What should I put as my religion on the census form?

Downlinz

I was raised in a catholic school, was baptised, communion/confirmation etc. yet I'm not practicing any religion since I became an adult and don't believe in god. Spirituality isn't a major concern for me so I don't really know how to define myself.

Thoughts?

MagicMarker

No religion.

seamus

Downlinz wrote: »

don't believe in god

No religion. Anything else is factually and intellectually dishonest.

Improbable

Downlinz wrote: »

I was raised in a catholic school, was baptised, communion/confirmation etc. yet I'm not practicing any religion since I became an adult and don't believe in god. Spirituality isn't a major concern for me so I don't really know how to define myself.

Thoughts?

You don't believe in god = no religion

krudler

Downlinz wrote: »

I was raised in a catholic school, was baptised, communion/confirmation etc. yet I'm not practicing any religion since I became an adult and don't believe in god. Spirituality isn't a major concern for me so I don't really know how to define myself.

Thoughts?

Catholic.

Tin Foil Hat

Downlinz wrote: »

I was raised in a catholic school, was baptised, communion/confirmation etc. yet I'm not practicing any religion since I became an adult and don't believe in god. Spirituality isn't a major concern for me so I don't really know how to define myself.

Thoughts?

How depressing that we live in a country so smothered by the catholic church that such a question even needs to be asked!!

Dades

You have your answer, Downlinz!

Wish everyone questioned the default like you have.

Dave!

Write 'Jedi' in the available field

j/k... No religion

liamw

Downlinz wrote: »

I was raised in a catholic school, was baptised, communion/confirmation etc. yet I'm not practicing any religion since I became an adult and don't believe in god. Spirituality isn't a major concern for me so I don't really know how to define myself.

Thoughts?

Sincerely out of interest, why is ticking catholic even a consideration?

liamw

liamw wrote: »

Sincerely out of interest, why is ticking catholic even a consideration?

Because Irish people it drilled into them that 'once a Catholic, always a Catholic'.

Bollocks to that, amirite?

Galvasean

Downlinz wrote: »

I'm not practicing any religion

Sounds like the very definition of 'No religion'.

Downlinz

Thanks for the replies.

I would say that public perception has always been that being catholic is as much to do with culture and upbringing than anything spiritual. Probably a society problem for not separating education and social events from religion but I feel part of the "catholic culture" as is publicly perceived without having anything to do with it in a belief sense. If that makes any sense.

Hence my doubt, what are these details even used for? Just so stat junkies can make nice pie charts out of?

Galvasean

Downlinz wrote: »

I would say that public perception has always been that being catholic is as much to do with culture and upbringing than anything spiritual. Probably a society problem for not separating education and social events from religion but I feel part of the "catholic culture" as is publicly perceived without having anything to do with it in a belief sense. If that makes any sense.

Well I know white skinned people who partake actively in what would be considered 'black' culture more than 'white culture'. They're still white though, so it would be foolish of them to state taht they are black when asked of ethnicity.

Downlinz wrote: »

Hence my doubt, what are these details even used for? Just so stat junkies can make nice pie charts out of?

It's also used to plan for the country's future. For example, in terms of education, if a huge number of people in the country are not considered Catholic, then ideally the Catholic church should not be dictating school policies for over 90% of the country (as is the case now).

Tin Foil Hat

Downlinz wrote: »

Thanks for the replies.

I would say that public perception has always been that being catholic is as much to do with culture and upbringing than anything spiritual. Probably a society problem for not separating education and social events from religion but I feel part of the "catholic culture" as is publicly perceived without having anything to do with it in a belief sense. If that makes any sense.

No, It doesn't. Catholicism is a religion. If you don't practice it, you are not in the club. Say so on your census form.

Downlinz wrote: »

Hence my doubt, what are these details even used for? Just so stat junkies can make nice pie charts out of?

They are used to justify th massive power the catholic church has over our society, particularly our education system. Ticking the 'No Religon' box on the census form is the second most important thing you can to to aid the separation of church and state.

Dave!

Downlinz wrote: »

Thanks for the replies.

I would say that public perception has always been that being catholic is as much to do with culture and upbringing than anything spiritual. Probably a society problem for not separating education and social events from religion but I feel part of the "catholic culture" as is publicly perceived without having anything to do with it in a belief sense. If that makes any sense.

Hence my doubt, what are these details even used for? Just so stat junkies can make nice pie charts out of?

Well it'll make it easier to take schools out of the Church's hands anyway... Hopefully encourage more Educate Together patronage going forward.

sensibleken

Heavy Metal

seamus

Downlinz wrote: »

I would say that public perception has always been that being catholic is as much to do with culture and upbringing than anything spiritual.

My recall of primary and secondary school Irish history is that it was taught from the point of view that Ireland's past was inexorably linked to our Catholicism. That is, we were conquered, displaced and oppressed because of our Catholicism and nothing else. We were taught that the last 1,000 years is a story of the Catholic Irish continually fighting for survival against the non-catholics (mainly Protestants). I don't recall any discussion about the non-Catholic Irish and the pain inflicted on them. Indeed, any Protestant Irish were never considered "real" Irish and were all just wealthy landowners who never suffered under British rule. (maybe this is why the Irish hate people who do well for themselves).
The obvious implication is that to be Irish is therefore to be catholic and anyone who denys their catholicism is similarly denying their nationality.

Thankfully this attitude is changing and people are realising that culture and religion are not the same thing.

Hence my doubt, what are these details even used for? Just so stat junkies can make nice pie charts out of?

Statistical planning in the main.
They look at an area; "We have 2000 children of schoolgoing age and two schools - the RC one has capacity for 2k children and the non-denominational one has capacity for 500 children. According to the census, 80% of the children are Catholic, which means we only need 400 non-Catholic places therefore we are well catered for our needs and can give 80% of our funding to the Catholic school".

The obvious problem here is that in reality, far less than 50% of those children will be practicing catholics themselves (never mind their parents), so the funds don't get correctly apportioned.

Peregrinus

seamus wrote: »

Statistical planning in the main.
They look at an area; "We have 2000 children of schoolgoing age and two schools - the RC one has capacity for 2k children and the non-denominational one has capacity for 500 children. According to the census, 80% of the children are Catholic, which means we only need 400 non-Catholic places therefore we are well catered for our needs and can give 80% of our funding to the Catholic school".

The obvious problem here is that in reality, far less than 50% of those children will be practicing catholics themselves (never mind their parents), so the funds don't get correctly apportioned.

And the obvious problem here is that the assumption that “children who are practicing Catholics/have practicing Catholic parents” = “children seeking places in Catholic schools” is bogus. There is no evidence whatsoever to support it.

Hint: The census form itself says that the question is not about church attendance. Would that not suggest to you that the CSO is already aware, from experience, that it is religious identification which is significant for social planning purposes, not religious practice?

The answer to the OP's question: if you don't identify yourself as Catholic (or any other religion/denomination) then put down "no religion".

seamus

Peregrinus wrote: »

And the obvious problem here is that the assumption that “children who are practicing Catholics/have practicing Catholic parents” = “children seeking places in Catholic schools” is bogus. There is no evidence whatsoever to support it.

No of course not. In fact most of the people seeking places in Catholic schools are likely to be non-practicing Catholics, but they have no other choice of school. Which is kind of my point.

The problem with a fuzzy "what religion do you identify with" idea is as I've pointed out above. Many Irish will "identify" themselves as Catholic, while at the same time making fun of the local holy joe, hating priests for the child abuse thing and complaining that they have to go to the hassle and expense of christening, communions and confirmations becuase they had to send their child to the local Catholic school.

It's a national problem - identifying onesself as Catholic often doesn't mean that you want Catholic services given priority locally. Yet this is what the census info is used for.

RTTSAUTISM2011

If christened and followed catholic way of life till adult hood should there be an event to become not a catholic anymore as even dont practice being a catholic does the choice of not going to mass or believing in God deem you NON CATHOLIC now?

sensibleken

^^

what the what?

AhSureTisGrand

RTTSAUTISM2011 wrote: »

If christened and followed catholic way of life till adult hood should there be an event to become not a catholic anymore as even dont practice being a catholic does the choice of not going to mass or believing in God deem you NON CATHOLIC now?

Yes unless you dont believe but still feel part of it like culturally catholic you're also still part of it if you believe in God but don't believe in the other stuff like cannibalism unless youre not then you're a protestant unless you still support Celtic then you're still catholic but dont believe in all of it also you cant leave the church so if brought up catholic you're still a catholic even if you dont believe any of it unless you do something really bad like supporting Rangers then you get excommunicated and then you're not catholic

RTTSAUTISM2011

separate to ex-communication how can a person decide to leave and confirm they have left the catholic faith?

sensibleken

RTTSAUTISM2011 wrote: »

separate to ex-communication how can a person decide to leave and confirm they have left the catholic faith?

http://www.countmeout.ie/ used to do it but the snakes changed canon law to prevent it

Galvasean

RTTSAUTISM2011 wrote: »

separate to ex-communication how can a person decide to leave and confirm they have left the catholic faith?

sensibleken wrote: »

http://www.countmeout.ie/ used to do it but the snakes changed canon law to prevent it

Whilst they will no doubt still try to lay claim to your soul (they can have mine, I'm a filthy atheist anyhow), the best method right now is not ticking 'Catholic' on the census form. It diminishes their official number (which most maintain is far higher than their actual number of practicing followers), which in turn takes away some of their power in relation to decision making on matters of state (which effect everyone, Catholic, 'Catholic' and non-Catholic alike).

Peregrinus

seamus wrote: »

No of course not. In fact most of the people seeking places in Catholic schools are likely to be non-practicing Catholics, but they have no other choice of school. Which is kind of my point.

The problem with a fuzzy "what religion do you identify with" idea is as I've pointed out above. Many Irish will "identify" themselves as Catholic, while at the same time making fun of the local holy joe, hating priests for the child abuse thing and complaining that they have to go to the hassle and expense of christening, communions and confirmations becuase they had to send their child to the local Catholic school.

It's a national problem - identifying onesself as Catholic often doesn't mean that you want Catholic services given priority locally. Yet this is what the census info is used for.

Well, again, the assumption that “non-practising Catholics only seek to put their children into Catholic schools because it’s the only choice they have” is, again, unproven and I think probably false. There’s plenty of evidence from other countries that a significant number of non-religious or non-practising parents prefer religious schools, where they have a choice, and that many non-practising parents want their children to participate in sacramental preparation, etc, and value the opportunity for them to do so. There’s no reason to think that it would be different in Ireland.

The bottom line is that many people who do not believe everything the Catholic church teaches and who do not formally practice the Catholic faith to any great extent nevertheless choose to identify as Catholic. This causes a good number of the regulars on this board a fair degree of angst, but this does not entitle us to assume that their religious identification has no significance whatsoever and should be ignored. In the matter of schools, experience elsewhere suggests that, while by no means all of them will want to send their children to religious schools, the proportion who will want to do so will considerably exceed the proportion who themselves practice regularly. The bottom line is that religious identification is much stronger predictor of things like school choice than is religious practice or religious belief. That is why not only in Ireland but elsewhere the census question will be framed so as to elicit identification, not practice or belief.

It’s massively inefficient to provide more school places than there are schoolchildren. Providing parents with the places of their choice, therefore, largely depends on accurately forecasting what choices they are likely to make and planning places accordingly. Religious identification is an important datum in this calculation, more so than either religious practice or religious belief.

I strongly suspect that, in the future, fewer self-identified Catholics will choose Catholic schools for their children than has been the case in the past, and I suggest that school planning should take account of this. It won’t be able to, though, if we have no data on Catholic identification. Hence the importance of asking the right question in the census.

I would be greatly interested to have hard data on patterns of belief, and patterns of practice, in Ireland. It is not, though, the function of the census to gratify my curiosity.

seamus

Peregrinus wrote: »

There’s plenty of evidence from other countries that a significant number of non-religious or non-practising parents prefer religious schools, where they have a choice, and that many non-practising parents want their children to participate in sacramental preparation, etc, and value the opportunity for them to do so. There’s no reason to think that it would be different in Ireland.

Indeed. In other countries, religious schools are usually privately funded and therefore have a better standard of facilities and smaller class numbers than the public school system.
However it is different in Ireland at present in that the vast majority of schools in the public system are run with a Catholic ethos. This means that most people don't have the choice of a non-religious school and thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of parents are forced to baptise their children just to secure them a place in any school.

An oft-used excuse from the Catholics is that there are plenty of non-denominational schools. There aren't. There is no non-denominational primary schools within 4km of my house, for example, and there are six RC schools. And I'm in Dublin. I can't imagine the nightmare for non-catholic parents in rural areas.

That this issue has been so slow to change is primarily down to local authorities looking at census data and deciding that it's not that important because most of the people living there are Catholic.

You could argue that this is incorrect use of census data (because the question isn't "Do you want to send your child to a religious school"), and it is, but if they're going to use the data incorrectly, then we should at least aim to make it relevant to those uses.

antiskeptic

Peregrinus wrote: »

Well, again, the assumption that “non-practising Catholics only seek to put their children into Catholic schools because it’s the only choice they have” is, again, unproven and I think probably false. There’s plenty of evidence from other countries that a significant number of non-religious or non-practising parents prefer religious schools, where they have a choice, and that many non-practising parents want their children to participate in sacramental preparation, etc, and value the opportunity for them to do so. There’s no reason to think that it would be different in Ireland.

Good point.

I'd agree that's the case. I've any number of non-practicing friends and aquaintances who go through religious motions as a means of keeping the religious option open on behalf of their children. They themselves might be (unaggressively) unbelieving/non-committal/fuzzy in their religious viewpoint but do want to act as neutrally-minded guardians for their children.

Peregrinus

seamus wrote: »

Indeed. In other countries, religious schools are usually privately funded and therefore have a better standard of facilities and smaller class numbers than the public school system.

The thing is, though, that we observe the same phenomenon in countries where both religious and non-religious schools are state-funded. Furthermore, in countries where religious schools are private we observe that private religious schools still seem to enjoy a premium over private non-religious schools, in terms of parent demand.

The bottom line is that there is plenty of evidence that parents may prefer a religious school for reasons other than the parents themselves actively practising their religion.

seamus wrote: »

However it is different in Ireland at present in that the vast majority of schools in the public system are run with a Catholic ethos. This means that most people don't have the choice of a non-religious school and thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of parents are forced to baptise their children just to secure them a place in any school.

An oft-used excuse from the Catholics is that there are plenty of non-denominational schools. There aren't. There is no non-denominational primary schools within 4km of my house, for example, and there are six RC schools. And I'm in Dublin. I can't imagine the nightmare for non-catholic parents in rural areas.

Oh, I completely accept that the situation in Ireland is unsatisfactory, that there is a vast oversupply of Catholic schools and a vast undersupply of non-religious and multi-denominational schools, and that the situation needs to change. I just quarrel with the implication that the “correct” proportion of Catholic schools would reflect the proportion of practising Catholics in the population. If our criterion is parent preference - as I believe it should be - then the correct proportion is likely to be much higher than that.

seamus wrote: »

That this issue has been so slow to change is primarily down to local authorities looking at census data and deciding that it's not that important because most of the people living there are Catholic.

You could argue that this is incorrect use of census data (because the question isn't "Do you want to send your child to a religious school"), and it is, but if they're going to use the data incorrectly, then we should at least aim to make it relevant to those uses.

Yes, but it's religious identification, more than eligious practice, which is correlated with school choice. Consequently that is the relevant data for those uses.

But, in the bigger picture, it's a mistake to put too much emphasis on the census figures.

Local authorities aren’t involved in schools provision; it’s all highly centralized in Marlborough Street. And, up to now, I don’t think the Department has been particularly influenced by the census figures. The national school system, and in particular the patronage system which has resulted in the Catholic church having such a dominant position in patronage, was laid down in the nineteenth century, at a time when religion wasn’t even being measured in the census. The system may have been defended for polemical purposes by reference to census figures but, in the bigger picture, I doubt that the census figures really played much of a role in the maintenance of the system. Powerful vested interests did that.

The truth is that what the system up to now has favoured has not been those groups who have a high head-count in the census, but those groups who are organized and resourced to press for schools, take on the patronage role, and contribute what patrons have been expected to contribute. That has overwhelmingly favoured churches.

The patronage system has to change, but that’s already starting to happen. If what you hope for is more secular or pluralist schools, I don’t think you will get that by tweaking the census question to ask about religious practice; nor should you. Nor, to be honest, will you even get it by leaving the census question as it is, and pointing to the rapidly growing proportion of non-religious people in the community. The key to success is the development of a patronage model which non-religious groups and movements can make work, and which parents, including Catholic-identifying parents, will welcome and want for their children. The climate has never been more favourable for this; even Catholic-identifying parents are thoroughly pissed off with the church. But it won’t happen unless people make it work. I think focusing on the census figures is a bit of a distraction, to be honest.

NecroSteve

sensibleken wrote: »

Heavy Metal

LAY DOWN YOUR SOUL TO THE GODS' ROCK 'N ROOOOOOOOOLLLLLLL!!

strobe

Got anything but your say so in regards to non-religious parents preferring to send their children to religious schools in other countries for reasons other than the religious schools being better funded or academically high ranking Peregrinus (i.e sending their kids there because they are religious schools vs despite the fact they are religious schools)? Any polls, surveys, studies, anything like that to support your contention that significant numbers of non-religious people send their children to religious schools because they want them to be involved in religious sacraments etc? It seems unlikely to me, but I'm open to being convinced otherwise by something other than your conjecture.

Peregrinus

OK, well, I happen to be in Australia, and Australia provides public funding for both religious and non-religious schools, so it provides a useful example.

From the census, about 26% of the Australian population identifies as Catholic. As in Ireland, the census question is designed to measure nominal religious identification, not the degree of strength of either faith or practice.

(For comparison: census figures for those identifying as non-religious - 19%; for those not answering the question - 12%.)

We know from the National Church Life Survey that only about 15% of Catholics are regular massgoers. Thus regular massgoers are less than 4% of the population at large (25% x 15%). Furthermore massgoing is heavily skewed towards people over 55 (NCLS again). Among the population with children of primary school age, certainly less than 3% and probably less than 2% are regular massgoing Catholics.

However, about 21% of Australian primary school pupils are in Catholic primary schools. That 21% can be further broken down into 15% Catholic pupils, 6% non-Catholic pupils.

It’s clear, then,that the great bulk of those who choose Catholic schools do so for reasons other than being massgoers themselves.

Now, a few of these people are sending their children to Catholic schools because there is no government school available to them - but, to be honest, very few. Australia is a highly urbanised society, and everyone who lives in an urban area in Australia lives within the catchment area of at least one accessible government primary school. (Catchment areas overlap.) Although the network of Catholic schools is dense, it is nothing like as dense as the network of government schools. Of those people who do not have access to the school of their choice, the number who want a Catholic school but don’t have access to it would considerably exceed the number who want a government school but don’t have access to it. Thus distortions due to lack of the favoured option probably work the other way, overall.

So the people who choose Catholic schools are not, to any significant extent, doing so because they want a government school but don’t have access to it. They are doing so because, for whatever reason, they prefer the Catholic school. And the great bulk of the people who have this preference are not practising (in the sense of massgoing) Catholics. But they are - or three out of four of them are - self-identifying Catholics.

Why? Your thesis would be that they favour Catholic schools because the Catholic schools are better funded or better resourced, and so produce better academic outcomes. If we’re in the business of demanding evidence, I might reasonably ask you for evidence in support of that thesis (either in the Australian context or any other). But, while we’re waiting for you to produce that evidence, I will point out that it is not the case in Australia. Although both the Catholic schools and the government schools receive public funding, the government schools receive more public funding. Exact figures vary from state to state, since education funding is partly a state matter. But, to take Victoria for example, in 2006 government primary schools received aggregate per capita funding (from state and federal governments) of $7,808. The corresponding figure for Catholic schools was $5,344.

Catholic schools charge fees to bridge some of the gap, but the fees that they can charge are controlled (as a condition of receiving public funding) so that, overall, they are no better resourced than the government schools. (In fact, they’re slightly worse resourced, even when fee income is taken into account.) Consequently parent choice is not driven by a perception that Catholic schools are better resourced.

So what does drive it? Well, as you might expect, over the years there has been a fair degree of research into that. I’ll post detailed citations if you want to verify, but

- A 2000 survey in Queensland of parents who had sent their children to non-government primary schools found that “religious affiliation” was the single most important factor in choosing the type of school to send their child to; the survey was repeated in 2006 and 2011 with the same result.
- A 2007 survey by the federal Department of Education, Science and Training found that 45% of parents cited religious affiliation as an important factor in school choice, (but it didn’t break that down between those parents who had actually chosen a Catholic school and others; presumably some of this 45% represents parents who are actively non-religious and would reject a school with a religious affiliation). Other important factors cited included “values”, “discipline” and “secure environment”.

In short, there’s plenty of evidence, in Australia at any rate, than parents who are not religiously observant choose religious schools for reasons which have nothing to do with resourcing and, indeed, that to a material extent they choose religious schools precisely on account of the school’s religious affiliation.

(A similar investigation could be made in the UK, where both religious and non-religious schools are publicly funded and, indeed, are both free to parents. I leave that exercise to someone else.)

And, when you think about it, this is not surprising. Your assumption seems to be, strobe, that if parents are not sufficiently motivated by their religious identification to go to church regularly, then their religious identification will not motivate any choice they make; that it tells us nothing at all about their values and preferences. But there is no obvious reason why this should be so, is there? Nor any evidence? The fact that somebody’s religious identification does not involve regular churchgoing doesn’t mean that it is content-free.

ShooterSF

seamus wrote: »

An oft-used excuse from the Catholics is that there are plenty of non-denominational schools. There aren't. There is no non-denominational primary schools within 4km of my house, for example, and there are six RC schools. And I'm in Dublin.

I'd wager it's a lot furter than 4k to your nearest non-denominational school and more likely that the one 4k from you is a multi-denominational one

strobe

Thanks for the detailed post Peregrinus but it does not support your contention in anyway that a significant number of non religious people send their children to a religious school because it is a religious school. There is no evidence of that in what you said.

about 26% of the Australian population identifies as Catholic.

21% of Australian primary school pupils are in Catholic primary schools.

Does not support what you are saying. It would seem to fly in the face of what you are claiming.

As does:

A 2007 survey by the federal Department of Education, Science and Training found that 45% of parents cited religious affiliation as an important factor in school choice

census figures for those identifying as non-religious - 19%

19(non-religious)+12(didn't answer)=31 (potential non-religious). 100(total population)-31= 69{I could of course add the 12 here to to give potential religious as I did with non-religious but it's not really necessary to make my point, I'll stack the deck in your favour}(number of identifying as religious). But only 45% stating religion is an important factor in choosing a school? From what you posted someone could just as easily argue that not even all the religious (never mind non-religious people) consider religion an important factor (let alone a defining factor), but that would just be conjecture on my part too, so I won't argue that.

All you did was scuttle your own argument. (which I do appreciate of course )

Again thanks for taking the time to type all that out, it's interesting reading, but none of it supports your assertion (that a significant number of non-religious people choose to send their children to religious schools because they are religious schools) in any way. It seems to suggest the opposite if anything.

Peregrinus wrote: »

OK, well, [.....] content-free.