{"id":455,"date":"2008-08-05T01:15:42","date_gmt":"2008-08-05T08:15:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/?p=455"},"modified":"2015-01-03T11:09:48","modified_gmt":"2015-01-03T18:09:48","slug":"more-copenhagen-cloud-photos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/2008\/08\/more-copenhagen-cloud-photos\/","title":{"rendered":"More Copenhagen cloud photos (and some commentary on religion in Scandinavia)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"copenhagen<\/a><\/p>\n

Today’s clouds<\/a> are from the Botanisk Have<\/em> again.<\/p>\n

\"international<\/a><\/p>\n

The above steeple is part of the International Church of Copenhagen. We didn’t go inside, but a fellow faculty member went to church there once. I think it is the only place in Denmark with services in English. I asked him how it was since religion is mostly dead in Scandinavia. He said there were only about 20 people at the service. The place holds hundreds.<\/p>\n

When we were in the Vor Frue Kirke<\/em><\/a> their service was about to start. The place seemed big enough to hold several hundred people–maybe even 500–but there were no more than about 30. They all looked pretty unhappy and pretty old. The average age was well over 50.<\/p>\n

Of the tiny percentage<\/a> of the population that attends church in Denmark, some are still atheists who attend for social reasons. Even a Danish priest, Thorkild Grosboll, came out as a non-believer<\/a> and his congregation supported him.<\/p>\n

Many, if not nearly all, of the churches in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark only continue to exist because of state support. Some have been converted into museums, restaurants, and other facilities. We saw one in Gothenburg, Sweden that had been turned into a fish market.<\/p>\n

I wonder how long it will take the rest of the world to follow Scandinavia’s lead. In my own town, in the U.S.A. even, churches have shut their doors permanently because of a lack of interest.<\/p>\n

\"cool<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today’s clouds are from the Botanisk Have again. The above steeple is part of the International Church of Copenhagen. We didn’t go inside, but a fellow faculty member went to church there once. I think it is the only place in Denmark with services in English. I asked him how it was since religion is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[19],"tags":[130,20,78,18,16,108],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=455"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13836,"href":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455\/revisions\/13836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}