Britain NOT a “Christian county” – since when??

[Isitmebut]

Generally speaking, when taking a snapshot of any country there are several nation traits most people just know about us that is made up of from a rich history and traditions, and Britain is no exception.

We have a monarchy, we speak English, our currency is the English Pound Sterling (lol), we still eat fish and chips out of a newspaper - and if you asked what our religion is, whether they knew about Henry VIII’s spat with the Pope or not, without the need to be specific they’d say we were ‘Christian’ – ask anyone.

Well not everyone, and certainly not the 55 ‘public figures’ that have accused Cameron for daring to point out the bleedin’ obvious, after nearly 1,000 years of international and domestic wars/conflicts, fought in the name of a ‘Christian’ religion – who accuse him of “mischaracterising” Britain, “fostering alienation” and argue that members of an elected government have no right to “actively prioritise” religion or any particular faith. Wh-at????
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/10777270/David-Cameron-fuelling-sectarian-division-by-bringing-God-into-politics.html

They argued that, apart from a “narrow constitutional sense”, there is no evidence to justify describing Britain as Christian, mainly because the 2011 Census saw a dramatic fall in those tick boxing ‘Christian’, wh-at???

Forgetting God for a moment, after several years now most citizens still won’t acknowledge that we have a honking great budget deficit and national debt - and that there has been the greatest recession since the 1930’s, yet there is far more historical and current evidence out there that it all exists - so don’t use dumb statistics of a Census that included those ticking ‘Jedi’ as a religion, to diss 1,000 years of our history.

Now I have no cares for looking into (and then trying to label) their political motives, but it seems rather ‘Leftie’ to me – and far too similar to this little bit of ‘social engineering’, designed to QUOTE “rub the Right’s nose in diversity”, by the last government.

“Labour wanted mass immigration to make UK more multicultural, says former adviser”

“Labour threw open Britain's borders to mass immigration to help socially engineer a "truly multicultural" country, a former Government adviser has revealed.”

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/6418456/Labour-wanted-mass-immigration-to-make-UK-more-multicultural-says-former-adviser.html

So is this YET MORE ‘nose rubbing’ by Lefties into Righties in the name of ‘diversity’, as Cameron was not ‘doing down’ the other religions, who themselves would resist any notion that their OWN countries were secular, so rightly acknowledge that the UK is a ‘Christian’ country.

“David Cameron Christianity claim backed by religious groups”
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-27105023

Religious groups have backed Prime Minister David Cameron's assertion Britain is "a Christian country".

Hindu Council UK said it was "very comfortable" with the description. The Muslim Council of Britain said the UK was a largely Christian country.

So based on our proud history as an ethnic religiously TOLERENT nation and the role that ‘The Protestant Work Ethic’ had on our prosperity, who is to TELL OUR GOVERNMENT that we are NOT a ‘Christian’ country, or indeed that Christianity still has a role in today’s society - to help solve some of the work ethic problems that have grown within our society, now all the money has gone?

“Niall Ferguson - Killer 'apps': the ideas that propelled the west to world domination (see list at bottom of this link)”
www.theguardian.com/books/2011/feb/20/niall-ferguson-interview-civilization

1. Work ethic: As Max Weber noted a century ago, Protestantism was a form of Christianity that encouraged hard work (and just as importantly, Ferguson adds, reading and saving). It isn't a coincidence, he says, that the decline of religion in Europe has led to Europeans becoming the "idlers of the world" (while the more religious US has remained hard-working). Interestingly, Ferguson also argues that China's embrace of hard work is partly because of the spread there of Protestantism.
   

We had 13-years of ‘Lefties’ running our government, their Quangocracy, most of our media, our education system, the police etc etc etc.

So (from a lapsed CoE ‘weddings and funerals only’ citizen) god help us as a monarchy, an individual State with proud traditions/rights and our prosperity, when they get back in and finish off the destructive job to the British way of life they started in 1997, and left as a work in progress, in 2010.

[Isitmebut]

SillyBilly, I know, but it's not big or clever, so ask the nurse to up your meds.

[Isitmebut]

CoteDAzur…I guess you have come in late as we keep going over the same issues and I made my case over 6 pages now.

The case FOR changing something that has existed here for around 1,500 years appears to be the 2011 Census, where only 10% you say are alternate religions, which means we should change our constitution and whatever else? Would that mean the Uk changing it’s laws to include Sharia Law and any other religious laws so they don’t get left out?

[CoteDAzur]

"I used to visit senior government people there and entertained them back in the UK"

Of course you did

"FYI Boris Johnson's family on one side was involved and was murdered for opposing Turkey's secular status"

Your ignorance is complete, it seems.

What Boris Johnson's great-grandfather opposed was Turkey's independence movement, which was obviously successful. He was working to make Turkey a British protectorate through Ingiliz Muhipler Cemiyeti (Anglophone Society). He was lynched as a traitor, but I sympathise with your BBC program which would of course have tried to show it in a more positive light and has as a result has managed to completely confuse you. "Opposing Turkey's secular status"? What, you think Boris Johnson's great-grandfather wanted sharia?

[CoteDAzur]

"I made my case over 6 pages now."

You don't have a case. What you have is a long-winded rant.

"The case FOR changing something that has existed here for around 1,500 years appears to be the 2011 Census"

The point which you are spectacularly missing is that the change has already taken place. The UK can't be called a Christian country, simply because 25% have no religion and 10% of the remainder are not Christian.

That means 35% of the country is not Christian, and that is a very sizeable portion of the population. Therefore, it is not correct to say that the UK population is Christian.

"Would that mean the Uk changing it’s laws to include Sharia Law and any other religious laws so they don’t get left out?"

No, that is not what it means.

What it means is that UK is not a Christian country. It is a country with a Christian majority, a sizeable non-religious population and a significant minority of people adhering to other religions.

[Isitmebut]

CoteDAzur….semantics, they could call Turkey’s religious status Utopia….but if they are at least a 99% mix of Muslim and only teaches one sect at school, there have been relatively recent challenges to the secular title and the majority of Muslims would call themselves that, it is a rubbish example of why the UK should change it’s status.

[Isitmebut]

Hahaha..why does the 25% go on the Christian 'debit' column?

Until they are asked would they liked to be called Christian or secular, there is no case.

Christianity is not just a meaningless title, it's entwined in our laws etc.

Anyway, I'm off to bed, play amongst yourselves.

[Isitmebut]

P.S. it was the Turkish Central Bank, it was a long time ago, I probably still have their business cards,but don't worry yourself it matters not.

[hackmum]

OP, you really aren't very bright, you are also clearly uneducated and you are very ignorant about the subject that you are getting so worked up about. When you're arguing from such a weak position, it makes little sense to abuse people who are much better informed than you are as "stupid". Why not listen and learn? A lot of people on here have been very polite to you, under the circumstances. Look at Cote - she grew up in Turkey and knows far more about it than you do.

And just come back to your answer to me earlier:

"We are not on trial for all things Christian for hundreds of years before, like the stupid, nay PATHETIC accusation missionary’s intended to spread measles and small pox in the course of their work – and certainly to any religions that like to spread their word to non believers by violence to this day."

Neither I nor anybody else said that the Christian missionaries intended to wipe out populations with smallpox, but in fact that is what happened. I was answering your question, which was whether there were any countries that were worse off after they'd been visited by Christian missionaries. I'm sure you'll agree that a population that has been wiped out by smallpox is worse off, rather than better off. Of course, as others have pointed out, missionaries caused a lot of damage in other ways too.

If you are interested in modern examples of Christian intolerance, then consider Uganda, in which the majority of the population is Christian, and which has recently introduced viciously anti-gay laws.

[ivykaty44]

Hahaha..why does the 25% go on the Christian 'debit' column?

Until they are asked would they liked to be called Christian or secular, there is no case

The 25% that stated in 2011 census that they have no religion don't need to be asked whether they want to be Christian or secular, they are not Christian and therefore by default they become secular.

I stated myself on the census I have no religion due to the fact I have no religious belief and that would include Christianity. No person would tick the no religion box if they were a Christian as there was a box to tick for Christian.

The Jedi was used in the 2001 census as a protest to the fact that you were unable to state you were of no religion the way the census forms were produced so in 2001 this was altered to allow people to declare they didn't have any religion.

[Thurlow]

OK, you probably won't answer this as I'm now apparently too stupid for you to engage with, but let's go and look at the statistics.

Why should the UK change its religious status?

This is something that has to be looked at in terms of the changing beliefs of the country, not just the demographic.

An analysis of the 2011 census statistics shows that:

People with no religion had a younger age profile than the population as a whole in 2011. Four in ten people with no religion (39 per cent) were aged under 25 and over four in five (82 per cent) were aged under 50. This compares to 31 per cent and 65 per cent for the population of England and Wales respectively.

What the statistics clearly show is that the younger population in Britain is increasingly non-religious. People who identify themselves as Christian are more likely to be older:

Over one in five Christians (22 per cent) were aged 65 and over. This is higher than the overall population in 2011, where 16 per cent of the population were aged 65 and over.

This is showing a gradual change in the population. What it means is that over the next few decades Britain will in all likelihood become an increasingly less religious country, particularly a less Christian country.

The ties of church and state in the UK will become increasingly irrelevant. I do truly believe that the church - in fact, all religions - have an enormous role to play with the smaller and larger community as a whole and are generally a force for good. But as the population increasingly defines themselves as "not religious", why should a country, a state, then cling to historic beliefs rather than changing to reflect the actual and current beliefs of its population?

And to answer your question why does the 25% go on the Christian 'debit' column?, well, you've answered that yourself. If Britain is predominantly and historically a Christian country, then it only makes sense that the vast majority of that 25% goes into the Christian debit column.

[CoteDAzur]

Isitme - re "CoteDAzur….semantics, they could call Turkey’s religious status Utopia….but if they are at least a 99% mix of Muslim..."

You still don't understand the difference between people being religious and state having a religion. Please do look up the word 'secular'. At least you will come off this thread having learned something. This may help.

"it is a rubbish example of why the UK should change it’s status"

Do you have problems with English comprehension? I didn't say "UK state should declare it is secular because Turkey already has".

I gave Turkey as an example of a country with Muslim population where the state does not have a stated religion - i.e. a secular republic. And I gave that example because you asked for it:

Isitmebut Wed 23-Apr-14 13:52:35
I know that I can't go to Muslim or other countries and tell them they are NOT a country of Muslim or ant other faith - can you name one that I could?????????????????????????

[Grennie]

[HelicopterDad]

Our "recent" history (past 1700 years or so) is dominated by Christianity. Before that, I 'm sure there were many other forms of superstitious beliefs and rituals practised on this island.

All of our current "religious" festivals are reinventions/usurpations of pagan celebration dates - unless it was just a coincidence that the birth and death of Jesus is now said to have occurred on the same dates as the pagan winter festivals and spring equinox. It was a very well executed religio-political fudge many many years ago.

If it wan't for the the middle classes pretending to be practising Christians to get their kids into faith primary schools (you know who you are), the churches would probably be completely empty on a Sunday.

[ErrolTheDragon]

kim - interesting map - I'd like to see it bigger and with the legend, is there a web page link for it please?

[HecatePropylaea]

Is this a christian country? Yes. C of e schools, state and church entwined. Culturally christian. Bankmholidays also christian religious events. I think it is clear that the country operates alongside christianity in many ways.

however, are the people who live in this country actual practising christians? Attending church, praying, observing christian traditions? Living in accordance with christian teachings? No. Not the majority, I honestly believe that most people in this country may say they are christian but they arent actively christian. Iyswim. Christmas is a good example. Distinct lack of jesus in chrismas for a great many people.

[ErrolTheDragon]

Culturally christian. Bankmholidays also christian religious events

(As I may have noted before, but perhaps on a different thread) - even there, culturally we're multifaith. Christmas as we all know was superimposed on the pagan midwinter festivals (roman and Nordic); Easter has a pagan name and the symbols of eggs and bunnies comes from that. Halloween is a Christian/pagan mix. Can't think of any other 'christian' religious events celebrated by the population at large.

[MinesAPintOfTea]

I quite like how the OP is dismissing historic attrocities as irrelevant to her rant argument but wants to celebrate the King James Bible.

I'm happy for the church to drift out of public life. Most of our laws are based on Roman law that predates Christianity, not biblical law anyway.

[ErrolTheDragon]

Yes... from the OP 'So based on our proud history as an ethnic religiously TOLERENT nation' ... our history is deeply religiously intolerant. Apart from the more obvious atrocities, catholics and nonconformist protestants were barred from universities; not sure about catholics but nonconformists were excluded from from holding civil or military office ... that's just the Anglicans fellow-Christians, let alone 'heathens' or atheists (Shelley was expelled from Oxford university for publishing The Necessity of Atheism. Tolerant?

[Isitmebut]

Kim147 ..it is immaterial to this debate which countries DON’T have a religion and may call their differences something else, along tribal lines – WE DO, and it is not just something that can be wiped away in a moment without repercussions e.g. within law and the State.