Quote:
Originally Posted by MarchHare
This doesn't jive with the statistics. Countries whose citizens have the longest lifespans (e.g. Japan, South Korea, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, etc.) also have very low rates of religious participation. In Norway, for example, only 3% of the population attends church each week, yet it has the third-highest lifespan in the OECD. Additionally, atheists outnumber believers in that country.
|
What constitutes a religion based on that information though? Not all religion is Catholicism, Christianity, Islam.
In Japan, I think you'd have a lot of Shintoism or Buddhism, no?
South Korea actually has a lot of Christians if I'm not mistaken (which is why pastors supposedly keep getting caught in North Korea), but this country too should have Buddhism and other religions as well, should it not?
But there are many times where people hear religion (or lack thereof) and they end up making strange assumptions.
VBS/Bible camp is to my knowledge often a bible themed education or athletic summer camp. It is in the same way computer camp, sports camp, summer school or other camps that are themed slightly differently. Bible camp is the topic those parents wanted the kids to focus on during the summer rather than other topics. If I'm not mistaken, it's a bunch of kids singing songs and trying to achieve spiritual education. The exorcism thing is bad. I don't disagree. This is IMO no different than other non-bible camps with idiot counselors violating the health and safety guidelines in place though.
Non religious example, imagine an urban survival camp and the idiots in charge thought it would be a great idea to demonstrate tasering a kid as part of that demonstration. Kids are freaked out, total violation of health and safety, idiots defend what they did... I'd argue that camp was run by idiots rather than all urban survival camps have an indoctrination backbone that is detrimental to kids.
I would also heavily agree with the comments that there's a failure of certain disciplinary bodies to reprimand people who do that. But I wouldn't broad brush.