Totally nailed. Thread won.
Seeing as I started the thread is that the internet equivalent of “caught and bowled”?
howzat!!
[slowly raises finger]
I understand the purpose of the poll is to show the lack of real belief in religion in the UK, but I can’t see someone ticking a box that says “Christian” if they don’t believe Jesus is the son of God. If you believe he’s not the son of God, but God does exist, then I’d think you’d be religious enough define yourself as something else (or simply not define yourself). If you don’t believe he’s the son of God because you don’t believe in God at all then I don’t see why you’d pick Christian either.
I don’t know why a lot of people are assuming I’m not from the UK. I am in fact English and my assumptions and personal experiences have always been that people will call themselves Christian in the UK because they’ve been brought up as Christians and they have some vague belief in a god. I’ve never heard of somone actually identifying as a Christian without believing in a god at all. It seems to me that the definition of “Christian” on a census can be flexible to include people who have never entered a church, but not so flexible as to include people who don’t even believe in a god.
By the way, I’m also not religious and would happily see a purely secular UK, I just find atheists’ arguments are often as easy to pull apart as the religious types’.
Thing is, it was ever thus in English society. Back in the early 16th century, it’s estimated that only about 25-50% of persons attended church services, and who knows how many of those actually knew or cared about what was going on. In my thesis I wrote on the early English Bible I detail lots of examples of people who used the Bible as a magical instrument or in fortunetelling, people who mixed Christian doctrine with astrology (and that person was a churchwarden!), or, most memorably, someone who was charged in Mary’s reign with heresy who claimed that there was one sacrament but “knew not what it was.”
But if you’d had a 16th-century equivalent of MORI you could guarantee that almost everybody who responded would have called themselves “Christian.” Whether out of fear of the authorities or just desire to conform, people of that era knew that you’d better call yourself Christian or you’d stand out. And standing out in 16th-century England was a bad thing. If you didn’t stand out you could pretty much do whatever you wanted short of theft of property or murder (and, to be honest, you might as well do the latter because the punishments were the same), but if you caught notice of the authorities, they’d find something to hang you with. Or, in the case of religious unorthodoxy, burn you with.
Even though it’s 500 years later I think that mentality is still there in the UK. The state church and the establishment is Christian, therefore it behooves me to say I’m Christian too, because even if I don’t give a damn about religion it’s a safe thing to say. Just because Richard Dawkins is English doesn’t mean that there isn’t a significant group of people in England who look sideways at someone who professes to be atheist. I saw that even at Oxford, which is allegedly Ground Zero for atheism in the UK, if not the world.
I thought someone explained that upthread. Basically they’ll say they are Christian because they consider themselves to be C of E, and that is nominally Christian. But when they consider the tenets of Christianity in more depth, they find that they don’t actually accept some or all of them.
For the record I once had a conversation with someone that “believed in something” who said if asked to put their religion on a form would say Church of England, but then went on to argue with me that that isn’t the same as being a Christian.
If you’re going to struggle to get your head around the mentality of someone who says they are Christian but doesn’t believe that Jesus was the son of god, then try and digest that. ETA: Paul Parkhead makes the same point.
Well that’d be a first. Which arguments do you hear from atheists that are easy to pull apart?
This what the UK census form asks:
20 What is your religion?
No religion
Christian (including Church of England, Catholic, Protestant and all
other Christian denominations)
Buddhist
Hindu
Jewish
Muslim
Sikh
Any other religion, write in
So there is no mistaking, if you are CofE (whatever that means to you) they want you to check the Christian box for census purposes.
Just thought I’d pass this along. Richard Dawkins tried to use the OP’s stats to prove that nobody in the UK is genuinely Christian, because surely anyone who was REALLY a Christian would know the names of the Gospel writers, right?
Just like anybody who REALLY considered himself a Darwinian would know the full title of “On the Origin of Species.”
I’ve sometimes put ‘Christian’ on forms because it’s my cultural background, and I definitely don’t believe in God. I didn’t in the last census, but I might have done in the 2001 census - I can’t recall.
I’ve told this story before: when I was a kid (9 years old) I filled out a form at hospital and wrote CoV in the religion box. The admin staff were very confused and asked what it meant, and I said ‘um… Church of Victoria?’ Subsequent question revealed I’d just been mis-hearing CofE all those years.
I’d actually been Christened, went to a school that had prayers before lunch (in infants) and religious songs in assembly and Bible stories in RE lessons, and all my family got married in church unless it was their second (or) marriage (even then they sometimes did). But the actual ‘religious’ part of it was so unimportant that I didn’t even know the name of my church.
I am completely convinced by the evidence pointing to evolution. I guess you could call me a Darwinian. I have no idea what the full title is.
It’s not my dogma or anything, since I don’t have a dogma. I do, however, know the names of the Gospel writers – Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. What do I win?
I have no idea what the point is of asking Dawkins the full name of that book. It’s not the atheist bible or anything. There is none. It’s not the evolutionary scientist’s bible, either. Science has added lots to that theory since then.
I also don’t know the full name of Newton’s work, even though I accept both mathematics and physics.
I’m similarly scratching my head at this - can you explain what that demonstrates?
Also I’m not sure where the reference about the gospel writers comes from or why you think it’s relevant. This article is not trying to point out that Christians are ignorant of their own religion, like failing to know whether it was the Ishmaelites or the Mennonites that enslaved Joseph, this completely undermines the claim that they’re actually Christians who have beliefs represented by the Church at all.
The fact that 49% of those who SELF IDENTIFIED as Christians (of whatever flavour) then went on to say they didn’t believe that Jesus was the son of god is staggering. This isn’t a minor bit of doctrinal disagreement, this is one of the most central tenets of Christianity next to “there is a god”. If people don’t believe that, then I’m pretty clear they don’t have beliefs strong enough to warrant anyone saying “half this country believes in Christianity enough to have legislation based on its morality”. Given this is an argument that does in fact come up in political circles, forgive me for making a big deal out of it.
Illuminatiprimus, I agree. From this side of the pond, I don’t see how someone who does not believe that Jesus was literally the son of God can claim to be Christian. Christopher Hitchens was asked about this once, and said:
Darwinian? Get a grip. Darwin is not some supposed supernatural being from whom all wisdom flows, and “Species” is not some inerrant text.
Quite. And for those who “believe in something”, it would be strange for them to tick “No religion” and tedious for them to write in something in the last box. After all, most folks see the census form as a chore - probably they just tick the “Christian” box and be done with it. It’s not really the place for pontificating on one’s spiritual beliefs.
Lest anyone think I had nothing to add EXCEPT a gratuitous snipe at Richard Dawkins…
The OP’s survey was specifically related to the UK, but I think it’s fairly applicable here in the USA as well. Contrary to what many on the Left assume (and many on the Right woulD LIKe to believe), Christian faith in the USA is a mile wide but an inch deep.
In BOTH Britain and America, most people who call themselves Christians fall into a category now wdely described as Moralistic Therapeutic Deists.
http://www.christianpost.com/news/moralistic-therapeutic-deism-the-new-american-religion-6266/
A moralistic Therapeutic Deist may well call himself a Christian without irony. But ask for what he really believes, and you’re not going to get much beyond shallow feel-good platitudes.
An average British “Christian” and an average Amrican Christian (it’s ALMOST irrelevant whether we’re talking about Catholics, Episcopalisn, Methodists, Lutheans, Baptists or ____) believes little more than:
- God exists
- Jesus came to Earth to tell us to be nice to each other
- Except for (maybe) Hitler and Ted Bundy, everybody is basically nice and goes to Heaven when they die.
- All religions are pretty much the same, and ALL teach us that God wants us to be nice.
I’m pretty sure he’s taking the piss* and making fun of the author of that vacuous editorial.
The idea that a “Darwinist” is supposed to know the precise title of some piece of “holy text” is the fevered imagination of the confused religious person who somehow thinks that Charles Darwin is basically atheist Jesus.
The essay really falls apart when you consider the fact that, as a prominent evolutionary biologist, obviously Dawkins is familiar with (and has, as I assume everyone here is aware of, expanded upon) Darwin’s work.
I’m assuming that astorian is making a joke, and that they aren’t actually stupid enough to think that non-religious people somehow regard On The Origin Of Species in the way that (practicing) Christians regard the Bible. Or stupid enough to somehow think any non-religious person would be or should be ashamed at not regarding some science book as holy writ.
*To use the slang appropriate to a discussion of British people.
No he didn’t, that is a flat out lie. Why even say it?
Were you aware that he did actually know and answered correctly? Even though the question asked of him was not equivalent to the one asked of self-identified Christians. (they were given a multiple choice for the single name of the first book of the new testament)