Jesus Christ of Nazareth loves you!

[Scoobes]

Immortal said:

Scoobes said:

Depends on the society.

I'd argue that most of society whilet being a member of a religion, aren't actually religious.

Also, some religious beliefs end up opposing societal norms. The gay marriage issue in the US is an example.

Depends on how you define religion. Do we say someone who prays at least 20 hours a week is religious or do we say anyone who believes he is religious is religious? I rather lean towards the latter. And I'm not sure how you can have a majority religious society where the majority's social tolerance is opposed by the religion. The Christians in the US who tolerate homosexuality don't have the religious beliefs that homosexuality should be condemned, evidently. As long as most people are Christians in America, Christianity can't possibly be opposed to whatever Americans accept socially.

If someone prays 20 hours a week I'd have to ask how they manage to juggle that with a modern day life

I'd say anyone who actually cares enough about their religion to bother studying it for any significant amount of time (and remaining a part of it) or practicing it as a significant part of their life is religious. There are plenty of people that say they're a member of a particular religion but aren't religious at all.

Anyway, your original point was that atheism was against the societal norm because it was opposed to religion. For the most part, you don't find extreme atheists and when you do it's usually through debate. That's the only societal norm it's opposed to and in some societies/contries, atheism is the norm (e.g. Sweden). I'm simply pointing out that religion or religious interpretation can be just as opposed to societal norms. Religious texts can afterall, be used to either support or discredit any POV.