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http://uk.news.yahoo.com/rtrs/200712...fa6b408_1.html
surprised to see the part about Tony Blair converting, have heard many stories about people changing from christianity to other faiths and vice-versa, but never changing between differant forms of christianity!
i always knew there was a decent number of engish people were catholics(even though a lot would think there all prodestants) but was shocked to see there been more catholics then prodestants(albeit for mass attendance)
It's not too unheard of. Tory MPs Ann Widdecombe and John Gummer converted to Catholicism from Anglicanism in the 1990's. Catholic intellects such as Cardinal John Henry Newman (the original rector of UCD) and Fr. Frederick Copleston (key historian of Philosophy) were also Anglican converts to Catholicism in the 18th and 19th centuries respectively. I don't know any celebrity converts in the other direction but I'm sure there's plenty.
The headlines are a bit misleading. The study says that more Catholics attend mass every weekend than Anglicans attend church. The study says 'Britain', I don't know if that includes Northern Ireland as well. It must also be noted that Catholic attendances are still decreasing just not as steeply as Anglicanism and the decline is arrested by immigrants from Catholic countries with a higher degree of religiousity like Poland.
...also worth chucking in that a higher emphasis is likely placed on attendance in Catholicism than some Protestant churches.
I believe I'm right in saying Widdicombe was one of those who didn't like the "modernist" trends as they'd see them (basic cop on as I'd see it) ...female clergy, gay clergy etc.. within Anglicanism and basically swapped for some stronger brew.
Same with Gummer. She's not happy that Blair waited until after he left office to convert. Whatever about his own convictions it reflects badly on the country that he felt he had to be out of office to do so.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lionel Ritchie
There's not.Quote:
Originally Posted by gilberto_eire
The Church Of England is not the only "prodestant" Church in England.
Any figures for those who don't choose any particular sky genie?
It's hard to quantify. Those who choose both none and unspecified are lumped together on the CIA factbook for the 2001 UK census, that figure is 23.1%. By comparison that stands at about 55% in the Czech Rep and I think 85% in Sweden.Quote:
Originally Posted by GavinZac
I'm inclined to agree that it reflects badly on the UK. I'm guessing the thinking is he can't be "serving two masters" ...the Queen on one hand and the Pope on the other ...when in day to day reality he "serves" neither and probably doesn't have his judgement on anything day to day affected by who heads his church for that matter.Quote:
Originally Posted by Poor Student
Sad state of affairs. That paragon of Catholicism J.F.K. got grief for his possible popish allegiances half a century ago. In fact Mitt Romney is under heavy scrutiny for being a Mormon. I think we're less inclined or not inclined at all to give a toss about a politician's religious beliefs or absence of than some of our more apparently secularised neighbours.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lionel Ritchie
There are clearly more Protestants in the UK but they spread across various churches whereas just one Roman Catholic church. I wonder what the numbers would be for practising church members given most people signed up before they can talk & don't take option to resign.
It's narrow minded to think in terms of Catholic v Protestant. The issue is that the Church of England, the established church, is not the main active denomination.Quote:
Originally Posted by pete
Found it a bit sad that RTE had this as its main headline. I mean what the hell does it matter to us. So what!!!
Little referred to facts about the Penal Laws which ended in 1829 with the passage of the Emancipation Act proposed by Daniel O'Connell . Not only Catholics were affected. Non Anglican's , e.g. Methodists, Presbyterians, Unitarians etc were also outside the pale during that era. Point being there were Protestants and non-conformists during that era who were as out of favour as the RC's.
Anglicans were the Established Church and everyone else was outside the tent so to speak.
It's not entirely correct to call Anglicans/ Episcopalians 'Protestants' (or even 'Prodestants') ; many/ (most?) consider themselves to belong to a 'reformed' Catholic church.
see here
sonofstan
If Catherine of Aragon had given birth to a son who had survived, there would probably never have been an Anglican Church. Because she didn't or seemingly couldn't, Henry VIII wanted to marry Anne Boleyn, so he could have a son, the church refused to grant him a divorce, hey presto Church Of England!
Ironically Hank the 8th never had a son, who lived to any decent lifespan, so it was a completely wasted effort on his part.
Christianity per se and Catholicism in particular have been experiencing a decline in recent years. Here in Ireland with all the Evangelical Christians coming here from Africa and Anglicans, Methodists etc, their Church Attendances have bucked the trend. Next came the Poles and Catholic Eastern Europeans who have temporarily halted the decline in attendance over here.Quote:
Originally Posted by bennocelt
The volume of Polish and other RC emigrants into England has bucked the trend and seen attendance go back up over there. It's an interesting social phenomena and a news story typical of this time of year. That's all .
P.S. The three worst mass murderers of the 20th Century Hitler, Pol Pot and Stalin, were not practicing their respective religions at the time of their mass murdering of millions of people. In the interests of balance on the topic of religions, it's not only religious people that start wars or commit genocide!
However, Hitler based the most notorious of his killing upon a religious prejudice, Stalin based some of his killing upon a paranoid distrust of the "secret society" of churches, and Pol Pot's direct orders "only" killed 17,000 civilians, mostly either westerners or buddhist monks (athiests) who would have had the necessary education to make contact with the outside world. The other deaths were caused by the adherence to communism in a country not rich enough to support it.Quote:
Originally Posted by CollegeTillIDie
Had religion not been a factor, perhaps Hitler could have blamed someone else for Germany's troubles, or perhaps he never would have taken hold at all.
It is also a very easy path to take, to correlate the most recent atrocities with atheism; declared atheism is relatively new to the world, and so is the power for the greatest killing. Go back a bit further and you have the same kind of intellegent leaders using religious as an excuse or justification. Ghengis Khan with his "mission from God", Hernan Cortes rounding up mesoamericans as Quetzalcoatl, even Constantine building a new "Christian Capital" in Byzantium which would lead to short term power in exchange for centuries of torment - perhaps these people were atheists, given their abuse of religious faith for their own good. Does that make them examples of how atheism is evil? Or of how again, religion as a delusion is responsible for more and more death, which is after all, the bread and butter trade of the priests. Had Truman happened to taken a personal choice to be atheistic, would he have been another example? or are these examples clearly just the by products of the type of 'battle' being fought, rather than an ideology? And surely the same cannot be said for the multitude of wars which set the precedent for these events, which were declared for religious causes.
Gavin Zac
Pol Pot was directly responsible for the death of some 2.5 million people. By moving people, by force, out of cities to the countryside and expecting them to perform tillage with no knowledge of agriculture, that was directly responsible for their deaths. Their bizarre economic policies of abolishing currency and bartering and only trading with China. They exported rice at a time their own population was starving. It was reminiscent of British policy in Ireland in the late 1840's. They summarily executed thousands of people and when the bullets ran out they used hammers to kill them.
My point was that irreligion is no better at being civilized than religion and is equally capable of being at the root of mass murder. It's no easier a path than to attribute lots of death to religion too. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
It's a pity for you that I do not happen to conform to your all religion = evil philosophy of life. But I don't ! I happen to believe the basic principles espoused by all religions if adhered to, be nice to one another respect one another don't lie, steal, or murder, don't bonk your neighbour's wife, actually leads to a society that people can live in. Humanism espouses the self same principles but a lot of people who abandon religion altogether cannot be arsed to delve into humanism .
Hitler was driven by a hatred of Judaism and it's people. He was anti-religion and was directly responsible for some 6 million deaths of that grouping alone. He was also xenophobic being Anti-gypsy , and anti-Slav. His concept of '' untermenschen'' being used to justify this policy. If you reduce people in your mind to '' sub-human'' you can justify anything. His actions in starting World War II was responsible ultimately for the death of 50 million people. Are you seriously suggesting the existence of religion is responsible for Hitler's actions?
Stalin was directly responsible for 25-30 million deaths within the former USSR during his policy of forced collectivisation, and his purges and exiling multi-thousands to Gulags in Siberia.
So the fact that irreligious and anti-religious elements in the 20th Century were directly responsbile for the deaths of some 85 million people cuts no ice with you then?
Your quoting of Truman is something of a red herring. It was the prospect of thousands of American troops being killed in the attempt to take Japan by force which motivated the decision to drop the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those reprehensible actions combined only accounted for 500,000 deaths. However as Hitler started World War II he was ultimately morally responsible for the entire loss of life in that conflict.
Yes, but again, Stalin and Pol Pot were not fighting in the name of atheism and Hitler was actually basing some of his killing upon a religious prejudice. A lack of religion was not the cause of these atrocities; but there are millennia of history where the presence of religion was the direct cause of atrocities.
Of course, while Pol Pot and Stalin were both installing communism and thus naturally atheistic, the same cannot be said for Hitler. Christians have long been trying to distance themselves from the guy who nearly finished their age old habit of destroying jews, but Hitler himself proclaimed his hatred for Jews to be in the name of God in Mien Kampf, spent his birthdays with the papal nuncio, celebrated Catholic feasts, sent his armies to mass, and perhaps most tellingly, wrote The Hitler Oath: I swear by God, this holy oath to the Fuhrer of the German People, Adolf Hitler.
Whether Hitler believed that some guy died on a cross to save the world is irrelevant. What is important is that he joins the ranks of virtually every war lord in humanity's history in using religion as a tool to control the masses and send one side or the other to their death.
Quote:
My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.
Sooner will a camel pass through a needle's eye than a great man be 'discovered' by an election.
-Adolf Hitler
So if Hitler, someone who was not sincerely religious, says something, that must mean that all Christians should have to believe it and abide by it? Or am I misunderstanding because that seems to me what you're trying to say.Quote:
Originally Posted by GavinZac
The fact that Hitler each day of his life probably broke each of the Ten Commandments, or at least a majority of them, went against the teachings of Jesus and the Christian church and tried to destroy that very church later when he came to power, means nothing? No, Hitler's motivations must have been religious, and there's no chance he can have been horrendously misinterpreting or taking things totally out of context. No. Hitler is what every Christian is!
Forgive me for being more sarcastic than the Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons, but you are totally wrong here. I agree with CollegeTillIDie. Broadly speaking, religious people and irreligious people are the same. Getting rid of religion (if that's even possible without descending into a total state of censure) would not at all have a positive affect on civilisation, it would only take away a source of comfort. People like Hitler would still find reasons to scapegoat and persecute others.
Well it's not really, is it. If Hitler had been genuinely Christian, which he wasn't, he would have likely believed that. And if he wasn't Christian, then how can you possibly hold him up as an example of why religion is the direct cause of evil, as you seem to think?Quote:
Originally Posted by GavinZac
Anything can be used to incite war and hatred. Yes religion is one of those things, but only if it is presented in a distorted way. Nationalism, racism, fascism, communism and other ideologies have also been used. Citing these examples is not an argument against religion as anyone who's read virtually any religious document will see listed as one of the core tenets: 'do not kill' or aomething similar. Equally, incitement of war and hatred by far-right and far-left parties should not be seen as an argument against moderate nationalism and socialism.Quote:
Originally Posted by GavinZac
If you take a look at history you will also see that Darwin's theory of natural selection has been used and abused as the basis of various unethical practices such as the eugenics movement, social Darwinism and others. And Darwin's theory has only been around for 150 years or so. Maybe in a thousand years or so some atheist nutcase will have brought humanity to the brink and our great-great-great (and then some) grandchildren will be discussing the evils of athiesm on a messageboard just like this one. Hopefully, football will still be around by then.
In conclusion: Religion is not the cause of evil, ignorance and extremism are. Virtually anything can be abused to encourage evil towards certain groups, but the moderates in virtually all of those camps will always totally disagree with whatever the fundamentalists say.