What goes on here?

>Nothing much. I don't really get what could appeal to a foreigner here.
meeting russian folk

their religion composition is pretty interesting
34.1% lutheran
25.1% catholic
19.4% orthodox
20% non-religious

Just seems like somewhere different.

Then go to Russia. Our Russians are mutts who use a fuckload of borrowed local vocabulary, drink local booze, celebrate local baltic festivals and prefer going to the west to work as toiletcleaners instead of repatriating. It'd be like trying to experience America by living among expats in Thailand.

>34.1% lutheran
owing to its history under German and Swedish occupation
>25.1% catholic
mostly located in Latgale, which was under Poland's, a Catholic country, suzerainty for much of it's history
>19.4% orthodox
the Russians. Most of them settled there during Soviet occupation but Russian presence in Latvia is much older
>20% non-religious
an achievement of communism

>their religion composition is pretty interesting
It ain't real, people self report along cultural lines. Only around 5-10% actually go to church. Most people baptize their kids out of habit but that is declining now too.
>34.1% lutheran
Pretty much none of them actively practice, besides some burger meme cults like adventists or mormons with a tiny following. Most of the country is ex-german controlled so they are "lutheran"
>25.1% catholic
Again, very few practitioners. Most were just baptized because of where their family comes from (the ex-polish parts) and as an expression of freedom after the USSR fell.
>19.4% orthodox
Most active group by far, but pretty much only because all the Russian babushkas go to church. Most young Russians are secular just like Latvians.
>20% non-religious
Make it 90%

Fuck off wikipedia warrior. Those statistics are full of shit. Nobody besides babushkas and retarded new age memeculters actually believes in god. It's just an "oh yeah I'm baptized as x!" thing.

It isn't. Latvia could easily be a midwestern US state, culture wise. The only real difference is the language and the legacy of communism.

Ykskylä is rightful Finnic clay.

>It's just an "oh yeah I'm baptized as x!" thing.
Uh yeah? Are you stupid or something? Saying "I'm Catholic" doesn't mean you have to go to church every Sunday.

Right of conquest, eestipois

You really don't get it. There is fuck all catholic about these people, 0. Communism destroyed any sort of religious identity. It's more like a fashion statement than actual belonging. Most "catholics" never see the inside of a church after their baptism.

>Communism destroyed any sort of religious identity.
Then why do 80% of Latvians identify with a specific religion?

are most of the non-religious latvians? or russians?

you are a stupid fucking monkey

I literally explained to you, because they were baptized and because their parents always told them that that's what they are. Then there was a spurt of baptisms in the 90s as it became legal again, but it's died down. The youngest kids just haven't grown up to self-report yet. My whole family self-reports as catholic too, not one of them is religious, my parents didn't even have a wedding, just signed some papers like in soviet times. As a matter of fact, not a single wedding has been held in a church, only some oldfag funerals. Nobody is baptizing their kids these days either. In 20 years it will be 80% non-religious as all the soviet era old farts to whom it was a matter of identity die off.

Why do you ask the kraut who clearly hasn't been here and doesn't know anybody from here? Pretty much only old Russian babushkas are religious. Everybody else is an atheist or believes in "a higher power" or fate or some other meme deist shit.
I am more intelligent than you. Fact.

i just wanna know the background of this people, if i had asked you you would just tell no one is religious

would love to visit all the baltics one day they look beautiful

Because in practice, nobody is. Both Russians and Latvians are overwhelmingly secular.

>My whole family self-reports as catholic too, not one of them is religious
i think your family might just be retarded

>It's more like a fashion statement than actual belonging.

That's how it pretty much is in any actual developed country. The most i've delved into evangelical lutheranism was my confirmation which after i think i've only been to church twice. The other time i was drunk as shit and the other time i was high as fuck.

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>Why do you ask the kraut who clearly hasn't been here and doesn't know anybody from here?

I was in Latvia three years ago. Are you stupid or something?

Literally the blandest, most boring places in the world. No mountains, no deserts, no waterfalls or anything really, besides flat countryside, some logging forests and commieblocks. We don't even have any natural disasters, predators or extreme weather, besides the occasional Russian invasion.

Baltics are like the single least interesting place in the world. At least people in Kansas or Nebraska have guns.

two years ago actually now that i think about it

I'm from Riga, the capital, so ask me anything about it, I suppose.

well i've looked at your cities and they're gorgeous especially riga it truly is perfect

What is there to do there?

Oh come on, you have pretty, old cities. and soviet times leave their own appeal if you're into brutalism.

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>predators or extreme weather, besides the occasional Russian invasion.
Top kek

No, they're just Latvian. Everybody else is the same. I've never met a single person you could describe as a practising catholic in my life. You are a dumb cuck talking out your ass on topics you know nothing about. Imagine if I started telling you what life is like in Germany and what German people are like off shit I read on wikipedia.

are there any non-white people in latvia?

The Baltics are cheap and civilized. They don't have that Soviet/Eastern Europe stigma like Romania or Bulgaria anymore.
Also most people just do Riga/Tallin/Vilnius anyway, which are okay enough as far as city-tripping goes.

>Everybody else is the same. I've never met a single person you could describe as a practising catholic in my life.
Protip: That's how it is in most European countries.
Gosh you're retarded.

>That's how it pretty much is in any actual developed country.
So what? That means the pollsters are full of shit, not me.
I've been in pretty much every EU country and I've had hundreds of "friends" and acuaintances from all over the place. Hell, I've even been to some goatfucker countries. The only other culture I would ever speak about with any authority is Estonia because I've spent literally months living with Estonians, in Estonia - and they share most of the past 1000 years of history with us. A trip is generally a sanitized experience where you don't really see anything beyond the facade of the society.

>Gosh you're retarded
No, you are. You assume that words don't have meaning. They do. To an American or Muslim, describing anybody here as "catholic" would be extremely misleading. You're just doubly stupid because you see this discrepancy in your own society but are too much of a spineless pussy to say it like it is.

>A trip is generally a sanitized experience where you don't really see anything beyond the facade of the society.
You claimed that I've never been to Latvia which is factually wrong, you dipshit. Also it wasn't a sanitized trip. Didn't even go to Riga.

>So what? That means the pollsters are full of shit, not me.
The Lutheran Church of Latvia has a whopping 250000 members. Yet you claim nobody in Latvia is religious. You're the one who's full of shit, lad.

pls answer
just curious

>To an American or Muslim, describing anybody here as "catholic" would be extremely misleading.

lol
>to an ISIS terrorist who blows himself up on a town square for Allah, describing anybody here as "catholic" would be extremely misleading.
Do you even realize how much of an idiot you are?

Visiting the city centre is an obvious thing - you can relax there very well (thanks to a great abundance of parks there and the river nearby, allowing you to have a bit of a relaxing water view). There are museums, malls, lots of restaurants, so naturally you have that. Our architecture is very much worth looking at (specifically, the Art Deco/Jugendstil buildings, apparently no other city has as much of them).

Really, it kind of all depends on what you're looking for specifically, can't say it's that easy to give a guide for any city for me personally on what to do in it, but if you mention a few things I can probably give you more details.

Yes, but comparably very few from what I noticed.

It's not really the pollsters being shit as much as the metrics used. Many people with a near complete lack of attendance do believe in God (or a supreme being, a... something) and identify with some sort of religious community, perhaps partially due to tradition.

Religious/church attendance (obviously, for prayer/religious purposes, not just walking around and sightseeing) statistics would naturally show a different story, though.

You still have no point. If your catholics are like our catholics, they aren't actually catholics. I bet 90% of the reason you're even making this retarded point is that you don't want to be seen losing to an inferior country flag.

>tfw no lativan gf to push me into water

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>250000 members
I literally told you like a dozen times, baptism rates have fuck all to do with people's religion. I am baptized as a catholic, but I am not a catholic. That doesn't stop them from including me in their statistics.
>there are no wh*Te people in latvia

Memes aside: Yes, there are an increasing number of non-whites in Latvia, mostly Indian students who work in kebab shops in the capital and Chinese... nobody really knows what, who buy up land in smaller towns and make communities.

where are they from? what do people think of them?

>Hello my name is Andris. I am from Latvia and a Catholic.
>NO YOU'RE NOT A CATHOLIC BECAUSE I SAY SO

This is your entire argument.

>Indian students who work in kebab shops
so are there turks, too? or are kebab places run by indians?

I've been telling the dumb kraut the same thing over and over again, he refuses to accept it because he thinks he's more intelligent and more right by default. Germans are the shittiest nation in Europe by far.

Just because the people collecting census data think a simple tick box is sufficient to indicate religious belief doesn't mean it is true. The goal of collecting data is to gain understanding, and pretending a meme fashion accessory religion is actual religious identity gives a completely incorrect picture. I don't give a shit if they use the same shitty metrics in krautland it simply isn't true, period.

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>Germans are the shittiest nation in Europe by far.
By proxy Latvia is even worse, being a former German colony and all.

>I am something just because I say I am that thing
You don't understand what religion is. Just because I decide I identify as a twelver shia muslim doesn't mean I am. It just means I claim to be. Religion is about belief and about practice, not about wearing a label. You don't understand this because you live in a society where religion is dead. To you it seems like a quaint little tradition, when it is far more than that.

Stop shitting this thread up with your low quality opinions.

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Indians. Turks are practically non-existent to my knowledge, the darkies are overwhelmingly southern Indians and some Pakis.

Thankfully the Russians liberated us from you scum. Most wehraboo Latvians don't realize you lot planned to kill half of us and deport the rest, but I do. Seeing your country turn into a dystopian middle eastern shithole fills my heart with joy.

>Religion is about belief and about practice, not about wearing a label.
Maybe by your own personal definition. In non-meme countries if you say you adhere to religion X - no matter if you practice the belief in some form or not - that's good enough. We take it as face-value.

Got a link to the episode?

My korean is getting rusty, this would test the waters pretty well.

I wonder how they found the girls (really, just wondering how people are found for TV projects here, I guess)

Can confirm that being baptized means literally nothing. It's a thing that is usually done when you are an infant, and therefore it's not by choice.

Chinese kinda left though and don't come much now thanks to the government going full retard on its foreign investment policy.

Well, some are from the Caucasus region (Soviet times' influence), and most people are fine with them.

Some are from India/Pakistan - usually come here as students (been seeing quite a few at Ķīpsala - they're RTU students, don't know about foreigners at LU that well) or work in kebab stores (if you visit any city in Germany you'll understand - somewhat similar situation right now).

And some Chinese apparently, but Asians are incredibly rare here.

I do consider our society to be fairly tolerant, so I can't say we care as much about peoples' nationalities.

Some people do have a special thing for refugees and/or muslims, but generally I find Latvia (or at least my city, Riga) to be fairly accepting.

I don't agree with the way you're talking, and Germany is a very nice place which I love going to, personally. Try visiting Berlin and/or Dortmund sometime - they're great IMO.

Well, I can't say the polls are wrong here, really, it's just that it should be assumed stating yourself as religious does not mean you have any sort of church attendance or even regular prayer.

Sorry to see you being mad at a fellow Latvian. Just don't be baited too much.

But on religious attendance I do genuinely have to say it's really low here. Membership does not necessarily mean much, really.

On a side note though, we I do find us to be somewhat similar to Germans in a way.

Turks too. I can't back up anything tho due to no data

t. russian rapebaby

> Most wehraboo Latvians don't realize you lot planned to kill half of us and deport the rest
Rightfully so.

Don't be concillatory with the kraut, he is a shitposter. You're just encouraging him to act condescendingly. Stop deferring to idiots from the west just because they are from the west.
>go to Germany
I've been to Germany dozens of times. It's not the country that is the problem, it is their disgusting attitude.

>Rightfully so.
Yeah, exactly. This is why Europe will be a better place once you disgusting cunts are gone. Not even the Russians engage in outrigh genocide.

Daily Reminder for you.

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I actually like Latvia. My favorite Baltic country. Even spent a birthday there, camping at Lake Lubans. Had some Jersikas chips there. Shit was maximum comfy.

It's you who got buttmad over official statistics because they don't fit your own personal definition of what it means to be religious.

On housing - it's actually pretty good, and the walls are very well insulated (and sound isolated) in my opinion - even better sometimes than the newer buildings.

The main problem is the neglect of them, which leads to the "oh but commieblocks look terrible". Of course they do after no maintenance.

Pic related from Berlin

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Went to the Motherland and not regret of it.
But sometimes i miss my village

>self hating bydlo
gotta love Jow Forums

May I ask why? Are you doing this to spite your vatnik compatriots? Aren't you afraid of being doxxed and getting the shit kicked out of you?

>personal definition of what it means to be religious.
They don't fit any definition of what it means to be religious. They are just a compilation of brainlets analyzing self-report data by other brainlets. I do not consider somebody who doesn't believe the religion's tenets or practise any of its rules to be religious. Most reasonable scholars or actually religious people wouldn't. Only wikipedia smartasses do.

ironically enough though many non religious people identify with a religious group and/or believe in god.

a paradox

That doesn't fucking make them so. Stop using self identification as the be-all end-all of statistics, it means fuck all. When you collect data about religions, you aren't trying to determine the number of people who claim to belong to a certain group. What you are actually doing is using said data to try and make predictions about people's behaviour. This is what you and kraut don't get.

The end goal of census data isn't fucking pretty numbers by themselves, it is understanding and context, it is predictive value. And as it turns out, self-reported religious identity in Europe is a horrible predictor of behaviour. You're reducing words like "Catholic" from well-defined concepts that come with a lot of information about what those people are like to vague terms that mean fuck all besides "this person said he is a catholic". Do you seriously not see the problem here?

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Honestly, have you considered sending an email to our census bureau?

I think you have good ideas on how to perhaps improve the quality of data based on facts and not just self identification.

What are Indians doing running kebab shops? Kek

>You're reducing words like "Catholic" from well-defined concepts that come with a lot of information about what those people are like to vague terms that mean fuck all besides "this person said he is a catholic".
>the general consensus of what it means to be a Catholic in the year 1517 should apply in the 21st century as well

Do you seriously not see the problem here? What is the problem with
>I was baptized as a Protestant. I believe in God and the commandments like "You shall not kill" and traditional virtues are good stuff I guess.
How is this person not a Protestant?

their Independence day is May 4th