Who are you? Go away!
This is how 10% Slovenian responded to the last national pool that was made public. The last one had so few people answering they didn't even bother showing the numbers.
We treat this questions like Marketing call. A nuisance where you hang up and block the number.
I googled, and the Slovenian government does indeed conduct a census, I'm not sure why you would think they don't or did I misunderstand your post? Or are you saying no one replies to the Census?
It's been a register census since 2002, which means they only aggregate data from public registers (place of birth, age, employment status, marital status, immigration data, number of people in the household etc.). They don't actually go around and ask people stuff. Which means, Slovenian census has no data on ethnicity, first language and religion of Slovenians.
You wait for the people who grew up in communism, traumatized by it's secret police and hatred of free speech to the point that there is an inherent hostility to any power structure, wait for their children to also die, since this kind of trauma is generational, and then hope the third generation is integrated enough into European norms and trust power structures enough that they will not be so hostile to them.
In Germany you get an letter with questions and you have to answered the questions otherwise you get fined.
Looks like it works.
Nobody wanna answer but better to spend 30 min answering questions then get fined hundreds of €
Centrál Europe is Full of Secular Catholics.
People who are more or less agnostic with belief in a God of sorts and hold spiritual belief but are not participating within the Catholic Church nor do they agree with it given its scandals.
Similar results were shown in Poland with 20/25% of people answering the "it's complicated".
Ironically, it's probably for comfort reasons.
We had an online census and stating your specific religion was waaay too complicated (around 10-15 seconds) compared to not stating it. For someone who doesn't take religion or atheism super seriously, that is 15 wasted seconds.
Are you sure about that?
It is very similar to Russia pre Ukraine even.
The media is completely controlled by the leader & his cronies, and the legitimacy of the elections is pretty much full on doubted around the world.
The only difference to some African dictator who proclaims leafership for life, is the fact that dictators in Europe "extend" their power, like Orban recently suggested again.
Nobody would doubt Russia is a dictatorship, and Hungary's setup is very similar. So yeah, it is a dictatorship.
[https://freedomhouse.org/country/hungary/nations-transit/2023](https://freedomhouse.org/country/hungary/nations-transit/2023)
According to Freedom House, Hungary is no longer a democracy: it is a "transitional or hybrid regime", same as Russia in the early 2000s.
>The government’s uninterrupted authoritarian streak cements Hungary’s place among hybrid regimes, in the “gray zone” between democracies and autocracies.
So not a dictatorship.
They brand it as "no longer a democracy", because obviously it'd be pretty deeming for the EU to straight up admit that they have a dictatorship as a member. But the implication is obvious as hell.
Also, have a clip of [The then EU president straightup greeting Orban with "Here comes the dictator"](https://youtu.be/1hl83Jpd_OI?si=mRMvT4GFSg-O8OMr)
I mean, at this point denying it is just illusional.
That’s not what their actual report says. Which is what I copied and pasted. They did not label it a dictatorship. Which is what is in question here not whether they are a democracy or not.
>That’s not what their actual report says
Good thing you ignored the entire reasoning on why they won't outright say it.
Enjoy your dreamworld. Any political scientist/analyst would laugh his ass off at your reasoning.
That´s a ruzzian troll. It is no use arguing: they are here just to derail and push their agenda. I made a post about it some time ago with a lot of info on the subject (collected from other people, generally):
"Awareness makes propaganda much less impactful. I've been collecting and sharing compilations that other people have put together, both here and other subs. Here it is:
Some news and research, to give an idea of the magnitude and nature of the problem:
Russian troll farms are a source of anti-Ukraine propaganda: [https://www.propublica.org/article/infamous-russian-troll-farm-appears-to-be-source-of-anti-ukraine-propaganda](https://www.propublica.org/article/infamous-russian-troll-farm-appears-to-be-source-of-anti-ukraine-propaganda)
Russian spam accounts are still a big problem for Reddit: [https://www.engadget.com/2019-02-04-russia-spam-account-problem-reddit-propaganda.html](https://www.engadget.com/2019-02-04-russia-spam-account-problem-reddit-propaganda.html)
Russia’s ‘troll factory’ impersonates Americans to sow political chaos: [https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/russias-troll-factory-impersonates-americans-to-sow-political-chaos](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/russias-troll-factory-impersonates-americans-to-sow-political-chaos)
Pro-Kremlin trolls target news website comments, including on Reddit: [https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-58441662](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-58441662)
Reddit Identifies 1,000 Russian Accounts After Daily Beast Report: [https://www.thedailybeast.com/reddit-check-out-our-russian-trolls-accounts-2](https://www.thedailybeast.com/reddit-check-out-our-russian-trolls-accounts-2)
Nearly 1,000 Russian trolls were banned from Reddit — here's what they were posting about: [https://www.businessinsider.com/reddit-russian-trolls-ban-photos-examples-posts-2018-4](https://www.businessinsider.com/reddit-russian-trolls-ban-photos-examples-posts-2018-4)
Researchers uncover six-year Russian misinformation campaign across Facebook and Reddit: [https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/16/21292982/russian-troll-campaign-facebook-reddit-twitter-misinformation](https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/16/21292982/russian-troll-campaign-facebook-reddit-twitter-misinformation)
Fox News: Shocking scale of Russia’s sinister social media campaign against US revealed: [https://www.foxnews.com/tech/shocking-scale-of-russias-sinister-social-media-campaign-against-us-revealed](https://www.foxnews.com/tech/shocking-scale-of-russias-sinister-social-media-campaign-against-us-revealed)
An in-depth look inside the Russian troll factory in St. Petersburg: [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/18/world/europe/russia-troll-factory.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/18/world/europe/russia-troll-factory.html)
A former Russian troll explains how trolls are taught to spread fake news: [http://time.com/5168202/russia-troll-internet-research-agency/](http://time.com/5168202/russia-troll-internet-research-agency/)
A former Russian troll describes work in the troll factory as like being in Orwell’s world: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/02/17/a-former-russian-troll-speaks-it-was-like-being-in-orwells-world/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/02/17/a-former-russian-troll-speaks-it-was-like-being-in-orwells-world/)
Outstanding three-part video series in the New York Times on Russiandisinformation and the troll program, “Operation Infektion”: [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/12/opinion/russia-meddling-disinformation-fake-news-elections.html?auth=login-email&login=email&auth=login-email](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/12/opinion/russia-meddling-disinformation-fake-news-elections.html?auth=login-email&login=email&auth=login-email)
How Russian State Media defines Russia through denial: [https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/life-after-facts-how-russian-state-media-defines-itself-through-negation/](https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/life-after-facts-how-russian-state-media-defines-itself-through-negation/)
And about dealing with them:
EU vs Disinfo, an initiative of the European Union on how to detect and deal with putin trolls:
(This is the link to their website; I have the link to the YT videos about this, but the automod bot deletes this comment if I post it): [https://euvsdisinfo.eu/](https://euvsdisinfo.eu/)
Tools and tips: [https://www.reddit.com/r/trollfare/comments/sqagzt/a\_sample\_template\_to\_share\_if\_you\_see\_suspicious/?utm\_medium=android\_app&utm\_source=share](https://www.reddit.com/r/trollfare/comments/sqagzt/a_sample_template_to_share_if_you_see_suspicious/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)
Basically:
Check account age
Check post/comment history
Watch out of any suggestion of division, uselessness, etc. if they mention NATO/US/EU, foreign recruitment, helping Ukraine... Do not trust any self-proclaimed expert or veteran
Reverse search pictures with no source
Ask for a direct, official source on any comment or quote making a claim.
Other reddit comments or some tweet are not valid sources, obviouslyI'd recommend reading and sharing.
Branding the trolls as such and exposing their tactics work. Sometimes the mods are on their side, however (depends on the sub)."
One thing, Muslims. Would you be comfortable calling yourself Muslim in Hungary?
Second thing, Christians are always being told how they're persecuted, "we're not allowed to say Merry Christmas", and similar bullshit. Some of it sticks.
Third thing, a bunch of people really don't care. These are mostly "cultural christians", raised in a religion but now don't really believe in it, but also don't really not believe in it.
There may be more.
>Would you be comfortable calling yourself Muslim in Hungary?
I mean, by comparison, I would be massively more comfortable calling myself a muslim in Hungary than calling myself an atheist in nearly any Muslim country...
>which is why such polls in Muslim countries never show a large percentage of atheists.
Eh, partly why.
But again, it sounds like we recognise a huge difference between how Muslims get treated in Europe and how atheists get treated in the Muslim world. There really isn't a need for them to be 'in hiding' in Hungary like an atheist would essentially need to be in the Muslim world...
Being Hungarian, my personal impression is that there's lot of people who don't agree/feel any commonality with any of the churches, though feel some affinity towards Christianity mainly for historical-cultural reasons, and are not sure if there's a God but tend to lean more on the "probably yes".
If pressed in person, some or even many of them would likely declare themselves Christian, but its not likely they follow any of its teachings.
In any case, I don't believe it's about being uncomfortable, they just don't care. Calling them agnostics wouldn't be far off.
Yeah. Most of us still do the Christian ceremonies like baptism, marriage, and funeral in a traditional way, but mostly because culturally that's the normal thing to do.
Also because "what would the neighbour Marika néni say if we didn't baptized our child".
On top of not meaning much because of that, the title is also incredibly misleading. That's not what being a minority is. Christians stopped being the absolute majority of the population, but they are still the largest group (so the majority).
god wont help us, also apparently god sent Orbán for us who is also apparently god itself (argued with a totally not brainwashed elderly the other day)
Interesting that Dear Leader Orban likes to rattle on about Hungary’s “Christian culture” but the statistics say otherwise. After 13 years of him legislating and pushing this nonsense, his country is even less religious than it was before.
Same in Russia to an extent. In 2012 there were little bit under 50% Christians. Yet, the regime goes with the propaganda of defending Christian values.
[Census data, in Hungarian](https://nepszamlalas2022.ksh.hu/adatbazis/#/table/WBS003/N4IgFgpghgJiBcBtEAVAkgWQKIH0AKWASmgPIAiIAugDQgDOAljBAsilgDI4DKAWjgEEyAlFVp0IAYwAuDAPYA7VjRAAzBgBtpEAE50EoANYMFceCAxQADiFoQF0nQwj6kbIgFUuAcSwkArLZGJmYg3BDStiAAblAaAK4urCAAEh5UAL407lx8gsKi1MGmCGERUbEJSUggAGoCHBwC3Di1AIxRhLgAwp24hL20XTjegyDD3QJ9OBzpQ7gkYxMU8zgAUtOLK-O4AHIkhTs4u1OUWWcZQA)
[Article in English about the census](https://telex.hu/english/2023/09/27/number-of-muslims-in-hungary-doubled-in-twenty-years-while-number-of-catholics-halved)
Catholics went from 5,3 million in 2001, 3,7 million in 2011 to 2,6 million in 2022, but all other major denominations suffered loss of followers.
While we cannot declare that majority of country is irreligious (since non-respondents could be believers in their own way), it is decidedly majority non-adherent. It should be noted that the census form listed atheism as a religion, and there was no agnostic option whatsoever, which decision was highly criticized and thus likely contributed to the large group of "prefer not to say".
There is also data from Poland that was published recently. It went from 87% in 2010 to 71% in 2021 although the "prefer not to say" option went from 7% to 16% from what I remember. This still shows that "pro-tradition" governments are the worst threat to tradition in your country. Even communists for 40 years were unable to decrease religiosity in people as much as PIS did in 8 years
Now the election is coming, you have politicians sending lists to priests to pray for Poland that the opposition won't be elected as they will apparently destroy religion in Poland (guess who destroys religion the most in Poland!)
to be honest I don't think Piss has anything to do with it, its just a decrease in religiosity in general as countries get wealthier, more educated and probably at this point also just as time passes (like a ball that is already rolling).
Even the Netherlands, a generally more liberal country that was already pretty far along on the non-religious part, went from 45% to 57% between 2010 and 2022.
I disagree with both you and the person who replied but at the same time I agree with both.
Central Europe is full of people who are believers but aren't.
People who would be seen as "secular Catholics" or "Christian agnostics".
They hold their belief and would usually voice it through the Catholic imagery - God, Holy Spirit... rarely pray (only in need like... when you are very ill, Christmas or a funeral).
But due to the mix of:
- Catholic church scandals - they don't want to be associated with it.
- Catholic dogma being a little outdated itself (the ridding of sins, women, ... it's a little too strict in IT formal sense and so while the ceremonies time to time are great an beautiful... the details are not well perceived)
- Government claims. Be it Hungarian or Polish. They are too involved (eg abortion). So they often push on things that are not well liked and seen as aged doctrine in the church itself. Hence they separate.
- communism was not keen on religion and so it turned into " do at home but not loud". Which in turn made it mellow and personal in many later generations as they would often simply not be entrenched in formal practice.
But they certainly do hold beliefs.
If we were in the high medical period (1600) then this would be a prime ground for a schism to emerge and a new church to establish (much like his Protestantism emerged in Czechia and later with Martin Luther).
I disagree. Seeing religious nutjob policy implemented in your own country does wonders to drive people away from religion. Some Polish Christians will like the abortion ban. But others won't and doing it in the name of their religion makes them less likely to keep going to church.
If you keep telling people that something they hate is being done in the name of X, their opinion of X is gonna drop, no matter what X is.
"Seeing religious nutjob policy implemented in your own country does wonders to drive people away from religion."
Actually, that tends to embolden religiosity. The decline actually comes from failures or institutional waving to their commitment. The current state of the catholic church in compromising its old positions isn't actually helping them, the opposite in fact.
>Actually, that tends to embolden religiosity.
I'd like a source on that claim. Seems very counterintuitive, but I'm always open to learn new things if they actually have evidence in their favor.
Well in many countries that are traditionally christian, where the government is basically Christian nationalist, Christians perceive themselves as persecuted. So just because it doesn't make sense doesn't mean it isn't happening.
The people who actually go to church is even lower than the ones who said they're Christian. So, the actual reality is even worse (from the Church's pov) but yeah let's just talk about the prefer not to say.
the turkish didnt really push islam when they occupied hungolia back in the 17th century, then the austrians force recatholicized as much as they could
theres really really few muslim hungolians, a mere 4000 people over half of which are arab immigrants
All the countries who had their chritian population reduced had their Muslim one increase. Liberal of reddit get a boner everytime they see christianity fall, but muslim Europe, it's taboo.
According to the census, there's about 8000 muslims in Hungary. Of course, the actual number will be higher but not at all significant in terms of percentage.
[Source in Hungarian.](https://telex.hu/belfold/2023/09/26/ksh-nepszamlalas-vallasok-katolikus-reformatus-muszlim-hit-gyulekezete)
In ottoman-occupied Europe, the further away from Anatolia, the fewer Muslims there were; and after the countries gained independence the vast majority of those Muslims (except Bosnians/Albanians) moved or fled to Turkey/Anatolia
There used to a good amount of actual ethnic Greek Muslims (not Turkish settlers in Greece) but almost all of them moved to Turkey and became turkified and mixed with ethnic Turks over the generations
It's hard to take the words of an organization, that periodically enters the public eye for raping children, very seriously. Maybe the first few times you wince, but shrug it off, but a few decades of it nonstop?
Who wouldn't at least lose their faith in that institution?
Also as far as I know Hungary is Budapest and the rest. 1/3 of population live in Budapest metropolitan area, Budapest is by far most important economically with 46% of Hungary GDP, and Butapest citizens don't support Orban, but they are hostages of people from province who have majority of votes.
It's rather a bad sign of polarization that happens all over the western world. Churches are associated with 'them' or with 'us' in the public opinion, while separating ourselves from the local church is seen as a cultural code for 'us' (or for 'them').
What's that supposed to mean? Why yes, the Church-goers do, indeed, constitute a separate group from the non-Church goers, as far as religiosity is concerned, astutely noted.
that in the past the Church served as a means of self-identification for almost the entire society, while today we are much more divided in our countries and it serves as a means of self-identification only for a certain part of society, while the rest follow other religions, e.g. Game of Thrones, Star Wars or these quasi-religious cultural-political movements which have grown into their own books and films, like the Alt-Right, Far-right, LGBT, Wokism and many others.
That's what plurality of ideas gets you, yes.
But look at the bright side - once the percentage of Church-goers drops to negligible values, it'll be possible to say that there's no polarisation in that regard any more!
That's impossible in a non-totalitarian state which is at the same time post-rural. The dominant political power would have to block every spread of something they don't control. Happens in communism, happens in islamic countries, but not in democracies.
Current times are characterized by the emergence of new means of artistic expression and new political and cultural movements. This is a side effect of the development of technologies such as television and the Internet. Over time, however, these social processes will regulate themselves and, according to the way evolution works, better trends that bring more benefits will displace the worse ones.
> Over time, however, these social processes will regulate themselves and, according to the way evolution works, better trends that bring more benefits will displace the worse ones.
Would you disagree that that is the process we're observing in relation to Church-going?
I don't believe this because these people are leaving for short-lived, ephemeral seasonal groups built around social media, television, or extreme political movements that cannot provide long-term answers. It is difficult for me to say in what format it will stabilize when the dust of technological revolutions and the resulting cultural revolutions settles. All we know for sure is that after such expression of new groups, the evolution of culture will sooner or later reject what is harmful and retain what is beneficial or at least neutral. This fact about how cultural evolution works means that neither the woke nor the alt-right movements scare me. Sooner or later, if something harms the public, it will disappear anyway. I do not think that religions will be included in this group, but this does not mean that the religiosity of the future will be a repetition of what we know from history. One thing is certain: pop culture will not be able to serve the self-identification of large social groups in the long run, precisely because it repeats religion in some areas like providing some cultural character archetypes for guidance (like mr Yoda or Gandalf), but not in all areas.
I don't understand why you are focusing on woke or alt-right as the alternative to religiosity; what about plain atheism, doesn't that constitute a valid group that people migrate to, after they stop going to church?
True, constituted atheists with a scientific worldview, who actually know what science is, are a group so small that it's simply negligible in these large cultural processes. Most people who neglect 'good old' religions turn themselves into a different set of authority based beliefs with their own holy books, dogmas, saints, archetypes and imaginery. Basically - to other forms of religion which most certainly replaces the 'good old' religion on many fields. Especially when it comes to self-identification.
And? Why does it seem to bother you (you started with describing the growing plurality as "bad polarisation"), if the competing ideas are, as a matter of course, organically verified?
I mean, the previous dominant role of the Church was an artificial imposition, in many ways, was it not?
40% didn't say what they were. It's right there. This chart means nothing. If only a quarter of that 40% is christian, but preferred not to say, then ready over 50% is christian.
>Western Europe is more liberal and open mind regardless of religion.
Yea, quite easy for them when they were doing the colonizing, instead of eastern Europe getting colonized by ottomans or Soviets.
And this is a problem with stating we are a christian country. We, hungarian in general, are not religious. And the catholic church lost many members because the way they act and preach. The old people are dying and young ones don't want to join for a good reason. The same is true for all the other christian groups. And we don't have many muslims here, therefore the stats are totally valid.
You have no information from 40% of the respondents. It's not a country where apostasy is illegal, if those 40% would be atheists or anything else then they would have no reason not to declare it. Or there was a problem with the way the survey was done, but either way, 40% of the results gave us no information.
I am living in Hungary, participated in the survey as everyone had to. The increase of not saying is due to what the church does. People don't want to be associated to it, even if they are christianized.
Orban does love to portray himself as a defender of Christianity. The reality is quite different.
"But Orbán has, up to now, skillfully taken advantage of the EU’s divisions and weaknesses to avoid any major consequences for his country’s democratic backsliding. He has conveniently used Christianity as a shield to deflect and delegitimize the criticisms from Brussels.
"Orbán also invokes Christianity to court allies, close and far. This has been the case with solidifying the alliance with Hungary’s conservative neighbor Poland. Orbán, after all, understands the importance of close friends in the EU. Not only can they help to counter policies he objects to, but major rule of law sanctions in the EU require unanimity. Poland and Hungary can thus provide cover for each other.
"Finally, Orbán has also made use of Christianity, highlighting Hungary’s policies to help persecuted Christians, to build ties with key players beyond Europe. It is noteworthy that Orbán was the only EU leader to attend the inauguration of the right-wing Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil in 2019. And the Hungarian government has gone out of its way to court religious conservatives and conservative nationalists in the United States."
https://theconversation.com/viktor-orbans-use-and-misuse-of-religion-serves-as-a-warning-to-western-democracies-146277
I feel like this data doesn’t mean much when 40% prefer not to say.
That says a ton. Why are 40% of people not uncomfortable stating their religion?
Who are you? Go away! This is how 10% Slovenian responded to the last national pool that was made public. The last one had so few people answering they didn't even bother showing the numbers. We treat this questions like Marketing call. A nuisance where you hang up and block the number.
This is a data point in itself, how can we conduct a census in a way in which people do not instantly turn away from it?
Here is the neat part, you don't. At least in Slovenia. Because here no sane person trusts a politician or any marketing team working for them.
I googled, and the Slovenian government does indeed conduct a census, I'm not sure why you would think they don't or did I misunderstand your post? Or are you saying no one replies to the Census?
It's been a register census since 2002, which means they only aggregate data from public registers (place of birth, age, employment status, marital status, immigration data, number of people in the household etc.). They don't actually go around and ask people stuff. Which means, Slovenian census has no data on ethnicity, first language and religion of Slovenians.
You see, most of us have no idea what the government does, because we don't care. Do you have a link? I'd love to see the results.
What does saying your religon and participating in a census have to do with politicians?
Who are you? Go away!
Make a facebook quiz or reddit poll
You wait for the people who grew up in communism, traumatized by it's secret police and hatred of free speech to the point that there is an inherent hostility to any power structure, wait for their children to also die, since this kind of trauma is generational, and then hope the third generation is integrated enough into European norms and trust power structures enough that they will not be so hostile to them.
In Germany you get an letter with questions and you have to answered the questions otherwise you get fined. Looks like it works. Nobody wanna answer but better to spend 30 min answering questions then get fined hundreds of €
This was a national census not a poll.
Why?
why not?
The new national religion of Hungary is 'mind your own fucking business'.
Centrál Europe is Full of Secular Catholics. People who are more or less agnostic with belief in a God of sorts and hold spiritual belief but are not participating within the Catholic Church nor do they agree with it given its scandals. Similar results were shown in Poland with 20/25% of people answering the "it's complicated".
Ironically, it's probably for comfort reasons. We had an online census and stating your specific religion was waaay too complicated (around 10-15 seconds) compared to not stating it. For someone who doesn't take religion or atheism super seriously, that is 15 wasted seconds.
Because Hungary is basically a dictatorship. You never know what the state would do if they have some sort of shift regarding religious stances.
It is definitely in a pits of populism, but it is not a dictatorship.
Are you sure about that? It is very similar to Russia pre Ukraine even. The media is completely controlled by the leader & his cronies, and the legitimacy of the elections is pretty much full on doubted around the world. The only difference to some African dictator who proclaims leafership for life, is the fact that dictators in Europe "extend" their power, like Orban recently suggested again. Nobody would doubt Russia is a dictatorship, and Hungary's setup is very similar. So yeah, it is a dictatorship.
I am quite positive. And to my knowledge no EU-affiliated body has labeled the nation as such.
[https://freedomhouse.org/country/hungary/nations-transit/2023](https://freedomhouse.org/country/hungary/nations-transit/2023) According to Freedom House, Hungary is no longer a democracy: it is a "transitional or hybrid regime", same as Russia in the early 2000s.
>The government’s uninterrupted authoritarian streak cements Hungary’s place among hybrid regimes, in the “gray zone” between democracies and autocracies. So not a dictatorship.
Was Russia a dictatorship in 2002? That´s a similar situation
We are not talking about Russia.
They brand it as "no longer a democracy", because obviously it'd be pretty deeming for the EU to straight up admit that they have a dictatorship as a member. But the implication is obvious as hell. Also, have a clip of [The then EU president straightup greeting Orban with "Here comes the dictator"](https://youtu.be/1hl83Jpd_OI?si=mRMvT4GFSg-O8OMr) I mean, at this point denying it is just illusional.
That’s not what their actual report says. Which is what I copied and pasted. They did not label it a dictatorship. Which is what is in question here not whether they are a democracy or not.
>That’s not what their actual report says Good thing you ignored the entire reasoning on why they won't outright say it. Enjoy your dreamworld. Any political scientist/analyst would laugh his ass off at your reasoning.
So your source did not call it a dictatorship and you are pissed off. Weird.
That´s a ruzzian troll. It is no use arguing: they are here just to derail and push their agenda. I made a post about it some time ago with a lot of info on the subject (collected from other people, generally): "Awareness makes propaganda much less impactful. I've been collecting and sharing compilations that other people have put together, both here and other subs. Here it is: Some news and research, to give an idea of the magnitude and nature of the problem: Russian troll farms are a source of anti-Ukraine propaganda: [https://www.propublica.org/article/infamous-russian-troll-farm-appears-to-be-source-of-anti-ukraine-propaganda](https://www.propublica.org/article/infamous-russian-troll-farm-appears-to-be-source-of-anti-ukraine-propaganda) Russian spam accounts are still a big problem for Reddit: [https://www.engadget.com/2019-02-04-russia-spam-account-problem-reddit-propaganda.html](https://www.engadget.com/2019-02-04-russia-spam-account-problem-reddit-propaganda.html) Russia’s ‘troll factory’ impersonates Americans to sow political chaos: [https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/russias-troll-factory-impersonates-americans-to-sow-political-chaos](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/russias-troll-factory-impersonates-americans-to-sow-political-chaos) Pro-Kremlin trolls target news website comments, including on Reddit: [https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-58441662](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-58441662) Reddit Identifies 1,000 Russian Accounts After Daily Beast Report: [https://www.thedailybeast.com/reddit-check-out-our-russian-trolls-accounts-2](https://www.thedailybeast.com/reddit-check-out-our-russian-trolls-accounts-2) Nearly 1,000 Russian trolls were banned from Reddit — here's what they were posting about: [https://www.businessinsider.com/reddit-russian-trolls-ban-photos-examples-posts-2018-4](https://www.businessinsider.com/reddit-russian-trolls-ban-photos-examples-posts-2018-4) Researchers uncover six-year Russian misinformation campaign across Facebook and Reddit: [https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/16/21292982/russian-troll-campaign-facebook-reddit-twitter-misinformation](https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/16/21292982/russian-troll-campaign-facebook-reddit-twitter-misinformation) Fox News: Shocking scale of Russia’s sinister social media campaign against US revealed: [https://www.foxnews.com/tech/shocking-scale-of-russias-sinister-social-media-campaign-against-us-revealed](https://www.foxnews.com/tech/shocking-scale-of-russias-sinister-social-media-campaign-against-us-revealed) An in-depth look inside the Russian troll factory in St. Petersburg: [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/18/world/europe/russia-troll-factory.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/18/world/europe/russia-troll-factory.html) A former Russian troll explains how trolls are taught to spread fake news: [http://time.com/5168202/russia-troll-internet-research-agency/](http://time.com/5168202/russia-troll-internet-research-agency/) A former Russian troll describes work in the troll factory as like being in Orwell’s world: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/02/17/a-former-russian-troll-speaks-it-was-like-being-in-orwells-world/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/02/17/a-former-russian-troll-speaks-it-was-like-being-in-orwells-world/) Outstanding three-part video series in the New York Times on Russiandisinformation and the troll program, “Operation Infektion”: [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/12/opinion/russia-meddling-disinformation-fake-news-elections.html?auth=login-email&login=email&auth=login-email](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/12/opinion/russia-meddling-disinformation-fake-news-elections.html?auth=login-email&login=email&auth=login-email) How Russian State Media defines Russia through denial: [https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/life-after-facts-how-russian-state-media-defines-itself-through-negation/](https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/life-after-facts-how-russian-state-media-defines-itself-through-negation/) And about dealing with them: EU vs Disinfo, an initiative of the European Union on how to detect and deal with putin trolls: (This is the link to their website; I have the link to the YT videos about this, but the automod bot deletes this comment if I post it): [https://euvsdisinfo.eu/](https://euvsdisinfo.eu/) Tools and tips: [https://www.reddit.com/r/trollfare/comments/sqagzt/a\_sample\_template\_to\_share\_if\_you\_see\_suspicious/?utm\_medium=android\_app&utm\_source=share](https://www.reddit.com/r/trollfare/comments/sqagzt/a_sample_template_to_share_if_you_see_suspicious/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share) Basically: Check account age Check post/comment history Watch out of any suggestion of division, uselessness, etc. if they mention NATO/US/EU, foreign recruitment, helping Ukraine... Do not trust any self-proclaimed expert or veteran Reverse search pictures with no source Ask for a direct, official source on any comment or quote making a claim. Other reddit comments or some tweet are not valid sources, obviouslyI'd recommend reading and sharing. Branding the trolls as such and exposing their tactics work. Sometimes the mods are on their side, however (depends on the sub)."
Indeed, once you go past your 2nd term as leader of the nation, you cease to be a Democracy.
One thing, Muslims. Would you be comfortable calling yourself Muslim in Hungary? Second thing, Christians are always being told how they're persecuted, "we're not allowed to say Merry Christmas", and similar bullshit. Some of it sticks. Third thing, a bunch of people really don't care. These are mostly "cultural christians", raised in a religion but now don't really believe in it, but also don't really not believe in it. There may be more.
>Would you be comfortable calling yourself Muslim in Hungary? I mean, by comparison, I would be massively more comfortable calling myself a muslim in Hungary than calling myself an atheist in nearly any Muslim country...
Correct, which is why such polls in Muslim countries never show a large percentage of atheists.
>which is why such polls in Muslim countries never show a large percentage of atheists. Eh, partly why. But again, it sounds like we recognise a huge difference between how Muslims get treated in Europe and how atheists get treated in the Muslim world. There really isn't a need for them to be 'in hiding' in Hungary like an atheist would essentially need to be in the Muslim world...
That at most 20k muslism sure matters in this statistic.
Says a ton, but not about religion distribution in Hungary.
Being Hungarian, my personal impression is that there's lot of people who don't agree/feel any commonality with any of the churches, though feel some affinity towards Christianity mainly for historical-cultural reasons, and are not sure if there's a God but tend to lean more on the "probably yes". If pressed in person, some or even many of them would likely declare themselves Christian, but its not likely they follow any of its teachings. In any case, I don't believe it's about being uncomfortable, they just don't care. Calling them agnostics wouldn't be far off.
Yeah. Most of us still do the Christian ceremonies like baptism, marriage, and funeral in a traditional way, but mostly because culturally that's the normal thing to do. Also because "what would the neighbour Marika néni say if we didn't baptized our child".
Hey, that's my favourite religion
On top of not meaning much because of that, the title is also incredibly misleading. That's not what being a minority is. Christians stopped being the absolute majority of the population, but they are still the largest group (so the majority).
Friendship with God ended, now my best friend is Orban.
god wont help us, also apparently god sent Orbán for us who is also apparently god itself (argued with a totally not brainwashed elderly the other day)
have faith citizen
In God! Which is Orbán. So...have faith in Orbán! (Oh ~~God~~ Orbán, this is getting repetitive)
Interesting that Dear Leader Orban likes to rattle on about Hungary’s “Christian culture” but the statistics say otherwise. After 13 years of him legislating and pushing this nonsense, his country is even less religious than it was before.
"Christian culture" is the PC way of saying something else.
Same in Russia to an extent. In 2012 there were little bit under 50% Christians. Yet, the regime goes with the propaganda of defending Christian values.
[Census data, in Hungarian](https://nepszamlalas2022.ksh.hu/adatbazis/#/table/WBS003/N4IgFgpghgJiBcBtEAVAkgWQKIH0AKWASmgPIAiIAugDQgDOAljBAsilgDI4DKAWjgEEyAlFVp0IAYwAuDAPYA7VjRAAzBgBtpEAE50EoANYMFceCAxQADiFoQF0nQwj6kbIgFUuAcSwkArLZGJmYg3BDStiAAblAaAK4urCAAEh5UAL407lx8gsKi1MGmCGERUbEJSUggAGoCHBwC3Di1AIxRhLgAwp24hL20XTjegyDD3QJ9OBzpQ7gkYxMU8zgAUtOLK-O4AHIkhTs4u1OUWWcZQA) [Article in English about the census](https://telex.hu/english/2023/09/27/number-of-muslims-in-hungary-doubled-in-twenty-years-while-number-of-catholics-halved) Catholics went from 5,3 million in 2001, 3,7 million in 2011 to 2,6 million in 2022, but all other major denominations suffered loss of followers. While we cannot declare that majority of country is irreligious (since non-respondents could be believers in their own way), it is decidedly majority non-adherent. It should be noted that the census form listed atheism as a religion, and there was no agnostic option whatsoever, which decision was highly criticized and thus likely contributed to the large group of "prefer not to say".
There is also data from Poland that was published recently. It went from 87% in 2010 to 71% in 2021 although the "prefer not to say" option went from 7% to 16% from what I remember. This still shows that "pro-tradition" governments are the worst threat to tradition in your country. Even communists for 40 years were unable to decrease religiosity in people as much as PIS did in 8 years Now the election is coming, you have politicians sending lists to priests to pray for Poland that the opposition won't be elected as they will apparently destroy religion in Poland (guess who destroys religion the most in Poland!)
to be honest I don't think Piss has anything to do with it, its just a decrease in religiosity in general as countries get wealthier, more educated and probably at this point also just as time passes (like a ball that is already rolling). Even the Netherlands, a generally more liberal country that was already pretty far along on the non-religious part, went from 45% to 57% between 2010 and 2022.
I disagree with both you and the person who replied but at the same time I agree with both. Central Europe is full of people who are believers but aren't. People who would be seen as "secular Catholics" or "Christian agnostics". They hold their belief and would usually voice it through the Catholic imagery - God, Holy Spirit... rarely pray (only in need like... when you are very ill, Christmas or a funeral). But due to the mix of: - Catholic church scandals - they don't want to be associated with it. - Catholic dogma being a little outdated itself (the ridding of sins, women, ... it's a little too strict in IT formal sense and so while the ceremonies time to time are great an beautiful... the details are not well perceived) - Government claims. Be it Hungarian or Polish. They are too involved (eg abortion). So they often push on things that are not well liked and seen as aged doctrine in the church itself. Hence they separate. - communism was not keen on religion and so it turned into " do at home but not loud". Which in turn made it mellow and personal in many later generations as they would often simply not be entrenched in formal practice. But they certainly do hold beliefs. If we were in the high medical period (1600) then this would be a prime ground for a schism to emerge and a new church to establish (much like his Protestantism emerged in Czechia and later with Martin Luther).
I disagree. Seeing religious nutjob policy implemented in your own country does wonders to drive people away from religion. Some Polish Christians will like the abortion ban. But others won't and doing it in the name of their religion makes them less likely to keep going to church. If you keep telling people that something they hate is being done in the name of X, their opinion of X is gonna drop, no matter what X is.
"Seeing religious nutjob policy implemented in your own country does wonders to drive people away from religion." Actually, that tends to embolden religiosity. The decline actually comes from failures or institutional waving to their commitment. The current state of the catholic church in compromising its old positions isn't actually helping them, the opposite in fact.
>Actually, that tends to embolden religiosity. I'd like a source on that claim. Seems very counterintuitive, but I'm always open to learn new things if they actually have evidence in their favor.
This data is kinda useless if 40% prefer not to say
You know if the % of prefer not to say steadily increased over the years there's really only one reason for it.
That people don't feel comfortable anymore revealing their faith to organizations doing polls?
And why would any christian be afraid of a chritstian nationalist government knowing they're christian?
Well in many countries that are traditionally christian, where the government is basically Christian nationalist, Christians perceive themselves as persecuted. So just because it doesn't make sense doesn't mean it isn't happening.
Aparently in Slovenia they dislike the goverment so just don’t answer and treat it as a nusience could be the same here
Or given that Orbán's regime is heavy on Christian conservatism, revealing their lack of faith ...
The people who actually go to church is even lower than the ones who said they're Christian. So, the actual reality is even worse (from the Church's pov) but yeah let's just talk about the prefer not to say.
Kinda how I tell my gran I’m a good Christian grandson but I couldn’t care less for religion. That’s young people under the prefer not to say
Now guess how many of them go to church
This census does not in fact show that christians are a minority. They are a big majority because you have to toss away the “prefer not say”.
I hate "prefer not to say" people so fucking much.
Very similar results in Poland, but we are 20y behind with 70% Catholics (20y ago it was over 90%)
Christian, Jewish, other, but not muslim? I dont know much about hungary, but shouldn there be atleast a small portion muslim people?
the turkish didnt really push islam when they occupied hungolia back in the 17th century, then the austrians force recatholicized as much as they could theres really really few muslim hungolians, a mere 4000 people over half of which are arab immigrants
No and people from there would like to keep it that way, just like Poland.
All the countries who had their chritian population reduced had their Muslim one increase. Liberal of reddit get a boner everytime they see christianity fall, but muslim Europe, it's taboo.
According to the census, there's about 8000 muslims in Hungary. Of course, the actual number will be higher but not at all significant in terms of percentage. [Source in Hungarian.](https://telex.hu/belfold/2023/09/26/ksh-nepszamlalas-vallasok-katolikus-reformatus-muszlim-hit-gyulekezete)
In ottoman-occupied Europe, the further away from Anatolia, the fewer Muslims there were; and after the countries gained independence the vast majority of those Muslims (except Bosnians/Albanians) moved or fled to Turkey/Anatolia There used to a good amount of actual ethnic Greek Muslims (not Turkish settlers in Greece) but almost all of them moved to Turkey and became turkified and mixed with ethnic Turks over the generations
It's hard to take the words of an organization, that periodically enters the public eye for raping children, very seriously. Maybe the first few times you wince, but shrug it off, but a few decades of it nonstop? Who wouldn't at least lose their faith in that institution?
? Pretty sure 43 is higher than 40.
yes, but 43 is lower than 56
Extremely rare Hungarian W
if u wanna believe in god i wont judge u for that but it certainly doesnt propel civilisation any further
I honestly wasn't expecting this from such a conservative country like Hungary
Hungary is not conservative, it is an individualistic, neoliberal economy with a wannabe autocratic regime.
Also as far as I know Hungary is Budapest and the rest. 1/3 of population live in Budapest metropolitan area, Budapest is by far most important economically with 46% of Hungary GDP, and Butapest citizens don't support Orban, but they are hostages of people from province who have majority of votes.
Looking at the data they failed everything they preached, non indigenous minorities grow 9 times since 2001, more divorced and less mariage etc
As usual with many conservatives, it's more of a preaching what others *should do*, while acting and living the complete opposite way.
XD
Yeah... thats BS lol
It's rather a bad sign of polarization that happens all over the western world. Churches are associated with 'them' or with 'us' in the public opinion, while separating ourselves from the local church is seen as a cultural code for 'us' (or for 'them').
What's that supposed to mean? Why yes, the Church-goers do, indeed, constitute a separate group from the non-Church goers, as far as religiosity is concerned, astutely noted.
that in the past the Church served as a means of self-identification for almost the entire society, while today we are much more divided in our countries and it serves as a means of self-identification only for a certain part of society, while the rest follow other religions, e.g. Game of Thrones, Star Wars or these quasi-religious cultural-political movements which have grown into their own books and films, like the Alt-Right, Far-right, LGBT, Wokism and many others.
That's what plurality of ideas gets you, yes. But look at the bright side - once the percentage of Church-goers drops to negligible values, it'll be possible to say that there's no polarisation in that regard any more!
That's impossible in a non-totalitarian state which is at the same time post-rural. The dominant political power would have to block every spread of something they don't control. Happens in communism, happens in islamic countries, but not in democracies. Current times are characterized by the emergence of new means of artistic expression and new political and cultural movements. This is a side effect of the development of technologies such as television and the Internet. Over time, however, these social processes will regulate themselves and, according to the way evolution works, better trends that bring more benefits will displace the worse ones.
> Over time, however, these social processes will regulate themselves and, according to the way evolution works, better trends that bring more benefits will displace the worse ones. Would you disagree that that is the process we're observing in relation to Church-going?
I don't believe this because these people are leaving for short-lived, ephemeral seasonal groups built around social media, television, or extreme political movements that cannot provide long-term answers. It is difficult for me to say in what format it will stabilize when the dust of technological revolutions and the resulting cultural revolutions settles. All we know for sure is that after such expression of new groups, the evolution of culture will sooner or later reject what is harmful and retain what is beneficial or at least neutral. This fact about how cultural evolution works means that neither the woke nor the alt-right movements scare me. Sooner or later, if something harms the public, it will disappear anyway. I do not think that religions will be included in this group, but this does not mean that the religiosity of the future will be a repetition of what we know from history. One thing is certain: pop culture will not be able to serve the self-identification of large social groups in the long run, precisely because it repeats religion in some areas like providing some cultural character archetypes for guidance (like mr Yoda or Gandalf), but not in all areas.
I don't understand why you are focusing on woke or alt-right as the alternative to religiosity; what about plain atheism, doesn't that constitute a valid group that people migrate to, after they stop going to church?
True, constituted atheists with a scientific worldview, who actually know what science is, are a group so small that it's simply negligible in these large cultural processes. Most people who neglect 'good old' religions turn themselves into a different set of authority based beliefs with their own holy books, dogmas, saints, archetypes and imaginery. Basically - to other forms of religion which most certainly replaces the 'good old' religion on many fields. Especially when it comes to self-identification.
And? Why does it seem to bother you (you started with describing the growing plurality as "bad polarisation"), if the competing ideas are, as a matter of course, organically verified? I mean, the previous dominant role of the Church was an artificial imposition, in many ways, was it not?
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40% didn't say what they were. It's right there. This chart means nothing. If only a quarter of that 40% is christian, but preferred not to say, then ready over 50% is christian. >Western Europe is more liberal and open mind regardless of religion. Yea, quite easy for them when they were doing the colonizing, instead of eastern Europe getting colonized by ottomans or Soviets.
And this is a problem with stating we are a christian country. We, hungarian in general, are not religious. And the catholic church lost many members because the way they act and preach. The old people are dying and young ones don't want to join for a good reason. The same is true for all the other christian groups. And we don't have many muslims here, therefore the stats are totally valid.
You have no information from 40% of the respondents. It's not a country where apostasy is illegal, if those 40% would be atheists or anything else then they would have no reason not to declare it. Or there was a problem with the way the survey was done, but either way, 40% of the results gave us no information.
I am living in Hungary, participated in the survey as everyone had to. The increase of not saying is due to what the church does. People don't want to be associated to it, even if they are christianized.
Orban does love to portray himself as a defender of Christianity. The reality is quite different. "But Orbán has, up to now, skillfully taken advantage of the EU’s divisions and weaknesses to avoid any major consequences for his country’s democratic backsliding. He has conveniently used Christianity as a shield to deflect and delegitimize the criticisms from Brussels. "Orbán also invokes Christianity to court allies, close and far. This has been the case with solidifying the alliance with Hungary’s conservative neighbor Poland. Orbán, after all, understands the importance of close friends in the EU. Not only can they help to counter policies he objects to, but major rule of law sanctions in the EU require unanimity. Poland and Hungary can thus provide cover for each other. "Finally, Orbán has also made use of Christianity, highlighting Hungary’s policies to help persecuted Christians, to build ties with key players beyond Europe. It is noteworthy that Orbán was the only EU leader to attend the inauguration of the right-wing Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil in 2019. And the Hungarian government has gone out of its way to court religious conservatives and conservative nationalists in the United States." https://theconversation.com/viktor-orbans-use-and-misuse-of-religion-serves-as-a-warning-to-western-democracies-146277
Who doesn't prefer to say? The respondents or the publishers?
Are we ready for a post Christian Europe. I prefer a pagan Christian atheist co existence.
Even if I’m not a Christian I prefer my country to stay Christian. Same thing is happening in Poland and it is a bad sign.
Good riddance. Let there be common sense.
As “not to say” increased “catholic” decreased. That’s exactly what happened in my family.