11/06/2008 - By Chuck Monan, Preaching Minister

The world would be a great place if we could just get rid of all those dopes who believe in God.

This is essentially the message of Religulous, the new film by Bill Maher.  The fact that the U.S. is incredibly religious compared to the rest of first-world nations grates on Maher.  But for Maher and others hostile to believers there is an alternative:  Scandinavia.  

Imagine a magical land where life expectancy is high and infant mortality low, where wealth is distributed equitably and genders live in equity, where happy, fish-fed citizens score high in every quality of life index from economic competitiveness, healthcare, environmental protection, lack of corruption, educational investment, technological literacy, etc.  A place where there are no “Jesus fish” in the yellow pages, no school boards or religious administrators who fail to accept every tenant of evolution, where there are no abstinence-based sex education curricula, no Bible verses on menus and placemats, where there are no “Faith Nights” at national sporting events.

A place, not to put too fine a point on it, where there is no God.  This is the picture painted by sociologist Phil Zuckerman in his book Society Without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us About Contentment.  With as few as 24 percent of Danes and 16 percent of Swedes believing in a personal deity, Scandinavia is as irreligious as any region on earth, with the rate of weekly church attendance to prove it.

“The notion that religious belief is childish, that earnest prayer is something that only children engage in, and that faith in God is just something that one dabbles with in childhood but eventually    grows out of would strike most Americans as offensive,” writes Zuckerman.  “But for millions of Scandinavians, that’s just the way it is.”

Also “the way it is” according to Scandinavians interviewed are the following:

• After death “nothing will happen ... it is as it is.”
• Gentle agnosticism describes most who say “I don’t believe in God ... but I do believe in something.”
• You can do whatever you want, just keep it to yourself.
• In Denmark the word God is one of the most embarrassing words you can say.  You would rather go naked through the city than talk about God.

Zuckerman glosses over some of the downsides to Scandinavian life such as dismal weather, an oppressive tax burden, low fertility, high alcoholism, and a suicide rate twice that of America.  Nor does he think to connect those last two problems to godlessness.

No doubt American Christians have much room for improvement.  We could all strive to be more like Jesus and less like the rampant examples of greed, rapacity and hypocrisy that many associate with believers.  We need to be more selfless and less selfish. We need to be more humble and less judgmental.

But faith isn’t the disease afflicting America.  Sin is the problem.  And when we get serious about fixing this problem the U.S., Scandinavia and the rest of the world will be the kind of place everyone will love.

Even Bill Maher.