Imagine No Religion: 50 Voices of Disbelief

Edgar Dahl
Nov 9, 2009
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/dahl20091109/

Ever since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, West Germans as well as East Germans are regularly polled on their stance toward religion. When asked whether they believe in God, most East Germans simply respond by saying: “Nope, I’m perfectly normal.”

This reply must come as a shock to most Americans. After all, it implies that there is something “abnormal” about a belief in God. As if they had been brought up reading Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion, East Germans do indeed consider religious folks to be odd, bizarre, or even insane.

Being born in East Germany myself, I can easily relate to this attitude. In contrast to what a lot of Americans seem to think, we have never been raised to be hostile toward religion. Actually, it was much worse: we have grown up to be totally and utterly indifferent toward religion. . . .

Terrific article - especially the part describing his childhood and youthful exposure to the world of religion.

It’s quite clear that communist totalitarianism had spiritually crushed the poor writer from birth, reducing him to the status of a mindless, soulless automaton. I’m sure it will take those former GDR citizens and their offspring generations to recover from such a devastaing spiritual catastrophe.

More intensive ‘free market’ therapy is desperately needed there. Nothing helps you reach out to an invisible man in the sky like losing your job, health insurance, pension etc.