To judge parents who do not even tell their children Easter is a religious festival

[Tuliptana]

I'm shocked that 12 out of 20 children in my childs class had no religious knowledge of the meaning of Good Friday or Easter Sunday for Christians.
All aged 9yrs old.

Mine loved the story of Ostara and the Hare from being tiny so absolutely knew it was an ancient Spring Festival celebrating fertility and rebirth with the bonus of chocolate eggs.

Having looked up nationality, it is a surprisingly hazy concept.

I favour fully disestablishing the C of E.

I favour fully disestablishing the C of E.

So what ?

What's that got to do with the status of Judaism ?

It's about not having a state religion. Because that always ends badly.

If we disestablished the C of E, we might have less of the 'Christian country' nonsense where people are up in arms about Eid celebrations in Trafalgar Square and yet perfectly fine with Good Friday rituals in the same place. Let's just do both and stop whingeing, shall we
?

@pointythings If we disestablished the C of E, we might have less of the 'Christian country' nonsense

Have you really thought through the implications of such a move?

We'd certainly be spared the posts suggesting that Muslims that mark holy days can't be British. After all, that also excludes Hindus, Jews, Catholics, Jains, pagans and non trinitarian protestant Christians from being regarded as British.

Posters haven't said Muslims celebrating Eid can’t be British
That’s twisting things

Posters have said it’s not a British custom
Which it isn’t
Its a religious custom

What are the implications of not having a state religion?

So, you obviously haven't looked into that, which is surprising because you want to get rid of it ! 😆

@pointythings It's about not having a state religion. Because that always ends badly.

How so?
Let's have some examples.

Well, the obvious ones are no Bishops in the HoL. A good thing. No Royal figurehead for the Church - I couldn't care less for the monarchy, including my own.

But plenty of countries don't have an established church, so please do enlighten me about how dreadful disestablishment would be for the UK and why.

So let's have some examples of things "always ending badly".🤔

Algeria, Bahrain, Brunei, Djibuti,Egypt and about 17 other countries in the Middle East have a State Religion and that's Islam - how have things "ended badly" for them ?

Finland, Norway and Sweden have a State Religion and that's Lutherism - care to tell us how things have "ended badly" for those countries ?

Bhutan, Cambodia, Myanamar, and Sri Lanka have a State Religion and that's Buddhism. So how has this caused things to "end badly" for them?

I'm all ears 🙂

@pointythings But plenty of countries don't have an established church, so please do enlighten me about how dreadful disestablishment would be for the UK and why.

I agree that many countries don't have a State Religion, that's not the point.

It's not my job to educate you.
You want to make the changes but don't know why you want them. That sounds a bit foolish to me. 😆

OK, so I have just looked up the consequences of disestablishing the C of E. Looks like a good idea to me. Church and state would be separate. The Church would choose it's own leaders without Parliament having a say. The Church would be treated like every other organised religion in the UK. I am fine with that. Why aren't you?

I thought there was some huge disastrous awful and really obvious thing I hadn't thought of that I was missing about disestablishment, but there isn't.

Using the same reasoning, the following aren't British customs, either, then;

Celebrating Christmas
Presents for Christmas
Taking down the Christmas Tree by 12th Night/Epiphany
Pancake Day/Shrove Tuesday
Buying Easter Eggs
Getting married in church
Christenings and Baptisms
Carol singing
Having a funeral service with prayer and hymns
Marking a grave with a cross
Marking St George/St Andrew/St David/St Patrick days
Having a day off at the end of May
Harvest Festival
Valentine's Day
Mothering Sunday
The education system - ends of term

I'm still waiting for you to tell us why "things end badly" for those countries that have a State Religion ?
If you don't know, you are allowed to say so, but it just makes a nonsense of your statement if you can't justify it...

In the meantime...

You view is simplistic in the extreme.

(Please note - when I say "The Church" I refer to the C of E)

The C of E remains embedded in several areas of English Law.

Church Property and Ecclesiastical Assets.
Parish Churches, Cathedrals and other Ecclesiastical buildings aren't private properties belonging to a voluntary association. Many exist under ancient trusts or legal arrangements pertaining to the Church's historical status as a National Institution.So disestablishment would raise complex legal questions regarding the ownership, governance and maintenance of these historic buildings.

Ancient Parochial Rights of English Citizens.
Everyone belong to a Parish which confers certain legal rights - such as being married in the Parish Church and the right to be buried in the Parish Churchyard.
Removing establishment would require substantial revision to marriage law and other aspects of Civil Legislation developed around the Parish System.

The C of E also care for about 16,000 Church Buildings, many of them protected historical structures. The preservation of these buildings depends on a complex framework involving ecclesiastical governance, heritage protection, and charitable structures. Disestablishment would require reconsideration as to how this national patrimony is maintained.

A striking asymetry is forming - the historic Christian framework of the constitution is being increasingly questioned as an anachronism while new mechanisms for protecting another religious identity are being constructed within public policy.
The lesson of recent elections is that religion has not vanished from the public arena but has begun to reappear through identity based political mobilisation.

The Anglican Church in Wales is not an established church. Neither is the Anglican Church in Scotland. It would be complicated legally to unpick church and state in England but if that happened then Anglican churches in the UK would still continue.
There is no state funding for churches, so no difference in the stress of trying to find £100k for a new roof with grant making bodies refusing to consider funding religious buildings.

Nope, still not seeing disaster. Some knotty hard work to be done, sure. But laws can be changed. Just work through them and you'll get there. Change won't be easy, but not doing something just because it's complex and laborious is no reason not to do it. I absolutely did see those reasons you proffered and my response remains 'so what?'. It wasn't easy to abolish slavery. It wasn't easy to give women the vote.

As for the dangers of established religion: Afghanistan, the US, much of the Middle East. Give any faith political power and it ends with oppression. That also applies to countries without established religion but where religion is entangled in politics. Look at the persecution of homosexuality in swathes of the African continent; driven by Christianity. When you mix religion and politics, you get a force for evil.

I’ve googled it for you

.Celebrations with official, nationwide status across the UK are generally limited to bank holidays and royal events, including
Christmas, Boxing Day, New Year’s Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, and the Early/Late May/August Bank Holidays. Other officially recognised events include the monarch’s official birthday (June) and national occasions like Remembrance Sunday.

Key Regional National Days (Not Official Public Holidays Everywhere)

St David’s Day (Wales - March 1st): Widely celebrated but not a statutory bank holiday.

St Patrick’s Day (Northern Ireland - March 17th): A public holiday in Northern Ireland.

St George’s Day (England - April 23rd): Not a public holiday.

St Andrew’s Day (Scotland - November 30th): A bank holiday in Scotland.

So generally Christian based customs / celebrations because the country is officially Church of England

@pointythings Nope, still not seeing disaster

No-one said there was going to be a disaster apart from you.

Give any faith political power and it ends with oppression

I repeat the question you didn't or couldn't answer.

So let's have some examples of things "always ending badly".🤔

Algeria, Bahrain, Brunei, Djibuti,Egypt and about 17 other countries in the Middle East have a State Religion and that's Islam - how have things "ended badly" for them ?

Finland, Norway and Sweden have a State Religion and that's Lutherism - care to tell us how things have "ended badly" for those countries ? Are the citizens there 'oppressed' ?

Bhutan, Cambodia, Myanamar, and Sri Lanka have a State Religion and that's Buddhism. So how has this caused things to "end badly" for them?

The State religion of Israel is Judasism - are Israelis 'oppressed' ?

AIBU to judge parents that force their children into a religion without any choice.....

Didn't need to. That was the point of listing those customs - that they are religious customs and by that poster's reasoning, that means they cannot be British as they are relating to a religion just as their assertion that a British Muslim celebrating Eid means that it isn't a British custom (the converse being that it's a foreign/religious one).

It wasn't easy to abolish slavery.
It wasn't easy to give women the vote.

Those reforms had welfare and humane benefits for hundreds of thousands of people.

I failed to see any welfare benefits for* *Disestablishmentarianism.

Your reasons that it would "stop people calling this a Christian Country and stopping people complaining about Eid celebrations in Trafalgar square" are just puerile and ill-thought out IMO.

If those are the best reasons you can think of you don't really have an argument IMO.

Your ME countries ate hardly beacons of freedom for their people.

The church of Sweden was disestablished in the year 2000.

The Rohingya could tell you how brilliant established Buddhism is in Myanmar.

As for Israel- they treat Palestinian people so well.

In the US, mainstream politicians are openly discussing taking the vote away from women under the guise of Christianity.

You are spectacularly missing the point

We are officially a Christian country ie Church of England
and long held celebrations just happen to be imbedded in the countries religion. Many of these going on for centuries and at one time obligatory
These have become customary and traditional British customs.

They have official national status

Eid and many other religious, or otherwise, celebrations across the country do not. That does not mean people can’t celebrate it, People can do whatever they like.