Would journal.ie be representative of society?

…surely not.
I’m sure if the same poll was put to a Late Late Show audience the results would be polarised!
Still though 10,000 is a big response to the poll, and the results probably aren’t far off representing Irish people in their 20s-30s. Those “no religion” numbers are going to keep on rising fast with each census but as long as the church has influence on primary school education Catholicism will likely stay as the majority.

David as much as I disagree with you over something’s, I totes agree with you on this

Then there could be atheists who don’t really practise such as the ones who believe in God.

@ David, I too don’t generally agree with you but you said exactly what I was thinking and you said it well.

@ Maria.
There’s a degree of confusion about the terms on the non denominational side.. An agnostic is undecided, an atheist is pretty sure there’s no god – but has the sense to keep an open mind and not rule it out. An anti-theist reckons there’s no way there’s a god and their mind is as committed to that idea as a deeply religious person would be committed to their faith.

In that sense I don’t think you can really have a “practicing atheist”, even Richard Dawkins says that there *could* be a god and he’s considered an atheist figurehead. Perhaps you are confusing atheists for anti theists?
To be honest it’s nearly as confusing as the different sects of religions so I don’t blame you for the mistake..

It was actually a joke, Shanti Om. I should have added a smiling face. ; ) Was just thinking of a poll I saw a few years ago which had quite percentage of atheists who said they believed in God.

God does indeed work in mysterious ways!!

The cleansing of the Catholic Church (as should be happening throughout society) is leaving it stronger than the as yet un-cleansed society.

What?

We felt we had to call ourselves Catholic so our children could get into school.

It would make you wonder what the real numbers would be if nobody was holding your kid’s education over you when asking the question, wouldn’t it?

Yep. Jedi!!!!

We like to call you a hypocrite.

It’s hypocritical to lie when the alternative is that your child doesn’t get a good education and their life becomes enormously harder as a result?

That’s not what “Suffer the little children” was supposed to mean y’know…

So you are happy to entrust your child to the people who you hate? Great parenting there.

And I call the Catholic church xenophobic, corrupt, homophobic, judgemental and unforgiving.

What’s more hypocritical?

Mark! Did I use the word ‘hate’ anywhere? But keep posting. You making an aggressive clown out of yourself helps prove the point.

Mary, not Mark Darren :D
And Mary, the people we’re entrusting our kids to are not the people who make policy decisions as to admissions in the schools.

Oops. Sorry Mark.

That’s so true. I am no catholic and I live in a rural part of Cork. I felt sick getting my kid baptized into that corrupt disgusting organization. Going to a non faith school is just not practical where I live!

I can’t ever imagine doing something I was totally against no matter what the benefits seemed to be. It would just go against the grain.

Then you’d make a lousy mother Maria.

You’ll have to ask my children that! ; )

I previously told of a relative who asked his local school if they would descriminate on religious grounds, as they are atheists, the school don’t – but give preference to Catholics. Same thing. Their only choice, unless they want to send their child to some school in another county, is to have it baptised, which they intend to do.
If Mark thinks doing this makes people like my relative, and Maria, bad parents I wonder how many children he has? We all say at times what we’d do for our kids, few of us are ever put to the test thankfully, but to have to have your child baptised into a religion that you don’t believe in whatsoever, may even have strong feelings against, just so that they may get a better chance at education. That’s a definition of good parenting to me.

Rusty, you’re mixing up who’s saying what…

Rusty – you left out the most important factor..
It’s a damning indictment of our education system if parents feel or are forced into baptising their children *just* so that they can access education. People should only get their kids baptised if they are actually practising the relevant religion.

Tony well put sir

I believe that a lot of the “Catholics” in the census were the result of parents doing much the same thing.

Actually, a very small number put themselves down as atheist so, I wouldn’t draw any conclusions about those who don’t believe in God being more intelligent.

And the irony of that is that the term that was translated as witch from the bible was pharmakiea (φαρμακεία).
If you break down that word you will see the root word “pharma”, it referred to all those who would use plants and herbs to heal ailments, because according to the bible – only prayer can heal the sick.

The term “witch” comes from the Anglo Saxon word “Wicce” meaning “wise one”, the wisdom referring to the knowledge of which herbs did what – the “witch / doctor” of the time.

I wonder how many of these witch burners use paracetamol, aspirin, or any other drug for that matter.. Indeed, if any of them use herbal remedies for anything, as this would all technically be witch craft. A “witch” is merely a healer.

The church has shifted tactic. At first they obsessed over us, wouldn’t leave us alone, kept calling us back. Now they’re playing hard to get. Reverse psychology works on children. Adults should know better.

Exclusive boutique churches might work? :P

@my two cent. What you say is right re Jesus, as we heard of him til he was 6/7 yrs preaching in temple then nothing til a year before death and resurrection at 33 but in Islam, Mohammad’s life and deeds were well documented throughout and his worship of Allah appears more ‘practical’ than blind, ref Satanic verses as as example perhaps. Of course, worship of any Deity begs the question of trust without ‘proof’, but are we not programmed that way as humans, to need spirituality, wherever we find it, as a means of coping?

You are proud to believe in a bunch of stories of magic and make believe that was decided on by a batch of socially backwards, celibate men who only worried about Increasing there own power and control? No, you keep believing that story. Must be nice to turn your brain off and just follow blindly.

I’d say most people don’t go to mass because there is no such thing as god,and adults can’t just suspend belief and ignore facts,people only believe in religion because of where they are born and what their parents tell them to believe,if I told you there was a yoghurt you could eat that would make you invisible,would you accept my word with no evidence?

@ Gaius – Have you any evidence to support your assertions?

@ David – it would appear that you are unfamiliar with the history of the Church.

Well, Catholic parents don’t raise their children in the Islamic or Jewish faiths, unless I’m grossly mistaken, and with regard to geography, when was the last time you saw Christmas decorations in Riyadh, for example, it’s more to do with logic really, as for there being no god, we could be here for months, I can’t undo years of indoctrination in a comment box

@ Gaius – I find it most interesting that you yourself focus on what you ‘can’t’ do re the existence of God – why not just expound on why you can definitely say that.

@Lt Mr Worf I agree with Gaius in that there is no such thing as gods and the supernatural. You want me to prove this, to prove something doesn’t exist. I’ll tell you the same thing the Catholic church does, you’ll just have to take it on faith that they don’t exist. Have a good life.

I suppose I’ll have to be very simplistic here, the notion that there is a being in the sky or in outer space which controls everything that happens on earth and influences every facet of our lives has become acceptable to many people as a direct result of repetition through the ages. The more people seek to learn about the planet we live on and engage with scientific research, the more glaringly the idea of a being in the sky becomes at odds with what we know. Having faith in such a being requires the division of a rational persons brain into two parts, one that requires evidence before taking an action (someone telling you the soup isn’t too hot, but you waiting for them to have a bit first), and then there’s the second part in the division, where people have decided that they will accept, without any valid reason, or evidence whatsoever, that life was created by a being in the sky, who controls everything we do, but if we pray to the being they might change their mind, even though everything is predetermined, in which case why would this great being allow all of the terrible disasters and atrocities that befall people happen, not a very loving god. Finally, the concept that there is an afterlife to go to is a horrible mental abuse for those who believe it, if you don’t do this you’ll burn forever, but if you do all these things and lead a miserable life on earth, you might just get into heaven – essentially making believers feel that there is something better down the road, which is terribly sad, because we only have one life and it’s very important to appreciate it fully and everything around us, instead of going ‘yeah, that’s not bad, but wait until I get to heaven’. I would like to add that I fully respect the principle of people having their own beliefs, but having said that, I have no doubt that the world would be a far more wondrous place if nobody believed in any god and we all just spent more time trying to make advances in our civilisation. @Lt Mr Worf, I have said that there is no god, but for the claims that are associated with saying there is one, the onus is really on the believer to provide evidence, not the other way around.

He wouldn’t have got on too well with Jesus!. I can never understand those who follow the teachings of Jesus being anti-Semitic.

Maria , strange too that the Roman Catholic Church for a large part of its history was openly anti-Semitic and persecuted the Jews . I’d hazard a guess Jesus wouldn’t have got on too well with those members of the RCC who persecuted his people.

Like most Irish people, I have no interaction with mosques and Immans so why would we have an opinion on them?

Half of the weddings I have attended in the last few years haven’t been in a church, give it another 10 years and it won’t really matter

Your comment has no relevance to mine but funerals and baptisms would be a whole other story.
One can’t be a member of a club and only obey some of the rules.

The only people to blame are the people who stupidly put thier religion as Catholic when they clearly are not Catholic.

I have read the Koran and have nothing against Islam it’s Extreemism whether Christian or Muslim that I have difficulty with.i admire anyone who follow their faith and are tolerant of others.

Yeah Ghandi, obviously not shared by the censoring team on here who I notice have removed my post! Islam hasn’t escaped my attention I think it’s just another medieval leftover with even more deluded followers.

I think believing in imaginary friends in the sky is ludicrous . But whatever floats your boat

That may be your opinion but it doesn’t say anything about the claim that educated people don’t believe in God.

And, then there’s the presumption that more education equals more intelligence. I have my doubts about that!

That’s very true Mike. I’ve often heard church men claim that hitler was an atheist. Having read mein kampf (purely out of interest) I am of the opinion that the church’s claim to be an utter fallacy. Hitler was a supporter of Christianity who perceived the workings of the Jewish race as satanic. He firmly believed that German Protestant and Catholics should unite to fight what he perceived to be a common foe. It is also worth noting that Hitler got into power on the strength of the Christian vote. This was during a time when many people were directed how to vote from the pulpit.

I know it’s a bit off point but it is a very interesting part of recent history, the relationship between the Roman Catholic Church and Nazi Germany, both of Hitler’s parents were devout Catholic’s, and I find it quite bemusing that not one German Catholic was excommunicated by the Church during and after the Second World War despite involvement in the most heinous crime against humanity, including the man himself, yet Galileo was only officially pardoned for his ‘heresies’ in 1992.

*Godwin’s Law Disclaimer