Downunder, we are sectarian to the stage of preferring our PMs to be atheists. Or at least hide their light under the bushel.
Indeed, as an outlier Australian PM Scott Morrison is an active practicing Pentecostal Horizon Church in his Sutherland electorate.
He invited the media to a service during the last election, yes it was stage managed but there is no doubt he is devout. But when he tells a Christian conference he was called to do God’s work as prime minister, a majority of Australian cringed. We’re paying him to do our work rather than favour the dieties.
I don’t believe in anything supernatural, but I work an office job unrelated to the sciences. In order to comply with your nomenclature, do I need to change careers, or start believing in auras and healing crystals?
Nooo. Sadly, that’s a big fail. Although I know more atheist scientists than not, I have also known a whole slew of somewhat to very devout scientists as well. Up to and including a couple of PhD creationists (one I’ve met when he was a tenured biology professor, one’s an astrophysicist cousin of a good friend of mine).
Oh, you were being facetious! Sorry, I totally missed that. Were you also being facetious when you suggested that atheists, by definition, can’t believe in woo and pseudo science? Or did you think that was a legit argument?
But isn’t “Chinese folk religion” quite a broad umbrella that covers not only the very vague “cultural” ancestor worship you mention, but also the various (sometimes huge) temples & shrines, bigger communal ceremonies and what I would consider clergy. Also, from what I understand, the line between the more “organized” sects like Taoism and CFR is very, very blurry, so someone could be listed as mainly CFR and yet have a lot of Taoist or Confucian practice.
At what point in his PM career was he upfront about it? Because famously he had to keep quiet about it for fear of ridicule and distrust. The UK population would not wear such open religiosity very well.
I agree with SanVito, the US levels of open religious political speech just doesn’t happen in the UK.
Tony Blair was reluctant to speak out about the depth of his faith while he was prime minister for fear that voters would regard him as a “nutter”, he reveals in an interview.
He was asked, as a known Christian, if he prayed. Of course he’s going to say yes. That is not the same as wielding his faith like a Christian sword, as US politicians are apt to do.
He very pointedly converted to Catholicism after he left office, because he didn’t want to draw attention to his faith. Thing is, at the time, we all knew he went to church, but he didn’t ever invoke his faith in his speeches. That interview he was asked a pointed question.
He remained PM in name for another year but 6 months on from that interview is when he announced his intention to step down (in line with the agreement he made with Gordon Brown some years before).
So it is from the point where he knew he no longer had to win an election and where there could be no political fallout.
Years after the fact and when it could cause him no political harm. Which is precisely in line with what SanVito and I have suggested (i.e. that the levels seen in the USA just don’t happen here)
Tony Blair was my MP for years before he became PM, religion did not figure prominently in his speech.
