Coming Out - American Style

[Spain]

The problem is that there's no such thing in the UK as "it's nothing to do with me". Religion has a massive influence on public society. If it was confined solely to homes and churches then I'd agree with you. But it's not.

Perhaps that's more a reflection on the central belt and the west coast. Up here, hardly anyone cares either way anymore. Regardless though, anyone that's religious doesn't deserve hostility purely because of that. They only deserve hostility if they're doing something downright cuntish and using their religion to justify it.

[Gaz]

Perhaps that's more a reflection on the central belt and the west coast. Up here, hardly anyone cares either way anymore. Regardless though, anyone that's religious doesn't deserve hostility purely because of that. They only deserve hostility if they're doing something downright cuntish and using their religion to justify it.

Don't the churches up your area get tax breaks due to charitable status, likes?

Does the House of Lords (of which bishops are sitting peers) not make legislation about your area?

[th1stleandr0se]

I also strongly suspect that Obama isn't religious, but of course could never 'admit' this when running for any kind of office.

I think that's probably true. I'm absolutely convinced that Clinton just said the right things when he had to. The trouble is that if any politician standing for President said he wasn't religious he wouldn't stand a chance of being elected. The religious lobbies would see to that. There's still an element of that in this country because of the number of religious ceremonies such as Remembrance Day which require a bit of observance of religious rituals but it's nowhere near the level of the States.

[Dee Man]

I was watching a true life US murder program last night about a 30 year old unsolved case where a 21 year old female was found dead in a swamp.

The program finished with the crime being solved and an interview with her mother "thanking The Lord" for justice being eventually done. Erm, where was your Lord when your daughter was being murdered?

Nowhere, that's where.

[AsimButtHitsASix]

Anyone know any?

[DA Baracus]

I was watching a true life US murder program last night about a 30 year old unsolved case where a 21 year old female was found dead in a swamp.

The program finished with the crime being solved and an interview with her mother "thanking The Lord" for justice being eventually done. Erm, where was your Lord when your daughter was being murdered?

Nowhere, that's where.

God works in mysterious ways...

[Bookies Love Me]

F*ckin' yanks.

Thank God I'm an atheist.

[Romeo]

Religion is for the feeble and weak of mind. It should be banned and anyone believing in god shout be treated for mental illness.

[Romeo]

F*ckin' yanks.

Thank God I'm an atheist.

Amen to that brother...!!

[Hillonearth]

I think that's probably true. I'm absolutely convinced that Clinton just said the right things when he had to. The trouble is that if any politician standing for President said he wasn't religious he wouldn't stand a chance of being elected. The religious lobbies would see to that. There's still an element of that in this country because of the number of religious ceremonies such as Remembrance Day which require a bit of observance of religious rituals but it's nowhere near the level of the States.

George HW Bush played that game too - he said the things the religious right wanted to hear until he got elected and then just did his own thing.

Unfortunately his boy was a gullible doughball that bought into it big style thanks to some evangelist type - forget his name - who had his ear and pumped him full of endtimes pish.

[Miguel Sanchez]

Songs about God being a fake, eh?

Seriously though I read that article earlier and I was stunned as I was reading about the guy talking about when he told his mum he wasn't religious and she... hold on

Lasan Dancay-Bangura, 22, is happy to talk to us. He is, after all, head of his university's atheist student group. He lets out a deep, sad sigh as he recalls the moment he told his mother he was an atheist.

"Things were really not good to begin with. She was so angry," he says.

"After a while I think she just accepted it. We still don't talk about it. It looks like she's not going to kick me out."

Now I can't really relate since the culture around religion is different here than it is there and religion wasn't a thing anyone I knew bothered with as I was growing up, but this is the kind of treatment and trepidation gay people feel when they come out to their parents, surely? How is it some sort of horrible transgression that people choose to form their own opinions of the world? I'd hate to live in a society that had that much reverence for religion, and while I realise it's not the whole of the country that's like this, it's obvious that it's a not insignificant amount of the country that's into this kind of nonsense.

[Tom McB]

Don't the churches up your area get tax breaks due to charitable status, likes?

Does the House of Lords (of which bishops are sitting peers) not make legislation about your area?

Does The British Humanist Association get tax breaks because it's a charity? Yes indeed.

Oh and the house of Lords, entirely unelected, does not make legislation. Read the parliament act.

Here to help.

[AsimButtHitsASix]

I do have a mate who was disowned for a while by his mother for not getting his kid christened. She was ok with him being athiest but couldn't stomach the idea of the bairn get denied access to heaven because a priest never dribbled water on his heid if he died in a car crash.

Disowned isn't the right word but she didn't want an emotional attachment to the kid incase he died and she would worry about him being in hell or some other nonsense.

And a Catholic girl who married into my family got grief from her parents for marrying a protestant. When she informed them he was an athiest it just got worse.

Glad to say in both cases folk saw sense

[Carl Cort's Hamstring]

Perhaps that's more a reflection on the central belt and the west coast. Up here, hardly anyone cares either way anymore. Regardless though, anyone that's religious doesn't deserve hostility purely because of that. They only deserve hostility if they're doing something downright cuntish and using their religion to justify it.

Broadly this. I've got no time for people who force their religion down other people's throats, or use it as an excuse for intolerance, but the way some people seem to love trying to humiliate religious people is a bit bizzarre.

I posted this a while back:

I understand why there's a need for people like Dawkins and Hitchens in the USA, where the religious right is very large, very vocal and very influential, and sometimes you need to fight fire with fire.

The problem I have is people who use the same sort of tactics here, when often there's no need for it. If people are using their faith as a defence for homophobic or misogynist views then by all means go after them, but I know a few people who seem to delight in deliberately trying to belittle people for being religious, when they aren't evangelical types or any real bother to anyone. That kind of behaviour doesn't make you some sort of intellectual heavyweight. It just marks you out as a bit of a pr*ck.

[tamthebam]

a sort of agnostic song....?

[tamthebam]

[SodjesSixteenIncher]

I'd like to think I'm a fairly live and live type of chap when it comes to the old atheism. Believe what you want as long as you don't preach at me etc. Agree though, some atheists can be just as bad for forcing their view on people.

The line for me though, is people expecting some kind of exception or free pass on basic human decency because of their religion. c***s who are homophobic or whatever and think their "faith should be respected". Nah.

[Jimmy85]

Religion

[AsimButtHitsASix]

Isn't yer fella from Slayer a bible basher?

[Septentrional Wasp]

I think that's probably true. I'm absolutely convinced that Clinton just said the right things when he had to. The trouble is that if any politician standing for President said he wasn't religious he wouldn't stand a chance of being elected. The religious lobbies would see to that. There's still an element of that in this country because of the number of religious ceremonies such as Remembrance Day which require a bit of observance of religious rituals but it's nowhere near the level of the States.

Tony Blair`s choice of faith makes some interesting reading when thinking about polititions and their faith in office.

In an interview with Michael Parkinson broadcast on ITV1 on 4 March 2006, Blair referred to the role of his Christian faith in his decision to go to war in Iraq, stating that he had prayed about the issue, and saying that God would judge him for his decision: "I think if you have faith about these things, you realise that judgement is made by other people ... and if you believe in God, it's made by God as well." According to Alastair Campbell's diary, Blair often read the Bible before taking any important decisions. He states that Blair had a "wobble" and considered changing his mind on the eve of the bombing of Iraq in 1998.

A longer exploration of his faith can be found in an interview with Third Way Magazine. There he says that "I was brought up as [a Christian], but I was not in any real sense a practising one until I went to Oxford. There was an Australian priest at the same college as me who got me interested again. In a sense, it was a rediscovery of religion as something living, that was about the world around me rather than some sort of special one-to-one relationship with a remote Being on high. Suddenly I began to see its social relevance. I began to make sense of the world".

At one point Alastair Campbell intervened in an interview, preventing the Prime Minister from answering a question about his Christianity, explaining, "We don't do God." Campbell later explained that he had intervened only to end the interview because the journalist had been taking an excessive time, and that the comment had just been a throwaway line.

Cherie Blair's friend and "spiritual guru" Carole Caplin is credited with introducing her and her husband to various New Age symbols and beliefs, including "magic pendants" known as "BioElectric Shields". The most controversial of the Blairs' New Age practices occurred when on holiday in Mexico. The couple, wearing only bathing costumes, took part in a rebirthing procedure, which involved smearing mud and fruit over each other's bodies while sitting in a steam bath.

Later on, Blair questioned the Pope's attitude towards homosexuality, arguing that religious leaders must start "rethinking" the issue. Blair was reprimanded by Cardinal Basil Hume in 1996 for receiving Holy Communion at Mass, while still an Anglican, in contravention of canon law. On 22 December 2007, it was disclosed that Blair had joined the Catholic church. The move was described as "a private matter". He had informed Pope Benedict XVI on 23 June 2007 that he wanted to become a Catholic. The Pope and his advisors criticised some of Blair's political actions, but followed up with a reportedly unprecedented red-carpet welcome, which included the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, who would be responsible for Blair's Catholic instruction. In 2010, The Tablet named him as one of Britain’s most influential Roman Catholics.