The Archbishop of Canterbury

says Britain is no longer a Christian country with less than 30% of the population claiming to be Christian only 800,000 attend C of E churches on Sundays, those describing themselves as Anglican has more than halved since the 1980s, with 4 million Catholics christened in the uk again only 800,000 attend Mass, having no faith at all is the 2nd largest group in the uk.

Originally posted by redbadger
says Britain is no longer a Christian country with less than 30% of the population claiming to be Christian only 800,000 attend C of E churches on Sundays, those describing themselves as Anglican has more than halved since the 1980s, with 4 million Catholics christened in the uk again only 800,000 attend Mass, having no faith at all is the 2nd largest group in the uk.

Link?

Originally posted by googlefudge
Link?

Telegraph

I personally object to giving a country a religion label even when the majority are members of one religion. I strongly object to my own country Zambia's declaration that it is a Christian nation. It was done for very unchristian political reasons but that is not why I object.
Its equivalent to declaring the UK a 'white nation', and then announcing that it is no longer a white nation when the majority are no-longer white.

Originally posted by twhitehead
I personally object to giving a country a religion label even when the majority are members of one religion. I strongly object to my own country Zambia's declaration that it is a Christian nation. It was done for very unchristian political reasons but that is not why I object.
Its equivalent to declaring the UK a 'white nation', and then announcing that it is no longer a white nation when the majority are no-longer white.

They say America is a Christian nation but I believe the underbelly of the USA is very un Christian.

Originally posted by redbadger
Telegraph

Again. link, you want me to believe you/read it. Don't make me try to find it.

Originally posted by googlefudge
Again. link, you want me to believe you/read it. Don't make me try to find it.

type in archbishop Britain is no longer a Christian nation.

Originally posted by redbadger
says Britain is no longer a Christian country with less than 30% of the population claiming to be Christian only 800,000 attend C of E churches on Sundays, those describing themselves as Anglican has more than halved since the 1980s, with 4 million Catholics christened in the uk again only 800,000 attend Mass, having no faith at all is the 2nd largest group in the uk.

And like much of the world, it's only going to get worse before it gets better.

Originally posted by Suzianne
And like much of the world, it's only going to get worse before it gets better.

Less religious IS better.

Originally posted by googlefudge
Less religious IS better.

Heaven forbid (bwahahahaha! I crack myself up) I say the same thing about Atheism.

Originally posted by Suzianne
Heaven forbid (bwahahahaha! I crack myself up) I say the same thing about Atheism.

You could, but you would be flying in the face of the evidence that less religious
societies are nicer to live in by almost any metric you care to measure.


And I actually came across some interesting research the other day in that vein.

There has been lots of psychology research done in the few decades which claims
to show that the more strongly religious you test, the more mentally well you will
test [for things like being happy and not depressed ect]...

However this research ignored people [atheists] who didn't believe at all.

And when you redo the research but include atheists you get a U shaped curve.

With the extremes at either end being strongly correlated with good mental health
and those uncertain people in the middle having lower mental health.

Which means that the good mental health comes from having a strong world view
you have confidence in, rather than an uncertain one you are unsure about.


Which means that someone with rock solid [but stupid] religious beliefs like RJHinds
probably has pretty good mental health [all other things being equal] and sleeps
like a rock.

Likewise someone like me with rock solid confidence in my world view [and note my
world view isn't atheism, that's a result of it] also has pretty solid mental health and
sleeps well...

But I have the advantages of being right about all the science stuff that he rejects.


So to be right AND have good mental health*, everyone should be a strong atheist.


EDIT:*all other things being equal. Having a strong world view helps, but is not sufficient to
have good mental health.

Originally posted by googlefudge
You could, but you would be flying in the face of the evidence that less religious societies are nicer to live in by almost any metric you care to measure.

Albania? North Korea? France under the Terror?

Less extremist societies are nicer to live in. But that's any kind of extremism, not religious extremism specifically.

Originally posted by Shallow Blue
Albania? North Korea? France under the Terror?

Less extremist societies are nicer to live in. But that's any kind of extremism, not religious extremism specifically.

I should have qualified "when comparing otherwise equivalent countries or regions".

Obviously there are a whole bunch of factors that go into a society being nice to live in
and religiosity is just one.

And it's entirely possible that the direction of causality is that nice societies cause people
to care less about religion than less stable and pleasant ones do.

As opposed less religious people make nicer societies.

That said;
the evidence is supportive of less religion = good,
and not supportive of less atheism = good.

Which was my point.


EDIT: Also, your point basically boils down to "there are other things that are really bad, it's
not just religiosity", to which I respond "as long as atheism and rationality are not on the list
my point still stands. The fact that other things than religion suck, and possibly even suck harder,
does not diminish the fact that religion still sucks." 😉