Post by buildmonkey on Oct 10, 2005 7:04:14 GMT -5
Dragon, thanks for your reply. Sad to hear you confirm the impression I was getting. In answer to your question: in the UK a lot of people don't bother categorising themselves as atheist or agnostic, it's not really an important issue for them. Many people have a vague notion of Jesus with some lambs. There are a few nutters and a reasonable number of evangelicals within the various Christian denominations but for the most part it is a personal matter. It has no bearing whatsoever on education, employment, politics or social activity for most people. There are strong Moslem, Hindu, Sikh and Jewish communities but apart from one or two rucksack wearers on public transport their faith is very community orientated and no-one else’s business.
On the whole the culture is very secular. Counter-intuitively this may be because we don’t have a separation of church and state. The Church of England officiates at many state occasions so it has to be a broad church to include as many people as possible. Over the generations this means that it has become so vague about what it does believe that ‘agnostic’ and ‘C. of E.’ are pretty much interchangeable on your passport. We are getting the first signs of problems though. Fundies are getting the chance to buy their way into control of some local state schools and set the agenda and Blair believes in and encourages single faith schools, whether Moslem, Christian or whatever.
Vertigo: Sorry if I offended. There may have been some cultural misunderstanding on my part to provoke the blast against the UK. The UK gets about as excited about patriotism as it does about religion (similar irrational phenomena?) so perhaps my subject line was a bit badly judged. I was only referring to the religious situation, which I thought was the subject of this site, not life in general. It was a joke and a rubbish Springsteen reference. End of apology. Next question; where have you been getting your information about the UK? It sounds about as ill-informed as my knowledge of the US. But for the record I’m favour of fairly taxing 4x4s (as well as other inefficient vehicles), which means that they should pay more than other people because they use more resources and kill more pedestrians/other road users. Nothing to do with their wealth. And you mention the EU like it’s an accusation. Sorry, I don’t get your point.
Getting a bit long winded now. I will shut up.
On the whole the culture is very secular. Counter-intuitively this may be because we don’t have a separation of church and state. The Church of England officiates at many state occasions so it has to be a broad church to include as many people as possible. Over the generations this means that it has become so vague about what it does believe that ‘agnostic’ and ‘C. of E.’ are pretty much interchangeable on your passport. We are getting the first signs of problems though. Fundies are getting the chance to buy their way into control of some local state schools and set the agenda and Blair believes in and encourages single faith schools, whether Moslem, Christian or whatever.
Vertigo: Sorry if I offended. There may have been some cultural misunderstanding on my part to provoke the blast against the UK. The UK gets about as excited about patriotism as it does about religion (similar irrational phenomena?) so perhaps my subject line was a bit badly judged. I was only referring to the religious situation, which I thought was the subject of this site, not life in general. It was a joke and a rubbish Springsteen reference. End of apology. Next question; where have you been getting your information about the UK? It sounds about as ill-informed as my knowledge of the US. But for the record I’m favour of fairly taxing 4x4s (as well as other inefficient vehicles), which means that they should pay more than other people because they use more resources and kill more pedestrians/other road users. Nothing to do with their wealth. And you mention the EU like it’s an accusation. Sorry, I don’t get your point.
Getting a bit long winded now. I will shut up.
