Cross on summit of Carrauntoohil cut down with angle grinder (Warning: contains TLAs)

'The Carrauntoohil cross is a symbol of our community' http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/the-carrauntoohil-cross-is-a-symbol-of-our-community-30804931.html

A statement entitled 'A View from the Top' on the video that was handed in to the Dublin offices of Journal.ie said: "148,000 children as young as four continue to be indoctrinated with a homophobic, sexist, sectarian dogma for at least 10pc of each school day. Non Catholic children, forced to attend these schools through lack of choice, are separated and excluded from their classmates for 'religious' reasons. Despite criticism from the UN Human Rights Commission, the Irish Government continues to fund and endorse this child abuse. If you agree with the reasons behind this act, then like and share this video."

So far, it has been shared over 1,600 times. Hundreds more have expressed their opinion, for and against, on the site. But how many of these actually live there?

if they are Irish, all of them.

MICHAEL and Bernadette Foley can remember Sunday, May 29, 1977 clearly, as can most of their neighbours in Beaufort, Co Kerry.
Michael, a member of the local community council, had been roped in with about 100 other volunteers for a special mission.

Many of those who re-erected it have no particular religious conviction, if any.

The cross wasn't put up as a religious symbol really, I don't think so anyway," Bernadette Foley added

would that means it was put up by members of Beaufort Parish Community Council? but not in a religious way?

http://www.radiokerry.ie/news/iconic-cross-at-carrauntoohil-summit-is-mysteriously-cut-down/

It was made by Liebherr in Killarney and carried in sections by parishioners from Beaufort Community Council to the summit of the mountain 38 years ago.

What is a cross a symbol of if not religion? Is it a lower case t or something?

Cabaal wrote: »

So the big giant cross wasn't put in a mountain for religious reasons now?

What's next? They are going to start claiming that cribs at Christmas are just about tradition and the have no religious meaning?

I can just see you now-balaclava adorned, hammer in one hand and the AI manifesto in the other..

and an angel grinder in your boot.

Cabaal wrote: »

What's next? They are going to start claiming that cribs at Christmas are just about tradition and the have no religious meaning?

I find your lack of faith disturbing.....

SpaceTime wrote: »

I think the census should really be filled in by each individual in private.
There are too many distorting factors:
1. Mammy or Daddy fills it in and tells you what religion you are (you cheeky pup!)
2. Someone won't tell mammy or daddy that they're not Catholic/C of I etc
3. The enumerator is known to the household, especially in small towns but even in suburban areas. So they don't think 'no religion' or whatever as it might 'look weird'.
As this stage you should be able to just complete the census online.

Maybe the issue is there's too many people living with mammy and daddy?

lazygal wrote: »

Maybe the issue is if you're financially reliant on and linked to your parents as a student you might not have a choice? Or the myriad other reasons people as adults live with their parents?

So.... that would be the same issue then?

Censuses throughout the world are taken up on a household rather than individual basis, and this has generally been found to be satisfactory. There isn't any evidence that the religion (or any other) statistics are so corrupted by collecting the information on a household basis that the trouble and expense of moving to a new system would be justified.

In fact, I'm not aware of any evidence, beyond anecdotal evidence and individual claims, that the religion figures are incorrect. When people are asked for religious identification in face-to-face surveys, is there a marked discrepancy between the figures that result from that and the census figures? If so, it should be easy to establish the fact, If not, where's the problem?

I take the point that where one person in the household answers questions on behalf of others, there is a risk of inaccuracy creeping in. There's no reason to think that this inaccuracy will be systematically biassed so as to understate levels of atheism, though, unless we assume that atheists, as a class, are more likely to live at home with mammy and daddy than the rest of the population, and less likely to have the kind of relationship with their families in which they can choose their own religious identification and have it respected within the family. And, if there is such a phenomenon, you'd like to think it's a transitional one, associated with the adolescent embrace of atheism. By the time of the next census they will hopefully have established homes of their own, and can fill out their own census returns. If atheists as a class have an enduring tendency to live at home with a mammy and a daddy parents who cannot respect their choices then, frankly, they have problems that are bigger than their representation in the census figures.

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

The fact of the matter is that no matter the precaution, a survey like the census is not the correct way to be asking about issues as nuanced as religion. There are many other things that the census attempts to measure which don't fit either, like fluency in Irish.

Religion is like political views; to get a full and proper picture, one needs to be asked a large number of detailed questions, including scenarios built and possible solutions given along differing political lines, in a highly controlled environment before any questionner can be reliably certain as to a person's views in either area. For that reason polling companies, who are themselves far from being unflawed, are far more accurate in reading a nation's religious outlook (even though they only poll population samples), because they know what they need to ask and how to ask it.

True. It's one thing basing political decisions on census data for things that are objective, such as where new schools might be needed, but making plans based on census data for religion is crazy.

In any case, in a modern, western, nominally secular country your religion (or lack of it) should not affect the quality of your education or medical care. The census data on religion should have next to no bearing on public policy.

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

In my opinion, a properly functioning state wouldn't collect religious data as part of its periodic census. It is irrelevant to the proper running of any legitimate arm of any state, which should all be run on a secular basis.

I'd agree with that. It does seems that census designers are very conservative when changing census questions, to reduce the impact on like-with-like comparisons from one census to the next.

It would be interesting to know what the public reaction would be to the removal of the religion question completely - would most people even care?

And to go off topic completely: rather than have people tick a box that says they speak Irish, they should be required to fill out a Irish version of the census form.

shruikan2553 wrote: »

As this says, its a bit of a mess outside of the main few that are named. Some people say no religion, some say lapsed catholic, others like me would just put down no religion. It varies from person to person and some catholics would be the equivalent of lapsed catholic.

It isn't really much use outside of finding out what people consider themselves. You cant really pull anything about what they think from it. You need to go to the few surveys done on mass attendance, importance of religion, if they believe in god, etc to get information on what people actually believe.

But I don't think we're confined to one or the other, are we? Obviously we have the best overall picture if we have both the census figures for religious identification and more detailed qualitative research on the diversity of belief and/or practice encompassed within various religious identifications.

And this cuts both ways, incidentally. The "Atheist" and "no religion" categories can also contain a variety of beliefs and a variety of attitudes to religion. And with both these categories growing rapidly in Ireland (we know this because of the census, Brian, is that also "meaningless"?) we are probably in need of some qualitative research into what the unbelievers believe and/or practice.

The results might be surprising. I'm not aware of any research into this in Ireland (there's a project for you, Atheist Ireland!) but I have seen a survey in the US which looked at people who identified as either atheist or agnostic. 16% said that religion was either very important or somewhat important to them. (Comparable figure for those who identified as having no religion: 42%; for those with a religious affiliation; 91%). 7% of atheists/agnostics said they were religious; 34% were "spiritual but not religious"; only 57% were neither. Startlingly, 24% of atheists/agnostics were either absolutely certain or fairly certain of the existence of a god or universal spirit. Another 14% had some degree of openness to the possibility while only 54% excluded it entirely. 6% of atheists/agnostics reported that they prayed daily(!) and a further 11% at least monthly. 75% of atheists/agnostics believed that religion plays an important role in helping the poor, 73% that it is important in building community bonds and 35% thought that churches, etc, contribute a great deal, or some, to solving important social problems. 35% also agreed that churches, etc, protect and strengthen morality in society.

I am not suggesting, of course, that these results would be replicated in Ireland. But they do make the point that the realities of atheism as she is lived may not correspond to the stereotypes we carry around, and unless and until research of this kind is done in Ireland we know much less about the beliefs and attitudes of atheists, agnostics and no-religionists than we do about Catholics, etc.

SpaceTime wrote: »

There have been some studies done, notably by Gallop and Red C

http://redcresearch.ie/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/RED-C-press-release-Religion-and-Atheism-25-7-12.pdf

That's a very encouraging piece of research! I'm loving how the Irish are the only people who do not skip or refuse to answer this question: "Irrespective of whether you attend a place of worship or not, would you say you are a religious
person, not a religious persons or a convinced atheist?" To me, it shows a greater degree of thought on the subject.