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]

CoteDAzur ….Re Turkey, firstly is it really secular, regarding the separation between the religion and State.

Next, why did the Turkish Constitution and Ataturk promote secularism, for political reasons e.g. a restriction on Muslims in government, as well as for ‘freedom of religion’ which we already have.

Immaterial, the point I was making was that I saw no evidence of any country recently changing its historic religious status, due to a recent Census, or increases in those of other religions within the country – and that would include Turkey, where the ‘other’ religions are a rounding error of less that 1%.

[Isitmebut]

Thurlow….I don’t think that you are stupid, just ‘selective’ in what you chose to take in, once you get the answer to your question.

Regarding your points, first that “it has to be looked into due to the changing beliefs of the country”, I would argue strongly that if we already have freedom of religion and our Christianity does not affect non Christians within this country one iota, nothing ‘needs’ to change.

IMO there are too many ‘intelligent’ people who feel the need for our cultural ‘change’, or a different perspective on our history, where they’d like to teach/preach about what we did wrong, and dismissing all our successes as it might offend someone.

Too many politicians and academics think our culture, parliament, religion, sovereignty, a kingdom that is united for hundreds of years, can all be discarded for something better (including votes for them), but the details of these ‘big picture’ ideals don’t matter, as how can they be wrong wanting change (to something that wasn't broken)?

One has to wonder when Britain’s nose has truly ‘been rubbed into diversity’ and we lose our national culture and become a massive lump of assimilated ‘gloop’ , what these bright people will do with themselves.

Anyhoo, back to the subject, to put things into perspective, 60% of this country considers themselves Christian, the next largest religious group is under 4.8% of our population (at 2.7 million) which are the Muslims, which only seems to have risen from 1.5 million OVER 10-YEARS.

So taking the 25% of ‘no religion’ into account, please correct me if I’m wrong, without asking if any of the ‘no religions’ ticked that box because they are not practising a religion, as a religious protest for being asked (whether optional or not), or for any other reason, we have 60% of the Uk’s population currently Christians and 15% non Christians – so in affect, unless the ‘no religions’ have an opinion on the subject other than don’t care, we would CURRENTLY change our status for 15% of the population, with freedom to worship.

Looking to the future, as it is likely that we WILL remain in Europe (with open door EU immigration and restricted non EU immigration) and the high birth rates of those that arrived in the 2000’s, despite the falling Christian numbers in the 2011 Census, those numbers could significantly change.

But that does not matter too much as there is no direct link between retaining our Christian identity and whether we practice or not – and without the instruction from ‘the people’, which government has the time and recourses to work out all the legal and constitution changes that would be needed to become a state without a religion before then – when there are so many more important issues that actually affect our everyday lives?

I would suggest that if we even half consider changing our Christian status, as we are a democracy we include the definitive question in the next Census.

And that’s all I have to now say on this issue.

[Floisme]

I think this should stop now. It is beyond embarrassing.

[Thurlow]

our Christianity does not affect non Christians within this country

Only it does. Church and state are intertwined. Schools, for example, include religious education, because of this. It affects me because I would give my right arm for my DC to be bought up without any suggestion of a religious education which pushed one religion over another. RE is good; learning about all the different religious is good; a school, a state, saying this is what you should believe, this is what our country says is the default religion and you should learn more about than other religions... I don't like that at all. That affects me.

[Thurlow]

Also I've reported your comment to Corus because that was personal and offensive - especially you have previously had a go at other posters for making personal comments.

[ErrolTheDragon]

I would suggest that if we even half consider changing our Christian status, as we are a democracy we include the definitive question in the next Census.

Of course, the answer would depend on exactly what question was posed - 'Christian status' could mean various entirely different things. No-one is wanting Christian culture to be discarded as far as I'm aware.

The specific question might be 'should the Church of England be disestablished' but unfortunately I'm not sure many people would really understand what it meant. Simpler, more specific,questions might glean different answers, but they're not the sort of thing that the census gets into (.

How about this:
'Should any group be either discriminated against or privileged on the basis of any religious belief.'

[ErrolTheDragon]

our Christianity does not affect non Christians within this country

You appear to be trying to speak on behalf of all non-Christians. Thanks but we can manage that for ourselves. Individual believers Christianity does not significantly affect me; state-imposed religious privileges do.

[Isitmebut]

Are only "mental patients" (not my words) with or without nurses on meds?

Interesting how some people try to discredit people for their views, radical or political, I wonder.

I'll take my "state-imposed religious privileges" (yeah right) elsewhere, or from from this thread anyway,

[TheHammaconda]

You're doing a pretty good job of discrediting yourself TBH OP.

[Floisme]

Op there are a number of regular posters who hold anti-secular, anti-immigration or anti-labour party views (although not necessarily all 3 together). Yet I don't think a single of of them has come on here to support you, even though this thread has been running for several days. I wonder why not? Please think about it.

[NotGoodNotBad]

All these pages of replies and no-one's pulled OP up on the "still eat fish and chips out of a newspaper" statement? Good analogy for Christianity in today's Britain though...

[slug]

I know quite a few Christians, including one Vicar, who are members of the National Secular Society because they oppose the damage that privileging Christianity above other faiths or none does to UK society.

[hackmum]

"All these pages of replies and no-one's pulled OP up on the "still eat fish and chips out of a newspaper" statement? Good analogy for Christianity in today's Britain though..."

It's funny, actually, I remember intending to respond to that but didn't. When did chip shops stop using newspapers to wrap up fish and chips? It must have been years and years ago. Still, one quality the OP doesn't possess (among a lot of others) is a sense of historical perspective.

[BackOnlyBriefly]

We are not on trial for all things Christian for hundreds of years before,

Well, OP you tried to take credit for 1000s of years of Christian activity so it's a little late to back out of it now.


Btw I'm pretty sure the Labour Party traveled back in time and killed Jesus if you want another reason to hate them.

[turtleback]

Is Gabbyloggon back?

Gabby is that you??

[Isitmebut]

Floisme….frankly I don’t care who “supports” me, especially if other posters either accept my basic view that there is no democratic reason to change our religious status, or I might have upset them on other issues elsewhere. Lol

As I said I’m not big on any of the changes being hoisted on this country due to bad political judgement; from basic economic incompetence, the selling of our already small gold reserves, any political attacks on our monarchy, giving up our sovereignty by being in the EU superstate without knowing all the facts from both sides - and losing Scotland from within the UK, although totally accept if that is their will, it has been democratically arrived at.

But what seriously bunches my undies, even more than not being given a vote on serious issues that I know about, is a far reaching governmental policy that as they know it will be ‘unpopular’, they decide to keep it secret amongst themselves.

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

So the rest of my points ON THIS POST/THREAD re immigration and Labour, were a warning to those who share my views with some FACTS (not blind political hatred as ‘spun’) on the last administration, as they have form on attacking things British for political and/or power gains.

We know in 2001 at the latest that Labour had chosen mass immigration to add diversity to this country and make a political statement to the Right and the increased non EU immigrant figures I’ve already given here on a table, despite our domestic shortages of jobs and homes at the time – which funny old world, also enhances their re election chances.

Yet no one has either justified or excused this policy TO ME e.g. the 2000’s social benefits of that ‘in touch’ Labour policy, or the jobs/homes shortages consequences – and I find that more telling than ‘the meek’ , standing up against those with louder and deflecting voices, on here.

“The rise of religious fundamentalists with a 'deep intolerance' to other people's views has made Christians reluctant to express their beliefs, Dominic Grieve warns”

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/10781259/Attorney-General-Rise-of-fundamentalism-is-damaging-Christianity.html

“Christians are increasingly reluctant to express their religious views because they are being “turned off” by the “disturbing” and “very damaging” rise of religious fundamentalism, the Attorney General has said.”

[Floisme]

If you don't find it strange that not a single person has come along to back you up then fair enough. You are however contradicting yourself when you state that there is 'no democratic reason to change'. You acknowledged several pages back that the current system is undemocratic but you said, ''I DON'T CARE' (your caps not mine).

I am not interested in talking about the Labour Party. Why do you keep trying to change the subject?

[HecatePropylaea]

re the 60% Christian. My understanding is that about 60% described themselves as Christian, yes, but when asked a supplementary question "are you religious" that figure fell to 29%. I think from that it is clear that people call themselves Christian because they feel that this is a Christian country, rather than that they have a faith and belief in Jesus as their personal saviour. iyswim.

humanism.org.uk/campaigns/religion-and-belief-some-surveys-and-statistics/

www.whychurch.org.uk/trends.php
www.brin.ac.uk/figures/#ChurchesandChurchgoers
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22426144

[ErrolTheDragon]

I am not interested in talking about the Labour Party. Why do you keep trying to change the subject?

well, the subject is on the card (ie in the OP) ... most of the posters on this thread are interested in a serious debate about the opening gambit of 'Christian country', from a secularist perspective - but the OP has a general anti-'leftie', anti-immigration agenda.

I think she has seized on the 'Christian country' thing in an 'us vs them' way. In fact, the various non-Christian faith bodies are happy to keep the status quo of religious privilege - because they get a part of it. They get a seat on 'interfaith' groups; they get to open their own religious schools; the rules currently allow for schools to be converted to faith status by a governors coup; they get representation which the large proportion of religiously unaligned don't benefit from.

If she wants to defend against fundamentalists, she would do better to espouse the secularist cause and do away with all this privilege and discrimination.

[anonacfr]

May I direct your attention to this fabulous website?

fstdt.com

Hours of fun/horror/disbelief.

It's rather appropriate in the context of this thread.

[HecatePropylaea]

Thank you for that link. Any chance I ever had of getting off the internet at some point this year has just gone.