French Catholics who don't believe in God!
A poll earlier this year found that there a lot of French Catholics, but, 51% of them say they don't believe in God. This seems ridiculous... almost as if these people don't know what a Catholic is! They are fundamentally ignorant of basic the facts of religion. The Catholics that do believe in God are obviously not particularly good at explaining what their religion actually is. If they can't explain the basics such as god-belief, how do they expect to succeed in explaining the complex absurdities such as the Trinity?

This phenomenon is not just French. Britain has experienced a similar trend. 72% of the British put down a form of Christian as their religion, yet, only half of Brtons believe in God. 50% of French 'Catholics' don't believe in God, and over one third of British Christians don't either. What causes this nonsense?

Well I believe it falls into a general trend I outlined in "The Numbers of Established Religions become Exaggerated" by Vexen Crabtree (2001).

"The faster and greater the extent of secularisation of a country, the more prominent this phenomenon will be. It is prominent in Western countries that have become very secularized since 1945."

People come to associate themselves on a per familie basis, with a particular religion no matter what their beliefs are. In a society that has abandoned religious belief, it does not bother them what the beliefs of religion are. The French poll mentioned above specifically asked why. "Many said they described themselves as Catholics because it was a family tradition.