Showing posts with label United Kingdom. Show all posts
Showing posts with label United Kingdom. Show all posts

Sunday 3 June 2018

Negative views of immigrants, Muslims and Jews

Both non-practicing and churchgoing Christians are more likely than the unaffiliated to hold negative views of immigrants, Muslims and Jews

The Pew Center survey, which was conducted following a surge of immigration to Europe from Muslim-majority countries, asked many questions about national identity, religious pluralism and immigration.

Most Western Europeans say they are willing to accept Muslims and Jews in their neighbourhoods and in their families, and most reject negative statements about these groups. And, on balance, more respondents say immigrants are honest and hardworking than say the opposite.
But a clear pattern emerges: Both church-attending and non-practicing Christians are more likely than religiously unaffiliated adults in Western Europe to voice anti-immigrant and anti-minority views.
For example, in the UK, 45% of church-attending Christians say Islam is fundamentally incompatible with British values and culture, as do roughly the same share of non-practicing Christians (47%). But among religiously unaffiliated adults, fewer (30%) say Islam is fundamentally incompatible with their country’s values. There is a similar pattern across the region on whether there should be restrictions on Muslim women’s dress, with Christians more likely than “nones” to say Muslim women should not be allowed to wear any religious clothing.

Views on relationship between government and religion

Views on relationship between government and religion

Results of the Pew research Center survey:

Generally speaking, Western Europeans do not look favourably on entanglements between their governments and religion. Indeed, the predominant view in all 15 countries surveyed is that religion should be kept separate from government policies (median of 60%), as opposed to the position that government policies should support religious values and beliefs in their country (36%).

Non-practicing Christians tend to say religion should be kept out of government policy. Still, substantial minorities (median of 35%) of non-practicing Christians think the government should support religious values and beliefs in their country – and they are much more likely than religiously unaffiliated adults to take this position. For example, in the United Kingdom, 40% of non-practicing Christians say the government should support religious values and beliefs, compared with 18% of “nones.”
In every country surveyed, church-attending Christians are much more likely than non-practicing Christians to favour government support for religious values. In Austria, for example, a majority (64%) of churchgoing Christians take this position, compared with 38% of non-practicing Christians.


The Pew survey also gauged views on religious institutions, asking whether respondents agree with three positive statements about churches and other religious organizations – that they “protect and strengthen morality in society,” “bring people together and strengthen community bonds,” and “play an important role in helping the poor and needy.”
Three similar questions asked whether they agree with negative assessments of religious institutions – that churches and other religious organizations “are too involved with politics,” “focus too much on rules,” and “are too concerned with money and power.”
Once again, there are marked differences of opinion on these questions among Western Europeans across categories of religious identity and practice. Throughout the region, non-practicing Christians are more likely than religiously unaffiliated adults to voice positive opinions of religious institutions. For example, in Germany, a majority of non-practicing Christians (62%) agree that churches and other religious organizations play an important role in helping the poor and needy, compared with fewer than half (41%) of “nones.”
Church-attending Christians hold especially positive opinions about the role of religious organizations in society. For example, nearly three-in-four churchgoing Christians in Belgium (73%), Germany (73%) and Italy (74%) agree that churches and other religious institutions play an important role in helping the poor and needy. (For more analysis of results on these questions, see Chapter 6.)

Being Christian in Western Europe at the beginning of the 21st century #1

Today we do find a lot of people, in our regions, who say they are Christian and with that mostly mean Roman Catholic, but nearly never go to worship services like mass.

The majority of Europe’s Christians are non-practicing, but they differ from religiously unaffiliated people in their views on God, attitudes toward Muslims and immigrants, and opinions about religion’s role in society.

Western Europe, where Protestant Christianity originated and Catholicism has been based for most of its history, has become one of the world’s most secular regions. Although the vast majority of adults say they were baptized, today many do not describe themselves as Christians. Some say they gradually drifted away from religion, stopped believing in religious teachings, or were alienated by scandals or church positions on social issues, according to a major new Pew Research Center survey of religious beliefs and practices in Western Europe.
Yet most adults surveyed still do consider themselves Christians, even if they seldom go to church. Indeed, the survey shows that non-practicing Christians (defined, for the purposes of this report, as people who identify as Christians, but attend church services no more than a few times per year) make up the biggest share of the population across the region. In every country except Italy, they are more numerous than church-attending Christians (those who go to religious services at least once a month). In the United Kingdom, for example, there are roughly three times as many non-practicing Christians (55%) as there are church-attending Christians (18%) defined this way.



Non-practicing Christians also outnumber the religiously unaffiliated population (people who identify as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular,” sometimes called the “nones”) in most of the countries surveyed.1 And, even after a recent surge in immigration from the Middle East and North Africa, there are many more non-practicing Christians in Western Europe than people of all other religions combined (Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, etc.).

The 10% for Belgium is more 8%, where the Roman Catholic Churches are less filled and of the protestant churches the Pentecostals get most people in  their church-services. Where we can find most people going to a religious service is by the Islamic community where the garage mosques and official mosques may count on a very good attendance on Friday night.

Monday 31 August 2015

Bible ownership and Bible knowledge slumped

In the UK household ownership of the Bible has slumped, readership of the Bible has declined (with only around one in ten reading it at least weekly and three-quarters less than once a year, or never).

In the midst of previous century Europeans could be surprised when they came into Great-Britain finding so many churches full of people and finding a popular BBC program like Songs of praise.

The 'Journal of Contemporary Religion published 123 national sample surveys of the UK adult general population. Also the analysis, published by Clive Field, from the Universities of Birmingham and Manchester, included as well 35 national and local sample surveys of adult religious populations.

Entitled, 'Is the Bible Becoming a Closed Book? British Opinion Poll Evidence', the investigation suggests one interpretation of this mass of data might be that Christianity is becoming 'de-coupled' from the book on which it is founded.

It is not only a problem in Great Britain that we can hear people talking about their faith and telling about believes which have nothing to do any more with what is written in the Bible.
Many churches had already gone astray for some years but the population not only got mist in their eyes from the many sermons but also continue to be carried away by more magical or fantasy rich ideas which could let have them dream about many things, like having their soul going into an other body or at an other place when they die.

Knowledge of the content of the Bible is decreasing in the UK like it is everywhere in Europe.
Many also lost the faith in the truth of the Bible. Some also because they became confronted with the contradiction form what the Bible said and what their pastors or priests said. Only a small and dwindling minority believes the Bible to be true, word for word. Key storylines in the Bible -- Creation, Virgin Birth, gospel miracles, Resurrection -- are being progressively rejected as historically inaccurate.

Read more about it >
Opinion Polls Reveal Dramatic Decline in Impact of the Bible

Monday 1 June 2015

Parents forbidden to pray in front of their children or to take them to church

Is it really worrying when a child can react in a conversation with verses from Scripture. In the United Kingdom some see in it a form of indoctrination of that child. that is what we might conclude when we hear lawyers and child psychologists talking against the right of an 8 year old boy choosing for the words and care of his mother.

In May a devout mother made a legally binding promise, backed up with the threat of criminal sanctions, never to talk to her son about her religion, take him to church or even say grace at meals in a doomed attempt to stop him being taken into care, amid claims that she was “indoctrinating” him, a judge has disclosed.

How is it possible that judges can prohibit parents to pray or talk about their belief in front of their children or even not allow them to take them to church?

The court-case in England may create a precedent and make it very difficult for parents to give their children a religious background. Quite easy it is to say they are indoctrinating their children. I naturally do not know, but can not imagine the JW mother through the use of torture, drugs, or psychological-stress techniques to implement her beliefs as to take it or the child having her to leave. Naturally I also find it wrong she would not want to have her child to go to her father. She should know it is also the rightful parent of the child, having the same rights as her to educate his child and to tell about his believes, like she does.


Having teachers saying the boy also rejected other children and that he had only a small friendship circle, describing him as “one of the most worrying children in our school”, does not have to indicate the mother is in such a way dominant to her child she manages it not to make friends with children of an other belief.

Details of the case were disclosed in a written judgement handed down by Judge Clifford Bellamy, after a hearing at the Family Court, sitting in Leicester, in which he set out his reasons for making an interim care order. {Indoctrinated son 'troubled’ by mother’s religion is put into care}
He found that the boy had suffered emotional harm as a result both of the conflict between the parents and, specifically, “immersion by his mother in her religious beliefs and practices”.
He concluded that she was doing this “with the intention of alienating him from his father”.
But the judgement disclosed that a social worker at the centre of the case rejected this assessment and believed that, while the boy was damaged by the conflict between his warring parents, the mother’s religion was not the cause. {Indoctrinated son 'troubled’ by mother’s religion is put into care}

I also would not think there lies the problem with the mother talking about God, taking her child to the Kingdom hall of the JW and reading Watch Tower publications. Far what I do know of those publications they should give enough balance to the kid to stand stronger in a society of different thoughts,  though this seems more to do with an introvert child that has worries brought on it by the damaging divorce, and not with damaging faith.

It disclosed that at one point in the proceedings the mother went to the Court of Appeal to challenge an initial care order and made a number of strict undertakings in an attempt to stop the process.
These included not to take him to her local Kingdom Hall — the Jehovah’s Witness meeting house — or any other such gatherings; not to talk to him about religion at all; not to allow him to go on to the church’s website or watch religious DVDs; and, if he raised the issue, to attempt to change the subject.{Indoctrinated son 'troubled’ by mother’s religion is put into care}

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Find also:

A British judge rules that mother can’t indoctrinate son with religion


Monday 13 April 2015

Declaring a Jihad Against ISIS

Arabic script. Eghra, Read. The first Quoranic...
Arabic script. Eghra, Read. The first Quoranic word, in order of arrival. (Letter Qaf eight times, letter 'Alif sixteen times.) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Muslim Youth League UK (MYL), an active UK based Islamic youth organisation, has declared an ideological war against ISIS and other terrorist groups. Issuing a 7-point declaration on the 27th of March, at an event in Glasgow, they claimed the terrorist groups have 'no link with Islam or the Muslim community'.

The Youth League represents young Muslims from around the UK and works actively to promote unity and tolerance. It hopes to embolden other Muslim organisations to issue similar declarations that unequivocally condemn extremism.
The denunciation by the League comes at a time when ISIS recruitment is on the rise in the UK. Shaykh Rehan Ahmed Raza, president of Muslim Youth League UK and a community activist from Glasgow has said "our efforts are aimed at deterring further ISIS recruitment in Britain and defending the Muslim community, who feel their religion has been hijacked".

In their 7-point declaration against ISIS and other terrorist groups, MYL states:

"1. We declare their killing of human beings, whether Muslim or non-Muslim, to be un-Islamic.
2. Supporters of these groups have deviated from the teachings of Prophet Muhammad and the Quran.
3. The emergence of the terrorists, who would use the name of Islam to justify their atrocious activities, was prophesied by Prophet Muhammad. He declared them as being out of the ambit of Islam.
4. We challenge ISIS, similar groups and their supporters ideologically and intellectually.
5. We reject all generalised Islamophobic labelling of Muslims as extremists or terrorists by the media, politicians and the general public.
6. We ask Muslims from all walks of life, regardless of the school of thought to which they belong, to stand united against extremists who have hijacked the true teachings of Islam.
7. We call upon scholars and community leaders to raise a united and unwavering voice against extremism."

Social media has proven to be a key tool for ISIS to promote their message and recruit young Muslims. As a countermeasure, MYL have revealed their strategy to use twitter and other popular social networking sites to spread the true and peaceful image of Islam.
The barbarism and lack of respect for the sanctity of human life shown by ISIS is a challenge to every civilised value, not least to the tenets of Islam. As Muslims, the MYL will continue to oppose them at every opportunity.

Find out more about MYL UK:
Website - www.myl.org.uk
Twitter - www.twitter.com/MYL_UK
Facebook - www.facebook.com/MuslimYouthLeagueUK

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State and attitude of certain people to blame for radicalisation

We have seen the behaviour of the Western people going more and more away from the Judeo Christian values. Ethics of all sort are not any more important for lots of inhabitants of crowded areas where not everybody finds work and/or gets respected for whom and what he is.

In Great Britain almost three quarters of Muslims polled said they believe the “values of British society” are compatible with those of their religion, one in seven said they were not.Abotu the action of certain Muslims they do have comprehension for them disagreeing with the evolution of the British society. But Four in 10 British Muslims believe that police and MI5 are partly responsible for the radicalization of young people who support extremists, a survey commissioned by Sky News, has found.

Sky News said the survey is the first of its kind, setting out to determine what Muslims and non-Muslims think about controversial issues relating to radicalization, security and prejudice.

Police escort an Islamist demonstrator marching to protest outside the US embassy in London
Police escort an Islamist demonstrator marching to protest outside the US embassy in London Photo: CARL COURT/AFP


Three missing schoolgirls feared to be in Syria



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Preceding: Wrong ideas about religious terrorism
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Please do find additional reading:

  1.  Of old and new ideas to sustain power and to feel good by loving to be connected and worship something
  2. Newsweek asks: How ignorant are you?
  3. Atheists, deists, and sleepers
  4. Being Religious and Spiritual 2 Religiosity and spiritual life
  5. Being Religious and Spiritual 6 Romantici, utopists and transcendentalists
  6. Epicurus’ Problem of Evil
  7. Economics and Degradation
  8. Evil Never Ceases
  9. Caricaturing and disapproving sceptics, religious critics and figured out ethics
  10. Subcutaneous power for humanity 5 Loneliness, Virtual and real friends
  11. A world with or without religion
  12. , Being Charlie 2, Being Charlie 3, Being Charlie 4, Being Charlie 5, Being Charlie 6,Being Charlie 7, Being Charlie 8, Being Charlie 9, Being Charlie 10, Being Charlie 11
  13. It’s beautiful to watch the spread of #JeSuisCharlie across the world,
  14. Where do we stand in the backdrop of Charlie Hebdo Massacre ?,
  15. Charlie Hebdo, offensive satire and why ‘Freedom of Speech’ needs more discussion
  16. Faith because of the questions
  17. Religion, fundamentalism and murder
  18. Religion…..why the competition?
  19. Shariah and child abuse – Is there a connection?
  20. Why is it that Christians don’t understand Muslims and Muslims do not understand Christians?
  21. Apartheid or Apartness #1 Suppression and Apartness
  22. Leaving the Old World to find better pastures
  23. Built on or Belonging to Jewish tradition #2 Roots of Jewishness
  24. Built on or Belonging to Jewish tradition #3 Of the earth or of God
  25. Collision course of socialist and capitalist worlds
  26. Robertson: God says U.S. will accept socialism
  27. Christian fundamentalism as dangerous as Muslim fundamentalism
  28. The imaginational war against Christmas
  29. Autumn traditions for 2014 – 4 Blasphemy and ridiculing faith in God
  30. Still Hope though Power generating long train of abuses
  31. Europe and much-vaunted bastions of multiculturalism becoming No God Zones
  32. 112314 – A Peculiar People
  33. Maker of most popular weapon asks for repentance
  34. Science, belief, denial and visibility 2
  35. Science, 2013 word of the year, and Scepticism
  36. 2013 Lifestyle, religiously and spiritualy
  37. 2014 Religion
  38. Not many coming out with their community name
  39. Truth, doubt or blindness
  40. A Church without Faith!
  41. Inequality, Injustice, Sustainability and the Free World Charter
  42. Re-Creating Community
  43. Daniel Guérin: Three Problems of the Revolution (1958)
  44. The trigger of Aurora shooting
  45. Intellectual servility a curse of mankind
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Wrong ideas about religious terrorism

Al-Fatiha Muslim Gays - Gay Parade 2008 in San...
Al-Fatiha Muslim Gays - Gay Parade 2008 in San Francisco (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Lots of people do have a wrong idea about the amount of religious terrorism. Most badly affected is the Muslim community which has to cope with the bad name those fools of ISIS do give them.

Belgium and the United Kingdom have seen many people recruited, surprisingly also several women to come to Syria and help the jihad. The present going on series about those recruitments on BBC is a must see.

We can not ignore those militant groups in Muslim countries who make a big effort to radicalise and recruit Muslims living in the West. They even use for it a British girl from Birmingham to do that. West Europe has seen many leaving their capitalist soil for what they call the good cause. The United States of America looked at those happenings with a magnifying glass and got a terrible fear that  large-scale terrorist would strike on their home soil.

Such fears, however, have been largely unfounded, because Muslims in the United States have overwhelmingly ignored the calls to militancy, said Charles Kurzman, a researcher with the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security in North Carolina.
“We have not seen mass radicalization of Muslims in the United States,”
he said.
As part of a Triangle Center study, Kurzman, a sociologist at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill who researches Islamic movements, tallied a total of 250 American Muslims who have been arrested for — or who have engaged in — acts that might be called terrorism since 2001. That’s out of an estimated population of 3 million Muslims in the U.S.

Kurzman’s study found that the death toll as a result of all their plots was 50 — over a period of time in which 200,000 people were murdered in the United States.
Although comparisons are tricky, other studies suggest that right-wing violence claimed more lives in the U.S. than terrorism committed in the name of Islam.

There have been serious attacks, of course.  The 2009 shooting at the Fort Hood military base in Texas and the 2013 bombing of the Boston Marathon were carried out by Muslim U.S. citizens who claimed to be avenging American military actions overseas.

Though we must not exaggerate such a Muslim violence and should be well aware there is much more intern violence by non-believing people going on. When we look at the figures for Belgium religious violence is negligible with less than 0.14% of more than 700 terrorist attack in one year. The only thing is that often such Muslim fed terrorism gets more attention in the media. Cases as the attack around the Charlie Hebdo got the fantasy of many heads turning wild.

Also in the United States there are less Muslim American terrorism suspects the last few years than two decades ago. Kurzman said the numbers have actually been declining, and over the last couple of years there have been almost no plots aimed at the United States.  Most of those arrested recently on suspicion of terrorism were attempting to travel to Syria or Yemen to join groups that the U.S. government considers terrorist organizations.

David Schanzer, a Duke University expert on homegrown terrorism who directs the Triangle center, said that while federal authorities spend “a disproportionate amount of energy” thinking about domestic terrorism, local police departments across the country have other things on their minds.
“They very much realize that the things that are threats to public safety in their communities are much more things like drugs, gangs, domestic violence,” he said.
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Please find to read:
Acts of Terrorism Very Rare Among US Muslims, Study Finds
Of old and new ideas to sustain power and to feel good by loving to be connected and worship something
++

Please do find additional reading:

  1. Newsweek asks: How ignorant are you?
  2. Atheists, deists, and sleepers
  3. Being Religious and Spiritual 2 Religiosity and spiritual life
  4. Being Religious and Spiritual 6 Romantici, utopists and transcendentalists
  5. Epicurus’ Problem of Evil
  6. Economics and Degradation
  7. Evil Never Ceases
  8. Caricaturing and disapproving sceptics, religious critics and figured out ethics
  9. Subcutaneous power for humanity 5 Loneliness, Virtual and real friends
  10. A world with or without religion
  11. , Being Charlie 2, Being Charlie 3, Being Charlie 4, Being Charlie 5, Being Charlie 6,Being Charlie 7, Being Charlie 8, Being Charlie 9, Being Charlie 10, Being Charlie 11
  12. It’s beautiful to watch the spread of #JeSuisCharlie across the world,
  13. Where do we stand in the backdrop of Charlie Hebdo Massacre ?,
  14. Charlie Hebdo, offensive satire and why ‘Freedom of Speech’ needs more discussion
  15. Faith because of the questions
  16. Religion, fundamentalism and murder
  17. Religion…..why the competition?
  18. Shariah and child abuse – Is there a connection?
  19. Why is it that Christians don’t understand Muslims and Muslims do not understand Christians?
  20. Apartheid or Apartness #1 Suppression and Apartness
  21. Leaving the Old World to find better pastures
  22. Built on or Belonging to Jewish tradition #2 Roots of Jewishness
  23. Built on or Belonging to Jewish tradition #3 Of the earth or of God
  24. Collision course of socialist and capitalist worlds
  25. Robertson: God says U.S. will accept socialism
  26. Christian fundamentalism as dangerous as Muslim fundamentalism
  27. The imaginational war against Christmas
  28. Autumn traditions for 2014 – 4 Blasphemy and ridiculing faith in God
  29. Still Hope though Power generating long train of abuses
  30. Europe and much-vaunted bastions of multiculturalism becoming No God Zones
  31. 112314 – A Peculiar People
  32. Maker of most popular weapon asks for repentance
  33. Science, belief, denial and visibility 2
  34. Science, 2013 word of the year, and Scepticism
  35. 2013 Lifestyle, religiously and spiritualy
  36. 2014 Religion
  37. Not many coming out with their community name
  38. Truth, doubt or blindness
  39. A Church without Faith!
  40. Inequality, Injustice, Sustainability and the Free World Charter
  41. Re-Creating Community
  42. Daniel Guérin: Three Problems of the Revolution (1958)
  43. The trigger of Aurora shooting
  44. Intellectual servility a curse of mankind
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