When aren't you a Catholic?

osarusan · 06-04-2016 01:30PM

I don't like Q15 either - the follow-up options suggest that they seem to discount the idea of a native English/Irish speaker speaking another language at home (at least some of the time).

Also, a person who is not a native English speaker but who only speaks English at home would not be supposed to answer the follow-up question either.

Speedwell · 06-04-2016 01:40PM

Why don't I give it a stab?

1. Do you identify as a member of a religion? ( ) Yes ( ) No, go to Question 4

2. Of what religion do you consider yourself a member? ( ) Buddhism ( ) Christianity, Catholic or Orthodox rite __________ ( ) Christianity, Protestant denomination _________ ( ) Islam ( ) Jehovah's Witnesses ( ) Judaism ( ) Latter-Day Saints ( ) Other __________

3. Do you regularly attend mass, services, or meetings with other members of your religion? ( ) Yes ( ) No ( ) I am too isolated from other members of my religion

4. Do you go to a school, university, or other institution of learning? ( ) I do not attend ( ) I attend a secular school enter school name ________ ( ) I attend a religious school enter school name __________

...... continue with survey

06-04-2016 01:45PM

Not a bad effort.

You are correct the single biggest issue with the question as it stands is that is assumes membership of a religion, and the idea of not being a member of a religion is an afterthought.

nozzferrahhtoo · 06-04-2016 01:52PM

Deleted User wrote: »

To be fair, that is a decent answer.

Not really no. It really depends on the change in question I guess. But I do not think even then that a wish to be able to map trends trumps what should be the main agenda of obtaining accurate results in the first place. Otherwise what is even the point of mapping changes and trends in bad data?

In other words it SOUNDS like a lofty goal to map trends... but if you are mapping trends in bad data then the goal is pointless from the outset.

Deleted User wrote: »

Then I would publicise the results that would almost certainly reveal that the census numbers that get bandied about are hopelessly inaccurate

I am not sure but wasn't SOMETHING along those lines done? Maybe not as you put it.... to try and structure the survey similar to the census but correctly presented so as to have a better comparison point.... but I am pretty sure there was some kind of study done on religious attitudes in Ireland that strongly called into question how accurate the census figures were?

I will have to look it up, I will get back if I find it (assuming someone does not cite it before I do).

smash · 06-04-2016 01:52PM

Speedwell wrote: »

1. Do you identify as a member of a religion? ( ) Yes ( ) No, go to Question 4

There's still a huge issue with the likes of this question in that a lot of people do not ever practice a religion yet they do things like have a church funeral or church wedding. Religion to most people is like having a bonus club discount card. You might never shop in the store but when it suits you, you can.

Maximus Alexander · 06-04-2016 01:55PM

smash wrote: »

There's still a huge issue with the likes of this question in that a lot of people do not ever practice a religion yet they do things like have a church funeral or church wedding. Religion to most people is like having a bonus club discount card. You might never shop in the store but when it suits you, you can.

That's presumably why he included question 3...

Speedwell · 06-04-2016 01:55PM

smash wrote: »

There's still a huge issue with the likes of this question in that a lot of people do not ever practice a religion yet they do things like have a church funeral or church wedding. Religion to most people is like having a bonus club discount card. You might never shop in the store but when it suits you, you can.

I agree. The reason I phrased the question in the exact way I did is that politically speaking, how people identify themselves is more important than whether they agree with their ostensible co-religionists. If you identify as a Catholic, I think that there are good odds you are related to other Catholics, get your information from sources sponsored by or sympathetic to the Catholic Church, and are likely to agree with broad political goals and opinions officially expressed by the Church. The census instrument is too coarse-grained to delve further into ways individual Catholics (or members of other religions) differ from the "party line".

smash · 06-04-2016 02:04PM

But my point is that a lot of people wouldn't identify until they actually need to. Your questions mean that in order to proclaim that they don't practice, they must first identify. A more direct line would be:

Do you practice a religion? ( ) Yes ( ) No

What religion do you practice? bla bla bla

Next question.

Speedwell · 06-04-2016 02:07PM

smash wrote: »

But my point is that a lot of people wouldn't identify until they actually need to. Your questions mean that in order to proclaim that they don't practice, they must first identify. A more direct line would be:

Do you practice a religion? ( ) Yes ( ) No

What religion do you practice? bla bla bla

Next question.

I don't disagree in principle, but since there is no objective way to consider whether someone's practices are consistent with the religion (or lack thereof; I know atheists who are into New Agey stuff, lol) that they profess, and no good political use for a measure of piety, I couldn't see a good way to ask about it.

smash · 06-04-2016 02:16PM

Speedwell wrote: »

I don't disagree in principle, but since there is no objective way to consider whether someone's practices are consistent with the religion (or lack thereof; I know atheists who are into New Agey stuff, lol) that they profess, and no good political use for a measure of piety, I couldn't see a good way to ask about it.

The best way to ask is to be direct. Let people decide if they want to identify or not based on whether they practice. Most people click yes just because they were baptised and that's not how membership of any church should be measured. It's the same as a website claiming a billion members, even though 900,000 are inactive since their first sign up.

Speedwell · 06-04-2016 02:22PM

smash wrote: »

The best way to ask is to be direct. Let people decide if they want to identify or not based on whether they practice. Most people click yes just because they were baptised and that's not how membership of any church should be measured. It's the same as a website claiming a billion members, even though 900,000 are inactive since their first sign up.

Right, it's not unlike like all the crazy Americans who think they're "Irish" because they have a surname associated with Ireland, but who couldn't, even with a gun to their head, identify any relations that would entitle them to Irish citizenship. I at least qualify vaguely for Hungarian and Italian citizenships by those country's respective citizenship-by-descent laws, but I have nothing in particular to do with those countries otherwise except "stories my parents told me" and "recipes my parents handed down to me". I would hardly claim Hungarian or Italian as my nationality on the census form, though I could not speak for all of my fellow crazy Yanks. My brother's sons, whose mother is Mexican, differ on this too; one claims to be Hispanic on the American census and the other doesn't! (The usual alternative, "Spanish surname", is meaningless because my brother doesn't have one.)

flo8s967qjh0nd · 06-04-2016 02:37PM

Has anyone considered the alternative here? That the question as it stands (imperfect as it is) is actually a reasonably good way of getting at these data and that there are (give or take) 80% of people in the country who consider themselves Catholic. They may not match the high standards for Catholicism set by some atheists but they are happy to describe themselves on an important civic document as a Catholic.

Maximus Alexander · 06-04-2016 02:39PM

Alia Yummy Bee wrote: »

Has anyone considered the alternative here? That the question as it stands (imperfect as it may be) is actually a reasonably good way of getting at these data and that there are (give or take) 80% of people in the country who consider themselves Catholic. They may not match the high standards for Catholicism set by some atheists but they are happy to describe themselves on an important civic document as a Catholic.

That's not the alternative, that's the default assumption that the current discussion is an alternative to. So yes, everyone has considered it and some have dismissed it.

Speedwell · 06-04-2016 02:41PM

I think the issue is that there are lots of people who claim to be and indeed believe themselves to be one religion or another, but when the government enacts public policy and institutes public services based on the given data, the reality, what people actually care about, suddenly seems to be much different. Why is that so, and what would be a better way of gauging the public opinion so that public money and policy is used more efficiently?

flo8s967qjh0nd · 06-04-2016 02:53PM

Maximus Alexander wrote: »

That's not the alternative, that's the default assumption that the current discussion is an alternative to. So yes, everyone has considered it and some have dismissed it.

Dismissed yes, but not based on any evidence that I can see apart from a wish amongst atheists that more people would realise the error of their ways, admit their foolish and half-hearted adherence to Catholicism and convert to atheism. Sounds awfully familiar

It's unfortunate that the CSO was not provided with the funding to carry out research on proposed changes to the Census this time round. We might have been able to move on from this debate.

Speedwell · 06-04-2016 02:54PM

Alia Yummy Bee wrote: »

but not based on any evidence that I can see apart from a wish amongst atheists that more people would realise the error of their ways, admit their foolish and half-hearted adherence to Catholicism and convert to atheism.

Respectfully suggest you read the post above yours.

flo8s967qjh0nd · 06-04-2016 02:56PM

Thanks. I did.

Sonics2k · 06-04-2016 03:02PM

Alia Yummy Bee wrote: »

Dismissed yes, but not based on any evidence that I can see apart from a wish amongst atheists that more people would realise the error of their ways, admit their foolish and half-hearted adherence to Catholicism and convert to atheism. Sounds awfully familiar

I'm pretty sure no-one has been going on about moving from Catholicism to being an Atheist, I sure know I haven't.

Simply pointing out that a rather large amount of Catholics not believing the essential teachings of the religion means you're not an actual Catholic, rather you're a standard Christian or possibly a Protestant.

As far as I can tell, what we're seeing now is some Catholics coming in here getting all offended that Atheists and Agnostics seem to have a better understanding of the theology of the Roman Catholic church and that many many Catholics here simply think they are doing it right because they were raised a certain way.

The Randy Riverbeast · 06-04-2016 03:03PM

Alia Yummy Bee wrote: »

Dismissed yes, but not based on any evidence that I can see apart from a wish amongst atheists that more people would realise the error of their ways, admit their foolish and half-hearted adherence to Catholicism and convert to atheism. Sounds awfully familiar

It's unfortunate that the CSO was not provided with the funding to carry out research on proposed changes to the Census this time round. We might have been able to move on from this debate.

I don't recall seeing anyone say people should "convert" to atheism.

Then there is the lazy assumption that it's the atheists up to no good as usual. It is possible for a person to not be religious while also not being an atheist.

Speedwell · 06-04-2016 03:17PM

The Randy Riverbeast wrote: »

I don't recall seeing anyone say people should "convert" to atheism.

Then there is the lazy assumption that it's the atheists up to no good as usual. It is possible for a person to not be religious while also not being an atheist.

Apatheists. "I don't care about religion or whether there is a God..."

Militant apatheists. "...and neither should you."

Maximus Alexander · 06-04-2016 03:19PM

Alia Yummy Bee wrote: »

Dismissed yes, but not based on any evidence that I can see apart from a wish amongst atheists that more people would realise the error of their ways, admit their foolish and half-hearted adherence to Catholicism and convert to atheism. Sounds awfully familiar

It's unfortunate that the CSO was not provided with the funding to carry out research on proposed changes to the Census this time round. We might have been able to move on from this debate.

With respect, I don't think these kinds of straw men add anything to the discussion.

The discussion is about how census figures can influence public policy; how people can consider themselves affiliated with a particular religion without adhering to many of the teachings or opinions its church espouses; and how the census might be better structured to reveal this disparity, providing a better indication of the kind of society the population aspire to.

It's got nothing to do with trying to turn Catholics into atheists.

flo8s967qjh0nd · 06-04-2016 03:25PM

Sonics2k wrote: »

As far as I can tell, what we're seeing now is some Catholics coming in here getting all offended that Atheists and Agnostics seem to have a better understanding of the theology of the Roman Catholic church and that many many Catholics here simply think they are doing it right because they were raised a certain way.

This is the old argument that most Catholics are Catholics merely because they are ill-informed, ignorant and have yet to be enlightened by the cold hard facts of atheism. Of course, you're entitled to that view but I'd have to disagree with you.

Speedwell · 06-04-2016 03:29PM

Alia Yummy Bee wrote: »

This is the old argument that most Catholics are Catholics merely because they are ill-informed, ignorant and have yet to be enlightened by the cold hard facts of atheism. Of course, you're entitled to that view but I'd have to disagree with you.

No, strictly speaking this is the old argument that many Christians are still Christians because they have yet to be enlightened by the cold hard facts of Christianity.

Atheists don't have much to say about whether someone is a Catholic or a Christian, because we're not the ones who write the charter. We just insist that if a person's religion is largely or wholly meaningless to them, they should have the guts to be honest about it.

The Randy Riverbeast · 06-04-2016 03:33PM

Alia Yummy Bee wrote: »

This is the old argument that most Catholics are Catholics merely because they are ill-informed, ignorant and have yet to be enlightened by the cold hard facts of atheism. Of course, you're entitled to that view but I'd have to disagree with you.

Isn't that what most theists think as well? Except being enlightened by the cold hard fact that God is real. Only their God though, the rest are ill informed, ignorant and have yet to be enlightened by their God. You seem to just have a problem with atheists in general and looking for reasons to complain about them.

Jayop · 06-04-2016 03:37PM

Skatedude wrote: »

In most religions , yes , but the catholic church dont really believe you can leave, regardless of your changed beliefs, once baptized, it's for life.
google it.

Yeah I get what you're saying in that as far as the church is concerned you're still a catholic. My question is, why would you care if you don't go and don't have anything to do with them?

flo8s967qjh0nd · 06-04-2016 03:37PM

Speedwell wrote: »

No, strictly speaking this is the old argument that many Christians are still Christians because they have yet to be enlightened by the cold hard facts of Christianity. Atheists don't have much to say about whether someone is a Catholic or a Christian, because we're not the ones who write the charter. We just insist that if a person's religion is largely or wholly meaningless to them, they should have the guts to be honest about it.

I get what you're saying but the crux of my argument is that who are atheists (or I, or anyone else for that matter) to insist on what constitutes meaningfullness in peoples lives? I don't disagree with the notion of honesty, obviously. Of course, if you are not, never intended to be or no longer wish to be a Catholic (or Protestant or Jew, etc.) then you should tick whatever box represents your views.
In the vast majority of cases, people are ticking the box honestly. This notion that some people are mistaken, too-frightened (of what?) or tricked into doing so by the CSO is just not supported by logic or proof.

flo8s967qjh0nd · 06-04-2016 03:38PM

The Randy Riverbeast wrote: »

Isn't that what most theists think as well? Except being enlightened by the cold hard fact that God is real. Only their God though, the rest are ill informed, ignorant and have yet to be enlightened by their God. You seem to just have a problem with atheists in general and looking for reasons to complain about them.

I really don't.

beach_walker · 06-04-2016 03:52PM

Sonics2k wrote: »

As far as I can tell, what we're seeing now is some Catholics coming in here getting all offended that Atheists and Agnostics seem to have a better understanding of the theology of the Roman Catholic church and that many many Catholics here simply think they are doing it right because they were raised a certain way.

Wait a minute. So atheists are mad that you the Catholic church has a teaching that says once baptised, then you are always a Catholic (as evidenced by page after page here)... and ye're also mad that lapsed/non-regular/non-practicing Catholics are actually following that central one when actually asked about it?! Tell me again about your superior theology skillz. :pac:

Maximus Alexander · 06-04-2016 03:57PM

Alia Yummy Bee wrote: »

This notion that some people are mistaken, too-frightened (of what?) or tricked into doing so by the CSO is just not supported by logic or proof.

Nobody / very few people are advancing this position though. It's not about people being wrong or afraid, it's about using the census to more effectively gauge the attitudes of the population.

There are plenty of people, for example, who are cultural Catholics. They may consider themselves Catholic and whether they're right or wrong or whatever is not important. They will tick Catholic on the census, and there's no reason why they wouldn't.

But then you consider social issues like divorce or same-sex marriage. In an 80%+ Catholic state, you wouldn't expect either of those things to be available. But they are, because the population had to be polled directly in order to make constitutional changes. This clearly reveals a disparity between the religion of the people and the type of public policy to the people would like to pursue.

When it comes to legislative changes, where the public don't need to be polled by referendum, if those decisions are driven in part by the census they will be at odds with what the population actually want. The question is simply: could the census be better structured to reveal these disparities? It's not an insult to, or judgement of anyone and you needn't take it as such.

Sonics2k · 06-04-2016 04:08PM

beach_walker wrote: »

Wait a minute. So atheists are mad that you the Catholic church has a teaching that says once baptised, then you are always a Catholic (as evidenced by page after page here)... and ye're also mad that lapsed/non-regular/non-practicing Catholics are actually following that central one when actually asked about it?! Tell me again about your superior theology skillz. :pac:

Firstly, yes the Vatican does have a rather new rule that once you're baptized, you can no longer formally leave the Catholic Church. Up until something like 2010 it was completely possible to leave the CC completely, they removed this rule when large portions of people in Europe and North America started to do so.
They then made it so once you're in, you're in. Tough luck if you happen to convert to Buddhism, the RCC will still completely count you as a Catholic.

Secondly, I'm not mad about people thinking they're Catholic when they ignore the exact things that are essential the religion.
If anything I'm bemused by their complete lack of knowledge and willful ignorance on the matter and brain-deadness to simply accept something as true rather than actually checking for themselves.

It's really very simple. No belief in transubstantiation means you don't accept the Eucharist and therefore choose to go against one of the most important aspects of being a Catholic.

Once again, don't get me wrong. By all means believe whatever you want, but it is the height of sheer ignorance to claim you believe and support one religion when you clearly do not.

I'm baffled by the people who are upset by the revelation they're not actual Catholics, it's almost as if they never actually took the time to read up on it. At all. Ever.

When aren't you a Catholic?

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