The slow whiny death of British Christianity
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This island has shed superstition faster and more completely than anywhere else. Some 63 percent of us are non-believers, according to an ICM study, while 82 percent say religion is a cause of harmful division. Now, let us stand and sing our new national hymn: Jerusalem was dismantled here/ in England’s green and pleasant land.
How did it happen? For centuries, religion was insulated from criticism in Britain. First its opponents were burned, then jailed, then shunned. But once there was a free marketplace of ideas, once people could finally hear both the religious arguments and the rationalist criticisms of them, the religious lost the British people. Their case was too weak, their opposition to divorce and abortion and gay people too cruel, their evidence for their claims non-existent. Once they had to rely on persuasion rather than intimidation, the story of British Christianity came to an end.
Now that only six percent of British people regularly attend a religious service, it’s only natural that we should dismantle the massive amounts of tax money and state power that are automatically given to the religious to wield over the rest of us. It’s a necessary process of building a secular state, where all citizens are free to make up their own minds. Yet the opposition to this sensible shift is becoming increasingly unhinged. The Church of England, bewildered by the British people choosing to leave their pews, has only one explanation: Christians are being “persecuted” and “bullied” by a movement motivated by “Christophobia.” George Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, says Christians are now “second class citizens” and it is only “a small step” to “a religious bar on any employment by Christians”.
Really? Let’s list some of the ways in which Christians, and other religious groups, are given special privileges every day. Start with the educational system. Every school in Britain is required by law to make its pupils engage every day in “an act of collective worship of a wholly or mainly Christian nature”. Yes: Britain is still a nation with enforced prayer. The religious are then handed total control of 36 percent of our state-funded schools, in which to indoctrinate children into their faith alone.
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oh eck…I’m on dangerous ground here…no change there then…
As an athiest I couldn’t give a shit but as an Englishman I am seriously worried.
Faith schools are abundant but they are increasingly muslim – along with Sikh and other stuff.
Now, I don’t mind other beliefs but, if we allow faith schools that are not Christian we are moving ever closer to England becoming a non-Christian country and, despite my atheism – this is a bad thing.
If England is to be recognised as a ‘faith’ country it has to be Christianity or it is no longer England – as an Englishman, athiest or not, it cannot be tolerated as a ‘faith’ country of any other religion or it just isn’t England anymore.
No ‘faith schools’ is fine. If there are any they have to be Christian or nothing.
(Remember peeps. We are a country less than the size of most of your states….not quite as easy when you’re little eh?)
If England is to be recognised as a ‘faith’ country
It shouldn’t be. That’s the point. An official religion is an anachronism. The US has gotten along fine without one for 234 years.
As for the Islamic infection, Christianity isn’t part of the solution, it’s part of the problem. People like the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Pope have been in the forefront of appeasement and selling out — attacking Salman Rushdie and the Danish cartoonists, etc. It’s atheists like Dawkins, Hitchens, Condell, and so on who have taken a real stand against Islam.
I thought I had read somewhere recently, that the talibangelicals we have, were making inroads in Britain as they are here. Maybe I am mistaken.
Make the old churches into museums that show the harm that religions can do to mankind, complete with Inquisition section, etc.
Cathedrals are pretty much museums over there right now. If it wasn’t for curious tourists wondering about the olden days, they would all be in disrepair.
There are actually more of my kind in UK…. or so they say. You know, witch’s? LOL Every so often I read one of the jesus bashing posts (go ahead and yell at me MM, just remember, in most cases I agree with ye!) and get a good giggle. Today I needed one.
“Every school in Britain is required by law to make its pupils engage every day in “an act of collective worship of a wholly or mainly Christian nature”. good catch Mike. 🙂
Ironic that Christians should be claiming irrational fears against them. With all the historical evidence, I’d say any rational society has a damn good reason to fear it!
Good riddance, and congratulations.
As for the cathedrals, turn them into museums/monuments to the defunct religion, like Stonehenge.
Excellent article. But what will the Brits do with Canterbury Cathedral? Turn it into a Walmart?
Now this is what I call significant progress.