Religion and Ethics Forum
Religion and Ethics Discussion => Christian Topic => Topic started by: Walt Zingmatilder on February 17, 2023, 03:42:32 PM
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Not always a big Giles Fraser fan but I found this quite refreshing after the secular humanist triumphalism regarding the current position of the church.
https://unherd.com/2022/12/secularisation-is-leading-britain-astray/
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Not always a big Giles Fraser fan but I found this quite refreshing after the secular humanist triumphalism regarding the current position of the church.
https://unherd.com/2022/12/secularisation-is-leading-britain-astray/
In a way I think that Giles Fraser is the epitome of the issue that the CofE (and actually other christian denominations in the UK) seem to be failing to get.
I've always found him rather compelling in the manner in which he gets his message across, articulate on paper and when he speaks. But, and here is the big but, in many respects I just don't agree with him however well he might come across in speaking or in writing.
The CofE and other churches seemed to be fixated with trying to be Giles Fraser - and by that I mean that they consider that the reason that they are being increasingly ignored by the population is all about how they get there message across. If as an organisation they were as good as Fraser at getting their message across them all would be well. So they create yet another initiative aimed at using a new way to get the message across, or to target people they consider that haven't heard that message. If only they could find the right way to get the message across then everyone would be flocking back to their doors.
But all the time they fail to recognise the elephant in the room - the issue isn't the way you get the message across, it is the message itself. People simply do not believe it and it doesn't matter how may times and in how many different ways you tell the same message, those people still won't believe it, because they find the message fundamentally unbelievable.
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In a way I think that Giles Fraser is the epitome of the issue that the CofE (and actually other christian denominations in the UK) seem to be failing to get.
I've always found him rather compelling in the manner in which he gets his message across, articulate on paper and when he speaks. But, and here is the big but, in many respects I just don't agree with him however well he might come across in speaking or in writing.
The CofE and other churches seemed to be fixated with trying to be Giles Fraser - and by that I mean that they consider that the reason that they are being increasingly ignored by the population is all about how they get there message across. If as an organisation they were as good as Fraser at getting their message across them all would be well. So they create yet another initiative aimed at using a new way to get the message across, or to target people they consider that haven't heard that message. If only they could find the right way to get the message across then everyone would be flocking back to their doors.
But all the time they fail to recognise the elephant in the room - the issue isn't the way you get the message across, it is the message itself. People simply do not believe it and it doesn't matter how may times and in how many different ways you tell the same message, those people still won't believe it, because they find the message fundamentally unbelievable.
I don't think Fraser thinks of religion as a theory to be scientifically or forensically or even intellectually to be grasped or rejected in favour of a humanism based somehow on science but a something acquired within an active community. In other words I don't think you get Fraser but then He has the ability to shock and surprise. The upshot is I think he invites us to compare the secular humanist view of the church decline with a model where the decline is due to the space secularism seems to leave people and communities namely as the space declines so do communities of all sorts. In other words post consumerism we can look forward to the revival of all kinds of communities.
The bad news would then be for Humanist UK, doomed to appeal largely only to well heeled intellectual types and only actually bothering those of a theological and philosophical bent.
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I don't think Fraser thinks of religion as a theory to be scientifically or forensically or even intellectually to be grasped or rejected in favour of a humanism based somehow on science but a something acquired within an active community.
In other words I don't think you get Fraser but then He has the ability to shock and surprise.
But you are slipping into the same error - if only we 'got' Fraser then we'd agree with him. Nope, I get Fraser, he is actually typically rather articulate and clear in his arguments - the issue is that I often don't agree with him.
But he is all over the place in this article - on the one hand he wants 'fire' from the pulpit, yet he also wants people to feel at home and welcome whoever they are. Well you can't have both - if you breath fire from the pulpit don't be surprised if some people will be offended, affronted, feel deeply unwelcome and even threatened.
The upshot is I think he invites us to compare the secular humanist view of the church decline with a model where the decline is due to the space secularism seems to leave people and communities namely as the space declines so do communities of all sorts. In other words post consumerism we can look forward to the revival of all kinds of communities.
But once again I disagree - our communities are doing fine thanks very much, not because of religion (which massively over-eggs the pudding in terms of its role in modern societies) but in spite of it. We have just been through probably the greatest challenge for society and communities certainly in my lifetime, namely COVID. And guess what society bottom-up responded brilliantly, creating all sorts of support and social structures to ensure that people were OK and all the while the doors of the churches were locked shut. We didn't need organised religion with all its convening and resource advantage. People, rank and file ordinary people, people of all faiths and of none simply stepped up to the plate.
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Vlad,
You might want to sign this and share.
https://chng.it/7PQBz985DF
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But you are slipping into the same error - if only we 'got' Fraser then we'd agree with him.
Nope, I get Fraser, he is actually typically rather articulate and clear in his arguments - the issue is that I often don't agree with him.
But he is all over the place in this article - on the one hand he wants 'fire' from the pulpit, yet he also wants people to feel at home and welcome whoever they are. Well you can't have both - if you breath fire from the pulpit don't be surprised if some people will be offended, affronted, feel deeply unwelcome and even threatened.
But once again I disagree - our communities are doing fine thanks very much, not because of religion (which massively over-eggs the pudding in terms of its role in modern societies) but in spite of it. We have just been through probably the greatest challenge for society and communities certainly in my lifetime, namely COVID. And guess what society bottom-up responded brilliantly, creating all sorts of support and social structures to ensure that people were OK and all the while the doors of the churches were locked shut. We didn't need organised religion with all its convening and resource advantage. People, rank and file ordinary people, people of all faiths and of none simply stepped up to the plate.
[/quote] I'm not sure Covid was Britain's finest hour as you suggest given the response,the number of deaths, and that people just wanted to forget it as demonstrated in the displays of forgiveness for our Covid Leader and culture of Covid denial. I think you are demonstrating what Fraser said about secularists and their faith in it's inevitable triumph. There are obviously two teams of secular humanists working on the church response to Covid. Team A berating Churches in the States for opening. You are in Team B berating the church for not exposing their parishioners to Covid. A strange and frightening attitude from a medical ethicist.
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I'm not sure Covid was Britain's finest hour as you suggest given the response,the number of deaths, and that people just wanted to forget it as demonstrated in the displays of forgiveness for our Covid Leader and culture of Covid denial. I think you are demonstrating what Fraser said about secularists and their faith in it's inevitable triumph. There are obviously two teams of secular humanists working on the church response to Covid. Team A berating Churches in the States for opening. You are in Team B berating the church for not exposing their parishioners to Covid. A strange and frightening attitude from a medical ethicist.
I am talking about the grass roots community response, which is of course distinct to the 'official' response.
Local communities up and down the country simply got themselves organised, got stuck in and helped out. And this seems to have happened up and down the country on the basis of very similar experiences for people I know living in all sorts of parts of the UK.
Social media helped hugely - street whatsapp groups simply sprung up allowing communities to communicate needs and offers of help easily and those not on social media were typically a door or two away from those that were. In my area it worked remarkably - those who could get to the shops buying for those that couldn't because of vulnerabilities or simply self isolating. Plus all sorts of other community related support and engagement sprung up.
The point is that when the need arose, the community stepped in - not through some kind of organised activity via religions or charities, but just through ordinary people seeing that others were in need of help and offering it.
And without doubt, as horrible as covid was, one of the silver linings is that there is a far greater level of community cohesion, engagement and support - even if our street whatapp group is now largely about people offloading stuff they no longer want to others who might be able to use it (not that that is a bad thing)!
And I'm not really berating churches - I get why they had to close their doors as many other organisations also did. And I also get that as organisations their members were far less likely to be able to help as they are typically older and in more vulnerable groups. But the simple truth remains that when then need came it wasn't organised religions that stepped up to the plate, it was ordinary people self-organising within their communities.
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As ever, Fraser is adding new strings to his bow of misunderstanding, this time demonstrating that he fails to understand statistics or sociology.
Numerically speaking, the 20th century was the Church’s best since its creation.
In raw numbers the Christian church added more heads in the 20th century, yes, and reached its largest total headcount, but its share of the world population shrank as it grew slower than the world did, and that shrink-rate is increasing. On the sociology side he fails to appreciate that the trend is most exacerbated in places with increased access to formal education, and that is a situation that is improving across the world. Far from being an 'outlier', the UK is following a well-established trend of the rest of Europe, and which there is every reason to think that other areas of the world will follow - the UK is actually in the middle of this pack.
The central image of the Christian faith is of a man being strung up on a cross, mocked for his claims to royal authority.
I guess this genuinely is Fraser's 'central image' of the Christian faith, but I suspect that image isn't widely shared, certainly not outside of the Church. Christianity to me is gold-digging evangelists and hate-spewing misogynists and homophobes; I appreciate that they are a tiny minority of the Church in the UK (although, given Fraser's wider view, not nearly as much of a minority in the broader Christian faith), but the remainder of the believers are exactly as irrelevant as they should be - their faith is their's, shared with those with an interest, and otherwise not really a public matter.
People don’t want weak jokes from the pulpit — they want fire.
The Church might want the sort of dedicated parishioners that respond to 'fire' but the broader public - both within and outside the CofE, I suspect - don't want fire, we don't want an activist church, and we certainly don't want the sort of fierce advocacy for recidivist ideas that are so commonly associate with the more vocal elements of Christianity. In fact it's exactly those sorts of associations that are leading people who might once have accepted a denomination of 'culturally Christian' to more explicitly self-identify as not wanting anything to do with those formal arrangements.
We should be doing the very opposite of proclaiming our faith through the lens of popular culture. A minority church has the freedom to be defiantly culturally different, more learned even.
And here Fraser's falling foul to the idea of letting an 'enemy' dictate his strategy. If the Church is to be strong to its beliefs then it shouldn't be reactionary by design, but rather by accident. I accept his point that it can choose not to seek relevance - although, for the goal he ascribes to the Church leadership of wanting to get more people in the door that's a valid tactic - but by seeking to be counter to the zeitgeist he fails to appreciate that the point should be for the Church to be right. If that's in line with the broader populace fine, if it's not then buckle down, but it does suggest the wants to be seen as opposing modernity as a point of principal rather than on an as-needed basis.
Finally, we must fight to reclaim that particular strand of English Christianity — associated especially with the Church of England — that regards belonging as preceding believing.
And then he goes and undermines exactly what he said previously - this is the call to relevance, the evangelism by accretion, the accidental slipping in of religion to cultural or social activity. It's a valid tactic, but one he explicitly called out at the start.
Going to church is a little like going to the pub. People speak of “my pub” or “my local” in the way they used to talk about “my church” — or at least they used to.
I'm sure there are some people who used to talk about going to church like other people talked about going to the pub, but I suspect they were different people. And certainly pubs have changed their image, because they understand that the pub-vibe of, say, the 1950s isn't going to work in the modern era; if the Church can't change in a similar way then he should probably accept that it's an idea that's had its day.
Unfortunately, as Christianity in this country has become a more urban phenomenon, people have stopped thinking of churchgoing as a local activity. Rather than a place where you sit among your local community, with the dead of that community buried all around, church is now seen as something you choose to do with like-minded people, even if they gather on the other side of town.
And we're back to sociology - the world is no longer divided into communities based solely upon their geography. Improvements in communication mean that people can choose their own communities from across the world, and so aren't restricted to their local church, or the majority religion of their country, or to religion at all in many instances. Religion is an idea, and communities of ideas don't need to meet in person, don't need dedicated buildings, communities of idea are on-line these days. You can't drink beer over the internet, hence pubs. You can't play sport over the internet, hence sports clubs. You can listen to someone preach, you can share ideas of gods, and so people have the freedom to find their exact match rather than having to accept the nearest close alternative. Like bookshops and libraries, like cinemas and theatres, the church needs to adapt to the world or face oblivion.
Ironically, I think the secular imagination has far more challenges in store. For once it has finished piggybacking on the inherited deposit of faith, it will have to work out what it believes and why. Not believing in anything, which is the fastest growing position, has nothing to offer as a foundation for many of our moral concerns.
A nice little matroyshka doll of straw-men slipped in there - because 'Secularists' don't believe in (the Anglican depiction of the Christian God) therefore they don't believe in anything. Secularists are not restricted to non-believers, a huge number of secularists are believers of one stripe or another, but even within the 'non-believing' secularists, not believing in God doesn't leave nothing. We have various precepts that we hold to be valuable, which have been encoded in various places, not least of which is the concept of human rights - which explicitly are held to be what we commit to regardless of belief.
As Tom Holland has observed, human rights, for instance, borrow substantially from a Christian worldview.[/quoe]
Human rights no more 'borrows' from Christianity than it does from Islam or Hinduism or any other faith position - they all tend towards a subset of standards and behaviours which make for viable, pleasant societies. That various religious positions tend towards a broadly similar set of cultural norms as non-religious views and each other suggests that there is an underlying best practice which is about what it is to be human... let's call that something like 'humanism.?
Without a meaningful moral story to underpin it, might will be right and power supreme.
From the Crusades through the Taliban and Modi's Hindu-centric assault on Indian secularism, Israel's subservience to their hard-line religious minorities and on to current American Christian Nationalism and Putin's engagement with the Russian Orthodox establishment to back up his oligarchy, religion doesn't appear to be any sort of reliable protection against a 'might makes right' political stance.
O.
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As ever, Fraser is adding new strings to his bow of misunderstanding, this time demonstrating that he fails to understand statistics or sociology.
In raw numbers the Christian church added more heads in the 20th century, yes, and reached its largest total headcount, but its share of the world population shrank as it grew slower than the world did, and that shrink-rate is increasing. On the sociology side he fails to appreciate that the trend is most exacerbated in places with increased access to formal education, and that is a situation that is improving across the world. Far from being an 'outlier', the UK is following a well-established trend of the rest of Europe, and which there is every reason to think that other areas of the world will follow - the UK is actually in the middle of this pack.
It does look though that whiteness will be the mark of an increasing apatheism, Atheism, as statistics show, slated also to shrink. Every reason to think religion will shrink? One might suffice at this moment? This is the point. Why are humanists so triumphalistic over a parochial decline?
I guess this genuinely is Fraser's 'central image' of the Christian faith, but I suspect that image isn't widely shared, certainly not outside of the Church.
But that should only matter to people who take a ''Ve are ze masters now attitude'' over the statistics. Christianity to me is gold-digging evangelists and hate-spewing misogynists and homophobes
Bigotted statement in itself but let's examine it. Study of the atheist movements reveals them to be very celebrity oriented and take their views and beliefs from celebrities. Since in humanism the more celebrated you are the more influential you are then this must be true of other groups; I appreciate that they are a tiny minority of the Church in the UK (although, given Fraser's wider view, not nearly as much of a minority in the broader Christian faith), but the remainder of the believers are exactly as irrelevant as they should be - their faith is their's, shared with those with an interest, and otherwise not really a public matter.
And there you have it, Humanist disdain for the rank and file ''irrelevant''.
The Church might want the sort of dedicated parishioners that respond to 'fire' but the broader public - both within and outside the CofE, I suspect - don't want fire, we don't want an activist church, and we certainly don't want the sort of fierce advocacy for recidivist ideas that are so commonly associate with the more vocal elements of Christianity. In fact it's exactly those sorts of associations that are leading people who might once have accepted a denomination of 'culturally Christian' to more explicitly self-identify as not wanting anything to do with those formal arrangements.
But then what if we look at UK society as the anomaly instead of as the vanguard of the new and wonderful avowedly atheist world that you seem to be looking forward to. We have people who will believe they have less and less time for the ''higher'' considerations because financially and socially they will have to work harder and harder just to keep still. That's not to say that Christianity is the religion of the poor but the impoverished realise they have been impoverished in religion. I agree though that UK people are not going to want the prosperity gospel, which is only an extension of the financial motivation and expectation industry but the Gospel of community, fraternity, sorority and relationship with God............ or a kind of humanist life which is increasingly only enjoyed by celebrity.
And here Fraser's falling foul to the idea of letting an 'enemy' dictate his strategy. If the Church is to be strong to its beliefs then it shouldn't be reactionary by design, but rather by accident. I accept his point that it can choose not to seek relevance - although, for the goal he ascribes to the Church leadership of wanting to get more people in the door that's a valid tactic - but by seeking to be counter to the zeitgeist he fails to appreciate that the point should be for the Church to be right. If that's in line with the broader populace fine, if it's not then buckle down, but it does suggest the wants to be seen as opposing modernity as a point of principal rather than on an as-needed basis.
The strongest part of Frasers argument is not to just be another providing agency or a kind of Christian+ answer to Atheist+. The church has news for mankind but the community that arises out of the response from it has a historically attractive aspect to it and has shown that it can be more levelling up than secular agencies have managed, because, dare we say it, they don't intrinsically have the means or motivation.
And then he goes and undermines exactly what he said previously - this is the call to relevance, the evangelism by accretion, the accidental slipping in of religion to cultural or social activity. It's a valid tactic, but one he explicitly called out at the start.
You are artificially separating religion out from culture and social activity here. Where is there a society or culture that has not been based on thousands or hundreds of years of religion? Where has there been a secular society that has worked(including the exclusion of religion)after excising reference to religion?
I'm sure there are some people who used to talk about going to church like other people talked about going to the pub, but I suspect they were different people. And certainly pubs have changed their image, because they understand that the pub-vibe of, say, the 1950s isn't going to work in the modern era; if the Church can't change in a similar way then he should probably accept that it's an idea that's had its day.
But the point is surely that pub going is declining like church is declining and in fact socialising is probably going the same way. Is that a good thing because it's the modern way I don't know? It looks like a symptom of something not altogether pleasant to me. This section of your argument shows argument from modernity.
And we're back to sociology - the world is no longer divided into communities based solely upon their geography. Improvements in communication mean that people can choose their own communities from across the world, and so aren't restricted to their local church, or the majority religion of their country, or to religion at all in many instances. Religion is an idea, and communities of ideas don't need to meet in person, don't need dedicated buildings, communities of idea are on-line these days. You can't drink beer over the internet, hence pubs. You can't play sport over the internet, hence sports clubs. You can listen to someone preach, you can share ideas of gods, and so people have the freedom to find their exact match rather than having to accept the nearest close alternative. Like bookshops and libraries, like cinemas and theatres, the church needs to adapt to the world or face oblivion.
But that is bad news for atheism isn't it. The idea that the church could have just moved on line, that the word religion largely means face to face, being together worship. Of course the downside of the growth of communities of interest is well known. What does the ability to switch people off at the flick of a switch do for the soul? And we are talking now about souls for whom time is increasingly at a premium.A nice little matroyshka doll of straw-men slipped in there - because 'Secularists' don't believe in (the Anglican depiction of the Christian God) therefore they don't believe in anything. Secularists are not restricted to non-believers, a huge number of secularists are believers of one stripe or another, but even within the 'non-believing' secularists, not believing in God doesn't leave nothing. We have various precepts that we hold to be valuable, which have been encoded in various places, not least of which is the concept of human rights - which explicitly are held to be what we commit to regardless of belief.
No, People talk and type about human rights. Secular Humanists might largely get involved in human rights where they think they can land one on the church or where they can out do the church.
From the Crusades through the Taliban and Modi's Hindu-centric assault on Indian secularism, Israel's subservience to their hard-line religious minorities and on to current American Christian Nationalism and Putin's engagement with the Russian Orthodox establishment to back up his oligarchy, religion doesn't appear to be any sort of reliable protection against a 'might makes right' political stance.
But are these religious problems or nationalistic problems? I think the latter But what Fraser is trying to show is that there is a functioning rank and file Christianity, truer than the caricature one fashioned by secular humanists, based in congregations and churches in which people will find community, daily spiritual and intellectual bread and God. Rather than having celebrities massaging their idealised selves(namely a good stylish urbane bloke) while saying ''you (are on your way to becoming) da man!''
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Secular Humanists might largely get involved in human rights where they think they can land one on the church or where they can out do the church.
Bollocks.
People get involved in human rights because they generally want to make things better for themselves or others. Any imagined "out doing" is in your head.
You yourself, however, are outdoing the paranoia that you usually display by taking it to whole other level. Well done.
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Bollocks.
People get involved in human rights because they generally want to make things better for themselves or others. Any imagined "out doing" is in your head.
You yourself, however, are outdoing the paranoia that you usually display by taking it to whole other level. Well done.
Er, I think you should revisit the list of Humanist UK campaigns and National Secular Society campaigns to check if they are church focussed or not.
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It does look though that whiteness will be the mark of an increasing apatheism, Atheism, as statistics show, slated also to shrink.
I've not seen anything suggesting that the spread of atheism is slated to shrink, but it's entirely plausible as it rubs up against the hold-outs of developing nations. As to 'whiteness', it's also 'education' and 'wealth' and 'welfare state provision', so difficult to suggest that one is necessarily causative - it's certainly likely to be a rallying call in some places against the progress of secularism.
Every reason to think religion will shrink? One might suffice at this moment?
Not only is atheism and irreligiosity growing, but it's spreading, and the indicators that it strongly correlates with like wealth, education and strong human rights records are also gradually spreading too.
This is the point. Why are humanists so triumphalistic over a parochial decline?
Where's the triumphalism in identifying reports in the media and discussing them?
But that should only matter to people who take a ''Ve are ze masters now attitude'' over the statistics.
As opposed to the people who took a 've are ze masters now attitude' to pretty much the entirety of the Holy Land, South America, south-east Asia, sub-Saharan Africa... Nobody claims mastery over the statistics, they identify trends in the statistics and try to show that their interpretation is valid.
Bigotted statement in itself but let's examine it.
No, it's not bigotted, it's an indication of which parts of the movement I consider to be important because they pose a threat to communities. The remainder of Christendom is, largely, irrelevant.
Study of the atheist movements reveals them to be very celebrity oriented and take their views and beliefs from celebrities.
What beliefs? The entire 'movement' is predicated on failing to adhere to one belief, beyond that there are a myriad viewpoints within atheism - there are conservative atheists, liberal atheists, anarchist atheists, white-supremacist atheists... it's the broadest of broad churches, given that the only requirement for membership is that you don't actually church.
Since in humanism the more celebrated you are the more influential you are then this must be true of other groups.
1 - Humanism has a reasonably cross-over with atheism, but the two are not synonymous; there are any number of religious humanists and non-humanist atheists.
2 - If it's true of humanism (which you've asserted, but not justified) that's absolutely no guarantee that it's the case for other groups.
And there you have it, Humanist disdain for the rank and file ''irrelevant''.
For them as people, no. For their religious output, yes, because it has precisely no direct effect on my life or the life of anyone that I know. The institutional influence of the Church isn't directly tied to those 'rank and file' believers, and that's the bit in the UK that's currently problematic.
But then what if we look at UK society as the anomaly instead of as the vanguard of the new and wonderful avowedly atheist world that you seem to be looking forward to.
Actually we're somewhat in the middle of the pack, with the Nordic countries out in front, pockets of 'The West' around the same place we are, the developing world slowly catching up and the US as a bat-shit crazy outlier.
We have people who will believe they have less and less time for the ''higher'' considerations because financially and socially they will have to work harder and harder just to keep still.
And yet so much of Christianity's past and present is wrapped up in convincing the impoverished to accept their lot in life, that their rewards will come in the next life rather than this. At the risk of falling prey to 'celebrity Christians', you only need to look as far as the despicable veneration of Theresa of Calcutta to see how that works in action.
As to the idea that people don't have time to consider their spiritual lives because they don't have the time due to work pressures I'll raise you 'the Industrial Revolution' and 'current US life with the working classes needing multiple jobs to stay afloat' to see how religion does in those environs.
That's not to say that Christianity is the religion of the poor but the impoverished realise they have been impoverished in religion.
And the right-wing governments in, say, the UK, the US, Hungary, Poland... they are railing against Christendom, right?
I agree though that UK people are not going to want the prosperity gospel, which is only an extension of the financial motivation and expectation industry but the Gospel of community, fraternity, sorority and relationship with God............ or a kind of humanist life which is increasingly only enjoyed by celebrity.
I'm not sure I understand what you're saying here, exactly. Prosperity gospel is just... mental is the only word I can come up. But the 'hard-line' Christian approach of homosexuality as something to be shunned and shamed, institutional misogyny, these aren't far from the forefront in much of the Christianity outside of Western nations which have been blunted by a secular approach to human rights.
The strongest part of Frasers argument is not to just be another providing agency or a kind of Christian+ answer to Atheist+. The church has news for mankind but the community that arises out of the response from it has a historically attractive aspect to it and has shown that it can be more levelling up than secular agencies have managed, because, dare we say it, they don't intrinsically have the means or motivation.
Christianity has a history of pointing to individual Christians' work and claiming to be a force for progress, whilst white-washing the institutional resistance it has consistently show to any sort of advancement in social equality. As to the idea that the Church in the UK, or around the world, lacks the means for anything... really?
That is the strongest part of Fraser's argument, I agree, the idea that the Church should stick to its 'principles' and see who that brings in, and make a tight-knit community out of them. It's just a practical problem that those tight-knit insular communities tend (from where I stand, at least) to look like the most regressive examples of Christianity, and then he goes and completely undermines that in the last paragraph by arguing for exactly the opposite.
You are artificially separating religion out from culture and social activity here.
No, we're talking about religion, I'm trying to isolate those aspects which are entirely or primarily the result of the expression of religion within culture.
Where is there a society or culture that has not been based on thousands or hundreds of years of religion?
Probably nowhere. Where are the societies that are performing measurably better on happiness, health, life-expectancy and education that are still revelling in religion?
Where has there been a secular society that has worked(including the exclusion of religion)after excising reference to religion?
The point is not to excise religion, it's to give religion its own space, but that space not to be in other people's faces. Where has that been successful - look around you. Western Europe, Australia, Canada, New Zealand... the places that have 'excised' religion - Soviet Union, China - have suffered for it, because if you ban something you create resistance, it becomes a point of rebellion.
But the point is surely that pub going is declining like church is declining and in fact socialising is probably going the same way.
No, it's not going away, it's switching venues, it's moving on-line. That brings with it other problems, like the 'echo chamber' effect where people (understandably) seek out like-minded viewpoints and don't get the general exposure that would occur if you were limited to the locals.
Is that a good thing because it's the modern way I don't know? It looks like a symptom of something not altogether pleasant to me. This section of your argument shows argument from modernity.
It's not that it's good because it's modern, but rather that it's not necessarily bad just because it's change. What you see as something disappearing is just something moving elsewhere.
But that is bad news for atheism isn't it.
I don't think so, personally. I think atheism is inclined to follow from access to information, and the internet provides that. There will always be people who want to be led, and they'll fall in line on whichever side they find comfortable, but the people with an inclination to consider for themselves will find information, and in a world of information about different religions and no religion I can't imagine that atheism is going to lose out too badly.
The idea that the church could have just moved on line, that the word religion largely means face to face, being together worship.
Why does the word 'religion' mean face-to-face? What is it about belief that requires direct supervision - isn't the point supposed to be that you're always being supervised anyway?
Of course the downside of the growth of communities of interest is well known. What does the ability to switch people off at the flick of a switch do for the soul?
What soul? What does it do for open-mindedness and tolerance - well, when you have religion intertwined with every level of culture and society you see how freedom of ideas flourishes - just look to the Arab nations, or the southern US states or, to an extent, Russia.
And we are talking now about souls for whom time is increasingly at a premium.
Which 'we' is this? You and Fraser, perhaps, you can be pretty sure I'm not.
No, People talk and type about human rights.
People demonstrate for human rights. People stand in front of tanks, people lie down in the street in front of police horses for human rights. And, yes, people write and talk as well, because human rights are ideas and whilst you demonstrate in order to get attention and get someone to listen, once they're listening you need to have something to say.
Secular Humanists might largely get involved in human rights where they think they can land one on the church or where they can out do the church.
Now who's showing their bigotry? Do you really think that the, for instance, the equality campaigners who demonstrated against Section 28, who wanted homosexuality decriminalised, who pioneered the Pride marches were motivated by 'bringing down the Church'? They wanted to live their own lives, it was the Church insisting that their tenets be encoded in the law that put itself in the firing line to any extent.
But are these religious problems or nationalistic problems?
Elements of both, but they require different solutions, and one of those solutions comes from separating the idea of religion from the idea of state - it's difficult to bring anything secular to a nation which sees religion as part of its identity, and it's especially difficult for a country that has a state religion and the clergy in the mechanics of government to 'preach' to such governments. We need to clean our own house on that before we can get other places to clean their's.
I think the latter But what Fraser is trying to show is that there is a functioning rank and file Christianity, truer than the caricature one fashioned by secular humanists, based in congregations and churches in which people will find community, daily spiritual and intellectual bread and God.
And, frankly, no-one outside of those communities gives a crap, which is exactly how it should be. If you volunteer to go, accept that the tenets have a hold on you and leave everyone else to their own thing, fine. It's when religion expects other people to kowtow to their demands that there's a problem, and the 'fire and brimstone' style that Fraser's advocating is at the very least strongly associated with that; in an environment where we still haven't cleared the hold-outs of religious influence in the state, that has the potential to take us backwards.
Rather than having celebrities massaging their idealised selves(namely a good stylish urbane bloke) while saying ''you (are on your way to becoming) da man!''
Instead we should have a man in a purple dress whispering into the King's ear and the manouevring his religious block in the Lords to make sure that his Sunday Club has an outsized say in who gets to be a 'da man' or, indeed, just 'a man', and whether they can marry another man, and whether they're allowed to bring up another little man...
O.
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uote author=Outrider link=topic=19510.msg857827#msg857827 date=1677530853]
I've not seen anything suggesting that the spread of atheism is slated to shrink,[/quote]I'm afraid it's here https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2015/04/02/religious-projections-2010-2050/ but it's entirely plausible as it rubs up against the hold-outs of developing nations. As to 'whiteness', it's also 'education'
White secular education where religion an indeed culture, are marginalised and 'wealth' and 'welfare state provision'
As we know, beyond the enlightenment idea of Man's forward march, there are lean years as well as good years
Not only is atheism and irreligiosity growing, but it's spreading, and the indicators that it strongly correlates with like wealth, education and strong human rights records are also gradually spreading too.
I think you put too much store on the enlightenment being an atheist project. That is just historical revisionism on your part
Where's the triumphalism in identifying reports in the media and discussing them?
In the calls for all religious based infrastructure to be immediately dismantled and calls by humanists for religion, particularly the C of E to be secularisedAs opposed to the people who took a 've are ze masters now attitude' to pretty much the entirety of the Holy Land, South America, south-east Asia, sub-Saharan Africa... Nobody claims mastery over the statistics, they identify trends in the statistics and try to show that their interpretation is valid.
Whataboutery
No, it's not bigotted,
Not only is it bigotted it is positively swivel eyed it's an indication of which parts of the movement I consider to be important because they pose a threat to communities.
Not in the UK though The remainder of Christendom is, largely, irrelevant.
Proof of swivel eyed bigotry. Bad Christians is where it's at. Good christians? Pah. Classic caricature and religion is only there for the bad stuff thinking. What Fraser is saying is that the Church isn't around to meet targets and success criteria as conjured by secularism and humanism it's there to tell people about God and be a fellowship for believers extended to other souls or selves known in the faith as neighbours which incidentally Jesus set the definition of and that is it. I don't think really these people are irrelevant to you...in fact the likes of Sam Harris and Dawkins actually think of this Christianity as dangerous because it masks the intrinsic evil of religion which they consider to be the root of all evil. It isn't, the love of money is. Did I mention Sam Harris and Dawkins? We thus arrive back in swivel eyed bigotry territory again.
1 - Humanism has a reasonably cross-over with atheism, but the two are not synonymous; there are any number of religious humanists and non-humanist atheists.
One has to question then why the Atheist bus was a Humanist UK
campaign.
For them as people, no. For their religious output, yes, because it has precisely no direct effect on my life or the life of anyone that I know. The institutional influence of the Church isn't directly tied to those 'rank and file' believers, and that's the bit in the UK that's currently problematic.
Yes, I didn't see the relevance once but let's face it, your claim may not mean much because, with your extreme antitheism you are unlikely to hang with religious folk are you?
And yet so much of Christianity's past and present is wrapped up in convincing the impoverished to accept their lot in life
And that's disappearing in our increasingly secular country is it?
I'm not sure I understand what you're saying here, exactly. Prosperity gospel is just... mental is the only word I can come up.
Prosperity Gospel states that If you are wealthy it is because you are living a faithful christian life and God's reward is in this life that goes completely against the new testament But the 'hard-line' Christian approach of homosexuality as something to be shunned and shamed,
I have atheist acquaintances who I know to be misogynistic and or homophobic I think it's not that unusual. As for widescale enlightenment that is probably a public show. I'm hazarding here but on Same sex marriage, I would hazard you primarily relished the topic as a weapon against the church, I on the other hand experienced a change of mind about it. I believe that those who don't believe in administering same sex holy matrimony should be left alone by secular authorities or as we should now call them ''Ze masters''. Because now we are into demonstrations of secular might.
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uote author=Outrider link=topic=19510.msg857827#msg857827 date=1677530853]
I've not seen anything suggesting that the spread of atheism is slated to shrink,I'm afraid it's here https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2015/04/02/religious-projections-2010-2050/ White secular education where religion an indeed culture, are marginalised As we know, beyond the enlightenment idea of Man's forward march, there are lean years as well as good years I think you put too much store on the enlightenment being an atheist project. That is just historical revisionism on your partIn the calls for all religious based infrastructure to be immediately dismantled and calls by humanists for religion, particularly the C of E to be secularised WhatabouteryNot only is it bigotted it is positively swivel eyedNot in the UK though Proof of swivel eyed bigotry. Bad Christians is where it's at. Good christians? Pah. Classic caricature and religion is only there for the bad stuff thinking. What Fraser is saying is that the Church isn't around to meet targets and success criteria as conjured by secularism and humanism it's there to tell people about God and be a fellowship for believers extended to other souls or selves known in the faith as neighbours which incidentally Jesus set the definition of and that is it. I don't think really these people are irrelevant to you...in fact the likes of Sam Harris and Dawkins actually think of this Christianity as dangerous because it masks the intrinsic evil of religion which they consider to be the root of all evil. It isn't, the love of money is. Did I mention Sam Harris and Dawkins? We thus arrive back in swivel eyed bigotry territory again.One has to question then why the Atheist bus was a Humanist UK
campaign.Yes, I didn't see the relevance once but let's face it, your claim may not mean much because, with your extreme antitheism you are unlikely to hang with religious folk are you? And that's disappearing in our increasingly secular country is it?Prosperity Gospel states that If you are wealthy it is because you are living a faithful christian life and God's reward is in this life that goes completely against the new testamentI have atheist acquaintances who I know to be misogynistic and or homophobic I think it's not that unusual. As for widescale enlightenment that is probably a public show. I'm hazarding here but on Same sex marriage, I would hazard you primarily relished the topic as a weapon against the church, I on the other hand experienced a change of mind about it. I believe that those who don't believe in administering same sex holy matrimony should be left alone by secular authorities or as we should now call them ''Ze masters''. Because now we are into demonstrations of secular might.
.../end: swivel-eyed anti-atheist/humanist/secularist rant.
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.../end: swivel-eyed anti-atheist/humanist/secularist rant.
'Ere...less of the swivel eyed thank you.
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In a way I think that Giles Fraser is the epitome of the issue that the CofE (and actually other christian denominations in the UK) seem to be failing to get.
I've always found him rather compelling in the manner in which he gets his message across, articulate on paper and when he speaks. But, and here is the big but, in many respects I just don't agree with him however well he might come across in speaking or in writing.
The CofE and other churches seemed to be fixated with trying to be Giles Fraser - and by that I mean that they consider that the reason that they are being increasingly ignored by the population is all about how they get there message across. If as an organisation they were as good as Fraser at getting their message across them all would be well. So they create yet another initiative aimed at using a new way to get the message across, or to target people they consider that haven't heard that message. If only they could find the right way to get the message across then everyone would be flocking back to their doors.
But all the time they fail to recognise the elephant in the room - the issue isn't the way you get the message across, it is the message itself. People simply do not believe it and it doesn't matter how may times and in how many different ways you tell the same message, those people still won't believe it, because they find the message fundamentally unbelievable.
It's a bit like the sales department of Kodak: it didn't matter how good their adverts were, camera film is finished.
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It's a bit like the sales department of Kodak: it didn't matter how good their adverts were, camera film is finished.
I think we will just have to see how things "develop".
Some of the statistics just give us a "snapshot".
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I've not seen anything suggesting that the spread of atheism is slated to shrink,I'm afraid it's here
Yet more evidence that we need to improve education access and quality in developing nations.
White secular education where religion an indeed culture, are marginalised
You say 'marginalised', I say put into their appropriate place.
As we know, beyond the enlightenment idea of Man's forward march, there are lean years as well as good years I think you put too much store on the enlightenment being an atheist project. That is just historical revisionism on your part.
I don't think it's an atheist project, but I think it affords atheism - and, indeed, all outlooks - a place that what came before it did not. But which bit is historical revisionism? The increase in welfare provision in developed nations, the idea that those increases are a result of a view of the world that treats humans as intrinsically valuable and affords them inalienable rights, or the links between those provisions and happiness, health and wellbeing?
In the calls for all religious based infrastructure to be immediately dismantled and calls by humanists for religion, particularly the C of E to be secularised
So in your selective interpretation of reality, then?
Whataboutery
I think I'd put atheism's history of attempted exclusionary rule up against Christianity's Imperialist attitudes any day of the week.
Not only is it bigotted it is positively swivel eyed. Not in the UK though.
Not in the UK? We don't have reserved seats in Parliament for an institution that votes against equal rites?
Proof of swivel eyed bigotry.
Quick, try to find a victim card you can play. Ad hominem nonsense like this just highlights that you don't actually have an argument.
Bad Christians is where it's at. Good christians? Pah. Classic caricature and religion is only there for the bad stuff thinking.
What makes them 'bad' Christians? That's your take, they're likely of the opinion that you're failing in your obligations to god and that they are the good Christians. The problem isn't whether they are 'good' or 'bad' it's whether they are 'tolerant', whether they are 'authoritarian'. In exactly the same way that atheists are problematic if they are intolerant or authoritarian, it's just that they aren't institutionally manifesting those traits as a result of their atheism.
What Fraser is saying is that the Church isn't around to meet targets and success criteria as conjured by secularism and humanism it's there to tell people about God and be a fellowship for believers extended to other souls or selves known in the faith as neighbours which incidentally Jesus set the definition of and that is it.
Which is fine when the Church keeps its opinions to itself and only expects them to be binding in any way on people that volunteer. It's when the Church thinks it has a place in the public realm, has a right to, say, special seats in Parliament, that we have a problem.
I don't think really these people are irrelevant to you...in fact the likes of Sam Harris and Dawkins actually think of this Christianity as dangerous because it masks the intrinsic evil of religion which they consider to be the root of all evil.
No, those people really are irrelevant to this discussion. That the notion of 'moderate' religious people lending religion a degree of credibility which the more rabid arms hide behind has a degree of validity, but it is just a slippery slope argument writ large. I understand it, I see how it can be applied, but I don't think the answer to 'there are problematic displays of religion' is 'ban religion'.
It isn't, the love of money is. Did I mention Sam Harris and Dawkins? We thus arrive back in swivel eyed bigotry territory again.
I'd say we should put a trigger warning on mentions of them for your benefit, but its you that keeps bringing them up. I'm not making Harris' or Dawkins' arguments, I'm making my own.
One has to question then why the Atheist bus was a Humanist UK campaign.
Because Humanist UK, presumably, see issue with the established nature of the Church in the UK, and with the slant that puts on a wide range of social measures and activities.
Yes, I didn't see the relevance once but let's face it, your claim may not mean much because, with your extreme antitheism you are unlikely to hang with religious folk are you?
Again with the ad hominem, and again with the wrong. I don't care if the Church dies out, but I'm not actively pressing for it, and I'm certainly not pushing for it to be banned. I just want laws to be based on something more than people who can't tell the difference between reality and fairy tales. I don't hang out with many people at all, but of those that I do some are religious (some openly and some, presumably, privately).
And that's disappearing in our increasingly secular country is it?
The poverty, or the press to accept it? The poverty is, there's a reason that what we measure in the UK these days tends to be relative deprivation rather than absolute poverty, but there is a political pressure from the right-wing establishment for an economic model that would result in deeper and broader financial hardship. Are they the same people that vocally see the Church as a necessary part of the state apparatus...?
Prosperity Gospel states that If you are wealthy it is because you are living a faithful christian life and God's reward is in this life that goes completely against the new testament
Goes against your interpretation of the scriptures, they have their own take on it and their own scriptural justifications. It's almost like it's not the most useful rulebook.
I have atheist acquaintances who I know to be misogynistic and or homophobic I think it's not that unusual.
And do they justify that misogyny or homophobia by dint of their atheism? Are they members of atheist networks which explicitly campaign against equal rights for women or gay people? There are, no doubt, believers whose misogyny or homophobia is largely independent of their belief, but there are some where it's intrinsically caused by the teachings of their church, and some where it's reinforced by it.
As for widescale enlightenment that is probably a public show.
So they're secretly homophobes, they're just pretending not to be? Why?
I'm hazarding here but on Same sex marriage, I would hazard you primarily relished the topic as a weapon against the church
On marriage being extended to all it's a result of the fact that I know gay people and don't think they should be segregated or excluded, I couldn't give a shit about the church's stance on it until the church vocally campaigned on the wrong side of bigotry.
I on the other hand experienced a change of mind about it. I believe that those who don't believe in administering same sex holy matrimony should be left alone by secular authorities
So do I. The problem is that the Church is currently being in the holy matrimony business and the secular authority business and is trying to let their (appropriate) oversight of one of them bleed over into their (inappropriate) restrictions on the other. I don't advocate making the church marry gay people, I advocate making the church's ceremonies purely religious and the taking the legal element back to the secular authorities.
O.
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I don't think it's an atheist project, but I think it affords atheism - and, indeed, all outlooks - a place that what came before it did not. But which bit is historical revisionism?
Your missing of historical revision from AC Grayling's sentimental view of the Greco Roman world through Pinker and Dawkins view of the Enlightenment shows us that maybe we can add history to religion and culture as an example of parlous secular education you wish to export. The increase in welfare provision in developed nations, the idea that those increases are a result of a view of the world that treats humans as intrinsically valuable and affords them inalienable rights, or the links between those provisions and happiness, health and wellbeing?
Like Education, welfare has been part of the christian mission for centuries. I see no intrinsic motivation in atheism to export welfare unlike the intrinsic motivation to export atheism.
I think I'd put atheism's history of attempted exclusionary rule up against Christianity's Imperialist attitudes any day of the week.
Again, Imperialism is not intrinsically necessary to Christianity but if you are exporting white secularist culture lock stock and barrel in the hope of promulgating atheism that sounds like it needs some imperialistic process.
What makes them 'bad' Christians? That's your take, they're likely of the opinion that you're failing in your obligations to god and that they are the good Christians.
If they don't enact the words and attitudes of Jesus and in fact go contrary to them that makes them bad christians.
Which is fine when the Church keeps its opinions to itself and only expects them to be binding in any way on people that volunteer. It's when the Church thinks it has a place in the public realm, has a right to, say, special seats in Parliament, that we have a problem.
Why should the church keep out of the public arena when 46% of the public signed on the census as affiliated? How can 21 reserved parliamentarianians overrule up to a thousand guaranteed secular parliamentarians?
I'd say we should put a trigger warning on mentions of them for your benefit, but its you that keeps bringing them up. I'm not making Harris' or Dawkins' arguments, I'm making my own.
But we aren't talking about rank and file people like you and me. At least you aren't. According to you rank and file are irrelevant. You keep bringing up Bishops, I keep bringing up Humanist celebrities who frankly, in todays society have far more influence.
Because Humanist UK, presumably, see issue with the established nature of the Church in the UK, and with the slant that puts on a wide range of social measures and activities.
That's an exaggeration and has been since I was a lad.
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Your missing of historical revision from AC Grayling's sentimental view of the Greco Roman world through Pinker and Dawkins view of the Enlightenment shows us that maybe we can add history to religion and culture as an example of parlous secular education you wish to export.
I see, so 'my' historical revisionism turns out to be something somebody else said that you're excited about...
Like Education, welfare has been part of the christian mission for centuries.
Well, like education, welfare has been something that Christians shout about for centuries, but they don't really seem to understand it well. Education and indoctrination are not the same things. Welfare and extortion are not the same thing.
I see no intrinsic motivation in atheism to export welfare unlike the intrinsic motivation to export atheism.
There is no intrinsic motivation in atheism at all - not believing in gods doesn't immediately lead to anything, even evangelism of atheism. Atheist 'evangelism' comes from a sense of the disturbing nature of religion and religious movements.
Again, Imperialism is not intrinsically necessary to Christianity but if you are exporting white secularist culture lock stock and barrel in the hope of promulgating atheism that sounds like it needs some imperialistic process.
Yes, it's the world-wide collection of atheist white supremacy movements that are the problem. Its the atheists charged with building a 'kingdom of (not) god'...
If they don't enact the words and attitudes of Jesus and in fact go contrary to them that makes them bad christians.
Except that they do enact the words of Jesus and scripture, and they claim that you're misinterpreting them and you're bad Christians. If only there were someone out there who could make it all clear...
Why should the church keep out of the public arena when 46% of the public signed on the census as affiliated?/quote]
Because those religious people are already in the public sphere, and are already adequately represented in the public sphere. Why do they, and specifically and only they, need their additional, protected, special representatives?
How can 21 reserved parliamentarianians overrule up to a thousand guaranteed secular parliamentarians?
Why do you get 21 vote head-start? That they don't have absolute authority doesn't justify leaving them with the unjustified influence they currently have.
But we aren't talking about rank and file people like you and me. At least you aren't. According to you rank and file are irrelevant. You keep bringing up Bishops, I keep bringing up Humanist celebrities who frankly, in todays society have far more influence.
Really? Can you show me which one? How many parliamentary seats do they have? How many schools do they run? How many schools are required to undertake a daily act of atheist observance?
That's an exaggeration and has been since I was a lad.
What's an exaggeration, the fact that we're practically the only advanced nation in the world that clings to a state religion? That we are one of a handful of nations, amongst a pretty unsavoury bunch, who reserve places in the legislature for religion? That's not an exaggeration, that's a concern.
O,
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I see, so 'my' historical revisionism turns out to be something somebody else said that you're excited about...
Well, like education, welfare has been something that Christians shout about for centuries, but they don't really seem to understand it well. Education and indoctrination are not the same things. Welfare and extortion are not the same thing.
Caricature utilising poor historical knowledge and underdeveloped curiosity, probably courtesy of a thin secular curriculum.(That isn't your fault)
There is no intrinsic motivation in atheism at all - not believing in gods doesn't immediately lead to anything, even evangelism of atheism. Atheist 'evangelism' comes from a sense of the disturbing nature of religion and religious movements.
atheism might very well be merely the disbelief in Gods but you have been proposing the wholesale exporting of Western secular education in the hope of furthering atheismExcept that they do enact the words of Jesus and scripture, and they claim that you're misinterpreting them and you're bad Christians. If only there were someone out there who could make it all clear...
I can't see how Jesus or the apostles and apostolic writers are at all the authors of nationalistic christianity or of prosperity gospel. Again if your intellectual curiosity was a bit er, wider you would be able to distinguish betweeen the surmon on the mount and an evangelistic appeal to provide the wee man in the suit with another private jet.
Why do you get 21 vote head-start?
The advantage is negligible in the face of up to 1000 guaranteed secular members. In the past they are there as people not caught up in quotidien politics or sectional or professional interests to provide an alternative spiritual.
view of life That they don't have absolute authority doesn't justify leaving them with the unjustified influence they currently have.
That is virtually no influence whatsoever.
Really? Can you show me which one? How many parliamentary seats do they have? How many schools do they run? How many schools are required to undertake a daily act of atheist observance?
Our representatives in parliament .....overwhelmingly, there for secular reasons decided it was the way to go. Obviously these are concessions to religion which has 46% sign up according to census data. The church didn't say ''oi mush, we're in charge here''. Atheist observence? You mean atheistic non observance which is what you will get.
What's an exaggeration, the fact that we're practically the only advanced nation in the world that clings to a state religion? That we are one of a handful of nations, amongst a pretty unsavoury bunch, who reserve places in the legislature for religion? That's not an exaggeration, that's a concern.
Nobody is clinging to a state religion and certainly not political influence for there is virtually none and hasn't been for a looooong time.
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Caricature utilising poor historical knowledge and underdeveloped curiosity, probably courtesy of a thin secular curriculum.(That isn't your fault)
You're claiming that I'm wrong, but you're not giving me any reason to believe you. Christianity's long-established history in the indoctrination business, and its later coopting for general education, is fairly well established.
atheism might very well be merely the disbelief in Gods but you have been proposing the wholesale exporting of Western secular education in the hope of furthering atheism
I've not been advocating, necessarily, I think it's happening without my input anyway. The point of secular values and education, though, is that if it's working it can include religious beliefs and tenets, it doesn't exclude religion in any way by ideology.
I can't see how Jesus or the apostles and apostolic writers are at all the authors of nationalistic christianity or of prosperity gospel.
Me neither, but then I can't see how you can get any depiction of something real from the gospel, either. That's at least a significant part of the problem, that the scripture is so poorly written, badly structured and self-contradictory that it can be selectively interpreted to mean pretty much whatever you'd like, just with the absolute authority of 'god's word' behind it.
Again if your intellectual curiosity was a bit er, wider you would be able to distinguish betweeen the surmon on the mount and an evangelistic appeal to provide the wee man in the suit with another private jet.
I can, but not using anything within the scripture where they have pretty much exactly the same justification - i can differentiate between by looking at their effects on people and communities, how happy, healthy, wealthy and free they leave people.
The advantage is negligible in the face of up to 1000 guaranteed secular members. In the past they are there as people not caught up in quotidien politics or sectional or professional interests to provide an alternative spiritual view of life
There are already spiritual people in the Lords, you still aren't even trying to justify their existence, you're just trying to claim that their effect is minimal. Even if there practical effect is limited, the implication is still profoundly at odds with the idea of a free, equal society. Why do 'spiritual' people (of one particular flavour) get special representation but, say, 'scientific' people don't? Or sporty people?
That is virtually no influence whatsoever.
But not actually none. And on a close vote, that could be the difference. And over a history of multiple close votes that's going to skew the result - it might be a small effect, but it's a small effect over multiple iterations, and it counts.
Our representatives in parliament .....overwhelmingly, there for secular reasons decided it was the way to go.
No, some of our representatives in parliament, who see the church as regular allies, saw a benefit to not removing them to their particular political outlook.
Obviously these are concessions to religion which has 46% sign up according to census data.
And how low does it have to drop before they aren't allowed to discriminate on behalf of a state that guarantees equal rights? It doesn't matter if it's 99%, the state maintains that it affords people equal access to marriage, and then part of the state apparatus fails to live up to that promise.
The church didn't say ''oi mush, we're in charge here''.
Actually, it did. And, though the head of state being at the same time the head of the church, it to an extent still does, but we have started to prise the corpse-fingers off the levers of power... just a few stray fingernails to go.
Atheist observence? You mean atheistic non observance which is what you will get.
Not observing Christian worships is as Hindu or Muslim as it is atheist. It's not atheist to not observe Christianity in schools, it's saying the school is for education not indoctrination, and that if people want to partake of Christian worship there are places for that... We shouldn't be COMPELLING children into undertaking religious activity of one particular sect of one particular arm of one particular family of religions. We have RE to teach them about religion, why do they need to be forced into one particular example?
Nobody is clinging to a state religion and certainly not political influence for there is virtually none and hasn't been for a looooong time.
Except for the reserved seats in parliament, and the special exemptions from regulations, and the head of the church have the final authority to implement or refuse laws... apart from that, you mean...
O.
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You're claiming that I'm wrong, but you're not giving me any reason to believe you. Christianity's long-established history in the indoctrination business, and its later coopting for general education, is fairly well established.
I'm claiming you are caricaturing christianity as ''there for the bad stuff''
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I'm claiming you are caricaturing christianity as ''there for the bad stuff''
I know you're claiming it, but you're not giving me any reason to accept your claim. You claim a god as well, and that's not been particularly effective.
O.
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I know you're claiming it, but you're not giving me any reason to accept your claim. You claim a god as well, and that's not been particularly effective.
O.
There are two atheist approaches to Christian History that taken by Bamber Gascoigne and Diarmid Mccullough who have researched it and that taken by people like Dawkins, Hitchins, etc. You looked influenced by the latter i.e. not so much a researched position more of an opinion shaped by an envisioned atheist utopia.
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There are two atheist approaches to Christian History that taken by Bamber Gascoigne and Diarmid Mccullough who have researched it and that taken by people like Dawkins, Hitchins, etc. You looked influenced by the latter i.e. not so much a researched position more of an opinion shaped by an envisioned atheist utopia.
Another devastating lack of rebuttal on your part. I think the defence will probably be able to rest at this point.
O.
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The advantage is negligible in the face of up to 1000 guaranteed secular members.
What on earth do you mean by a 'secular member' - a large proportion of those so-called 'secular members' will still be religious. So we aren't talking about a situation where 26 'brave' religious members are battling against 1000 atheists, humanists and non-religious people.
While the HoC does not collect data on the religion of MPs we can get an inference on the basis of whether members swear an oath on a religious text when they enter parliament or make a non-religious affirmation. Currently I gather that 75% of MPs consider themselves religious enough to take the religious option rather than the non religious option. So I suspect MPs are disproportionately tipped in favour of religious individuals compared to the general public.
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What on earth do you mean by a 'secular member' - a large proportion of those so-called 'secular members' will still be religious. So we aren't talking about a situation where 26 'brave' religious members are battling against 1000 atheists, humanists and non-religious people.
But they will not be there because of there religion will they. They will be there for secular reasons.
While the HoC does not collect data on the religion of MPs we can get an inference on the basis of whether members swear an oath on a religious text when they enter parliament or make a non-religious affirmation. Currently I gather that 75% of MPs consider themselves religious enough to take the religious option rather than the non religious option. So I suspect MPs are disproportionately tipped in favour of religious individuals compared to the general public.
Or not consider themselves atheist enough to go against tradition, the census figures on religion which suggests that their constituents might like it.
Why are 75% of democratically elected MP's religious? Are non religious MP's particularly shit or something?
Or is this a sob story leading to a suggested positive discrimination towards atheists?
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Why are 75% of democratically elected MP's religious? Are non religious MP's particularly shit or something?
Do you think that the 75% are not shit?
::)
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Do you think that the 75% are not shit?
::)
I don't know whether My MP is one of the 75%..........but he is shit.
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Why are 75% of democratically elected MP's religious?
Because MPs aren't demographically representative in other respects - most notably being older which positively correlates with religiosity.
And also currently more than half of MPs are tories and tories are more likely to be religious than labour or lib-dems.
Are non religious MP's particularly shit or something?
I didn't make any claim regarding the quality of MPs and their religiosity. I was merely pointing out that MPs seem disproportionately religious compared to wider society - I suspect Lords temporal are too. And yet on top of that apparently religion (well actually CofE) are given 26 automatic places in the HoLs determined by seniority in a completely different organisation - the CofE. There are no other peers appointed in a similar manner.
Or is this a sob story leading to a suggested positive discrimination towards atheists?
Nope I'm not suggesting positive discrimination towards atheists - merely the removal of the current positive discrimination in favour of the CofE.
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Nope I'm not suggesting positive discrimination towards atheists - merely the removal of the current positive discrimination in favour of the CofE.
Well I am, I suppose because there are up to 1000 places for Lords to be placed for secular reasons and 26 for spiritual reasons. That looks pretty positive to atheism to me.
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Well I am, I suppose because there are up to 1000 places for Lords to be placed for secular reasons and 26 for spiritual reasons. That looks pretty positive to atheism to me.
Oh dear - here we go again.
There are no places in the HoLs 'placed for secular reasons' - there are however 26 placed reserved for current bishops in the HoLs. And of your claimed 1000 'placed for secular reasons' there are a fair number whose elevation to the Lords (or continued membership of the Lords) seems entirely to be down to their leadership (current of former) or religious organisations.
And you still seem to fail to understand the distinction between atheism and secularism.
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Oh dear - here we go again.
There are no places in the HoLs 'placed for secular reasons' - there are however 26 placed reserved for current bishops in the HoLs. And of your claimed 1000 'placed for secular reasons' there are a fair number whose elevation to the Lords (or continued membership of the Lords) seems entirely to be down to their leadership (current of former) or religious organisations.
And you still seem to fail to understand the distinction between atheism and secularism.
The Lords temporal are described by Wikipedia as secular members of the House of Lords Professor and there are a shedload more Lords Temporal than Lords spiritual.
They are there for secular reasons and not specifically or at all for their religion.
Now in an increasingly non religious population they are more likely I would have thought to be atheist and those numbers will be swollen as soon as one's atheism begins to confer higher social status and acceptance in our society.
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The Lords temporal are described by Wikipedia as secular members of the House of Lords Professor and there are a shedload more Lords Temporal than Lords spiritual.
But there are still 'Lords Spiritual' that you're failing to justify. There aren't Lords of Sport, there aren't Lords Scientific, Artistic or Culinary...
They are there for secular reasons and not specifically or at all for their religion.
But their remit doesn't exclude religion.
Now in an increasingly non religious population they are more likely I would have thought to be atheist and those numbers will be swollen as soon as one's atheism begins to confer higher social status and acceptance in our society.
Why should they suddenly not be representative of the populace at large? Why is an increase in atheist representation, presuming that your prediction is correct, be a problem, if the society they represent is increasingly atheist? You're still failing to explain why spirituality gets a special place, and within spirituality why the Church of England gets to be special.
O.
[/quote]
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But there are still 'Lords Spiritual' that you're failing to justify. There aren't Lords of Sport, there aren't Lords Scientific, Artistic or Culinary...
But their remit doesn't exclude religion.
Why should they suddenly not be representative of the populace at large? Why is an increase in atheist representation, presuming that your prediction is correct, be a problem, if the society they represent is increasingly atheist? You're still failing to explain why spirituality gets a special place, and within spirituality why the Church of England gets to be special.
O.
The Lords was set up I would move to reflect the life of the medievel individual who's life would be partly spiritual and mainly secular and not be predicated upon there being secular humanists and religious people.
Now of course, thanks partly to the work of the British Humanists, National secular society we have come to view society along that crude division and it's certainly the model that humanistUK, atheists etc work from intending as they do to reduce the model to fit their homonculus of humanity as sociopoliticoeconomic units.
A better model is a reformed version of what the individual is i.e.what the person is to themselves including weldbilts and what they are in terms of the nation in sociopoliticoeconomic terms. And that division should institutionally be enshrined IMHO. If it isn't we are selling people short.
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The Lords temporal are described by Wikipedia as secular members of the House of Lords Professor and there are a shedload more Lords Temporal than Lords spiritual.
They are there for secular reasons and not specifically or at all for their religion.
Now in an increasingly non religious population they are more likely I would have thought to be atheist and those numbers will be swollen as soon as one's atheism begins to confer higher social status and acceptance in our society.
I have a picture in my head which I can't shake off.
It's about a member of this board, checking for atheists/antitheists under his bed every night!
::)
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The Lords temporal are described by Wikipedia as secular members of the House of Lords Professor and there are a shedload more Lords Temporal than Lords spiritual.
You said they were placed there for secular reasons - they aren't, they are 'secular' in so far, and only in so far as they are not placed there for religious reasons. If the bishops didn't exist then there would be no reason to describe them in this manner.
They are there for secular reasons and not specifically or at all for their religion.
Being placed for secular reasons infers that their purpose is to promote and promulgate secularism - which is not the case. Indeed there are plenty of Lords Temporal who have clearly been placed in the HoLs for religious reasons - e.g. ex-ABoC, ex-ABoY, Chief Rabbis etc. I would imagine Lord Carey would argue pretty strongly against your view that he has been placed in the HoL as a member of the Lords Temporal for 'secular reasons'. Likewise John Sentamu.
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You said they were placed there for secular reasons - they aren't, they are 'secular' in so far, and only in so far as they are not placed there for religious reasons. If the bishops didn't exist then there would be no reason to describe them in this manner.
Being placed for secular reasons infers that their purpose is to promote and promulgate secularism
Not necessarily they are there to represent and lend expertise on secular areas like work and entertainment Indeed there are plenty of Lords Temporal who have clearly been placed in the HoLs for religious reasons - e.g. ex-ABoC, ex-ABoY, Chief Rabbis etc. I would imagine Lord Carey would argue pretty strongly against your view that he has been placed in the HoL as a member of the Lords Temporal for 'secular reasons'. Likewise John Sentamu.
Or they've been put there for both secular and religious expertise since Bishops and chief rabbis have administrative and organisational experience that would be the envy of many a secular organisation.
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The Lords was set up I would move to reflect the life of the medievel individual who's life would be partly spiritual and mainly secular and not be predicated upon there being secular humanists and religious people.
I've just looked outside my window, and I don't see many peasants. I know why the Lords Spiritual were there, you're supposed to be explaining why you think it still should be.
Now of course, thanks partly to the work of the British Humanists, National secular society we have come to view society along that crude division and it's certainly the model that humanistUK, atheists etc work from intending as they do to reduce the model to fit their homonculus of humanity as sociopoliticoeconomic units.
Which is why they're the ones that have been campaigning for equality and rights for all, whilst the Lords Spiritual try to restrict access for 'nonconforming' lifestyles, because it's the atheists and humanists who are trying to squeeze people into homogenous blocks?
A better model is a reformed version of what the individual is i.e.what the person is to themselves including weldbilts and what they are in terms of the nation in sociopoliticoeconomic terms. And that division should institutionally be enshrined IMHO. If it isn't we are selling people short.
So we should have specialist Lords Scientific, Lords Musical, Lords Artistic? Where does the specialism end? Do we get special Lords Musical for Opera? How many Lords Football do we need before the number justifies a Lord Sailing? Does Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson sit with the Lords of Sport, or the Lords of Wales, or the Lords Disabled or the Lords Wheelchair, or the Lords Spina Bifida? Doesn't sound like a workable system to me.
O.
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I've just looked outside my window, and I don't see many peasants. I know why the Lords Spiritual were there, you're supposed to be explaining why you think it still should be.
Which is why they're the ones that have been campaigning for equality and rights for all, whilst the Lords Spiritual try to restrict access for 'nonconforming' lifestyles, because it's the atheists and humanists who are trying to squeeze people into homogenous blocks?
So we should have specialist Lords Scientific, Lords Musical, Lords Artistic? Where does the specialism end? Do we get special Lords Musical for Opera? How many Lords Football do we need before the number justifies a Lord Sailing? Does Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson sit with the Lords of Sport, or the Lords of Wales, or the Lords Disabled or the Lords Wheelchair, or the Lords Spina Bifida? Doesn't sound like a workable system to me.
O.
To be fair, of late we have had a set of Lords of Corruption
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I've just looked outside my window, and I don't see many peasants. I know why the Lords Spiritual were there, you're supposed to be explaining why you think it still should be.
I'v looked out of min and I see more and more people who are being turned into peasants
Which is why they're the ones that have been campaigning for equality and rights for all, whilst the Lords Spiritual try to restrict access for 'nonconforming' lifestyles, because it's the atheists and humanists who are trying to squeeze people into homogenous blocks?
Nothing wrong with good works but organisations such as humanist UK have only succeeded in othering the religious or suggest everything would be fine if only everyone were a secular humanist IMV,
So we should have specialist Lords Scientific, Lords Musical, Lords Artistic? Where does the specialism end? Do we get special Lords Musical for Opera? How many Lords Football do we need before the number justifies a Lord Sailing? Does Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson sit with the Lords of Sport, or the Lords of Wales, or the Lords Disabled or the Lords Wheelchair, or the Lords Spina Bifida? Doesn't sound like a workable system to me.
O.
The point was the division was between Lords spiritual and Lords Temporal. To just have Lords temporal or perhaps we should call them Lords Short Term interest merely represents the bleak homonculus created by intellectual secular humanists
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I'v looked out of min and I see more and more people who are being turned into peasants
Lords Spiritual not an effective defence against that?
Nothing wrong with good works but organisations such as humanist UK have only succeeded in othering the religious or suggest everything would be fine if only everyone were a secular humanist IMV,
As opposed to a church that spent centuries telling people that it didn't matter that they were being treated like shit, it would all be OK in the next lift (by the way, give me your money). Humanist UK doesn't 'other' the religious, there are religious people within HumanistsUK - that they campaign against the historical privelege of religion, and the Church of England in particular, does not equate to 'othering' the religious, and that they identify institutional homophobia and misogyny in religious groups doesn't 'other' those religions, it lets those religions 'other' themselves.
The point was the division was between Lords spiritual and Lords Temporal. To just have Lords temporal or perhaps we should call them Lords Short Term interest merely represents the bleak homonculus created by intellectual secular humanists
Or we could rename the Lords Spiritual as 'Lords Yesterday' and leave them and their recidivism in the 20th century where it already didn't belong? Or we could stop trying to come up with funny names and just accept that religion is as adequately represented as any other interest in the Lords, and doesn't need special reserved seats (and never did).
O.
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Lords Spiritual not an effective defence against that?
There are only 26 of them.
As opposed to a church that spent centuries telling people that it didn't matter that they were being treated like shit,
That is not the gospel message in fact Jesus makes it clear about how difficult it is for rich people to enter the next more permanent life. Humanist UK doesn't 'other' the religious,
Of course it does in the way it's patrons do there are religious people within HumanistsUK
In the dungeons perhaps? - that they campaign against the historical privelege of religion,
They are essentially historical revisionists who should be reading people like Paxman for some proper perspective
Or we could rename the Lords Spiritual as 'Lords Yesterday'.
Fallacy of modernity.
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There are only 26 of them.
There are STILL 26 of them, not 'only'.
That is not the gospel message
I don't care. The history of what they have done is far more relevant than your individual opinion of what they should do or should have done.
...in fact Jesus makes it clear about how difficult it is for rich people to enter the next more permanent life.
Or, at least, the people who selected the works chose works that allege what Jesus had to say about it, let's not oversell it.
Of course it does in the way it's patrons do
By giving them equal voice with everyone else?
They are essentially historical revisionists who should be reading people like Paxman for some proper perspective.
You can cite Paxman claiming that religion has not been privileged historically?
Fallacy of modernity.
Pointing out that the church was outdated in the last century is not the 'fallacy of modernity'. I'm not suggesting that it's beyond practical use as part of the state apparatus BECAUSE it's old, I'm suggesting that it's no longer relevant because the world has moved on and there is no longer a place for the privelege of religion in general, let alone one particular cult.
O.
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The point was the division was between Lords spiritual and Lords Temporal.
Sounds like partiality to me.
Doesn't the NT have something to say about that?
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There are STILL 26 of them, not 'only'.
I only say ''only'' to contrast that with the hundreds suitable to the two secular denominations HumanistUK and the NSS.
I don't care. The history of what they have done is far more relevant than your individual opinion of what they should do or should have done.
I do understand why your average english person is going to have a problem with the established Church of England and it's regulation of the unwilling is seared into the collective consciousness. That's why I initially was pro disestablishment. But todays patrons of Humanist UK are powerful and frankly antitheist and people of religion are in, I fear real danger from them and their exaggerated response to an imagined history. I can therefore find myself supporting american atheists against christian fundamentalists and nationalists but here see the dodgy antitheist agenda of the Humanists.Or, at least, the people who selected the works chose works that allege what Jesus had to say about it, let's not oversell it.
By giving them equal voice with everyone else?
That's not what the game is and you know it. The prime aim of Secularists is the removal of religion from public life and having a complete secular bandwith.
They are play acting at being reasonable.
I see no Dog collars on the same platform as Copson, Roberts etc.
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Vlad,
But todays patrons of Humanist UK are powerful and frankly antitheist and people of religion are in, I fear real danger from them and their exaggerated response to an imagined history. I can therefore find myself supporting american atheists against christian fundamentalists and nationalists but here see the dodgy antitheist agenda of the Humanists.
Pretty bizarre paranoia here, even by your standards. What on earth “danger” do you think Humanist UK pose to anyone exactly? Unless I suppose you consider it a “danger” that various theistic groups might lose the special but unwarranted privileges they currently hold in the pubic square?
That's not what the game is and you know it. The prime aim of Secularists is the removal of religion from public life and having a complete secular bandwith.
They are play acting at being reasonable.
Utter bollocks. In a secular state theists are a free to practice their rituals and the like as publicly as they wish – just like any other private members’ club can. A secular state merely requires that theistic groups don’t have access by right to various levers of state and civic affairs. Nothing more, nothing less.
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Vlad,
Pretty bizarre paranoia here, even by your standards. What on earth “danger” do you think Humanist UK pose to anyone exactly? Unless I suppose you consider it a “danger” that various theistic groups might lose the special but unwarranted privileges they currently hold in the pubic square?
Utter bollocks. In a secular state theists are a free to practice their rituals and the like as publicly as they wish – just like any other private members’ club can. A secular state merely requires that theistic groups don’t have access by right to various levers of state and civic affairs. Nothing more, nothing less.
The church is not a private members club Hillside.
As has been pointed out on this thread postulating a totally secular state involves a distorted atheistic homoncularisation of the citizen.
The right of access to power switches de facto from theist groups to secular groups like HumanistUK laundered of any theists by it's promotion of atheism vis the atheist bus campaign. There is nothing equal about it.
And it's all done by word piracy and definition diddling.
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Vlad,
The church is not a private members club Hillside.
Whoosh!
No it isn’t – but that’s effectively what it would be in a secular state. That's the point.
As has been pointed out on this thread postulating a totally secular state involves a distorted atheistic homoncularisation of the citizen.
What on earth is that even supposed to mean?
The right of access to power switches de facto from theist groups to secular groups like HumanistUK laundered of any theists by it's promotion of atheism vis the atheist bus campaign. There is nothing equal about it.
Utter gibberish. Did this mean something in your head when you typed it?
Secularism doesn’t deny the “right of access to power” to anyone; it just denies the automatic right to that power because of religiosity – ie, it merely says that religious people shouldn’t have that power solely because they happen to be religious. If, say, the Archbishop of Canterbury wanted to stand for election to a political or civic office he’d be as free to do so as would anyone else.
Good grief.
And it's all done by word piracy and definition diddling.
Meaning what? Your random word generator seems to have kicked in again here…
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Vlad,
Whoosh!
No it isn’t – but that’s effectively what it would be in a secular state. That's the point.
What on earth is that even supposed to mean?
Utter gibberish. Did this mean something in your head when you typed it?
Secularism doesn’t deny the “right of access to power” to anyone; it just denies the automatic right to that power because of religiosity – ie, it merely says that religious people shouldn’t have that power solely because they happen to be religious. If, say, the Archbishop of Canterbury wanted to stand for election to a political or civic office he’d be as free to do so as would anyone else.
Good grief.
Meaning what? Your random word generator seems to have kicked in again here…
Meaning atheists have coopted the word secular and have changed it's meaning. Particularly with regard to secular Humanists.
As mentioned before secularity was that aspect of life not considered spiritual which services our material needs and concerns. Unbalanced theocracy has it's mirror image.
To suggest that 26 Lords spiritual against hundreds and hundreds of secular Lords is unbalanced theocracy is ridiculous and IMV antitheism masquerading as reasonable.
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To suggest that 26 Lords spiritual against hundreds and hundreds of secular Lords is unbalanced theocracy is ridiculous and IMV antitheism masquerading as reasonable.
There aren't any 'secular' Lords - there are Lords 'temporal' but that is an entirely different matter, and as I pointed out many of those Lords temporal will be highly religious, including some whose reason for being a Lord temporal is because they used to be Archbishop of Canterbury or Archbishop of York.
You are trying to promulgate an argument that Lords temporal are anti-religion while Lords spiritual are pro-religion. That argument is totally unsustainable - the reality is that Lords temporal are (usually) not appointed due to their religious position although many will be religious and potentially highly pro-religion. There is also no bar on a member of the Lords temporal from bringing their religiosity into the chamber in terms of their support for, values based on etc etc religion. But there are no members of the Lords temporal who are automatically appointed to the Lords by virtue of holding a senior position in a completely separate organisation.
By contrast the Lords spiritual are appointed purely on the basis of their seniority in a completely separate organisation and that single organisation is a religious organisation. There is no equivalence with any other members of the Lords.
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There aren't any 'secular' Lords - there are Lords 'temporal' but that is an entirely different matter, and as I pointed out many of those Lords temporal will be highly religious, including some whose reason for being a Lord temporal is because they used to be Archbishop of Canterbury or Archbishop of York.
You are trying to promulgate an argument that Lords temporal are anti-religion while Lords spiritual are pro-religion. That argument is totally unsustainable - the reality is that Lords temporal are (usually) not appointed due to their religious position although many will be religious and potentially highly pro-religion. There is also no bar on a member of the Lords temporal from bringing their religiosity into the chamber in terms of their support for, values based on etc etc religion. But there are no members of the Lords temporal who are automatically appointed to the Lords by virtue of holding a senior position in a completely separate organisation.
By contrast the Lords spiritual are appointed purely on the basis of their seniority in a completely separate organisation and that single organisation is a religious organisation. There is no equivalence with any other members of the Lords.
Regarding the definition of Lords Temporal as secular I offer this.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lords_Temporal
Regarding promulgation what I am arguing for is that people have concerns that are termed spiritual that are not the same as those concerned with our material well being and a totally secular government distorts this, homoncularises the citizen and in the end fails to meet their needs or properly represent them. Of course that doesn't have to be Bishops or even totally christian and I have suggested Copson, Fry, Dawkins to which you could add Toksvig. And that's it as far as that goes
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Regarding the definition of Lords Temporal as secular I offer this.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lords_Temporal
But you are being deeply disingenuous - they are only secular to contrast with the bishops - they are not secular in the manner that you claim is the common parlance. So they are secular in the manner that a secular priest may be secular - to distinguish from a member of a religious order in the same manner as lords temporal are secular to distinguish from members automatically appointed by virtue of their seniority in the CofE.
You cannot have it both ways Vlad - either you use secular in its most historic definition, in which case it does apply to the lords temporal, or you use it in a manner more akin to NSS or HumanistsUK in which case it does not apply to the lords temporal.
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Regarding promulgation what I am arguing for is that people have concerns that are termed spiritual that are not the same as those concerned with our material well being and a totally secular government distorts this, homoncularises the citizen and in the end fails to meet their needs or properly represent them. Of course that doesn't have to be Bishops or even totally christian and I have suggested Copson, Fry, Dawkins to which you could add Toksvig. And that's it as far as that goes
Can you explain to me how 26 people who are all appointed due their seniority within one religion adds to diversity. It is the very model of a monoculture - beyond the obvious that they are all from one specific denomination from one religion of the 26 I think there are just five women, one from a minority ethnic group and every one of them is age 55-69 so incredible non diverse in age either. And let's not even bring in LGBT diversity!
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I only say ''only'' to contrast that with the hundreds suitable to the two secular denominations HumanistUK and the NSS.
You mean the hundreds who represent all other interest groups and individuals, as well as religious people, whilst there are STILL these reserved seats for one priveleged position on one (increasingly irrelevant) aspect of the nation's interests.
I do understand why your average english person is going to have a problem with the established Church of England and it's regulation of the unwilling is seared into the collective consciousness. That's why I initially was pro disestablishment. But todays patrons of Humanist UK are powerful and frankly antitheist and people of religion are in, I fear real danger from them and their exaggerated response to an imagined history.
What danger are they in? Where is this perceived threat? Or are you equating losing that privileged position with being somehow mistreated? Perhaps you should look to groups who have actually been disadvantaged in the distant and recent past by the explicit campaigns of the church and its privileged position - on issues such as equal access to marriage, women's right to divorce, marital rape allegations and the like.
I can therefore find myself supporting american atheists against christian fundamentalists and nationalists but here see the dodgy antitheist agenda of the Humanists.
The humanists (some of whom, I'll remind you again, are religious, and some of those particularly are Christian) are campaigning in part to prevent places like the UK backsliding into the sort of situation we see in the US, and in places like Uganda and Nigeria, places like Israel and India, places like the recent history of Northern Ireland.
That's not what the game is and you know it. The prime aim of Secularists is the removal of religion from public life and having a complete secular bandwith.
And you equate that with the elimination of religion, you interpret that (willfully wrongly or not I'm not sure) as antitheist, and it's not. Removing religion from the public realm does not mean suppressing religion from all aspects of life, it doesn't make it a secret that must be hidden away, it just means that policy that affects everyone shouldn't be based upon the religious beliefs of a few.
They are play acting at being reasonable.
No, they are being reasonable, you're just not inclined to view their output dispassionately because you have the Christian victim-mentality to preserve and the historic privilege feels normalised to you so any challenge to it feels unreasonable.
O.
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But you are being deeply disingenuous - they are only secular to contrast with the bishops - they are not secular in the manner that you claim is the common parlance. So they are secular in the manner that a secular priest may be secular - to distinguish from a member of a religious order in the same manner as lords temporal are secular to distinguish from members automatically appointed by virtue of their seniority in the CofE.
You cannot have it both ways Vlad - either you use secular in its most historic definition, in which case it does apply to the lords temporal, or you use it in a manner more akin to NSS or HumanistsUK in which case it does not apply to the lords temporal.
They are named for their focus as Lords.
Lords temporal are therefore for skills I'm the quotidian temporal aspect of life material well being employment politics finance law etc.
Lords spiritual for the less easily quantifiable aspects. If Dawkins was in the Lords spiritual his focus would be antitheism representing the antitheism as a moral necessity in society. We're he to be made a Lord Temporal for his atheism that could be valid under the definitions the Lords works on.
He could be made a Lord Temporal for his skill in shepherding and managing the atheist community though.
At the moment the argument seems to be "There are less spiritual people year on year and so more of us people who know we haven't got spirit so kick them out".
To which the question must be, why kick them out rather than put you in?"
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Can you explain to me how 26 people who are all appointed due their seniority within one religion adds to diversity. It is the very model of a monoculture - beyond the obvious that they are all from one specific denomination from one religion of the 26 I think there are just five women, one from a minority ethnic group and every one of them is age 55-69 so incredible non diverse in age either. And let's not even bring in LGBT diversity!
I can't and I don't I want other beliefs and world views in the house of Lords. Any one else can be made a Lord.
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I can't and I don't I want other beliefs and world views in the house of Lords. Any one else can be made a Lord.
There would be no bar for a bishop (or several bishops) being appointed to the lords even if the lords spiritual were abolished. They just wouldn't be given an automatic place (unlike any other peers), they'd have to be appointed (just like other peers).
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There would be no bar for a bishop (or several bishops) being appointed to the lords even if the lords spiritual were abolished. They just wouldn't be given an automatic place (unlike any other peers), they'd have to be appointed (just like other peers).
Do you honestly think that a person elected to the House of Lords because of their religion and spirituality is ever going to be acceptible to humanist UK or NSS? Of course not.
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Do you honestly think that a person elected to the House of Lords because of their religion and spirituality is ever going to be acceptible to humanist UK or NSS? Of course not.
You really don't understand secularism do you Vlad.
The point is that it provides a level playing field - so as long as a person goes through the same process and evaluation regardless of whether they are president of the Royal Society, an ex-government minister, president of the NSS, a bishop in the CofE or a member of the public with no special role then that's fine. If that is the case then bishops can apply and be successful in exactly the same manner as anyone else - that is exactly what secularism is about. The issue is when people are specially privileged because of their religion.
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Do you honestly think that a person elected to the House of Lords because of their religion and spirituality is ever going to be acceptible to humanist UK or NSS? Of course not.
Do you think that Humanists UK have a veto power of some sort? There are any number of Lords I find unacceptable on a personal basis, but my dislike of them isn't a basis for objecting to their appointment. It's not (just) the content of their activity which is objectionable in the status of the Lords Spiritual, it's that they have a fundamentally different framework of selection, appointment and representation to all the other Lords, which affords one particular cult of one sect of one religious family additional influence.
You still haven't managed to actually come up with something to attempt to justify that, so far as I can see. You keep wandering off onto this paranoid rant about Humanist UK's new world order, instead...
O.
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Do you think that Humanists UK have a veto power of some sort? There are any number of Lords I find unacceptable on a personal basis, but my dislike of them isn't a basis for objecting to their appointment. It's not (just) the content of their activity which is objectionable in the status of the Lords Spiritual, it's that they have a fundamentally different framework of selection, appointment and representation to all the other Lords, which affords one particular cult of one sect of one religious family additional influence.
You still haven't managed to actually come up with something to attempt to justify that, so far as I can see. You keep wandering off onto this paranoid rant about Humanist UK's new world order, instead...
O.
Veto power or not Humanist UK and NSS are not going to tolerate an appointment to the HOL on the grounds of religion or spirituality so let's have less of this "They don't want a veto in there favour" suggestion you seem to be making..
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Veto power or not Humanist UK and NSS are not going to tolerate an appointment to the HOL on the grounds of religion or spirituality so let's have less of this "They don't want a veto in there favour" suggestion you seem to be making..
You really have no idea what secularism means Vlad.
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Vlad,
Meaning atheists have coopted the word secular and have changed it's meaning. Particularly with regard to secular Humanists.
That’s both simply not true and deeply ironic as the only person trying to re-define the term “secularism” here is you. Secularism means what I told you it means – the separation of church from state in matters political and civic. Your bizarre re-characterisation of it as some sort of witch hunt that “endangers” theists is just counterfactual.
As mentioned before secularity was that aspect of life not considered spiritual which services our material needs and concerns. Unbalanced theocracy has it's mirror image.
No it isn’t. It’s not “unbalanced” not to afford to theists by right the automatic right to positions of authority in matters political and civic.
To suggest that 26 Lords spiritual against hundreds and hundreds of secular Lords is unbalanced theocracy is ridiculous and IMV antitheism masquerading as reasonable.
Way to miss the point again. The point here concerns the granting of certain position by right, rather than by elections or achievement. There is no equivalence to the automatic right afforded to 26 bishops here as you wrongly suggest - no lords temporal are afforded their positions by right for being atheists, indeed no doubt many of them aren't atheists in any case.
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Veto power or not Humanist UK and NSS are not going to tolerate an appointment to the HOL on the grounds of religion or spirituality so let's have less of this "They don't want a veto in there favour" suggestion you seem to be making.
They don't have any authority to appoint or to refuse an appointment. No-one doe... oh, wait, no, one group does have the authority to appoint their chosen 26 Lords... if only we could remember who it might be that has that unwarranted privilege....
O.
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You really have no idea what secularism means Vlad.
I know what it means to you and the conception of secular held by humanistUK and NSS.
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You really don't understand secularism do you Vlad.
The point is that it provides a level playing field - so as long as a person goes through the same process and evaluation regardless of whether they are president of the Royal Society, an ex-government minister, president of the NSS, a bishop in the CofE or a member of the public with no special role then that's fine. If that is the case then bishops can apply and be successful in exactly the same manner as anyone else - that is exactly what secularism is about. The issue is when people are specially privileged because of their religion.
You don't know why there are Lords temporal and Lords spiritual.
The bogus level playing field you are wanting is for all to go through the process of electing secular Lords. It's gamed in the favour of atheists from the get go.
It's just what Dawkins calls being "Mischievious". It's like the jesuits were accused of.....a little bit of handwaving justifies the end.
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Vlad,
The bogus level playing field you are wanting is for all to go through the process of electing secular Lords.
No it isn't. What people are "wanting" is for everyone to be appointed on the same basis - eg, by election – rather than for one group alone (the Bishops) to have the automatic right to those positions solely because they happen to be bishops. If a bishop stood for election and won, no-one would have an issue.
This isn't hard to understand, even for you.
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You don't know why there are Lords temporal and Lords spiritual.
Yes I do - it is due to the historical distinction between hereditary peers, representing the nobility and bishops as representatives of the established church. Through history the make up of the HoLs and distinction between lords temporal and spiritual was there to embed the notion of establishment and entitlement. It is a purely historical anachronism.
And of course the lords temporal has changed massively over the years - once it was entirely hereditary nobility, now it largely comprises appointed life peer who aren't hereditary. By contrast, the only major change in the lords spiritual over centuries has been their number - they remain the most senior members of the CofE now as they have been for centuries (albeit pre 1847 there were Irish and Welsh bishops too).
The automatic appointment of bishops to the HoLs is as anachronistic as the automatic appointment of peers on a hereditary basis - but we've got rid of the latter, yet the former remain.
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You don't know why there are Lords temporal and Lords spiritual.
We know why there were, we don't know why there still are, and you're still to give us any idea of what your justification for them is.
The bogus level playing field you are wanting is for all to go through the process of electing secular Lords. It's gamed in the favour of atheists from the get go.
Secular ≄ atheist. Secular lords does not exclude anyone from consideration, it just doesn't reserve seats for Bishops.
It's just what Dawkins calls being "Mischievious". It's like the jesuits were accused of.....a little bit of handwaving justifies the end.
Regardless of how serious or not you think people are, you've still consistently failed to justify continuing with a parallel system of reserved seats for the Church of England which appears even less acceptable as religiosity and church membership continue to decline in this country.
O.
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Yes I do - it is due to the historical distinction...
The automatic appointment of bishops to the HoLs is as anachronistic as the automatic appointment of peers on a hereditary basis - but we've got rid of the latter, yet the former remain.
IMO, the best way of finding new Lords for parliament would picking people from some randomised lottery.
Similar to selecting people for a jury court.
The only people I know who were members of the jury knew their decisions would be serious and they took them seriously.
There might be a way of ensuring they weren't fraudulent or gaming on their new position. But that should be what happens now.
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IMO, the best way of finding new Lords for parliament would picking people from some randomised lottery.
Similar to selecting people for a jury court.
The only people I know who were members of the jury knew their decisions would be serious and they took them seriously.
There might be a way of ensuring they weren't fraudulent or gaming on their new position. But that should be what happens now.
I agree though I'm not sure Humanist UK or NSS would be pleased about replacement Apostles having been selected by lot in the NT.
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IMO, the best way of finding new Lords for parliament would picking people from some randomised lottery.
Similar to selecting people for a jury court.
The only people I know who were members of the jury knew their decisions would be serious and they took them seriously.
There might be a way of ensuring they weren't fraudulent or gaming on their new position. But that should be what happens now.
Not sure I agree for a range of reasons.
Juries are required to make decisions, but are not expected to be experts in any regard. Peers in the HoLs are expected to scrutinise legislation, which requires a level of expertise through the house, and not just make decisions. There is a distinction in the role of jury and HoLs member.
Also I think it would be really challenging. Fair enough to randomly pick members of the public and expect them to be a jury member in a local court for a couple of weeks. You couldn't do that for the HoLs - how many people could put the rest of their lives on hold, relocate to be working in London for however long unless they'd specifically chosen to. So I suspect this approach would inadvertently be tipped towards certain types of people, so not actually representative, as others find a way to opt out.
Overall I think there are three reasonable approaches to select people (whether in parliament, jobs etc) - the first is on merit - that's how we decide who to select in job interviews, and to an extend the HoLs claims that it's members are there on merit (except the lords spiritual of course), albeit I'm not sure this works particularly well. The second is democratically - put yourself up for election and see who gets the most votes, as per the HoCs (again there are limitations but the principle applies). The first is representative - in other words the members of an organisation such as HoLs are representative of the population - this is the approach for juries, but democracy nor merit-based methods will necessarily deliver a representative chamber.
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Not sure I agree for a range of reasons.
Juries are required to make decisions, but are not expected to be experts in any regard. Peers in the HoLs are expected to scrutinise legislation, which requires a level of expertise through the house, and not just make decisions. There is a distinction in the role of jury and HoLs member.
Also I think it would be really challenging. Fair enough to randomly pick members of the public and expect them to be a jury member in a local court for a couple of weeks. You couldn't do that for the HoLs - how many people could put the rest of their lives on hold, relocate to be working in London for however long unless they'd specifically chosen to. So I suspect this approach would inadvertently be tipped towards certain types of people, so not actually representative, as others find a way to opt out.
Overall I think there are three reasonable approaches to select people (whether in parliament, jobs etc) - the first is on merit - that's how we decide who to select in job interviews, and to an extend the HoLs claims that it's members are there on merit (except the lords spiritual of course), albeit I'm not sure this works particularly well. The second is democratically - put yourself up for election and see who gets the most votes, as per the HoCs (again there are limitations but the principle applies). The first is representative - in other words the members of an organisation such as HoLs are representative of the population - this is the approach for juries, but democracy nor merit-based methods will necessarily deliver a representative chamber.
And a lot of this would be fine until you consider that until recently the idiot sons of idiot fathers had as much right in the House of Lords as those of intelligent fathers on the grounds of inheritence.
It is not true to say that Bishops have no expertise or merit. They have reached the rank of Bishop and manage Diocese if not archdiocese or even global communions(soft power) What expertise or merit do political Cronies have I wonder? Aside from that, Davey, good to see you making progress.
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And a lot of this would be fine until you consider that until recently the idiot sons of idiot fathers had as much right in the House of Lords as those of intelligent fathers on the grounds of inheritence.
Have I ever defended the notion that hereditary is a valid approach to selecting someone for public office or a job. Nope, albeit the CofE accept this notion in terms of determining who should be the supreme head of the church.
It is not true to say that Bishops have no expertise or merit. They have reached the rank of Bishop and manage Diocese if not archdiocese or even global communions(soft power) What expertise or merit do political Cronies have I wonder? Aside from that, Davey, good to see you making progress.
If they want to be selected on merit they can go through the same process as other peers.
But it is hard to argue that they are selected on merit when the bulk are appointed purely on time served - after the ABofC, ABofY, and the bishops of London, Durham and Winchester - the other 21 are merely the 21 longest serving of the 42 bishops. Some of the others may have greater merit but the peerage is all about how long you've been in post.
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And a lot of this would be fine until you consider that until recently the idiot sons of idiot fathers had as much right in the House of Lords as those of intelligent fathers on the grounds of inheritence.
And getting rid of the remaining hereditary peers would be another creditable improvement to the system.
It is not true to say that Bishops have no expertise or merit.
But it is true to say that they've not been selected on the basis of that expertise or merit, they're 'selected' by default because the church has reserved place for them.
They have reached the rank of Bishop and manage Diocese if not archdiocese or even global communions(soft power).
Any number of people in other fields have reached significant rank, have displayed management capabilities, but we don't reserve seats for them in the Lords, why should Bishops be a special case?
What expertise or merit do political Cronies have I wonder?
There are scientists, industrialists, businesspeople, teachers, sportsmen and women, charity workers, politicians, all sorts of walks of life. What merit to Bishops have? You mentioned organisational management skills and 'soft power', neither of which appears directly relevant to the activity of the Lords.
Aside from that, Davey, good to see you making progress.
Aside from that, Vlad, you still haven't' attempted to explain why CofE Bishops deserve special treatment and priveleged places...
O.
[/quote]
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And getting rid of the remaining hereditary peers would be another creditable improvement to the system.
creditable improvement? It should be your main focus instead of expending yourself on the aim of having 1026 secular lords intstead of only 1000.
But it is true to say that they've not been selected on the basis of that expertise or merit, they're 'selected' by default because the church has reserved place for them.
They have they have shown ability and character development to become overseers of diocese and the various spiritual charitable and social efforts they provide for each parish. That involves merit as put against a luvvie lord for instance
Any number of people in other fields have reached significant rank, have displayed management capabilities, but we don't reserve seats for them in the Lords, why should Bishops be a special case?
And in other faith contexts too. I do not think Bishops should be a special case but the Lords spiritual and Lords Temporal division should be retained.
There are scientists, industrialists, businesspeople, teachers, sportsmen and women, charity workers, politicians, all sorts of walks of life. What merit to Bishops have?
As community and social leaders and managers of those networks You mentioned organisational management skills and 'soft power', neither of which appears directly relevant to the activity of the Lords.
Are you kidding me?
Aside from that, Vlad, you still haven't' attempted to explain why CofE Bishops deserve special treatment and priveleged places...
O.
I don't, I favour a ''Lords secular'' and a ''Lords world view'' to represent British Humanists(A religion) as well as other belief positions.
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But it is hard to argue that they are selected on merit when the bulk are appointed purely on time served - after the ABofC, ABofY, and the bishops of London, Durham and Winchester - the other 21 are merely the 21 longest serving of the 42 bishops. Some of the others may have greater merit but the peerage is all about how long you've been in post.
I don't see how you can accuse Bishops of being time served in the context of the House of Lords with a straight face.
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creditable improvement? It should be your main focus instead of expending yourself on the aim of having 1026 secular lords intstead of only 1000.
It turns out that I'm spectacular enough to do both - why reorganise twice when you can get rid of both unjustified elements in one fell swoop.
They have they have shown ability and character development to become overseers of diocese and the various spiritual charitable and social efforts they provide for each parish. That involves merit as put against a luvvie lord for instance
And, again, people in other walks of life have demonstrated similar skills and tendencies, what makes Bishops special? You could make a case against the political appointment of Lords, I might even agree with at least elements of it, but whether the appointment of Lords Temporal is perfect or not is completely irrelevant in your continued failure to justify the continuing presence of the Lords Spiritual.
And in other faith contexts too. I do not think Bishops should be a special case but the Lords spiritual and Lords Temporal division should be retained.
Which just shifts your need to justify from explicitly the Church of England to religion - why should religion get special privileges?
As community and social leaders and managers of those networks
Which could be cited if they are nominated - even if I accept that they have those skills, I don't see why that gives them a shortcut into reserved seats in Parliament.
Are you kidding me? I don't, I favour a ''Lords secular'' and a ''Lords world view'' to represent British Humanists(A religion) as well as other belief positions.
No, I'm not kidding you. You continue to imply that you think the presence of the Lords Spiritual (perhaps reformed in a minor sense to represent a broader swathe of religions) is justified, but you continue to fail to explain what that justification is. You keep extolling the credentials of Bishops, without explaining why those credentials cannot be cited as recommendations in the same nomination process as everyone else, which completely fails to explain why seats should be reserved particular for the CofE, or for religious representatives expressly, when no other walk of life gets such treatment.
British Humanists, by the way, are manifestly not a religion, that should be beneath you. It's not, obviously, but it should be.
O.
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Just reflect that if we drop the reserved appointment of CoE Lords, then that will leave only one country in the world as the shining example of democracy by reserving places in it's legislature for clerics.
Our current cosy club of two will then only have one member.
Iran.
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And, again, people in other walks of life have demonstrated similar skills and tendencies, what makes Bishops special?
You want to exclude the religious walk of life and have totally secular lords
Which just shifts your need to justify from explicitly the Church of England to religion
No, other world views could be included - why should religion get special privileges?
The spiritual gets no privilege over the secular......with it's hundreds and hundreds of secular lords. You see the NSS and HumanistUK takes are essentially, a con with the reality being that secularism has the lions share of representation.
British Humanists, by the way, are manifestly not a religion, that should be beneath you. It's not, obviously, but it should be.
O.
My ''campaign'' is for a ''Lords world view''. Which encompasses stealth religions like New atheism,
Atheists with religious ceremony, clergy and faith statements like Humanist UK with it's celebrants, credal formulations, chaplaincies etc, and Buddhism and the organised non religious.
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Just reflect that if we drop the reserved appointment of CoE Lords, then that will leave only one country in the world as the shining example of democracy by reserving places in it's legislature for clerics.
Our current cosy club of two will then only have one member.
Iran.
There's got to be a thumping great fallacy here. Britain has the same system as Iran....therefore it's as bad as Iran, perhaps.
I move that any resemblence between us and the negative aspects of Iran is down to what goes on in our elected house.
It must also be pointed out that that certain groups of islamic clerics see the Koran are legalists above any kind of spiritual consideration.
Other than that Iran probably has places for clerics in it's main legislative house where as we don't.
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You want to exclude the religious walk of life and have totally secular lords
Even if I were the rabid antitheist that you're trying to ad hominem me into, that still doesn't in any way actually justify your continued support for the Lords Spiritual. There could be an entire country of anti-theists looking to squeeze the Lords Spiritual out of the Lords or I could be the only one, and that has absolutely no impact on the fact that you still haven't made an argument in favour of the institution as is.
No, other world views could be included -
Which ones? If you want to represent the broadest range of world views then, presumably, there's no basis for restricting any of the seats to some particular subset?
The spiritual gets no privilege over the secular......with it's hundreds and hundreds of secular lords.
Spiritual and secular are not opposites, when will you stop with this nonsense. Secular appointments do not in any way prevent spiritual people being appointed, they just don't - pay attention here, this is the magic bit - DO NO PRIVILEGE PARTICULAR AREAS OF CONCERN BY RESERVING SEATS FOR THEM.
You see the NSS and HumanistUK takes are essentially, a con with the reality being that secularism has the lions share of representation.
Secularism SHOULD have the lion's share - it should have all the share - because secularism represents everyone equally.
My ''campaign'' is for a ''Lords world view''. Which encompasses stealth religions like New atheism, Atheists with religious ceremony, clergy and faith statements like Humanist UK with it's celebrants, credal formulations, chaplaincies etc, and Buddhism and the organised non religious.
So your argument in favour of keeping the Lords Spiritual is to suggest that the same people you are suggesting are unfairly trying to get rid of them are part of the group that they represent, because you want to keep explicit religious representation but appear not to understand what religions are. Even for you that's weak. But at least it's an attempt at a justification, I'll grant you. Batshit crazy, but an attempt.
So, given that a) neither of the organisations you suggest are actually in any way religious, and b) even if they were they aren't represented by the current Lords Spiritual and c) even if they were they are actively campaigning against the notion because it doesn't matter who they do or do not represent, the fact that they have a special privilege is the problem... I still don't see how that attempt at an argument actually reaches the necessary level to justify the continuance of the practice.
O.
O.
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Even if I were the rabid antitheist that you're trying to ad hominem me into, that still doesn't in any way actually justify your continued support for the Lords Spiritual. There could be an entire country of anti-theists looking to squeeze the Lords Spiritual out of the Lords or I could be the only one, and that has absolutely no impact on the fact that you still haven't made an argument in favour of the institution as is.
Would you say you were a rabid antitheist? Some people would wear that with a badge of pride and I would say they the rabid antitheists, were you to be one, are bloody lucky to have you. What I think we are all victim of is the misrepresentative premises used by the Humanists UK and the NSS. Namely that there haven't been, for hundreds of years, the lion share of seats reserved for secular Lords. The Lords temporal. There have.
Which ones? If you want to represent the broadest range of world views then, presumably, there's no basis for restricting any of the seats to some particular subset?
Well perhaps this would be less of a problem if one of the privilages of the Lords Secular/temporal has which the Lords spiritual don't have and that's the privilage of extending it's membership.
Spiritual and secular are not opposites, when will you stop with this nonsense.
What? That view has never formed the main part of the rationale I think. Human beings a part spiritual and part secular, they are complimentary. They are not considered opposite, hence 26 Lords spiritual and around a thousand secular places reserved for the secular. rationale I think Secular appointments do not in any way prevent spiritual people being appointed, they just don't -
And no one is purely spiritual and they also have a secular side...even Bishops.
Secularism SHOULD have the lion's share - it should have all the share - because secularism represents everyone equally.
We will have to disagree on that one. When I first became a Christian I would have been happy to believe that your person entering the Lords or most of them would be people who knew they had and cultivated their spiritual side. As it turned out, People arrived on the scene who wanted to repudiate spirituality and govern and be governed on the principles of scientism and who called for a public repudiation and humiliation of spirituality and worse, people who acknowledged their spirituality. Sinister because of how they want the place to run, that they assume are at the forefront of rights, that spirituality denies them stuff, that only they can vouchsafe the good ( a kind of militant self righteousness ), Dishonest in how they have distorted the actual privilage going on in the House of Lords etc, etc. And frankly wanting a transfer of church soft power in their favour when they are still in a smaller minority than those they seek to receive transferred authority from.
The lords secular and temporal are only there for there secular input, You have already admitted that the focus should be entirely on the secular to the exclusion of the spiritual
Secularism SHOULD have the lion's share - it should have all the share.
And there I think we have exactly what the game is,
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The lords secular and temporal are only there for there secular input,
Firstly there is no such things a the Lords Secular - there is, however, the Lords Temporal as a historic term for members of the HoL who are not appointed automatically on the basis of their position within the CofE.
Secondly, as so often, you are talking complete non-sense. There is absolutely no requirement or obligation for a member of the Lords Temporal to restrict themselves to secular input. They have free reign to determine what and when they want to make their contributions. So there is nothing to stop an ex ABofC (who will be Lords Temporal) to only contributing on spiritual matters, likewise the Chief Rabbi. Indeed any member of the Lords Temporal could restrict their contributions to religious and spiritual matters should they choose.
And the flip-side is also true - Lords Spiritual are allow to engage in and vote on any matter that comes before the HoL, however far removed from the spiritual.
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Firstly there is no such things a the Lords Secular - there is, however, the Lords Temporal as a historic term for members of the HoL who are not appointed automatically on the basis of their position within the CofE.
And the lords temporal are the Lords secular......a rose by any other name, and all that. See wikipedia entry for Lords Temporal. You are implying that if you wanted secular Lords you'd have to kick the Lords temporal out. That is palpable crap.
Secondly, as so often, you are talking complete non-sense. There is absolutely no requirement or obligation for a member of the Lords Temporal to restrict themselves to secular input. They have free reign to determine what and when they want to make their contributions. So there is nothing to stop an ex ABofC (who will be Lords Temporal) to only contributing on spiritual matters, likewise the Chief Rabbi. Indeed any member of the Lords Temporal could restrict their contributions to religious and spiritual matters should they choose.
Not nonsense the Lords temporal or secular lords have a flexible number of seats. A privilage not extended to the Lords spiritual.
And the flip-side is also true - Lords Spiritual are allow to engage in and vote on any matter that comes before the HoL,
[/quote]They are secular people as well though. I don't see what your point is. It's down to what your focus isand the overall focus of the Hol is secular.
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They are secular people as well though. I don't see what your point is. It's down to what your focus isand the overall focus of the Hol is secular.
You really do need to get your arguments straight Vlad. You claim that the Lords Temporal are only there for secular input, and then argue that the Lords Temporal are secular people as well.
You can't have it both ways Vlad.
The reality is that the designation of Temporal vs Spiritual is entirely about how those members are appointed to the Lords - the latter automatically appointed due to their role in the CofE, the former appointed through formal processes in the HoLs. The terminology has nothing whatsoever to do with their actual role in the HoLs - both types of Lords have equal rights to turn up (or not turn up) contribute to HoLs debates, vote etc. There is nothing to say that Lords Temporal must restrict themselves to discussion of secular matters not that Lords Spiritual must restrict themselves to discussion of religious matters. Any peer can engage in debate on any matter raised in the house.
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And the lords temporal are the Lords secular......a rose by any other name, and all that. See wikipedia entry for Lords Temporal. You are implying that if you wanted secular Lords you'd have to kick the Lords temporal out.
Actually if you kicked out the Lords spiritual you'd simply have ... err Lords - there would be not need to sub-divide by Temporal, Spiritual (the current division) or secular or religious etc etc. They'd all just be Lords. You'd also want to kick out the final hereditaries as well.
Just think about it in terms of the commons - MPs are described as MPs Temporal or MPs Secular, nope they are just described as MPs.
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You really do need to get your arguments straight Vlad. You claim that the Lords Temporal are only there for secular input, and then argue that the Lords Temporal are secular people as well.
You can't have it both ways Vlad.
Which would be fine had it not been for the fact that I talk about 'focus' and the 'expertise' they bring with them and yes the squadrons of The Lords Temporal have a secular focus and the Lords spiritual have a spiritual focus.
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... and the Lords spiritual have a spiritual focus.
What like this guy:
https://members.parliament.uk/member/4187/voting?page=1
Check out his voting record on such clearly 'spiritual' matters, such as Police, Crime, Sentencing & Courts Bill, Covert Human Intelligence Bill, European Union Bill and the most spiritual matter of all - Local Auditing!
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The Lords Temporal have a secular focus
What like George Carey and John Sentamu - don't make me laugh.
The point is that there is no restriction whatsoever on topics that any peer can speak on, vote on and no requirement for them to have a secular or a spiritual focus - they can engage as they please.
The difference is in how they are appointed to the Lords - on the one hand through an appointment process in parliament and on the other automatically on the basis of their appointment to a completely different role in a completely different organisation.
You could just as well argue that the vice chancellors of the 24 Russell Group universities should automatically become peers on the basis of being appointed to run a leading university.
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Would you say you were a rabid antitheist?
I already said, in the sentence where I mentioned it, that I wouldn't, but then what other people tell you about their stance doesn't really seem to get through to you very often, does it?
Some people would wear that with a badge of pride and I would say they the rabid antitheists, were you to be one, are bloody lucky to have you.
Some people? Really? Are these the people that rocked up to Donald Trumps inauguration? Those people....
What I think we are all victim of is the misrepresentative premises used by the Humanists UK and the NSS. Namely that there haven't been, for hundreds of years, the lion share of seats reserved for secular Lords.
Life peers were introduced, as I recall, in the late 1950s, so for hundreds of years in fact the Lords the lion's share of the seats was for entrenched families of influence, but don't let a little thing like reality get in the way of your nonsense. NOW, yes, the majority of the seats are representative of everyone in equal measure given that they are secular; that still leaves you failing to adequately justify the continued presence of the Lords Spriritual representing a portion of a continuously diminishing minority of the nation.
Well perhaps this would be less of a problem if one of the privilages of the Lords Secular/temporal has which the Lords spiritual don't have and that's the privilage of extending it's membership.
So your logical response to 'you've still failed to justify the existence of the Lords Spiritual' is to complain that you can't expand the tradition...
What? That view has never formed the main part of the rationale I think.
It's the foundation of your continued railing against the Lords Temporal, that as 'secular' representatives they need something explicitly religious to counter the explicitly atheist stance that only you appear to be aware of.
Human beings a part spiritual and part secular, they are complimentary.
No, we aren't, secular and spiritual are ideas about different things. That's like saying we're part sportsman and part liver. Secular is about how we organise institutions, and does not exclude or privilege the notion of spiritual. As to whether humans are 'part spiritual', you could believe that, but I'd be inclined to disagree.
They are not considered opposite, hence 26 Lords spiritual and around a thousand secular places reserved for the secular.
So if they aren't opposed, why can't the seats of the Lords Spiritual be absorbed into the broader house and represented from amongst the broad representation of the Lords? Why does the CofE need special reserved seats?
And no one is purely spiritual and they also have a secular side...even Bishops.
See above, where you said that spiritual and secular are not opposites? You need to remember that two sentences later when you write nonsense like this.
We will have to disagree on that one.
You can disagree if you want, but unless you can justify that disagreement that's just you being contrary because it doesn't help your arbitrary cause. The point of secularism is that it represents everyone equally - if you think a group is somehow 'excluded' then make your case, but you need to make the case before you can justify things like the Lords Spiritual as a defence against that inequality.
When I first became a Christian I would have been happy to believe that your person entering the Lords or most of them would be people who knew they had and cultivated their spiritual side.
I would be happy to never here anyone witter on about 'spiritual' again, and instead focus on reality, but there you go.
As it turned out, People arrived on the scene who wanted to repudiate spirituality and govern and be governed on the principles of scientism and who called for a public repudiation and humiliation of spirituality and worse, people who acknowledged their spirituality.
Really? Who? When? In the Lords? Are you sure?
Sinister because of how they want the place to run, that they assume are at the forefront of rights, that spirituality denies them stuff, that only they can vouchsafe the good ( a kind of militant self righteousness ), Dishonest in how they have distorted the actual privilage going on in the House of Lords etc, etc. And frankly wanting a transfer of church soft power in their favour when they are still in a smaller minority than those they seek to receive transferred authority from.
The history of equal rights in this country over the last, say, 150 years does have The Church of England fairly consistently on the side of maintaining unjustifiable restrictions on people's freedom, maintaining inequality, and if you're looking at the Lords Spiritual being representative of the broader Christian (i.e. worldwide Anglican, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox etc) or religious (i.e. Islamic) stance then they are hardly pushing at the forefront of the battles against homophobia, transphobia, misogyny or even, in some instances, racism.
The lords secular and temporal are only there for there secular input, You have already admitted that the focus should be entirely on the secular to the exclusion of the spiritual
Secular does not exclude spiritual, it just doesn't afford it special privilege.
And there I think we have exactly what the game is,
Yes, that's where 'the game' is, where EVERYONE is represented, and no particular outlook or group has a special privilege. Now, do you have a better attempt at justifying that current special privilege that the Church of England has in the form of its 26 reserved seats, in addition to the number of Christians elected as Lords Temporal?
O.
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So your logical response to 'you've still failed to justify the existence of the Lords Spiritual' is to complain that you can't expand the tradition...
Not true...'ve supplied the reason why there are Lords spiritual and Lords temporal. It reflects the division of man and the division of past society. Society remains the same but the ghastly homonculus conjured up by Humanist UK and NSS, namely a mere sociopoliticaleconomic unit still fails to represent your average human being adequately.
Atheist organisations failed to mention that the Lords Temporal/secular also had a reserved share of the seats and not only that, their numbers were also open. None of that is indisputeable.
That's the privilege in the house of Lords.
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Not true...'ve supplied the reason why there are Lords spiritual and Lords temporal.
We all know why there are, but you're advocating that there still should be and you've failed to explain why this entrenched privilege should continue to be accepted.
It reflects the division of man and the division of past society.
So did slavery, and women not being allowed to vote, and the criminalisation of homosexuality, and the denial of service to the Irish and any number of other traditions and artefacts. We've rid ourselves of those because they're unjustifiable institutions and ideas... the Lords Spiritual's time has come, don't you think?
Society remains the same but the ghastly homonculus conjured up by Humanist UK and NSS, namely a mere sociopoliticaleconomic unit still fails to represent your average human being adequately.
You can not like Humanist UK and NSS as much as you'd like, but given that neither of them is explicitly shaping the make-up of the Lords it's a bit of a red herring. You can't justify the Lords Spiritual by disliking the NSS any more than you can justify it by disliking McDonalds. If you want to advocate for the continued existence of the Lords Spiritual you have to explain why the Church of England deserves special privilege over EVERY OTHER CONCERN.
Atheist organisations failed to mention that the Lords Temporal/secular also had a reserved share of the seats and not only that, their numbers were also open.
Sorry, which seats are reserved for atheists? None of them. The only reserved seats are those special 26 for the Lords Spiritual and a number of hereditary peerage seats (which I've also advocated getting rid of).
None of that is indisputeable.
Except that it's absolute horseshit, you mean? Apart from the fact that it's blatantly false, fundamentally untrue and not an accurate depiction of the reality? Apart from that?
That's the privilege in the house of Lords.
Are you looking up the right country's parliament? You seem not to have the facts to hand. Try this - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Lords (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Lords)
O.
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Sorry, which seats are reserved for atheists? None of them. The only reserved seats are those special 26 for the Lords Spiritual and a number of hereditary peerage seats (which I've also advocated getting rid of).
Alas, that is true but I would certainly lose 1 or 2 Anglican Bishops and install a couple of unbelievers in their place.
However to say having Lords spiritual is a privilege in the face of the secular Lords having an open reserved presence is palpably ridiculous and misleading.
I've given a reason why Humanists and atheists should be recognised since they are for many a world view. You need to justify the hideous grotesque homonculus view of humanity you think is better served by just having Lords secular/temporal...or are you wanting it all to just happen by default?
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You want to exclude the religious walk of life and have totally secular lords
That's not what "secular" means. Nobody is arguing that bishops or other church officials should not be allowed to stand for parliament. They are only arguing that they should not be afforded special privileges i.e. free seats in the House of Lords.
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Alas, that is true but I would certainly lose 1 or 2 Anglican Bishops and install a couple of unbelievers in their place.
How magnanimous of you - and what's your justification for retaining the remainder?
However to say having Lords spiritual is a privilege in the face of the secular Lords having an open reserved presence is palpably ridiculous and misleading.
In what way? Secular representation does not exclude anyone, no-one is inherently barred from those seats. The Lords Spiritual, on the other hand, are specifically reserved for a select group of one particular religious sect. How does that not equate to a privileged position for that religion?
I've given a reason why Humanists and atheists should be recognised since they are for many a world view.
And I've pointed out that you not like those groups does not in any way impact on whether the Lords Spiritual represent special privilege for the Church of England.
You need to justify the hideous grotesque homonculus view of humanity you think is better served by just having Lords secular/temporal...or are you wanting it all to just happen by default?
Because I don't think that privileging one particular group is equitable, particularly when the data now shows that this one particular group represents one particular subset of one particular group of one minority group in the country. Whether you like what the 'secular' lords are doing or not doesn't change the inequitable reality that the Church of England has a privileged place in Parliament that you appear to support without being able to justify.
O.
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That's not what "secular" means. Nobody is arguing that bishops or other church officials should not be allowed to stand for parliament. They are only arguing that they should not be afforded special privileges i.e. free seats in the House of Lords.
'Secular' has many meanings. I know nobody is arguing that bishops or other church officials shouldn't be allowed to stand for parliament.
They also should not be guaranteed free seats in the Lords spiritual. That should include world views as delineated by the census and go by numbers represented.
The lords spiritual and the Lords Temporal are both guaranteed places in the house of Lords with the Lords secular privileged in terms of share and expansion of numbers of seats.
Whether there should be Lords spiritual is an ideological matter and issue to vent one's atheist wrath on with those who feel there shouldn't naturally overrepresented on a forum like this.
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'Secular' has many meanings.
Not really. It has many applications, it has many contexts, but it only really has one meaning.
I know nobody is arguing that bishops or other church officials shouldn't be allowed to stand for parliament.
Your ravings about 'antitheists' just wanting to privilege atheism suggests that you don't.
They also should not be guaranteed free seats in the Lords spiritual. That should include world views as delineated by the census and go by numbers represented.
Again, why should religion have a privileged place in Parliament? "Render unto Caesar..." and all that...
The lords spiritual and the Lords Temporal are both guaranteed places in the house of Lords with the Lords secular privileged in terms of share and expansion of numbers of seats.
Having the group that represents everyone have the largest share does not privilege anyone. Having a group that represents everyone, including the religious, and then an additional group to add weight to the religious viewpoint is privileging religion. You can't privilege everyone, that makes no sense.
Whether there should be Lords spiritual is an ideological matter
Yes, and you keep failing to justify your ideological stance on it.
... and issue to vent one's atheist wrath on with those who feel there shouldn't naturally overrepresented on a forum like this.
Not overrepresented, just represented. As the recent census shows, religiosity is in decline, and you'd therefore expect to see support for an explicit policy that favours religion also be in decline. It's not unique to this forum, it's representative of the nation. And, as a notionally representative democracy, our parliament should be representative of the nation too, and reserved seats for the religious in parliament undermines that.
O.
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Not really. It has many applications, it has many contexts, but it only really has one meaning.
Your ravings about 'antitheists' just wanting to privilege atheism suggests that you don't.
Again, why should religion have a privileged place in Parliament? "Render unto Caesar..." and all that...
Because religion is an aspect of spirituality which is an aspect of humanity. If atheists or whoever wish to abuse themselves by homoncularising their humanity into a wizened sociopolitical mere unit let them do it but don't ask me to.
Having the group that represents everyone have the largest share does not privilege anyone.
Represents everyone or absolutely no one? A secular only house of Lords is bound to represent secular as opposed to spiritual interests. It is only there to represent the transhuman automaton of secular humanism and the atheism of the four horsemen...anything else you want to know?
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Because religion is an aspect of spirituality which is an aspect of humanity.
That's a claim that an increasing number of people don't agree with. There are people who think spirituality is nonsense, and people who are spiritual but don't see why that needs to include religion.
If atheists or whoever wish to abuse themselves by homoncularising their humanity into a wizened sociopolitical mere unit let them do it but don't ask me to.
Nobody is asking them to, but you still need to explain why, even if your claim about spirituality were true, it's somehow different to all the other aspects of humanity to the extent it needs special seats reserved for it. Sexuality is a part of humanity, where is the special representation for that?
Represents everyone or absolutely no one?
Either of those is fairer, one of them is arguably more useful than the other.
A secular only house of Lords is bound to represent secular as opposed to spiritual interests.
SECULAR DOES NOT EXCLUDE SPIRITUAL OR RELIGIOUS!!!!
It is only there to represent the transhuman automaton of secular humanism and the atheism of the four horsemen...anything else you want to know?
Why does not giving religion a special pulpit equate to removing it from the equation entirely? If religion needs to regulated into people's lives because otherwise they'd just let it wither away why should it not be allowed to wither away?
O.
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That's a claim that an increasing number of people don't agree with.
Argumentum ad populum.
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Why does not giving religion a special pulpit equate to removing it from the equation entirely? If religion needs to regulated into people's lives because otherwise they'd just let it wither away why should it not be allowed to wither away?
O.
Religion isn't withering away it's becoming different forms of spirituality even breaking out in humanism with it's chaplains and celebrants and sunday services and meek and priestly scientists and luvvies like Brian Cox and Alice Roberts and Fry and it's tub thumpers like Dawkins etc.
I have to admit I wonder how Dawkins feels that he's only on the media for his contraversialist style rather than for anything of substance.
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Argumentum ad populum.
No, because the point isn't that it's definitively wrong (or right), but that to mandate it being part of parliament when it's not representative of the population is unjustified. It was also the counterpoint to you stating the claim as though it were a fact in an attempt to continue to justify the untenable position of the Lords Spiritual, which you've still managed to adequately do.
Religion isn't withering away it's becoming different forms of spirituality
Which are, by definition, not religion. That people might be looking for something else instead doesn't change the fact that religion is withering away in this country.
even breaking out in humanism with it's chaplains and celebrants and sunday services and meek and priestly scientists and luvvies like Brian Cox and Alice Roberts and Fry and it's tub thumpers like Dawkins etc.
That still doesn't look like a justification for the Lords Spiritual, to me.
I have to admit I wonder how Dawkins feels that he's only on the media for his contraversialist style rather than for anything of substance.
I wasn't aware he was in the media at the moment, particularly. You'd have to be the sort of obsessive that shoe-horns him into discussions to go looking for him, I suppose. Maybe we could nominate him as a Lord, and then (if he got it) your comments would be at least vaguely somewhere near relevant?
O.
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No, because the point isn't that it's definitively wrong (or right), but that to mandate it being part of parliament when it's not representative of the population is unjustified. It was also the counterpoint to you stating the claim as though it were a fact in an attempt to continue to justify the untenable position of the Lords Spiritual, which you've still managed to adequately do.
Which are, by definition, not religion. That people might be looking for something else instead doesn't change the fact that religion is withering away in this country.
That still doesn't look like a justification for the Lords Spiritual, to me.
I wasn't aware he was in the media at the moment, particularly. You'd have to be the sort of obsessive that shoe-horns him into discussions to go looking for him, I suppose. Maybe we could nominate him as a Lord, and then (if he got it) your comments would be at least vaguely somewhere near relevant?
O.
Well then we can rejoice that Dawkins is going the same way but with increased rapidity than religion. Let's hope he takes the monstrous homoncularisation of contemporary British atheism with him.
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Well then we can rejoice that Dawkins is going the same way but with increased rapidity than religion. Let's hope he takes the monstrous homoncularisation of contemporary British atheism with him.
Should I presume that you've run out of pop-up Dawkins references to try to distract from the fact that you don't have a point and have accepted that there's no justification for maintaining the privileged seats reserved in the Lords for the religious?
O.
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The lords spiritual and the Lords Temporal are both guaranteed places in the house of Lords with the Lords secular privileged in terms of share and expansion of numbers of seats.
Is it your belief that the Lords Temporal are all atheists?
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Argumentum ad populum.
In a country that is, at least nominally, a democracy, what the majority thinks is fairly important in political matters.
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Is it your belief that the Lords Temporal are all atheists?
No but for all of the Lords Temporal secular issues and their secular expertise or achievement are their focus and raison d'etre.
No Lords temporal are expected to provide spiritual insight.
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No but for all of the Lords Temporal secular issues and their secular expertise or achievement are their focus and raison d'etre.
The Lords is there as part of the legislature, we shouldn't be legislating individuals' spiritual issues. If you want spiritual insight, you go to the religious establishment of your choice. Providing 'spiritual insight' is not what the Lords is for. If there is a 'spiritual' aspect to an issue of law there are any number of religious Lords who can provide that insight, from multiple perspectives. Why do you need additional, reserved, privileged representation?
O.
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The Lords is there as part of the legislature, we shouldn't be legislating individuals' spiritual issues. If you want spiritual insight, you go to the religious establishment of your choice. Providing 'spiritual insight' is not what the Lords is for. If there is a 'spiritual' aspect to an issue of law there are any number of religious Lords who can provide that insight, from multiple perspectives. Why do you need additional, reserved, privileged representation?
O.
Yes like you don't go to the Lords for a heart bypass but you hopefully do have some medical professionals in the house of Lords that can add insight when it comes to spending money on them. Ditto we need those that understand their communities and while 46% of census fillers put down Christian that'd be the church. I want Humanists in the Lords spiritual but what we don't want is bonkers atheists running around unchecked ripping up the infra structure for the 46% because of some homoncularised vision of humanity, or the infrastructure for any religion for that matter.
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Yes like you don't go to the Lords for a heart bypass but you hopefully do have some medical professionals in the house of Lords that can add insight when it comes to spending money on them.
Good point. We need some Lords Medical. We also need some Lords Athletic to give advice on sporting matters and some Lords Mechanical to deal with issues relating to cars.
Can't you see how silly your objection to abolishing the Lords Spiritual is?
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Good point. We need some Lords Medical. We also need some Lords Athletic to give advice on sporting matters and some Lords Mechanical to deal with issues relating to cars.
Can't you see how silly your objection to abolishing the Lords Spiritual is?
No, democratically accepting the assertions of a minority of census participants makes no sense particularly when their argument is based on the inaccurate notion that the Lords temporal do not have reserved places and the lions share to boot.
Regarding Lords medical I take it that would exclude people like hospital chaplains.
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Yes like you don't go to the Lords for a heart bypass but you hopefully do have some medical professionals in the house of Lords that can add insight when it comes to spending money on them.
Yes, but I don't see 26 seats reserved for the 'Lords Surgical'.
Ditto we need those that understand their communities and while 46% of census fillers put down Christian that'd be the church.
The Church of England does not represent all of those 46%, and there are significant communities that it doesn't represent at all. And, again, if you consider that expertise is lacking in the house they can appoint someone with that understanding, that still fails to justify having 26 reserved seats for one particular special interest group.
I want Humanists in the Lords spiritual but what we don't want is bonkers atheists running around unchecked ripping up the infra structure for the 46% because of some homoncularised vision of humanity, or the infrastructure for any religion for that matter.
Go on, throw in another badly-spelt homonculise in lieu of having a point. If you want broader representation the answer is not a different balance of reserved seats, it's don't reserve seats. You've still not explained why the Church of England, Christianity, Religion or even spirituality merits reserved places when other considerations don't.
O.
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Yes, but I don't see 26 seats reserved for the 'Lords Surgical'.
Perhaps we could combine the Lords Surgical with the Lords spiritual and have the Lods Surgical Spirit.
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The Church of England does not represent all of those 46%, and there are significant communities that it doesn't represent at all.
Indeed - CofE bishops can only legitimately be said to represent the CofE membership, which they tend to describe now as their worshipful community, which currently stands at 966k, in other words about 1.4% of the UK population. And as the CofE operates in England they don't really represent anyone in three of the four nations of the UK.
There are a whole bunch of organisations that have membership greater than the CofE - should they get automatic places in the Lords? Well if they should and they should proportionately be represented to the level the CofE are officially in the Lords Spiritual (not counting all the Lords Temporal peers who may also be CofE members), we'd need to reserve 30 places to automatically be awarded to the 30 most senior officials of the Caravan and Motorhome Club!!!
Oh and you'll need to set aside 154 automatic places for officials of the National Trust (officials, note, not members).
And 161 automatic places for officials of the National Union of Students (officials, note, not members).
etc, etc
Gonna be one hell of a large House of Lords.
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Perhaps we could combine the Lords Surgical with the Lords spiritual and have the Lods Surgical Spirit.
Like this
https://youtu.be/EYcnKkBOcmI
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Like this
https://youtu.be/EYcnKkBOcmI
Yes, Very Good.
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Indeed - CofE bishops can only legitimately be said to represent the CofE membership, which they tend to describe now as their worshipful community, which currently stands at 966k, in other words about 1.4% of the UK population. And as the CofE operates in England they don't really represent anyone in three of the four nations of the UK.
There are a whole bunch of organisations that have membership greater than the CofE - should they get automatic places in the Lords? Well if they should and they should proportionately be represented to the level the CofE are officially in the Lords Spiritual (not counting all the Lords Temporal peers who may also be CofE members), we'd need to reserve 30 places to automatically be awarded to the 30 most senior officials of the Caravan and Motorhome Club!!!
Oh and you'll need to set aside 154 automatic places for officials of the National Trust (officials, note, not members).
And 161 automatic places for officials of the National Union of Students (officials, note, not members).
etc, etc
Gonna be one hell of a large House of Lords.
I recall Rowan Williams I think saying he was formerly not opposed to disestablishment but then noted the discomfort felt by people of the main religious groups in this country at a hostile attitude from secularists towards them and how the leadership of these groups were thankful of even the bishops presence. Of course this attitude is probably not nearly so hostile as the secular attitude in say, France but that doesn't make it any more ''right''
So caught up in their own self righteousness certain prominent patrons of Humanist UK and the NSS fail to see the effect their pitchfork and torch rhetoric is actually having.
26 members of the Lords spiritual drawn statistically from census information would be the place to start with HumanistUK doing a Sinn Fein by not taking their seats if they so wished.
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I recall Rowan Williams I think saying he was formerly not opposed to disestablishment but then noted the discomfort felt by people of the main religious groups in this country at a hostile attitude from secularists towards them and how the leadership of these groups were thankful of even the bishops presence.
I'm sure that 'discomfort' at the 'hostile attitude' ranks right up there alongside, say, the distaste amongst the gay community and their allies at the church using its entrenched position to try to prevent equal marriage.
So caught up in their own self righteousness certain prominent patrons of Humanist UK and the NSS fail to see the effect their pitchfork and torch rhetoric is actually having.
Is that effect having reserved seats in Parliament? No, it's just them exercising their free speech - the 'pitchfork and torch' rhetoric coming from Humanists UK and the NSS is pitched against the institutional homophobia and misogyny of the Church, and if you're looking to expand the remit of the Lords Spiritual, formal religion in general.
26 members of the Lords spiritual drawn statistically from census information would be the place to start with HumanistUK doing a Sinn Fein by not taking their seats if they so wished.
You're somewhere between begging the question and rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. Why are you quibbling about the make-up of a special group to represent 'spiritual' ideas when you've still not managed to justify special treatment in Parliament for 'spirit' anyway. Why do we need Lords Spiritual at all?
O.
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I'm sure that 'discomfort' at the 'hostile attitude' ranks right up there alongside, say, the distaste amongst the gay community and their allies at the church using its entrenched position to try to prevent equal marriage.
And while I'd never support actions that aim at attitudinal discomfort against groups based on their sex, race, sexuality, belief (or lack of believe) etc, etc, this is experience to a greater or lesser extent by all of those groups. However I would argue strongly that hostile societal attitudes are much greater towards ethnic minorities, gay people and (whisper it quietly) atheists, than towards christians - and indeed in the case of Williams, a white, middle-aged straight, economically-advantaged christian, who is probably about the least likely to suffer.
However there is a further level of 'discomfort' - specifically where this is embedded in the law, such that certain groups are legally disadvantaged because they are members of a particular group. This goes beyond 'discomfort' and into state-sanctioned discrimination. And while we have made a lot of progress in this regard to remove discriminatory laws (e.g. that prevented gay people getting married) or removing special privileges (which are effectively discrimination against those that don't get that special privilege), we have retained significant privileges for organised religion, and in particular the CofE that amount to discrimination against individuals and groups that are not religious.
So frankly Williams words ring hollow while his organisation gains financial and social privileges including state funded faith schools that are allowed to discriminate, opt-outs to equalities legislation, guaranteed charitable status, complete exemption from business rates, the ability to levy income from local residents to pay for church repairs etc etc - and of course 26 automatic seats in the HoLs.
So don't make me laugh that christians (still less CofE christians) are somehow a disadvantaged and discriminated against group in the UK.
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I'm sure that 'discomfort' at the 'hostile attitude' ranks right up there alongside, say, the distaste amongst the gay community and their allies at the church using its entrenched position to try to prevent equal marriage.
An enterprise doomed to failure when British society decided that it didn't care who other people decided to get married to. The church being split eventually to those who wanted to keep the phrase Holy matrimony to mean between one man and one woman and those who the think the issue too trivial to endanger the churches overall mission. In the light of that why should an atheist gay be bothered about this except for atheist reasons. I personally was convinced by the argument that Christians don't have the monopoly on the term 'Marriage'. Yes, imposing the churches view of marriage on unbelievers is overreach...but so is imposing the secular view of marriage on the church.
Is that effect having reserved seats in Parliament? No, it's just them exercising their free speech - the 'pitchfork and torch' rhetoric coming from Humanists UK and the NSS is pitched against the institutional homophobia and misogyny of the Church, and if you're looking to expand the remit of the Lords Spiritual, formal religion in general.
Humanist UK and NSS under the patronage of certain swivel eyed atheist celebrities will exploit any group in it's foam flecked ambient sofa bound saturday night channel 4 debates against the church.
You're somewhere between begging the question and rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. Why are you quibbling about the make-up of a special group to represent 'spiritual' ideas when you've still not managed to justify special treatment in Parliament for 'spirit' anyway. Why do we need Lords Spiritual at all?
What are you afraid of? Why not give jews and moslems and hindus and sikhs a place in the Lords spiritual?
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26 members of the Lords spiritual drawn statistically from census information would be the place to start with HumanistUK doing a Sinn Fein by not taking their seats if they so wished.
So give us your seat breakdown based on the latest census returns.
That would be a good way to figure out how your New age HOL would pan out.
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So give us your seat breakdown based on the latest census returns.
That would be a good way to figure out how your New age HOL would pan out.
The fundamental problem for Vlad is that he wants to provide special interest groups (for want of a better term) automatic seats on the basis of the proportion of the public that aligns themselves with that special interest. This is his argument for Lords 'World View'.
But of course many people align themselves with more than one 'special interest' - so someone may be a CofE, environmentalist, union-member, yoga practicing, concert goer. All of which may be incredibly important to their 'world view'. So under Vlad's ill thought through plans they need to be represented by a Bishop, a senior official of WWF, a union general sec., a senior official of the UK yoga organisation and the chair of the professional musician's union.
Quite apart from the obvious that many of these people may be far too busy in their own jobs to want to be members of the HoLs, we would end up needing many times more peers than the house could sensibly cope with.
I've already showed that is proportionately the CofE should get 26 seats, you'd need another nigh on 350 just to be fair, proportionately, to the NUS, National Trust and Caravan and Motorhome Club.
But there is a further major flaw in Vlad's argument - he assumes that people are 'joiner' - effectively that if they think something important, they join the club. But actually many don't and that is the case across the board. Polls suggest that a majority of the population are concerned with environmental issues, yet I imagine only a small proportion will actually join their local Wildlife Trust, or friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, WWF etc. But those organisations can only legitimately claim to be representing their members - not a bunch of other people that, for various reasons, have chosen not to join.
And the same is true across many aspects of life, not least religion - so the likes of Vlad like to bandy around figure such as 50%-ish of the UK population are christian (in census terms). But the CofE cannot claim to represent those that are active and not CofE, nor those who tick christian on the census but are not members of any denomination. They could choose to be members of the CofE, but they've chosen not to be, so the CofE does not represent them.
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An enterprise doomed to failure when British society decided that it didn't care who other people decided to get married to.
Another example of how the Church is not well place to represent the nation at large, given how fundamentally out of touch it is on things like human rights.
The church being split eventually to those who wanted to keep the phrase Holy matrimony to mean between one man and one woman and those who the think the issue too trivial to endanger the churches overall mission.
And that's a Church matter, and outside of the Church no-one gives a shit... unless, say, 26 bishops are authorised to sit in the Lords purely because they're bishops and vote in favour of applying their religious viewpoint to laws that affect everyone, regardless of whether they follow that religion, another religion or no religion at all.
In the light of that why should an atheist gay be bothered about this except for atheist reasons.
Why limit it to atheist gay people? There are any number of Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Shintoists, Wiccans and who knows what other faith traditions, from all ends of the sexuality spectrum, who support equal marriage. And they should be bothered because who knows that the next issue is that the Bishops will vote in line with the indoctrinational recidivism against the general trend of society.
I personally was convinced by the argument that Christians don't have the monopoly on the term 'Marriage'.
And if you were in the Lords that would be relevant. Except that whilst it's an example of the problem, it's not the extent of the problem - when's the next time the Lords Spiritual are going to be fundamentally unrepresentative of the nation, yet still given a say because a fraction of a fraction of a fraction remain of an historic tradition that belongs in history?
Yes, imposing the churches view of marriage on unbelievers is overreach...but so is imposing the secular view of marriage on the church.
Imposing the church's view on ANYTHING is overreach. And as no-one is imposing the secular view of marriage on the church, that's just an attempt at a distraction.
Humanist UK and NSS under the patronage of certain swivel eyed atheist celebrities will exploit any group in it's foam flecked ambient sofa bound saturday night channel 4 debates against the church.
So stop watching Channel 4. Or, perhaps, look and realise that they are no more 'swivel-eyed' then men who rail against modernity whilst wearing dresses and bling and preaching their version of 'distorted sexuality' whilst debating the evils of other people's 'distorted sexuality'.
What are you afraid of? Why not give jews and moslems and hindus and sikhs a place in the Lords spiritual?
Because the idea of reserving seats for 'spiritual' representatives is entrenching privilege for religion. What are you afraid of, why can't the plethora of Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs and Christians already in the Lords Temporal not adequately represent those concerns?
O.
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The fundamental problem for Vlad......
Nevertheless I would be interested in what his actual solution would be.
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And while I'd never support actions that aim at attitudinal discomfort against groups based on their sex, race, sexuality, belief (or lack of believe) etc, etc, this is experience to a greater or lesser extent by all of those groups. However I would argue strongly that hostile societal attitudes are much greater towards ethnic minorities, gay people and (whisper it quietly) atheists, than towards christians - and indeed in the case of Williams, a white, middle-aged straight, economically-advantaged christian, who is probably about the least likely to suffer.
However there is a further level of 'discomfort' - specifically where this is embedded in the law, such that certain groups are legally disadvantaged because they are members of a particular group. This goes beyond 'discomfort' and into state-sanctioned discrimination. And while we have made a lot of progress in this regard to remove discriminatory laws (e.g. that prevented gay people getting married) or removing special privileges (which are effectively discrimination against those that don't get that special privilege), we have retained significant privileges for organised religion, and in particular the CofE that amount to discrimination against individuals and groups that are not religious.
So frankly Williams words ring hollow while his organisation gains financial and social privileges including state funded faith schools that are allowed to discriminate, opt-outs to equalities legislation, guaranteed charitable status, complete exemption from business rates, the ability to levy income from local residents to pay for church repairs etc etc - and of course 26 automatic seats in the HoLs.
So don't make me laugh that christians (still less CofE christians) are somehow a disadvantaged and discriminated against group in the UK.
I don't think you can ever entertain the idea that a white middle class educated vocal secularist atheist could at all be anywhere except in the right with no need to listen to those of an alternative opinion. I was like you once all ''who can possibly be more reasonable than me?''.
You need to own that there are some people who you make unnecessarily nervous for the wrong reasons
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Nevertheless I would be interested in what his actual solution would be.
He doesn't have one - all he is interested in doing is protecting the special interests and special privileges of the bishops.
His solution is to somehow add a few other officials from 'World View' organisations - but of course this begs the question what is a world view and who gets to define both it and whether an organisation can be said to somehow represent a 'world view'.
In a manner Vlad's approach make the situation worse not better - just as Charles' claim to want be defender of faiths, rather than defender of the faith. At least you can simply claim the bishops or defender of the faith are a weird historical anachronism that has no real impact (it's a view), but if you change it in a manner that specifically disregards those without a religious faith (as per defender of faiths) or those who do not consider they have a 'world view' or certainly don't consider their view is represented by some organisation - then you make the situation worse not better.
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He doesn't have one -
I'm prepared to wait and see if that is correct or not.
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I'm prepared to wait and see if that is correct or not.
Well as I mentioned in my post - he actually does have one but it is completely unworkable in many regards and will make the situation of representation worse rather than better.
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Another example of how the Church is not well place to represent the nation at large, given how fundamentally out of touch it is on things like human rights.
Out of touch? Or disagree with secular Humanists on human rights. In touch means live and let live, I don't care, Secular Humanism is mainly interested in being contrary to the church on the basis of get shot of religion and everything will turn out hunky dory. The church has other fish to fry. The great campaigns of secularism are atheist bus, no faith schools, getting Toksvig, Copson, Porteous Wood etc on thought for the day.
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Well as I mentioned in my post - he actually does have one but it is completely unworkable in many regards and will make the situation of representation worse rather than better.
Given that human spirituality is relegated in the house of Lords to a mere 26 members we can start by splitting these up statistically based on the census between religions and world view such as secular humanism etc. Then as time goes by perhaps the privilege of the Lords Temporal of being able to extend membership can be granted to the Lords Temporal.
As opposed to human spirituality? Not even a thing.
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Given that human spirituality is relegated in the house of Lords to a mere 26 members ...
Which isn't true as any peer can contribute on any matter they wish, including spiritual matters. So discussion of spiritual matters is completely open to 776 members out of, err, 776.
So given that your opening statement is completely incorrect then there isn't much point in going further.
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He doesn't have one - all he is interested in doing is protecting the special interests and special privileges of the bishops.
His solution is to somehow add a few other officials from 'World View' organisations - but of course this begs the question what is a world view and who gets to define both it and whether an organisation can be said to somehow represent a 'world view'.
In a manner Vlad's approach make the situation worse not better - just as Charles' claim to want be defender of faiths, rather than defender of the faith. At least you can simply claim the bishops or defender of the faith are a weird historical anachronism that has no real impact (it's a view), but if you change it in a manner that specifically disregards those without a religious faith (as per defender of faiths) or those who do not consider they have a 'world view' or certainly don't consider their view is represented by some organisation - then you make the situation worse not better.
My scheme extends to those with world views atheist or theist. I have made that clear time and time again.
Anyone who cared that human spirituality was represented would see this as them being represented rather than their spirituality being better represented by not being represented...as you seem to be suggesting.
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Which isn't true as any peer can contribute on any matter they wish, including spiritual matters. So discussion of spiritual matters is completely open to 776 members out of, err, 776.
So given that your opening statement is completely incorrect then there isn't much point in going further.
But again Lords are chosen for expertise and experience.
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... we can start by splitting these up statistically based on the census between religions and world view such as secular humanism etc.
So:
1. Who gets to decide what is and what is not a world view?
2. How do you determine on the basis of the census who is, for example, humanist - given that the census doesn't ask this.
3. How do you deal with people who have more than one religion/world view - e.g. a secular, christian, vegan, or an atheist, buddhist, environmentalist.
4. Given that Lords Spiritual are granted to officials within organisations - who decides which organisation(s) represent e.g. environmentalists or vegetarians. Noting that these organisation likely have membership a fraction of the numbers who actually hold that world view.
5. In what manner can an official in an organisation be said to represent anyone other than a member of that organisation
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Imposing the church's view on ANYTHING is overreach. And as no-one is imposing the secular view of marriage on the church, that's just an attempt at a distraction.
How can 26 bishops out of 1000 lords and another 600 MP's impose anything on you or anyone?
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Given that human spirituality is relegated in the house of Lords to a mere 26 members we can start by splitting these up statistically based on the census between religions and world view such as secular humanism etc.
Go on then, split them up!
What does your split currently look like?
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So:
1. Who gets to decide what is and what is not a world view?
2. How do you determine on the basis of the census who is, for example, humanist - given that the census doesn't ask this.
3. How do you deal with people who have more than one religion/world view - e.g. a secular, christian, vegan, or an atheist, buddhist, environmentalist.
4. Given that Lords Spiritual are granted to officials within organisations - who decides which organisation(s) represent e.g. environmentalists or vegetarians. Noting that these organisation likely have membership a fraction of the numbers who actually hold that world view.
5. In what manner can an official in an organisation be said to represent anyone other than a member of that organisation
The census could make it so the census partakers decide.
If there are any instances of gerrymandering people into a religious group that would be Humanist UK who came up with their definition of what a Christian was and wanted the census to adopt it.
So it would be by Census. As I say the big flaw in your argument is thinking that peoples spirituality is best represented by not being represented.
The only other way round all this is to give spiritual issues discussion time in the Lords. But I can't see secular humanists being interested in that unless it was from a secular angle e.g. ''How much are these religious people costing us''.
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How can 26 bishops out of 1000 lords and another 600 MP's impose anything on you or anyone?
Firstly there are 776 members of the HoLs.
But you could say that about any other group pf 26 members. The difference is that these 26, unlike every other member of the lords of commons are automatically appointed by virtue of holding senior office in a completely separate organisation.
And, of course, in a tight vote those 26 bishops can be determinative.
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The census could make it so the census partakers decide.
Eh - what on earth do you mean.
So it would be by Census.
But the census doesn't ask the necessary questions. And it would need to go way beyond asking whether someone is a christian or a vegetarian - it would need to ask whether an individual feels that their christianity or vegetarianism or scientism etc is represented by a particular organisation. And if you actually wanted to do that (not that I believe that to be the way to go), then better to consider membership numbers. If you are a member of an organisation then they legitimately can claim they represent you. If you have chosen not to be a member of an organisation, why on earth would you think a senior official of that organisation represents you - they don't.
As I say the big flaw in your argument is thinking that peoples spirituality is best represented by not being represented.
But that would only make sense if the Lords members who aren't the bishops exclusively had no spirituality and/or were banned from bringing such matters into the debates in the house. But they aren't - so the various branches of spirituality (for which you really mean religion) are perfectly well represented by existing members of the lords temporal, who I imagine will be over-representative of actively religious people compared to the population as a whole.
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Go on then, split them up!
What does your split currently look like?
Sorry, Had to go a little over me budget here
12 seats christian
9 seats Non religious
2 seats Moslem
1 seat Hindu
1 seat Sikh
1 seat Buddhist
1 seat Jewish
1 seats pagan
1 seat other
Lords chosen according to congregation size primarily, Position within priesthood, clergy or organisation or election as other conditions.
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Sorry, Had to go a little over me budget here
12 seats christian
9 seats Non religious
2 seats Moslem
1 seat Hindu
1 seat Sikh
1 seat Buddhist
1 seat Jewish
1 seats pagan
1 seat other
Lords chosen according to congregation size primarily, Position within priesthood, clergy or organisation or election as other conditions.
Where are the:
Environmentalists
Vegetarians
Vegans
Flat earthers
Crystal healers
Astrologists
etc, etc, etc
Effectively this is simply a sop to religion with a 'non religion' thrown in, which is no more a world-view than non-muslim.
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Sorry, Had to go a little over me budget here
12 seats christian
9 seats Non religious
2 seats Moslem
1 seat Hindu
1 seat Sikh
1 seat Buddhist
1 seat Jewish
1 seats pagan
1 seat other
Lords chosen according to congregation size primarily, Position within priesthood, clergy or organisation or election as other conditions.
But why on earth would the vast majority of 'census' christians (who I presume is the basis of the calculations), who aren't practicing, don't affiliate with any specific christian denomination consider themselves to be represented by a CofE bishop or a RCC priest etc. If they thought the CofE or RCC represented them then surely they'd be members of those organisations.
And good luck with an approach to determine which of the many branches of judaism gets the 'one' seat.
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Out of touch?
Yes.
Or disagree with secular Humanists on human rights.
It's not either/or, you can be both. And, indeed, the Church was during the parliamentary discussions. And out of touch with the significant majority of the populace, too.
In touch means live and let live, I don't care,
As opposed to 'out of touch', which in this context would mean voting against liberalisation to keep everyone else living according to their understanding. See, you do understand, keep going.
Secular Humanism is mainly interested in being contrary to the church on the basis of get shot of religion and everything will turn out hunky dory.
To exactly the same extent that the Church of England is on a power-trip to take over the world and re-establish the British Empire, the monarchy's hold over all nations and therefore the scope of the established church. Secular humanism is interested in restricting the church's hold over people to only those who've volunteered to go that church; it's only when the church interferes in the lives of non-churchgoers that the secularists give a shit at all.
The church has other fish to fry.
Trying to walk that tightrope between being homophobic enough to satisfy the broader church whilst being moderate enough at home as not to alienate too many more of the public and become even more of an irrelevance.
The great campaigns of secularism are atheist bus, no faith schools, getting Toksvig, Copson, Porteous Wood etc on thought for the day.
Right. Moderate, fair, generally uncontentious small things, yes. That you are so exercised about these, despite their relatively moderate scope, suggests that your hand-wringing, desperate clinging to established privilege, portents of doom and claims of victimisation is disproportionate.
None of which, of course, has come close to that attempted justification for the continued existence of the notion of Lords Spiritual that we're all waiting on.
O.
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But why on earth would the vast majority of 'census' christians (who I presume is the basis of the calculations), who aren't practicing, don't affiliate with any specific christian denomination consider themselves to be represented by a CofE bishop or a RCC priest etc. If they thought the CofE or RCC represented them then surely they'd be members of those organisations.
And good luck with an approach to determine which of the many branches of judaism gets the 'one' seat.
Nobody declares a person a christian on a census but the person themselves. We can assume that Humanist UK were successful in their appeal that those of no religion don't just put down C of E. You mention people who don't affiliate with religion, they would have registered that they were non religious wouldn't they? Since the Census asks for religious affiliation.
Given the non necessity of even being a nominal christian or whatever one could assume that these were at least ''something in it'' folk rather than the religiously apathetic.
Reformed or orthodox jewish, shia or sunni, Catholic or protestant, Humanist UK or third tabernacle of atheists? That would of course go on congregation size.
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Yes.
How do you tell the ''in touch'' then from Bandwagoners, Zeitgeisters, herd surfers, fashionistas etc?
To exactly the same extent that the Church of England is on a power-trip to take over the world and re-establish the British Empire, the monarchy's hold over all nations and therefore the scope of the established church.
You what?
Secular humanism is interested in restricting the church's hold over people to only those who've volunteered to go that church;
How is it not restricted to that already? it's only when the church interferes in the lives of non-churchgoers that the secularists give a shit at all.
How can and does the church interfere in the lives of church goers for goodness sake? What are you even talking about here?
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Nobody declares a person a christian on a census but the person themselves.
Well parents typically make census submissions on behalf of their children, but besides that yes. But what's your point.
We can assume that Humanist UK were successful in their appeal that those of no religion don't just put down C of E.
I have no idea what you are talking about Vlad - what HumanistUK appeal? Which court is this being held at?
You mention people who don't affiliate with religion, they would have registered that they were non religious wouldn't they? Since the Census asks for religious affiliation.
Actually the census doesn't mention affiliation at all - all it asks is 'What is your religion?', which, as you well know has been criticised as a leading question. I suspect if the census actually asked for someone's religious affiliation there would be rather greater levels of 'none' as asking about 'affiliation' is suggesting a greater level of engagement compared to just asking 'religion' which might be considered in a purely cultural/upbringing manner that isn't really a current affiliation.
But you are missing the point - the CofE Bishops aren't general christian representatives, nope they are officials of a specific religious denomination. The census doesn't ask 'Are you CofE' or 'Are you RCC' etc and there will plenty of people who are vaguely culturally christian, may tick that box on the census but would never consider themselves CofE or RCC etc. Moreover there will be active christians who have specifically chosen not to be affiliated with CofE, RCC etc and would never consider themselves to be represented by them. Would the Rev Ian Paisley have considered himself to be represented by a RCC Bishop - hmm.
Reformed or orthodox jewish, shia or sunni, Catholic or protestant, Humanist UK or third tabernacle of atheists? That would of course go on congregation size.
Cakeism and double standards - so on the one hand (where is suits you) you want numbers based on nominal census religion, most of whom won't affiliate with any specific denomination and most won't be active whatsoever. But then later you want congregation size to be the determining factor. You can't have it both ways.
So on congregation size, about 90% of people in the UK aren't members of any congregation, so you starting point for your 26 Lords World-View would be 23 non-religious, leaving 3 (actually should be 2.6), but let's go for three, to be fought over by all religions. Good luck with that.
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Well parents typically make census submissions on behalf of their children, but besides that yes. But what's your point.
I have no idea what you are talking about Vlad - what HumanistUK appeal? Which court is this being held at?
Actually the census doesn't mention affiliation at all - all it asks is 'What is your religion?', which, as you well know has been criticised as a leading question. I suspect if the census actually asked for someone's religious affiliation there would be rather greater levels of 'none' as asking about 'affiliation' is suggesting a greater level of engagement compared to just asking 'religion' which might be considered in a purely cultural/upbringing manner that isn't really a current affiliation.
But you are missing the point - the CofE Bishops aren't general christian representatives, nope they are officials of a specific religious denomination. The census doesn't ask 'Are you CofE' or 'Are you RCC' etc and there will plenty of people who are vaguely culturally christian, may tick that box on the census but would never consider themselves CofE or RCC etc. Moreover there will be active christians who have specifically chosen not to be affiliated with CofE, RCC etc and would never consider themselves to be represented by them. Would the Rev Ian Paisley have considered himself to be represented by a RCC Bishop - hmm.
Cakeism and double standards - so on the one hand (where is suits you) you want numbers based on nominal census religion, most of whom won't affiliate with any specific denomination and most won't be active whatsoever. But then later you want congregation size to be the determining factor. You can't have it both ways.
So on congregation size, about 90% of people in the UK aren't members of any congregation, so you starting point for your 26 Lords World-View would be 23 non-religious, leaving 3 (actually should be 2.6), but let's go for three, to be fought over by all religions. Good luck with that.
If the census doesn't mention religious affiliation but religion that's worse for your argument which is the patronising assumption that people don't know what they are doing when they fill it out.
Anyway your argument is a red herring since I propose the inclusion of the non religious.
I think we are now at that point where your demands for parity in selecting lords spiritual are more draconian than your demands and criteria for ensuring a good cross section of Lords Temporal.
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How do you tell the ''in touch'' then from Bandwagoners, Zeitgeisters, herd surfers, fashionistas etc?
Zeitgeisters, by definition, are in touch. Bandwagoners fall off after a while, and the equal rights campaigns have been going on long enough that we've replaced those wagons with mass-transit systems. Fashionistas, darling, and no longer thinking about equal rights for gay people and women, they're on to pushing the trans-agenda now, do keep up.
You what?
Well, if you're going to make up shit about humanists and the NSS, why shouldn't I impugn the Church with equally bat-shit crazy assumptions about their motivation?
How is it not restricted to that already?
You know that thing that this whole discussion is about, where the Church of England gets to send bishops to the House of Lords to play a part in shaping the laws that affect all of us, whether or not we read the Big Boys Book of Jewish Bedtime Stories... you remember that? That's where they don't stick to just interfering with the lives of people who choose to go to church.
How can and does the church interfere in the lives of (non) church goers for goodness sake? What are you even talking about here?
You know that justification for the Lords Spiritual that you've not made yet... when they're being Lords Spiritual, that's when they're interfering with the lives of non-churchgoers.
O.
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If the census doesn't mention religious affiliation but religion that's worse for your argument which is the patronising assumption that people don't know what they are doing when they fill it out.
I didn't say they don't know what they are doing when they fill out the census - moving aside the issue of the leading question, the fact of the matter is that the census doesn't ask about religious affiliation. Having 'a religion' and having 'a religious affiliation' aren't the same thing - the latter implies a much greater degree of engagement with an organisation that you 'affiliate' with, than the former. So to imply that because someone ticks the census christian box means they affiliate with any specific christian denomination or organisation is simply muddled thinking.
Anyway your argument is a red herring since I propose the inclusion of the non religious.
But I've pointed out that being non religious is no more a world view than being non muslim or not playing the clarinet is means you are an instrumentalist.
But you've claimed elsewhere that congregation size is important - and certainly this would show a level of affiliation that the census cannot (as it does ask about affiliation). But in that case you'll be left with just 3 of your Lords World view to be distributed amongst all the religions. Fight!!!
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But I've pointed out that being non religious is no more a world view than being non muslim or not playing the clarinet is means you are an instrumentalist.
But some of those putting non religious on the census will be National Secularists, they will be Humanist UK They will belong to other atheist organisations.
But you've claimed elsewhere that congregation size is important - and certainly this would show a level of affiliation that the census cannot (as it does ask about affiliation). But in that case you'll be left with just 3 of your Lords World view to be distributed amongst all the religions. Fight!!!
Congregation or following size is more democratic than no representation or representation if we've got space in the schedule. In the Lords Temporal a Lord drawn from Banking is more likely to come from a big bank than a small specialist bank. The producer of Block busting west end shows is more likely to become a Lord than the chap who has run the punch and judy show at Margate for 30 years. Making Lords is not an exact science and a system based on the census and numerical information is sounder than basing lordship on fame.
Fight!!! That's a bit of a caricature of competing world views isn't it?
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Congregation or following size is more democratic than no representation or representation if we've got space in the schedule.
So if these people are given special places on the basis of congregation number then I presume in the interests of avoiding double counting we need to avoid having someone who is a member of a congregation allowed to be in the lords temporal as 'they'd already have their representation'. Happy with that Vlad?
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In the Lords Temporal a Lord drawn from Banking is more likely to come from a big bank than a small specialist bank.
But no bank is given automatic places in the HoLs for its senior officials - not even the Bank of England, which would be the equivalent of the CofE in banking terms. To become a peer as a banker (whether large or small, bank not banker!!) you'd have to be appointed through the usual route along with everyone else (except the bishops).
The producer of Block busting west end shows is more likely to become a Lord than the chap who has run the punch and judy show at Margate for 30 years.
But there are no places reserved automatically for leading people from any cultural organisation, whether the largest West End Theatre company or the smallest theatre group - not even for the BBC, which would be the cultural organisation equivalent of the CofE. To become a peer as a member of a cultural organisation (whether large or small) you'd have to be appointed through the usual route along with everyone else (except the bishops).
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But no bank is given automatic places in the HoLs for its senior officials - not even the Bank of England, which would be the equivalent of the CofE in banking terms. To become a peer as a banker (whether large or small, bank not banker!!) you'd have to be appointed through the usual route along with everyone else (except the bishops).
But there are no places reserved automatically for leading people from any cultural organisation, whether the largest West End Theatre company or the smallest theatre group - not even for the BBC, which would be the cultural organisation equivalent of the CofE. To become a peer as a member of a cultural organisation (whether large or small) you'd have to be appointed through the usual route along with everyone else (except the bishops).
And there would be no automatic institutional right for any world view to be there because it would depend on census returns and be far more democratic than being called to the Ermine as any secular Lord Temporal.
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And there would be no automatic institutional right for any world view to be there because it would depend on census returns and be far more democratic than being called to the Ermine as any secular Lord Temporal.
I think you are confusing 'democratic' with 'representative'.
Selecting a bunch of office holders in other organisations to become members of the HoLs on the basis of a census question on religion wouldn't be democratic whatsoever. In some respects you could argue that is was representative, but only for one narrow aspect of the demographic make up of the nation. If 1% of Lords are required automatically to be CofE Bishops because 1% of people attend CofE church (or 40% because 40% same they are christian on a census), what about the proportion that attend Premier League matches - surely the COEs of the requisite number of Premier League football clubs should also get automatic places (or would it me the number of their supporter?).
But the census only asks about certain aspects of demographics to force the Lords to be 'representative' on those groups, would necessarily come into conflict with other demographic traits that aren't assessed in the census. And also it would hit up against other traits that are assesses. So surely for the Lords to be 'representative' it would need to have approx. 55% women, 13% ethnic minority, one third from London/South East etc etc.
Rather than try to 'force' the Lords to include the requisite number of black, bisexual, non-religious, home-owning women better to work to make our overall society fairer and more inclusive and make the appointment process for the HoLs also open and inclusive and then it is likely that the make up of the Lords will better reflect society.
Alternatively you could actually make it democratic and we'd get whoever the public votes in. But remember an organisation that selects democratically doesn't necessarily end up with a make up that is representative of the country - often far from it.
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There is an alternative solution: dispose of the HoL and ensure that in future, if there is to be a second chamber, that all those participating in political governance in this chamber are elected and are subject to re-election at regular intervals, and also consider whether a form of PR would be a better option for a second chamber.
Wouldn't matter if they were a bishop or a ballet-dancer - it would be for the electorate to choose.
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There is an alternative solution: dispose of the HoL and ensure that in future, if there is to be a second chamber, that all those participating in political governance in this chamber are elected and are subject to re-election at regular intervals, and also consider whether a form of PR would be a better option for a second chamber.
Wouldn't matter if they were a bishop or a ballet-dancer - it would be for the electorate to choose.
Absolutely - I don't think anyone here is suggesting that bishops, priests, rabbis, imams etc should be banned from being members of the Lords, or indeed the Commons. All we are saying is that they should be appointed or elected in the same manner as everybody else.
Interestingly, there is an organisation that not only thinks that certain religious clergy should be banned from the Lords or the Commons, and has actually been successful in achieving a ban. That organisation - the Roman Catholic Church who ban their clergy from being members of the Lords or Commons.
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And there would be no automatic institutional right for any world view to be there because it would depend on census returns and be far more democratic than being called to the Ermine as any secular Lord Temporal.
You're still rearranging those deckchairs - how they're chosen is only an issue to be discussed if they're there in the first place, and you've still not established a reason to have Lords Spiritual in the first place. Why does 'spirituality' need special representation that other issues don't? Why don't we need special Lords for medicine, sport, science, sexuality, or cheese, but we do for the religious?
O.
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No, democratically accepting the assertions of a minority of census participants makes no sense particularly when their argument is based on the inaccurate notion that the Lords temporal do not have reserved places and the lions share to boot.
Regarding Lords medical I take it that would exclude people like hospital chaplains.
Church of England is a minority as well.
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Church of England is a minority as well.
Yep that's why even now it only has 26 seats as opposed to a greater flexible number of secular Lords.
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You're still rearranging those deckchairs - how they're chosen is only an issue to be discussed if they're there in the first place, and you've still not established a reason to have Lords Spiritual in the first place. Why does 'spirituality' need special representation that other issues don't? Why don't we need special Lords for medicine, sport, science, sexuality, or cheese, but we do for the religious?
O.
Let's cut to the chase it's your view of humanity where spirituality is akin to one's favourite cheese against mine where man's spirit is as important to her or nearly as fiscal and economic policy for the coming year and nothing trivial at all. At the moment my side has the upper hand...suck it up.
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Yep that's why even now it only has 26 seats as opposed to a greater flexible number of secular Lords.
'... only has 26 seats ...' :o
And of course there are also ex-bishops in the lords temporal.
So if one organisation with less than a million members in the UK should get only 26 automatic seats, surely you should be arguing for organisations with far larger memberships e.g. NUS, National Trust to be guaranteed their fair share of seats. Which would be approx. 150 seats if 1 million members buys you 26 automatic seats.
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Let's cut to the chase it's your view of humanity where spirituality is akin to one's favourite cheese against mine where man's spirit is as important to her or nearly as fiscal and economic policy for the coming year and nothing trivial at all.
I suspect you are misinterpreting Outrider's view, but regardless we are all equally entitled to an option on the matter. And therefore we should be equally entitled to be appointed to the HoLs where we would make our opinions known should we choose. But currently there is a mismatch - in that those of your opinion could gain membership as either a Lords Temporal or a Lords Spiritual, but someone of a 'cheese-ism' view would only be able to gain membership as a Lords Temporal
At the moment my side has the upper hand...suck it up.
In terms of the Lords Spiritual - currently your side only has the 'upper hand' on the basis of inertia and incumbency. It certainly doesn't have the upper hand in terms of a justifiable argument, nor in terms of public opinion. Effectively the only argument for them being there is because they are ... err ... there.
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I suspect you are misinterpreting Outrider's view, but regardless we are all equally entitled to an option on the matter. And therefore we should be equally entitled to be appointed to the HoLs where we would make our opinions known should we choose. But currently there is a mismatch - in that those of your opinion could gain membership as either a Lords Temporal or a Lords Spiritual, but someone of a 'cheese-ism' view would only be able to gain membership as a Lords Temporal
In terms of the Lords Spiritual - currently your side only has the 'upper hand' on the basis of inertia and incumbency. It certainly doesn't have the upper hand in terms of a justifiable argument, nor in terms of public opinion. Effectively the only argument for them being there is because they are ... err ... there.
To me the humanist argument based on privilege is hypocritical multiple times over as I have pointed out.
It comes down to the secular humanists getting their own way with absolutely no sign of compromise. This is redolent of fundamentalism on the part of yourself and atheists on this board.
I'm am also puzzled as to why the secularist organisations prefer to campaign ineffectively it seems outside the House of Lords when they could have under a broadening of the Lords spiritual, a voice within it. This strange behaviour is only fathomable if those organisations assume that everybody thinks like them and their motivation is the elimination of ideas or a higher view of humanity than the materialist secular Humanist view.
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To me the humanist argument based on privilege is hypocritical multiple times over as I have pointed out.
It comes down to the secular humanists getting their own way with absolutely no sign of compromise. This is redolent of fundamentalism on the part of yourself and atheists on this board.
Why should anyone compromise in order to maintain an archaic, dysfunctional and anti-democratic institution: we should just get rid.
I'm am also puzzled as to why the secularist organisations prefer to campaign ineffectively it seems outside the House of Lords when they could have under a broadening of the Lords spiritual, a voice within it. This strange behaviour is only fathomable if those organisations assume that everybody thinks like them and their motivation is the elimination of ideas or a higher view of humanity than the materialist secular Humanist view.
I'm puzzled at your attempts to defend the indefensible. Make the second chamber subject to election, and any clerics looking to play a role would be free to seek election on the same basis as anyone else.
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Let's cut to the chase it's your view of humanity where spirituality is akin to one's favourite cheese against mine where man's spirit is as important to her or nearly as fiscal and economic policy for the coming year and nothing trivial at all. At the moment my side has the upper hand...suck it up.
That I think claims of spirit are akin to assertions of magic is irrelevant. Even if 'spirit' was real, that's still not establishing the basis whereby it's something significant enough that it needs to be treated differently in parliament to every other concern. I've not challenged you to justify the claims of spirituality in the first place, that's not what the discussion is about.
Let's, for the sake of argument, assume that claims of spirituality are considered to have some validity - why are those concerns enough to merit the Lords Spiritual, in addition to the representation they already have amongst the Lords Temporal who happen to be prone to adopting a spiritual viewpoint, but other concerns are not considered significant enough to merit reserved seats.
Why do we not have seats for the heads of the armed forces, or the chairmen of the biggest football clubs, or the president of the Royal Society, or the chair of the National Operas? Even if you presume that spirituality is a valid cause, why is it more important than other concerns.
O.
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To me the humanist argument based on privilege is hypocritical multiple times over as I have pointed out.
No, you've claimed it, dribbled out a poor misspelling of homonculus, falsely equate secularism with atheism and/or humanism and avoided justifying the Lords Spiritual at all.
It comes down to the secular humanists getting their own way with absolutely no sign of compromise.
Secularism IS the compromise, everyone is afforded equal access, everyone is afforded the same opportunities, neither religion nor irreligion is privileged.
This is redolent of fundamentalism on the part of yourself and atheists on this board.
You argument is redolent of Trump and Johnson - deny reality, stick to the mistake, when the mistake is pointed out shun the shame of being wrong by turning ignorance into deceit and continue the same claim knowing that it's now a lie. You know that secularism and atheism are not synonyms, you know that a secular Lords is not an atheist institution, but you keep making the assertion, you keep claiming that secularism somehow is an assault on believers without ever explaining how.
I'm am also puzzled as to why the secularist organisations prefer to campaign ineffectively it seems outside the House of Lords when they could have under a broadening of the Lords spiritual, a voice within it.
Because, unlike you, they have principles, and integrity, and a coherent argument? Any one of the three will do, but I suspect it's a combination.
This strange behaviour is only fathomable if those organisations assume that everybody thinks like them and their motivation is the elimination of ideas or a higher view of humanity than the materialist secular Humanist view.
You say higher, they say wrong, but regardless of that... they are expressly not presuming that everyone thinks like them, that's why they're advocating to not have, for instance, their own reserved seats in the Lords Spiritual, they are against anyone, including them, having that degree of privilege. You know, like.. I don't know, maybe, secularism?
O.
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Why should anyone compromise in order to maintain an archaic, dysfunctional and anti-democratic institution: we should just get rid.
I'm actually borderline between your proposal and an expanded Lords spiritual. I'm havering
I'm puzzled at your attempts to defend the indefensible. Make the second chamber subject to election, and any clerics looking to play a role would be free to seek election on the same basis as anyone else.
I have reservations on the defensibility of yet another house of people chosen for their politics.
1: We already have that kind of democracy.
2: We need expertise and wisdom, the latter conspicuously lacking in the HOC
3: The inordinate amount of deluded dreamchasing in the HOC and elected namely Lib dem grandeur, English nationalism, the 19th century, Corbynism, anticorbynism and sadly to a smaller extent Scottish nationalism all of which have conspired to give us Truss, Johnson and Sunak
4: The Lords have recently been on the side of the angels in chucking back unwise legislation.
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No, you've claimed it, dribbled out a poor misspelling of homonculus, falsely equate secularism with atheism and/or humanism and avoided justifying the Lords Spiritual at all. I've made justification.
Secularism IS the compromise, everyone is afforded equal access, everyone is afforded the same opportunities, neither religion nor irreligion is privileged.
No it isn't. Of course irreligion is privileged. How much time do you envisaged should be spent on spiritual issues? The amount of time religion should get reserved on BBC as recommended by the National Secular Society ie none?
You argument is redolent of Trump and Johnson - deny reality, stick to the mistake, when the mistake is pointed out shun the shame of being wrong by turning ignorance into deceit and continue the same claim knowing that it's now a lie. You know that secularism and atheism are not synonyms, you know that a secular Lords is not an atheist institution, but you keep making the assertion, you keep claiming that secularism somehow is an assault on believers without ever explaining how.
No, your argument is redolent of Johnson and Trump with it's premature and gaderene rush to proroge the Lords Spiritual and it's deviousness in not coming clean on the antitheist agenda and it's hypocritical approach to privilege. And while we're about it, Humanist UK with it's ''all religious people welcome, come, come and we shall give the religious rest'' mullarky one minute and it's ''we are proud to be involved in the atheist bus campaign'' schtick the next.
All you are doing is cutting down on religion and spirituality and expanding the atheist environment. That is incontravertable.
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To me the humanist argument based on privilege is hypocritical multiple times over as I have pointed out.
It comes down to the secular humanists getting their own way with absolutely no sign of compromise. This is redolent of fundamentalism on the part of yourself and atheists on this board.
Hmm - what, a bit like those pesky suffragettes demanding women had the vote in exactly the same manner as men, rather than accepting a compromise of 50% of women having the vote, compared to 100% of men.
Ot those pesky feminists demanding equal pay with men, rather than accepting a compromise where women had to be paid at least 75% of the rate paid to men for the same job.
Equality is about levelling the playing field, and the playing field is either level, or it isn't level. A so-called 'compromise' where you accept an un-level playing field, but just a bit less unlevel than it used to be isn't a compromise at all - it is capitulation to maintaining advantage and special privilege. A level playing field is the compromise as it is the point at which no group is specially privileged and all are treated equally.
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Hmm - what, a bit like those pesky suffragettes demanding women had the vote in exactly the same manner as men, rather than accepting a compromise of 50% of women having the vote, compared to 100% of men.
Bad analogy since representation was increased with none taken away. No side had to cede anything except the idea of a limited stock of representation to be redistributed which was exploded only to be revived by people like yourself.
Ot those pesky feminists demanding equal pay with men, rather than accepting a compromise where women had to be paid at least 75% of the rate paid to men for the same job.
But nobody is asking in this case for men to get less money
Equality is about levelling the playing field, and the playing field is either level, or it isn't level. A so-called 'compromise' where you accept an un-level playing field, but just a bit less unlevel than it used to be isn't a compromise at all - it is capitulation to maintaining advantage and special privilege. A level playing field is the compromise as it is the point at which no group is specially privileged and all are treated equally.
There is then a bit of schizophrenia in the atheist secular movement on how this is to be achieved. Firstly there is the let atheists speak on thought for the day approach and then there is the diminish the representation of religion in the lords approach. Two prong approach or just pulling out what you think you can get away with when it suits AKA humbug?
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Bad analogy since representation was increased with none taken away. No side had to cede anything except the idea of a limited stock of representation to be redistributed which was exploded only to be revived by people like yourself. But nobody is asking in this case for men to get less money
But actually in both cases those with the initial special privilege do have something taken away.
In the case of the vote men lose out on control of outcome - when women don't have the vote men have 100% of the say in terms of determining who is election. When women get the vote the men lose approx. 50% of their control over electoral outcomes.
In the case of money, for employers to provide equal pay, which would mean increasing women's pay, they'd need either to reduce men's pay or let it increase at a lower rate. Alternatively they'd increase cost of products/services. In either case men have something taken away - namely spending power.
So these aren't bad examples although perhaps a clearer one would be where there were certain jobs restricted to men only, but no jobs that men weren't allowed to do. The level playing field would be that all jobs would be open to both men and women - your 'compromise' would be simply to have fewer jobs that women were banned from. All that would do would be to embed discrimination and unfairness, not to provide equality and a level playing field.
Now you might say 'ah, but don't that justify my view that Lord Spiritual is opened up to other groups'. But the answer is 'no' - it is easy when you simply have two groups, men and women, to suggest that you can level the playing field. But that doesn't work for the Lords Spiritual, as there aren't just two groups (e.g. CofE and HumanistsUK for example) - nope there are literally thousands of organisations that could legitimately claim they are important to the UK and its population and therefore need to be represented. So you'd end with an impossible situation where to level the playing relied for all groups you'd need to provide appropriate automatic representation for all groups.
The alternative, of course, and the only sensible way forward it to say that no organisations have automatic representation - there is a level playing field, no organisation is specially privileged, no organisations are discriminated against. And of course no-one is denied representation as anyone can be appointed to the Lords through the usual process. Oh, except the RCC who are denied representation because the RCC bans its clergy from being appointed to the Lords - but that is their idiocy.
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No it isn't.
Panto season isn't for months, yet.
Of course irreligion is privileged.
Because of the reserved seats we currently have for one particular religious outlook, you mean? I fail to understand how you can suggest that privileges irreligion.
How much time do you envisaged should be spent on spiritual issues?
Very little. As you've established, spiritual advice is the purview of the church, not parliament. If, as you suggest, parliament is not considering spiritual issues, why do we need special seats for spiritual consideration of those issues?
Regardless, though, the agenda of the Lords is largely determined by the activity of the Commons, not the make-up of the upper chamber, and the Lords then deal with whatever is passed to them. Why, if the issue that arises is 'spiritual' do we need a crack unit of 'Ethereal Commandos' to handle it, but when it's a matter of science, art, sexuality, food standards, health and safety or electoral reform we can make do with Michelle Mone?
The amount of time religion should get reserved on BBC as recommended by the National Secular Society ie none?
Sounds good to me, given the impartial stance the BBC's mandate imposes on it. Would they then completely divest themselves of religious content, perhaps, but they wouldn't be forced to, whereas currently they're forced to conduct religious programming even if there's no appetite or need for it.
No, your argument is redolent of Johnson and Trump with it's premature and gaderene rush to proroge the Lords Spiritual and it's deviousness in not coming clean on the antitheist agenda and it's hypocritical approach to privilege.
Do you think there's anyone that's convinced you have an argument in the background when you throw out ad hominems like that? If you have an actual point, make it.
And while we're about it, Humanist UK with it's ''all religious people welcome, come, come and we shall give the religious rest'' mullarky one minute and it's ''we are proud to be involved in the atheist bus campaign'' schtick the next.
Is it too confusing to you that a group with a political purpose might attempt to appeal to people on both sides of the theism question? Secularism is not equivalent to atheism, it just feels like to you because you're steeped in that victim mentality of 'they're trying to take my religion away'. No-one is coming for your religion, we're just wanting you, and yours, to stop forcing it on other people; in schools, in parliament, on the national broadcaster.
All you are doing is cutting down on religion and spirituality and expanding the atheist environment. That is incontravertable.
Yes it is. Is it justifiable is the relevant question, and I'd say it is, and increasingly so as the proportion of the religious in this country drops, and even more increasingly when the entrenched privilege of religion that's being addressed is not even religion at large but one particular cult.
Which is the long version of 'that still doesn't sound like an attempt to justify the Lords Spiritual in their own right, it just sounds like someone railing against the prospect of change'.
O.
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No it isn't. Of course irreligion is privileged.
How?
In the UK I cannot think of a single example where individuals or groups that are non-religious are given privileges, opt-outs from the law etc etc that do not apply to religious individuals or groups.
I can, on the other hand, think of plenty of examples where religious individuals and groups are given special privileges, opt-outs from the law etc etc that do not apply to non-religious individuals or groups.