“Reader Mark” sent me a link to an article from Saturday’s New York Times, “Norway has a new passion: ghost hunting,” with a somewhat challenging line in his email:
You might want to think twice before ever again holding up those ‘Scandinavian countries’ as role models of rationality.
Now I don’t know whether to construe that as a lighthearted comment or a rather snarky one, for the Times article doesn’t much affect my opinion that Scandinavian countries as more rationally run than, say, the U.S. First of all, the article is about only one country, Norway. And what it says is that belief in ghosts, spirits, and woo is increasing:
Ghosts, or at least belief in them, have been around for centuries but they have now found a particularly strong following in highly secular modern countries like Norway, places that are otherwise in the vanguard of what was once seen as Europe’s inexorable, science-led march away from superstition and religion.
Sadly, there are no survey data supporting that claim, just anecdotes like the popularity of a Norwegian television show called “The Power of Spirits”. Here are all the “data” that the article gives:
While churches here may be largely empty and belief in God, according to opinion polls, in steady decline, belief in, or at least fascination with, ghosts and spirits is surging.
And, of course, ministers rush in to argue that this belief in ghosts is a sign that atheists must replace abjured religion with some kind of woo, with the implication that Ghost Woo is worse than Holy Ghost Woo:
“God is out but spirits and ghosts are filling the vacuum,” said Roar Fotland, a Methodist preacher and assistant professor at the Norwegian School of Theology in Oslo. Instead of slowly eliminating religion, as Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx and other theorists predicted, modernity has only channeled religious feelings in unexpected ways, Mr. Fotland said.
“Belief in God, or at least a Christian God, is decreasing but belief in spirits is increasing,” he added, describing this as part of a general resurgence of “premodern religion.”
And that, of course, is the point of “reader Mark,” who claims that I’m no longer entitled to argue that Scandinavia is more rational than the U.S., even though the article’s about Norway and the head of the nation’s Humanist Organization says that this is all tripe—that religion’s still dying out.
Well, first of all, how pervasive is Norway’s belief in ghosts compared to, say, the hyper-religious U.S.? We don’t know. What we do know is that many Americans believe in ghosts and woo. A 2005 Gallup poll shows that 32% of Americans believe in ghosts, while 19% are unsure, while 37% believe in haunted houses. If the article’s thesis is right, that should be lower than similar beliefs of Norwegians. A HuffPo/YouGov poll from just two years ago showed that 45% of Americans believe in ghosts or the notion that the spirits of the dead can return to stalk the Earth. A Pew Research poll, also taken in 2013, shows that 29% of Americans feel they’ve been in touch with the dead, and 18% that they’ve seen a ghost. How does that compare with Norway, much less with Scandinavia? I have no idea, and neither does Reader Mark.
Before we can claim that belief in ghosts has replaced the decline in religion in Scandinavia, we need to have surveys of such beliefs when religion was more pervasive in Scandinavia, and compare that data to beliefs now. Until we have those data, we can’t credibly claim that as religion wanes, the vacuum is filled with woo.
But of course it’s entirely possible that there’s been an uptick in woo. I don’t doubt for a moment that some people have a need for “spiritual” stuff, and if they give up their faith, or as society becomes less religious, love of woo may rise. But I do doubt that it would increase tremendously, which would have to be the case since the proportion of atheists in Norway is estimated by Phil Zuckerman as between 31% and 72% (see p. 56 of link). So I’ll simply ask Scandinavian readers (those from Norway in particular) to weigh in with their own beliefs and experiences, for that is all the Times article gives.
Finally, belief in ghosts isn’t near as inimical to human welfare as is belief in God and His moral strictures. I think American society, not to mention many Muslim lands, would be greatly improved if they’d give up Allah for Caspar. After all, we know that religiosity is negatively correlated with societal welfare across many lands (and in states within the U.S.), and as well-being wanes from year to year, religiosity increases a step behind. So yes, even granting the dubious premise that Scandinavia is ridden with ghostophiles, it’s still an area that is more empathic and run far more rationally than is the U.S.
