Poll reveals less than half of Irish people consider themselves to be religious

Hotblack Desiato

Subject: John Waters
From: xxxxx@xxxx
To: scolemanATnewstalk.ie, infoATnewstalk.ie


To whom it concerns,

I am writing to complain about your recent morning programme featuring John
Waters on the subject of a survey on religious practice in Ireland.

Mr Waters made a comment that atheists are 'stupid' - this would be regarded
as bigoted and unacceptable (and potentially legally actionable) had he made
this comment in relation to members of a religion such as Judaism, Islam, or
Protestantism. It appears that Newstalk considers atheists as 'fair game' for
unbalanced, irrational criticism.

While the presence of blasphemy legislation in our statute book is
unacceptable to me, I find it even more objectionable that the absence of a
similar legal sanction against denigrating those who profess an absence of
religious belief is seen by commentators on your station as a licence to
ridicule and abuse them.

I trust that Newstalk does not endorse the bigoted comments of Mr Waters and
will be broadcasting a retraction and apology shortly.

Yours,

Turtwig

ninja900 wrote: »

Subject: John Waters
From: xxxxx@xxxx
To: scolemanATnewstalk.ie, infoATnewstalk.ie


To whom it concerns,

I am writing to complain about your recent morning programme featuring John
Waters on the subject of a survey on religious practice in Ireland.

Mr Waters made a comment that atheists are 'stupid' - this would be regarded
as bigoted and unacceptable (and potentially legally actionable) had he made
this comment in relation to members of a religion such as Judaism, Islam, or
Protestantism. It appears that Newstalk considers atheists as 'fair game' for
unbalanced, irrational criticism.

While the presence of blasphemy legislation in our statute book is
unacceptable to me, I find it even more objectionable that the absence of a
similar legal sanction against denigrating those who profess an absence of
religious belief is seen by commentators on your station as a licence to
ridicule and abuse them.

I trust that Newstalk does not endorse the bigoted comments of Mr Waters and
will be broadcasting a retraction and apology shortly.

Yours,

I don't mean to sound too cynical here and I realise it might just be different time zones, but did you really send that at 2.00 am and did you really mean to do that?

coffee_cake

i think it was a good idea

Turtwig

bluewolf wrote: »

i think it was a good idea

Oh I don't disagree with it, it's just the fact he sent it at 2.a.m. That'd probably be the last time of the day I'd intend to write someone a formal email of complaint.

Hotblack Desiato

Would be better than doing it at 9am, I'm so not a morning person

It'll probably be deleted unread like the last time I complained to Newstalk (about Michael Graham's repeated use of the w****r-word at 5pm)

Dave!

Do we know what date/s the poll would have been taken in Ireland? Just wondering, because we've had sh*tloads of emigration recently, disproportionately young people I believe, so this might have flattered the "religious" results even!

Solair

ninja900 wrote: »

Subject: John Waters
From: xxxxx@xxxx
To: scolemanATnewstalk.ie, infoATnewstalk.ie


To whom it concerns,

I am writing to complain about your recent morning programme featuring John
Waters on the subject of a survey on religious practice in Ireland.

Mr Waters made a comment that atheists are 'stupid' - this would be regarded
as bigoted and unacceptable (and potentially legally actionable) had he made
this comment in relation to members of a religion such as Judaism, Islam, or
Protestantism. It appears that Newstalk considers atheists as 'fair game' for
unbalanced, irrational criticism.

While the presence of blasphemy legislation in our statute book is
unacceptable to me, I find it even more objectionable that the absence of a
similar legal sanction against denigrating those who profess an absence of
religious belief is seen by commentators on your station as a licence to
ridicule and abuse them.

I trust that Newstalk does not endorse the bigoted comments of Mr Waters and
will be broadcasting a retraction and apology shortly.

Yours,

You should lodge that with the BAI.
http://www.bai.ie/

Hotblack Desiato

You used to be able to complain directly to the BAI. They must have been getting too many, because now you have to complain to the broadcaster and wait for them to ignore deal with it before the BAI will even look at it.

[-0-]

More details on the poll here seamus: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/poll-shows-atheism-on-the-rise-in-the-us/2012/08/13/90020fd6-e57d-11e1-9739-eef99c5fb285_story.html

— Besides Vietnam, Ireland had the greatest change in religiosity, down from 69 percent to 47 percent.

MrPudding

jank wrote: »

It is more than laws. Is Scotland the same as England, since they share the same laws?

Leaving aside the inconvenience (to you) point that they don't share the same laws or legal system, the main difference is people in Scotland are Scottish and people in England are English.

I see little need for religion.

PopePalpatine wrote: »

TBH whenever I read one of David Quinn's articles I can hear a baby wailing.

Is it baby Jesus?

MrP

Shenshen

robindch wrote: »

Story makes it to HuffPo:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/08/religiosity-plummets-ireland-declines-worldwide-atheism_n_1757453.html

Nonetheless, the Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, said that the global index has undoubtedly highlighted the challenges facing the Catholic Church in Ireland. "The Catholic Church, on its part, cannot simply presume that the faith will automatically be passed from one generation to the next or be lived to the full by its own members,"

Oh, good grief... does that mean he'll start sending missionaries round again???

Hotblack Desiato

Bit weak tbh, but at least they replied...

Newstalk wrote:

Dear ...

Thank you for your email.

In the discussion on our Breakfast show about Irish people losing their
faith, John Waters made the comment about some atheists being among the
'stupidest' people he has met. After which presenter Shane Coleman
counteracted this comment by audibly laughing. I think this reaction
highlights that he did not condone such remarks about atheists.

I appreciate you bringing this matter to our attention at an editorial
level and I would like to take this opportunity to assure you that
Newstalk does not endorse any form of bigotry.

Kind regards

....

Rather than just laughing at him (which I didn't even hear, as my brain screamed WHAT DID HE JUST SAY?!?! at me) Waters should really have been pulled up on that remark imho (and, given his form, they should've expected him to come out with something stupid/offensive - maybe that was the idea - lots of texts to 53106 no doubt, ching ching!)

Dave!

Noticed the laugh at the time, but he seemed to be chuckling quite a bit along the lines of "oh, that John Waters! What will he say next?!"

Oh well, at least they replied, good stuff!

I'm determined to get a letter published, so wrote to the Irish Times again yesterday Wasn't in today's online letters page anyway!

Sir,

There has been a robust response to John Waters' recent article ("Surveying religious conviction is meaningless", 10th August) on the WIN-Gallup/Red C poll, the results of which indicate a significant decline in religious self-identification in Ireland. If his August 3rd column ("Internet is debasing our public discourse") is anything to go by, then I'm quite sure that Mr. Waters will be blissfully unaware of the 700-odd comments on your website responding to his writings. Perhaps he reads your letters page (the print edition, naturally), so I'll take my chances here.

Within the opening 4 paragraphs of his article, Mr. Waters has dismissed a poll of in excess of 50,000 people. He states that "The only vaguely reliable element of these findings as far as Ireland is concerned is that referring to 'convinced atheists'...", which naturally leads one to wonder what is so anomalous about Ireland that the respondents in the other countries surveyed were apparently capable of making the appropriate choice for them, but not the Irish? The countries which had the highest number of atheist respondents include China, Japan, Czech Republic and France, while the most religious populations were found in Ghana, Nigeria, Armenia, Iraq and others. Mr. Waters has not raised any questions about these results, which are broadly in line with what we know from prior surveys and Census figures. How does the poll so accurately reflect the religiosity of these other countries, while getting it so wrong (as is John's suggestion) in the case of Ireland?

Mr. Waters continues in his column to assert that "[the poll] was conducted and published with a certain ideological agenda in mind. This...would most likely have been clear also to many of the people surveyed, as they answered the questions." With no substantiation whatsoever, John casts serious aspersions on a survey by highly regarded and respected pollsters. The question asked of respondents -- "Irrespective of whether you attend a place of worship or not, would you say you are a religious person, not a religious person or a convinced atheist?" -- is pretty clear, and there is no suggestion of an agenda contained within, so if he has other information then he should provide it to back up his claim. John's other criticisms of the poll include suggestions that "religious" implies "excessively religious", which is completely unfounded: the distinction between "a religious person" and "not a religious person" is quite clear, so someone even mildly religious would surely choose the former. The poll is even generous enough to include those nominal Catholics who only go to mass on special occasions. The results show that zero percent of those polled refused to answer, or chose "Don't know", so they were choosing one of three clear options.

Mr. Waters' broader point is that a mere poll could not possibly account for the nuances of people's individual beliefs, along with the suggestion that religion is too mystical or mysterious to be measured "through media as limited and limiting as words and numbers." Did he raise objections to such simplistic readings of "the greatest possible understanding of human possibility" (religion, as opaquely defined by John) when poll and Census figures were showing an overwhelmingly Catholic country, with no indication that anyone else (bar a handful of Protestants) existed on the island? We may not be able to draw a graph charting the unique understanding that each person has of "God", but you can be sure we can record how many say that they believe in one.

Whatever their understanding of God is, what is undeniable from this survey is that there has been a massive decrease in those who believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, as described by the major religious bodies in this country.

Yours, etc.,