Talk Elections

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/States_of_Austria#Geography

Bavaria.

Burgenland

Voralberg

Vorarlberg because it's almost Switzerland.

Vienna

:)

Tyrol for me. Voralberg would be fine as well.

Which is the most Protestant?

Only 4% protestants in Austria so it doesnt really matter. There is no place with a high share of Lutherans.

Burgenland has about 13% Protestants, which is the highest among all states.

Carinthia is next with about 11%.

http://www.statistik.at/web_de/statistiken/bevoelkerung/volkszaehlungen_registerzaehlungen/bevoelkerung_nach_demographischen_merkmalen/022885.html

Although to be fair, I guess....I've only been to 7 of these. Maybe I've missed something important :)

I've never been to Vorarlberg for some reason. Have been in the other 8 states though.

I'm missing Kärnten and Steiermark.

Well the US has a lower percentage of Jews but that doesn't mean there aren't any areas with a high Jewish concentration. Also I think Austria would have a higher percentage of Lutherans than the US too. Unfortunately neither state Tender mentioned looks too appealing. :P

Why would you base your decision about where to live on how many Evangelicals there are in a certain state ?

It's not like Austrians Protestants are nearly as fundie as their US counterparts ...

Well yes, which is a good thing of course. Everyone knows I like Lutherans*, and am not so fond the Southern Baptists or Catholic Church.

But of course, if hipster Christians exist anywhere in Austria, it'd be Vienna.

*Well not all in the US of course, since you also have a few fundie ones like Michele Bachmann, but as you noted they are far less common in Austria.

How do you define hipster Christians ? Because there are almost no practising Christians anymore in Austria between the ages of 15 and 40, only Christians on paper.

Hmm...that's tough. I can come up with a good reason to live in a couple. Salzburg seems like the ideal balance, all things considered. I need to have access to a major city or I'll go crazy, but there's also the mountains and countryside. I do love Vienna though...and Innsbruck.

Well that means being Christian is not mainstream....but as I said if there are any, they'd be in Vienna. I'm not sure if there are any hipster churches outside the US, Canada and Australia, hence why I've been joking with oakvale in IRC that if he moves to Canada I'm going to visit and convert him.

Yeah, you can go to Munich and Vienna in a few hours and to the mountains/countryside in ... half an hour. And you can go to Linz/Innsbruck and Graz within a few hours as well.

Oh and what's the strongest state for the Freedom Party? Definitely want to avoid that one.

Do you mean activist Christians as hipster ? Like those people similar to BushieOK that are flying to Kenya or other African countries to build houses or adopt children from there because they think they can make the world better because of this ? Yeah, you will probably find a very small amount of these people in Vienna or other bigger cities, whereas you go into some random church in rural Austria and 95% of the people who are in there are 60 or older, with the other 5% being underage altar boys/girls, kneeling to the feet of the priest.

That would be Vienna.

LOL no Bushie is not a hipster, he's just a Southern Baptist going to some standard fire and brimstone fundie church. Though my church did send some people to China last month to help organize illegal house churches and a lot of other hipster churches do stuff like that, yes. This site (http://hipsterchristianity.com) sums it up well, and the closest thing to a hipster Christian magazine that exists would be Relevant Magazine. So basically making Christianity modern and relevant, not like the type of thing you just described in a rural Catholic church. Like the church I went to this morning has services that have more resemblence to those indie rock shows I go to than a Catholic Mass.


:( Bleh, one thing I don't like about Europe is that the inner cities do often have bad politics, unlike North America where there's usually a direct correlation between how good a place votes and how otherwise desirable it is to live in.

Hipster Christians are trying to make church "cool".

Vorarlberg because the Bodensee is amazing.

I am surprised of this. I saw a poll a couple of years ago where Austria with 83% scored the second highest in Europe for people who believe in God. Poland was of course no. 1 with 95%. So I actually thought Austria was one of the few places in Europe where Christianity was still strong.

I've only been to Innsbruck- which was lovely. I plan to hit Salzburg and Vienna on this upcoming trip so I will see but based on what I have read... Salzburg

At first glance Upper Austria seems rather attractive to me, I think.

I suspect that my kind wouldn't be particularly welcome anywhere.

Here is the most recent survey, the Easter survey from Market/Standard, about what Austrians believe and what they are not believing:

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Only 17% say that "there is no God". Which means 83% say there is one. Out of these, 12% say there is more than 1 God.

The print edition of "derStandard", which I subscribe to, says though that among those who are under the age of 30, four in ten say "there is no God".

And there is a big disconnect between "belief in God" and "going to Church", because of the recent abuse scandals in the Catholic Church. So while the Olds are still loyal to the Catholic Church no matter what happens, the younger "Christians on paper" may still believe in a God but won't go to a church service anymore.

That's not true. If you work hard and adopt some Austrian lifestyle and engage in some social activities like joining the Red Cross, Firebrigade etc., foreigners or people of foreign origin are pretty welcome in Austria. See David Alaba (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Alaba) and his family. David Alaba has a Nigerian father who is a musician and a Philippine mother who is a nurse. David Alaba himself is a famous soccer player with Bayern Munich, which will play Real Madrid on Tuesday in the Champions League. David Alaba's sister came very far in Austria's "POPSTARS" series, which was about creating a band. David Alaba was also Austrian "Sportsman of the Year 2011" and is very liked accross the country. I wouldn't be surprised if many of the Austrians who applaud wildly for him when he scores a goal for the National Football Team are making their cross @ the FPÖ in an election ... :P It's just that Austrians don't like criminal foreigners or foreigners they perceive as exploiting our social welfare system. If they think this is the case, they favor that these people are sent into the next plane that brings them back where they came from instead of crowding our prisons.

Ah, but is he a Muslim?

No, a Christian:

http://www.jesus.ch/themen/people/portraits/212524-meine_kraft_liegt_in_jesus.html

But some of the Austrian football players with Turkish origin are probably Muslim, or Atheists, like my Turkish friend I went to highschool with.

Just looked up the numbers:

On Jan. 1, 2011 there have been exactly 2373 people who were born in Bangladesh in Austria.

2019 of them live in Vienna. Only 7 of them are living in Carinthia.

http://www.statistik.at/web_de/statistiken/bevoelkerung/bevoelkerungsstruktur/bevoelkerung_nach_staatsangehoerigkeit_geburtsland/023841.html

Out of these 2373 people from Bangladesh, 1557 were non-citizens and 816 are Austrian citizens.

I've heard Tyrol is absolutely beautiful. So there.

The "reasoning" being, of course, that it's almost in Germany. ;D