Re: Greek Sociology


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Posted by Andreas on April 02, 2002 at 15:53:30:

In Reply to: Re: Greek Sociology posted by Tiffany Winkelman on December 09, 2001 at 11:40:20:

> We also spoke of the fact that 98% of the
> citizens of Greece are of the same religion

This figure doesn't tell a lot (if it is indeed correct). At best it says that 98% of the (officially registered) population are signed up as members of the Greek orthodox church. But I very much doubt that this is actually the case, after all Greece has more than 2% immigrants. Try to double- and triple-check these numbers with different public and private sources

Even if you take 98% as a basis, it reveals little, about what percentage of the population are actually believers or at least accept church authorities (even if more because of familiar pressures). I would estimate that in the urban centres of Saloniki and Athens you'd have maybe something like 60% orthodox church followers at most, for a multifold of reasons: More recent immigrants, loose family ties, more social wellfare being provided by the state (making the church less important), etc. As a sociologist you will be well aware of these reasons.

My wild guess by the way is that there's not necessarily a correlation between religous belonging and the abortion rates. In Holland, about half of the population declared themselves as atheists in a census, yet to my knowledge the abortion rate is not unusually high. Poverty rates probably correlate much more with abortion numbers, at least in those countries where abortion is legal.

Cheers
Andreas


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