Eire Religious Decline

[One-23 Profile]

By Breda Heffernan and Colm Kelpie
Wednesday, 8 August 2012



Republic of Ireland abandoning religion faster than almost every other country

The Republic of Ireland is abandoning religion faster than almost every other country worldwide, a massive global survey on faith reveals.

Only Vietnam has seen a bigger drop in people declaring themselves to be religious over the past seven years, a period when the Catholic Church in Ireland has been rocked by sex-abuse scandals and a crisis of leadership.

Red C interviewed more than 51,000 people worldwide, including just over 1,000 people in the Republic.

An overwhelming 69% of Irish people declared themselves to be "a religious person" in the last survey conducted in 2005, but this has now plummeted to 47%.

Last night the Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, said the results of the global index required "closer critical reading" but he acknowledged that it highlighted the challenges facing the Catholic faith in a changing Ireland.

"The Catholic Church, on its part, cannot simply presume that the faith will automatically be passed from one generation to the next or be lived to the full by its own members," he said last night.

There was a need for strong ongoing education in the faith, he said, with a growing need for adult religious education to stop people drifting from the faith as they got older.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Catholic Communications Office said faith was not a "numbers game".

And it said the latest survey contrasted sharply with last year's census in the Republic, which found that 84% described themselves as Catholic, and just 5% said they had no religion.

But according to the latest research, the Republic is now in the top 10 for the number of people declaring themselves to be "a convinced atheist".

Although this is still a minority group at 10%, it puts the country high in the global league table, and is a stark rise from 3% seven years ago.

Read more: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/ ... z22vrfmTgm

[Spock Profile]

This is not surprising. I think people are wising up and starting to learn more on their own instead of just hanging on to their religious traditions by their fingertips. I did it myself when I was younger. It came with reading the Bible and asking myself, "where did all the other stuff come from", which I later understood was traditional dogma, ceremony and status quo. Spirituality had been molded into ceremonies that people "needed" or thought they needed as proof of worship. True worship comes from how you live, and the role of organized religion, while not bad, isn't the catalyst for what it means to be truly spiritual. Like the old saying, "just because you park something in a garage doesn't make it an automobile".

The act of worship and spirituality is a daily thing; minute by minute checks and balances to do the right thing. Personally, I enjoy the church, the community that I am involved in. And I can understand why people shy away from it, I see it as a support network which includes others like me, and others that hang on to traditional beliefs, people that understand true spirituality and others that are okay with being spoon-fed what they should think (however I feel the later is a very lazy position and is typically the ones that turn people away from the ideas of religion).

Anyway, I think the study can be interpreted as both negative and positive.

[One-23 Profile]

I respect people who hang onto a belief system, but applaud those who have the courage to question it's ideologies. My faith in religion was knocked out of me when I was a kid, boredom was a key factor and to sustain a belief in something that is questionable goes against my morals. I'm a natural born skeptic and the more I try to understand, the more questions I try to answer, the more doubts arise. I know that not all things can be easily explained by science and not all science is factual but I tread the route of "Show me the Evidence" and I will believe, and that for me spans many subjects.

[X-mog Profile]

I got two words for the pope...SUCK IT, KUPO!!!

[man2012 Profile]

nice

[99socks Profile]

The Second Axial Age

[Perry LaGuardia Profile]

The Second Axial Age

Well put..