Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2012 June 8

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June 8

Adrien-Marie de Morveau

In the surprisingly historically-accurate game Empire: Total War, there appears a character named Adrien-Marie de Morveau in the position of French "chief minister". Most of the other French ministers portrayed in the game - and other court officials depicted for other nations - are real historical figures such as Chamillart and the younger Louis le Tellier, but I am wondering about this Morveau. As Louis XIV did not have a prime minister, perhaps he was a leading chamberlain, a high court official, or some other minister who filled a de facto leading role in the government. Does anyone have any knowledge as to this man's existence in real life? dci | TALK 00:08, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Googling that name turns up only references to the game, so it appears it was invented. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→

The surname is reminiscent of Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau (a scientist), but he became a politician too late for the comparison to hold; and I'm unable to trace his paternal heritage with much success, indicating that they were perhaps not politicians. By contrast the first names are reminiscent of French mathematician Adrien-Marie Legendre (mathematician), but at the end of the day it's entirely possible the person named did exist, but is not yet known to the internet. It does happen :) - Jarry1250 ^{[Deliberation needed]} 11:38, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Atheist pope

If somehow an atheist managed to become a pope with the intention to share his belief (or non-belief) to christians, can he somehow make a rule or dogma that God isnt real? ( Of course on the way up, he will keep it a secret that he is an atheist ). 203.112.82.2 (talk) 00:42, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

The Pope's various decrees are scripturally-based, so unless he can cite a scripture asserting that God does not exist, he would find himself out on the street pretty soon. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:47, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

I don't think an atheist person can ever be a Pope! Even how good someone fakes it! It is just not possible! Anyway even if it happens somehow like a miracle then that Pope would probably get kill by "strong believers" or force to resign!65.128.168.2 (talk) 00:54, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Was there a sale on exclamation marks ? :-) StuRat (talk) 04:03, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Punctuation, such as exclamation marks, is used differently in different languages. Various features of 65.128's comment indicate that English is not their native language. You have refrained, laudably, from making fun of their English - why then let your politeness go when it comes to their punctuation? --ColinFine (talk) 09:19, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

I'm certain that not all decrees are scripturally-based, such as claiming to be the mediator between the Father and man, when no one can come to the Father except through Jesus. Or the claim that he clims to forgive sins, when only God can forgive sins. Plasmic Physics (talk) 01:39, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

You're right. It would be better if I had said they were based on scripture and/or church doctrine. An example of each is (1) only male priests; and (2) celibacy. And both scripture and church doctrine take the existence of God as a "given". So a Pope who tried to invoke atheism would be dismissed in very short order. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:11, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

I don't think the ref desk can give any interesting and sourceable answers to the question of what would happen if such a pope were somehow to be elected and make such a pronouncement — it's just too speculative.

More interesting is to consider the question from a Catholic perspective, from the point of view of papal infallibility. If you believe in papal infallibility, then at least probably you also believe that the atheist pope would be in error. On the other hand I have never heard any Catholic say that it's impossible for a non-believer to become pope (as some of the historical popes seem quite likely to have been).

So exactly what is to prevent the occurrence? Do popes somehow lose their free will in this circumstance? One speculation I have heard, can't remember where, is that a pope who intended to make an erroneous dogmatic definition would die before being able to carry it through. --Trovatore (talk) 01:17, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Note that papal infallibility doesn't mean "everything the pope says is true", or even that the pope is infallible. It only applies to those things he says ex cathedra (and only since 1870), which requires he be acting "in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority". I'm no canon law expert, but I imagine that if somehow an atheist pope slipped through the cracks, one might argue that his perfidiousness would prevent any such declarations being considered "in exercise of his office". While he may claim that such statements are ex cathedra, in all likelihood following popes would likely consider him to be lying about that fact. -- 140.142.20.101 (talk) 02:06, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I was aware that papal infallibility was never intended to mean that the pope could not err in general. I was talking about the cases where it does imply (if you believe in it) that the pope cannot err. I can see, though, that I didn't make that clear. --Trovatore (talk) 03:48, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

In order to accept the position of pope, one must be a bishop, either by current standing, or by ascension after election (See Papal election#Acceptance and proclamation). Taking Holy Orders is one of the major sacraments in the Roman Catholic Church. Doing so under deliberately false pretenses (e.g if the person is secretly an atheist) would very likely be considered a mortal sin by the Church, which means the person committing it is not a Catholic in good standing until they repent their sins. Indeed, apostasy is technically a latae sententiae (automatic) excommunicatable act, even graver than "normal" mortal sins. While I don't know exactly if cannon law has any explicit or implicit powers to automatically defrock an atheist pope, at the very least there would be very strong pressure for him to resign. If the atheist pope would not voluntarily resign, there would probably be a strong case to consider him an antipope (as he not only sinned grievously in his deception, but is also unrepentant), and as such, the mainstream Roman Catholic Church would likely ignore him and elect a new pope. -- 140.142.20.101 (talk) 01:51, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Another point is that faith is not something that is necessarily set in stone. It can come and go. A number of great religious and other thinkers have had crises of faith. It's been a long time since I read it and I'm very rusty, but IIRC this was the basic premise behind Morris West's novel The Clowns of God (1981). The pope had a crisis of faith after receiving a vision of the imminent end of the world. He didn't quite abdicate but sort of took a sabbatical from his papal duties, with extremely strong "encouragement" from the rest of the Vatican hierarchy, until he'd sorted himself out. There was a lot more to it than that, obviously. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 03:03, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

The Code of Canon Law deals with someone who fradulently performs clerical duties and so forth; Book 6.2.3 for example deals with "usurpation of ecclesiastical functions" and canon 1389 mentions "a person who abuses an ecclesiastical power". Canon 696 (Book 2.3.1.2.6.3) says that a person can be dismissed from the chuch for, among other things, "public adherence to ideologies infected by materialism or atheism". There are presumably a lot more details on similar cases (the Code is enormous and filled with technical minutiae, and I found this through a very quick search). So, if somehow an atheist managed to become pope, there's no way he would have any influence on church doctrines. Adam Bishop (talk) 08:47, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

The closest historical example of the OP scenario seems to be the Taxil hoax. But of course Léo Taxil never even made it into the ranks of the clergy. --Saddhiyama (talk) 09:20, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Laying it out from the perspective of Catholic doctrine:

• Public revelation is supposed to have ended with the Apostles. The Apostles were given a body of divine revelation, which is the Apostolic Tradition. Some of this Tradition was written down and became Sacred Scripture (the Bible); some did not get written in the canonical books, but remained Sacred Tradition. The passing down of these Truths is protected by the Magisterium of the Church: the teaching authority of the Church, the protection of the Holy Spirit. See the Catechism of the Catholic Church: http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__PK.HTM and the next couple of pages
• Truth cannot contradict truth: so, Sacred Tradition cannot contradict Sacred Scripture, and vice verse.
• While doctrine can develop, in that people piece things together and find new ways to understand them, doctrine cannot be added to or changed. CCC 86: "Yet this Magisterium is not superior to the Word of God, but is its servant. It teaches only what has been handed on to it. At the divine command and with the help of the Holy Spirit, it listens to this devotedly, guards it with dedication and expounds it faithfully. All that it proposes for belief as being divinely revealed is drawn from this single deposit of faith."
• Papal Infallibility is only a particular form of the Magisterium. It was defined during Vatican I, but just like any other belief defined in an ecumenical council or Papal decree, it was already the belief of the "body of the faithful" as (Catholics believe) it was already a part of the initial deposit of divine revelation. Defining it simply makes it clear to everyone that it really is the orthodox belief.
• The Magisterium is believed to work only in a negative manner: the Church is protected from teaching falsehoods. So, when something is dogmatically defined, that means that the Holy Spirit did not prevent it from being taught as official dogma, so we can rely on it being true. The Magisterium means that the Church would not be able to officially teach something false.
• Catholics actually point to corrupt Popes as evidence of the Magisterium at work. There have been some awful Popes, who did awful things and probably believed terrible heresies, but they never officially taught anything that contradicted Church doctrine. The belief is that the Magisterium can be relied on to prevent them from doing so.
• So, because Truth cannot contradict Truth, and Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture both attest to the existence of God, "There is no God" cannot ever form a part of Catholic teaching. Because public revelation has ended, a 'new' revelation of equivalent significance to "There is no God" cannot ever form a part of Catholic teaching. Because the Magisterium prevents the official teaching of falsehoods, an atheist Pope would not be able to define such a thing as true. It would simply not happen, whether because he thought better of it, or because the many cardinals and staff around him prevented him from having the opportunity, or because he dropped dead of a heart attack as it sat on his desk.
• If he was validly elected, I don't think there is a mechanism to remove a bad Pope once he'd made his atheism clear. He'd simply have to be endured to the greater glory of God :)

Anyway, that's what Catholic doctrine says would happen.

I find it personally amusing that Plasma Physics quotes the Pharisees against Jesus, but this is purely my opinion. 86.167.12.64 (talk) 11:23, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

In Exodus, the Tabernacle among other things, instituted a sacraficial system by which God can forgive sins. Even before that, there was a simple sin offering system. Throughout the Old Testament, only God could forgive sins. The pharisees were right to say that only God can forgive sins, but they failed to see that Jesus is the Son of God the Father. The pharisees were knowledgeable about Scripture, but had no wisdom in it, since their hearts were afar off from God. Plasmic Physics (talk) 11:55, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

John 20. Jesus says that the Apostles can forgive sins, and those sins will be forgiven. This directly contradicts the Pharisees. 86.167.12.64 (talk) 13:16, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

It appears that God gave them His authority to allow them to forgive. Of course God can make exceptions to the norm, as long as it does not contradict His own character or His Law (since His Law is based on His character.) However, God has not give them permission to make their authority transfereable. He will have mercy on whom He will have mercy. Plasmic Physics (talk) 13:52, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Good of you to tell us which exceptions God can make and which He can't. Will you tell Him or will I?  :) -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 23:24, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

I've done some more research, it seems that there a much simpler solution: verse 23 is directly related to verse 22; moreover, verse 23 is an affirmation rather than a permission - the apostles received the Holy Spirit in its fullness. They are convicted by the Holy Spirit to forgive or not with certainty. Verse 23 indicates that due to the Holy Spirit, they are able to known whether God will forgive or not. So, still only God can forgive. Plasmic Physics (talk) 07:15, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

But the election of an atheist pope would actually be invalid since he has already impersonated a cleric and adhered to atheism and all sorts of other things that were canonically illegal. It would be as if they had elected no one at all, so they would just have to elect someone else. (I suppose the other pope could still claim to be the valid one...but then you can always recognize a phony pope by his high-top sneakers and incredibly foul mouth. Adam Bishop (talk) 12:15, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

(: But how would you know that the Pope was atheist at the point of ordination? In fact, although it would seem obvious that someone should be in a state of Grace to receive this Sacrament, I can't find anything that says the indelible spiritual character is dependent on the faith or state of mind of the recipient. Given the absence of information, I suspect that someone who had faked their way through the whole seminary, evaded being weeding out, and been ordained, would indeed have been validly ordained. A lot of illicit things might be going on, but I suspect it would all be valid. 86.167.12.64 (talk) 13:16, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Hmm, true...well there's only one way to find out! Adam Bishop (talk) 19:44, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

What kind of atheist would want to be pope? It would be rather irritating to keep up the pretense of being a holy churchman, I would imagine, even if the guy wanted to make a big scene!  :) 75.86.136.230 (talk) 22:51, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

I can't imagine an atheist working his way up to being pope. The more interesting question to me would be, what if the pope were to lose his faith? If he had any integrity I'd expect him to resign. μηδείς (talk) 03:18, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

How do we know one/some/all haven't? As for resigning, when you are in a job for life, and being in it depends upon your having a certain belief or set of beliefs, as does any other role within the institution, what could you do, with no personal money, at 80+? You would not even be eligible for the local Old Priests' Home. Bielle (talk) 03:35, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Boshin War

The purpose of this war is to end "shogunate" and restore "imperial rule"! I don't really get this? I saw no different between shogunate and imperial! Can someone explain to me the significant between them? Thanks!65.128.168.2 (talk) 00:54, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

The shogunate was a feudal military dictatorship, the Imperial Japan was an absolute monarchy. In "visible" difference, there may not be much, it's really just a matter of who held the power. Feudal Japan is an extremely complex topic, as the shogunate article explains, working out all the intricate details occupies the attention of scholars to this day. Vespine (talk) 02:20, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

During the period of the "Shogunate", the Emperor still nominally reigned, but he did not rule. All real power was in the hands of the Shogun. The closest analogy from Western history I can think of was the relationship between the Merovingian Kings of the Franks and the Mayor of the Palace. While the Merovingians were the nominal kings, the actual power was in the hands of the Mayors. It isn't a perfect analogy, but it does highlight the way that a monarch in name is made ineffectual by a nominally subordinate underling who contolled the real power. Throughout history, there have often been situations where the nominal leader is a figurehead, and actual power lies elsewhere. --Jayron32 02:41, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

You don't need to go that far afield, just look at WW2 Japan, where the Emperor was nominally in charge, but, in reality, the military made the decisions. Only after two nukes were dropped on Japan was the Emperor willing/able to intervene, and, even then, there was a military coup attempt. StuRat (talk) 04:09, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Before the mid-19th century, Japan was governed by powerful warlords called Daimyo who had their own territories and were supported by their clan. In the 12th century, the two most powerful clans, the Taira and Minamoto, had a long running civil war to gain control of the whole country. Both clans had their own claimant to the throne. The Minamoto clan won an overwhelming victory over the Taira at the Battle of Dan-no-ura in 1185, after which the Minamoto leader made the emperor give him the title of Shogun, which means "top general" (the rival to the throne had drowned during the battle). The Minamoto and their descendants were careful to keep strict control over the Imperial court, often making Emperors abdicate in favour of their infant sons, and keeping a tight rein on their income - one medieval emperor was reduced to selling his signature to raise cash. Only one emperor, Go-Daigo, was able to break the power of the Shogunate in 1333; however his army was defeated by the next shogun who simply appointed a new emperor.

In the 19th century, the aim of deposing the Shogun was to break the power of the Daimyo and the Samurai class, and impose governance on the Imperial German model, with a military-political elite controlling an apparently powerful emperor and a rubber-stamp diet or parliament. Japanese history in a nutshell - please feel free to correct any mistakes. Alansplodge (talk) 19:57, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Japan has had a real love affair with division between nominal & real power. In addition to the Shogun, see also Shikken (the Hojo (Taira offshoot!) regent for the Minamoto shogun, who was the regent for the emperor), Sesshō and Kampaku (mainly of the Fujiwara clan), Retired emperor#Japan, Cloistered rule and Genrō, the last term I believe sometimes even used nowadays for people like former PMs, heads of Diet factions, top bureacrats etc pulling the current PM's strings behind the scenes.John Z (talk) 00:30, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Nisour Massacre video

I know that a lot of footage from Iraq/Afghanistan was removed from the Internet a few years after the Iraq war started (i.e. after they started forcing troops to go through the censors at "Trooptube"), due to the military's concern that people were seeing too many of the atrocities that were occuring there.

However, several videos seem to have been scrubbed more recently, and I'm wondering if someone could help me find a few of them. In particular:

• Footage of Blackwater's Nisour Square massacre -- not news clips that show bits and pieces of it, and not the sanitized footage they used during their defense -- but the raw uncut footage from the rooftop where the contractors were shooting from, laughing/joking as they were gunning people down.

• An FLIR video from Iraq, where a large crowd (dozens of people) were moving through the street and a missile was launched into the crowd. I haven't seen this clip in several years, and I don't remember which city it was in or what date, but I suppose that most people that saw it will remember which one I'm talking about.

Does anyone know of a site that has archived either of these videos? It seems odd that there isn't a *single* copy of the full video from the Nisour massacre in the search results on Google ...

Thanks, Jrtayloriv (talk) 02:33, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Royal Family of Belgium

Are they Francophones or Dutch? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.95.106.46 (talk • contribs)

Currently, they are likely multilingual. I'm fairly certain that the current king is quite fluent in both French and Dutch, as well as likely English, German, and possibly some Italian. Histroically, the primary language of Government in Beligium was French (Belgian French, for example, is spoken in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where Dutch is all but unknown), and that included the Royal family. The wife of the current King is Italian, while the wife of his predecessor, Baudouin, was Spanish. If you're asking what the King speaks in private with his family, I'd be surprised if it wasn't French. --Jayron32 02:57, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

And the Royal family is originally from neither the French or Dutch community, but of German descent. (See Leopold I of Belgium). --Xuxl (talk) 08:53, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, coincidentally the same exact Royal family that produced the current Queen of The U.K. Though members of that family changed the name (to "of Belgium" and "Windsor" respectively), they are patrilineally descended from the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha family. --Jayron32 12:08, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

The French Wikipedia article Famille royale belge has an almost obsessive amount of information about how Francophone they are. It notes that Leopold I (the first King of the Belgians) spoke French in court. "The Germanic ancestry strongly predominates in the Belgian royal family, while French has been the language family since the beginning of the dynasty." As for today's Royal Family; " Although the children's mother tongue is royal French (?), each prince has followed, wherever possible, an education in several languages. Princes Philippe (heir to the throne) and Lawrence - have gone through the beginning of their schooling in French at Brussels (primary and Collège Saint-Michel in Etterbeek), then they were sent to Flanders to be study in Dutch". It continues: "Recently, Prince Philip, eldest son of the king, and his wife Princess Mathilde, have enrolled their children, the little Princess Elizabeth (born 2001) and his younger brother Gabriel (b. 2003), in a Dutch language school ( Prince Emmanuel, born in 2005, is still too young): the aim is that they gradually become bilingual so they have a real command of Dutch. This approach is that of immersion in a second language." Please forgive the machine translation - you can see Google's English version here. Alansplodge (talk) 12:20, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

French is the mother tongue of the royal children...I didn't check the rest but it's amazing how bad Google is with French! Adam Bishop (talk) 13:27, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes, apologies again. I had 10 minutes to make a post and it would have taken me a rather longer to make my own schoolboy translation - but I would have done a bit better than Mr Google's language-elves. Alansplodge (talk) 19:27, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

The Highwayman

In an article ("On Not Being a Poet." American Scholar 69, no. 2 (Spring 2000): 5–11), Thomas Mallon says "the success of my joke depended on my friend's knowing, as do I, thanks to all our learning and supposed sophistication, that "The Highwayman" is a bad poem, a chestnut, the sort of thing not so much imparted to yesterday's schoolchildren as inflicted upon them." Is that the general critical opinion of this poem? 67.164.156.42 (talk) 04:25, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

I can't speak for the professional critics, but "The wind was a torrent of darkness ..., The moon was a ghostly galleon ..., The road was a ribbon of moonlight ..." is one of the most evocative openings to any poem or novel ever written. It passes the Le Carré Test* with flying colours, and then you're hooked. The rest of it ain't half bad either. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 05:50, 8 June 2012 (UTC) (* So called - by me, at least - because of what Le Carré wrote in the introduction to "The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes" (2004):

• As a reader, I insist on being beguiled early or not at all, which is why many of the books on my shelves remain mysteriously unread after page 20. But once I submit to the author's thrall, he can do me no wrong.)

Wasn't aware of Le Carré's comment before, but I think Anthony Burgess made a similar comment about the duties of an author - if what you write isn't interesting/enjoyable/fascinating to the reader, you've failed. (I paraphrase rather, as am too interested/enjoying/fascinated by the current bottle of Merlot to go and look it up). As for The Highwayman, I have loved it since first I heard my grandmother recite it from memory when I was a very small boy. Anyone who thinks it's a "bad poem" seems to me to have missed the point entirely. I wouldn't trust them to sit the right way round on a toilet. DuncanHill (talk) 19:28, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Back in the Dark Ages of the mid-20th century, that opening was used to teach me the difference between metaphors and similes. ("The wind was like a torrent of darkness . . ."? I don't think so, and not just for metrical reasons. I think Burns's "O my Luve's like a red, red rose" was used as the example of simile.) Deor (talk) 11:00, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

This and this and this suggest it's very popular with children and much taught in schools (in the past and still in the 21st century) which might be a reason for sophisticated adults to mock it. For much of the 20th Century there was a belief that between the Victorians and TS Eliot was a vast wasteland of second-rate verse with nothing of merit (a belief encouraged by Eliot but still found in more recent literary history). And I don't think Noyes is on many university syllabi, for this reason. But I don't know of and can't find anybody specifically denigrating Noyes. --Colapeninsula (talk) 09:01, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

When it's taught well today, it is a great way into real literary criticism. Instead of forcing children to recite or memorise it, the teacher points out the Victorian doom and gloom, and gets the students to see how the same imagery is used in vampire films. They can count the black and red adjectives, discuss the meanings of night and blood. It could be good to read Tennyson's The May Queen next (will anyone argue that the Tennyson is a poor poem?). And show the video of Bohemian Rhapsody, talk about Goth culture, repetition, ritual, obsession... Itsmejudith (talk) 09:34, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

If any so-called adult mocks something just because it's taught in school, they're not nearly as sophisticated as they think they are. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 09:45, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

In my youth, The Highwayman was strictly junior school fodder along with Walter de la Mare's The Listeners and G K Chesterton's The Donkey. Sir Henry Newbolt was also favoured by our older teachers; Drake's Drum and Vitaï Lampada. I don't suppose he gets much of an airing now. Another junior school poet of little literary merit but considerable educational value was Eleanor Farjeon; thanks to whom I can still recall the names of the five MPs impeached by Charles I, even though she changed them a bit to make the poem scan. Alansplodge (talk) 18:54, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Just how is the amount of "literary merit" in any given piece of writing assessed, anyway? And who makes the final decision, which we're all supposed to respect? -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 23:11, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

I meant that she's not on anyone's list of "greatest poets" and many commentators describe her stuff as "mnemonic rhymes" rather than poetry. But I'm a fan, whatever it is. Alansplodge (talk) 07:49, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Right. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 22:19, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Netherlands religion

Is the Netherlands a Protestant majority or Roman Catholic majority? So far, the Royal Family and the Prime Ministers of the nation are Protestants but according to Religion in the Netherlands, it says that Roman Catholic is the single largest religion. I am confused. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.31.16.252 (talk) 14:47, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

I think historically the country used to be majority Protestant, but now most people are non-religious, and I guess the Protestants left the church more than the Catholics (a common trend in Europe), which left the Catholics as the largest religious group... 92.80.62.79 (talk) 14:55, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

If I remember correctly, a survey a few years ago found that of 10 people, 4 are non-religious, 3 are Catholic, 2 Protestant, and 1 another religion. However, even among those affiliated with a religion, many are only nominally Christian. The previous poster is correct that the Netherlands has a mostly Protestant tradition (Dutch reformed to be precise). However, the southern provinces (with the exception of Zeeland) have always remained mainly Catholic. - Lindert (talk) 15:30, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

According to the article, there is no single religious view which has a majority in the Netherlands. As explained above, the word "majority" means "more than half", and no single religious view has half of the Netherlands population. The most populous religious view appears to be "nonreligious". Among the remaining Christian religions, there are more Catholics than Protestants. However, historically Protestantism has a strong connection to Dutch history, given that the creation of the Netherlands as a nation is heavily tied up in the Protestant Reformation, the Dutch Revolt against Spain was an overtly anti-Catholic and pro-Protestant event. The House of Orange-Nassau (or House of Orange) has been the ruling family of the Netherlands since its birth, either as Stadtholders or as Monarchs, and they have always been protestant. William the Silent, who was the leader of the Dutch Revolt, was a staunch Calvinist. As to why a country with such a long history of Protestantism doesn't have many religious Protestants anymore, it is likely due to the growth of Secularism and the general decline of religiousness in Europe which has been happening pretty much steadily since the late 18th century. Among European nations, the Netherlands is hardly atypical. -Jayron32 16:26, 8 June 2012 (UTC)