to think the UK needs to think about the role of the religion and the State given that that only 1/3 of people say they are religious

[cakeorwine]

Interesting survey results

lost-faith-the-uk's-changing-attitudes-to-religion.pdf (kcl.ac.uk)

1/3 of people are religious, 46% aren't religious and 20% are atheist (not sure of the difference)

50% believe in God and 48% don't - so that's a bit weird if you think about the previous survey

About half of people believe in life after death and about half don't

Interesting survey - the UK is one of the least religious countries in the world. Something you might not have believed if you think of our anthem and also the recent Coronation.

Which begs the question:

Should the Prime Minister appoint Bishops?

I think that Thatcher blocked the appointment of Jim Thomson. And yes - I have seen Yes Prime Minister. It's a pick a card trick, and they ensure the right card gets picked.

Surely the C of E should decide who its Bishops and ArchBishops are.

As I said, I went to a CofE school and it did me no harm.

But then I don't follow the contemporary philosophy that exposure to ideas that you might disagree with is a bad thing.

@DdraigGoch

I don't know how you think that you're going to enforce that."

Easy. If they choose to apply for a faith school, they can't apply to a non faith school.

Maggie Thatcher is ancient history. There has been a precedent since Tony Blair's time that instead of choosing between the two "cards", the PM always selects the one on top. So in the de facto sense, the PM hasn't chosen a bishop in decades.

But you will see that that affects your argument to send children to a non faith school when for some people, the only local school is a faith school.

And maybe some parents don't want their children to in a faith school and don't want to have to make the child seem different by asking them to withdraw from collective worship.

But I can't see the C of E giving up its faith schools and I can't see the state building more secular schools in such villages.

50% believe in God and 48% don't - so that's a bit weird if you think about the previous survey

Not really; after all there's a big difference between faith and organised religion

Completely agree with you about the need to separate church and state though, but it won't happen easily while some are thoroughly enjoying their preferential positions

Are you specifically talking about selective faith schools? The sort where mothers pretend to be religious to get their kids in? I had in mind the ordinary local primary that just happens to be CofE but still gets attended by pupils of all faiths and none.

@DdraigGoch all faith schools have faith admissions criterion. Other people only get in if there are spaces.

@cakeorwine There are no secular schools in the UK.

A third of schools are "faith schools". Less than a quarter of schools are compliant with the 1998 act. In between there are clearly a number of faith schools who are so strong in their faith that they don't bother to have a daily (it's not actually required to be that frequent in the law) act of worship. It's such a non-issue. Your kids sitting bored in a hall while someone waffles on about loaves and fishes (though with a few good messages about helping other people) will not turn them into evangelical zealots.

I don't really care if you do amend the 1998 act, though I consider it to be a waste of time to rewrite something that everyone was ignoring anyway. I don't however see why the Coronation ceremonies and traditions should be torn up. The King being Defender of the Faith doesn't impact upon my life (or yours frankly) in the slightest. It's just a sweet old tradition.

I don't know of any primary school, even "St Swithin's CofE Primary" which selects its intake. When I went to school (obviously pre-academies), all state schools apart from one religious secondary in the city centre just had pupils sent to them by the local authorities according to the usual criteria of special needs, siblings and walking distance (with due reference to the list the families entered on the form).

If they didn't originate here and they are done elsewhere they're not idiosyncratic to English life. They can't be that unique or peculiar if they're practiced worldwide!

'Belief is personal '. So your belief that there is no god and your belief that there should be separation of church and state is personal. So who are you to mandate that for everyone else.

I think faith goes a tiny way to combat capitalism. I'm OK with that. I see countries where there has been an attempt to abolish religion (Russia and China spring to mind) and remove any religious influence. Don't particularly like what I see.

I don't know any parent or any CofE school where parents have been questioned about their faith practices before a space has been allocated.

Are you referring to specific traditions? A tradition isn’t necessarily practiced routinely in its country of origin but may have been adopted by another country.

I genuinely can’t pinpoint any tradition that’s worldwide.

Idiosyncratic does not mean that it has to be exclusive, just not widely practiced. Hence peculiar. Many people can be described as having idiosyncratic behaviours, for instance. This does not mean those behaviours can be found exclusively in that one person and no one else.

Are you seriously suggesting that if I asked an Australian, for instance, to name the country where cheese rolling and maypole dancing were traditions, they would be able to reel off a list of several countries from around the world?

So who are you to mandate that for everyone else

We don't have a school system that teaches that God does not exist,
We don't have an anthem that says "God does not exist so he can't save the King"
We don't have a law that states that schools must have a lesson daily that expects all children to attend where they are told that God does not exist.

We don't have a Head of State who is supposed to be someone who is an atheist.

Can you imagine the outcry if those things was suggested.

I think faith goes a tiny way to combat capitalism. I'm OK with that. I see countries where there has been an attempt to abolish religion (Russia and China spring to mind) and remove any religious influence. Don't particularly like what I see

Not once has anything been said about abolishing religion.

Just separating Church and State. Religion and religious beliefs will still influence people and the choices they make

We don't have a school system that categorically teaches god does exist.

Many countries have an anthem which mentions (a) god. Some of them mention war and battles and killing and stuff too.
Most state schools do not have a daily religious lesson and if they did and a child didn't want to attend, that would be OK.
What is it about the tenets of Christianity that you dislike so much that you'd rather a head of state who didn't support them?

Separation of church and state in Russia in 1918 led the way to persecution of religious and propaganda against the church by the state. Nothing to see here, eh?

China legislates on religion all the time.

There is, in practice, a clear separation of Church and State in the UK. We're a theocracy in name only and not in practice.

To our west is a state that's not a theocracy in theory, but is in name - the Republic of Ireland where the Church has control of 95% of primary and 50% of secondary schools according to 2021 figures. To say nothing about control of their hospitals. It'll take them decades yet to disentangle all of that.

In the UK, power is separated between the Commons, Lords and Supreme Court. The Church has no meaningful, actual power here.

The U.K. isn’t even a theocracy in name, it’s a constitutional monarchy.

The two aren't mutually exclusive since the British Monarch is both Head Of State AND Head Of The Church of England.

The Church of England has a role within the life of the nation, e.g., active role in leading and performing the Coronation of the Monarch, anointing of the King, etc.

The Monarch swears to "Defend the faith" too.

So, the UK is a theocracy in name only since the Church has no meaningful power within the nation. The Church today has a largely ceremonial role in the State and it remains the established Church of the State itself.

At the same time, the UK is also a constitutional Monarchy whereby it is Parliament who is the Supreme Legislator and Authority. Not the Monarch who remains the Head of State and Head Of The Nation in addition to Head of the Church.

Finally, the UK has power separated between the Commons, Lords and Supreme Court.

There two descriptions are not mutually exclusive.

The person I was replying to listed a few things one of them was praying, I'm pretty sure that's worldwide and not a idiosyncratic English thing.

No, the U.K. is not a theocracy. Our Head of State has zero sovereign power. In a theocracy sovereign power rests with the head of the compulsory state religion and the government is run by the religious institution itself. There would be no elected Parliament- we’d have archbishops passing laws. There would be no Ministry of Justice, we would have church courts and the Met police would be militant monks.

The U.K. is not a theocracy in name or in actuality.