I’m no fan of Cameron or his government, but the OP sounds a bit clueless about the separation of church and state in the UK. That is: there isn’t any.
If you’re trying to stop people taking their religion with them into public service, education, etc, in the UK, you’re like 500 years too late.
This prompted me to do some long-neglected reading. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms starts with:
…then goes on to establish various freedoms, including of religion. This strikes me as similar to what a lot of Americans seem to assume is in their constitution, that the U.S. was “founded as a Christian nation”, even though later text says it shouldn’t act as one. I’m not sure why the Charter (which looks like it was assembled by picking and choosing bits from other countries, including the U.S.) lacks a formal establishment clause. I guess it didn’t seem like that big a deal, best handled by low-key and civilized discourse. I don’t recall a Canadian prime minister making a big deal about his or her faith (historically, about half have been Protestant, half Catholic). It frankly strikes me as… rude.
I’m gonna have to disagree with you there, Mister Oak. It seems to me that too many people conflate respecting people’s right to practise the religion of their choice with respect for those who practise religion.
I would fight (and die) for the former but point and laugh at the latter.
Really, you think I should lay off pointing out such supreme stupidity because why? Because people’s religious beliefs are somehow special? Beyond criticism?
Tell me - do you respect all religions and religious beliefs or only those that are long-established or that appeal to your sense of what a religion should be? Do you respect Scientologists? Moonies? Westboro wack jobs? I suspect you respect, and call for the respect, of only those who practise religions you accept as legitimate. Would you chastise me for being part of a “militant brigade” that was working against the Westboro Baptist Church? Well, to me, all religions are like Westboro - they differ only in the amount of their overt stupidity and bigotry. I criticize them all (and their practitioners).
That’s where we disagree. I live in the buckle of the Bible Belt. There are plenty of good, honest, kind, well educated and hard working people that sincerely believe some flavor of religion. They are not the wild-eyed zealots of Westboro. They are not bad, dumb, or otherwise undesirable because they believe differently than I do.
Officially there is not a separation of church and state, but religion is generally kept out of politics, and certainly rarely invoked so overtly.
wait wait wait wait WAIT WAIT WAIT!!!
Jesus isn’t a zombie???
I thought that was the whole point. You know, rolling the rock from the tomb.
That is some monumentally mindless rhetoric!
(praise be his name, you know, just in case, heh, heh.)
They are not bad, dumb, etc. because they believe differently. They are dumb because they believe, to the point of excluding evidence and logic to the contrary, in superstitions.
And, I have no doubt that many adhere to a very fine moral and ethical code. But that is not the core belief of their religion. At least I don’t believe it is. The core is their belief in a man who is also God and the son of God and His (THEIR) assorted miracles, including his rise from the dead. Having those beliefs are what I think is foolish. And, foolish are those who hold them. Not bad, immoral, or evil (not usually).
ETA: For too long, we have given religion a pass when it comes to silliness, ignorance, etc. It’s time we called it/them for what they are . . . if for no other reason than to start to lessen the undue influence religion exerts on our society (and on me and other non-believers as free individuals who should be able to do as we wish so long as it involves inflicting no harm on others, e.g. SSM, abortion, etc.).
:rolleyes:
Or people could just be polite instead of being asshats.
Me three, and I’m disappointed. Kirk Cameron is much more fun to laugh at than that guy in the OP apparently is. And who the hell is David Cameron, anyway? I take it that he’s not an American, or even a Canadian. I’ve come to accept the existence of Canada because I’ve been someplace called that a few times. Maybe even Mexico, though Nogales may have been a tacky tourist “destination” by Disney, but what the hell is this “UK” people keep blathering on about?
If you look at the image in the article linked in the OP, you might get the distinct impression that this guy is the result of poorly-supervised inbreeding. I think I have heard him talk, but I cannot be certain, ISTR his voice was about as interesting as blancmange.
Obviously, as noted above, the University of Kentucky. Or Kansas. Or Kent. Or something.
And, obviously, a UKip is a genetically-engineered breed of fish designed for self-serve kippering operations: You kipper. It’s expected to have a large Jewish customer base, because they already nom kipper on a regular basis. This ties in with the UKip organization’s community outreach in the Jewish community, with which they get on famously.
Agreed - but I would say that in general, religious people in the UK have a different approach to the integration of faith and life anyway.
I’m a foundation(church-appointed) governor at a local church-controlled primary school in the UK - I’m actively involved in the ‘interference’ of the church in education.
But my remit is not, for example, to try to introduce creationism into textbooks (nobody wants that shit), it is to take an active, broad interest in the spiritual/emotional/social wellbeing of the pupils.
The curriculum always tends a little bit toward the goal of transforming children into effective little employee-units - and that’s no bad thing (they will have to find jobs one day) - the effort of the church is to ensure that this is balanced with the ‘soft’ skills - social awareness and interaction, emotional intelligence, understanding, learning how to celebrate each others’ differences, finding a sense of wonder in life, etc.
And it’s effective. Faith schools typically outperform non-church schools in both attainment and achievement.
It’s not about trying to shoehorn Jesus in - it’s about making use of the different viewpoints, social skills and ethics of care that religious people often have.
I’m not saying it’s impossible to do those things completely without religion - it just doesn’t seem to work that way at the moment.
Quoted just to re-emphasise: I am absolutely NOT asserting that religious people are the only people who can do this.
It’s just substantially the case that we ARE the people who do it at the moment.
problem is quite possibly that Cameron is predicting the past.
I.e. find something that already works, but is perhaps a little overlooked, then make noise about how it would be a good thing if it existed, then later, take the credit for inventing it.
(His supporters may differ and say that he’s championing and highlighting existing successes in order to promote them, I guess)
Personally, I think it would be ideal if objects in a state of uniform motion tended to remain in that state of motion unless influenced by an external force. That’s what we all need, and I will not rest until it happens.
I’m not sure how relevant that is. Cameron is talking about the virtues of faith and what non-believers “don’t understand”, and I doubt the relative success of faith schools is anything to do with faith.
You fail to grasp that people do not need faith in order to have a moral code.
You fail to grasp basic logic if you think that follows from what I said. (Quoted, actually; I was quoting from the OP’s quote. ETA: You know, right where it says: "While acknowledging many non-believers have a moral code and some Christians do not, he added: “People who advocate some sort of secular neutrality fail to grasp the consequences of that neutrality, or the role that faith can play in helping people to have a moral code.”)
I think it has something to do with faith, something to do with motivation and something to do with organisation.
But the point is, I’m not responding to Cameron, I’m responding to the OP. Church interaction with state in the UK is not what some people seem to think it might be.