Europe...

[Ora et Labora]

Is it corrupt?

I have always wanted to go back to Europe, but I here it is almost worst then America now...I find that hard to believe.

Kristina

[RandomProddy]

Less than most, and it varies. Northern Europe is the least corrupt place on earth, the south much less so.

[Ash Wednesday]

Yes, it's corrupt. So is America. And Canada. And Africa. And the Middle East...

I agree with Random Proddy. I find it's a mixed bag of marbles in reality. I'm an American going to school here in Europe (U.K.) and may end up staying in nothern Europe for an indefinite period of time. And I'm fine with that. Sure, Europe has her problems. But there are pockets of fighters and believers here -- to throw in the towel or put one's head in the sand doesn't seem to be the right thing to do. Certainly the Pope hasn't given up on Europe, so why should we?

I'll also add that Poland rocks.

[Socrates]

[quote name='Ora et Labora' date='Feb 23 2006, 05:51 PM']Is it corrupt?

I have always wanted to go back to Europe, but I here it is almost worst then America now...I find that hard to believe. 

Kristina
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Hell yes, Europe is corrupt!

I find it interesting that many Catholics seem to see Europe as almost some unspoiled land of innocence, as opposed to "corrupt" America.

Europe seems to be for the most part a dying civilization.
Much of Europe has been plagued by serious decadence and decay ever since WWI.
Today, most of Europe suffers from plummeting native birthrates (population growth is negative in most countries, except those with high immigration), a rapidly increasing Muslim immigrant population, rampant secularism and loss of religious faith, and a general lack of any sense of purpose or direction.

No, things are not all rosy here in the U.S.A., but I still think that there is more hope for America than for Europe, which is on the fast track to suicide. (Though Poland seems to be an exception).

[Socrates]

[quote name='RandomProddy' date='Feb 23 2006, 05:56 PM']Less than most, and it varies. Northern Europe is the least corrupt place on earth, the south much less so.
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Not sure what you mean by "least corrupt," but Northern Europe would certainly qualify as one of the most godless places on earth. Look at what's going on in the Netherlands, Scandinavian countries, Germany . . .

[RandomProddy]

[quote name='Socrates' date='Feb 24 2006, 02:13 AM']Not sure what you mean by "least corrupt," but Northern Europe would certainly qualify as one of the most godless places on earth.  Look at what's going on in the Netherlands, Scandinavian countries, Germany . . .
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[url="http://ww1.transparency.org/cpi/2005/cpi2005.sources.en.html"]http://ww1.transparency.org/cpi/2005/cpi2005.sources.en.html[/url]

You can't really compare godlessness with corruption that easily.

Edited February 24, 2006 by RandomProddy

[Mateo el Feo]

[quote name='RandomProddy' date='Feb 23 2006, 08:16 PM'][url="http://ww1.transparency.org/cpi/2005/cpi2005.sources.en.html"]http://ww1.transparency.org/cpi/2005/cpi2005.sources.en.html[/url]

You can't really compare godlessness with corruption that easily.
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I think it might be that some posters are thinking moral corruption and others are thinking political/business corruption.

Kristina, which did you mean?

[Ora et Labora]

[quote name='Mateo el Feo' date='Feb 23 2006, 07:37 PM']I think it might be that some posters are thinking moral corruption and others are thinking political/business corruption.

Kristina, which did you mean?
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I meant moral corruption...

[Ora et Labora]

[quote name='Socrates' date='Feb 23 2006, 06:55 PM']
a rapidly increasing Muslim immigrant population, rampant secularism and loss of religious faith, and a general lack of any sense of purpose or direction.
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I have heard this before...it seems unbelievable. Because I think you are right...some people (like me) think of Europe as a sort of getaway from all the horrible things taht go on in America...

Heaven seems to be the only place now.

[cmotherofpirl]

we should all become Aussies or Kiwis.

[Ora et Labora]

[quote name='cmotherofpirl' date='Feb 24 2006, 10:26 AM']we should all become Aussies or Kiwis.
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ya...i totally agree with you.

[Myles Domini]

[quote name='Ora et Labora' date='Feb 24 2006, 06:15 PM']ya...i totally agree with you.
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I dont I just reckon that if you should upsticks and move to Europe and make a go of helping us overcome the disasterous trends prevalent in our society.

[stbernardLT]

I heard that Europe itself plans on moving very soon. It thinks that might be the only way to keep avoiding terrorists.

Sorry if I seem bi-polar its just because I'm a penguin.

[PadreSantiago]

The Los Angeles Times

October 1, 2005

The dark side of faith

By ROSA BROOKS

IT'S OFFICIAL: Too much religion may be a dangerous thing.

This is the implication of a study reported in the current issue of the Journal of Religion and Society, a publication of Creighton University's Center for the Study of Religion [a Roman Catholic, Jesuit, university in Omaha]. The study, by evolutionary scientist Gregory S. Paul, looks at the correlation between levels of "popular religiosity" and various "quantifiable societal health" indicators in 18 prosperous democracies, including the United States.

Paul ranked societies based on the percentage of their population expressing absolute belief in God, the frequency of prayer reported by their citizens and their frequency of attendance at religious services. He then correlated this with data on rates of homicide, sexually transmitted disease, teen pregnancy, abortion and child mortality.

He found that the most religious democracies exhibited substantially higher degrees of social dysfunction than societies with larger percentages of atheists and agnostics. Of the nations studied, the U.S. - which has by far the largest percentage of people who take the Bible literally and express absolute belief in God (and the lowest percentage of atheists and agnostics) - also has by far the highest levels of homicide, abortion, teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

This conclusion will come as no surprise to those who have long gnashed their teeth in frustration while listening to right-wing evangelical claims that secular liberals are weak on "values." Paul's study confirms globally what is already evident in the U.S.: When it comes to "values," if you look at facts rather than mere rhetoric, the substantially more secular blue states routinely leave the Bible Belt red states in the dust.

[b]Murder rates? Six of the seven states with the highest 2003 homicide rates were "red" in the 2004 elections (Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, South Carolina), while the deep blue Northeastern states had murder rates well below the national average. Infant mortality rates? Highest in the South and Southwest; lowest in New England. Divorce rates? Marriages break up far more in red states than in blue. Teen pregnancy rates? The same.[/b]

Of course, the red/blue divide is only an imperfect proxy for levels of religiosity. And while Paul's study found that the correlation between high degrees of religiosity and high degrees of social dysfunction appears robust, it could be that high levels of social dysfunction fuel religiosity, rather than the other way around.

Although correlation is not causation, Paul's study offers much food for thought. At a minimum, his findings suggest that contrary to popular belief, lack of religiosity does societies no particular harm. This should offer ammunition to those who maintain that religious belief is a purely private matter and that government should remain neutral, not only among religions but also between religion and lack of religion. It should also give a boost to critics of "faith-based" social services and abstinence-only disease and pregnancy prevention programs.

We shouldn't shy away from the possibility that too much religiosity may be socially dangerous. Secular, rationalist approaches to problem-solving emphasize uncertainty, evidence and perpetual reevaluation. Religious faith is inherently nonrational.

This in itself does not make religion worthless or dangerous. All humans hold nonrational beliefs, and some of these may have both individual and societal value. But historically, societies run into trouble when powerful religions become imperial and absolutist.

The claim that religion can have a dark side should not be news. Does anyone doubt that Islamic extremism is linked to the recent rise in international terrorism? And since the history of Christianity is every bit as blood-drenched as the history of Islam, why should we doubt that extremist forms of modern American Christianity have their own pernicious and measurable effects on national health and well-being?

Arguably, Paul's study invites us to conclude that the most serious threat humanity faces today is religious extremism: nonrational, absolutist belief systems that refuse to tolerate difference and dissent.

My prediction is that right-wing evangelicals will do their best to discredit Paul's substantive findings. But when they fail, they'll just shrug: So what if highly religious societies have more murders and disease than less religious societies? Remember the trials of Job? God likes to test the faithful.

To the truly nonrational, even evidence that on its face undermines your beliefs can be twisted to support them. Absolutism means never having to say you're sorry.

And that, of course, is what makes it so very dangerous.

Edited February 24, 2006 by PadreSantiago

[CrossCuT]

[color=330000]There are 3 European exchange students at my school right now who are supposedly catholic.

But they have told me how different the two cultures are. They don’t go to mass on a regular basis, most of them have a very washed down sense of religion, and barely believes the most basic truths of the catholic faith. But they say they are catholic.
[/color]

[Deeds]

[quote name='cmotherofpirl' date='Feb 24 2006, 04:26 PM']we should all become Aussies or Kiwis.
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Europe, the US and Aussie-Kiwi lands are about level in terms of morality.

[Ash Wednesday]

[quote name='PadreSantiago' date='Feb 24 2006, 02:51 PM'][b]Murder rates? Six of the seven states with the highest 2003 homicide rates were "red" in the 2004 elections (Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, South Carolina), while the deep blue Northeastern states had murder rates well below the national average. Infant mortality rates? Highest in the South and Southwest; lowest in New England. Divorce rates? Marriages break up far more in red states than in blue. Teen pregnancy rates? The same.[/b]
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Oh hell to the naww. I've read a lot of lines of b.s. on this board but that one takes the cake. That is THE dumbest article I have ever read. Ever.

If this chickadee writing for the L.A. Times (shocker!) wants to talk about twisting things around, maybe she should look at herself. There are a LOT of socio-economic factors that contribute to such things and has nothing to do with religion. Like, oh, perhaps the fact that a lot of those states mentioned are in the south, are poor, or, dare I say it, have ghettos and racial tensions?

Though I will add that if I had to live in some of those kinds of places, I'd be religious too. I'd be praying to God every day that I not get shot.

If she wants to be more accurate, maybe she should guage such statistics among regular churchgoers rather than gloss over a whole state. Is it just that whichever states happen to magically turn blue or red somehow make their crime rates magically change as well? I know, all the crime rates spike and migrate to where people are religious and vote for George Bush!

[jezic]

and the reason that infant mortality rates are slower could be because the babies are slaughtered in the womb (aborted).

[Ora et Labora]

thats a fact, isnt it?

[King's Rook's Pawn]

Make no mistake: Europe, western Europe anyway, has truly fallen off the radical, secularist, postmodern deep-end. In many, perhaps most, of the larger churches there are little more then museums for tourists. Christianity is often looked upon as an archaic curiosity and there is virtually no respect for their entire civilizational patrimony. Please jettison any notions you may have of Europe being anything like a traditional, Catholic-Christian continent of quaint traditions, majestic cathedrals, crowned heads, and a glorious history permeating its very core. While some Americans may still look fondly on Europe's traditional Christian heritage, their vision colored by the romance of distance, most Europeans ignore it, are ignorant of it, or even hate it.

If there is one beacon of light left in western Europe, it is probably Poland, which has clung to many of ways of older Christian Europe. Eastern Europe, in general, is much less far gone then the West, having lived through Soviet communism and unequivocally rejecting it, even as western Europe lapsed into complacency and what can only be termed and cultural senescence. Ironically, the Iron Curtain actually protected eastern Europe in many ways, offering its inhabitants are stark choice between complete atheistic communism and traditional Christian society. Western Europe, on the other hand, was allowed to crumble incrementally.

This implosion of Europe has occurred mainly since the period of the two World Wars, which utterly unmade the older Victorian paradigm of European society and caused the Europeans to attempt to replace it with this social democratic model of society, which has led to modern Europe being a land of aging, corrupt, rickety, top-heavy welfare states. At the same time, old national boundaries are giving way to the massive, ever-growing, un-democratic, secularist-socialist bureaucratic monster known as the EU. The culture itself has lapsed into what is basically a form a hedonistic nihilism, much worse indeed then in the U.S., in which large numbers of people still adhere to the beliefs, practices, and values of their forefathers and fight to protect them. While WWI & WWII were really the big catalysts, the roots of this collapse are much deeper, going back at least to the viciously anti-Catholic and radical French Revolution, possibly (one could argue) to the Protestant Reformation itself, or even earlier.

Demographically, however, the atheistic, nihilistic, hedonistic Europe of today is probably soon going to get its comeuppance. Statistics show that, what with decades of abortion, contraception, secularism, giant tax burdens, and general anti-traditional family sentiment, the birth rate of Europe is falling like a rock. Few western European nations have birthrates above the replacement rate; their populations are falling and have been for many years now. Worse, about the only group having many children are the millions of Muslim immigrants who, thanks to decades of radically liberal immigration laws, have been flowing into European cities, into filthy insular ghettos where few of the natives dare to go. They are the ones having all the babies, as the "post-Christian" natives prefer to waste their lives in a languid carefree cloud of socialistic handouts and bacchanalia, reminiscent of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. One may think of modern Europe, therefore, as a cultural vacuum, and a vacuum must be filled. And the far stronger, more zealous, more self-confident culture of Islam is doing the filling. Demography is destiny, and all statistics show that the destiny of Europe belongs to Islam. The ancestors of Europe spilt rivers of blood defending their fatherlands against the Muslim hordes, in the meantime managing to build a civilization unrivalled in its prosperity and sophistication, only to have their descendents, grown decadent on that civilization's plenty, freely hand it over to those same age-old enemies.

It is an ironic, ignominious, and tragicomical end to a glorious and unsurpassed history, but given that probability that Europe would otherwise on the fast track to the New World Order, an Islamic caliphate might actually be seen as the lesser of two possible evils...