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One of the UK's biggest attractions for me, when deciding where to attend university, was its low percentage of church-going citizens and its high percentage of atheists. As an atheist who gets along well with the religious types, but prefers the company of others with similar views, I was wondering: just how prevalent and intense religion is in the student body at St. Andrews?

St Andrews has quite a high percentage (in comparison to other UK universities) of quite, erm, passionate Christians, possibly due to a large American intake and also due to the excellent Divinity course. The Christian Union can be a bit scary seem like they're taking over the whole world, but they do a good lunch for a £1, so, you know, beggars can't be choosers.

On the other hand, though, I would say that the aforementioned religious students are definitely in the minority. Just be open-minded about the whole thing.

It is the UK, hence no one give's a shit.

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IMAGE:img9.imgspot.com/u/04/241/18/160019.jpg "Little!"
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An atheist coming to the home of the Reformation in Scotland?

Well... it made me smile.

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I hold an element of surprise

Yeah, there are quite a few religious er...for lack of a better word..nuts, but it's quite easy to avoid them.

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"Last time you gave me a pie, I cut into it, and birds flew out of it, hitting me in the face and chin. I was confused. It was a trick pie"

It seems to me that St Andrews is quite a good place for an Athiest purely for the following reason.

Religous types in this town are either
a) cool easy going people who dont want to shove their religion down your throught are cool.

b) they are mental idiots who think people who dont agree with them will burn in hell.

Those in group B are however really easy to spot and avoid.

Are there many Jewish students at the school, does anyone know?

Quoting JewishEnthusiast from 21:02, 10th Jul 2006
Are there many Jewish students at the school, does anyone know?

Yep, there's also a society, J-Soc, which I think is pretty active.

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As an atheist myself, I can tell you that I haven't had trouble in St. Andrews.

And with all due respect, the religious societies are a good source of humour for me from time to time.

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http://standrews.facebook.com/profile.php?id=37106593

Quoting Mehmsy from 16:52, 13th Jul 2006
As an atheist myself, I can tell you that I haven't had trouble in St. Andrews.

And with all due respect, the religious societies are a good source of humour for me from time to time.

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as well as free food

Quoting King Henry from 01:02, 14th Jul 2006

as well as free food

I was drunk, you fiend. Don't make me have a guilt trip now.

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heheheh

I met a girl in the sciences who didn’t believe in evolution (a cool person none the less)
Coming from the U.S. this was a total shock.
(Just thought I would through that out there)

i thought it woyld have been less of a shock

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so alive, so full of fire and music!

:::eye roll:::

you can't believe everything you see on TV.
And I have noted a tendency for the media here to take the craziest extremes in the US and smuggly slant them as normal/mainstream.

For example, something I saw on TV the othernight about some evangical whackos out in the middle of nowhere with their summer camp (Where kids practice speaking in tongues, and listen to rants about how harry potter would be burned at the stake...), and how THEY ARE TAKING OVER!!!!!

It is very irritating.

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tamen ira procul absit, cum qua nihil recte fieri, nihil considerate potest.

Check out the film Jesus Camp
http://www.apple.com/trailers/magnolia/jesuscamp/

As for the not believing in evolution thing...


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I hold an element of surprise

yes, I've heard about that. So? My point still stands. It's still a wacko fringe group.
In a country of 300 million people, the so called long tail holds a hell of a lot of very strange people.
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tamen ira procul absit, cum qua nihil recte fieri, nihil considerate potest.

Quoting novium from 23:12, 4th Oct 2006
yes, I've heard about that. So? My point still stands. It's still a wacko fringe group.

I wasn't making a point, or arguing with anything. I was flagging this up for people's attention. From what I saw of the trailer it seems to be very even, rather than a Michael Moore burial or a Louis Theroux 'lets give them a lot of rope and see what happens' piece.

I'd still rather see The Prestige

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I hold an element of surprise

Having lived in the states for the first eighteen years of my life, and in one of the most liberal states at that, I can firmly assure you all that this religious radicalism is indeed becoming the mainstream. I mean, maybe only a handful of persons are speaking in tongues or what have you, but what you don't see are the hordes of the "devout" that believe, respect, and follow the tongues-speaking.

Having lived 21/22 years out of my life in the states, and in the great State of California, in the uberliberal bay area to be precise...
I disagree entirely.

I was reading about the above, and in it mentioned that there were 10,000,000 people who were members of evangical churches. So... about 3%. Run for your lives! Run from the mighty three percent!


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tamen ira procul absit, cum qua nihil recte fieri, nihil considerate potest.