This week’s guest is Christian Lomsdalen. Christian is the current president of the Norwegian Humanist Association and a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Bergen studying the didactics (science) of religion.

Christian grew up in an ordinary Christian Norwegian family as “Christmas Christians”. He went to church for Christmas and other holidays, and that was about it. 

“I identified as a Christian…a quiet liberal Christian, probably. I guess a lot of the evangelicals in the United States probably wouldn’t have recognized me as a Christian.”

Around eighteen, Christian realized he didn’t believe in God, though he read the Bible and liked the stories. Since then, however, he has lived a humanist life. 

Christian shares many of the differences between Norway and the US, tackling religion and politics. The Norwegian Humanist Association is doing great work, and it’s a good model for other countries moving forward.

Links

Norwegian Humanist Association
https://www.human.no/

Quotes

“I read the Bible—tried to read it—and it was one of the things I read when I was bored…I had the encyclopedia, and I had the Bible, and I read them both.” 

“I identified as a Christian…a quiet liberal Christian, probably. I guess a lot of the evangelicals in the United States probably wouldn’t have recognized me as a Christian.”

“I really liked the stories; I still have favorite Bible stories…but I realized that I did not believe in the concept of God…”

“I think [deconstruction] is a nice word. I think it describes the process that I was going through…It was a slow deconstruction.” 

“My experience is that religion is not something that the state should do. It’s not a task for the state, and to give preferential treatment to one religion is principally wrong.” 

“…rituals and ceremonies are one of the glues of society; all humans do all kinds of small rituals…”

“All human traditions exist and are created in a context and evolve in a context, and that means when a secular thought system appears and evolves in a Christian context, it will have Christian values and Christian thought systems that are part of it…”

“One generation goes a lot to church and the next generation goes on some important dates during the year and the next generation [goes] even less…”

“Young families are not even ‘Christmas Christians.’ They are rather secular and that is quite a shift in thirty or forty years…

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Attribution

“Waves” track written and produced by Makaih Beats

David Ames  0:11  
This is the graceful atheist podcast United studios podcast. Welcome, welcome. Welcome to the graceful atheist podcast. My name is David, and I'm trying to be the graceful atheist. Thank you to all my Patrons for supporting the podcast. If you too would like an ad free experience of the podcast support the podcast at any level on patreon.com/graceful atheist. If you are in the middle of doubts, deconstruction, the dark night of the soul, you do not have to do it alone. Join our private Facebook group deconversion anonymous and become a part of the community. You can find us at facebook.com/groups/deconversion. Special thanks to Mike T for editing today's show. On today's show, my guest today is Christian Lomsdalen. Christian is the president of the Norwegian Humanist Association. It's one of the largest humanist associations in the world. You can find that at human dot and oh, he's also a PhD candidate for the University of Bergen. He studies the didactics or science of religion. And he's very, very focused on human rights. And what you're about to hear very interestingly, the rights of religious people within Norwegian and worldwide society. Here is Christian Lomsdalen to tell his story. Christian loves Dalton, welcome to the wrestle atheist podcast.

Christian Lomsdalen  1:49  
Thank you, David, thank you so much for having me on.

David Ames  1:52  
I appreciate you reaching out to me, I'm going to do just some highlights of your CV, but if you could fill in the details, you're the president of the Norwegian Humanist Association. You're a PhD candidate, I understand you're also a high school teacher. But tell us just briefly about yourself what you do. And we'll get into the details later.

Christian Lomsdalen  2:10  
Well, thank you, David. For my well paid the part of my life I work as a PhD candidate for the University of Bergen, which is the second largest university in Norway. Here I studied didactics of religion or science of religion, it could be used both terms for Yeah. And I do a PhD on the right to be exempted on religious, philosophical or lifestance grounds from activities that are part of the school day. So that is what I do for my professional life.

David Ames  2:47  
We need to publicize that here in the States as you can imagine, yes. Okay.

Christian Lomsdalen  2:52  
I'm trying now to write an article in English about how this right works in the Scandinavian countries. So I'm looking forward to completing data and having something to publish publish in English as well.

David Ames  3:05  
Okay. Yeah, we will be looking forward to that.

Christian Lomsdalen  3:09  
And, as you said, I'm the president of the Norwegian Humanist Association. We are the largest Humanist Association in the world, with now 135,000 members. Amazing. So that is the largest per capita and in real numbers, so okay. That is, it's something that I take a little pride in, it's

it's good to be able to be from what is rather a small country, but be a large organization in this aspect and to contribute to other people, other countries, groups, humanist groups. That is,

David Ames  3:52  
I think that's absolutely amazing. And Norway is leading the way here. So yeah, I think that's fantastic. Christian, we, you know, on the podcast here, we generally tell kind of our personal stories. So before we jump into the all the work that you do, I'd really like to hear, what was it like for you growing up? Did you have a religious tradition at all? And what was that?

Christian Lomsdalen  4:14  
I grew up in what is the kind of normal way to grow up in Norway? Or at least it was with my generation, it has been a shift for a new generation. So I will be talking maybe more about that later on. But for me, I grew up in what we call Christmas, Christian family. Yeah, our family that goes to church on in Christmas and does not do very much religion outside of that, but at the same time, I felt that that was how my religion growing up was and this is Lutheran Church, of course, for those who need to know my placement in the church map but Uh, we pray the evening prayers every day we celebrated most of the Christian holidays and so on. So to say that we were just Christmas Christians is probably a lie. But it's it's how I perceived it at a time. But when reflecting on this, I noticed that we did actually participate a lot in different Christians aspects. When I grew up, so I took, for example, the confirmation. I don't I'm not sure if that is a big tradition in the United States.

David Ames  5:37  
It is more so in the Catholic Church and some of the more liturgical churches, there might be more confirmation experience. It's less so in the evangelical world, but I think people understand the concept.

Christian Lomsdalen  5:51  
I liked the term liturgical church. Yes, yes. I'll turn my lights. Yes, yeah. Because the Norwegian state church, or former state church, we can discuss whether which one is true, okay. But in the Norwegian state church, it's quite liturgical. And the main church political party in the Norwegian state church is very liturgical. So that is good.

So, here, we have confirmations and most of the teenagers do this. So when I participated in my confirmations, I was living in Spain, but going to the Norwegian church in Spain.

David Ames  6:41  
Oh, interesting. Okay.

Christian Lomsdalen  6:43  
And well, I participated, I was identified as a Christian during this time, and being one of the more active Christians that took this confirmation, a lot of my co conference, they did not care a lot about the religious part of this, but I read the Bible tried to read it. And I, it was one of the things that I read when I was boards. I read the Bible. Interesting, okay, I had the encyclopedia, and I had the Bible, and I read them both like, through and through a couple of times, just because I was bored. Interesting. Okay. So I identified as a Christian at this time, and that was how I view the world quite liberal Christian, probably, I guess a lot of the invading evangelicals in the United States probably wouldn't recognize me as a Christian.

David Ames  7:35  
Yeah. They'd be sending you to hell, Christians.

Christian Lomsdalen  7:40  
Probably, yeah. Some of the Norwegian wellness as well.

David Ames  7:43  
Okay. But you took it relatively seriously by, you know, again, even the statement that, you know, you read through the Bible, you took that seriously, and maybe your other conference had not, that would also be very true in the United States that lots of people who sit in pews every week, I've never actually read the Bible. So it was internally, something you took on seriously? Or was it more following the the traditions?

Christian Lomsdalen  8:13  
On this part, I guess I was more active than a lot of my family. So I guess it was internalized anyways. And I think it's unfortunate that more people that grew up in a Christian background does not read the Bible, and because it's quite an interesting book to read. Yeah.

David Ames  8:33  
Absolutely.

Christian Lomsdalen  8:35  
And during the time reading it and reflecting on the some of the topics, but I realized after I called after a time that I really liked the stories, I still have favorite Bible stories, and I like a lot of the message in some ways. Still, but I realized that I did not believe in the concept of God, as portrayed. I didn't believe in the entity of this God, existence. And then I realized that I had a quite academic point of view on how to view this religion and realize that I'm not here. I'm an agnostic or atheist. Okay.

David Ames  9:20  
Um, roughly how old were you when you kind of made that recognition?

Christian Lomsdalen  9:24  
I guess I was 17. I wanted to leave the Norwegian state church when I was 15. Already, but that was a political statement, because I didn't believe in churches to be belonging to the state. Okay, so I was opposed to this. Belonging but still identifying as a Christian and then realizing that I'm not a Christian when I was 17 or 18. It was a fluid transition. Or deconstruction.

David Ames  9:56  
Yes. Yeah. The hot word is deconstruction. Sure.

Christian Lomsdalen  10:00  
I guess it's a nice word because it, I think it reflects upon the process that I was going through at the time. Slowly and gradually, but it was. Yeah. Some of your other interviews that you had this with quite rapid deconstructions sometimes, yes. This was a slow deconstruction.

David Ames  10:20  
Yeah, I like to say that we tend to identify the first thing. And the last thing, you know, what started it and what ended it, but there's 1000 points in between. And I definitely have lots of people who will say that it was decades of that process. So you're not alone in that, that for some people. It's a very slow, slow process.

So you've hinted out a few times the the relationship between the church and state in in Norway, do you want to talk a little bit more about that whether or not it is considered the state church?

Christian Lomsdalen  11:03  
Yeah, so I actually really wanted because that is interesting for me. Okay. Yeah. And the Norwegian church has been a part of the Norwegian government on order Norwegian state for almost 500 years since the year 50. And 39. or there abouts. Okay. Yeah. So they claim a very long history as being a part of the Norwegian government. And so it has been established as the state church very firmly. And the confirmation that I was talking about earlier, was a bylaw, obligatory ceremony to participate in for all youth. And it was an exam that you had to pass to become a grown up. Interesting, okay. And if you didn't pass this test, you could actually go to jail. And you were not allowed to marry or become part of the military. And a lot of so it was very tightly joined together. And the Norwegian church did was not its own legal person until quite recently, only five, six years ago.

David Ames  12:16  
Okay. Wow, that is very, that's really recent. Okay.

Christian Lomsdalen  12:19  
Yeah. So and the government was the one that hired new bishops and decided who should be the bishops and it was very tightly joined together. But we had a reform about 15 years ago, which, in in Italy, it was decided that it should be more separation between state and church, okay. And in this process, in this reform, the Norwegian government decided that this church should do the hiring themselves. I think that is a basic human rights for religious organization to decide upon their own leaders. And it was decided that it should be its own legal entity, and that it should be more disconnected from the Norwegian state. But at the same time, they have kept its own provisions in the Constitution in the Norwegian constitution. And the Norwegian constitution works differently than the American one, we actually change the text of the original Constitution with us, we does not just add amendments to it. So we change the text. Okay. But we still have this provisions in the Constitution that gives certain rights to the region's church or the church of Norway, as it's called. That is not the same for the other church churches or lifestance communities and so on and so forth. But it does say that all the rest of us also should get support financially in the same manner as the Norwegian state church. So we are also for some part included in this. Okay. But they say the politicians claim that they have separated church and states and at the same time they have their own, the Norwegian church has its own provisions in law in the Constitution that for my party says that this is a state church really still but a more disconnected state church.

David Ames  14:33  
I see. Okay. My immediate question is, Are most of the Norwegian politicians a part of the Norwegian church? Or are they open about that? Is that a thing that that they, you know, they represent or,

Christian Lomsdalen  14:47  
as you mean, compared to the American party? Yes. Where nine out of 10 is a member of a church or a believer? Yeah. No, we do. not actually know a lot of this, but because it's they do not have to report it and the Polit, the newspaper doesn't ask the politicians, are you a Christian or no. So it's not something that is considered important, and it's considered quite private. But we see that a lot of members of parliament are also members of church boards and so on. So we know that, at least some of them are there some there's some crossover, yeah, some crossover. But it's mostly tradition, we have a couple of political parties, which values the state church quite highly. And for some of them, it's because we want to control this Norwegian state church, and we want to make it progressive or something. Okay, for others, it's to defend tradition, and some use more Christian rhetoric about why they want to have this church that is the biggest one, give it its own provisions in law and so on.

David Ames  16:08  
So it sounds to me like both on the liberal end of the spectrum and on the conservative and there are politicians who might want to have that control.

Christian Lomsdalen  16:16  
Absolutely. That is a quite good reading of what I.

David Ames  16:30  
Like you, when I was a Christian, I was very concerned about separation of church and state, I felt like was important, both for the church and for the state. I'm curious, both when you were a Christian, and now as a humanist, why is it bad that the Church and State are connected to one another?

Christian Lomsdalen  16:53  
I think my arguments about this has changed from when I was a Christian. And but at the same time, it's quite similar, because my experience is that religion is not something that the state should do. It's not, it's not a task for the state and to give preferential treatment to one religion is principally wrong. And it might be good reasons why they want to have this regulation or control over the state church. And there's absolutely good reasons why someone would like to do that. But I think that is also wrong to this day church. I think this reduces the their fundamental human rights as believers as Christians, that the Norwegian government has some specific decisions, that is just for them. And this might be beneficial for them. And it might give them some possibilities that they wouldn't have and responsibilities that they wouldn't otherwise have. But at the same time, it does say that if the Norwegian Church wants to be undemocratic, because that is one of the tenants in the law, that they have to be democratic, and that they have to be nationwide. They cannot decide that they want to be a smaller organization with more limited scope, and that they want to have, for example, the bishops to be the final burden on everything. They cannot do all these like theologically based changes to their organization that all other lifestance communities, all other philosophical communities, all other religious communities can do to their organization. So I think this is a limitation on their religious rights.

David Ames  18:57  
Yes, yeah, exactly.

Christian Lomsdalen  19:00  
We try. I humor myself with this argument sometimes, because I find it kind of funny that I, as a humanist, am concerned that the Norwegian state church members do not have their full religious rights. And we can discuss the term religious rights as well.

David Ames  19:18  
Yeah, let's get into that in a second. What the parallel I want to make in the United States is I have this conversation with believers around me all the time. You know, imagine it, I don't know how it is in Norway. But in the United States, there are many, many denominations, that can be quite radically different from one another. And I'll point out if this denomination that you don't agree with if they gained political power, how would you feel if they began to say that your version of Christianity isn't valid and could enforce that with law or police or what have you, you would like that, and so that is thus the need for secularism or pluralism. And for the state to not have its fingers in religion.

Christian Lomsdalen  20:05  
And that is quite important. But at the same time the Norwegian system is built in such a way that this the church, even though it's a state church, they do not sanction what is the correct form of religion? So we wouldn't have some of this. But at the same time, the Norwegian state definition of what is our religion and what is our religious communities and who to gain support from the Norwegian state is quite Lutheran. Okay, okay. So, this means that, for example, the Vegan Society, even though they have been declared i lifestance, veganism is a lifestance. And we see the same in the United Kingdom. Okay, they cannot, they haven't been able to create the Norwegian Vegan Society, lifestance community, because they do not do lifestance activities. Interesting, all right. Because that is supposed to be ceremonies and teaching of the young and spreading the word and all of these things, and they do not do it in the proper Lutheran way. And that undoes the Norwegian state Church's way of doing things becomes the norm and recipe for all the others.

David Ames  21:38  
So back to a bit about religious rights, I imagine you're recognizing that this is kind of a human right as well, the ability for us to choose what we believe or don't believe and how we practice that religion. And if we look at history, that has been kind of a big deal.

Christian Lomsdalen  21:56  
Absolutely. And especially with the history of the United States in mind, this is a difficult subject, and it shows how important it is. Absolutely, this is a human rights issue. And when I'm saying religious rights, I'm limiting the the aspect of the human rights to just those that are related to your religion, and lifestance. And that is also a shorthand for saying that life stance and philosophical convictions also is a part of the same grouping. And I have some members of my organization that are quite annoyed with me for not always using lifestance instead of religion when I'm talking about this, because that could make it easier to remind the politicians that this is regarding all worldviews, both secular and religious.

David Ames  22:55  
The language is hard when we when we're discussing traditions and communities add, you know, things that that don't necessarily have a, let's say, theistic or supernatural element to them, but but they have. And I think we're going to, you're going to describe to us what the humanist society is, like, that have ceremonies and have a community built and a sense of being a group. And so yeah, it's hard to say is this a religion or not? And that word is just over over wrought with, with baggage.

Christian Lomsdalen  23:32  
Yes, and this is especially troublesome or telling that religious scientist or this, the scientists that do science of religion, have a lot of definitions for what their religion is and what the lifestance If they do not agree upon that. So in some regards, we could argue that secular worldview would also fit the same bill, but those I don't think those definitions is the best ones. Okay. But as the lifestance community, the Norwegian humanist associations, we work a lot with ceremonies, that is the biggest part of our daily work. My son is now going to the humanist confirmations. And he is that is because he's 15 and almost all teenagers at the age of 15 in Norway, go to these confirmations. It has changed a lot it doesn't involve a test and it's not state obligatory anymore and and you can choose a religious one or a secular one. Even a lot of them we even have a shamanistic confirmations, some places but Norwegian Humanist Association has the biggest non Christian non religious confirmation variant in Norway. So we Yeah, make the confirmations for about a third of the Norwegian youth. Okay, wow. So it's a lot of teenagers, or it's 15,000 to give it a number, so it's a very small American town.

David Ames  25:20  
But it sounds like culturally, that Norwegians want that ceremony that that is that's been a part of the process, whether it used to be religious and now a secular. Is that true?

Christian Lomsdalen  25:31  
That is absolutely true. And this is a tradition that is quite solid in the Norwegian societal framework. It's something that everyone does. And we have argued sometimes that one of the reasons that the church still has so big portion of the teenagers doing their confirmation of work is that we have provided a good alternative for those who just does not want the religious experience. And that means that it still is something that everyone does, even though the numbers of believers in the Norwegian community has gone from about 60 70% When I was born, till about a third of the population at the moment, wow. Okay. So even though the number of believers and it is especially true in the youngest parts of the population, because it's an age divide here as in the United States, even though this number of believers among these teenagers is so low, a lot of them still go to the Christian confirmation, because this is something that historically won't just do. Yes, yes. Okay. So we have these ceremonies ceremonies, and we have a naming ceremonies are welcome to the world ceremonies, we could use different names, and of course, funerals and weddings. So at the moment, I have been trained as a wedding celebrant. Okay, I'm going to be trained as a funeral celebrant this fall. Okay, but I already done my first funeral. Ah, interesting. That was a televised funeral. Really?

David Ames  27:21  
Wow. Okay. I think that's so important. Christian, I think some of my intellectual heroes in the secular world, talk about the need for ceremony and, and tradition. And to have secular versions of those. And I think that is, maybe part of the success of the humanist organization in Norway is that you are providing those, you're giving them a way to act out their life stance. And I think that's really, really critical.

Christian Lomsdalen  27:52  
And I really do like the name of your podcast, David. Thank you. The graceful atheist and for me, some part of this is part of doing this ceremonies and doing all of this like community work, that is a key part of this, because rituals and ceremonies are truly one of the glues of society. Yes. And we all humans do all kinds of small rituals, if it's the coffee in the morning that I bring to my wife every day, yeah. Or it's, every Saturday, we have pizza, and we are having the family dinner, or every summer we go to this place somewhere. And we have always been going there, all of this small rituals. And then we have the large rituals, for example, the Fourth of July in America or the 17th of May, which is the National Day in Norway, the constitutional day in Norway. And this is part of the glue of society and it's really important to have this even though one is an atheist and shouldn't really need this kind of illogical thing.

David Ames  29:12  
Yeah, and I think the the argument that that we try to make here is that these are human needs. The reason that there are religious examples and almost all cultures is that human beings need that connection with one another and tradition and ceremony and ritual, provide a way to literally physically act that out that is meaningful for human beings.

Christian Lomsdalen  29:38  
It is so fun to do this like this for ceremonies that is the the core of our ceremonies. It's so important to have a proper send off for the or goodbye to the ones that have died. And what really makes me sad is when there's no no One left to do this ceremony and to remember the life of somebody, because when one does not have a life after this one or believe in life, yeah, it's really necessary to remind ourselves of the importance of this human being that we do not have with us anymore and to remember them and all the good things they did, and all the less fortunate things they did. Yeah. So that is important to me and for our organizations. Wonderful.

David Ames  30:42  
I want to ask you a wide open question. And we can go any direction you want with this, the term humanism, I think people experience that in different ways, right? For some, it's very academic, it's maybe even anti religious. For some, it is more about, you know, connection with people. I'm curious for you personally, Christian, and then for Norwegians, what is humanism mean?

Christian Lomsdalen  31:07  
And you are quite right, it's like quite a difficult word, David to four to establish what it is because on the one hand, it is both academic term for I'm a humanist in my study in work because religious science is placed within the humanities. In that means, I'm a humanist. In Norwegian history, as well as in the European history, the humanism we talk about in history is more or less the Christian humanists, the evolvement of the Christian humanist man, this had a quite big place in Norwegian history, it was established as an important and existing framework. So in the Norwegian when the Norwegian Humanist Association was established in 1956, they chose to you use the word human ethicist, okay, are these humanist and ethical union I think is the word in best translation in American, which meant that we were that separated it from the Christian humanist term, and may established its own term that we could fill with what we needed it to be filled with, which was a secular humanism, okay. But at the same time, this has evolved a lot in the Norwegian context. So that now we more frequently uses the term humanism when we are talking about humanism as a term. And some of the strongest proponents of the Christian humanism, are quite angry with us for using their words, as a way to talk about our thing. Yes, and I feel that this is quite different things, even though they are quite similar, although their origin word the reasons for the world to be and the origins of everything is quite different in these two aspects. So on our Facebook page, the most contested posts are the one where we write humanism and write about our form of humanism. And a lot of people are writing on the Facebook pages, and commenting that this is not humanism. I'm a Christian humanist. And why use this word? I'm not a I'm not a humanist ethicist. I'm a humanist. The real thing do not monopolize our word.

David Ames  33:48  
Interesting. Interesting. So you're studying religion? So I'm curious, you know, when I talked to the equivalent of, of what you just described, maybe Christian humanists, although they probably wouldn't use that terminology in the States. But they want to say that humanism is stealing from Christianity, the moral framework, ethical framework, what have you from a, you know, studying of religion point of view, is that true? Do you think that humanism under a different name predates Christianity? What are your thoughts there?

Christian Lomsdalen  34:23  
I think that this is absolutely stealing from the from Christianity. Okay. Okay. And I have really no problem with it. Yes. Okay, but I think you make an important point, David, that you say that humanism even predated Christianity because I really do think that that is correct Christianity borrowed from traditions and thought systems that existed when Christianity was founded or appeared. Humans and at the same time, And this evolved in a context of traditions and points of view, its society that it was founded in. And at the same time, humanism as it exists in Western Europe, Northern Europe, United States has evolved from a cultural contexts. And for example, we I have been listening a lot to Tom Holland, for example, and his book dominion. And it seems like you're surprised that secularism or atheism comes from a Christian background. And this is the big finding, and all the Christian media has used very big headlines about this, this atheist historian that has discovered Christianity and its its reasons to create humanism. But this is not something new, right? All human traditions exist in a context and is created in a context and evolves in a context. And that means that when a human when a secular thought system appears, is evolved in a Christian context, it will have Christian values or thought systems, that is part of it, some of it will evolve further away, some of it will have experienced smaller evolutions, and it will be quite different. And some of it will be quite close, and quite similar. But this is not something new. This is basic cultural science.

David Ames  36:45  
Yes, yes.

Christian Lomsdalen  36:48  
So I'm not sure what the Christians that proposes this argument, because I hear it a lot as well, in the Norwegian context. I'm not sure what their goal is of this, do they want me to become a Christian just because some of my values and some of my ways to think is the same? Do they think that that will make me a Christian? And that will make me realize that I was a Christian all along? Yeah. Because I'm not really sure of the end points of what they have this argument, I'm, that makes me quite dumb fund.

David Ames  37:26  
I'm fascinated by it as well, I think, the way I have been framing things of late, and I've stolen this from multiple people, but is that everything is secular, that human beings are the source of religious traditions. And so religious traditions themselves are secular as well. And that, just as you say, this is the normal cultural evolution that takes place when people are together over time. And just that's just what happens.

Christian Lomsdalen  37:52  
You have traditions and they evolve. Exactly.

David Ames  37:56  
Exactly. Yeah. And, you know, I find like, the argument that humanism has stolen from Christianity, it's almost like, well, you know, that's, that's my ball, I get to keep that and you don't get to play with. There's almost that, you know, kind of, I don't want to say childish, but you know, a way of saying that's ours, and that's not yours in a way that just doesn't recognize the complexity of human culture.

Christian Lomsdalen  38:21  
And I think that that is a very good point. And to some degree, I think that this is a way for them to try to invalidate my, my worldview, on the basis that they had this part of this first. But at the same time, I think they should be rather proud of themselves. Because this means that their religion, their worldview, their religious worldview, have succeeded in such to such a large degree, that I as a secular person, includes this part of their worldview, as a part of my worldview, even though I don't believe in other parts of their worldview. And this is the same for the confirmation ceremonies, because a lot of Christians in Norway or some, it's less every year, are angry that we use the word conformations. Okay, because this is a Christian word they say. I would say that they stole it from the Roman Empire. So who steals from that they succeeded so much in making this tradition, an integral part of the Norwegian culture. They should be really proud that we use this word. Yeah. Yeah, it's like a point. It's more problematic than for us that we use this word really? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. But Latin words, fortunately have a lot of meanings in different ways. We use it in the way to strengthen the use not to confirm some

David Ames  40:00  
Ah, okay. Interesting Yeah.

Christian are there are some topics that I haven't asked about that you definitely wanted to bring up?

Christian Lomsdalen  40:17  
What I think is important to notice that you have seen the shift in American religious framework or the religious map, it has changed a lot during the last years. And to some degree, the American context is a few years behind on how many religious people there are, how many non religious people there are, because America is a more religious place than Europe. Yes. And in the Norwegian context, around 30% now says that they are a believing Christian, or that they believe in God. And even then a region churches members say that it's around the same. So even within the church, a lot of people are reporting that there are non believing, which has given quite interesting rhetoric from the Norwegian state church of late when they have been arguing that we do not place our members in A or B categories, and we value them as much and they want obviously want to belong to the Christianity, because while they are members, even though they do not need to be. This change in the religious landscape means that I felt that I grew up in a quite normal religious home, when I grew up, as I said in the beginning, and at the same time, I think that my children or not my children, it's hard to use the precedent of the Norwegian Humanist Association as an example, as a part of a normal Norwegian religious family. Okay, okay. But the Norwegian family normal family would not participate a lot in the church community, as of now, because, and this is a trend that I heard on their religious podcast, as well as unbelievable that some one generations goes a lot to church, and the next just goes to church, some important dates during the year, and then the next generation, even less than I think this has happened a lot in Norway. So at the moment, I would really believe that young families is not even Christian Christmas Christians. They are rather secular. And that is quite a huge shift in this 3040 years for where I have been alive. And that is quite interesting.

David Ames  42:56  
Yes, in the United States, and I don't have the statistics right off the top of my head, but the people who select none of the above nuns and O N. E. 's, are becoming the largest bloc of lifestance, let's say, people in the United States, which is quite a transformation from previous eras. So I think we're definitely looking at Europe in the UK for the secularization process that that you all have been through for some time now, almost for guidance, as we tried to figure out how what does this look like within what was formerly a very religious culture.

Christian Lomsdalen  43:34  
But what is quite interesting for an American situation is this notion that or the belief that no politician will ever get into office as an atheist or a secular person, or it will just be from some liberal districts. And this is quite strange for me as a Norwegian to hear about because we had our first more or less openly atheist Prime Minister in the 50s.

David Ames  44:04  
Wow, okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Christian Lomsdalen  44:07  
And this is not something new and he was buried in the same place or his ceremony for his funeral was in the same place as I conducted the funeral I conducted in the town hall of the Capitol. And this was, I'm not sure if anybody first a lot about that. He had a non religious funeral service, even though this was in the mid 80s.

David Ames  44:34  
Yeah, I think for right now, the I think there are many non religious politicians, but they have to hide. So I just very small handful, will say that they are agnostic. I actually think that one of the ways forward for us is to have a more formal sense of a humanist presence. Yeah, exactly. Yes. You know, for the politics. She needs to be able to say because the when when an American hears atheist they hear God hater immoral nihilist. And so I think a way forward is for a politician to say I am a humanist, I have an ethical stance, I, you know, I care about people, and that that might be the it for the future, a way for more secular politicians to hold their ground and and still be able to be elected.

Christian Lomsdalen  45:29  
And that is probably the reasons why you have graceful atheists.

David Ames  45:37  
Yes, yeah. Yeah. That Yeah, well, the podcast started because I just needed somebody to talk to I was feeling pretty lonely. So yeah.

Christian Lomsdalen  45:46  
But at the same time to show that you can be a moral human being that makes good decisions and care for? Well, your neighbor is an important part of establishing that this is a possibility that well does not seem to exist in America at the moment for politicians. Exactly. So I think that you what you do with highlighting the graceful ways to be an atheist is important.

David Ames  46:17  
Well, thank you so much, I really appreciate that.

Christian, can you tell us how people can learn more about the Norwegian humanist? I keep saying the wrong thing? It's not society, its association Association. Thank you. Sorry about that.

Christian Lomsdalen  46:40  
Oh, it's not that important.

David Ames  46:43  
And more about you? How can they find you?

Christian Lomsdalen  46:45  
If they want to learn more about the Norwegian Humanist Association that you can visit our webpage and it's quite easy in English, it's the most the USA it's human.no. So human dot Norway. Fantastic. Okay, that is the easy way to find the Norwegian Humanist Association. And you would have to scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and choose English. Okay, because that is not that easily accessible.

David Ames  47:15  
Actually, I wasn't, I was looking at it today in Chrome, and it'll just translate it for you. And it does a pretty decent job at that. Also,

Christian Lomsdalen  47:23  
we and the best thing about that is that you can read all the Norwegian pages, which are a lot of more Norwegian pages than English pages on this web page. So you will learn more actually, if you visited with the automatic translation than just visiting the Norwegian the English page,

David Ames  47:42  
we'll definitely have that in the show notes. Christian, I want to thank you so much for being on the podcast. This was a lot of fun. I always find it fascinating to compare culture. There's there's lots of similarities even and some differences. And I think that we all learn from that process. So thank you so much for being on the podcast.

Christian Lomsdalen  47:59  
Thank you so much for having me my

David Ames  48:05  
final thoughts on the episode. Christian was a fascinating person to speak with. Not only is he studying religion, from a teaching, didactic scientific point of view, but also the president of the largest Humanist Association in the world in Norway. And what Norway is doing is absolutely amazing that they are focusing on the human needs for community to have ritual in your life and give people the opportunities to act out their philosophical life states. I appreciate so much talking with Christian and hearing a different perspective, the European perspective that is definitely different than the United States, but also having very common ideas, the need for the separation of church and state for both the good of the state and the good of the church. And I find it fascinating that Christian is focused on the rights of religious people, including the politicians, and I think this is maybe what evangelical Christians don't get the most is that pluralism and secularism is actually good for everyone involved. I believe that history proves that out what evangelical Christians see as taking away something like school prayer, it doesn't occur to them that if you wanted to come and have a Wiccan ceremony or Satanic Temple ceremony, that would be difficult for them to swallow within a school. But by separating Church and State everyone is more free. I want to thank Christian for being on the podcast for telling his story, his personal story as well as the Norwegian story, giving us an A glimpse into what a more secular society can be like, one that embraces the rights of religious people and non religious people, and gives them the opportunities to live out their philosophical life stance. Thank you, Christian so much for being on the podcast. The secular Grace Thought of the Week inspired by Christian is about the human need for ritual. Two of my favorite books are, Kristen augments Grace without God and saucer seconds. For small creatures such as we, in both books, both women make the argument that human beings need to come together and physically act things out about their beliefs about their philosophies about their life stances to us Christians term. Sasha makes this explicit about births, coming of age, marriages, deaths, in the marking of time, things like birthdays, all of these things are really deeply important to us as human beings. And because they have almost always been wrapped up in religious tradition, on this side of deconversion, we can sometimes feel like they no longer apply to us. Or as Jennifer Michael hex coined in the Wonder paradox, dropped by and lie. In other words, we sometimes find ourselves at funerals and weddings that are religious, and yet we feel deeply uncomfortable. With all three of these authors suggest for us to do is to create our own traditions to reinterpret existing traditions to make rituals in our lives that are meaningful to us. And I love the way that Christian talks about this, our philosophical lifestance Or again, to use Jennifer Michael hex terminology, a graceful life philosophy, or in my words, secular grace. Next week, our lien interviews Kyler, that'll be a great conversation. Until then, my name is David, and I am trying to be the graceful atheist. Join me and be graceful human beings. The beat is called waves by MCI beads. If you want to get in touch with me to be a guest on the show, email me at graceful atheist@gmail.com for blog posts, quotes, recommendations and full episode transcripts head over to graceful atheists.com. This graceful atheist podcast, a part of the atheists United studios Podcast Network

Transcribed by https://otter.ai