Author Topic: Christianity down 13% in England since 2001  (Read 5566 times)

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Offline ironbite

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Re: Christianity down 13% in England since 2001
« Reply #15 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.

Offline DogmasDemise

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Re: Christianity down 13% in England since 2001
« Reply #16 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.

Offline Auri-El

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Re: Christianity down 13% in England since 2001
« Reply #17 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.

Offline nickiknack

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Re: Christianity down 13% in England since 2001
« Reply #18 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. I like how Heavy Metal has made the list too.
« Last Edit: December 12, 2012, 01:19:24 pm by Empress Nicki »

Offline DogmasDemise

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Re: Christianity down 13% in England since 2001
« Reply #19 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.)

Offline Sigmaleph

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Re: Christianity down 13% in England since 2001
« Reply #20 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.
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Offline Veras

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Re: Christianity down 13% in England since 2001
« Reply #21 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.
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Offline Material Defender

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Re: Christianity down 13% in England since 2001
« Reply #22 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.
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Offline Mechtaur

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Re: Christianity down 13% in England since 2001
« Reply #23 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?

Offline rookie

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Re: Christianity down 13% in England since 2001
« Reply #24 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.
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