Tradition: 1 God: 0

Swedes love tradition. We really really love tradition. We value our traditions over most things. You could even say tradition is the closest we have to religion.

For example, we baptise our children in church, almost all of us. Not because we believe a word the priest says, it's not important. It's a gathering of family to celebrate the new life, and if anything, is seen as a "name giving cermony", since in Swedish the word "baptised" has become practically synonymous with "naming" something.

I am always amused how American atheists try to distance themselves from church so vehemently, to the points of not getting married, or making sure the ceremony is totally secular, or whatnot.

To us, this is not a contradiction. Many are Atheists, and still many of those marry in church, because that's where you traditionally get married! It's a beautiful building, a great place to do it, so why not? (Of course, those in areas with crappy old smelly churches or ugly boring "modern" churches might disagree )

Yep, we really love tradition. We love it so much we latch on to even the most bizzare ones.

For example, we always had a "day of all saints" here where you traditionally light candles on graves. No, not for any religious reason, it's a tradition. This is the holiday which has been bastardized into "Halloween" in most other countries, and waddaya know, in the last 5-10 years, Halloween has crept into our area too. But on the day after. So now we have two traditions: First light candles on the grave... and then the day after do the "halloween" thing.

Kids love it coz they get to "trick and treat", which WE traditionally do at easter, where people dress up as witches and go house to house to ask for candy. Yes, at easter, all withces fly to Blåkulla on their broom, with their cat. Y'all knew that, didn't ya? Another Swedish tradition.

And yet we don't believe in it. We treat traditions as traditions, nothing else.

But that's a topic for another day.

/Z