Dutch population now officially has a majority of non-believers.
Sources:
Netherlands Broadcast Foundation (NOS) Article 1 and Netherlands Broadcast Foundation (NOS) Article 2 both in response to the Social and Cultural Planning Bureau article
It's nice they're finally considering Atheists as being a group, an identity, on their own, rather than chuck them in with the "Other or don't know" category.
It's amazing to me how religion twists the thinking of religious people. The articles of the NOS have been written by or edited by religious individuals.
And if like me, you're an atheist (actually AntiTheist) reading the articles by the NOS, and think about it a bit, you can only conclude that Theists still have little to no clue what an atheist is. Even less understanding can be found for how religion's most important topics are fitted into an atheist's life. (they're not)
For example, there's this snippet:
(The quotes are the original straight from the articles, the Code blocks are the English translation by DuckDuckGo)
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And now, on with the sho..eehm article. The first quote:
"De secularisering kan onbegrip tussen gelovigen en niet-gelovigen tot gevolg hebben, waarschuwt het SCP. Jongeren zijn, in verhouding tot babyboomers, vaker niet opgegroeid met het geloof, zegt Huijnk. "En ze zijn dus minder bekend met het geloof, wat leidt tot meer onbegrip."
Secularization can lead to misunderstanding between believers and non-believers,
Warns the SCP. Young people, concerning baby boomers, are more often not
raised with the faith, says Huijnk. "And so they are less familiar with the faith,
which leads to more misunderstanding."And then a paragraph later:
De oudere generatie verzette zich tegen het geloof, vult Tabitha van Krimpen, Jonge Theoloog des Vaderlands, aan. "Die wilden zich losmaken van de beklemmende structuren van religie en geloof. Nu zien we een jongere generatie die onwetend over religies opgroeit", zegt ze in het programma Spraakmakers op NPO Radio 1.
The older generation resisted the faith, adds Tabitha van Krimpen,
Young Theologian of the Fatherland. "
They wanted to break free from the oppressive structures of religion and belief.
Now we see a younger generation that grows up ignorant about religions,"
she says in the program Spraakmakers on NPO Radio 1.Oooooh, Shots have been fired!!!!! I would say if i'd want to troll....
But this is, when I want to stay polite, a misconception among religious people. Most Atheists and certainly almost all anti-theists, turn out to have more knowledge and understanding of the scriptures, the history, and the reality of most religions, certainly Abraham's trio of religions, than members of the Christian, Jewish and Islamic religions.
The more fundamental, zealous and fanatic, the less knowledge and wisdom it is based on.
This is something that, when you think about it, shouldn't be a surprise. For an atheist, the question "why he/+/she/it/Apple-logo/they became an atheist?" is unavoidable. Strangely enough, the question of why a religious person became a believer hardly ever gets asked.
Probably because the answer is something like "Because I was raised to be an atheist from birth."
HANG ON! HOLD IT!!
I already felt the knee-jerk reflex, and the offense instinctively taken by some of you! So here is a Disclaiming acknowledgment addressed especially to you:
Many people convert at an older age. I know some people who were raised Christian, then became atheists, and then converted to Islam, for example. I also know that those are the tiniest of minorities, so tiny they're near insignificant and statistically a smaller percentage than the margins of error. (TL;DR: Shut up, this isn't about you!)
And... oh, w8, we need another disclaimer.... daaaayummmm!
WARNING! The next bit is going to contain an observation or two. I noticed myself over the past few years (3 decades) and therefore, is my opinion, which has nothing to do with either the NOS or the SCP!
Where most Theists believe Atheists are ignorant about Theology and (their) religion, I have found the opposite is true: The more fanatic and fundamental the religious person, the less knowledgeable and understanding of their scripture and Theology those religious persons are.
That's in the Bible! No it isn't.
There have been so many times where "quotes from the scripture" on Facebook or Twitter or any other social media were proven to either be ridiculously edited and misrepresentation to fit the quoting writer's point or nowhere to be found at all in any of the scriptures of their religion.
Fundamental, not even hard to remember, pieces of religion...
For example, the percentage of Christians that can name 6 or more of the 10 commandments is low. I think that this percentage for atheists is double that of Christians.
Back to the articles though: Another sign of ignorance about atheism is in this quote:
"Je zag onbegrip van seculieren over de behoefte van gelovigen om in de lockdown 'gewoon' nog naar de kerk of moskee te gaan. Mensen die niet gelovig zijn, begrijpen niet heel goed wat dat betekent voor mensen die gelovig zijn."
"You saw misunderstanding from secular about the need of believers to
'just' go to church or mosque in the lockdown. People who are not religious
do not understand very well what that means for people who are religious."Yeah we do understand, we just don't agree with you.
The quote shows that religious people often impose acceptance of a level of importance to religious practices on atheists that those atheists can't even imagine, let alone agree with. Atheists understand what going to the church or mosque means for religious folks.
They just don't agree with them and feel that the spreading of a deadly contagious virus, inevitable with church and mosque services, is far more important. They also know that the virus is atheist, and doesn't stop being infectious and deadly because the group it infects is attending a service in a religious setting.
Changing their supposed point of contention is an old trick.
Which feels like a new theme for religions. Instead of "They don't agree with <RELIGION BASED ISSUE>" it is now "they do not understand <RELIGION BASED ISSUE>" which they feel more comfortable with. It allows them, in their perspective, to either ignore the atheist view or evade it by explaining why it is important to religious people instead of why their view of the issue is wrong.
The next quote from the articles is even more telling:
"En een ander voorbeeld is het dragen van hoofddoeken in publieke functies. "Het is voor sommige niet-gelovigen niet goed voor te stellen wat het dragen of het afdoen van een hoofddoek betekent voor sommige moslima's."
"And another example is the wearing of headscarves in public functions.
"It is difficult for some non-believers to imagine what wearing or taking
off a headscarf means for some Muslim women."How do they know what is difficult for my imagination and what's easy?
Besides being experts in the field of imagination maybe?
This is just baffling to me, how completely focused on the victim role and their own "Plight" the religious can be. That last quote shows they cannot imagine that coming to a public government building, for some issue between a citizen and his/her/+/their/Chrysler logo/its government representative only to find that despite the separation between church and state, the individual that represents that government appears to hold their religion's rules and or traditions above that of the government they represent, and the citizen depends on them to act according to that government's rules and or traditions.
Hypothetical fictive example coming in...... NOW!
Take a fictional 50+-year-old person. Let's say a Widow who lives across the street from a relatively new mosque that was built a year ago. When that woman moved into that house, the construction of the public park that used to be on the spot where the Mosque now it hadn't been finished. She has watched the trees grow from little more than saplings into big and beautiful trees.
The 4 pairs of Ducks that made the pond their home grew into a whole flock of Ducks, who became the only living creatures that were happy to see her every day when after her husband died the walk to feed the Ducks a little bread became the only outing she could afford or was physically able to go on.
A woman that also had to witness the bulldozers tear the trees down, the construction workers drain the pond and, wept when the ducks, coming back from their winter trek to the south, circled the site a few times in confusion before flying away never to return.
Ok, we've got the woman in our heads, now let's place her in a situation:
Imagine that woman needing help with filing a complaint about the cars that are, maybe unintentionally, parked illegally every Friday during the Friday prayers. The parking spaces available aren't enough for the many Muslims that attend the Friday prayers, and so a lot of the cars are parked in a way that's strictly not supposed to be allowed but deemed not to be too much of a problem for the one time per week they're there for an hour.
They even leave half the sidewalk free, leaving more than enough for a person to walk past the cars, thinking they're not hindering anyone very much.
Only....
For the woman, they are blocking so much of the sidewalk that she is unable to drive her electrical little 4 wheeler, without which she could not leave her house, in between the cars and the garden walls. She needs to go to the supermarket, her doctor, the pharmacy, and the Kantklos hobby club meeting which are all activities that are held every Friday.
Took the time, put in the effort and then......
Now imagine that woman having gone through the ordeal of making her way to the municipal government building, waiting an hour until it was her turn and then driving up to the counter to find the person who she needs to file that complaint is wearing a hijab or a niqab or a burqa.
DISCLAMER DISCLAIMING THAT WHICH MIGHT BE CLAIMED TO DIS!
*the next example is to pre-empt notions of one-sidedness*
The situation and people are as much fiction as any other in this article today.... (ish)
The same would go for an Imam of a small city center mosque located temporarily in a busy commercial street with shops and a Tea-house. His usual mosque is being rebuilt from the ground up into a true marvel of Islamic architecture with a Minaret piercing the sky, and there will finally be facilities and enough room for 5000 of the Uma to wash themselves properly and attend the Juma’ah to listen to the Khutbah and then pray together.
The temporary mosque used to be an office building and was the only place big enough and affordable enough to prevent the Juma'ah from having to take place in the open air, in the parking lot of the Mosque, which has already been completed. Two doors over from the mosque, one shop is owned by a butcher, and their supplies, delivered by trucks, sometimes arrive at the same time.
The trucks then have no other choice than to park behind each other in the narrow alley behind the shops and the temporary mosque. It has occurred that blood was spilled or the back of a truck was cleaned with water from a garden hose and instead of running toward the middle of the alley and the drainage into the sewer, the liquids flowed into the former cargo area of the temporary mosque, where some faithful perform the ritual cleansing before praying.
Trying to come to a solution...
This Imam, having had no success talking to the truck drivers or the butcher about this, needs help to get the Municipal government to solve the problem but after arriving at the Municipal Building, and waiting his turn he sees that the government representative is wearing a Sikh Turban, a steel armband on his right arm and has the Kirpan tucked into his belt.
Or an ultra-orthodox Jew with curly hair, a black hat, and a beard...
Point? Right. I was making one, wasn't I? Yes... yes, I think ao...
The point I'm making is that in the quote the only thought seems to be how awful it is for a Muslim to be forced to take off an item of religiously mandatory clothing.
The thought should be about the job the person is performing, and who or what the person is representing while at work. If that is the government, either national or local, then the person should have NO religious symbolism or clothing in sight. When they wear that, they represent the religion, not the government, which is FUNDAMENTALLY separate from any and all religions.
Going Further with the source articles, we find the quote concerning education and religion:
"Er wordt natuurlijk aandacht besteed aan meer begrip voor seksuele en genderdiversiteit, maar er zou ook meer aandacht kunnen zijn voor religieuze verschillen tussen mensen."
"Of course, attention is paid to more understanding of sexual and gender diversity,
but there could also be more attention for religious differences between people."Let's leave the sexual and gender diversity topic for another day, and focus on the latter part of the quote.
Which is fine, at first thought. But thinking further about the real purpose of this statement is... debatable. Most religious doctrines do not mesh well to understand religious differences, let alone embrace them.
To have this taught to the children at a location not under the control of the religion can't be the best-case scenario for any religion unless they're in control of the religion's doctrines.
Could it be Theists are seeing signs their involvement in education of children is coming to an end?
Only when the only other option is not to come near the students (their future) the quote makes sense, as it gives them at least the option of observing and studying the students, what they're taught and which other religions they have to outshine so to speak to get converts.
Another telling quote:
Gelovigen en hedendaags spirituelen geven aan meer zingeving te ervaren dan de niet-gelovigen. Kenmerkend voor spirituelen is een holistisch wereldbeeld en het opdoen van mystieke ervaringen, vaak via een sterke natuurverbondenheid.
Believers and contemporary spirituals indicate that they experience more meaning
than non-believers. The characteristic of spirituals is a holistic worldview and
the acquisition of mystical experiences, often through a strong nature connection.How arrogant?!
What was it they called assumption again? Mother... of something...???
How could they possibly know they experience more meaning than non-believers? Atheist experiences more, knowing that every single particle they're made of was formed inside of a star, and blasted into the wide vastness of the Universe by a star going supernova at the end of its existence when even its heavier particles have been fused to create Iron, and it no longer has enough fissionable material to sustain fusion.
But atheists know something else as well.
We... eeem, I mean atheists, also know that there is no meaning in life. No purpose, no plan, no universal goal to achieve. That, for most, means that the responsibility for giving purpose and meaning to life lies with us. We are to give purpose to the incredibly improbable chain of causality that leads to those billions of particles out of which we are built to come together in just the right way to form... us.
You may wonder, in the privacy of your own thoughts...
"So, what should religious people keep in mind when considering the Atheist's life, experiences, and views of the religious?"
I'll give the Hitchhikers guide to the atheist or at least try to.
(Hitchhiking could be dangerous and I do not recommend it to most people!)
An Atheist does not think about god in any circumstance unless the situation forces the atheist to. If no individual or organization mentions or refers to god or anything else religious, god or anything else religious simply does not enter the conscious thoughts. This is a concept that religious people have the most difficulty with. They cannot imagine not thinking about their religion, their god, their afterlife, or if their deity approves or disproves their thoughts and actions.
Atheists do not care if you are devoutly religious or a morally corrupt atheist corporate a$$h013. They prefer not to know because if they learn an individual is religious, no matter what they say, no matter how bad it is considered being, they cannot help thinking less highly of that individual and will always, subconsciously, be less able to take that person seriously. Because if an individual can believe what most religions have at their cores then they can believe.... anything. And this is true for ANY Atheist. Even those who believe in themselves when they claim not to.
Atheists are mostly don't want to convert anyone. They know it is near impossible, involves a tedious deconstruction of the religion in question, unreasonable resistance to accepting scientific simple truths, and is almost certainly going to fail, anyway.
Agnostics are atheists. Atheism is the absence of belief in the existence of god. Not knowing whether there is a god, means they don't believe there IS a god. Which is the absence of belief in the existence of god. Anti theists believe that religion is bad, mostly evil, in both its nature and in its effect on humanity and the World. Anti Theists believe that the sooner Religion no longer exists, the better humanity's odds are of not going extinct.
If you do decide to enter into a debate with an Atheist, make sure you've actually read the scriptures of you faith, and know the current state of your religion, its theology but also its history. (I can assure you that the Atheist you will debate does know these things, about YOUR religion.
I am going to "Brei een einde aan dit artikel"
And though there is a lot that i could say about this topic, I'd like to have a real discussion with a real theist about this, using arguments and facts and such to convince the other party of their righteous correctness is not advisable right.
Oooh maaaan, I am so close to passing out.... LOL!
I am once more impressed by my experience, that the length (as well as the quality) of what I'm writing at this moment, can convince me that lengthening one's birthday by refusing to go to sleep has detrimental effects on one's ability as an author early on, around 20hrs, but isn't noticeable much until the 45th hour has passed and that by the 60yh hour the tempo and amount of correcting needed to create something resembling a coherent sentence makes the continuation of writing an article like this ill-advised.
Thanks for reading this.
Stay safe and stay happy!
