Just be honest with yourself. You're not a Catholic. That's ok.

crockholm

kylith wrote: »

In my opinion any influence is too much influence for them, or any other religious group, to have.

They can air whatever views they like, but it's the fact that they claim to have the support of 84% of the population that gives those opinions weight. Do you think they'd be given the platform that they are if they only claimed to represent the 35% that are actually practising Catholics?

Do you feel that all lobby Groups should be kept away from influencing Govt. policy,or just catholic and religeous ones?

If you disagree with catholic lobbying,with 84% of the population being,in one form or Another,adherants, Do you disagree with womens rights lobby Groups given that they only represent about 50% and obviously gay/homosexual lobbyists given they have a paltry 3% membership?

How's about trusting the Irish people and the people we elect.

Macy0161

lukesmom wrote: »

I totally agree with the op. I can't understand why people go along with the Catholic traditions like church weddings/baptism when they never step foot inside a church otherwise. What's the point????? I go to mass weekly and that is my own perogitive and beliefs but thousands pretend they are Catholics just to get the kids into schools and to please parents/in laws when getting married. Worse still having your little girl/boy make their communion when the receive no religious teachings outside of the home I.e going to mass etc, just so little Mary can dress up like her friends and not be left out. Sigh

The Catholic Church are playing happily along with this facade though. They're resisting schools moving out of their control. They could insist that sacramental preparation is done outside of teaching hours, even if they wanted to keep control of the schools. It's easy to blame parents, but the Church isn't giving up the chance to indoctrinate lightly.

Akrasia

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

Irish people who seem to believe 'cultural Catholicism' is an Irish thing are as bad as Irish people who think thanking the busdriver is an Irish thing.

15 times out of 20, anywhere in the world that I've discussed religion with a person, they'll say "oh I'm [Jewish/ Catholic/ Lutheran/ Prebyterian/ Methodist], but I'm not religious'.

But I don't know anybody who gets so wound-up about it as Irish atheists.

To most people, in most cultures, this religious hangover is meaningless, but maybe slightly personal to the individual themselves.

Why care? Seriously. It's none of your business.

Because my little children will spend two years of their primary school education sitting at the back of the classroom colouring in while their teacher wastes her time preparing the rest of the class for a catholic ceremony.

And my kids are the lucky ones, they're not being turned away at the door because they're not baptised into the 'correct' religion

kylith

crockholm wrote: »

Do you feel that all lobby Groups should be kept away from influencing Govt. policy,or just catholic and religeous ones?

If you disagree with catholic lobbying,with 84% of the population being,in one form or Another,adherants, Do you disagree with womens rights lobby Groups given that they only represent about 50% and obviously gay/homosexual lobbyists given they have a paltry 3% membership?

How's about trusting the Irish people and the people we elect.

I disagree with lobby groups knowingly using fraudulent statistics to try to increase their lobbying power.

Shenshen

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

Irish people who seem to believe 'cultural Catholicism' is an Irish thing are as bad as Irish people who think thanking the busdriver is an Irish thing.

15 times out of 20, anywhere in the world that I've discussed religion with a person, they'll say "oh I'm [Jewish/ Catholic/ Lutheran/ Prebyterian/ Methodist], but I'm not religious'.

But I don't know anybody who gets so wound-up about it as Irish atheists.

To most people, in most cultures, this religious hangover is meaningless, but maybe slightly personal to the individual themselves.

Why care? Seriously. It's none of your business.

Funny, the people I've met in real life who get most annoyed about this "cultural Catholic" thing are actually practicing Catholics.

And to be fair, I can understand them. I'm vegetarian, if I met a person who told me they're vegetarian but they love a good steak every other day, I'd get a bit pissed off myself. The reason we have words like "Catholic" and "vegetarian" is so that we can easily identify people by beliefs and attitudes. If we start diluting these concepts, real Catholics will end up having to find another name for themselves.

lukesmom

Shenshen wrote: »

Funny, the people I've met in real life who get most annoyed about this "cultural Catholic" thing are actually practicing Catholics.

And to be fair, I can understand them. I'm vegetarian, if I met a person who told me they're vegetarian but they love a good steak every other day, I'd get a bit pissed off myself. The reason we have words like "Catholic" and "vegetarian" is so that we can easily identify people by beliefs and attitudes. If we start diluting these concepts, real Catholics will end up having to find another name for themselves.

No the non practising 'catholics' will have to find a name for themselves.

crockholm

Macy0161 wrote: »

There's still the exemptions to equality legislation though, and politicians still appear to be too afraid of the influence of (mainly) the Roman Catholic Church to remove it.

The CSO (maybe again due to the influence or perceived influence of the Church) have been pretty slow to address this imo. The tick box religion question is a pretty meaningless stat, given the way church attendances have been going. It'll be disappointing it they don't address this with some question about practicing a faith. (e.g. how many times outside of family ceremonies/ school, have each in the household attended mass/ prayer service/ service of worship).

Conspiracy! you say!
If you want to add those Little addedums,then why not things like height/weight. Or have different categories like "How gay/straight are you" with lots of boxes to tick like, "as Christmas" "a wee bit" "as an Arrow"
favourite food? Fav S Club 7 member (Tina).

No,lets not go down that road,filling out the census is enough of a pain in the ass,as is.

crockholm

kylith wrote: »

I disagree with lobby groups knowingly using fraudulent statistics to try to increase their lobbying power.

So it's Kylith vs the census.
Round one....
Kylith has a hunch-the census has numbers of people who consider themselves catholics.

Shenshen

Shenshen wrote: »

And to be fair, I can understand them. I'm vegetarian, if I met a person who told me they're vegetarian but they love a good steak every other day, I'd get a bit pissed off myself.

But these people do not identify as Catholics, Jews, Presbyterians or Anglicans per se.

They tend to qualify their 'identity' with their non-practicing status.

It's more akin to an expat saying 'I'm Irish, but I've Canadian citizenship now too, and I no longer see myself as being Irish'. It's not as though they've made some grand statement of rejecting their Irishness, they've just stopped doing the things that made them Irish, even if it remains part of their distant cultural background.

I'm not a Roman Catholic, nor do I believe in God, but I still describe myself according to my religious upbringing, because it has definitely informed my worldview and is part of my family tradition.

Cee-Jay-Cee

Who are you OP to dictate how people categorise or practice their religion???

I was raised as a Catholic, attended Catholic school and got married in a Catholic Church. I do not go to mass as I think it's a load of old rubbish, I do not go to confession and I do not practice any of the teachings regarding sex, contraception etc of the Catholic church but I still ticked the RC box on the census form and I'll do the same next time as its the religious group I belong to regardless of what I believe on specific matters.

Why are you so bothered about how people categorise their Religion ? What business is it off yours??

Supergurrier

People should be free to make an informed decision on their beliefs and not be prosecuted either way.

Once indoctrination ends people will naturally do this as it will remove the pack mentality.

arayess

kylith wrote: »

I disagree with lobby groups knowingly using fraudulent statistics to try to increase their lobbying power.

oh my jaysus....that's a can of worms.
We can safely put a few women's groups in your banning list so?

Ghost Buster

Cee-Jay-Cee wrote: »

Who are you OP to dictate how people categorise or practice their religion???

I was raised as a Catholic, attended Catholic school and got married in a Catholic Church. I do not go to mass as I think it's a load of old rubbish, I do not go to confession and I do not practice any of the teachings regarding sex, contraception etc of the Catholic church but I still ticked the RC box on the census form and I'll do the same next time as its the religious group I belong to regardless of what I believe on specific matters.

Why are you so bothered about how people categorise their Religion ? What business is it off yours??

Indoctrination.... see.... its nasty.

Valetta

Cee-Jay-Cee wrote: »

Who are you OP to dictate how people categorise or practice their religion???

I was raised as a Catholic, attended Catholic school and got married in a Catholic Church. I do not go to mass as I think it's a load of old rubbish, I do not go to confession and I do not practice any of the teachings regarding sex, contraception etc of the Catholic church but I still ticked the RC box on the census form and I'll do the same next time as its the religious group I belong to regardless of what I believe on specific matters.

Why are you so bothered about how people categorise their Religion ? What business is it off yours??

+1

Shenshen

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

But these people do not identify as Catholics, Jews, Presbyterians or Anglicans per se.

They tend to qualify their 'identity' with their non-practicing status.

It's more akin to an expat saying 'I'm Irish, but I've Canadian citizenship now too, and I no longer see myself as being Irish'. It's not as though they've made some grand statement of rejecting their Irishness, they've just stopped doing the things that made them Irish, even if it remains part of their distant cultural background.

I'm not a Roman Catholic, nor do I believe in God, but I still describe myself according to my religious upbringing, because it has definitely informed my worldview and is part of my family tradition.

Very much like a non-practicing jew, hm?

I still think that it would be in everybody's interest to make sure to find a term that appropriately describes you, rather than "hijacking" someone else's name.

Most Irish I know would get annoyed if they found themselves faced with someone from Idaho swearing blind that he's Irish because his great-grandmother was from "somewhere around Galway, can't remember what the place is called". And I understand most practicing Catholics will feel pretty much the same when face with someone who calls himself Catholic, but would laugh at the beliefs they hold dear.
It's not very respectful, at the end of the day.

Adamantium

I don't believe.

But is anyone else tired of this damn deconstruction of everything religious.
Deconstruct, Deconstruct, Deconstruct.

The practice of religion (any) is a framework for trying, TRYING to live better and universal time tested truths that has managed to get global and parochial society to where it is.

We say we aren't religious but we make religions all the time out of everything. We can't help it for whatever reason Consumerism, technology, sports teams, franchise films, our habits, our opinions, drink, drugs. We just replaced one with another IMO, Are we that much happier really?

We'll always be searching, for that is the price you pay for being human, and all the possibility that goes along with it.

I heard my grandfather years ago say "Every generation finds God in its own way"

So we better be sure we're not inadvertingly worshipping the wrong ones.

Eugene Norman

Precisely because it annoys the new atheist I'll stick to calling myself Catholic although I haven't believed since I was 8.

smurgen

definitely don't consider myself catholic at this stage!

Eugene Norman

Shenshen wrote: »

Very much like a non-practicing jew, hm?

I still think that it would be in everybody's interest to make sure to find a term that appropriately describes you, rather than "hijacking" someone else's name.

Most Irish I know would get annoyed if they found themselves faced with someone from Idaho swearing blind that he's Irish because his great-grandmother was from "somewhere around Galway, can't remember what the place is called". And I understand most practicing Catholics will feel pretty much the same when face with someone who calls himself Catholic, but would laugh at the beliefs they hold dear.
It's not very respectful, at the end of the day.

Oh it's not the believers this upsets.

Shenshen

Eugene Norman wrote: »

Oh it's not the believers this upsets.

Despite a number of believers having said so on this very thread? Arrogant, much?

Eugene Norman

Shenshen wrote: »

Despite a number of believers having said so on this very thread? Arrogant, much?

I really dont have the time to read all the thread. The Angries on the last 4 pages were atheists.

Shenshen

Eugene Norman wrote: »

I really dont have the time to read all the thread. The Angries on the last 4 pages were atheists.

Check again. You seem to have missed a few posts.

Danjamin1

Eugene Norman wrote:

I really dont have the time to read all the thread. The Angries on the last 4 pages were atheists.

What's the point of contributing if you're not going to read the discussion?

Zamboni

Cee-Jay-Cee wrote: »

Why are you so bothered about how people categorise their Religion ? What business is it off yours??

I explain it here
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=95016362&postcount=152

Son Of A Vidic

AudreyHepburn wrote: »

I think how you identify yourself your own personal choice and you shouldn't have to justify yourself to anyone.

The OP's thread is exactly why I dislike atheism. Not all atheists mind you, but it's hard not to feel some resentment to attitudes like the OP's.

I have to agree you, especially when I read such generalising and assumptive nonsense in the OP. I saw a lot of death and dying in a former profession and you would be amazed how many avowed atheists turn to a God, when faced with their imminent mortality and demise. But maybe dying of a Haematological blood disorder will do that to people. I couldn't care less about an individuals religious beliefs or lack of, as long as they don't shove these beliefs or any generalisation nonsense down my throat.

Eugene Norman

Danjamin1 wrote: »

What's the point of contributing if you're not going to read the discussion?

Went back further. The angries are still the atheists.

Reading 25% of a thread is a good sample of the discussion including replies to previous people. If any "real" Catholic got upset by cultural Catholics, it didn't make much impact.

pq0n1ct4ve8zf5

I think there are a few issues at play here, Catholicism in Ireland is different from in other countries.

Around the foundation of the state, it was very successfully constructed as an inherent and important part of Irish national identity. There was a top-down and bottom-up emphasis on Catholic ethos throughout the twentieth century, people feel their Catholic identity more keenly, I think, because of how interlocked it's become with national identity.

The stranglehold the Catholic church (as opposed to the Catholic faith, which really is a pretty profound and complex faith once you get past the campy, baroque window-dressing) had on the Irish state during the twentieth century was more extreme than the hold it had on many other states; because of our geographical and deliberate economic isolation, because of our poverty and lack of education, because of partition and Catholic oppression in the north, arguably because of the trauma suffered from the famine onwards...add in a State that had an unhealthily close relationship with the Church and you got a perfect storm where the RCC (and like I say, I have huge respect for the actual Catholic faith as opposed to the church) facilitated and participated in the beating, raping, imprisoning and shunning of a large portion of the population for several decades with near total impunity. I know this happened in other countries too, but the legacy of bitterness and trauma does seem to be particularly acute here.

This is the island that bequeathed to the world the immortal question "Yeah, but are you a Catholic atheist or a Protestant atheist?". Catholicism=Republicanism (or at least=not-Unionism), which is another very important part of a lot of people's identities.

You don't have to do or believe everything perfectly to be a Catholic, but I think the point is that you're supposed to be trying. Try, fail, repent, confess, try harder, fail better: that's good, that's Catholicism. Don't bother, don't repent, don't believe, but tick the box: that is not anything more than cultural Catholicism at best. The census didn't ask "what's your cultural heritage?", I think for a lot of Irish people "Catholic" is the most honest answer to that. It asked "what's your religion".

Shenshen

Shenshen wrote: »

Most Irish I know would get annoyed if they found themselves faced with someone from Idaho swearing blind that he's Irish because his great-grandmother was from "somewhere around Galway, can't remember what the place is called".

Except, I gave the example of an Irish person naturalised elsewhere.

He lives in Canada, his wife is a Canadian, they sew maple leaves on their backpacks and they're crazy about ice hockey. Ireland is a now pretty irrelevant to his life, nor does he consider himself Irish in any meaningful way, but it is somewhere he has fond memories about, and that upbringing has positively shaped his life.

I don't see why it should matter to anybody but him. Imagine he ticked 'Irish' on the Canadian census. Imagine yourself getting worked up about that. Imagine how pathetic that would be.

Macavity.

It seems like any criticism of faith in any possible way (however reasonable) will have you labeled as "one of those damn atheists" or in some cases an "islamophobe".

ITT: Freedom of Speech 0. Semantics 1.

TheBeardedLady

crockholm wrote: »

Playing devils advocate now,but what they seem to be objecting is that you want to delete or re-write the events of that particular day,and they're just not allowing it.FWIW,I Believe you have the right to be seperated from the Church-if that means a cert acknowledging that the relationship has come to an end.

Just a pity that the Mormons will get you once you die sometime next Century.

That list is not only an account of the events of the day, it's a list of members of the organisation which, like any organisation, should be updated as requested. Many left up until about 5 or 6 years ago, so it was possible up to that point but now, according to what I've typed below, it's not allowed under Canon Law. My boyfriend removed himself from the register in Spain around the same time I tried to do the same in Ireland.
I've got the letter I received here beside me and here's what it says:

"The Canon Law of the Catholic Church was recently changed on this matter and it is no longer possible as it was for some years, to make a formal defection from the Church.

The law concerning defection, introduced in 1983, was designed especially to address the right to marry. The intention was to facilitate the exercise of the right to marry by those Catholics who, due to their estrangement from the Church, were unlikely to wish a Church ceremony. The measure was thus to ensure that any marriage entered into after formal defection would be valid in the eyes of the Catholic Church. You will understand that this was something important to a spouse who would still have been a practising Catholic.

In the last few years, a considerable number of Catholics wished to make an act of formally defecting from the Church. They have done so for a variety of reason such as: as for of protest against or rejection of what the Church teaches; as a response to the reprehensible events surrounding and including the sexual abuse pf children by priests and religious.

Many in the past have left the Church without following a formal process. While those de facto defections do no have legal effect, the Church would obviously hope that the desire of those who wish to leave the Church would be respected. The Archdiocese of Dublin now maintains a register for those who wish their de facto defection from the Church to be recorded. As a response to your request, your name has now been recorded in this register"


Edit: I just realised it said it was due to a change in CANON Law, so edited the above. If you believe the wishes of those who want to leave should be respected, why did you change the Canon Law related to it????