[Thor]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

That might explain Russia, however North Korea has completely purged religion. Its a splitting hair argument. I don't buy that any nations freedoms or rights are based around the religious beliefs of the body politics, but is built around the beliefs and egos of the political bodies in power today.

North Korea as Hitchens put it best is a necro-ocricy, a dead head of state which is praised daily by school children and adults alike. Just because its not a 'approved religion' does not mean that country is run like a religious nation, theocratic nation.

The point I was countering is we don't have good example of 'atheistic' societies in the past because in order for them to occur they have to be free societies and those societies citiziens have to naturally move away from religion.

In terms of being a nation based around religion doesn't fit around America because of its diversity so saying that 332 people represent the ongoing political body is false at best as they've shifted to the minority.

America is definately unique amongst the western world, and its true it is the anomoly amongst free people sticking with religion. However it can also be said that the fastest growing segments in America are the non religious, representing anywhere from 15-20% depending on statistics.

This is what we saw in secular Europe about 10-30 years ago depending on the nation, once that tide started it quickly happened over just 1-2 generations going from religious to non religious.

Now America is probably going to be much more stubborn, its certainly its own unique little world onto itself.

You might have an argument with Islamic Nations that for example have adopted that religion into their courts and policies, however you do have to look at the communist parties where they replaced the religion with a false religion based around the body politic and where the ends justify the means became the one commandment that they followed.

But the point I was making, is that those are not 'atheistic' nations because those countries are still religious, the people can't be forced to become atheists, the only place you can argue that is N Korea but they replaced traditional religion with their own.