Polish Americans and religion

dzień dobry everyone! (Well, its the morning in Poland =P)

Anyway, I'm new to the forums, but I also have a question.
Being 100% polish and a second generation immigrant family, I am proud of my polish heritage. The problem I have though is that I am not as religious as most Polish-Americans are (or at least thats what I see). Is really abnormal when it comes to being a Polish-American to not be very religious?

There's nothing abnormal about it.


Well, it's 2 a.m. here...

So why don't you speak fluent Polish?

Every proud Polish person I know is very proud to speak the language.

Early, early morning

But, when I see and talk to other polish people, it seems that many are, in fact really religious.


Other than at home, I was really never shown the language. Plus we speak both English and Polish at my home

No, when you talk to other Polish-American people. They're not Polish.

Please, learn to differentiate between the two.

well, not really....

and please! use a capital letter: Polish....

aggrrrh!

Agree, my pet-peeve too. (unless he was talking about cleaning products ;)

Ps. I'm Polish American and I am religious so I'm balancing you out. :)

I apologize to you both, but you are seeming a bit harsh towards me

It's basic manners to use correct punctuation, grammar, etc on an internet forum. Makes it easier to read for the rest of us :)

balance is in nature....

in fact, almost everybody i know here, refer to God on every day basis, but they never go to church.... hmm... weird...

I don't want to start a heated discussion here.

Anyway, I dont want to be rude or immature, but to the people I talk to who are Polish, they seem to not be able to take a joke towards religion, and are immediately offended.

She's speaking the truth, though.

Why not, we all do that here from time to time.

No apology needed, it was mostly a joke (at least on my part).

You'll quickly learn that most of us like to poke fun at each other, we have some heated discussions and often we agree to disagree. That's PF in a nutshell

And quite often, you will find nuts in a nut-shell.

I would have never guessed

yes.... let's just relax kids....

:)

That's because they're not Polish, probably.

You should also know that Mr. D is passionate about proving who is and who isn't really Polish. If you don't speak fluent Polish, your Polish ancestors and even your Polish DNA disintegrate and cease to exist.

Man, tough crowd of snippy Polish purists.
No wonder you guys chase off newbies.
Give the kid a break, and answer his questions.

I see this trend mainly with the older Polish generation.

Welp, out of the hundreds of Polish-American I've met, maybe one or two considered themselves atheistic/agnostic.... not trying to imply anything, but that's my unbiased view.

It depends how you see being "religious". I don't believe that Poles are really religious, infact its just a fashion ... nothing else. The deeply moral attributes of a religious life is missing, it is just about tradition and community activity, nothing else.

I think a lot of morals come with that tradition Lodz, and that the Catholic Church in Poland hold a higher moral standard that in other places throughout the world

Nah, for fashion we go to other churches, like Dolce@Gabbana or Blahnik and such, not RCC.


And if it's just that, what's wrong with it? Who made you a judge?

Well, to give the opinion of a casual observer...

<quote>They seem to not be able to take a joke towards religion, and are immediately offended.</quote>

You've gotta realize, that even if they're not a first generation Polish immigrant, that you're in a situation of mixed cultures. What's funny in the U.S. isn't always funny in Poland, and what's funny in Poland isn't always funny in the U.S. Different cultures are trained from birth to perceive things in different ways - you yourself might be perceiving someone as "taking offense" when really their reaction is simply...Polish. ;)

Then again, I've never been to Poland and I've only got a couple of books on foreign exchanges to back me up, but it seems pretty logical.

I'm living in Canada and it seems as if a lot of Polish-Canadians consider themselves to be religious but do not attend church nor do they do anything that would suggest they are religious. It seems to be more because that's how they were raised, although my grandparents in Poland do not go to church either (my grandpa despises the Catholic church) but consider themselves to be religious.

I myself am an atheist but I still follow a lot of the traditions and plan to do so for the rest of my life because of tradition and not religion, and that seems to be the case for a lot of Polish-Canadians I know, although very few would ever say they were atheists.

About religion in America: For the neoconservatives, religion is an instrument of promoting morality. Religion becomes what Plato called a "noble lie." It is a myth which is told to the majority of the society by the philosophical elite in order to ensure social order.

In being a kind of secretive elitist approach, Straussianism does resemble Marxism. These ex-Marxists, or in some cases ex-liberal Straussians, could see themselves as a kind of Leninist group, you know, who have this covert vision which they want to use to effect change in history, while concealing parts of it from people incapable of understanding it.

About religion in Poland: Czy ludzie w naszym kraju są rzeczywiście wierzący, czy to nie jest bardzo zewnętrzne?

Czesław Miłosz: ... Pewien amerykański profesor określił Polskę jako kraj ludzi niewierzących ale praktykujących. Ja bym sformułował to inaczej, że Polska jest krajem ludzi praktykujących ale nie zastanawiających się dużo nad tym w co wierzą. To jest religia, która może okazać się mało odporna wobec nowoczesnego świata technologii, taka religia bez przemyśleń może okazać się dość bezbronna.

Translation: An American professor defined Poland as a country of non-believing but practicing people. I would formulate it in different words. Poland is the country of practicing people but not giving much thought to what they believe. This is a religion, which may turn out to be moderately resistant to modern technology, such religion lacking reflections can prove to be defenseless.

How do you fit to that picture?