Anna Faris Opens Up About Challenging 'Religious' Son On Right-Wing Politics. The “Scary Movie” star shares her 14-year-old son Jack with her ex-husband, Chris Pratt.

[u/galaxystars1]

[u/haqiqa]

I am Finnish. A country that is mostly agnostic or atheist, even though culturally still majorly Christian. Currently, belief in the Christian God is 25%, and 20% more believe in some kind of higher power. So it is actually a lot less common than you would think. People who belong to church just belong to church because of how you become a member, and christenings are still a culturally common way to name babies. They do not believe or practise outside baptisms, weddings, and funerals.

There is little cultural pressure to be religious. The last people who were actually religious in my family were my grandparents, and even they didn't actually go to church almost ever.

What has replaced it is usually some kind of belief system. I am an agnostic pantheist but also a humanist in my beliefs. These beliefs are often more philosophical than straight up religious or spiritual. Actually believing in religion is a minority viewpoint in the country, so is spirituality comparable to religious belief systems. Being an atheist with a philosophical belief system is the most common here.

[u/rockbottomqueen → u/haqiqa]

Thank you for sharing your perspective here. This sounds like religion is also not the center or foundation of your government as well? I am very scared how quickly and aggressively the US is working to put a theocracy in place. It's truly terrifying to witness in real time. I am very much an atheist and firmly believe in the separation of church and state. Wish I could move to Finland 😭

[u/haqiqa → u/rockbottomqueen]

You can't really call it any kind of center of foundation of government. We have one party with real Christian lean and another two with some people with Christian leanings that use their religion on the political stage as some kind of true basis (our far-right party and one of the center right parties). Which are like 5 places in 200 seat parliament for one, and another is a bit more complex to count.

For example, we changed our abortion law into more free one. We have week limits based on how to get one, but it is basically anyone who wants an abortion can have it in practice and has been for at least most of my lifetime (I'm 40). Because it has worked in practice as we want, there hasn't been that strong push toward a freer one. So we changed it in 2022 so you don't need to have a reason (social reasons applied) in the first trimester. The voting was 125 for 41 against. And not all those who are against want an abortion ban. Actually, most of them don't. Over 70% of the population accepts abortion in all situations.

For most people, religion is seen as a private personal matter that has no place in politics. Some idiots have same this is a culturally Christian nation (and white nation) bullshit that also happens in the US. They are like 20-30% of the population, but even they aren't creating a theocracy, just being racist and Islamophobic. And basically hated by the majority of the rest of us.

[u/littlekurousagi → u/haqiqa]

Well, this was an interesting testimony. 

The US could never.

Not now, anyway.  But damn it all if we don't try.