No religion in the UK

[Gob]

Census Campaign, if you're not religious, say so.

[loCAtek]

For God's sake, I'm not religious; I'm spiritual!

[thestoat]

Ah, but are you religiously spiritual? I drink wine every evening religiously

[dgs49]

If you're just "spiritual,' you don't have to get your lazy ass out of bed on Sunday morning and go to church (or put anything in the collection basket).

And you can still tell yourself, "I'm a good person!"

Definitely has its benefits.

[Scooter]

And does warming a pew on Sunday mornings and contributing a few bucks towards the bricks and mortar and staffing of whatever religious club to which to one belongs, letting whatever they hear while there go in one ear and out the other and being a misanthropic SOB the rest of the week, make someone "a good person"?

[loCAtek]

Ah, but are you religiously spiritual? I drink wine every evening religiously

So, you enjoy spirits and/or religion; spiritually and/or religiously?

[MajGenl.Meade]

And does warming a pew on Sunday mornings and contributing a few bucks towards the bricks and mortar and staffing of whatever religious club to which to one belongs, letting whatever they hear while there go in one ear and out the other and being a misanthropic SOB the rest of the week, make someone "a good person"?

Not in the least. You have to sing a hymn as well.

[thestoat]

Can the hymn be penned by Iron Maiden?

[loCAtek]

Iron Butterfly, perhaps?

[loCAtek]

[thestoat]

Love it

[dgs49]

Innagaddadavida = "in the garden of eden"

Sounds a bit churchy to me.

[rubato]

If you're just "spiritual,' you don't have to get your lazy ass out of bed on Sunday morning and go to church (or put anything in the collection basket).

And you can still tell yourself, "I'm a good person!"

Definitely has its benefits.

If you're a Roman Catholic you can contribute to your church and its charities at the lowest level of any organized religion! And still call yourself "a good person".

yrs,
rubato

[dgs49]

As usual, rube, you reveal yourself as an idiot.

The RC Church has a huge number of people who identify themselves as "Catholic," but who either never or rarely go to church. Thus, their contributions are almost non-existent.

Among Catholics who go to church, contributions are fairly typical for mainstream Christians. Bible thumpers, of course, beat everyone else because they tithe.

[thestoat]

I think the important bit about the "just say no" campaign referenced by Gob's poster above is that, in the UK at least, religion plays a large influence in daily lives with faith schools and even bishops present in the House of Lords. If, as many humanists believe, there are relatively few Christians left in the UK, then it might be argued that bishops should not have a seat in the House of Lords and faith schools should not be so prevalent.

[Gob]

Seconded !

[loCAtek]

Well, add more Imam's since Islam is the fastest growing faith in the UK.

[thestoat]

Well, add more Imam's since Islam is the fastest growing faith in the UK.

That doesn't say much. It could be the fastest growing if it had 1 adherent last year and 2 this year - doubling its membership. But it would be interesting to know the true number of muslims versus christians versus atheists versus ...

[loCAtek]

[edit]United Kingdom Census 2001

Although the 1851 census had included a question about religion on a separate response sheet, whose completion was not compulsory, the 2001 census was the first in Great Britain to ask about the religion of respondents on the main census form.[citation needed] An amendment to the 1920 Census Act (the Census (Amendment) Act 2000) was passed by Parliament to allow the question to be asked, and to allow the response to this question to be optional.[19][20] The inclusion of the question enabled the Jedi census phenomenon to take place in the United Kingdom. In England and Wales 390,127 people stated their religion as Jedi, as did 14,052 people in Scotland.[21] The percentages of religious affiliations were:

* Christian: 72.0%
* Muslim: 3%
* Hindu: 1%
* Sikh: 0.6%
* Jewish: 0.5%
* Buddhist: 0.3%
* Any other religion: 0.3%

15% declared themselves of no religion and 8% did not respond.[22]

[edit] Neopaganism

After the 2001 Census it became clear that the statistics for those adhering to the Neopagan group of religions were inaccurately recorded. This was caused by a dilution of statistics, with some adherents entering "Pagan" and others entering their individual religions such as "Wiccan" or "Druid", which fall under the umbrella term of "Pagan", leaving a significant number of people apparently unaccounted for. The situation was worsened when the Heathenism statistics were grouped in with Atheism by the Office for National Statistics.[23]

The Pagan Federation and the "PaganDash" campaign lobbied for a separate tickbox for Paganism on the 2011 Census, but were ultimately unsuccessful.

That was 2001, by 2009;

Muslim population 'rising 10 times faster than rest of society'
Richard Kerbaj


The Muslim population in Britain has grown by more than 500,000 to 2.4 million in just four years, according to official research collated for The Times.

Ten times more suggests the population of Muslims is now 30% or more and that the UK is being an Islamic society.

[loCAtek]

To add more research;

While there are more atheists than ever before, polls show that atheism's percentages seems to be declining. This may be because birth rates in religious societies are much higher.[5] This is similar to a 2002 survey by Adherents.com, which estimates the proportion of the world's people who are "secular, non-religious, agnostics and atheists" at about 14%.[6] A 2004 survey by the BBC in 10 countries showed the proportion of the population "who don't believe in God" varying between 0% (Nigeria) and 39% (UK)

...

United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, a 2007 survey found 15% of the population attends church more than once per month.[20] A poll in 2004 by the BBC put the number of people who do not believe in a God at 39%,[21] while a YouGov poll in the same year put the percentage of non-believers at 35% with 21% answering "Don't Know".[22] In the YouGov poll men were less likely to believe in a god than women, 39% of men as opposed to 49% of women, and younger people were less likely to believe in a god than older people.

Demographics of atheism

Meaning atheism has also risen in the UK, roughly doubling, but not as much as Islam.