in this city, there's a catholic cathedral, protestant cathedral, (monastery / nunnery for each), zillions of Buddhist temples and at least one large temple complex, Churches of the Ao Dai, everybody has a shrine for ancestor worship in their house, a shrine for the kitchen gods in the kitchen and most business have another in the workshop.
and yet 70% of people describe themselves as atheist on the official forms.
The traditional Chinese/East Asian attitude of "I'll worship Jesus alongside Kuan Yin and Buddha and <assorted taoist deities> because hey, maybe we'll get luck anyway" strikes me as a nice solution to (some) religious conflict woes, but alas...*cough* certain *cough* religions do not abide any mixing.
But I guess your example goes to show you can't repress religion out of people. But did the Vietnamese communist party make any serious efforts in that direction?
I do know how to spell
AniThyng is merely the name I gave to what became my favourite Baldur's Gate II mage character
oh yes - there's a reason even now most people put atheist on the official forms. Christian Protestants get it the hardest, becuase many of the churches have strong links to American groups who aren't friends of the state.
Nowadays it's not forbidden, but it's not really encouraged and seen as a slightly backwards attitude.
I would also point out that most people follow the ancestors with a nod to Buddha way, it's about as dedicated a religion as Church of England
"Aid, trade, green technology and peace." - Hans Rosling.
"Welcome to SDN, where we can't see the forest because walking into trees repeatedly feels good, bro." - Mr Coffee
As far as i know, Eastern Germany is almost de-christianised. Possibly a result of the repressive policy of the communist GDR government against both protestant churches and the Catholic Church before the reunification of Germany. If i recall correctly, there are less than 20% Christians on average, and that may even be a generous figure. It varies from region to region but once you live there for a while, it becomes very evident that Christians are a minority in the population.
Of course that doesn't stop people from turning to New Age superstitions and similar stuff like that, but then again i've met many people there who don't have any religious background at all.
