske folkekirke), the country's state church since the Reformation in Denmark?Norway and Holstein, and designated "the Danish people's church" by the 1848 Constitution of Denmark.

This proportion is down by 0.7% as compared to the preceding year and 1.4% down compared to two years earlier. However, in similar fashion to the rest of Scandinavia, and also Britain, only a small minority (less than 5% of the total population) attends churches for Sunday services. In addition, the number of people leaving the Church has been on the rise: in 2012 21,118 Danes left the Church, an increase of 55% in comparison to 2011...     

Most of us derive from religious backgrounds.  So what?  Most of us also derive from farming backgrounds.  So what?  By your logic Americans and Danes and most of the rest of us are agriculturalists.  But most of us, myself included, wouldn't know the difference between a hay rake and a harrow.

[Jstwebbrowsing]

Incidentally, did you ever go back to check and correct your surprising oversight of the relevant data presented within that Eurobarometer study?  You wouldn't be pretending that the data doesn't exist simply because you haven't personally laid eyes on it?

No, I just took your word that it's there.

What do you imagine they mean with the qualifier, "which to a certain extent operates as an association?"  My first thought was.....

I don't know what it means and I'm not going to debate based on what you and I think it may mean.

Most of us derive from religious backgrounds.  So what?  Most of us also derive from farming backgrounds.  So what?  By your logic Americans and Danes and most of the rest of us are agriculturalists.  But most of us, myself included, wouldn't know the difference between a hay rake and a harrow.

But background is what defines present conditions.  Life would be considerably different without those backgrounds.  You shouldn't pretend those backgrounds have no effect on current conditions nor can you take credit for the conditions formed by those backgrounds.  Do you credit people that have no idea how to grow food with there being plenty of food?  Likewise, religious people get credit for the institutions they created that now benefit the current populations.

Furthermore a secular government doesn't mean the people have no religion nor does it give kudos to atheists because secularism doesn't promote atheism either.  There are contries that have promoted atheism and that have been built upon atheism.  Denmark is not one of them.

[Inertialmass]

You shouldn't pretend those backgrounds have no effect on current conditions... 

Well thank you Captain Obvious. 

I won't eat peas.  Actually, I love fresh or frozen peas.  But my mother always served us canned peas, which as everybody knows have the taste and texture of slimy green baby poop.  Thus I cannot eat peas of any sort -- I am the victim of a certain cultural background.   Just as I, sadly, must reject peas both canned and fresh, so the Danish people's cultural background of having had this foreign Greco/Roman/Hebraic belief set forced upon them as relatively recently as eight hundred years ago clearly had a profound effect in today's rejection of that religion.

Furthermore a secular government doesn't mean the people have no religion nor does it give kudos to atheists because secularism doesn't promote atheism either.  There are contries that have promoted atheism and that have been built upon atheism.  Denmark is not one of them.

Are you just babbling in order to have the last word? 

Let's recap by noting that you started out here by saying, "Denmark is a non-secular state."  We then established that "State" refers to the official government position, that Denmark's government today still clings to an official, vestigial State Religion.  Meantime, less than 5% of the people of Denmark goes to church.  Three-quarters of Danes consciously reject allegiance to the atavistic Greek/Roman/Hebrew warrior sky god concept.

http://www.psywww.com/psyrelig/zuckerman.htm

The Virtues of Godlessness: The least religious nations are also the most healthy and successful

By Phil Zuckerman

...I am referring to two nations in particular, Denmark and Sweden, which are probably the least religious countries in the world, and possibly in the history of the world. Amidst all this vibrant global piety - atop the vast swelling sea of sacredness - Denmark and Sweden float along like small, content, durable dinghies of secular life, where most people are non religious and don't worship Jesus or Vishnu, don't revere sacred texts, don't pray, and don't give much credence to the essential dogmas of the world's great faiths.

In clean and green Scandinavia, few people speak of God, few people spend much time thinking about theological matters, and although their media in recent years has done an unusually large amount of reporting on religion, even that is offered as an attempt to grapple with and make sense of a strange foreign phenomenon that takes on such a dire significance for everyone - except, well, for Danes and Swedes.

What are societies like when faith in God is minimal, church attendance is drastically low, and religion is a distinctly muted and marginal aspect of everyday life?

Many people assume that religion is what keeps people moral, that a society without God would be hell on earth: rampant with immorality, full of evil, and teeming with depravity. But that doesn't seem to be the case for Scandinavians in those two countries. Although they may have relatively high rates of petty crime and burglary, and although these crime rates have been on the rise in recent decades, their overall rates of violent crime - including murder aggravated assault, and rape - are among the lowest on earth. Yet the majority of Danes and Swedes do not believe that God is "up there," keeping diligent tabs on their behavior, slating the good for heaven and the wicked for hell. Most Danes and Swedes don't believe that sin permeates the world, and that only Jesus, the Son of God, who died for their sins, can serve as a remedy. In fact, most Danes and Swedes don't believe in the notion of "sin."

So the typical Dane or Swede doesn't believe all that much in God. And simultaneously, they don't commit much murder...   

[Jstwebbrowsing]

You shouldn't pretend those backgrounds have no effect on current conditions...

Well thank you Captain Obvious

You're welcome.

so the Danish people's cultural background of having had this foreign Greco/Roman/Hebraic belief set forced upon them as relatively recently as eight hundred years ago clearly had a profound effect in today's rejection of that religion.

"This is not to suggest an absence of debate concerning this relationship, yet there is general popular support for Article 4 of the Constitution of Denmark, which sets forth that the Evangelical Lutheran church is Denmark?s People?s  Church and is thus supported by the state."

That doesn't sound forced.

]Furthermore a secular government doesn't mean the people have no religion nor does it give kudos to atheists because secularism doesn't promote atheism either.  There are contries that have promoted atheism and that have been built upon atheism.  Denmark is not one of them.

Are you just babbling in order to have the last word?

No, I am correcting your mistake of thinking secular=infidel.

Let's recap by noting that you started out here by saying, "Denmark is a non-secular state."

Just pointing out what you left out from your link.

We then established that "State" refers to the official government position, that Denmark's government today still clings to an official, vestigial State Religion.

The government and popular support.

The Virtues of Godlessness: The least religious nations are also the most healthy and successful

By Phil Zuckerman....

"Mr. Zuckerman, a sociologist who teaches at Pitzer College in Claremont, Calif., has reported his findings on religion in Denmark and Sweden in ?Society Without God? (New York University Press, 2008). Much that he found will surprise many people, as it did him.

The many nonbelievers he interviewed, both informally and in structured, taped and transcribed sessions, were anything but antireligious, for example. They typically balked at the label ?atheist.? An overwhelming majority had in fact been baptized, and many had been confirmed or married in church.

Though they denied most of the traditional teachings of Christianity, they called themselves Christians, and most were content to remain in the Danish National Church or the Church of Sweden, the traditional national branches of Lutheranism."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/28/us/28beliefs.html?_r=0

Like I said, if you want to consider a non-religious country, Denmark is not one of them.

[Inertialmass]

so the Danish people's cultural background of having had this foreign Greco/Roman/Hebraic belief set forced upon them as relatively recently as eight hundred years ago clearly had a profound effect in today's rejection of that religion.

"This is not to suggest an absence of debate concerning this relationship, yet there is general popular support for Article 4 of the Constitution of Denmark, which sets forth that the Evangelical Lutheran church is Denmark?s People?s  Church and is thus supported by the state."

That doesn't sound forced.

You are confused -- reread above.  It was Christianity came to the Scandinavian countries 800-1200 years ago amidst great popular resistance.  Today's Danes are so indifferent to issues of religion that they just don't give a s**t whether or no the century-and-a-half-old Constitution is changed, and are content to leave well enough alone.  Indeed one may surmise that all Europe is finally exhausted in its long history of Christian terrorism and religious in-fighting and is nowadays everywhere content to leave well enough alone on that front.     

Furthermore a secular government doesn't mean the people have no religion nor does it give kudos to atheists because secularism doesn't promote atheism either.  There are contries that have promoted atheism and that have been built upon atheism.  Denmark is not one of them.

Now you're onto talking about a "secular government?"  Wha?

Jst, you've used the word "atheist," "atheists" or "atheism" seven times in this short thread.  I've not used any of these words aside from incidentally contained within the OP quote:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Denmark

While many Danes are technically agnostic or atheist, few choose to identify as such. It is speculated that this is because religion is such a non-issue that not believing in it does not require a specific label...           

Which and whose straw man are you beating the stuffing out of?

... They typically balked at the label ?atheist.?   

Yes, true.  This was already very similarly addressed in my OP.

[Inertialmass]

Update:  Participation in the fundamental ritual and belief sets of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Denmark appears to be dropping so rapidly that surveys are outdated so soon as they're published.

Faith and church attendance

According to the latest inquiry [2015] about 2.4% of church members attend services every week, although on Christmas Eve more than a third of the population attend. However, the church is still widely used for traditional family ceremonies including christenings and confirmations. In the year 2008, 41% of weddings and 89% funerals were performed in the Church of Denmark, and 71% of adolescents in grade 7?8 were confirmed. The level of weekly church attendance is similar to that in Norway and Sweden.

According to a 2009 poll, 25% of Danes believe Jesus is the Son of God, and 18% believe he is the saviour of the world

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_Denmark#Faith_and_church_attendance

[Jstwebbrowsing]

You still have gotten around that they are benifitting from what religious people have done.  So who really is responsible for their happiness?

[Inertialmass]

Okay, I guess I finally see where you're coming from.  Though the Danes are no longer religious, to your way of thinking it's the preceding Christian cultural background that paved the way for today's well-being and sense of satisfaction among them.

But that conclusion would be based on a sampling bias:  This group of people is happy.  They derive from a Christian cultural background.  Therefore goddidit.  Problem with this reasoning is that most or much of Europe, the Middle East and the Americas also derive from a Christian cultural background -- often a longer-lasting and even more pervasive Christian background.  But it's those nations which are in process of dumping the old religion which stand out in a positive light here.

If a strict constructionist Protestant Christian culture and polity were guarantors of happiness, the Puritans of Salem should have won the prize, but we all know what happened there.

http://www.sciencealert.com/the-world-happiness-index-2016-just-ranked-the-happiest-countries-on-earth

...Denmark leads the pack with Switzerland (last year?s winner), Iceland, Norway, Finland, Canada, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Australia, and Sweden rounding out the top 10.  

[Teaspoon Shallow]

Jst, do you consider members of other Christian sects that worship the trinity to be actual Christians?

[Mr. Blackwell]

And Denmark's culture is about as secular as it gets.

And Denmark's population is about as white as it gets. They are homogeneous. Their lack of religious fervor combined with the absence of cultural "diversity" = happiness, yes?

Population                  5,627,235 (2014)

Area                           42,916 square kilometres

Population density     130.50 per square kilometre

Geographic region     Scandinavia

GDP                          DKK 1,915 billion (2014)

GDP per capita          DKK 322,000 (2014)

Capital                      Copenhagen 1,246,611 (2014)

Other major cities     Aarhus 259.754, Odense 172.512 & Aalborg 109.092 (2014)

Form of state            Monarchy

Government            The Liberal Party (Venstre)

Head of state          Queen Margrethe II (since 14 January 1972)

Head of government   Lars L?kke Rasmussen (since 28 June 2015)

Ethnic distribution      5,026,561 Danes. Immigrants and their descendants constitute 600,674 (2014)

Life expectancy                      Women 81.9 years, men 78.0 years (2014)

"Official" Language    Danish

Religion                                90% Protestant

[nb]http://denmark.dk/en/quick-facts/facts[/nb]

According to the Government of Denmark's official website you have a country that is over 90% the same nationality with over 90% identifying with the same religion and all speaking one official language.

There is simply much more going on than the mere lack of enthusiastic worship of gods. 

[Teaspoon Shallow]

Great post Mr B.

[Inertialmass]

you have a country that is over 90% the same nationality... 

Um, actually 100% of Danes are Danish.  By definition.  Obviously you had a point in mind with this but the point is unclear. 

with over 90% identifying with the same religion...   

"Identifying with" -- does that mean in your opinion 90% of Danes are practicing Protestant Christians and identify themselves as such?  I've mentioned several times at the Forum that I'm officially Catholic.  My mother had me baptized as a baby, yet because I've never taken the trouble to officially remove myself from their inflated membership lists, the Catholic Church still counts this lifelong atheist as one of their own.

In the very same fashion the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Denmark still counts as its own the 97% of Danes who don't go to weekly church service and the 75% of Danes who don't believe in god.  Try try as you and Jst may, you'll never remotely succeed in shoehorning the citizens of this nation into anything like a uniform Christian religious mold.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

According to the latest inquiry [2015] about 2.4% of church members attend services every week...   

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_Denmark#Faith_and_church_attendance

and

According to a Eurobarometer Poll conducted in 2010, 28% of Danish citizens responded that "they believe there is a God", 47% responded that "they believe there is some sort of spirit or life force" and 24% responded that "they do not believe there is any sort of spirit, God or life force." 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Denmark

Does that sound like a nation comprised of homogeneous religious adherents?

Were opinions expressed here by Maggie the Opinionated, and opinions expressed here by myself, homogeneous since we're both "officially" counted as Catholic?  Ha!

and all speaking one official language.   

No, not all Danes speak the one official language simply by virtue of the State declaring an official language.  Many speak German.  But actually almost 90% of Danes also speak English and almost half are trilingual.

[Mr. Blackwell]

Inertialmass,


    It is interesting, to me at least, to see you dismiss an official government's assessment in favor of a wiki link. Are you saying you don't trust the official government reports about it's citizens religious affiliation?


    I also find it curious that you say that everyone living in Denmark are "Danes". Is it your intent to dismiss the immigrant population their original national heritage? Isn't it insensitive and nationalistic here in America to deny the blacks their heritage when Republicans drone on about how they (the "blacks") are not African Americans but rather simply Americans? Why the double standard in praise of Denmark? Is it by virtue of where someone lives currently vs. where they or their ancestors are from that you decide that 100% of all people living in Denmark are Danes? If I walk across the border to Mexico and get a job working under the table and rent a small apartment in Mexico City...does that make me a Mexican?


You are dismissing the bigger picture in favor of a minor detail that may or may not have any relevance to your claim that secular societies are happier and wealthier and healthier than non secular societies.


America is officially a secular representative republic with large communities of immigrants...legal and illegal. Denmark is officially a non secular Monarchy with very little cultural diversity, very little immigration. Yet you will argue the opposite because the facts do not support your preferred narrative.


Good luck with that.

[Inertialmass]

you dismiss an official government's assessment in favor of a wiki link   

Your link is broken.

The correct Wiki links which I supplied lead to articles which cite further working links which in turn lead to the original source material supporting the facts presented.

You and Jst must have played tailback on yer high school football teams, both habituated to doing wide end run arounds.  Let's try once more:  Is it even remotely plausible that the 97% of Danes who don't go to weekly church service and the 75% of Danes who don't even believe in god, much less the god of Abraham, are nevertheless practicing, believing Protestant Christians?

One day you say:

Denmark's population is about as white as it gets. They are homogeneous...

But next day you say:

Is it your intent to dismiss the immigrant population their original national heritage? Isn't it insensitive and nationalistic...

Hittin' that ol' Tennessee bottled lightning again?

[Mr. Blackwell]

Your link is broken.

My apologies. My link was not a link but merely a footnote. Here is the link. http://denmark.dk/en/quick-facts/facts

The correct Wiki links which I supplied lead to articles which cite further working links which in turn lead to the original source material supporting the facts presented.

If you can't be bothered to copy and paste a web address into a search bar why should I be bothered to dig deeper into your source material to understand what you are trying to say?

Is it even remotely plausible that the 97% of Danes who don't go to weekly church service and the 75% of Danes who don't even believe in god, much less the god of Abraham, are nevertheless practicing, believing Protestant Christians?

Is it even remotely plausible that the 3% of Danes who do go to weekly church service and the 25% of Danes who do believe in god, including the god of Abraham, are nevertheless non practicing, non believing Protestant Christians?

Seriously, what does that even mean? 97% of Danes who don't believe in god don't go to weekly church service? That doesn't tell me how many Danes actually DO go to church services weekly. All that tells me is that 97% of the Danes who DON'T go are not practicing Protestant's.

There are plenty of atheists in America who attend church. What percentage of American church goers do you think are practicing, believing Protestant Christians? 

One day you say:

Denmark's population is about as white as it gets. They are homogeneous...

But next day you say:

Is it your intent to dismiss the immigrant population their original national heritage? Isn't it insensitive and nationalistic...

Hittin' that ol' Tennessee bottled lightning again?

cute. But no. You simply do not wish to engage in a conversation that doesn't involve polemics. That's fine. Just don't accuse me of being drunk when you can't find a good way to counter my pragmatic argument. It makes you look weak.