YES! We are a nation of secularists

Allright, I'll say it instead: churches profiteer. No organisation gets that rich without Taking money from people who need it more. Giving the church money was a way of clearing away some of your penance (shortening the term in purgatory), wasn't it? Or some such crap that got money out of people, just so the church could tell them how to behave. Churches control. That's what they are for.

Lily - I didn't say the churches were profiteering, just that they don't do much for nothing! You have to pay to go into some churches, I believe. If they are short of a bob or two, they could always sell a few treasures. Now what did the founder have to say about laying up riches?

Thou shalt not, thuo shalt not...

Services and impositions.

The Church of England has a vast portfolio of investments and enjoys charitable status on its profits. I am not going to start shedding crocodile tears for it.

vamiprequeen They pretty much all are.

I class myself as RC but if I had to pay I wouldn't put it on the form because the Catholic Church is so rich it can pay for itself.

Lilygran Baptisms come free – but they do ask fir a donation.

There are still religious groups that tithe – Mormons, for example – but few, if any places where everyone must pay towards the Church.

Greatnan Perhaps the popular (prejudiced?) view of Christians is just a stereotype? I think I've made it clear what I believe in various posts. Because I'm sometimes frivolous it doesn't mean my beliefs aren't strong! And Granjura is right, a lot of people think the services of the churches are somehow part of the welfare state. And even though people have to pay a fee to the church where they marry, they also have to pay a fee for a civil wedding or any kind of funeral. It's hardly profiteering! Baptisms come free.

Out of interest, how many here on GRansnet would continue to put Cof E or Catholic on official documents if it meant they then had to pay about 5% of their total other taxes on top for their Church?

I know - but here that was covered by the compulsory Church tax - and people are not used to pay for such 'events' separately. I've discussed this with the local Vicar, who is a really nice guy - and he says that charging a fee for such would not pay 10% of the running of the Church, staff, services, visits to the elderly, in hospitals and oAP homes, activities for the elderly, disabled, minibus, maintenance of vicarages and churches, etc, etc- and they are in dire straights. Now as an atheist I don't pay the Church tax - but neither do I expect any of their 'services'.

So being a 'secular' Christian for cultural reasons is a lot more popular when it costs nothing, or just the cost of those 'events'.

Granjura - the churches in England don't do weddings, funerals and christenings for nothing - they charge a fee.

The concept of the 'secular Jew' has been around for a long time - but it seems to me that we have more and more 'secular Christians'.

But here, in the Swiss Canton where I live- this has recently been put to the ultimate test: money! Paying a percentage of your tax to the Church was compulsory until not long ago- but a couple of years back this was put to the popular vote. The Church tax is now optional... and people are leaving in droves, leaving the Churches (Catholic and Protestant) in dire straights (the reason we were able to buy one of the old vicarages they sold to make money).

And yet people who do not pay still expect the Church to celebrate their marriages, baptisms, and bury them and their relatives etc, which smacks of hypocrisy. Wonder how many people in the UK would put down a faith if they had to pay a compulsory Church tax?

Apart from Christmas Day...which I think no one should have to work on unless they're in a job that absolutely has to be done every day....I don't see why shops can't be open 24/7 if they feel the trade is there. That's not because it's a Christian day btw but because it's the one day a year that the nation stops and most of us have the day off. I think it's good for society's cohesion that we all have one day a year that we share as being special even if it justs means you don't go to work.

If you want to go to church on a Sunday and/or boycott the shops then that's your choice but others would like to use them.

We're a nominally Christian country. How many people tick the Christian box on forms simply out of habit? Attending church on Easter Sunday or going to Midnight Mass does not make someone a practising Christian. A local RC church has a massive turn out for Midnight Mass because it's such a spectacle. Its a stunning building made magical when it's lit only by candles.

There has just been a discussion about Sunday trading on BBC news. A man from The Lord's Day Observance Society was laying down the law about how other people should live their lives. I just wish religious people would STOP trying to impose their views on the rest of us. Nobody makes anybody shop if they don't want to but it is very convenient for some working people.
I asked one of the women who worked at Tesco in Driffield if she felt they were being bullied into it and she replied that, on the contrary, there was great competition for Sunday shifts as they paid much better and their partners could look after the children.

baNana - Easter and Christmas are hardly representative of the whole year
Lily, I am well aware of the provenance of the quote - and I know not all Christians believe the same things. I have asked you to tell me what it is you believe, but you are remarkably reticent for someone with such decided views. I make no secret of my beliefs - it would be nice if you would argue on a level playing field! I am beginning to suspect that you just like to start discussions in which you have no passionate interest!

I read that more people attend Sunday services than the weekly spectators for football matches. I don't think anyone would try and say football games are not well attended. The few times I have been to mass in the last couple of years, albeit Christmas and Easter, there was standing room only.

Greatnan 'Lies, damned lies and statistics' . Mark Twain, quoting Disraeli.

when I should've read your post more carefully. Yes to the secular state, no to the republic.

when I agree entirely. Given the complicated nature of the British constitution (whatever it is) and given that no government has been brave enough yet to tackle even reform of the Lords properly, do you think it will happen anytime soon? Or maybe they are all waiting for the next reign? Greatnan apart from the Creed, Christians don't have to all believe the same thing, you know!

Oops - the majority of people going to services are non-Christians.
I am with you, when.
Lily, do you actually agree with Eric Pickles - and if so, can you justify it?
You post a good deal about religion, but I haven't really been able to fathom just what it is you believe!

It doesn't really matter how many people self-report as Christians, atheists or other. State should be completely separate from religion. We are a secular society, and the sooner we become a republic, the better.

I am a little puzzled, Lily. The survey you quote appears to bear out much that was found in the official government survey. Who is lying? (Apart from those who say they attend services when both surveys disprove it). If anything, people would probably tend to exaggerate their religious observance.
The minority of people who are going to services appear to be non-Christian.

My blood ran cold when I heard that the idiot Eric Pickles was proposing to introduce much more religion into public life - this is quite clearly not what the majority of citizens want. Since non-Christians are in the majority of believers, we have to wonder which bits of law he would like to change!

It does depend on who and how many people you ask. Lies, damned lies and.....blog.echurchwebsites.org.uk/2011/09/18/uk-religion-final-tables-2011-census/