Census 2016 - Time to tick NO

Daith

Absolam wrote: »

I can't say he's really making much use of them, though he's certainly offering an opinion about them.

Ah so now you're looking for a Govt policy which explicitly references some policy referencing the 84% or something?

You asked for somebody using the stats to justify something. A former Govt person offering his "opinion" to justify that the State should represent religion and not be secular isn't good enough.

Again Absolam with his wibbly wobbly "well they answered my question how do I rephrase the question now" approach.

Absolam

Daith wrote: »

Ah so now you're looking for a Govt policy which explicitly references some policy referencing the 84% or something?
You asked for somebody using the stats to justify something. A former Govt person offering his "opinion" to justify that the State should represent religion and not be secular isn't good enough.
Again Absolam with his wibbly wobbly "well they answered my question how do I rephrase the question now" approach.

Not really; what exactly has Dr Mansergh used the 84% to justify?
You bolded his statement "On the face of it, a pluralist/multicultural state should reasonably reflect, in a balanced but generous way, the religious make-up and identity of its population", which I don't think, as an opinion, many people would disagree with, do you? Nor is there any indication his statement would alter if the number were 4% rather than 84%. But I can't see any proposal, or current activity, that Dr Mansergh is saying would be or is justified by the 84%, can you?
Apologies if that seems 'wibbly wobbly', I'm just looking for the facts......

Daith

Absolam wrote: »

Not really; what exactly has Dr Mansergh used the 84% to justify?

Justify his stance, his opinion, whatever. You looked for something, I showed you, now you're nitpicking at a question I didn't ask!

"If the 84% of Irish people are Catholic is going to be used to justify anything". Note the word "anything".

Absolam wrote: »

Apologies if that seems 'wibbly wobbly', I'm just looking for the facts......

Facts? I didn't say facts. I said justify. Wibbly wobbly again.

Absolam

Daith wrote: »

Justify his stance, his opinion, whatever. You looked for something, I showed you, now you're nitpicking at a question I didn't ask!

Well no, what I'm saying is he doesn't appear to be using the stat to justify his opinion, does he? If the stat were, for instance, 4%, he's given no indication that his opinion would be different.

Daith wrote: »

"If the 84% of Irish people are Catholic is going to be used to justify anything". Note the word "anything".

Right. I just can't see it being used to justify anything. Do you see?

Daith wrote: »

Facts? I didn't say facts. I said justify. Wibbly wobbly again.

Nope, it was me who said facts. I said " I'm just looking for the facts......". Like the facts about what (if anything) the stat is being used to justify.

Daith

Absolam wrote: »

Well no, what I'm saying is he doesn't appear to be using the stat to justify his opinion, does he? If the stat were, for instance, 4%, he's given no indication that his opinion would be different.

Yes he is.

He uses the census stat to say secular people are a small minority (based on the census stats) and therefore shouldn't be listened to. His entire argument is based on the friggen census stats.

He's using the the census stats to back up his claim. Again you asked for somebody using the census figures to justify anything. You can be sure his opinion would be different if the stats showed 84% of people were Muslim.

You'd seriously give Ben Conroy a run here in being giving evidence then changing what your question is.

lazygal

Daith wrote: »

You'd seriously give Ben Conroy a run here in being giving evidence then changing what your question is.

Maybe he is the man himself. Or another member of the Conroy family. Very similar 'debating' style anyway.

Absolam

Daith wrote: »

Yes he is.

He uses the census stat to say secular people are a small minority (based on the census stats) and therefore shouldn't be listened to. His entire argument is based on the friggen census stats.

Just to be clear; you're saying he's using the census to justify his opinion that a small minority shouldn't be listened to?
Because obviously he can't be using the census to justify the fact that a small minority declared themselves to be of no religion.
The thing is, I can't see where he says "secular people are a small minority and therefore shouldn't be listened to" anywhere in the statement quoted. I can see that he said "On the face of it, a pluralist/multicultural state should reasonably reflect, in a balanced but generous way, the religious make-up and identity of its population" which would be rather at odds with not listening to a minority. Could it be that when he says we shouldn't treat a secular humanism as an organising principle, as demanded by a small, albeit growing, vocal minority, you' re trying to twist that into we shouldn't listen to the small, albeit growing, vocal minority? Even if you are, where does he use the fact that the census shows those who identify as having no religion (who are not identified as secular humanists, by the way; he actually points out that secularism is hard to measure or classify neatly, but even if they were) to justify not listening to them?

Daith wrote: »

He's using the the census stats to back up his claim. Again you asked for somebody using the census figures to justify anything. You can be sure his opinion would be different if the stats showed 84% of people were Muslim.

He's certainly pointing out that the census stats don't measure or classify secularism, true. But he hasn't used them to justify not listening to secularists, has he? His point was simply that on the face of it, a pluralist/multicultural state should reasonably reflect, in a balanced but generous way, the religious make-up and identity of its population, rather than treat a secular humanism as an organising principle, as demanded by a small, albeit growing, vocal minority claiming that as a right based on their supposed neutrality. And, if 84% of the population were Muslim, I don't see why he might change his opinion of secular humanism. Can you explain that?

Daith wrote: »

You'd seriously give Ben Conroy a run here in being giving evidence then changing what your question is.

I seriously haven't changed the question. He has offered the stats, certainly, and they give some context to his statement. But he doesn't once say the stats are why we shouldn't treat secular humanism as an organising principle. Never mind said that they're a reason for not listening to secular humanists at all. Indeed, if 84% of the population identified as secular humanists I suspect he might be even more strident about secular humanism not being treated as an organising principle. So the question remains; What exactly is the 84% being used to justify?

robindch

lazygal wrote: »

Maybe he is the man himself.

Speculating about the identity of a boardsie is against the site charter - section 5, fifth item:

http://www.boards.ie/content/terms?site=desktop

Thanking youze.

recedite

Absolam wrote: »

Well, I've pointed out that the State is obliged to provide for free primary education, and that eduction, according to the Constitution, is comprised of "religious and moral, intellectual, physical and social education". The provision for such education is itself a service.

Not quite, the constitution mentions religion and also physical education when referring to the family as the educator, but only "moral intellectual and social" when referring to the states role. The constitution is also big on protecting pupils from unwanted religious faith formation.

1. The State acknowledges that the primary and natural educator of the child is the Family and guarantees to respect the inalienable right and duty of parents to provide, according to their means, for the religious and moral, intellectual, physical and social education of their children.
2. Parents shall be free to provide this education in their homes or in private schools or in schools recognised or established by the State.
3. 1° The State shall not oblige parents in violation of their conscience and lawful preference to send their children to schools established by the State, or to any particular type of school designated by the State.
2° The State shall, however, as guardian of the common good, require in view of actual conditions that the children receive a certain minimum education, moral, intellectual and social.
4. The State shall provide for free primary education and shall endeavour to supplement and give reasonable aid to private and corporate educational initiative, and, when the public good requires it, provide other educational facilities or institutions with due regard, however, for the rights of parents, especially in the matter of religious and moral formation.

Absolam

recedite wrote: »

Not quite, the constitution mentions religion and also physical education when referring to the family as the educator, but only "moral intellectual and social" when referring to the states role. The constitution is also big on protecting pupils from unwanted religious faith formation.

For the first part, whilst religion is specified when referring to the family as the educator, it is immediately followed by the States obligation to allow this education to be provided in schools recognised or established by the State:
42: The State acknowledges that the primary and natural educator of the child is the Family and guarantees to respect the inalienable right and duty of parents to provide, according to their means, for the religious and moral, intellectual, physical and social education of their children.
42.2: Parents shall be free to provide this education in their homes or in private schools or in schools recognised or established by the State.
And the Constitution is specific about protecting students in State funded schools from attending religious instruction, which is a little different, to be fair:
2.4°: Legislation providing State aid for schools shall not discriminate between schools under the management of different religious denominations, nor be such as to affect prejudicially the right of any child to attend a school receiving public money without attending religious instruction at that school.

Zamboni

Absolam wrote: »

And... just a thought... if 84% identified as 'no religion', what would that be used to justify?

Eating babies.

Absolam

Zamboni wrote: »

Eating babies.

Well, that's something we'd want to avoid I suppose.

fisgon

RossieMan wrote: »

Would you not go behind a cause that is important rather than this crap? Who gives a ****?

Me, I give a ****. And lots of other people do.

Over and over and over again we are told by the theocrats that "this is a Catholic country" or there is talk of the "majority". Of course we all know that majority are non religious and anything we can do to show this is helpful in creating a truly secular state based on rational principles.

fisgon

The Randy Riverbeast wrote: »

Then they will continue to put themselves down as Catholic. Dawkins sake, nobody will be forced to do anything they don't want. Have no idea where this panic is coming from.

The panic is coming from the same place it always comes from, which is asking people to think about something that in the past they never had to think about.

It is the same panic that fueled the no campaigns in the Divorce, Abortion and gay marriage referendums. The panic comes from people who always assumed that they would continue to occupy a privileged position from which they could dictate to society how we should live our lives.

It is the same panic that prompts some people on this thread to claim that there is an attempt to "force" people to answer a census question in a certain way, when in fact all that is happening is that the population is simply being asked to think about something they may have never thought about before.

Asking people to think is frequently a cause for such panic, especially in religious circles.

Absolam

fisgon wrote: »

Over and over and over again we are told by the theocrats that "this is a Catholic country" or there is talk of the "majority". Of course we all know that majority are non religious and anything we can do to show this is helpful in creating a truly secular state based on rational principles.

But..... if we all know that the majority are non religious, then we obviously don't rate what the theocrats tell us. Since they're being ignored already, what's to worry about? Those who want to create a truly secular state based on rational principles can just go ahead and run for public office on that basis.

Peregrinus

fisgon wrote: »

. . . Of course we all know that majority are non religious and anything we can do to show this is helpful in creating a truly secular state based on rational principles.

You may know that the majority are non-religious, but it seems the the majority don't know that.

So the solution to our problem is obvious. Leave the census form as it is, but just instruct respondents to leave the religion question blank. Then, on the way to the CSO, drop by figson's place with all the forms and let him fill out the religion question for everybody, since he knows what religion they are.

Let the mammy factor work for you instead of against you! All hail to Figson, the ubermammy!

The Randy Riverbeast

Check out the latest thread on AH about foreigners with their foreign religions arent happy with catholic education. The claim that if you tick catholic on the census it means you want a place in a catholic school has been brought up.

Absolam

The Randy Riverbeast wrote: »

Check out the latest thread on AH about foreigners with their foreign religions arent happy with catholic education. The claim that if you tick catholic on the census it means you want a place in a catholic school has been brought up.

Did someone from the government appear to say they'd be adopting the policy as a result?
Was it not just an unbacked assertion by Bristolscale7, and Hotblack Desiato saying this seems to be the case with no evidence?

Hotblack Desiato

I didn't mean the Dept Ed looks at the census religion box. I meant that the Dept Ed look at the census for birth rate in an area, in practice they also do (or should, I hope) use birth registrations to augment that, but neither captures immigration/migration within Ireland during the timeframe between censuses.

As far as I know they determine total demand for places in an area, if they deem it insufficient then they authorise either extensions to existing schools, or new schools. They don't look at the religion box and then say 'there's a fierce number of non-religious here, better build an ET.'

Their criteria as to whether to expand existing schools or authorise new ones appear to be totally arbitrary. Where I live there are no non-religious options and there is clear demand for an ET, but the RC primaries got a number of new classrooms instead.

Absolam

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Their criteria as to whether to expand existing schools or authorise new ones appear to be totally arbitrary. Where I live there are no non-religious options and there is clear demand for an ET, but the RC primaries got a number of new classrooms instead.

Would it be fair to say they appear arbitrary simply because you don't know the reasoning behind them? Which is to say, there's no real reason to think they might actually be arbitrary?

Peregrinus

I don’t think it’s arbitrary at all. I think a decision about the provision of additional school places is driven by (a) demographics (are extra places needed in the district?) and (b) finance (what is the most cost-effective way of providing the extra places – expanding an existing school or establishing a new school?). So far as I can see, they don’t look at patronage at all until they have got to the point of deciding that a new school is the way to go.

When they get to that point, as I think we have seen already, they don’t look to the census figures to decide the patronage of the new school; they invite applications from prospective patrons and part of the application process involves the prospective patrons demonstrating parent demand for the type of school they offer.

At this point considerations of diversity do enter into the picture. The school will not necessarily be given to the patron who shows the greatest demand. If more than one patron demonstrates enough demand for their school type to suggest that it will be viable, they will make a selection among those patrons based on other criteria, including diversity.

OK. But as Hotblack’s example illustrates, this means that in some (many?) cases additional school places are provided without considering diversity – they just expand an existing school under an existing patron.

We’ve already noted that the objective of provide more non-religious school places is not going to be met unless the Department gets a lot more, um, effective, about divesting existing schools and awarding them to new patrons. We’ve also noted the principal difficulty in the way of this – viz, the parents at the school tend not to like it. And we haven’t really come up with anything to solve that problem beyond a bit of wishful thinking.

Maybe another thing the Department needs to do is to take diversity into account at an earlier stage of the process. Maybe there would be cases – such as the one Hotblack points to – where the most cost-effective way of providing additional places is to expand an additional school, but the importance of diversity is such that cost shouldn’t be the only criterion. Perhaps we should be prepared to set up a new school under a new patron not currently operating a school in the district even if that’s going to cost up to 20%, or 30%, or some threshold, more than simply expanding an existing school.

Ghost Buster

expectationlost wrote: »

why would somebody with no religion tick anything other then no?

I know of so very many individuals and families who tick YES to catholic because they think they should because they were baptised, this inspite of the fact that they no longer consider themselves catholic.
Thats one reason.

fisgon

Peregrinus wrote: »

You may know that the majority are non-religious, but it seems the the majority don't know that.

So the solution to our problem is obvious. Leave the census form as it is, but just instruct respondents to leave the religion question blank. Then, on the way to the CSO, drop by figson's place with all the forms and let him fill out the religion question for everybody, since he knows what religion they are.

Let the mammy factor work for you instead of against you! All hail to Figson, the ubermammy!

Oh please. Being reduced to utter facetiousness is a sign of how weak your argument is - if indeed you have one.

What do you mean by the "majority"? The people who tick "catholic" on the census, or have it ticked for them? Are you really telling us that you take this 84% figure at face value?

If so, where are these 84% when it comes to mass on Sunday? Because most of them are not in the churches. In that recent poll, 29% of people go to mass weekly. 16% of under 50s. Where is your majority?

Peregrinus

fisgon wrote: »

Oh please. Being reduced to utter facetiousness is a sign of how weak your argument is - if indeed you have one.

I assure you I'm not being facetious. You are doing on a national scale what other boardies accuse the stereotypical mammy of doing on a domestic scale - viz, ignoring what people say about their religious identity, and simply assigning to them the identity you think they ought to have.

fisgon wrote: »

What do you mean by the "majority"? The people who tick "catholic" on the census, or have it ticked for them? Are you really telling us that you take this 84% figure at face value?

You're asking me what I mean by the majority? It's you who made the claim that "we all know that the majority are non-religious". I think it's not u unreasonable of me to point out that a huge majority of those who fill out the census identify as religious, so evidently what "we all know" is in fact something that most people don't know.

fisgon wrote: »

If so, where are these 84% when it comes to mass on Sunday? Because most of them are not in the churches. In that recent poll, 29% of people go to mass weekly. 16% of under 50s. Where is your majority?

Your claim was not that the majority don't go to mass. If that were your claim, there would be no need to do "anything we can do to show this", since this is already widely acknowledged and discussed. Your claim was that the majority "are non-religious". This claim is hard to reconcile with the evidence; 92.3% of the population are identified with one religion or another in the census, and a further 1.6% did not answer the question.

If you want to repackage your claim as "the religiosity of the majority of Irish people is not expressed in regular massgoing" it will fit better with the evidence, and I promise not to give you a hard time over it. And if you really do want to campaign for a truly secular state based on rational principles, it's important that your arguments should withstand rational scrutiny. Which "we all know that the majority are non-religious" definitely does not.

magicbastarder

fisgon wrote: »

If so, where are these 84% when it comes to mass on Sunday? Because most of them are not in the churches. In that recent poll, 29% of people go to mass weekly. 16% of under 50s. Where is your majority?

say my friend goes to mass once a month, or once every three months, as well as the usuals like easter, christmas, weddings, etc.
what should (s)he put down as their religion? you see to be suggesting that we should not consider her catholic.

volchitsa

Peregrinus wrote: »

If you want to repackage your claim as "the religiosity of the majority of Irish people is not expressed in regular massgoing" it will fit better with the evidence, and I promise not to give you a hard time over it.

Genuine question then : how does "the religiosity of the majority of Irish people" express itself then, and is there any point at which deliberate non-obedience of the basic tenets of a particular religion effectively means the person can no longer be reasonably considered to be a believer?

I ask because when I was growing up in Northern Ireland, our religious teachers taught us that one of the main ways in which Catholicism differed from Protestantism was that Catholics had the catechism, the Pope etc to formulate what all Catholics were expected to believe, and that "cherry picking" was a fundamentally Protestant approach - because they were supposed to read the bible and thereby reach their own individual understanding of and relationship with God, while our clergy was there to mediate for us.

To be clear, that doesn't mean that Catholics have to believe everything, but that there is a minimum "sine qua non" - transubstantiation was a big one for example. The Virgin Birth and the Resurrection, iirc, were two more. At the time, we were certainly led to believe that disobeying Humanae Vitae by using contraception was effectively to reject the Catholic religion.

Obviously the sinner can always get back in via confession - but my question concerns those who claim not to be committing any sin in such cases because they just don't believe that contraception, sex before marriage etc are actually sins at all.

And then of course there are those "Catholics" who don't believe in transubstantiation -and one on here who claims that six year olds are not taught in RE class that Mary was actually a virgin. And that they will realize themselves that this could not have the case anyway!

So has that all changed, and are we all Protestants now?

(Is that a Fr Ted line? Or was that racists? )

Peregrinus

volchitsa wrote: »

Genuine question then : how does "the religiosity of the majority of Irish people" express itself then . . .

As I've said more than once before, if you care to know about this you need to ask them.

What I see a lot of on this board is people picking something - in this instance, regular massgoing - and arbitrarily decreeing that that is the sole measure of religiosity. I can't take this seriously; they're plainly picking a criterion which will produce the outcome they want.

volchitsa wrote: »

. . . and is there any point at which deliberate non-obedience of the basic tenets of a particular religion effectively means the person can no longer be reasonably considered to be a believer?

Well, no, there isn't, if we're being rational as fisgon thinks we ought to be. Non-obedience of the basic tenets of a religion might tell you something about the quality of my religious practice, but it doesn't tell you anything, at least directly, about what I believe. And another practice we see a lot of on this board (and in this thread) is people cheerfully hopping from treating practice as determinative of religious identity to treating belief as determinative of religious identity - they'll take either, as long as it produces the result they so desperately want.

There's two lessons in all of this.

First, what the census tells us is that 92.3% of the population are identified with one religion or another in the census. If you want to know what that means in terms of their practice or their belief or anything else, you have to ask them.

Secondly, there are few sights more ridiculous than that of an atheist decreeing who is, and who is not, a true Catholic (or a true adherent of any other religion). To understand how ludicrous this looks, just reverse the roles and imagine how that plays out.

volchitsa wrote: »

So has that all changed, and are we all Protestants now?

(Is that a Fr Ted line? Or was that racists? )

Well, the farm takes up most of the day, and at night I just like a cup of tea. I mightn't be able to devote myself full time to the old Protestantism.

Absolam

Peregrinus wrote: »

Secondly, there are few sights more ridiculous than that of an atheist decreeing who is, and who is not, a true Catholic (or a true adherent of any other religion). To understand how ludicrous this looks, just reverse the roles and imagine how that plays out.

Well.... it could play out like this......

realdanbreen wrote: »

Well IMO a genuine atheist-and you are either an atheist or you are not an atheist-would have nothing to do with religion and would not be seen within an asses roar of a church,synagogue, temple whatever. Some 'atheists' however seem to pick and choose which aspects of religion offend them.

Which might then be rebutted by

volchitsa wrote: »

Well that's just your own opinion, and as you're not an atheist, that's not terribly relevant, is it?

.
Maybe?

volchitsa

Peregrinus wrote: »

Well, no, there isn't, if we're being rational as fisgon thinks we ought to be. Non-obedience of the basic tenets of a religion might tell you something about the quality of my religious practice, but it doesn't tell you anything, at least directly, about what I believe.

That is exactly what I'm saying. The practising Catholics I know are often slightly embarrassed by some of the way-out beliefs that we were brought up to believe were an essential part of being a Catholic. One who describes himself as Catholic on here for example has said that not only does he not think Mary was a virgin but that teachers no longer teach that to be a fact, and that six years olds would in any case quickly work out for themselves the unikeliness of the claim (check out the "Mary said yes" thread if you have any doubts).

Secondly, the widespread practice of contraception is self evident, and defended by many who must, going by the statistics, have ticked the box on the form.

So it looks like you're trying to say that merely ticking a box on the census form is more meaningful in terms of someone's religion than whether or not they actually practice the obligations of the religion they ticked.

If the question hadn't been set in suc a way as to achieve exactly this effect, I'd think you might have a point that people may have such an emotional connection to their former religion that they tick it even though they don't believe a word of it. But the two points together make it impossible, to put it mildly, to eliminate a biasing effect caused by how the question was set.

Poor census writing, in other words.

Peregrinus

volchitsa wrote: »

. . . So it looks like you're trying to say that merely ticking a box on the census form is more meaningful in terms of someone's religion than whether or not they actually practice the obligations of the religion they ticked.

No. I’m saying it’s more meaningful than Fisgon’s assertion that “we all know” that they’ re not religious.

As for the significance of self-identified Catholics practising contraception, or not going to mass, you need to put this in perspective. The Catechism of the Catholic church runs to 2,865 paragraphs. If you read through it from the beginning, you’ll get to paragraph 2,370 before you find any mention at all of contraception. Carry on reading and you’ll find one more mention of contraception, in paragraph 2,399. And that’s it.

Likewise with Sunday mass attendance - it doesn’t appear until paragraph 2,042.

So just how central to Catholicism are they? And what about all the other paragraphs? Are they irrelevant?

If someone is only going to notice the aspects of Catholicism that people don’t adopt and treat that alone as the only factor relevant to assessing an identification as Catholic, what they’re effectively saying is that, if you’re not a perfect Catholic, then you’re not a Catholic at all. That is an obvious strategy to adopt if someone wants to believe that nobody, or practically nobody, is a Catholic.

But they shouldn’t delude themselves that their efforts have shown that there are very few Catholics; that was their starting point, not their finding. Their strategy of looking for ways in which people fail to reflect Catholicism was merely a rationalisation for a position they already held. It never occurred to them to look for ways in which people’s lives, beliefs or practices did reflect their professed Catholicism, because how would that show what needs to be shown, which is that they’re not Catholic?

So, I come back to what I have said again and again. If someone want to knows what people ‘s identification as Catholic means, they need to ask. Pontificating about what it means when they haven’t asked says rather more about the pontificator than it does about those pontificated about. And if their pontifications refer only to ways in which people do not conform to the platonic ideas of a Catholic and make no reference at all to ways in which they do, well, that pretty much confirms the initial impression of the pontificator.

volchitsa wrote: »

If the question hadn't been set in suc a way as to achieve exactly this effect, I'd think you might have a point that people may have such an emotional connection to their former religion that they tick it even though they don't believe a word of it. But the two points together make it impossible, to put it mildly, to eliminate a biasing effect caused by how the question was set.

Poor census writing, in other words.

I disagree. Throughout this thread, there’s a strong bias at work. The census figures are not showing a low enough number of religious people; therefore we must change the census question until it produces an answer we are prepared to accept. Why do we not accept the figures from the census? Because “we all know that the majority are non-religious”. How do we know this? Because we’ve adopted an understanding of “religious” under which, if we can show that people are not religious in one respect then they are not religious at all. Why did we adopt this understanding? Because “we all know that the majority are non-religious”, and if we adopted a more holistic understanding we might not know that any more.

It’s clear that the claim that the census question is biased is in fact a massive projection. It is the critics who are biased. They can’t accept the census figures because the census figures don’t confirm the belief that they desperately need to have confirmed. The evidence is not supporting their faith; therefore the evidence must be changed.

What the census shows is that 92.3% of the population thinks of themselves as religious. Nothing in this thread has suggested to me that the Census is wrong in showing what it shows. What this thread has shown is that Fisgon and many others think that the 92.3% are wrong to think of themselves as religious. The census doesn’t reflect that, but why would it? It’s not the business of the census to record or reflect what Fisgon thinks of other peoples’ religiosity.