UK is a Christian country

[fatpies]

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/pm-divides-uk-over-christianity-comments-043835034.html#yBTTaL1

The thing is though... is it?

I my town churches are closing down and becoming restaurants and bars or museums. Hell one of my teaching venues in Manchester used to be a church. There are quite a few derelict churches around.

Everywhere I teach has a prayer room for the students the only people I ever see going into it are the Muslims. During the odd Ecumenical service again its all Muslims.

OTOH in Halifax, and many towns, I see mosques pop up everywhere. Like when I visited Turkey they have a wailing call to prayer over loud speakers in some places, Bradford is like this.

Fridays it is hard to park near mosques because so many people are attending. My classes are often missing many students because they go to pray, I loath teaching Fridays in many places as half the class will put their hands up and say they need to pray (college rules say I have to let them go).

Same with Jewish synagogues on certain days.

Schools in many of the Manchester satellite towns and Leeds satellite towns amongst the children not a white face amongst them, girls all wearing headscarf and veils presumably children who will grow to be Muslims/Hindus.
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"It's easy to attack and destroy an act of creation. It's a lot more difficult to perform one"

[Skudd]

It is based on Christianity, just trendy to be anti Christian religion at the moment. Plus all the Islamics are in your face and no one really dares spout about them the way they do about Christianity. Most of the people who claim not to be Christian (bought come from a Christian background) will be buried/cremated in a Christian ceremony even if it it is just at the Crematorium.

Christianity is the establishment so everyone wants a go at the establishment.

Anyway when the Koran waving fundamentalists line you up against the wall they won't care that you didn't have an Easter egg this year, you will still be slaughtered and you head cut off for good measure.
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[pepperami]

This is my country and I count myself to be Christian


(awaits flaming!)
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I am the sum total of my own existence, what went before makes me who I am now!

[arry]

[stinkwheel]

This is my country and I do not count myself to be a Christian.

Many other people feel the same way.

As such, I do not feel it is in any way appropriate for people to be able to directly influence the executive running of my country based soley on their religion. Nor do I believe my tax money should be used to fund the furthering of religious ideologies and practices.

Religion is personal. If people want to build churches and fund religious schools and programs, the proponants of that religion shoud pay for it, not me. My tax money is used to pay for the schooling of other peoples children but it pisses me off no-end that it is used to fund religious indoctrination in faith schools. You want to indoctrinate your kids, pay for it yourself.

Much talk is made about reform to the house of Lords but you never hear the fact that being one of the 26 most senior bishops in the Church of England automatically entitles you to a seat.

Wrong and unrepresentative.

Christian religious observance even kills people. If you want to know how, just hope you aren't ever admitted to hospital with a life-threatening emergency on a Sunday. You are 7% more likely to die because it's a "day of rest". Even I know that kind of nonsense was supposed to have been put to bed 2000 years ago by Jesus himself.

As far as I am concerned, you are free to follow any religion you want. Just don't expect other people who are not of that religion to conform to it or pay for it. I await a rational argument for why I should.
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“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[Ste]

Just because it's Easter, Call Me Dave has to start getting all preachy.

In all the festivities of Easter it's easy to get caught up in the merriment and forget the true meaning of the occasion.

A time of year we should be truly grateful for the efforts and sacrifices made by a remarkable man and should all be reminded that we now need to rally behind the cause and build on the great foundations built by the great man, so here's wishing you a very happy birthday Adolf.

[Lord Percy]

On the census a lot of people will mark themselves as Christian just because they were brought up in this 'Christian' country. So it gives the church an incorrectly high amount of political clout.

A worrying thing is that I think Christian interest is fading quite a lot, so the census may begin to show a more accurate low result in terms of Christian numbers, whereas Islam seems to be quite firmly in its stages of overall indoctrination and blind dogma, with people afraid to tell anyone else that it's utter bullshit, so maybe sometime soon the census will show more Muslim than Christian, just because a lot of Asian families may start ticking the box saying they're Muslim even if they're not at all, just because that's what all their neighbours do. Islam might get quite a strong political say.

Ok I'm just scaremongering, but you never know....

Really I think it's obvious that the governance of the country should be entirely secular. Religious choice should mean absolutely nothing on politics.

Think of it another way: A large enough percentage of the population shares a certain faith, so they suddenly have a greater impact on social issues. Well... also a large amount of people ride motorbikes! Surely we as a group should be afforded the same kind of rights? Oh but we aren't in the 'religion' category so 'meh'...

Just seen this on FB too:

https://scontent-a-lhr.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/v/t1.0-9/1488158_10152333895405923_69915314094353546_n.png?oh=244ab1dc2245fb87657c8d34927f8196&oe=53DC67ED

[smegballs]

The only two religions you ever really hear about in UK media is Christianity and Islam.

Jew, Hindus, Sikhs etc etc don't even really seem to register on the public consciousness as far as I can see. It's not uncommon to hear "muslims this, muslims that", "bloody peedo (sic) priests" or read a media article that is about the christian church or islam.

I can't ever remember hearing "well those bloody hindus want to do...." or a news article detailing controversy over plans to build a gurdwara somewhere. From the little I know, Sikhs seem one of the most bro-tier religions out there.

[The Artist]

https://i.imgur.com/gyWYpQG.jpg

[Ste]

UKIP are the new Lib Dems... the alternative party to the Tories and Nu Liebore who make all sorts of promises that all go out the window when they don't get enough seats to have an overall majority.

https://i.imgur.com/bzTk2ar.jpg

[Quornholio]

I think Cameron was right when he said UKIP was full of loonies.
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[mentalboy]

[Rogerborg]

The correct response is "Whatevs, mate, it's all just sandwizard babble. Maybe you should grow up and stop pretending to believe in invisible sky giants."
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GONE: HN125-8, LF-250B, GPz 305, GPZ 500S, Burgman 400 // RIDING: F650GS (800 twin), Royal Enfield Bullet Electra 500 AVL, Ninja 250R because racebike

[smegballs]

[stinkwheel]

[Llama-Farmer]

The UK traditionally was a Christian country, originally Catholic until Henry VIII wanted a divorce and the Church said no. Thus the Church of England was born.

I think thats right, I never used to pay much attention in History class unless it was when we covered WW2.


Nowadays most people still seem to identify as "CofE" on things like forms, census etc, yet were not brought up as such, have no interest at all in stepping in a church, and probably wouldn't know where their nearest church (of correct denomination) is.


Whilst there are fewer Catholics than CofE, the % of those who identify as Catholic and actually are practising Catholics is much higher than for CofE, people tend to be brought up Catholic and identify as such whether they remain practicing or not.
But people don't tend to identify as Catholic unless they were brought up as such, unlike CofE.


Side note... Sunday Trading laws state for Easter Sunday any place of trade over 3,000 sq ft MUST close for the day. I'd like to see it enforced for any place of trade, covering all petrol stations, pubs/restaurants, shops of any kind, takeaways etc.
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[Tristan.]

[mentalboy]

[Rogerborg]

[Benno]

The UK is a Christian country, or more accurately British culture is a Christian-based culture. I'm an atheist but I was brought up in a culture based around Christian values, traditions and morals. Therefore I am culturally Christian just like most of you probably are.

Saying anything otherwise is just trying to be "look at me I'm so progressive, religion is SOO dark ages". Or you live in a predominantly foreign neighbourhood.

[Benno]

oops double post
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I'm autistic. That means I'm smarter than you.

[Llama-Farmer]

[The Artist]

[mentalboy]

[Lord Percy]