Religion in retreat in Britain

"A large-scale survey of British attitudes has been carried out by YouGov–Cambridge (a collaboration between pollsters YouGov and the University of Cambridge’s Department of Politics and International Studies) has some revealing statistics on religion. A representative sample of 64,303 adult Britons aged 18 and over responded.


78% (82% of the over-55s) agreed and 12% disagreed that religion should be a private matter and had no place in politics

In response to the question “What is your religion?” 40% of adults professed no religion, 55% were Christian and 5% of other faiths – age made a major difference, with only 38% of the 18–34s being Christian and 53% having no religion, whereas for the over-55s the figures were 70% and 26% respectively

35% described themselves as very or fairly religious and 63% as not very or not at all religious – there were no big variations by demographics (even by age), but Londoners (41%) did stand out as being disproportionately religious, doubtless reflecting the concentration of ethnic minorities in the capital

79% agreed and 11% disagreed that religion is a cause of much misery and conflict in the world today

72% agreed and 15% disagreed that religion is used as an excuse for bigotry and intolerance, with a high of 81% inScotlandwhere sectarianism has often been rife

35% agreed and 45% disagreed that religion is a force for good in the world, dissenters being more numerous among men (50%) than women (41%)

[...]


Full tables can be seen here."


National Secular Society, 23 Sep 2011

Lots more numbers in the article.

Facebook's unholy war of words troubles young Muslims

"It was the first thing she did in the morning. After joining the social network ing Web site Facebook in April, Essma Bargewee spent hours on the site daily. But the 21-year-old Montclair University student re cently deleted her account. Bargewee, a practicing Muslim, soured on the Facebook phenomenon after getting embroiled in a controversy over Facebook groups denouncing Islam and other religions. In July, a self-described atheist created a group with a name that explicitly curses Islam, angering many Facebook users."[I couldn't read pages 2 and 3]

The Star-Ledger, November 13, 2007

Now let's imagine for a second that Essma Bargwee did not sign off, but for some reason she thought the people attacking Islam made some sense. Let's say she in fact became an Atheist herself - an Apostate.
This could easily have been a lot more dangerous than merely browsing through bigoted rants at Facebook. (Touch wood.) .

So, without having seen the Facebook rants(not being a member), I think that her own religion is more dangerous. This probably explains why people start groups that are offensive to Islam. We don't like to hear that we should be killed, for various reasons. It troubles young and old Atheists, and in particular Apostates - former Muslims. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, for one, can't just sign off Facebook. In fact, the internet is probably the only place she can roam freely these days. Who of all the offended Muslims at Facebook want to swap lives with Ayaan Hirsi Ali?

In the end, I have to say that I'm not in favour of blunt attacks where expletives are the most important thing. They're often accompanied with racist slurs too. My experience, however, is that most of them come from right wing Christians. In any case, making people sign off can't be the best way to make them understand?

Atheists still hated in USA

PEW has released a new survey that shows how Americans view Muslims. I won't bother with that, but take a look at this stat.
43% of Americans have favourable opinions on Muslims, while only 35% have favourable opinions of Atheists. Further, while 35% have unfavourable views of Muslims, 53% have unfavourable views of Atheists.

So I just have to ask: who crashed two planes into the fucking WTC? Who are the terrorists in the Middle East? Who used bombs in Madrid & London? Who are behind most of the terrorist attackes the last ten years if you check out this list?
Atheists? No, I don't think so. There are a couple of really mean writers, but I doubt anyone of them even has a gun (well apart from Hitchens perhaps).

America. Get real.