The latest bit of population research is showing that for the first time ever Atheists outnumber Christians in the UK. A recent survey turned up the result that 48.5% of people asked identified as having "no religion" whereas only 43.8% identified as Christian. I always take these kinds of surveys with a little pinch of salt, it's difficult to be precise on these matters, many people have very different views of what it means to be religious or not but in any case the trend seems positive. We can probably safely assume that the influence of religion is diminishing in our society (which isn't necessarily the same as the numbers diminishing)
Interestingly, most "non-believing" people I know don't really care that much what religion others might follow (or not), the main issue they seem to have is when those private beliefs start to impact on the public square in the form of discrimination, privilege, warping education, misogyny and general interference in the democratic process. I hope that we can finally put a nail in the coffin of politicians (of all stripes) labelling this country as a "Christian country" and adopt a proper separation of church and state. IMO the official line these days should be that we used to be a Christian country, but we're not any more. Public figures need to get over it, and, rather than pandering to (ever diminishing) popular religions, start worrying about how they're going to win the secular/rational/atheist vote!
I wonder when the mass killing, anti-religious pogroms and consumption of babies will start?
5 comments:
I'd like to say we're now a rational country.
CB, I'd like that too, unfortunately reasonableness doesn't always go hand in hand with secularism, we still need to work on it! (positive trend though)
Ah yes, the Brexit tendency...
Ah yes, the Brexit tendency...
Absolutely! (WTF are those guys smoking?)
Post a Comment