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Community => Religion and Philosophy => Topic started by: Atheissimo on December 12, 2012, 06:03:53 am

Title: Christianity down 13% in England since 2001
Post by: Atheissimo on December 12, 2012, 06:03:53 am
The 2011 census of England and Wales came out a couple of days ago, with statistics showing that the number of people listing themselves as 'Christian' fell by 4 million, from 72% to 59%. In another 10 years that number could be below 50%, if the trend continues. In Wales 1/3 people claimed 'no religion' on the census.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20672090 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20672090)

You''ll notice on the map that the most Christian areas are in the far north on the moors and in the Scottish borders where a sturdy cross and unbreakable faith are all that protect you from the sprites, trolls, hobgoblins and barrow wights that stalk that frost-haunted place.
Title: Re: Christianity down 13% in England since 2001
Post by: largeham on December 12, 2012, 06:34:00 am
This is a well known phenomenon. The main religious churches/groups/denominations/etc are experiencing decreasing followers in most first world/industrialised countries. While groups like Hillsong and so on are gaining members, they don't make up for the drop in their more mainstream counterparts.
Title: Re: Christianity down 13% in England since 2001
Post by: DogmasDemise on December 12, 2012, 09:58:34 am
Yes, this is great news.

Islam has also lost popularity in roughly equal proportion in the UK.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_the_United_Kingdom

Wait on second thought, that can't be correct. It has actually increased from 3.07% of total population in 2001 to 4.6% in 2010.

And for that matter Hinduism has also risen.

Sorry guys, you're not necessarily becoming more secular.
Title: Re: Christianity down 13% in England since 2001
Post by: Material Defender on December 12, 2012, 10:50:00 am
1.6% Gain does not counteract a 13% drop. Have you had 1st grade math?
Title: Re: Christianity down 13% in England since 2001
Post by: ThunderWulf on December 12, 2012, 10:56:49 am
Yeah, I'm honestly not surprised by this.  You look at a lot of modernized countries where we have such easy access to information and most of them have the mainstream faiths losing popularity, especially with the youth crowd.
Title: Re: Christianity down 13% in England since 2001
Post by: DogmasDemise on December 12, 2012, 11:14:51 am
1.6% Gain does not counteract a 13% drop. Have you had 1st grade math?

Nice strawman.

My point is, it's not all segments of society that are becoming less religious, just the Christians.
Title: Re: Christianity down 13% in England since 2001
Post by: nickiknack on December 12, 2012, 11:39:09 am
And here we go again, I smell a thread derailment...
Title: Re: Christianity down 13% in England since 2001
Post by: ironbite on December 12, 2012, 11:44:59 am
There's thread derail and then there's what Dogmas trying to do.

Ironbite-I'll go start up the Wall factory again.
Title: Re: Christianity down 13% in England since 2001
Post by: nickiknack on December 12, 2012, 11:48:46 am
I forgot what Dogma does isn't thread derailment, it's more like trolling and trying to bait suckers.
Remember folks
(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BZCa6RzAJ5A/T38MzKUtwWI/AAAAAAAAFCA/ejaGqwv7qtg/s320/DontFeedTheTrolls2.jpg)
Title: Re: Christianity down 13% in England since 2001
Post by: DogmasDemise on December 12, 2012, 12:00:57 pm
No, you're trying to derail the thread, I just gave you the facts and the truth is, it's not that you disagree with those statistics, it's just that you can't stand them being mentioned by me and in general you can't stand someone writing about Islam without using special kid gloves to do it.

So in truth, you're the trolls.
Title: Re: Christianity down 13% in England since 2001
Post by: ironbite on December 12, 2012, 12:05:20 pm
I respectfully disagree with whatever you're saying behind the "You are ignoring this user" and point you once more to this post

1.6% Gain does not counteract a 13% drop. Have you had 1st grade math?

Ironbite-mostly because I'm assuming it has something to do with you not understanding math.
Title: Re: Christianity down 13% in England since 2001
Post by: DogmasDemise on December 12, 2012, 12:07:11 pm
I responded to that, and the fact that you "ignored" my posts doesn't excuse you from repeating the same strawman.

By the way, this is a legitimate concern for all of those out there who might be involved in some kind of activism (people like Richard Dawkins or whatever). If they want a less religious society, they need figure out why it is that their message isn't getting through to every segment of the population. It's not enough to just look at the drop in Christianity and think "YAY! We're winning!"
Title: Re: Christianity down 13% in England since 2001
Post by: Blood God Nipso on December 12, 2012, 12:32:44 pm
1.6% Gain does not counteract a 13% drop. Have you had 1st grade math?

Nice strawman.

My point is, it's not all segments of society that are becoming less religious, just the Christians.

For fuck's sake guys, if you're going to argue with him, deal with the argument he makes. Namely, this one. Which looks to be a perfectly valid one, given the facts.
Title: Re: Christianity down 13% in England since 2001
Post by: ironbite on December 12, 2012, 12:36:07 pm
What facts?  I see no facts.  All I see is an Islamaphobe bitching about shit.

Ironbite-please, enlighten me how a 1.6% gain makes the country so much more Muslim that there's people being killed in the street for not praying to Mecca at the designated times.
Title: Re: Christianity down 13% in England since 2001
Post by: Auri-El on December 12, 2012, 12:48:57 pm
2001
Christian: 71.7%
Muslim: 3%
Hindu 1.1%
Sikh 0.6%
Jewish 0.5%
Other: 0.6%
None: 14%
total religious: 76.9%

2011
Christian: 59%
Muslim: 5%
Hindu: 1.5%
Sikh: 0.8%
Jewish 0.5%
Other: 0.8%
None: 25%
Total religious: 67.6%

Your argument is invalid.
Title: Re: Christianity down 13% in England since 2001
Post by: ironbite on December 12, 2012, 12:52:37 pm
Also we are aware that this is a census in which less people are identifying as Christian right?  Not that they aren't Christian.

Ironbite-so once more...this is meaningless.
Title: Re: Christianity down 13% in England since 2001
Post by: DogmasDemise on December 12, 2012, 12:55:14 pm
Kali, that's probably because you're not paying attention so I'm gonna repeat what I said earlier:

My point is, it's not all segments of society that are becoming less religious, just the Christians.
Title: Re: Christianity down 13% in England since 2001
Post by: Auri-El on December 12, 2012, 01:00:24 pm
You're the one not paying attention. Total amount of people identifying with a particular religion in 2001: 77%. Total amount of people identifying with a particular religion in 2011: 68%. That's an overall drop of 9%. That's across the board, not specific to any one religion. Are you getting this yet? So what if one or two religions had an increase of <2%, the overall rate is in decline. That's the point here.
Title: Re: Christianity down 13% in England since 2001
Post by: nickiknack on December 12, 2012, 01:09:54 pm
You're the one not paying attention. Total amount of people identifying with a particular religion in 2001: 77%. Total amount of people identifying with a particular religion in 2011: 68%. That's an overall drop of 9%. That's across the board, not specific to any one religion. Are you getting this yet? So what if one or two religions had an increase of <2%, the overall rate is in decline. That's the point here.

THIS, but you forgot, Dogma has an axe to grind with Islam, so he doesn't give a shit if reglion as a whole has decline.

On related note, identifying as a Jedi is an it thing (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9737886/Jedi-religion-most-popular-alternative-faith.html). I like how Heavy Metal has made the list too.
Title: Re: Christianity down 13% in England since 2001
Post by: DogmasDemise on December 12, 2012, 01:23:03 pm
Yeah, I'm not disputing there's an overall 9% drop.

I'm just saying that the Muslim population has been less inclined to have deconversions and in fact have grown in number.

Now I don't know exactly why that is, but I can probably guess that it's a combination of:
1. the "new atheist movement" of people like Richard Dawkins is not just not appealing to the Muslim population
2. being generally harder to leave Islam and still be accepted by your family or friends
3. cultural reasons (maybe being a minority they see Islam as some kind of refuge so they're less inclined to question it)
4. Islamophiles who thinks it's "racist" to criticize Islam
5. EDL (I actually don't like them, I think they're over-the-top and need to do some other kind of activism than just making loud obnoxious street protests that sometimes end in violence.)
Title: Re: Christianity down 13% in England since 2001
Post by: Sigmaleph on December 12, 2012, 01:52:32 pm
My first guess would be that to be a Muslim in a Christian majority country is fundamentally different from being a Christian in a Christian majority country. The latter can easily be a result of social inertia, whereas the former is more likely to be a strongly-held conviction. Which is why a general secularization of society would have a strong effect on the majority and negligible effects on minorities.
In other words, a combination of your 1 and 3.

Also, I suppose there might be class issues. Muslims in England tend to be poorer, and non-religiousness is correlated with higher education.
Title: Re: Christianity down 13% in England since 2001
Post by: Veras on December 12, 2012, 02:46:08 pm
Immigration also needs to be taken into account.  If a large number of people have moved to the United Kingdom from Muslim areas over the past decade, the percentage of the population that is Muslim would have gone up.  This would be true even if Muslim religiosity were falling (fewer people from Muslim backgrounds identifying as Muslim).  The fact that there are more Muslims in the UK than there were 10 years ago does not necessarily indicate that British Muslims are becoming more religious.
Title: Re: Christianity down 13% in England since 2001
Post by: Material Defender on December 12, 2012, 03:20:28 pm
1.6% Gain does not counteract a 13% drop. Have you had 1st grade math?

Nice strawman.

My point is, it's not all segments of society that are becoming less religious, just the Christians.

Overall percentage is becoming less religious in UK, as Kali showed. So that point is to a degree involves understanding first grade math.

If we are to look at the Muslim increase, we can probably attribute it to immigration. There is a great deal of immigration from undeveloping nations and most of them are strongly Muslim. I mean, IN America we're seeing our population shift from white towards hispanic through immigration.

So stop trying to be your trolltastic islamphobe self.
Title: Re: Christianity down 13% in England since 2001
Post by: Mechtaur on December 12, 2012, 08:32:10 pm
Are we really shocked that religions in first world countries are balancing out a little while decreasing on the whole? Really?
Title: Re: Christianity down 13% in England since 2001
Post by: rookie on December 13, 2012, 12:41:59 am
Are we really shocked that religions in first world countries are balancing out a little while decreasing on the whole? Really?

I never thought about religions balancing out before. Hmm. You've given me something to think about.