Church of England Loses 14% of Members

[islamirama]

Church of England Loses 14% of Members

Church of England loses one in seven Sunday worshippers in just a decade as new figures confirm a steep decline in the ranks of the Anglican faith

By Steve Doughty - 27 October 2016

The number of worshippers at Church of England Sunday services has dropped by 14 per cent in ten years.

Yesterday's figures confirm a steep decline in the ranks of the Anglican faithful at a time when evidence shows an accelerating fall in Christian belief in the country as a whole.

Sunday attendance, by which the CofE has long measured its congregations, fell to 752,460 in 2015, down from 764,000 in 2014 and around 875,000 in 2005.

The figure dropped below a million in the late 1990s, prompting the Church to stop publishing it for a period, and is now less than half the numbers of the late 1960s. As well as the loss of one in seven members of Sunday congregations in a decade, there was an 18 per cent drop in the number of weddings in CofE churches, a 28 per cent drop in funerals and an 11 per cent fall in baptisms. Even the most popular services, at Easter and Christmas, showed a fall of 13 per cent and 14 per cent in attendance between 2005 and 2015.

Among the population as a whole, according to the 2011 national census, the number of people who call themselves Christians dropped by four million between 2001 and 2011, and the Christian share of the population fell from 72 per cent in 2001 to less than 60 per cent in 2011.

Since 2000, the Church has produced other ways of assessing the number of worshippers. One was average weekly attendance, first published in 2001, showing there were 1.3million people who went to church at some point in the week. That has now also dropped below a million to 960,000.

The CofE has now developed yet another way of counting - the 'worshipping community'. This takes in anyone who goes to church at least once a month and includes people who, it is considered, would go to church if not prevented by illness or disability.

William Nye, secretary general of the Church's cabinet the Archbishops' Council, said: 'The Church of England is setting out on a journey of renewal and reform, aiming to reverse our numerical decline in attendance so that we become a growing church in every region and for every generation.'

The Church said 2.5million people went to a Christmas service in 2015 and 1.3million went to church at Easter.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...can-faith.html

[drac16]

Very interesting. Hopefully the people that are leaving are reverting to Islam! ;D

[Scimitar]

That wishful thinking.

Muslims only account for a very small percentage of Brits. And the 14% drop in Anglicans doesn't mysteriously make our numbers bigger either.

On the positive side though, the abandoned Churches in England are bought out by Muslims and converted to Masjids,

The masjid I attend in London was converted from a church in the 70's.

Scimi

[Al Sultan]

The masjid I attend in London was converted from a church in the 70's.

But is that haram? like to destroy (well i know it isn't the right word but just bear with me) a place of worship or change it, is it haram? or are there rules/limits?

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[Al Sultan]

Not surprised they're dropping, Since Christianity is the number 1 religion that leads to Atheism, and i have many atheistic friends who used to be Christians.

[islamirama]

But is that haram? like to destroy (well i know it isn't the right word but just bear with me) a place of worship or change it, is it haram? or are there rules/limits?

No it is not. They sold it and others bought it to convert into whatever purpose they want. IF it was taken by force and destroyed to build something else, that would be haram.

[Scimitar]

But is that haram? like to destroy (well i know it isn't the right word but just bear with me) a place of worship or change it, is it haram? or are there rules/limits?

Perfectly halal. The church was sold to the Muslims. We didn't go and do some sort of hostile takeover you know, we aint Muricans :D

Scimi

[Al Sultan]

No it is not. They sold it and others bought it to convert into whatever purpose they want. IF it was taken by force and destroyed to build something else, that would be haram.

Oh I see Mashallah..

[Al Sultan]

Perfectly halal. The church was sold to the Muslims. We didn't go and do some sort of hostile takeover you know, we aint Muricans :D

Scimi

Sold? Ahh..I see,but is it expensive? (If you have info about it)

LOL of course ain't muricans ma "dawg" [emoji23]

[Scimitar]

Property is always expensive - especially in London, UK.

But not expensive enough.

Today there are all sorts of Muslim funded projects in and around England, such as community centers as well as halal Gyms etc where men and women either have their own facilities or, share facilities but at different times so as not to freely mix etc.

Way we see it, every right afforded to other religious groups is also afforded to us, so let's make the most of it in sha Allah.

And alhamdulillah, we have, so far.

Scimi

[Al Sultan]

May Allah make you successful and protect you,ameen.

Hope it goes well for you guys inshallah.

[MuslimInshallah]

Assalaamu alaikum,

I have moved the discussion of the spread of Islam to another thread. Please keep this thread on the topic of the original post.

JazakAllah khairan.

[cooterhein]

Church of England Loses 14% of Members....

I have a couple of sources to add, some of the data is not as up to date as I'd like but it gets into some more of the details. Source one.
http://www.eauk.org/church/research-...rch-census.cfm

This is from 2005, and it compares some figures to that of 1998. It's a bit more dated than I would like, but it gets into some of the churn within the various Christian churches in the UK (R Catholic, Methodist, Pentecostal and Baptist among others) and it also zeroes in on those who are regular, active churchgoers while just barely giving a nod to the nominal members who mostly don't go to church, live secular lifestyles, may not even be very sure of God's existence, but still say they belong to a certain church because they live in England and some of their family members are part of it. Based on that criteria, just over 3 million Christians in the UK are consistently active churchgoers. This is not very much more than the number of Muslims in the UK that are truly active in their religious communities (which describes about 90% of Muslims in the UK).

Now, I do have some bias here. I am not Catholic, nor am I Anglican or any other kind of mainline Christian. I believe in the separation of church and state, and I also believe it's really bad for any religion in the long term if the religious identity of a people-group has more to do with its government than it does with actual grass-roots belief and practice. The Church of England is still the state religion of England in a certain sense, and now it's becoming obvious that a sizable majority of English Christians have been doing barely anything with their Christian identity because it's supposed to be someone else, somewhere else that makes the good stuff happen for their religion. So I'm not particularly surprised that we've been seeing a drop among Catholics (they make up a larger share of regular churchgoers in England than I thought), the CofE, the Methodists and the Presbyterians. In these types of situations, I expect to see the product of church-state unions struggle when their situation changes to something that's more secular and truly free. Once people have the ability to do otherwise, a lot of them will do so- and sometimes, for hardly any reason other than they didn't have that option before, no other options were previously being made available, they didn't previously feel as if they really had a choice.

So, where I'm coming from is the non-mainline Protestants of the US. Basically the non-denominational camp. I'm a strong believer in giving people a lot of options within Christianity. Let's say someone has an issue with the CofE and doesn't want to be part of it anymore. They'll probably leave it, which they are free to do. If they don't have any other good options in front of them, they probably won't practice Christianity at all. They probably won't practice any religion. But if they have a half-dozen other Christian churches at their disposal that are really similar to the CofE, and if they have an additional two dozen options that are not really much like the CofE, they can spend a few months exploring those options and learning more about the fuller scope of what Christianity has to offer and maybe they'll land in one of those other churches instead of sitting at home.

Pentecostals are the only major type of Christian church in England that's growing pretty quickly, and that's really more of a style of church rather than a specific denomination. It's sort of like a grouping of characteristics that can be found in quite a few different denominations, although some of those churches do identify specifically as Pentecostal and they'll put it on their sign out front. But some of them are part of a certain denomination and they just happen to be Pentecostal. These are the Christians that place a special emphasis on spiritual renewal and on awakening something in people that leads to them being really active in the church, so not very surprisingly, just about all of the people who identify as Pentecostal are also included within the more targeted study of people who are regular and active in their church attendance. The numbers here show there's just under a million Pentecostals in the UK, but the rate of growth has been north of 30% so by now there's probably just over a million of them. This is the most notable feature of the Christian churn that's happening in the UK- the nominal members of its old school churches are being more honest about their religious beliefs by saying they're not really religious after all, and it's Pentecostals and to a lesser extent other non-mainline forms of Protestantism that are moving to the foreground in terms of those Christians who actively practice their faith. They're also younger on average than other major forms of Christianity in the UK.

This other source doesn't give much additional information, but it does help you visualize the broader religious identities of people in the UK (without taking account of who is merely nominal). http://visual.ons.gov.uk/2011-census-religion/

Now here's the way I look at it. You're looking at about 30 million people who identify as Christian, but don't really do too much with their religion. And then another almost 20 million identify as either "no religion" or "religion not stated." Collectively, that's about 50 million people who at one time were supposed to be either Catholic or a part of the Church of England, and they pretty much gave up on that. So the way I see it, that's about 50 million people who could benefit from having additional options put in front of them (although a certain number of these people, probably around 10 million, are very sure of their atheism and are just not open to any religion). But as of right now, it seems most likely that some form of Pentecostal Christianity is the most likely thing that they're going to be considering. It's a rather massive dead space where nothing much is going on in terms of religion, but it seems pretty likely that Pentecostal Protestants are the main group that's going to do all they can to fill that space. And here's a link with some basic information on Pentecostals....not that I am one, but this appears to be the fastest-growing aspect of Christian identity in the UK. http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religi...costal_1.shtml

The main thing religious people have to worry about is the rise of atheism. We're talking about a religious dead space, in terms of nominal identity people who are unsure and those who haven't been influenced by religion in quite a long time....but the longer that goes on at this sort of scale, the more we'll see people who decide that there is no God, and most of them don't change their minds once they've decided. That trend is also on a rather sharp upswing, and atheists in the UK feel pretty comfortable with publicly declaring their atheist identity while saying publicly critical things about religion and about God (for example, characterizing "the God of the Bible/Old Testament/Christianity" as capricious and cruel and a few other things). Religious freedom is good, of course, and people should be free to criticize any religion, mine or yours, without fear of violence or retaliation. On the other hand, without using any force or intimidation, I do think it's important for some beneficial influence and positive experience of Christianity to be expressed and experienced within this group of approximately 50 million people. That currently seems to be fairly absent of any meaningful Christian influence.

I look at this as a time-sensitive situation that's in the middle of a tipping point. About 10 million people in the UK have firmly made up their minds in favor of atheism, and there's another 40 million or so that fall at some point on a continuum that's headed in that direction. They either have one foot out the door when it comes to their religious identity or they don't have a particular religion but haven't made up their mind about God's existence. The CofE and the R Catholic church are both going to do as much as they can to re-energize their whole situation, but I don't count on them being able to do very much. So before another 10 or 20 or 30 million people make up their minds more firmly in favor of atheism, I'd prefer for them to explore some of the other options that Christianity has to offer....and again, I'm not Pentecostal myself, but that does seem to be the main thing that can keep some of these people anchored to Christianity in some form.

Just one more thing to add....the US has gone through this sort of thing at a couple different points in its history. Weekly church attendance dropped to rates even lower than this mainly in the middle of the 18th century, and then again in the mid to late 19th century. That's what necessitated the First and Second Great Awakenings in particular, and on both occasions there were some really important men from England that played important roles in what happened. It seems like the UK is about due for something very similar to that, and that would pretty well describe the best-case scenario that some Christians are looking for. Not Catholics, quite as much, and probably not the CofE either. But the Protestants are hoping for that, and I think it's fair to say we're likely to have a free run at this and see how much we can do. As this is happening, it will be very interesting to see how the Protestants and the atheists interact with one another. I sure hope we can find some common cause and not be hostile to each other, even though we will admittedly be in a bit of a competition for influence within society.

[Al Sultan]

hope we can find some common cause and not be hostile to each other

Brother, I agree and pray to god to make ease on you but seriously.

Athiests are really aggressive,They think all religions are evil, Not just Christians of course, Buddhists,Hindus,Muslims,Jews, They're against all of these religions/people

I just hope that, They don't go out killing Christians,Muslims, And Jews.Because seriously, It's dangerous, Yes we can debate, argue with one another, But VIOLENCE NEEDS TO STAY OUT OF THIS. WE (Muslims,Christians,Jews) do not want violence, I hope they ATLEAST comprehend that (Since they think we're all terrorists..)

But UK and USA are both secular countries right? they're not religious,But the people are (Well some)

[M.I.A.]

i cant blame em really, i rarely go mosque either..

misery does not love company apparently.

last time i prayed in congregation was in an asda car park.

[aaj]

i cant blame em really, i rarely go mosque either..

misery does not love company apparently.

last time i prayed in congregation was in an asda car park.

I don't know if you are aware of this or not but missing jummah is not something to take lightly.


If a person for whom Jumu’ah is obligatory does not attend and does not have a valid excuse, this is a major sin. Whoever does not attend three Jumu’ahs (in a row) out of negligence has a seal placed over his heart and is regarded as one of the ghaafileen (negligent, heedless). Muslim narrated in his Saheeh from Abu Hurayrah and Ibn ‘Umar (may Allaah be pleased with them both), that they heard the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon them) say from his minbar: “People should definitely stop neglecting Jumu’ah, or else Allaah will most certainly seal their hearts and they will most certainly be among the ghaafileen.”


According to another hadeeth: “Whoever neglects three jumu’ahs (in a row) out of negligence will have a seal placed upon his heart.” This is a spiritual punishment, which is more severe that a physical punishment such as imprisonment or flogging. The Muslim ruler should punish those who fail to attend Jumu’ah prayers with no excuse, as a deterrent. Let each Muslim fear Allaah and not miss performing one of the obligatory duties enjoined by Him, lest he expose himself to the punishment of Allaah; let him adhere to that which Allaah has made obligatory so that he may earn the reward of Allaah. And Allaah bestows His Bounty upon whomsoever He wills.

https://islamqa.info/en/7699

[Al Sultan]

The Muslim ruler should punish those who fail to attend Jumu’ah

By what means? "punish" them? that sounds harsh,Allah knows his/her neeya (intention) if he can go and didn't go,Then Allah will punish,Why should it be physical...

[M.I.A.]

I don't know if you are aware of this or not but missing jummah is not something to take lightly.


If a person for whom Jumu’ah is obligatory does not attend and does not have a valid excuse, this is a major sin. Whoever does not attend three Jumu’ahs (in a row) out of negligence has a seal placed over his heart and is regarded as one of the ghaafileen (negligent, heedless). Muslim narrated in his Saheeh from Abu Hurayrah and Ibn ‘Umar (may Allaah be pleased with them both), that they heard the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon them) say from his minbar: “People should definitely stop neglecting Jumu’ah, or else Allaah will most certainly seal their hearts and they will most certainly be among the ghaafileen.”


According to another hadeeth: “Whoever neglects three jumu’ahs (in a row) out of negligence will have a seal placed upon his heart.” This is a spiritual punishment, which is more severe that a physical punishment such as imprisonment or flogging. The Muslim ruler should punish those who fail to attend Jumu’ah prayers with no excuse, as a deterrent. Let each Muslim fear Allaah and not miss performing one of the obligatory duties enjoined by Him, lest he expose himself to the punishment of Allaah; let him adhere to that which Allaah has made obligatory so that he may earn the reward of Allaah. And Allaah bestows His Bounty upon whomsoever He wills.

https://islamqa.info/en/7699

god only needs an excuse apparently.

what would you know about intent? you would have to speak a foreign language for me not to understand you.

food for thought while they cook the books in the back.

wicked are the things most people send before themselves.

thats punishment enough.

..maybe if i prayed i would read your story rather than you reading mine..

dont worry worry come closer i wont eat you.

[cooterhein]

Brother, I agree and pray to god to make ease on you but seriously.

Athiests are really aggressive,They think all religions are evil, Not just Christians of course, Buddhists,Hindus,Muslims,Jews, They're against all of these religions/people

I have been around some of the atheists that are active and YouTube, and some of them are very much this way. Some of these people don't plan on changing for any reason- for instance, I can think of a couple of examples where they put vids up all the time, it's more than just a hobby, and having a lot of subscriptions along with having some influence in the online community is very important to them. And in these couple of examples, they've explicitly had some very specific conversations with lots of people who tell them I like your style, you're usually funny and insightful, but you're too aggressive and disrespectful so that's a turn off. And some of these people don't care. They understand that certain viewers and even other people making videos are putting that pressure on them, they know they could have 10 or 20 thousand extra subscribers if they would do less of this sort of thing. But they don't, maybe they can't, at the very least they don't want to. It's just a big bowl of hate.

Some other atheists, however- including some of the more well known ones who spend time on the Internet- are a bit different. They are more pragmatic, in that they understand it's impossible for a few million atheists to remove religion from the lives of billions of people by making fun of it and mocking it. They understand that a few people will decide to leave whatever religion for whatever reason, but in the meantime there are literally billions of people who will continue being religious and some of them share a society with their atheist neighbors. So these are the atheists who decide to look for ways to work together, despite not agreeing on religious matters. Perhaps they can still agree on how everyone ought to be treated, on religious freedom (without replacing that with "freedom from religion" every time the issue comes up), perhaps consensus on issues of societal importance and legislative significance can still be reached. There are not that many of these atheists- but I do think these are the ones that wind up having more visibility and influence, simply because they're working well with other people and it plays to a wider audience than just the really hateful people.

I just hope that, They don't go out killing Christians,Muslims, And Jews.Because seriously, It's dangerous, Yes we can debate, argue with one another, But VIOLENCE NEEDS TO STAY OUT OF THIS. WE (Muslims,Christians,Jews) do not want violence, I hope they ATLEAST comprehend that (Since they think we're all terrorists..)

I'm really not particularly worried about atheists becoming violent. I'm aware of some fairly aggressive groups of atheists that truly hate all religion, but I'm not aware of any atheist groups that plan acts of violence as a core part of driving their message home. For example- speaking of my own people, Christians in the US- there's a group called the Army of God. They were responsible for the Centennial Olympic Park bombing at the Atlanta Olympic games (although the message the were trying to drive home there was never all that clear to me), and this is the group that's typically responsible for the bombing of abortion clinics whenever you hear about those. One reason I am worried about that type of group is it's not an Army in name only, they really do make a point of finding people that are ex-military. But one reason I'm not as worried as I might be is because their body count is not all that high and they don't have much money coming in. Getting back to the atheists though- I'm not aware of any such atheist group that seeks to kill certain types of religious people. I won't start to get worried about that unless I become aware of a group that's bringing in some serious money and gives me a body count to be worried about. And it's not like I have an extremely high threshold for any of those sorts of things- it doesn't take much to get me a little bit worried- but as far as I'm aware, at this moment, atheists have given me nothing of the sort to be worried about. Again, as far as I'm aware, and this is something that I try to be aware of.

But UK and USA are both secular countries right? they're not religious,But the people are (Well some)

They are both fairly secular, but each of them is a bit different from the other and both are quite different from a country like France. The UK is the most complicated of the three, because the Church of England is still recognized as the state religion in a certain sense although that's as much a figurehead title as anything else. And then there's a slightly different situation in the rest of the UK outside of England, that's been a slightly complicated history in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland (although the overall results are not really different). In the US, it's secular and there's separation of church and state, but the state is still quite friendly to the church (which is to say, religion in general). Whereas in France, it's secular and the separation is basically the same in principle, but the French state is more predictably hostile to the church. The church and the state are not friends in France, they don't have a good history together and they've never gotten along all that well.

[Al Sultan]

atheists who decide to look for ways to work together, despite not agreeing on religious matters. Perhaps they can still agree on how everyone ought to be treated

Exactly, I don't mind having an Athiest neighbor,I'll treat her/him with all respect, As long as they don't hate me and hate my religion and mock me and all of that.I have found some peaceful athiests on youtube aswell,I found some on quran videos where a scholar explains a verse in the quran and they even like the video?? like I get confused when I actually find an atheist on a explaining quran type of video,And you'll get comments like "I have found another way to view this verse, Thanks" and I also found many dangerous athiests who wanna burn the quran,the bible, the torah, ban islam,Christianity, Judaism, And many more hateful things.Im not gonna lie, I kind of have some credit for these peaceful athiests, because when you disagree on something, you don't need to hate, just respect it and don't call for violence.

I'm really not particularly worried about atheists becoming violent

atheists have given me nothing of the sort to be worried about.

As I said, I just hope that these aggressive groups who hate religions,prophets, Don't go out killing out people, If that happens then we're gonna stand together to stop them.If some of them say, Burn all the religious books (Torah,Bible,Quran) and ban all of these religions, I just had a thought, What if they'll get so pissed they'll go out killing innocent muslims,christians,jews and bombing mosques,churches,and jewish temples (I think that's what you call it)

The church and the state are not friends in France, they don't have a good history together and they've never gotten along all that well.

Really?... I once saw on TV,a big group of Christians in a church like building (maybe it is but I don't remember), and in the back you can see muslim women,men standing, I believe it was the Nice shooting.But that's weird,I thought France was a religious country..

[cooterhein]

Exactly, I don't mind having an Athiest neighbor,I'll treat her/him with all respect, As long as they don't hate me and hate my religion and mock me and all of that.

I completely understand the aversion to being mocked and hated, I definitely feel that as well. But it's going to happen sometimes, right?

I have found some peaceful athiests on youtube aswell,I found some on quran videos where a scholar explains a verse in the quran and they even like the video?? like I get confused when I actually find an atheist on a explaining quran type of video,And you'll get comments like "I have found another way to view this verse, Thanks"

That's a bit confusing to me, but it's also rather intriguing.

and I also found many dangerous athiests who wanna burn the quran,the bible, the torah, ban islam,Christianity, Judaism, And many more hateful things.Im not gonna lie, I kind of have some credit for these peaceful athiests, because when you disagree on something, you don't need to hate, just respect it and don't call for violence.

Well....I completely agree that violence is uncalled for. I'm certainly against that. Burning things, however (whatever it may be) isn't the same thing as violence though. If someone buys a Bible or comes into possession of it by some legal means and then burns it, what is that to me? This must be someone who's extremely upset with Christianity, and I wish that wasn't as much the case. Unless he steals the Bible from me though, I don't think there's too much I can or should do about that. At most, I'd hope to help that type of person be less angry toward Christianity. I would probably be inclined to leave it alone though, because when people get all the way to that point it seems like they're rather unlikely to come back around to being on reasonable and positive terms with the religion they're angry at.

It's really too bad when anyone becomes to hateful of a religion that they do that (the burning, or any other hateful-but-non-violent action or form of speech). But it's bound to happen sometimes, so what can you do?

As I said, I just hope that these aggressive groups who hate religions,prophets, Don't go out killing out people, If that happens then we're gonna stand together to stop them.If some of them say, Burn all the religious books (Torah,Bible,Quran) and ban all of these religions, I just had a thought, What if they'll get so pissed they'll go out killing innocent muslims,christians,jews and bombing mosques,churches,and jewish temples (I think that's what you call it)

I'm fairly sure you'd call it a Jewish synagogue, and I'm not so sure that we need to worry about atheists being violent in this way. There's a couple of reasons for that, but overall I'd be more worried about the introduction of measures by the state that would regulate religion rather than an abundance of violence.

There are a couple of notable examples of atheist states in recent history- although some aspects of that are qualified, and some of it has changed over time. In one example, you've got the Soviet Union. It was incredibly hostile to religion in general, but after a couple of generations of that the Russian Orthodox Church continues on and now it's a key ally of Vladimir Putin. This has always seemed odd to me given his role in the KGB during the Soviet era, but I suppose it's possible that he disliked the anti-religion aspect of the Soviet Union while having an appreciation for other aspects of it. In the aftermath of the Soviet era, however, I am noticing (as far as I'm aware) that the atheist community does not look to that as an example of something to emulate. Even at their most hateful and extreme, I don't really see atheists talk about the Soviet Union as if its brutality was a good idea or a preferable solution to the problem of religion. "Problem of religion" is a phrase that I do see sometimes, but suggestions for a solution don't ever seem to include this. Granted, it did happen, and that's a bit unsettling. But even the most hateful atheists that I've been able to see stop well short of suggesting this type of hostility to religion is a good idea at all.

The other example is Communist China, although this has been changing in some ways. The People's Republic used to be more hardline in its state support of atheism, including religious traditions indigenous to the region. But in just the past few years, this has turned into something more like a protectionist approach, in that religions with local roots get the okay from the state and may even get a bit of state funding. Religious festivals that would have been shut down barely ten years ago now get a bit of encouragement and possibly some funding. Islam and Christianity both have a lot of people practicing those religions in the shadows, but one of the more dramatic developments in recent years has been the formation of state-approved places of worship, although they are somewhat restricted and regulated in terms of what they can say. The main fear that China's government has is this- they wish to guard against any group mentality where loyalty is owed to a religion above that of the state, and the people running China must think their country's pretty fragile since they're also worried about uprising, secessionist tendencies that may result from religion, and an interest in political and social changes that align with the typical thing that's done by people of a given religion rather than doing what the CCP wants. Now, in this example, I do see a fair bit of support in certain respects. In general, there is some existing support for regulation and control of religion to a greater extent than what's currently happening in Europe or the Western hemisphere, and these general sentiments are echoed by what China is doing in some ways. Separation of church and state helps safeguard against this however, although there may be some comparatively small battles that anti-religious folks may be able to win in terms of individual legislation. I can't be too worried about violent atheists plotting a coup or some other type of government overthrow though; I don't think anyone is working on that and I'm not aware of anyone who is even talking about it.

Really?... I once saw on TV,a big group of Christians in a church like building (maybe it is but I don't remember), and in the back you can see muslim women,men standing, I believe it was the Nice shooting.But that's weird,I thought France was a religious country.

I'm not familiar with that specific aspect of the Nice situation, but that does sound interesting. France has historically Catholic roots, although most French Catholics are basically non-practicing. According to the Eurobarometer poll in 2010, 40% of French people are non-religious, 27% declare a specific religious belief in some type of God, and 27% believe in some sort of creator, spirit, or life force but don't consider their beliefs to be that of any proper religion. Anywhere between 55 and 65% of French people identify as some type of Christian in some sense depending on the poll and the wording, but for a lot of them it's clearly not a very serious identity and the older people are definitely a lot more likely to be religious than the younger people.

France has a rather complicated history involving their state and religion, mainly centering on the Enlightenment, the French revolution, Napoleon and the events that followed after that. The rest of Europe went through the Enlightenment as well, and there were some other revolutions and changes in the way things were run, but France was rather unique in some ways. This is a rather lengthy read, but it's some very solid information that deals with that in more depth. http://www.historytoday.com/gemma-be...atholic-church

And then here's one more source that compares the church-state thing in France to that of the US. It's a bit of an opinion piece while the other one is more properly historical, but it's the opinion of someone with a fairly large amount of expertise. It's been translated from French. https://www.onfaith.co/onfaith/2013/...d-states/11415

[Al Sultan]

But it's going to happen sometimes, right?

Of course yeah,and I try my best to ignore it.

it seems like they're rather unlikely to come back around to being on reasonable and positive terms with the religion they're angry at.

Even the Quran talks about this, if a person wants to be guided,god will guide him, if he doesn't want to be guided and go against it and even hate it,then god will not guide him,and god is just always.

It's really too bad when anyone becomes to hateful of a religion that they do that (the burning, or any other hateful-but-non-violent action or form of speech). But it's bound to happen sometimes, so what can you do?

True.

I'm not so sure that we need to worry about atheists being violent in this way. There's a couple of reasons for that, but overall I'd be more worried about the introduction of measures by the state that would regulate religion rather than an abundance of violence.

I am honestly scared from both, I don't want a country regulating religion, and I don't want to see Atheists killing innocent muslims,christians,and jews. I pray to god both don't happen, It's just a thought you know, since many people hate Islam,Christianity (and ignore Judaism for some reason since I haven't seen any hate on Judaism) and want to ban it and do all of the bad things, I am just worried they might go one step ahead and cross the line.

Russian Orthodox Church continues on and now it's a key ally of Vladimir Putin.

Isn't Vladimir Putin a Christian? I heard he's a Catholic I think.

other example is Communist China

Also, isn't North Korea the same thing? they do support atheism.

[cooterhein]

Even the Quran talks about this, if a person wants to be guided,god will guide him, if he doesn't want to be guided and go against it and even hate it,then god will not guide him,and god is just always.

That's interesting, I don't think I've heard that before.

I am honestly scared from both, I don't want a country regulating religion, and I don't want to see Atheists killing innocent muslims,christians,and jews. I pray to god both don't happen, It's just a thought you know, since many people hate Islam,Christianity (and ignore Judaism for some reason since I haven't seen any hate on Judaism) and want to ban it and do all of the bad things, I am just worried they might go one step ahead and cross the line.

I have a bit of a theory about why atheists don't seem to hate Jews as much. It may be about science- atheists tend to care a lot about science.

If you look at who gets the most major recognition for scientific achievements, especially in the hard sciences, you see non-religious people and Jews more than anyone else. There's hardly any Christians that have won Nobel prizes in the hard sciences, and the ones who have are typically not very observant or traditional. Muslims are also quite absent, unless you count that one Ahmadi scientist as a Muslim (which most Sunni Muslims would certainly not). Of course there are many devout Christians and Muslims that have their respective histories of achievements in the hard sciences, but not so much in this century or the last one. Jews, on the other hand, are right in there with the non-religious. These aren't going to be Orthodox Jews, it's going to be reformed Jews who may not be terribly religious, but in some sense there are atheists and Jews doing a lot together in the one area that means the most to atheists.

I suppose Orthodox Jews are a different situation. Maybe there's not all that many of them, and they're just withdrawn from where atheists are typically at. I would imagine it's possible for atheists to have more of a problem with the ultra-orthodox than they do with reformed Jews, but they don't seem to have much to do with each other.

Isn't Vladimir Putin a Christian? I heard he's a Catholic I think.

He is a Christian, I found a link with a bit more information.
http://hollowverse.com/vladimir-putin/
He's Russian Orthodox (which is different from Roman Catholic, although both types of people would claim they belong to the true Catholic Church while the other does not. It's a bit complicated). The Catholic Church that has the Pope in charge of it in Vatican City is known to the whole world as the Catholic Church, and that is what they call themselves. Vladimir Putin is faithful to one of the Eastern Orthodox Churches that are in schism with Rome ever since the 11th century, and his patriarch is in Moscow and in union with quite a few other Eastern Orthodox churches (but not with Rome). When speaking among themselves, they would say they belong to a union of churches that is truly Catholic and truly Orthodox, but when they're not speaking among themselves, they are known to the world as the Eastern Orthodox churches.

For the sake of simplicity, according to common nomenclature he is not Catholic but Orthodox. In terms of what he or any other Orthodox Christian would say though, his church is both truly Catholic and truly Orthodox, and you're extremely likely to get this whole explanation whenever you talk to any such person about almost anything. Catholics also believe their church is both truly Catholic and truly Orthodox, but they are much less likely to bother with a similar explanation.

Now, I don't know exactly how much of a personal effect religion has had in the life of Vladimir Putin, but it does seem to be the case that his father was quite non-religious and his mother (sometimes in some secrecy) was, and at the very least some parts of that religious identity have given him comfort and helped him to remember her. He's also worked closely with the ROC in social, political, and legal matters. Again though, I'm not quite sure of how observant Putin is, if he regularly attends church, if he knows many specifics about Christian beliefs in general or Russian Orthodox teaching in particular. I'm fairly curious about that, but so far I haven't run across that information.

Also, isn't North Korea the same thing? they do support atheism.

Yes yes, good catch. I had forgotten about them, they're so small and isolated. They sure do support atheism, and all obedience and praise goes to their dear leader.

[Al Sultan]

you see non-religious people and Jews more than anyone else.

Exactly! I believe Jews have over, 245? 200 something Noble Prizes (the science award thing) more than Christians and Muslims. But I don't think it really bothers us, I mean, "Golden Generation of Islam" where we had so many great scientists, Abbas bin Farnas, the Arabian dude who lived in Cordoba (Spain) he's the first "pilot" in human history, and he invented the bird like wings to fly, ( I couldn't find a specific name for it) and you got Ibn al Haytham, (all of these scientists were born in Iraq, surprisingly.) He was the first man to invent the idea of a camera, and the origin of cameras go back to this guy. Why? because one of the eggs in his back yard, went missing, he didn't found them under the Chickens, so he came up with the idea of the camera to see where were these eggs disappearing to. It doesn't bother us Muslims at all, I'm pretty sure the same goes to you guys, like you guys invented cool inventions right? I don't think we need a noble prize to be honest with you, (For both Christians and Muslims)

if he knows many specifics about Christian beliefs in general or Russian Orthodox teaching in particular. I'm fairly curious about that, but so far I haven't run across that information.

I'm curious too, I wonder if one day he may talk about religious matters? and then maybe he'll say "Just to clarify, I am a (insert Christian branch here) " Do you think it'll happen? I'm not really sure, I mean he kinda looks like that guy who isn't really "deep" into religion, but I guess he gets the 'general' image of religion and god, believe in god and do righteous deeds I guess.

they're so small and isolated.

So true, no one cares about that nation at all..also I heard they executed some Christians and Muslims a few months ago, can you confirm this?

all obedience and praise goes to their dear leader.

Oh boy, of course, they have a VERY dear leader :D

[Al Sultan]

unless you count that one Ahmadi scientist as a Muslim (which most Sunni Muslims would certainly not).

Oh no, don't think about that.

I heard they have HINDU beliefs, not just that, sometimes they don't teach the true Islam, they teach something else and completely different.

Ever heard of Salafis? even worse, they are like literally Flash's fan club, they pray extremely fast and they act really weird in mosques.

[cooterhein]

Exactly! I believe Jews have over, 245? 200 something Noble Prizes (the science award thing) more than Christians and Muslims. But I don't think it really bothers us, I mean, "Golden Generation of Islam" where we had so many great scientists, Abbas bin Farnas, the Arabian dude who lived in Cordoba (Spain) he's the first "pilot" in human history, and he invented the bird like wings to fly, ( I couldn't find a specific name for it) and you got Ibn al Haytham, (all of these scientists were born in Iraq, surprisingly.)

That's quite interesting. Personally though I'm not too surprised by Iraq being a major place of origin for these people. It's not as if I know all that much about this, there's only a few names that I could come up with or say much of anything about, but they also tend to be associated with Iraq and especially with Baghdad. Maybe that's just coincidental, but I do have a tendency to look at Baghdad as being a really major point of interest when I'm looking at this. I'm pretty sure it's a good idea to focus a good bit of attention there, although I should probably come up with a few other places to look at as I'm sure that's not the only important one, but this actually reinforces a general impression of mine.

He was the first man to invent the idea of a camera, and the origin of cameras go back to this guy. Why? because one of the eggs in his back yard, went missing, he didn't found them under the Chickens, so he came up with the idea of the camera to see where were these eggs disappearing to. It doesn't bother us Muslims at all, I'm pretty sure the same goes to you guys, like you guys invented cool inventions right? I don't think we need a noble prize to be honest with you, (For both Christians and Muslims)

It bothers me just a little bit, when it comes to Christianity I mean. I'm an Evangelical Christian, and even by comparison with other types of Christians, there's a somewhat worrisome tendency among my specific type of Christian to be someone anti-intellectual, anti-science, and suspicious of any type of authority that rests on scientific and/or intellectual rigor. There's a particular book that examines this sort of issue called Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, written by an Evangelical professor of history who eventually took a graduate-level position at a prominent Catholic school. He's still very much an Evangelical, but the thing is, there isn't any specifically Evangelical school in the US that has the type of graduate-level history program that he focuses on most specifically. That's just one little thing that has to do with him, but there's a whole slew of other things to look at when it comes to Evangelical Christians and higher education. We haven't made our mark as we should, and it's not just Nobel prizes (again, a small part of a larger story). It's hostility toward the idea of evolution, a general tendency to fall for conspiracy theories, unwarranted suspicion of proper academic authority in many areas to an extent that's notably higher than you see among other Christians or the population in general, it's poor performance in math and science at the primary and secondary levels along with abnormally low levels of interest in engineering hard sciences aerospace and the like, and it's a near-total lack of achievement at the highest levels in many areas. Again, not just Nobel prizes, but also at the highest levels of the US justice system. There are currently zero Evangelical Protestants among the Supreme Court Justices. It's pretty much just Catholics and Jews, it's been that way for a little while now, and there aren't too many Evangelical Protestants who are doing the really difficult work within the justice system that would put them in line as realistic candidates. There's quite a few other things I could get into, but I don't want to write a book here- that book has been written already.

The main reason I brought up the name of the book in the first place is just to say this- it's a fairly good idea to call this a scandal, and it would be a very good idea for us as Evangelical Protestants to set about working hard toward some long-term solutions.

I'm curious too, I wonder if one day he may talk about religious matters? and then maybe he'll say "Just to clarify, I am a (insert Christian branch here) " Do you think it'll happen? I'm not really sure, I mean he kinda looks like that guy who isn't really "deep" into religion, but I guess he gets the 'general' image of religion and god, believe in god and do righteous deeds I guess.

Putin is somewhat private when it comes to certain aspects of his personal beliefs, but I did find a YT vid here that puts together a series of clips in which he gives the details he's willing to give, and then there's some footage of him at church on some holidays and at some special events. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3d_yxJhmjk

My general impression of what I'm seeing here is mostly based on how I perceive him to be acting, and just a bit on how he seems to be saying certain things and how he's talking about this. (Some of this is guesswork, given that I don't speak Russian). It seems to me that he enjoys participating in the religious rites of Russian Orthodoxy, and I got the impression that he is familiar with how it all goes, he seems to know what he's doing when he's at church. He seems engaged, and he doesn't seem out of place. And when he was talking about his parents and his upbringing- despite the language barrier, of course- he seemed, to me, like he was more introspective and vulnerable than I've ever seen him. He's a little bit private about some of the details, but that was the general impression I got.

There are still a lot of details that I'll probably never know, but Vladimir Putin- although he deserves criticism for a whole lot of other things- does not seem to fit any part of the description of a Machiavellian, realpolitik, religion-as-a-tool pragmatist. I very much thought he might be, to some extent at least, but as I see a bit more of him in a religious context and hear a bit more of what he's willing to say about his religion, I'm thinking that he's truly Russian Orthodox, he takes his faith somewhat seriously (likely more so than the average Russian), and he's a genuinely religious person. I will also make note of how he stands out from other major world leaders, most of whom are not particularly religious at all. This is not a conclusion that I very much want to reach, since there are some glaring reasons for which I dislike him as a public figure, but I am tentatively concluding that Vladimir Putin takes his Russian Orthodox Christian faith pretty seriously and he stands out among world leaders in the West as somewhat unique. He may be among the most devout of the major world leaders, and if I'm not mistaken in thinking this, it's a little disappointing that I'm not able to enjoy this more. If I'm talking about a major world leader who's fairly devout and takes the Christian faith pretty seriously, I would hope to have a higher opinion of such a person.

So true, no one cares about that nation at all..also I heard they executed some Christians and Muslims a few months ago, can you confirm this?

I've heard about Pastor Han, a Chinese citizen who was ethnically Korean that regularly crossed the border over the course of 17 years providing aid and introducing people to Christianity. The Chinese government sort of tried to stop him, but not too effectively, and then he was murdered in April. China seems to have been upset about that, even though they had tried to stop what he was doing. That was a murder though, it wasn't an execution by the state.

I've heard some general figures pertaining to very large segments of the religious population being in forced labor camps, but I haven't heard anything too specific about people being executed in recent months.

Oh boy, of course, they have a VERY dear leader :D

I've heard that children in North Korea, from a young age, are taught to essentially pray to the dear leader before meals and thank him for everything that's good in their lives. It's things like this that make me think North Korea is technically an atheist country, but there are strong signs that point to belief in the divinity of the ruling family, and they don't much like it when divinity is ascribed to anyone else. There's so much absurdity coming from these dictators- it's been claimed that Kim Il-Sun created the world, Kim Jon Il reportedly invented the hamburger and shot 11 holes-in-one the first time he played golf, and there's some sort of story about an ancient Korean ruler who rode a unicorn in the North Korean area but not the South Korean area, which means the North is supreme. Or something like that.

They've got an incredibly odd history going on with these dictators. There's some broad similarities in China, but I haven't heard those types of specific absurdities.

[Al Sultan]

It bothers me just a little bit, when it comes to Christianity I mean. I'm an Evangelical Christian, and even by comparison with other types of Christians, there's a somewhat worrisome tendency among my specific type of Christian to be someone anti-intellectual, anti-science, and suspicious of any type of authority that rests on scientific and/or intellectual rigor.

Although are you anti- intellectual? or anti-science? if not, then i don't think it's a problem (for you)

May i ask why some Christians are Anti-intellectual, or Anti-science?

it's poor performance in math and science at the primary and secondary levels along with abnormally low levels of interest in engineering hard sciences aerospace and the like, and it's a near-total lack of achievement at the highest levels in many areas.

Cant you guys, just like, sit together and talk about it? think about ways to improve your performances from step by step? that's the best way to start, or just suggest that, we should work on improving our performances in Math, Science, etc.

But i want to ask you something, isn't worshipping God, doing good deeds and teaching young kids to do good deeds, and treat everyone with mercy and respect, better?

About Evolution by the way, A Christian (on this website) said *and I quote* "It doesn't matter to me if Evolution is true or not, I do believe it occurred with god's permission" what do you think about this statement?

not mistaken in thinking this, it's a little disappointing that I'm not able to enjoy this more. If I'm talking about a major world leader who's fairly devout and takes the Christian faith pretty seriously, I would hope to have a higher opinion of such a person.

Really interesting, so he's a devout Christian, i can say that?

Sameeee.

I've heard about Pastor Han, a Chinese citizen who was ethnically Korean that regularly crossed the border over the course of 17 years providing aid and introducing people to Christianity. The Chinese government sort of tried to stop him, but not too effectively, and then he was murdered in April. China seems to have been upset about that, even though they had tried to stop what he was doing. That was a murder though, it wasn't an execution by the state.

I've heard some general figures pertaining to very large segments of the religious population being in forced labor camps, but I haven't heard anything too specific about people being executed in recent months.

I cant understand why they're so anti-religion...

that's horrific...

I've heard that children in North Korea, from a young age, are taught to essentially pray to the dear leader before meals and thank him for everything that's good in their lives. It's things like this that make me think North Korea is technically an atheist country, but there are strong signs that point to belief in the divinity of the ruling family, and they don't much like it when divinity is ascribed to anyone else. There's so much absurdity coming from these dictators- it's been claimed that Kim Il-Sun created the world, Kim Jon Il reportedly invented the hamburger and shot 11 holes-in-one the first time he played golf, and there's some sort of story about an ancient Korean ruler who rode a unicorn in the North Korean area but not the South Korean area, which means the North is supreme. Or something like that.

They've got an incredibly odd history going on with these dictators. There's some broad similarities in China, but I haven't heard those types of specific absurdities.

WHAT????? I cant believe i read that, are they really this mental?... that makes me scarred man.. (such claims made by atheists lol)

I feel sorry for these Korean children.....


God is watching them..

[Inshallahds]

British population isn't that religious anymore. No surprise here

[cooterhein]

Although are you anti- intellectual? or anti-science? if not, then i don't think it's a problem (for you)

I'm not either of those things, so it's not a problem for me personally, but it's a problem for people that I'm closely associated with. And if you look at it from the perspective of a man like the professor of history that I referenced previously, he's not personally anti-intellectual either, and yet he found himself teaching at an undergrad level for quite some time when he really should have been a graduate professor, and then he winds up being an Evangelical prof at a Catholic grad program. And it's nice that Evangelicals and Catholics are getting along, it's nice that they can work well together, but it's not so nice that there is no Evangelical school with a grad program at the level where he belongs. This is one of those situations where someone else's problem becomes a bit of a problem for him.

May i ask why some Christians are Anti-intellectual, or Anti-science?

Fideism is an epistemological theory which states that knowledge should be based on faith and not on reason, viewing faith and reason as mutually exclusive (to varying extents). "What does Athens have to do with Jerusalem?" is the rhetorical question that acts as shorthand for this mindset. Here's the page on that from the Stanford Philosophy thing. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fideism/

Compared to other types of Christians, the Catholic Church has gone on record in pretty specific opposition to fideism, while my type of Christian- the Evangelicals- have been more inconsistent, but with some notable leans in the direction of fideism. The usual outcome of this mindset goes something like this- you can either be wholly faithful to your church thing, or you can take your thing in the hard sciences (and certain other fields that are also treated with some suspicion) to the highest level that there is, because if you do the latter, you're sure to compromise something of the former. That's not a hard and fast universal, but it is a measurable trend that leads to some disappointing outcomes.

Darwin, the theory of evolution, and the entire controversy really had a lot to do with my people too, from its beginning right up to the present day. The Christians who pushed back hardest against that were very much my people, in the most specific sense.

Cant you guys, just like, sit together and talk about it? think about ways to improve your performances from step by step? that's the best way to start, or just suggest that, we should work on improving our performances in Math, Science, etc.

That is an excellent idea, and it really should be so simple. Part of the trouble, however, is that there are a fair number of influential and charismatic people that are talking entirely in the other direction, which is to say in the direction of suspicion- suspicion of scientists, of the academic elite, of public universities in general and of professors who wish to corrupt young minds. They are pretty good at persuading people to believe this is a reasonable suspicion in its entirety, they get their message across despite having virtually no mass media presence, and there is a bit of a void on the other side of this issue. There are some Evangelicals that are doing impressive things in various types of academia, but their stories aren't well known and their skill set tends to be limited to the things they actually do; they're not likely to be just as good at self-promotion. What it really comes down to is getting more public relations people on the right side of this, people who aren't necessarily the highest achievers in any of the targeted fields but are still really good at speaking on behalf of them.

But i want to ask you something, isn't worshipping God, doing good deeds and teaching young kids to do good deeds, and treat everyone with mercy and respect, better?

Those are really good things, and we should definitely do those. And we should also take all that other stuff a bit more seriously than we currently do- it's both and, not either or, and kids who like the hard sciences (for example) shouldn't feel like they have to pick between that and being a good Christian. Be a scientist, study the origins of the universe, also worship God do good deeds and teach kids to do the same. That's discouraged- the scientist part, anyway, provided that the other stuff is expected of someone.

About Evolution by the way, A Christian (on this website) said *and I quote* "It doesn't matter to me if Evolution is true or not, I do believe it occurred with god's permission" what do you think about this statement?

I'm good with that. Personally, I was raised in a family where young earth creationism was a matter of importance and emphasis, and I needed some help slightly later in life in order to get to that kind of place. It was a rather difficult thing to work through, and I was doing that alongside classmates in somewhat similar situations who didn't always wind up at the same place in the end, so this is something that I've taken a hard look at from a few different angles. One of the most important issues to address upfront is this, and it goes for just about anyone- is evolution necessarily a threat to your faith? It's the whole fideism thing. If you wind up concluding that the issue of evolution doesn't make any real difference to your faith, and that's going to be pretty solid either way, that tends to be a good starting point. I think so, anyway, based on what I've been able to see. So I think this other Christian you were talking to has a good mentality coming into it that allows for a well reasoned examination of the issues without making anyone think they're being personally attacked, that really helps a lot.

Really interesting, so he's a devout Christian, i can say that?

I believe you can. And more significantly, the Russian Orthodox Church is happy to give an affirmative to that as well. He really is their guy. His personality and some of his political habits make it seem a bit counter-intuitive, but when it comes to religious observance, devotion, and the favor and deference that he specifically shows to the national church of Russia, that's his church and he's very much their guy. Sometimes it seems like they give him a pass on political and diplomatic criticism because of the specifically religious favor- for example, you'll have a hard time finding a bishop in the Russian Orthodox Church that criticizes Putin for the Crimea thing, or for everything in Syria, or for questionable election results. He's their guy, in a more strictly religious sense, and in a way that has not been common for Russian political figures in quite some time.

Oh, right, and it's worth noting that Putin has been instrumental in the literal rebuilding of Russian Orthodox churches is Russia. Using broad figures and terms, a ton of them were destroyed during the Soviet era, and over the past 15 years or so Putin has directed his oligarchs (most of them supportive of the ROC anyway) and state-owned energy firms to contribute billions (in any currency) to the construction of roughly 25,000 Russian Orthodox churches. They never would have rebuilt like that on their own.

I cant understand why they're so anti-religion...

that's horrific...

They must be thinking that any religion would be a terrible threat to their power influence and stability. I've actually never spoken to anyone on the other side of his issue in great detail, and I wish that I had at some point. I'd be curious to find out exactly what they think is the worst that could happen. Some sort of nationalist/separatist movement, maybe? Buddhism and Confucianism has the longest history there, but it seems like they're more worried about Christianity than anything else. From what I can tell.

WHAT????? I cant believe i read that, are they really this mental?... that makes me scarred man.. (such claims made by atheists lol)

I feel sorry for these Korean children.....

It's a tough situation, the type of socialist paradise where 17 million people have less than nothing and about 3 million people have things if the state likes them a lot. Just about all housing that's worth having is allocated by the state, for example. Things that are normally bought and sold, are earned instead by making the state happy. So the state gets to create whatever hoops it wants people to jump through. The state is basically the employer of everyone that's able to have a worthwhile job.