Doing good is not the preserve of the religious

"This point was demonstrated yet again last week by the latest figures from the government's citizenship survey. In terms of civic engagement and formal volunteering, the figures show no significant difference between those with a religion and those with no religion (57% and 56% respectively). There is scarcely any difference in participation between those with no religion and self-described Christians (56% and 58%). At 44%, the proportion of Hindus and Muslims participating in civic engagement and formal volunteering is actually lower than the proportion of non-religious people doing so, and the lowest of all groups. This is no flash in the pan – it is a continuing feature of the figures over a number of years. 

The figures supplement other data that makes the same point, not only from previous years' citizenship surveys. In 2007, Faith and Voluntary Action, from the National Council of Voluntary Organisations found that "religious affiliation makes little difference in terms of volunteering", and as a matter of simple numbers, the overwhelming majority of the voluntary, community and charity sector in the UK are secular." 

Guardian.co.uk, Andrew Copson, 26 September 2011

Just as I've been thinking but it's really nice to have the statistics now.

Fundamentalists of all stripes want to turn back the clock

"Despite all their theological and cultural differences, fundamentalists of every faith share at least one common characteristic: resistance to modernity. That’s the assessment of scholars and firsthand observers who have evaluated the varieties of religious expression. “Fundamentalism worldwide is religious anti-modernism,” noted Roger Olson, professor of theology at Baylor University’s George W. Truett Theological Seminary. “Fundamentalism reacts against various types of modernity,” echoed Bill Leonard, a church historian and dean of the Wake Forest University Divinity School. Whether it’s Baptist preachers J. Frank Norris and Jerry Falwell calling America to return to pre-scientific Christianity or Ayatollah Khomeini and Muqtada al-Sadr calling Muslims to resist the intrusion of Western decadence, fundamentalism finds a home in most major faith groups."

Associated Baptist Press, April 1, 2008

It's a long article crammed with points. Apart from being against modernity there were four other subjects discussed: Dogmatic Faith, Identity, Fear and Politics.
It's the first in a series on Fundamentalism at Associated Baptist Press.

There's no denying it... faith schools divide

"Bizarrely, these schools are actually commended for adopting corrective measures to deal with a problem – ignorance of other cultures and faiths – that they have themselves aggravated. Instead of studying alongside children of different faiths and cultures, experiencing from day to day the countless things they have in common, pupils will be introduced to other faiths as part of the curriculum – effectively as an exercise in comparative anthropology. And, as I say, not one hard fact that supports the case – just a string of bland truisms and pious assurances. I suppose we're just meant to take the rest on faith."

Thomas Sutcliffe, Independent, 11 September 2007

Religion: is the fight back under way?

"Let us look at the score-sheet so far as religious evangelists try to reclaim Britain as their own.

Sikh activists in Birmingham didn’t like the way their community was presented in a play at the local Rep Theatre. They protested and eventually rioted in front of the theatre and the play was taken off.
Score: Religionists 1, Secularists 0.

The BBC came under intense pressure from religious activists when it decided to show Jerry Springer - the Opera. Tens of thousands of born-agains (very few of whom had seen the opera) bombarded the Corporation with emails and letters demanding that the show be cancelled. The BBC went ahead and showed it.
Score: Religionists 1, Secularists 1.

Stephen Green, director of Christian Voice, which had tried to stop the broadcast of Jerry Springer - the Opera, tried to bring a prosecution for blasphemy against the Director General of the BBC. The court threw his application out.
Religionists 1, Secularists 2

The Government recently wanted to change the entry requirements at “faith schools” to permit 25% intake of children from other religions. The Catholic Church screamed blue murder and the Government backed down.
Religionists 2, Secularists 2

The Catholic Church wanted an exemption from the new Sexual Orientation Discrimination Regulations which would permit it to refuse services at its adoption agencies to gay couples. The Government refused.
Score: Religionists 2, Secularists 3

Shabena Begum, a Muslim schoolgirl, wanted her school to change its uniform policy so that she could wear a flowing Islamic gown. After several appeals, the courts upheld the schools right to say no.
Score: Religionists 2, Secularists 4

In Glasgow a man defining himself as an atheist was working at a Catholic school. He was denied promotion because he wasn’t of the faith. He took the school to a tribunal and won. Glasgow City Council appealed the decision, but lost and was told by the court that it had no business promoting any particular religion.
Score: Religionists 2, Secularists 5

Employment protection for tens of thousands of non-religious head teachers and non-teaching staff in various types of “faith schools” was removed by the Government at the behest of the Church of England in the recent Education and Inspections Act, despite vigorous opposition from secular parliamentarians being advised by the National Secular Society.
Score: Religionists 3, Secularists 5

A woman working for British Airways wanted to wear a crucifix over her uniform, in contravention of the company’s policy. After the usual cries of persecution from the evangelicals, and a media humiliation led by the Daily Mail, BA backed down.
Score: Religionists 4, Secularists 5

Lydia Playfoot sued her school because it refused to let her wear a “purity ring”. The court ruled in the school’s favour.
Score: Religionists 4, Secularists 6

A gay man took the Bishop of Hereford to a tribunal for blocking his appointment to a job in the diocese as a youth worker. The tribunal said the Bishop had illegally discriminated.
Score: Religionists 4, Secularists 7

An independent adjudicator ruled that the human rights of the members of the Christian Union at Exeter University had not been infringed when its funds were frozen by the University’s Student Guild. The Guild had decided that the Christian Union’s own equal opportunity policy had been violated by the Christians. The case will now go to the High Court, so, at the moment the
score: Religionists 4, Secularists 8 (Read BBC story)

The Advertising Standards Authority ruled that a full-page advertisement taken out in The Times by a group of evangelical Christians to protest against the Sexual Orientation Discrimination Regulations had been misleading.
Score: Religionists 4, Secularists 9

Shambo the bull was designated as “holy” by a group of Hindus in Wales. When he tested positive for bovine TB it was ruled that he should be slaughtered. The Hindus went to court saying their human rights were being infringed. The judge agreed, but then the Court of Appeal overturned that decision and the law prevailed.
Score: Religionists 4, Secularists 10.

The point of listing these battles is that they are part of a growing pattern of determination by religious people to impose their way of life on to all of us. And they are trying to use parliament and the courts to do it."

National Secular Society, 08.03.2007

Well done!

If Muslims revered cattle, Shambo would still be mooing

"Shambo, the sacred Hindu bull, was executed by lethal injection on Thursday night and reincarnated the next morning, quite possibly as a member of the Welsh assembly or indeed a spiteful Welsh farmer. [...]

There were fervent protests across the Hindu world but the Skanda Vale sect, which both harboured and revered Shambo, was rather more sanguine. One monk said: “This will simply add to the drama of his life cycle and he will come back again.” In which case, what was all the fuss about?

[...]

It was isolated from other livestock and, being divine, was unlikely to find its way into the food chain. The campaign to have it killed seemed motivated at least in part by pure vindictiveness on the part of those angry, badger-strangling Welsh farmers. And a sort of paralysis on the part of the authorities, terrorised by their own health and safety legislation and indeed by the baying farmers.

[...]

The only conclusion is that by this stage they wanted the creature dead and there’s an end to it.

But I wonder too if the members of the assembly would have dared to make their decision if it were Muslims rather than Hindus who chose to revere cattle? And what would have happened if they did? By now there would be priests set alight from Jakarta to Rabat, effigies burnt, fatwas issued. Cardiff airport would be missing an international departure gate.

The assembly would probably have come up with a compromise: okay, the bull lives but it has to wear a burqa when it goes out. I suppose Britain’s Hindus can console themselves with the thought that having their sensibilities trampled on suggests they are a community with whom the rest of us feel at ease and can thus victimise with impunity."

Rod Liddle, The Sunday Times, July 29, 2007

Religion losing its allure in Australia

"Since 2001, the number of people [in Australia] saying they have no religious conviction has risen from 2.9 million, or 15.5 per cent of the population to 3.7 million, or 19 per cent.

So, over a period during which the total population has grown by just under a million, the number of non-believers has risen by 800,000. Which means the percentage increase of non-believers is close to 30 per cent.

Conversely, the percentage affirming commitment to some form of Christianity has hardly fallen – from 54 per cent to 53.2. In numerical terms, the overall number of Christians has declined from 10,768,000 to 10,577,000 – hardly cause for the bishops to sweat.

However, when the population is increasing, it's difficult to deny the emergence of a trend towards decline – and if the trend were to continue, as it has over the past three census periods, Christians will a minority very soon.

Those who fear that as Christianity declines, other religions will gain new adherents need not do so. In the past five years, the percentage of Australians claiming belief in "other" religions – Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism and so on – has also slipped – from 30.5 per cent to 28.1 per cent.

[...]

So it seems beyond dispute that, rather than cleaving to "new" religions offering new alleged truths and insights and rather than falling back on the age-old shibboleths of "traditional" Abrahamic religions, increasing numbers of Australians are rejecting religion altogether."

Daily Telegraph (Australia), July 03, 2007

[Stats] Why the gods are not winning

"A myth is gaining ground. The myth seems plausible enough. The proposition is that after God died in the secular 20th century, He is back in a big way as people around the world again find faith. [...]

The evangelical authors of the WCE lament that no Christian "in 1900 expected the massive defections from Christianity that subsequently took place in Western Europe due to secularism…. and in the Americas due to materialism…. The number of nonreligionists…. throughout the 20th century has skyrocketed from 3.2 million in 1900, to 697 million in 1970, and on to 918 million in AD 2000…. Equally startling has been the meteoritic growth of secularism…. Two immense quasi-religious systems have emerged at the expense of the world's religions: agnosticism…. and atheism…. From a miniscule presence in 1900, a mere 0.2% of the globe, these systems…. are today expanding at the extraordinary rate of 8.5 million new converts each year, and are likely to reach one billion adherents soon. A large percentage of their members are the children, grandchildren or the great-great-grandchildren of persons who in their lifetimes were practicing Christians""

edge.org May 1 , 2007