I have more than 2,000 friends on Facebook, including a couple dozen who are dead. This is somewhat strange, and perhaps an indicator of the brave new world we now inhabit. Their pages will serve as de facto memorials ... until the electricity runs out.
But perhaps oddly, it strikes me as even more strange the number of Fb friends whose prayer requests and professions of religious faith can be glimpsed daily on my feed. This isn't offensive to me, and I'm not denouncing it. Apart from those times when I must chase proselytizers from my porch, I generally look upon belief with indifference. I'm a non-believer, and it simply has nothing to do with me.
If this makes me an eastern German, I can live with that. Or, better yet, maybe live there.
Eastern Germany: the most godless place on Earth, by Peter Thompson (Guardian)
East German atheism can be seen as a form of continuing political and regional identification – and a taste of the future ...
... They are sending missionaries to eastern Germany. A recent study called Beliefs About God Across Time and Countries found that 52.1% of people asked whether they believed in God identified themselves as atheists. This compared with only 10.3% in western Germany. Indeed, the survey was unable to find a single person under the age of 28 in eastern Germany who believed in God. Obviously there are some – I think I may have even met some once – but the survey was unable to find them. On the face of it this is an extraordinary finding and it is something that needs some careful explanation.
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