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Christians in Minority in England and Wales

Started by Recusant, November 29, 2022, 11:16:16 PM

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Recusant

They seem to be losing people to the "no religion" category. Though it should be acknowledged that the so-called "nones" are not necessarily atheist nor even agnostic.

"England and Wales now minority Christian countries, census reveals" | The Guardian

QuoteEngland and Wales are now minority Christian countries, according to the 2021 census, which also shows that Leicester and Birmingham have become the first UK cities to have "minority majorities".

The census revealed a 5.5 million (17%) fall in the number of people who describe themselves as Christian and a 1.2 million (43%) rise in the number of people who say they follow Islam, bringing the Muslim population to 3.9 million. In percentage-point terms, the number of Christians has dropped by 13.1, and the number of Muslims has risen by 1.7.

It is the first time in a census of England and Wales that fewer than half of the population have described themselves as Christian.

[Continues . . .]
"Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration — courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and above all, love of the truth."
— H. L. Mencken


Icarus

Would that we Colonials join the Brits in our collective retreat from unreasoned beliefs. In fact we have done so, but not to an extent that usefully insulates us from evangelical influence.

Bluenose

Well, "no religion" is already the largest grouping in Australia, although if you lump all the various flavours of xtianity together they still slightly outweigh the "nones" by a small margin.  Fortunately, even those who tick the <insert flavour of xtianity here> box on the census are for the most part irreligious.  In any case, the trend line is strongly in favour of the no religion side of the ledger.
+++ Divide by cucumber error: please reinstall universe and reboot.  +++

GNU Terry Pratchett


Asmodean

Over here, we have a lot of members of the church from ye olden days when such membership was all but automatic on birth (i think), but the majorioty of the "Christian" population don't care beyond maybe some ceremonial affairs, like weddings and funerals. Muslims tend to be more on the faithful side, though many of them too care only on special occasions or around family members who do.

It's a state of affairs that seems to suit pretty much everybody well enough.
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on July 25, 2013, 08:18:52 PM
In Asmo's grey lump,
wrath and dark clouds gather force.
Luxembourg trembles.

Icarus

Here is an interesting exploration of why or how humans might have developed into religious beings.


Asmodean

Hm... Yes...

It's interesting, but I think we should start with defining specifically what a religion is.

I think the "rational" part of it is pattern-seeking behaviour combined with a healthy dose of avoidance of responsibility. There is also that other part - the one that makes people uncritically accept a bad fact or worse - a falsehood as true and/or right, at least partly because of "prior programming." I think a part of that part is that quick decision-making our ancestors depended on to do stuff like not get eaten. Basically, make a decision based on whatever you have - even potentially bad information, then commit.

Then there is ritualistic behaviour, which... Some may stem from some of the above, but then there are people with OCD, who tend to take it to a whole nother level with limited degree of control. Whence cometh OCD? Can compulsive behaviour of that nature be described as religious?

Then there are the social whatnots. You can have a religion without a god. I wonder if you can have one without a "higher purpose?" As a subset of that, could a religion without an in-group and an out-group exist as a religion? If it can, is the belief in Santa not religious in nature? If it is, why is that illusion so much easier broken than its grander step-cousins?
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on July 25, 2013, 08:18:52 PM
In Asmo's grey lump,
wrath and dark clouds gather force.
Luxembourg trembles.

Ecurb Noselrub

Without question there is a lot of bad in religion, and having grown up in it I have seen plenty of that. But there is an aspect of it that draws many, and that is the mystical, subjective experience that can make one feel that God/the Universe/a Supreme Intelligence, etc. is near and real. Depending upon the person, that experience may be ascribed to natural causes or "spiritual" causes, and thus you have a foundation for religion for some people.

That being said, given the shit-show that is organized religion, I can completely understand why it is on the decline in places like the UK.

Asmodean

Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on January 18, 2023, 12:49:45 PM...But there is an aspect of it that draws many, and that is the mystical, subjective experience that can make one feel that God/the Universe/a Supreme Intelligence, etc. is near and real. Depending upon the person, that experience may be ascribed to natural causes or "spiritual" causes, and thus you have a foundation for religion for some people.
That is faith though, no? I wonder if it does indeed take faith to start or partake in a religion. Oh, it certainly can, I'm just speculating outside the classical scope here.

Let's take some branches of Environmentalism. Some fool kid is told he's going to die in "climate Hell," and to avoid it, his penance is a life of eating carrots, riding a bus and gluing his butt cheeks to construction machinery. Is this a matter of faith..? Hmm... Yes, I actually suppose it is. The fool kid may even know that he has the one set of true facts and sure predictions, but in that subjective pictures-in-one's-head way which would be difficult to even explain to someone not of a like mind, never mind convince them of it.
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on July 25, 2013, 08:18:52 PM
In Asmo's grey lump,
wrath and dark clouds gather force.
Luxembourg trembles.

Ecurb Noselrub

Quote from: Asmodean on January 19, 2023, 08:19:56 AM
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on January 18, 2023, 12:49:45 PM...But there is an aspect of it that draws many, and that is the mystical, subjective experience that can make one feel that God/the Universe/a Supreme Intelligence, etc. is near and real. Depending upon the person, that experience may be ascribed to natural causes or "spiritual" causes, and thus you have a foundation for religion for some people.
That is faith though, no? I wonder if it does indeed take faith to start or partake in a religion. Oh, it certainly can, I'm just speculating outside the classical scope here.

Let's take some branches of Environmentalism. Some fool kid is told he's going to die in "climate Hell," and to avoid it, his penance is a life of eating carrots, riding a bus and gluing his butt cheeks to construction machinery. Is this a matter of faith..? Hmm... Yes, I actually suppose it is. The fool kid may even know that he has the one set of true facts and sure predictions, but in that subjective pictures-in-one's-head way which would be difficult to even explain to someone not of a like mind, never mind convince them of it.

Of course it takes faith. But we exercise degrees of faith every day. I work because I have faith that my employer is going to pay me in two weeks. I don't know that, but based on past experience I work another two weeks. A parent has faith in Texas when he/she sends his/her child to school - faith that the next school shooting won't happen then and there. We can't live life without some level of faith. Religious faith just goes a bit (or a lot) farther. Based on something a person believes. Subjective belief enters into all of it at some level.

Asmodean

Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on January 23, 2023, 11:50:58 PMOf course it takes faith. But we exercise degrees of faith every day. I work because I have faith that my employer is going to pay me in two weeks. I don't know that, but based on past experience I work another two weeks. A parent has faith in Texas when he/she sends his/her child to school - faith that the next school shooting won't happen then and there. We can't live life without some level of faith. Religious faith just goes a bit (or a lot) farther. Based on something a person believes. Subjective belief enters into all of it at some level.
That is interesting, because I see it differently.

I work because I want to achieve certain work-related results. I do not have faith that my employer will pay me, but a contractual right to payment for my services, in exchange for contractual obligation to provide said services. A failure may occur on either end, and there are processes in place to deal with such. To a degree, it is a matter of trust, but I do not think it is a matter of faith.

I think I would also find it very difficult to send my (admittedly non-existent) children to school on faith that they would not get shot. If their statistical likelihood to be so was higher than my threshhold of parental worry, I'd either home school or find another option beneath said threshhold. Again, it's not faith that the kids will come back alive and relatively well, but an [/i]expectation,[/i] because they are supposed to - and nearly all do. It would not even rise to the level of watching my kid drive off in his car the hour he got his license - and even that would be a mix of hope and expectation of safe return.

I... Don't disagree that everybody probably makes some decisions at least partly based on faith, but I do think that it is possible to live a life without. For instance, I think hope may get you equally far. (As a point of difference, if gambling on red, it's your hope that the ball will land thusly - not necessarily your belief or faith. It's... Less absolute than that.)
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on July 25, 2013, 08:18:52 PM
In Asmo's grey lump,
wrath and dark clouds gather force.
Luxembourg trembles.

Ecurb Noselrub

But if you act on hope and move forward based upon that hope, I don't see much distinction between that and faith. I hope the light turns green before I go into the intersection, and then moving into the intersection based on that hope and your past experience with that intersection signal, is about the same as having faith that it will turn. I hope this plane won't crash (said to myself as I board the plane and take my seat) is about the same as having faith that it won't crash. Maybe semantics, but acting on hope is an act of faith, in my opinion. Either way, it is a working hypothesis that could be confirmed by the outcome or destroyed.

No one

Hope is an idea, open to dismal outcomes.

Faith is concretely certain in faith's validity.

Bluenose

I have faith that the sun will come up in the morning.  This is because it has done so in my experience every day since I have been alive.  Of course, I also know that the sun does not actually rise, the earth rotates to bring it into view.  Either way, this faith is based on evidence.

When I was working, I had faith I would be paid for my efforts.  Again, this faith was based on experience and the fact that I had a contract of employment that specified the rate of pay. Evidence that I would be paid.

Non-religious faith is usually based upon experience and/or other actual evidence.  It is not even remotely like religious faith, which is simply based upon assertions without any substantive evidence.
+++ Divide by cucumber error: please reinstall universe and reboot.  +++

GNU Terry Pratchett


Icarus

I have had more than enough of the "faith based" lunacy that is doing its' damnedest to overwhelm the rest of us.

Banning books is a sore point with me. Book banning for schools is a big deal in many of the red southern states, including my own state. News bulletin:The state of Tennessee has banned books that discus the life cycle of sea horses. It seems that sea horses can produce offspring without contact with another sea horse. A quirk of biology. But the Tennessee hillbillies somehow connect that with homosexuality or transgender. Learning about sea horses would defile the minds of "normal,the way God intended" school kids.

My own state has banned numerous high school math books because of some unspecified content. Math books?  WTF!!!  I suspect that there may have been some statistical stuff about teen pregnancies in Mississippi or something of that nature. I do hope that they have not banned the study of quadratic equations in algebra class.

Books by author Toni Morrisson, recipient of a Nobel prize for literature, have been banned altogether. Morrisson is a black woman who writes about black societal issues.  She had the audacity to write about a little black girl who wanted desperately to be white. The little girl wanted to have blue eyes just like her white kid protagonists. Whoa!!! Reading a book like that might cause the white kids to feel guilt for being white. School boards banned the book from school libraries and there is pressure on public libraries to remove such evil books from the stacks.

I am truly sick of such senseless stupidity. I will go to my room now... :felix: 

 

 

Tom62

I'm against banning books in school libraries, but also aware that some books are not suitable for very young kids. I also frown upon sexual explicit materials as well as political extreme propaganda. When the kids are older it is not so much of a problem, as long as they are also exposed to opposite views. I read somewhere that more than 90% of all public teachers in the USA are progressive of democrats by heart and I'm not sure that this a good thing. When I grew up, I didn't had a clue what most of my teachers' political or sexual affiliations were. Nowadays the "feelings" of the teachers seems to be more important than teaching children math, geography, history or other subjects. No wonder that the illiteracy rate in the US is so high and that there is a huge backlash growing against all that wokeness.

So, what we might see is that the pendulum swings completely to the other side, where every book is scanned for woke ideas and gets banned if there is even a small hint of it in it. I think that is a very bad idea, just like banning children books that shows racial stereotypes (Dr.Seuss) or editing children books because some morons find some words insensitive (Roald Dahl).
The universe never did make sense; I suspect it was built on government contract.
Robert A. Heinlein