A pleasant Easter weekend, featuring my 41st birthday (what a dread phrase that is), passed by with much chocolate and occasional football, and a very pleasant evening in the pub on Good Friday night. But let's not get all positive and happy about this, when there's perfectly infuriating stuff to write about from the same weekend(!) There is always, at Easter, the Pope's message to get worked up about. During his visit to Britain some time back, I wrote about the anger his speech in Hyde Park had prompted, during which he complained about people viewing religion as a matter of choice. Well, this Easter he's again let us all know that this opening of eyes as the years pass, the awakening within people that they do have a choice in whether to follow the Church or not, is clearly a Very Bad Thing.
Apparently, his Holiness thinks we're all in 'darkness': "The darkness that poses a real threat to mankind is the fact he can see and investigate material things but cannot see where the world is going or whence it comes, where our own life is going, what is good and what is evil."
Well, I think I can tell what is good and what is evil, but I know I can tell what's tosh. That word 'material' is particularly misleading. He should perhaps have said 'physical', but that wouldn't have carried the negative connotations he wanted. We can see and investigate the universe almost back to its beginnings, and are beginning to pick at the very strings of reality itself as humanity starts trying to understand quantum physics. It may indeed be true that plenty of western kids grow up thinking only about material things, but that doesn't mean the entire human race is in darkness. And those western (and other, of course) cultures are also producing the sort of minds which are working to understand the nature of the universe itself. If we are in darkness, it's only because we're such a young species and are only just beginning to light up some of reality's gloomier recesses.
The Church, of course, doesn't see it that way. But I find it mind boggling that an organisation which clings to an anti-condom message, in an age where AIDS is ravaging parts of Africa, for example, and which teaches the concept of original sin, and still prevents women from joining the priesthood, has the gall to tell non-believers like myself that we're the ones in darkness. The automatic fear of God, and the thrall in which that enabled all the Churches to keep ordinary people, has largely gone in many western cultures. People's eyes are open, not just to their choice in the matter of theology, but to their right to question religious dogma which can be far out of touch with many of the societies they purport to serve. Is it any wonder, when some of the messages coming out of their Churches' highest offices are so apparently antiquated, that people are secularising?
As always, while I entirely respect the views of an elder, I'd respect them more if they came from an elder who had not lived out most of his existence within he strictures of a religious ideology. I don't mean this disrespectfully, but I don't think an 84-year-old man who hasn't lived outside the Catholic church since he was a child can teach me anything about how to lead my life in the early 21st century. I genuinely believe that lights are going on all over the place, banishing the darkness of the Church, not the other way round.
Showing posts with label secularism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label secularism. Show all posts
Wednesday, 11 April 2012
Tuesday, 20 December 2011
First Warsi, now Cameron not recognising the facts
David Cameron's recent assertion that Britain is '...a Christian country, and we shouldn't be afraid to say that...' is irritating to those of us whose secularism is important to us, but more importantly, it's not backed up by the facts.
It's true that in the 2001 census, some 73% of the population described themselves as 'Christian'. But that is a hugely broad, poorly defined and easily misinterpreted figure, especially when you take into account the actual practices of a lot of those people. Indeed, the PM himself said he was a 'committed but only vaguely practising' Christian, whatever that means.
Much more recently, the National Centre for Social Research conducted its 28th survey into British Social Attitudes, covering pretty much everything from politics, through transport, the environment and religion. This does not just ask people to define themselves as Christian, other, non-religious etc. It actually asks people about their religious beliefs and practices. Its findings bear little resemblance to the picture of Britain that the PM, and recently Baroness Warsi, would paint. The NCSR found that 50% of British people characterise themselves as having 'no religion', while 20% see themselves as CofE, 15% 'other Christian', 9% Roman Catholic and 6% 'non Christian', presumably other faiths. Full results can be found here. Of those who do count themselves religious, more than half never actually attend a service of any kind. Most tellingly, only 14% of the population actually attend services weekly, and the numbers are falling - affiliation to the Church of England has halved since 1983.
This doesn't look like a Christian country to me. It looks like a largely secular, but at the same time multi-faith country that should not be being governed by, or in the interests of, any one of those religions. It's another example of those in power conveniently ignoring the facts in favour of their own world view, and it's particularly frustrating to people like me who think that government should be secular, with the Church (of any faith) having absolutely no role in policy making when those policies affect everybody.
Cameron did, at least, leaven his comments slightly - more on what he said here. But his central assertion that the 'Bible has helped to give Britain a set of values and morals which make Britain what it is today' rings pretty hollow to the millions of us who, like me, have somehow managed to piece together our own moral code without ever having read the thing.
It's true that in the 2001 census, some 73% of the population described themselves as 'Christian'. But that is a hugely broad, poorly defined and easily misinterpreted figure, especially when you take into account the actual practices of a lot of those people. Indeed, the PM himself said he was a 'committed but only vaguely practising' Christian, whatever that means.
Much more recently, the National Centre for Social Research conducted its 28th survey into British Social Attitudes, covering pretty much everything from politics, through transport, the environment and religion. This does not just ask people to define themselves as Christian, other, non-religious etc. It actually asks people about their religious beliefs and practices. Its findings bear little resemblance to the picture of Britain that the PM, and recently Baroness Warsi, would paint. The NCSR found that 50% of British people characterise themselves as having 'no religion', while 20% see themselves as CofE, 15% 'other Christian', 9% Roman Catholic and 6% 'non Christian', presumably other faiths. Full results can be found here. Of those who do count themselves religious, more than half never actually attend a service of any kind. Most tellingly, only 14% of the population actually attend services weekly, and the numbers are falling - affiliation to the Church of England has halved since 1983.
This doesn't look like a Christian country to me. It looks like a largely secular, but at the same time multi-faith country that should not be being governed by, or in the interests of, any one of those religions. It's another example of those in power conveniently ignoring the facts in favour of their own world view, and it's particularly frustrating to people like me who think that government should be secular, with the Church (of any faith) having absolutely no role in policy making when those policies affect everybody.
Cameron did, at least, leaven his comments slightly - more on what he said here. But his central assertion that the 'Bible has helped to give Britain a set of values and morals which make Britain what it is today' rings pretty hollow to the millions of us who, like me, have somehow managed to piece together our own moral code without ever having read the thing.
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