I can’t speak for anyone else in the thread, but neither I, nor any other atheist I know in the UK, is an atheist due to flirtation with Marxism.
(And hello Liberal!)
Right-I think a lot of people who get into Marxism nowadays tend to be idealists, who don’t realize that it’s totally unworkable, due to human nature.
Just shows how an ‘overwhelming majority’ understands pretty much zilch about humans or societies. People are only too eager to find reasons to dislike each other. If it’s not because of religion, it’ll be about race or language or sports team. It has ever been thus. Humans group themselves into ‘us’ groups against ‘them’ groups very easily, as Elliott’s exercise demonstrates.
Neither is it the fault of religion that leaders who want to manipulate the simple-minded masses picture persons of another religion as ‘evil’ to inflame their followers against others. It suits their purpose to create enmity and religion is just a tool to this end.
I promise you that if you abolished all religions today and wiped even the idea of religion from human minds, people would find other reasons to create division and tension.
I have studied and worked in international relations. It doesn’t take two degrees in IR, however, to see that ‘religious’ conflicts are not about religion at all but about power, money, land, and all the usual greed grabs. Catholicism did not preach that there should be problems in Ireland; people decided to discriminate against each other because of religion. In Rwanda it was about tribe. In South Africa it was race.
It’s so frustrating to see people parrot the ‘religion causes wars’ fallacy. It simply is not the case.
It’s no surprise that non-believers outnumber believers in the UK. Who’d want to adhere to a state religion founded by a homicidal brute?
Two-thirds of the population, going by the 2001 census. Hence the anomalous situation the Guardian survey identifies.
And there are other religions besides CofE.
Hi there, Jjimm! (What about existentialism, though. Same whorehouse, different bitch.)
Existentialism? I think you’re mixing the UK up with those effete Froggies. 
I think many Brits. when asked say that they’re C.of E.“just in case there is something”,a bit like crossing their fingers for luck.
For most the only time that they see the inside of a church is baptisms,weddings ,funerals and of course the midnight carol service christmas eve,but that has more to do with custom then religion I would think.
I have a hard time believing this. Familiarity with the works of Sartre must be pretty close to nil all across Western Europe, and his cultural influence I’d also rate at near nil. If existentialism has currency with anyone but college sophomores, I’d be amazed. It seems to me that decline in the vitality of religion in Western Europe happened a long, long time ago.
I’m sure that religion can indeed be both of these things.
I don’t take much stock in any poll when I don’t even know how the questions were worded.
I can’t wait for it to spread to Ireland.
I suspect that ICM have held onto the rights to publish them online (as I said earlier, the questions were given in full in the print edition), so keep an eye here.
re: religious displays in Eastern Europe -
At least here in BG, although Christmas and Easter are HUGE deals, they’re not particularly religious. At all. My Muslim students seem just as into Christmas as my nominally Christian students and my coworkers don’t seem to quite get it that I don’t celebrate Christmas at all. It’s so disassociated from actual faith that they can’t understand why I don’t do Christmas just cause I’m Jewish. Actually attending church is not common, but there are roadside shrines all over and people love to stop and light candles to the saints there.
Communism has had a very interesting effect on religious practice. I’m still working on pinning down exactly what’s going on. The dynamics are very different from what I’m accustomed to in the US.
The situation in Northern Ireland is a classic, textbook example of ethnic stife. The native Irish population is attempting to drive out the invading British population. The religous difference is completely irrelevant, except that it serves as a convenient label for the two groups. As Quiddity said, nothing in any sect of Christianity says it’s OK to blow people up.
The violence in Iraq today is a power struggle, with control of the new Iraqi government being the prize for victory. Various foreign powers (mainly Iran and Syria) are funding and supplying the side they think will be friendlier to them. I’m not well-versed about Islam, but I’d be very surprised to find out that either the Sunni or Shi’ite sect approve of random bombing or kidnapping & beheading people.
It’s a little bit about religion.