To HATE Easter Sunday!

[ElseaStars]

Sorry I know I'm probably being unreasonable but why is EVERYWHERE closed?! I really hate Easter. (To me it's a a day for kids and religious people)

It isnt true that we are no longer a majority christian country
according to the office for national statistics unless things have changed significantly since 2011.

"In the 2011 Census, Christianity was the largest religion, with 33.2 million people (59.3 per cent of the population). The second largest religious group were Muslims with 2.7 million people (4.8 per cent of the population)."

We get paid 60% hourly rate or NMW whichever is higher because it's not a normal working day. However we are contractually obliged to work a percentage of holidays.

I think that's arguable, Kitten. A lot of people say they are Christian even though they never go to church and really know nothing about the religion. If you look at the number of churchgoers, it's minuscule nowadays compared with the population size.

Its not really up to us to question the quality of their faith though 'are you really sure you are christian?' even if they only feel culturally christian they still have a valid view point and have a majority influence at present.

For how long though, I dont know. there was a big drop between 2001 and 2011. It may be that in 2021 (if we have a census!!) that if falls to the point where they dont form the majority.

Wow, you get paid 60% uselessidiot, significantly less than usual - I'm shocked

I used to get double time for Easter Sunday and New Year's Day back in the days when I worked for a fast food chain (late 90s).

Do people really believe that Scottish workers are somehow more exploited than English ones because Scotland doesn't have the same ridiculous Sunday trading laws?

Am going to RTFT properly (so far, I think YANBU if people would like to work Easter Sunday), but got to p3 and was absolutely blown away by Pipbin's brilliant Douglas Adams quote. Totally off topic, but if this was the standard of his writing, I'm going to get his HHGTTG series now.

say what you like about Ken L but he made sure GLC contracts were time . 5 Saturday, x 2 time Sunday, x3 bank Hol's. Unfortunately some people, particularly on 'Parks and Gardens' took the piss and pushed back there work during the week so managers were forced to give them weekend and bank holiday shifts, ruining it for us all. This gave Mrs Thatch the ammo to disband it all. Apologies if you were P&G and didn't do this!

Can you really not manage 24 hours without shopping? Seriously 24 hours is hardly going to kill you is it?

I meant their work. How embarrassing.

It's not really about whether people can shop or not. It's about someone else's religion dictating what I can do.

Is it really about the need to go and buy things in a shop, or the feel and atmosphere simply when things are open as opposed to shut and quiet.

You could argue that all pubs should be shut so people cannot drink either, but usually bars and pubs are open.

I hate sunday laws and thats not because I go and buy things from shops and wish to do so on sunday,

I buy from car boots anyway, what I like however is to window shop, I like the buzz shops being open, things being open creates...I like to have access to do things....

calam, are you implying your religion (or lack of) trumps the national religion then?

mrsdevere, someone gave stats above suggesting 60% or so identified as Christian in the last census, leaving aside the CofE being the established church, and its political and law-making functions.

The C of E is the established church in England. It is not the established church in any of the rest of the UK. A bit off therefore that Anglican bishops sit in the House of Lords, but that is by the by.

Anyway, the census gives one picture but this gives another. The British Social Attitudes Survey 2013 says: 'in 1983 two in five people (40 per cent) said they were Anglican, and the Church of England could still reasonably lay claim to being England's national church (and thus, arguably, to some extent its fount of moral authority). But now only 20 per cent do so. In contrast, the proportion saying they belong to a religion other than Christianity has tripled from two to six per cent.' Later it says there has been: 'a steady increase in the proportion of people who do not regard themselves as belonging to any religion, up from 31 per cent in 1983 to 48 per cent in 2012.'

I would be very surprised if the atheists/agnostics weren't in the majority within a very few years. They're already the largest single group.

Here in Scotland it seemed everything was open but we do have to suffer a 3 day shutdown at New Year which is horrendous!
I love Easter Sunday, and actually prefer it to Christmas.less pressure,but good food, family, and this year - some sunshine.lovely

The census asked a leading question 'what is your religion' - not surprising it yielded a misleading answer. The British Social Attitudes surveys dig deeper. The 2012 findings include :

Half (50%) do not regard themselves as
belonging to a particular religion, while the
largest proportion (20%) of religious affiliates
belong to the Church of England. Nearly two thirds
(64%) of those aged 18–24 do not belong
to a religion, compared with 28% of those
aged 65 and above.
More than half (56%) of those who belong to
or were brought up in a religion never attend
religious services or meetings. Just 14%
attend weekly.

I think that people's right to decide for themselves in general definitely trumps the, largely nominal, 'national religion'. Why should the CoE have any affect on anyone's life if they don't belong to the religion?

It is a balance of harm test really. Who does it affect most? Those who can't do what they want for a couple of days, or those who might be 'forced' to work when they need not. I consider Good Friday a day of mourning. You know when someone you know dies and the slightly irrational part of you looks at the world carrying on as normal and thinks 'hey, don't you know what has happened?'. I feel a bit like that about Good Friday.

Religious or not, Easter time gives us some reflection space. And we don't seem to moan that we cannot get into most shops at 3am etc. There are other restrictions that happen every day and the species survives. I would have no problem living in Pakistan and observing islamic holidays etc.

Society has become very 'me me me' and this thread is a bit like a toddler shouting 'but I don't want to do that because I don't care, so why should I?'.

Tbh, you just sound as 'me,me, me' as you claim all the 'problem' people are.

People are entitled to annual leave, so if Good Friday/Easter Sunday are important to them, they can book it off. People do that for other dates that matter to them.

And why is it only retail workers (in large shops) that bother you? People who work in tourism, medicine, the emergency services, taxi drivers, etc all have to work on Sundays and religious holidays (at least potentially). The worst thing about the laws are that they're totally irrational. Working in a big shop (that's open to the public) is no different a task than working in a small version of the same bloody shop, or a garage, or a fast food restaurant, but the law only prohibits or curtails the working in a shop above a totally arbitrary size. The law even allows working in the same big shop so long as it's not open to the public. The current laws actually have nothing to do with protecting people from working on Sundays/religious holidays.

I really don't understand why you need everyone else to observe your religious holidays for you. And the 'Christian country' stuff is nonsense. I'm a British citizen (as everyone in my family has been for generations) and I'm not Christian. Why should my opinion on whether religious observance should be forced on the populace matter less than yours?

It would be different if I chose to move to Pakistan (etc) but I was born here and I'm allowed to question the stupid way things are done here.

People who have a privileged position do tend to get defensive when that privilege is questioned.

calam, it isn't just retail staff who shouldn't have to work, it is everyone in non-essential roles. I haven't specifically said retail only (if that part of your post was directed at me), but in general that is what the thread has been about. I am not 'me me me' at all, but I guess it is something I have felt more strongly about as I have wrinkled. It is not just about booking a day off, and nor is it necessarily that simple for those under pressure to work those days. As I say, it is a balance of harm thing. And also respect for others.
And your opinion is as valid as any other, of course, but it comes back to balance of harm. I have opinions on all sorts of things from dummies upwards, but I do not necessarily think my solutions to what I perceive as problems should be imposed on others.
For example, believe it or not, I am in favour of disestablishing the Church of England. I dislike the institution immensely.