The reason you see such a discrepancy between Hindu and Christian areas of the country is that the Christian parts benefitted quite a lot under British rule, free land grants, government protections, higher spending, less taxes etc. and the Indian governments since independence have protected their higher status as a religious minority community. A lot of them also get tons of donations from richer countries. Hindu temples are currently government owned entities and all their revenue is handled by the local government bodies and obviously gets mishandled because there is no sense of religious duty there. For churches, mosques and madrasas, their revenue is private and they only spend it on their own community. This isn’t necessarily a difference in attitude or outcomes due to the two religious communities, it is mostly just the screwed up politics and governance of it all. There are too many confounding examples of extremely wealthy, well maintained and well governed Hindu societies throughout history that break the pattern you see today.
I don't think it's that different countries are drawn to different religions, rather religion shapes the national character over time.
The Netherlands is an excellent case study of this because although Calvinism generally dominated culturally, there was always an significant Catholic contingent as well. At least until the late 20th century when almost everyone stopped being religious. To this day that majorly affects culture. There is this anecdote of the formation the Christian Democratic Appeal out of a merger of two Protestant and one Catholic party. The new party leadership went to all local chapters of the previous parties and there was a great contrast between faiths. All the Catholic chapters were drinking it up and having fun throughout the meetings, whole the Protestant one were very demure and spend a lot more time on prayer and scripture reading.
You can also see the contrast in paintings by Vermeer (Catholic) and Rembrandt (Protestant). Vermeer paintings are positively drained in light. His subjects are all Madonnas drained in yellow and cyan. Perfection of everyday life. It's almost Italian. Rembrandt in the other hand has his subject shrouded in shadows. And he paints old decaying women. He is much more concerned with the fallen nature of world
The contrast is even more apparent in the far south of the country, where virtuelly everyone used to be Catholic. All traditionally Catholic towns in the country celebrate carnaval, but it is well known that carnaval north of "the rivers" is a weak imitation of the southern stuff. Calvinist houses also have huge windows that are usually half the width of the entire house and often have no curtains. If you stand in front of such a house you can see through the kitchen, into the living room, at the TV program that is playing. In Calvinist Holland there is nothing to hide, and nothing to fear. Wim Sonneveld complained a out it as an innovation in his "het Dorp". But he is from Brabant and was merely seeing an exportation of Hollandia building norms to the Catholic south. Belgium is even more like Catholic than Noord-Brabant is.
don't know the exact cause of the differences in cultural restraint. Perhaps it's a consequence of the Priesthoof of all believers. Catholics can sort of offload the responsibility for spiritual guidance to the Pastor, where in Protestantism you're on your own.
I hadn't listened to the podcast yet, I might try to because it sounds interesting, but your comment on the Netherlands is interesting on its own. Though I've been told there is a small Reformed Bible belt in the Netherlands (I'm not sure precisely how small) with relatively high fertility and active religious practice.
>I don't think it's that different countries are drawn to different religions, rather religion shapes the national character over time.
There's surely some of each. The existence of a large, literate middle-class had a lot to do with acceptance of Protestantism, and I think the question of whether your country had such a class in the 1500s is still reflected in the "national character" of Protestant vs. Catholic countries today.
>don't know the exact cause of the differences in cultural restraint.
For my two cents, every Christian tradition varies in terms of how prone it is to legalism vs. license (i.e., antinomianism). I'm Reformed, but I'll acknowledge that the Reformed tradition, especially as traditionally practiced, is probably more prone to legalism, and a lot of that legalism overlaps with what we would consider "clean living." I don't know that this tendency is nearly as strong among Lutherans though, for example. Is there a Lutheran tradition of not doing anything fun on the Sabbath?
Catholicism leans somewhat more towards the antinomian side. Especially when we acknowledge that a lot of its ideas of "works" -- e.g., participating in the sacraments, being sure to take the eucharist weekly -- aren't really related to "clean living." Besides the point about drinking (which is a widespread difference between Catholics and Protestants in the US too), I've noticed that even rather pious Catholics tend to be much more open to swearing and vulgar language, in my view not really taking Paul's admonitions about these things too seriously, though I'm sure Catholics would have a different view about why these words don't apply and we're being self-righteous fuddy-duddies for refusing to swear.
> I've been told there is a small Reformed Bible belt in the Netherlands (I'm not sure precisely how small) with relatively high fertility and active religious practice.
This is true. You can see the extend of the bible belt from the map in the wiki page below, although even that map makes the belt seem thicker than it is. The lighter shades of purple suggest that a municipality may have one village out of several that is very conservative.
The Dutch bible belt is thin but long. Conservative Christians tend to vote either SGP or ChristenUnie. Each of these parties has 3 seats out of 150 total in the proportionally elected lower house (although ChristenUnie usuallly gets 5). That should tell you the demographic significance of this group. Urk is the most notorious bible belt town and has (per Wikipedia) a TFR of 2.6 in 2016, down from 3.9 in 1988. The Bible Belt mostly exists because the Habsburgs banned Protestantism in the land they controlled, causing many southern protestants (particularly the most committed ones) to settle in the North.
> There's surely some of each. The existence of a large, literate middle-class had a lot to do with acceptance of Protestantism, and I think the question of whether your country had such a class in the 1500s is still reflected in the "national character" of Protestant vs. Catholic countries today.
Flanders had such a class, but because it was closer to the Habsburg's seat of power in Brussels they were more successful at stamping out the reformation there. And while most Calvinist reformations (Netherlands, Schotland, Switzerland ) where decentralized and bottom up, most Lutheran reformations as well as Anglicanism where top-down instituted by the Prince/Monarch of the region. (Certainly Iceland didn't have a more developed middle class than Venice).
Also, Friesland was quite rural and undeveloped, but it was in Friesland where Anabaptism converted 1/4th of the population before Calvinism had taken off anywhere else.
The reason you see such a discrepancy between Hindu and Christian areas of the country is that the Christian parts benefitted quite a lot under British rule, free land grants, government protections, higher spending, less taxes etc. and the Indian governments since independence have protected their higher status as a religious minority community. A lot of them also get tons of donations from richer countries. Hindu temples are currently government owned entities and all their revenue is handled by the local government bodies and obviously gets mishandled because there is no sense of religious duty there. For churches, mosques and madrasas, their revenue is private and they only spend it on their own community. This isn’t necessarily a difference in attitude or outcomes due to the two religious communities, it is mostly just the screwed up politics and governance of it all. There are too many confounding examples of extremely wealthy, well maintained and well governed Hindu societies throughout history that break the pattern you see today.
For the Protestants vs Catholics thing:
I don't think it's that different countries are drawn to different religions, rather religion shapes the national character over time.
The Netherlands is an excellent case study of this because although Calvinism generally dominated culturally, there was always an significant Catholic contingent as well. At least until the late 20th century when almost everyone stopped being religious. To this day that majorly affects culture. There is this anecdote of the formation the Christian Democratic Appeal out of a merger of two Protestant and one Catholic party. The new party leadership went to all local chapters of the previous parties and there was a great contrast between faiths. All the Catholic chapters were drinking it up and having fun throughout the meetings, whole the Protestant one were very demure and spend a lot more time on prayer and scripture reading.
You can also see the contrast in paintings by Vermeer (Catholic) and Rembrandt (Protestant). Vermeer paintings are positively drained in light. His subjects are all Madonnas drained in yellow and cyan. Perfection of everyday life. It's almost Italian. Rembrandt in the other hand has his subject shrouded in shadows. And he paints old decaying women. He is much more concerned with the fallen nature of world
The contrast is even more apparent in the far south of the country, where virtuelly everyone used to be Catholic. All traditionally Catholic towns in the country celebrate carnaval, but it is well known that carnaval north of "the rivers" is a weak imitation of the southern stuff. Calvinist houses also have huge windows that are usually half the width of the entire house and often have no curtains. If you stand in front of such a house you can see through the kitchen, into the living room, at the TV program that is playing. In Calvinist Holland there is nothing to hide, and nothing to fear. Wim Sonneveld complained a out it as an innovation in his "het Dorp". But he is from Brabant and was merely seeing an exportation of Hollandia building norms to the Catholic south. Belgium is even more like Catholic than Noord-Brabant is.
don't know the exact cause of the differences in cultural restraint. Perhaps it's a consequence of the Priesthoof of all believers. Catholics can sort of offload the responsibility for spiritual guidance to the Pastor, where in Protestantism you're on your own.
I hadn't listened to the podcast yet, I might try to because it sounds interesting, but your comment on the Netherlands is interesting on its own. Though I've been told there is a small Reformed Bible belt in the Netherlands (I'm not sure precisely how small) with relatively high fertility and active religious practice.
>I don't think it's that different countries are drawn to different religions, rather religion shapes the national character over time.
There's surely some of each. The existence of a large, literate middle-class had a lot to do with acceptance of Protestantism, and I think the question of whether your country had such a class in the 1500s is still reflected in the "national character" of Protestant vs. Catholic countries today.
>don't know the exact cause of the differences in cultural restraint.
For my two cents, every Christian tradition varies in terms of how prone it is to legalism vs. license (i.e., antinomianism). I'm Reformed, but I'll acknowledge that the Reformed tradition, especially as traditionally practiced, is probably more prone to legalism, and a lot of that legalism overlaps with what we would consider "clean living." I don't know that this tendency is nearly as strong among Lutherans though, for example. Is there a Lutheran tradition of not doing anything fun on the Sabbath?
Catholicism leans somewhat more towards the antinomian side. Especially when we acknowledge that a lot of its ideas of "works" -- e.g., participating in the sacraments, being sure to take the eucharist weekly -- aren't really related to "clean living." Besides the point about drinking (which is a widespread difference between Catholics and Protestants in the US too), I've noticed that even rather pious Catholics tend to be much more open to swearing and vulgar language, in my view not really taking Paul's admonitions about these things too seriously, though I'm sure Catholics would have a different view about why these words don't apply and we're being self-righteous fuddy-duddies for refusing to swear.
> I've been told there is a small Reformed Bible belt in the Netherlands (I'm not sure precisely how small) with relatively high fertility and active religious practice.
This is true. You can see the extend of the bible belt from the map in the wiki page below, although even that map makes the belt seem thicker than it is. The lighter shades of purple suggest that a municipality may have one village out of several that is very conservative.
The Dutch bible belt is thin but long. Conservative Christians tend to vote either SGP or ChristenUnie. Each of these parties has 3 seats out of 150 total in the proportionally elected lower house (although ChristenUnie usuallly gets 5). That should tell you the demographic significance of this group. Urk is the most notorious bible belt town and has (per Wikipedia) a TFR of 2.6 in 2016, down from 3.9 in 1988. The Bible Belt mostly exists because the Habsburgs banned Protestantism in the land they controlled, causing many southern protestants (particularly the most committed ones) to settle in the North.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_Belt_(Netherlands)
> There's surely some of each. The existence of a large, literate middle-class had a lot to do with acceptance of Protestantism, and I think the question of whether your country had such a class in the 1500s is still reflected in the "national character" of Protestant vs. Catholic countries today.
Flanders had such a class, but because it was closer to the Habsburg's seat of power in Brussels they were more successful at stamping out the reformation there. And while most Calvinist reformations (Netherlands, Schotland, Switzerland ) where decentralized and bottom up, most Lutheran reformations as well as Anglicanism where top-down instituted by the Prince/Monarch of the region. (Certainly Iceland didn't have a more developed middle class than Venice).
Also, Friesland was quite rural and undeveloped, but it was in Friesland where Anabaptism converted 1/4th of the population before Calvinism had taken off anywhere else.