Letter: Should you be a Christian on the census?
Friday 18th February 2011, 6:00AM GMT.
Letter: I would like to encourage readers to think carefully about the question on religion in the census.
The results of the question are used by government, local authorities and service providers to decide how to run services and create policies.
Many people in the last census ticked the Christian box yet do not hold Christian beliefs, go to church or identify as Christian in any meaningful way.
By ticking Christian, rather than no religion, this has influenced central and local government policy.
It has led to an increase in divisive and discriminatory faith schools, (which the majority of the population are against), large amounts of money for “faith groups” in local areas, the appointment of “faith advisors” to government departments and proliferation of NHS funded hospital chaplains.
I urge readers who do not practise or strongly identify with any particular religion to tick the no religion box.
Failure to do so will continue to give a distorted picture of the importance of religion in today’s society.
Tony Akkermans
Chairman,
Welsh Marches Humanists
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Excellent point. I’d tick it anyway but it’s a good idea to remind people & explain why.
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Why are there no Jedi appointed to hospitals?
It’s an outrage, I tell you!
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Because we have a country run by the Sith.
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Sith? I think the ‘h’ is in the wrong place!
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Why tell the nosey jobs-worths anything at all? The less they know, the less they can plan, the less they can mess up and the less they will waste. Government spending should be entirely led by demand (busy train = put on more trains).
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Genius!
I suppose new housing, schools and hospitals can be thrown up at a few minutes notice so satisfy an increase in demand, can they?
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Housing and schools are very quickly built, even hospitals too, but not by government.
Government is a roadblock to getting things done, not a facilitator. The reason that government projects take so long is that the wheels of government move so slowly. By the time this inaccurate census is compiled and analysed and turned into policy, followed by proposals, followed by consultation, followed by hopelessly inefficient purchasing procedures, the need originally identified will have evaporated, evolved or expanded. Just look back at the UK Government’s economic planning over the last 25 years, or it’s transport planning, or housing, or defence.
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should be quite easy to plan school demand etc from the amount and type of new houses being built, and the council knows and inputs to those plans. I live overseas and it’s anjoy when a new subdivision is built or an existing one expanded we see new schools, shops, recreation centres, doctors, dentist’s, firehalls etc all to support the growth, even the plans to increase the hospital beds and services are all worked together, also creates more jobs in the community.. My partner and I laugh that it’s a bit like a game we played called Ceasar III, whereby if the infrastructure is not balanced and supported it all falls down and people get unhappy and kill the casesar…
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What have our trains got to do with the government?
(Unless of course you mean the government of Germany)
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Simple: the government pays for new trains.
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Can I suggest this link for further reading on the subject?
http://census-campaign.org.uk/
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“Many people in the last census ticked the Christian box yet do not hold Christian beliefs, go to church or identify as Christian in any meaningful way.” Do you have a window into these people’s souls Mr. Akkerman? How do you know their motivation for ticking the box? Or would you just prefer to think they don’t really mean it because that suits the humanist agenda? Christians come in all shapes and sizes, may of which may not conform to your definitions.
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“Many people in the last census ticked the Christian box yet do not hold Christian beliefs, go to church or identify as Christian in any meaningful way.”
“Any meaningful way.”
Isn’t it a bit of a cheek someone who is not of a particular religious faith telling people who are followers of that faith that they do not identify with that faith in any meaningful way? Surely, that’s for them to decide?
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Well insted of taking advice from a ‘Welsh humanist’ I would leave that decision up to the individual. I’m sure no fairweather Muslim who does not attend a mosque frequently would have any doubt about putting themselves down as anything other than islamist. Like it or loathe it this country is built on Christian tradition so regardless of church attendance most in the UK would still identify on the whole with Christians.
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I think you may find a section where folk can define their faith as Muslim if they so wish to but not Islamist as there is no such faith group. Rather, that is a word used to describe those who are Muslim in a militant sense, and is irrelevant to the discussion. I am interested to know why, out of all the faiths (and sub sects) practiced in the country you cite Muslims?
As for the original letter the census may be more accurate if it broke down the religion section into religion of birth and the religion (or not) currently practiced or adhered to. That may give a better reflection on the religious leanings of this country’s citizens.
“Most in this country would still identify on the whole with Christians”? And your evidence for this is where? I was raised in a Christian environment – family, school and church – but I do not identify with that or any other religious faith.
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I think the misuse of the term ‘Islamist’ reveals a degree of ignorance and prejudice in the first response here.
By definition, a ‘fairweather Muslim’ is unlikely to be an extremist, in much the same way as your C of E occasional churchgoer is unlikely to be sitting outside an abortion clinic armed with a sniper’s rifle.
Muslims believe in the same Old Testament God as Christians do – and even regard Jesus Christ as a prophet, and someone to be revered.
It’s always struck me as odd that fundamentalist Christians from the US in particular will travel to Israel to help out on illegal Israeli settlements (often populated by people who have been born and raised in the US and other countries outside of Israel), and regard Islam as their enemy, whilst regarding Zionism as a friend. Surely, if anything, Islam is closer to the Christian religion than Judaism?
Just another exanmple from my perspective of how ridiculously divisive religion can be.
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Welsh Marches =/= Welsh per se.
Mr Akkermans is also leaving the decision up to the individual, however he is pointing out the purpose of the census and asking for accuracy when completing it. I assume nobody could possibly disagree with this request. You on the other hand seem to be suggesting people complete the census on a ‘best-fit’ basis – do you have any recommendations for any other census fields people should be knowingly filling in with false information ?
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Good point.Few of us in Britain are Christians and am tired of hearing people say we are a Christian country.Very little we do has anything to do with Christianity and our values exist in other religons and cultures.Even our festivals are basically pagan.
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I quite agree Ian. Those so called “Christian beliefs” are just adopted common sense that would have existed, religion or not. That is to say common sense with the exception of believing in a God. Even the 25th of December is a pagan day adopted by the Christian Romans as Christmas.
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As a Dark Lord of the Sith, I shall be looking out for any so called Jedi when the results are in.
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I hate the way these chaplains home in on ill and elderly people.
If they really want to score points they could muck in and volunteer their help at meal times or when staff are being berated for not being superhuman and solving all the problems of getting old and dying.
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The Catholic Church is the world’s biggest provider of free healthcare and free, no strings attached, education.
It actually provides care for those suffering from or dying from AIDS, but why should that bother anyone when its much easier to sit at at keyboard and trade in lazy stereotypes.
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If people tick the box then I assume they had the desire to tick the box.As for eves interesting comments
“I hate the way these chaplains home in on ill and elderly people”,
It is normally when you belong to thee two groups that your thoughts maybe turn to religion and if you belong to one of these groups you may not be able to jump up and pop down to the local vicarage to have a chat, and as such would need them to come to you.
I assume eves final comment is in support of our nurses who I am afraid may have the qualifications to care, but some lack the compassion and ability to treat a patient as a fellow human and not a number that needs to be dealt with before shifts end.
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im not, ill put jedi, but no actually i think ill put scientist or aetheist just to add to the recognition for us logical heathen folk
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Such an important issue, the goverment wastes so much money on relegion within its various guises. The cost is growing and growing as different religions clash with each other and new policies & procedures have to be put in place.
Faith Advisors in the government???
They still pray before council meetings, why???
Not to mention all the religious programming on the BBC – who watches that.
On the 2001 census the end figure was around 70% on the population was Christian, with around 15% of no religion, that seems way off the mark to me, I think the figure of practising church going christians to be more around the 5%-10% mark.
One of the reasons for this is the is the leading question ‘What is your religion?’ instead or ‘Are you religious?’.
Be honest on the census, religion is what you believe, not what you were born.
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So exactly where does the government waste money on religion?
Just because you don’t watch religious TV it doesn’t mean that other’s dont. Religious programmes make up a very small percentage of TV’s output.
I do agree that a better questions would be “are you religious, and if so what is your religion?”
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So let me see if I am getting this right then ‘Thinker’
You dont like the result so you want to rewrite the question until you get the answer you like?
If 70% of the country say they are christians democracy has spoken
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At base all religion is a belief system, Humanism is also a belief system, but an alternative to one based on worship of a superior being. I do not think it is up to one religion to decide what defines another religion or to tell Christians what is meaningful to them.
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Humanism is not a belief system, it’s the opposite of one. It’s non-belief, which is based on the absence of evidence and the increasingly unlikely eventuality of there ever being any. (Strictly speaking that’s atheism, but agnostics are also catered for).
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Humanism by its own definition is a belief system in the same way that Atheism and secularism can be if elevated as an alternative to religion. A belief system based on there not being a god is the opposite side of the coin to one based on there being a god they both believe and have a set of – rules (if that is the correct word) which defines that belief and the way of life. Humanism does not include god but it is still a belief system.
This is of course my own personal view as an Atheist which to me means one thing only, I do not believe in a superior being, it is not a belief but a non belief. I do not feel the need to create a replacement for religion, religious ceremonies or a religious world view in an alternative belief system as defined by any organisation and do not feel the need to question others about their personal beliefs.
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Humanism by its own definition says that Humanists do not believe in a God or gods. Not believing means just that, therefore it cannot be a belief system (logically, it’s impossible for a belief system to exist based on non-belief).
It’s important to understand the difference between that statement and this one: Humanists believe there is/are no God or gods. They’re very careful to avoid that phrase and with very good reason.
The web site does go on to say that Humanists believe certain things (values, etc.) but the context is the psychological state of belief, which is not the same thing as religious or superstitious belief.
But we’re just talking semantics here and we could go around in circles for ever. I suspect that we’re both wrong and we’re both right. We agree on the most important thing and that’s the non-existence of a God or gods.
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Without too much dancing on the head of a pin, I would suggest that a belief system need not be based on a belief in a god. I would say that to create a set of secular values that defines our way of life is as much a belief system as is one based on a belief in a god.
In this case a humanist is advancing an alternative organised belief system he is promoting secularism and its values at the cost of other belief systems and their values.
One thing which defines religion to me and is the basis of my original questioning of the existence of god is the belief that followers of any religion are the only ones who are right, the only ones who have correctly defined the path, all others are wrong. However when secularism becomes the guiding principal and when its rules define the social, legal, cultural, physical and mental world, it is in exactly the same place as any religion, it is right and all others are wrong, all must then bend the knee to secular values.
There is no place for tolerance within overt secularism, yet our National church on which our freedoms and rights are funded has learned that tolerance of others, their religion or beliefs, their sexuality or their race is really the only peaceful non confrontational way forward for a settled society. Secularism seems to me to be taking us back into the middle ages in the respect that there is no tolerance for secular heretics, and where secular beliefs are raised as the standard of values to which we must all adhere on fear of punishment.
In Britain we have already rejected the intolerance of radical religion we should not now replace it with the intolerance of radical secularism. I neither want to live under the whip of religious zealots or the whip of secularist zealots, in Britain I have no fear from the former I am not yet too sure of the latter.
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I think it’s important to differentiate between faith and belief. Belief typically requires evidence – faith does not.
I believe that Newton’s third law, or the relationships described in the Periodic table are true. That’s because there is overwhelming practical evidence, based upon observation, that these are fact. Of course, if new scientific evidence were to come to light, I would be forced to change these beliefs.
Faith requires no such evidence – people will believe what they want to believe simply because it’s written down in a heavily edited and politicised book, and/or for all sorts of psychological reasons – they require no evidence, and are not shifted from that faith regardless of huge amounts of evidence to the contrary.
‘Young Earth’ Creationists, for example insist on believing that the Earth is just a few thousand years old, despite the fact that there’s not a shred of scientific evidence to support this view.
I think there will be people who have such faith, and fear discarding it for effectively superstitious reasons but who don’t necessarily prsctice that faith in any formal way. Perhaps the suggestion of questions around ‘birth faith’ and ‘currently practiced faith’ is a good one.
As for me, I’ll tick the ‘Atheist’ box every time…
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If religion didn’t exist, we humanists wouldn’t need to describe ourselves in a relative way to religion by saying we are ‘non-believers’. We’d just get on with life and that would be it, without worrying whether to call our modus vivendi a ‘belief system’, or ourselves ‘non-believers’.
Try explaining that you are not a smoker without a negative reference to that habit. “I like breathing air untainted by poisonous chemicals inhaled from a pile of funny brown burning weed rolled up in a paper tube at the same time.” Clumsy, eh?
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[It is normally when you belong to thee two groups that your thoughts maybe turn to religion ]
Er not necessarily, I think you are may be speaking for yourself there! You do however when old or ill belong to a group referred to as vulnerable Andrew and are therefore ripe for ‘grooming.’
I like your swipe at the nursing profession, just what I’d expect from you, after all it is a majority women profession!
Still you are probably right that when we had mostly men in charge like in the 1960s and matrons at the hospital who treated those male consultants as a superior race, the hospitals ran better. The withdrawal of antibiotics to those undeserving or hopeless cases that was decided by those ‘god like’ consultants certainly prevented old people cluttering up our hospitals.
How would you feel about that decision being made for you or a loved one Andrew?
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La la land eve.
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What ARE you talking about Eva???!!!!
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It always makes me laugh that there is a choice of religion on forms. Which one of them (if any) is the right religion? Can’t all be right can they? Christians have one god, Hindus have many, etc – the whole religion thing is a farce – none of them can offer any proof as to why their religion is correct.
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Good letter, I hope people take note of this.
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This letter is so inaccurate. There is no proliferation of hospital chaplaincies as he claims, rather the reverse in that they are suffering more than most in the cuts. Also he says faith schools are not popular – far from it – parents realise the standsrds of teaching and respect from many church schools.
Its humanists and aggresive secularists who are having their voices heard which is disproportionate to their numbers.
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“Its humanists and aggresive secularists who are having their voices heard which is disproportionate to their numbers”
The point of the letter is that numbers are not known because the census is doing a poor job of collecting them. Therefore, how can you possibly know whether the numbers are disproportionate?
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Maybe the choices should be ‘practising Christian’ ‘practising Muslim’ etc. Then there would be less excuse for these appalling, divisive faith schools.
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Perhaps ‘Kath’ ‘Thinker’ and the author of the letter would like to fill in all our census returns for us? they can then get the answers they want and save the rest of us the burden of free will.
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Don’t be silly. Everyone has free will to tick whatever box they want – I was suggesting the boxes could be labelled differently, don’t you think I have the right to an opinion about that?
The original letter was about asking people to be honest, what’s your problem with that?
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If schools are selective and have extra resources then naturally they will be popular and they should be totally or mainly funded separately from the taxpayer if people want them.
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“They should be totally or mainly funded separately from the taxpayer if people want them.”
Please note, most ‘people’ are taxpayers, should we pay twice?
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I feel totally outraged at this letter. I don’t go to church regularly and neither do I need to, to have my faith. Never ever would I tick a box for ‘no religion’. I would feel it was an insult to all I have been brought up to believe and to be proud of. How this can even be suggested is beyond belief. I take your point about the results reflecting the way things can change but to tick ‘no religion’ would be an insult to my beliefs and I could never do it and keep a clear conscience. It’s an outrageous suggestion.
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Why are you so outraged? If you have a religion then tick the appropriate box. There needs to be an option for those who have no religious conviction to be able to reflect that in the census too.
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You’ve missed my point entirely
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Sally
I’ve read your comment several times over and fail to see how I have missed your point.
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As a born again atheist, I am still trying to get un-baptised as a catholic. I understand the website was taken down because of demand! Hummm… a message there I think! I don’t want to be counted as a catholic next time the corrupt pope comes to the uk. At the moment I am still one of 1:5 catholics in the UK population and it reeeeaaally bugs me!
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I don’t understand your concern.
No one can force you to have any connection with the Catholic Church. Rather than trying to make a martyr of yourself by going to a silly website stay at home or maybe make a badge for yourself telling everyone that you are an atheist.
You could use some of your spare time to find out some real facts about the “corrupt” Pope. Try reading Tracey Rowlands. Yes a woman who actually thinks for herself.
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