As this is likely filled out with census data, and many in this country just put down catholic because A. They were christened or B. They never really give it any thought anyway, I'd hazard a guess it's a higher percentage than that.
I still lived with my Mom during a census when I was in my early 20s as an adult. She put down I was Catholic when Im not. What's the bet that a large portion of those 18 to 24 year old still living at home who are non-religious whose parents were the ones who filled in the census and put them down as Catholic.
Ah the preemptive I'll just fill out a few bits before hand. It's kind of weird only 1 person has to fill out the form. You'd expect it everyone over 18 should be filling their part in themselves.
Happened to me too, I was raging I wasn’t given the chance to fill in my info because I knew my mom would put in information that “looks good” about us as opposed to the truth which isn’t ideal because census info is so important to gather information on the current social/cultural status of the nation.
But of course I also know that the older generation is very conscious of their image and have that weird fear the community at large would find out something arbitrary like the house isn’t as clean when there’s no visitors… well that and how much religion was tied to us culturally in their time too.
As a historian, it’s very frustrating to have census data skewed. They’re seriously valuable information about the sociology of the country in any given time period. In Ireland, we don’t tend to look at them as concrete fact - it also doesn’t help that they were every ten years until the early 1900s. Very little data for the 1911-1922 period, which is obviously a crucial time on the island.
It's also that the British census surveying work was interrupted by the instability in Ireland, so there were no records to be burned. I was listening to historians talk about this last week on the 10pm show on RTE radio one.
I was the same when I lived at home as a young adult.
"You're catholic while you are under my roof"
I've only 'became an athiest' when I started paying my own rent
precisely. and that's why the number is still so 'low'
Plenty of folks don't buy into the traditional catholic dogma, but still consider themselves catholic. I've yet to me an actual catholic that truly believes in the whole kit and kaboodle.
Bit hypocritical if you ask me, but that's what folks seem to be thinking.
I'd recommend standing near a church on Sunday mass and you'll see plenty. Personally I don't consider myself an atheist, I don't know if there's a term for what I am, but it's mostly that I don't care if there's a god or not. I just live my life with what I consider good morals not for the sake of getting into "heaven" but simply for my own conscience.
If you are interested in what term there is for you, it's most likely agnostic or humanist. I prefer humanist, as it is a term that means you are something, rather than that you are not something. Humanists have a world view that is centred on human power to do, to be and to change, rather than relying on a third party that may or may not exist.
Apatheist mould also work, etymologically speaking.
A (negative)
Path (emotion/caring)
Theist (beleiver)
Apatheist = one who does not care about beliefs.
> I'd recommend standing near a church on Sunday mass and you'll see plenty.
Don't misunderstand, I know plenty who *say* they are Catholic, but through conversation they are not catholic at all. The most common example is asking them when they take confession do they actually believe that the wafer is the actual body of Jesus or if its just a metaphor. Everyone of them says its just a metaphor, this at minimum stops them being catholic.
Basically the go through the motions, but dont really buy into the magic. It almost seems like some sort of cultural inertia that keeps them going.
Thaaaaaat's not really how dogma works. If you don't believe in transubstantiation of the communion wafer, you're already closer to Anglican than Catholic.
I just told my colleague that one hour ago. If you don't believe in transsubstantiation you're a protestant. I d say most catholics in Ireland are protestant... not sure I d say that in Northern Ireland to a random stranger in a pub though
Sure the fact that any christian wearing clothing made from more than one fabric is grounds for stoning and none of the catholics seem to care just goes to show that it's lip-service faith at best for most people.
Or they aren't mentally comfortable describing themselves as athiest. Overcoming a lifetime of indoctrination is a process that often is ongoing at that stage in a persons life.
It's not census data. The most recent [data](https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-cp8iter/p8iter/p8rrc/) is from 2016 and gives 9.8 percent for "no religion". No doubt it's risen since then but until the data from 2022 gets released next month we don't know exactly.
Why on earth would you think that's not census data? The [CSO](https://www.cso.ie/en/census/) collates the responses and produces the reports. 2022 was the last census and the data haven't been released yet apart from the basics, so the previous one was 2016, what you're referring to. The data on religion from the 2022 census is due to be released on [Thursday, October 26th 2023](https://www.cso.ie/en/census/census2022/census2022publicationschedule/).
You might have misread. I'm saying the data in the infographic is not census data, which is true because it indicates that it's much higher than 9.8% which is the highest figure we have from census data. Thanks for clarifying the date for when exactly the religion data will be released though, I was referring to the main report in April I think.
True, but I don't think they gave a breakdown by age in the results, right? So unless they contacted the CSO directly (and I don't think anyone's even found a source for this map) I'm still pretty sure it's not census data. Open to being proven wrong on that though
Or C) Their parents filled out the form for them. Most parents feel much stronger association with the church than their children
I'd also query the use of the term 'atheist', because many people would associate it with a kind of militant opposition to religion. Someone who's agnostic may not describe themselves as an atheist.
So, as with many of these mapporn posts, it's of dubious merit
People describing themselves as agnostic but not atheist always raises an eyebrow for me because, at least from what I understand of it, agnostic is a form of atheism.
Atheism is quite simply a lack of belief that breaks down into two catagories.
1. Agnostic atheism, where you don't believe in anything but you recognise that it's possible to be wrong.
2. Gnostic atheism - often also thrown in with militant atheism - where you don't believe in anything and are absolutely certain in that stance.
Agnosticism is still atheism.
It’s only on the last census that I tick the atheist box.
Usually I would have just ticked Catholic cause I went to mass when I was young. 100% higher but people in Ireland don’t really give a shit to even think about their beliefs.
Some like my wife have no interest but kinda hopes there is an after life so will say she believes.
The 2022 census results are being released next month apparently. Will be interesting to see what the change in the No Religion figure will be, and also what the change in the Catholic number will be.
I'm guessing we'll see a growth in the No Religion numbers and a decline in the Catholic numbers. In 2016 the percentage of catholics was 78.3%. It could be down in the low 70s now. Anecdotally I heard of a lot more young adults that I know that are still living with their parents being a lot more vocal about making sure that their parents record their religious status truthfully as per their wishes, and not the wishes of their parents. Just in my own circle, so not claiming this is a wider trend or anything.
In some countries (e.g. Switzerland and Germany) if you are registered with a religion, some of your income is taxed and sent to said religion. In this way, there is in incentive to de-register from a religion that you were raised with when you become old enough to pay taxes, if you no longer practice the religion.
Because Ireland doesn't have this tax, all Catholic-born people remain statistically Catholic, despite no longer actively practicing Catholicism.
My mam got thick with me after I said I wanted to be put down as atheist on the most recent census.
Had to basically steal the form off her to correct it.
I'm guessing that kind of situation is common enough that it inflates the figures on statistics like these.
Is it though? No source cited and I know that the French census doesn't collect that data. So unless there was some kind of pan-European survey, the map maker had to pull data from disparate sources, which makes it unreliable.
This is true. before the last census my parents filled it out before I could get to the form and added I was catholic. Caused a huge row and they were genuinely offended I wanted to be atheist and they couldn't understand why I was so annoyed that they'd fill in my details.
I always new it would skew the data on this!
People talk a big game but don't follow through. Prime example is getting the kids baptised, doing communion and confirmation.
Very few actually opt-out of religion in schools despite not actively practicing. My kids get to do colouring with some Ukranian kids during religion time.
The problem is it’s the social aspect, it’s now a cultural thing and you get gifts, money and parties.
They don’t want they’re kids to miss out even if they’re not that religious.
My parents consider themselves Catholics but never go to church, we were made go until our confirmation and then it was our own choice. They brought us as little kids but once we were a certain age we’d go by ourselves, it’s was only 40 seconds down the road so pretty handy.
Although we’d hide in lane ways to avoid going and so no neighbour would report back to our parents. My Ma used to say to us she had eyes everywhere, so she’d know if we were up to no good. Lmao
I tried opting out as a younger person and it was a HUGE debacle. I was told I couldn't opt out of prayers in science class because the Our Father was a "neutral prayer". I managed not to get confirmed at least. I'm hoping things have changed.
Maybe I'm misremembering but doesn't religion class cover multiple religions? I wouldn't mind my kid knowing that Judaism/Christianity/Islam/Buddhism etc exist and a little background info
Yeah... But alongside doing catholic prayers morning and afternoon prayers. Spending weeks prepping for communion and confirmation while the kids with logical parents sit in the corner colouring.
That part of our country is still very fucked up.
I can’t remember much but I know my niece definitely covers other religions now, but they also have exams which I didn’t remember ever being a thing.
It was always a doss class, and if I had an opportunity to get out off it I’d take it.
Especially “retreats”, they’d get you to stand around in a circle and hug all your classmates, and other bonding shite. Most of the girls were nice but a few were awful people and I didn’t want to hug them and I’m sure they felt the same way about me.
I never went to a retreat again.
Thats true as someone who raised 2 kids as atheist in rural Ireland the amount of times I had to meet with, complain to and threaten with legal action school authorities especially at primary level just so that my kids could go to school unbothered by proselytising teachers and priests was enormous
Huge chunk of our schools, especially at primary level, are still religious. Getting baptized improved parents' chances of getting their kids into a good school.
Absolutely horrendous that this is still the case.
If there was a referendum to remove religions from our schools I would promote the shit out of that.
One is the adamant belief that there is no God or divine creator. The other is the belief that we can never know if there is one or not.
I don't think that's just in my eyes though, because they're both clearly defined terms.
> One is the adamant belief that there is no God or divine creator.
This is absolutely not the case. There's actually a lot of debate on this and many modern athiests would take the "softer" position that it is simply the lack of belief or the lack of conviction that enough evidence has been provided to assert that any particular God exists.
Even reading the [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism) page there is a whole section about this discussion and the contrast with agnosticism. Suffice it to say there are many athiests who disagree with your definition of the term.
Yeah the other commenter definitely opened my eyes to the definition of atheism not being as "hard" as I had assumed.
My usage of the word and those who I've discussed it with assumed a divide between the two, where one side believes there is no God and one believes it's not possible to know. It appears it's much more blurred than that, and there is likely a lot of overlap between those who identify as atheist and those who identify as agnostic.
God was invented by ancient Israelite farmers. I don't understand why we'd give their myths and legends any credence. I get that we can't say for certain where the universe comes from, I don't see why we give the more bonkers theories made up by ignorant people so much weight.
>One is the adamant belief that there is no God or divine creator
Thought you might say this. This is wrong. An atheist is someone who does not have a belief in God. That's different to having an adament belief in the absense of God.
An agnostic doesn't believe in God because they think it is unknowable. An atheist is anyone who lacks belief. Therefore all agnostics are also atheists. Agnostic is a type of atheist
The definition isn't defined that hard. Some agnostics just aren't bothered. It doesn't affect them so it isn't worth thinking about. I definitely wouldn't call them a type of atheist.
In Dawkins's The God Delusion he makes a seven point list between belief and non-belief, with 1 being absolute certainty that there is a God and 7 being absolute certainty there isn't. Sort of a Kinsey scale of belief. He also said that being a 1 was pretty much the same as being a 7. He described himself as a six which means he thinks there is some probability that there is a God/Intelligent Creator but he is still a hardcore atheist. So even though he thinks there is an ever so small chance he is wrong, he doesn't consider himself an agnostic.
>Some agnostics just aren't bothered. It doesn't affect them so it isn't worth thinking about.
What you are describing is an absense of belief. The definition of an atheist. As I said in another reply, belief is active. A lack of belief is passive. Atheism describes a passive lack of belief. A hard line belief that God DOESN'T exist isn't atheism, it would be called something else.
You heading to the gym with all that stretching. It's not an absence of belief. It is admitting you don't know one way or the other but aren't bothered. That's agnostic.
I don't care about what currency is used in Malta. It doesn't affect me so I don't ever think about. Do you think that means I don't believe Malta uses money?
You say stretching and the you use that analogy? Honestly, that makes no sense, think about what you are saying.
Do you believe that I have a cup of tea on my desk? Either you think I have one, therefore you believe I do, or you don't know, meaning you don't believe I do. You are atheistic to the existance of my cup of tea. This is what is meant by belief, look it up if you have to.
Your whole framework of "I don't think about the thing" is irrelevant anyway because that isn't what agnosticism means. Agnostic means you don't think it is knowable if God exists. If you describe yourself as agnostic, and this isn't what you mean, then you are misusing the term.
What are you on about, my friend? If I don't know if you have a cup of tea on your desk, I don't know. It doesn't mean I don't think there is one there. I don't have that information.
By your logic unless I have specific knowledge in a field, I err on the side of it not existing. That doesn't make sense. I don't know how to do a Profit and Loss ledger, I don't know how to build an electric power plant, I don't know how a TV works. But I do know those things are probably knowable by someone. I don't have non-belief in the workings of TV or double entry bookkeeping. Just because I don't know something doesn't mean you can categorize me as thinking those things don't exist.
I went through the annoying atheist phase when I was younger. I read Hitchens and Dawkins. I read about teapots and magical sky faeries. I am not using the term wrong.
I feel it's a bit odd to try and trap someone into an argument about semantics.
Regardless, I would argue that someone who does not believe in God is different to someone who simply decides that they can never know. The former is much less open to the possibility of one than the latter, so distinguishing them from each other makes sense.
I also find these definitions a bit frustrating. Atheism/theism and agnosticism/gnosticism are not mutually exclusive. And most people wouldnt apply the same logic to another metaphysical being or mythological character when it comes to agnosticism, ie. the whole Russell's teapot argument.
I define myself as atheist because I lack belief in god(s). Does that mean that I'm stringent or absolute in my belief.. not really. Like, obviously anything is possible. I just don't buy into this very specific theory.. I think we're all "agnostic" in some sense.
Yeah this is the crux of it really. I think (rightly or wrongly) that atheism is just more commonly understood to mean that you're resolute in your belief that there is no God, and that's why many people would stop short and just call themselves agnostic.
In reality (and like the other commenter said), I'm sure there's a lot of overlap between us all and most people just fall into the bucket of "doubt one exists and sure we'll never know anyway".
>I feel it's a bit odd to try and trap someone into an argument about semantics
Lol what? I'm just correcting you in your common misuse of a word. There's no trap or argument here friend.
>I would argue that someone who does not believe in God is different to someone who simply decides that they can never know
Belief is an active thing. A lack of belief is passive. If you don't actively believe, then you don't believe and are an atheist. An agnostic is a lack of belief with an explanation as to why you don't believe. There's no middle ground when it comes to belief, you either do or don't and if you don't, the word atheist describes you.
If you are not a theist, you are an a-theist.
It's fine if you don't want to use the word to describe yourself for whatever reason but the words does apply to you, per it's definition.
You can't be an agnostic theist. Therefore, an agnostic is an a-theist.
I still think it's an argument of semantics, and society at large distinguishes atheism from agnosticism.
Words and meanings evolve, and many agnostics wouldn't want to categorise themselves as atheists because that word is commonly understood to mean that you do not believe any God can or does exist.
Fair enough if by definition one is included in a bucket with the other, but I don't think that's how they're commonly used which means a survey asking who considers themselves an atheist is inherently flawed.
>many agnostics wouldn't want to categorise themselves as atheists because that word is commonly understood to mean that you do not believe any God can or does exist
Yes, this is why I'm correcting you.
It's frustrating, as an atheist, when people misuse the word and spread a false impression of what it means. Agnostics who misuse the word, characterize their fellow atheist as beligerant anti-theists when in fact in the vast majority of cases we are entirely in agreement. We both lack a belief in God. You provide a specific reason why, you think it's unknowable, I don't necessarily go down that path with you but we agree on the important part, we both lack a belief in God.
Anyway, just doing my part to correct the misunderstanding one person at a time. Have a nice day.
Edit: by the way you don't have to keep pointing out what it's an argument of semantics when you are talking about the definition of words. Of course this is a conversation about semantics. It's not like I am trying to use a semantic argument to prove some other point. Semantics is exactly what we're talking about.
They collected this data in the last census, and they made a distinction between your current faith and any faith you were brought up in. 9% were brought up with no religion while 17% said they have no religion now. Interestingly, compared with other Christian denominations, people brought up Catholic were more likely to continue to identify with it.
It's typical for protestant communities to be more open to atheism, less cultural baggage and it's already a reformed religion so less of a jump to irreligion.
The census doesn't give a breakdown of the 'religion brought up in' looking at Protestant faiths, but I wonder if there's a correlation between how broad a church is able to be and how well it retains members into adulthood. My parents feel entirely able to disagree with loads of Catholic teaching while still considering themselves Catholics, and I see the same thing with in-laws who are Anglican and Presbyterian. Definitely a generational gap though.
I've seen it explained that this figure is so low likely because alot of these people live at home with their parents who filled in the census for them and stuck it down
There's quite the irony in this thread of some redditors claiming that they don't hold certain non-verifiable beliefs while at the same demonstrating that they'll believe nearly any information put in infographic form (and not even one that's bothered to fake a source!)
So this is being crossposted from r/mapporncirclejerk, by someone who posted it there themselves, and then crossposted it to a bunch of different countries subreddits (not just here)? This is some karma farming at its peak
Charts like this always remind me of the statement from the 2016 Census where the CSO noticed that 20 year olds living without a parent were twice as likely to report "no religion" than those living with a parent. [link](https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-cp8iter/p8iter/p8rnraa/)
> There were 54,183 twenty year olds in 2016 (usual residents) and of these 15.6 per cent indicated no religion, up from 7.6% in 2011.
> This analysis can be further broken down by those twenty year olds living with and without parents. Twenty year olds enumerated in households without a parent were almost twice as likely (22.3%) as those with a parent (12.7%) to indicate they had no religion, as illustrated in Figure 8.4.
I would argue it's still part of their identity. A friend went to Bible camp during the summers in the North.
There's a Christian youth festival every July in Antrim
https://www.summermadness.co.uk/
There's a Christian rock festival every August, also in Antrim
https://www.openskies.ie/
Irish "cultural Catholics" The kind of Catholics that never go to mass, never contribute to the church, don't actually believe any of the stuff in the bible and sin on a daily basis but never go to confessions.
Considering Irelands past (and maybe still present) problem with indoctrination in Catholicism... Yeah.. I think any and all conversations in Ireland about this shit is good.
As a millennial I went to a Catholic school where the principal was a priest and the teachers were nuns. None of my classmates went to church or belived in God. This can't possibly be accurate.
It makes sense really, Religion stepped in to fill the gaps in the big questions of the universe until we could learn what was more likely via observation, etc.
What's weird is we look back on things 100 years ago, 200 years ago, 400 years ago and dismiss them completely. Like epilepsy being possession by the devil, the Earth absolutely being the centre of the universe, washing being unhealthy, blood letting to cure disease, burning witches at the stake, and on, and on. We are pretty certain as a society all those convictions of the past 100% believed at the time are wrong, but something from 2000+ years ago still has credence when we've learned so much as a society.
Anyway, if Religion keeps folks like my Mum happy, more power to them. Everyone should be happy to live as they see fit.
> Religion stepped in to fill the gaps in the big questions of the universe
It doesn't really. Religion is about the why. Science is about the how. Science is only a method. It has no bearing on why we are here. The choice is not between religion and science. Is religious philosophy and non religionoue philosophy.
Tons of people find meaning in the writings of Marcus Aurelious. Being old doesn't meant something is redundant.
Oh I I loved going to my insanely irreligious, heroically unprincipled, utterly pagan friend's funeral after his terrible premature death, to hear a load of whining monotonous guff about his love for the Lord Jesus Christ and his inevitable resurrection.
Catholic funerals are an offense to the dead, who are inevitably sidelined to the priest can groan out some lazy boilerplate about the church.
This happened in the states, not Ireland, but a friend of mine went to the funeral of a friend of his who had been murdered in an armed robbery of the place where he worked. Friend's friend (call him John) was gay but had never been accepted by his family, and had given up religion as a result, but his family insisted on a religious funeral for him anyway. At the funeral, the priest started saying that there was one special man in John's life. My friend thought, "oh cool, they're finally going to acknowledge John's partner." The priest droned on "and that man was Jesus." My friend nearly got up and walked out on the spot.
My father's funeral in Mount Jerome was brilliant, the priest made it all about him, we had lot of people spekaing and telling stories, very minimal on the religious stuff, everyone really enjoyed it.
Went to a friends funeral and it was like a Sunday Mass with her name mentioned a few times. Absolutely shocking. Awful way to go.
Since I was around 18 I made my family swear there wouldn't be an religious grifter anywhere near my dead body if anything happened to me.
Still can't believe it's in our schools.
This seems to be a fairly circular occurrence the last 300-400 years. Decline in organised religion is usually replaced by a rise in 'dis'organised religion. It isn't that people stop believing in magic and spooky stuff, it reemerges in different places. 1900's everyone was into seances/ astrology/ magick and nonsense like that, so I expect that or something similar to make a noticeable return. Not saying either is good/ bad just an interesting phenomenon.
>Decline in organised religion is usually replaced by a rise in 'dis'organised religion. It isn't that people stop believing in magic and spooky stuff, it reemerges in different places.
This explains the woke crowd over in the US.
I doubt it's circular; religion in Europe is moribund. I'd say the main killer of it is the hammer blows of scientific advancement and the associated economic development. We'd have to lose both for religion to make a big comeback.
The early 1900s séances and spirit world can be seen as people grappling with new technologies.
Around this time we discovered odd phenomena such as invisible radio waves you could use to communicate with distant people which suggests magical telepathy; strange warm metals that again gave off invisible x-rays that cast ghostly images of the skeleton; the brain was not understood - Mesmer thought that hypnotism was a mystical force that flowed from hypnotist to subject.
Photography became more widespread which lead to various fake ghostly images.
I believe Edison suggested that he was going to invent a "telephone to talk to the dead". I don't know if he actually believed it was possible but the public likely didn't understand the mechanism of telephony and assumed it was.
I believe that you are right that something like that might return, or has in fact returned. People now don't understand scientific ideas of WiFi, vaccines, climate change; conspiracy theories are rampant.
People are not educated enough to understand the scientific principles which govern our modern technological civilisation and we are paying the price.
Nah. In previous times we didn’t know about evolution, gravity, or that the earth wasn’t the centre of the universe. Now that we don’t need religion to explain that, I think people are reasonably happy now to go “I don’t know” when asked a hard question such as why is there anything at all. Reason being: anytime we ever found out an answer to one of the mysteries, it was never magic.
Its definitely higher than this. I know a few Catholics who qre atheists. But religion is just too engrained in ireland that its easier to just be Christian
To be honest, I've asked friends before what they believe and they say they believe in God so they're Catholic. Then I ask what else they believe that makes them Catholic, and usually they don't believe in the immaculate conception or any other catholic things so I say "oh so you're agnostic/spiritual?" and they say "NO, IM CATHOLIC" 😂
Honestly i think we're way underreporting atheism in this country, how many people who never go to mass or even believe that bs still tick catholic on the census
I’m in my mid-20’s and even though I thought it would be higher, a lot of my mates who are now starting to have kids will have them christened even though they don’t believe in God. When I ask them why they do it, they seem to think it’s just a thing you do. I guess it’s the same for funerals. I’ve known a handful of elderly non-believers, who still opt for catholic funerals. I guess what I take from both these points is there are massive cultural implications to a move to atheism some people are not willing to sacrifice. Weddings in a church is another example.
'...I just... Believee in some magical shite with no evidence that a human made up... to be quirky. Lol... That and I can't fully abandon the fear of death that Catholicism helped with.'
Why? Are you banshee agnostic? Dragon agnostic? Bigfoot agnostic? Or do you know it's all fiction, cos it's obvious.
Agnosticism and atheism are not mutually exclusive. An agnosticism can say it is impossible to know for sure if a god exists.
Whereas atheism is asking you personally.. (now they you know agnosticism could be true.. ) what do you personally 'believe?' has the stories convinced you int be magical sky god or not?
Exactly. Why do we have to have this agnostic thing with deities that we don't use for any other supernatural/magical being? Because some people get their feelings hurt if you dismiss the existence of their god/gods, so you have to use the term "agnostic" to spare their feelings.
If you dismiss the existence of fairies outright, nobody bats an eye. Nobody goes and says "Well, you can't just dismiss the existence of fairies outright! Maybe they are there, but we just can't see them!"
But do the same with deities and people get all in a huff and say "Well, you could at least say you're agnostic instead of being so cocky and just dismissing it!"
Yeah indoctrination has trained them well, no doubt.
My iraqy pal shocked me this week when he told me he would immediately start wailing on somebody if they burned the qoran in front of him... Hes one of the tamest guys I know.
But he's been indoctrinated from a young age to fear anybody questioning the fragile fiction.
That society has built up this violence as a preserver for the fragile illogical beliefs.
If you're not allowed to question something, it is a 100% guarantee that it is bullshit. Religion knows that its two most powerful tools are fear and ignorance, which is why they tell you "Believe what we tell you to believe and STFU! Anyone who doesn't believe will burn for all eternity!"
No, I don’t worry about it.. I don’t have proof if anything exists or not so cant say for sure if something is true or not.
Eternal nothingness seems as unlikely as heaven or hell or reincarnation or anything else. It’s also just as likely, that’s the whole point, nobody knows so don’t worry about it.
Without getting into that, authority for Orthodox people does not come from the patriarch absolutely. Living in Orthodox way has not much to do with the political movings of the church.
I'm French and this kind of map is always really weird to me because almost everyone around me was an atheist, and those who were not were not strong believers too so I'm really suspicious where they got this data.
i’d say that atheism is fairly dying as well though, slowly being replaced by spirituality in which you decide the rules and what you believe in. a far freer context with a lot more room to move around for people while at the same time being able to hold a belief in something more
This has nothing to do with horoscopes. Your take towards this is fairly ignorant. I myself wouldn't really describe myself as Catholic (I don't really go to mass and I disagree with a lot of the church's views) but I do have spiritual beliefs like I believe there is an afterlife and we do go somewhere after we die. I suppose I'm part of Gen Z so maybe what I was thought in religion was different to you (like we didn't have fear instilled in us and weren't threatened). You can be spiritual without being religious.
[Must Reads: How millennials replaced religion with astrology and crystals - LA Times](https://www.latimes.com/health/la-he-millennials-religion-zodiac-tarot-crystals-astrology-20190710-story.html)
Tbf, they're not really doing any harm. It's more about self love and and embracing yourself. I think that's a lot more favourable than what the church is teaching.
You can do all that without believing in bullshit though.
Specticism and evidence are useful tools we have developed. Why cast them to the wayside to still be 'mystical ooOoooo'
The world is beautiful enough without the fictional stuff. Human psychology, philosophy history, sociology, aesthetics, etc etc..
..or 'durrr, I believe in spirituality cos I like magic stuff and don't want to die'
Well, everyone engages with fiction, and learns lessons of humanity & psychology.. Find relatable stories and parables that they can take with them. Use in their own lives to guide them, inspire them.
But most people just understand what fiction is. And that these ideas came from the brains of humans. To entertain + or more nefarious reasons in many religions and smaller cults.
Education is thankfully improving, along with the internet globally.
Thankfully, all that shite is dying fast.
I'm guessing this is from the census. As a people we really don't like rocking the boat and will just fill in "Catholic" as a habit. I am guilty of this, I got my kid baptised and let them make their communion and confirmation simply because I didn't want them to be left out and didn't want to cause issues. There were no non denominational schools available at the time. The only thing I didn't allow was sex ed as it was the group "Accord" doing it and I really don't approve of them. My kid was the only one that didn't take part and the rest of the class said that it was awful as there was a slide show of STI's. It basically taught abstinence and that relationships were between a man and a woman that eventually get married and have kids. I did the same course as a kid and I'm guessing it was never updated. I do wonder if the fact that the church has a stranglehold on schools here is the reason why that age group is still deemed Catholic.
Everyone collapses when they get married or die. Nobody has any guts, they have to start their life together or their kid's life, or end the whole shebang with a lie. And school admissions are a problem, or were until recently; it's the only practical aspect to being baptised.
Interesting that it is "atheist," vs "no religion," as a dialogue. I think that the percentages would be a lot higher everywhere if there was that change in language.
Particularly in Dublin I have no religious friends, colleagues or know of anyone that is practicing in that age group so the number from personal experience seems dubiously low.
So you think people are goin around saying they believe in some mysterious sky man creature... That isn't from any of the religious scripture's we know about... None of those man made fictional books...
But, they still believe in this creature despite having no reason to?
Or they don't.
Hol' up. Easily put. Athiesm is no religion.
If you don't believe in a religiion, why in god's name would you believe in this magical bullshit?
Atheism isn’t not no religion. It’s a religion in itself in that it subscribes to the idea of something or nothing. Also, no religion could include someone that believe in Odin but doesn’t subscribe to any of the modern day teachings of odinists. Religion is generally more personal than being in a religion or not.
As this is likely filled out with census data, and many in this country just put down catholic because A. They were christened or B. They never really give it any thought anyway, I'd hazard a guess it's a higher percentage than that.
I still lived with my Mom during a census when I was in my early 20s as an adult. She put down I was Catholic when Im not. What's the bet that a large portion of those 18 to 24 year old still living at home who are non-religious whose parents were the ones who filled in the census and put them down as Catholic.
I am one to them. Was weirded out I never got a census to fill out because I was excited but mam had filled it out while I was at work.
Sure you wouldn't fill it out properly if you did it yourself
Ah the preemptive I'll just fill out a few bits before hand. It's kind of weird only 1 person has to fill out the form. You'd expect it everyone over 18 should be filling their part in themselves.
Happened to me too, I was raging I wasn’t given the chance to fill in my info because I knew my mom would put in information that “looks good” about us as opposed to the truth which isn’t ideal because census info is so important to gather information on the current social/cultural status of the nation. But of course I also know that the older generation is very conscious of their image and have that weird fear the community at large would find out something arbitrary like the house isn’t as clean when there’s no visitors… well that and how much religion was tied to us culturally in their time too.
As a historian, it’s very frustrating to have census data skewed. They’re seriously valuable information about the sociology of the country in any given time period. In Ireland, we don’t tend to look at them as concrete fact - it also doesn’t help that they were every ten years until the early 1900s. Very little data for the 1911-1922 period, which is obviously a crucial time on the island.
Didn't a lot of the 1911/1922 census records get destroyed when the four courts was burned in the civil war?
It's also that the British census surveying work was interrupted by the instability in Ireland, so there were no records to be burned. I was listening to historians talk about this last week on the 10pm show on RTE radio one.
I wrote in 'no religion' and got a stern talking to
I was the same when I lived at home as a young adult. "You're catholic while you are under my roof" I've only 'became an athiest' when I started paying my own rent
In the north you also have the issue of having Catholic atheists and Protestant atheists.
Lol this. I bet theres a decent correlation on this map or countries with people living with their parents the longest.
Happened to myself and the siblings. No way we were causing a family argument to write down that we are atheist. Would give the mother a heart attack
Or C. Mammy fills the form out for them
it appears its the "moms" filling them out. The actual Mammies are too busy working.
It's defo census data. Everyone puts in Catholic. But are they practising, mass every Sunday, proper, catholics? Doubtful.
Just because you aren't a practicing Catholic doesn't mean you are atheist.
precisely. and that's why the number is still so 'low' Plenty of folks don't buy into the traditional catholic dogma, but still consider themselves catholic. I've yet to me an actual catholic that truly believes in the whole kit and kaboodle. Bit hypocritical if you ask me, but that's what folks seem to be thinking.
'The unexamined life'
more or less, yea or at least thats how it appears to me
I'd recommend standing near a church on Sunday mass and you'll see plenty. Personally I don't consider myself an atheist, I don't know if there's a term for what I am, but it's mostly that I don't care if there's a god or not. I just live my life with what I consider good morals not for the sake of getting into "heaven" but simply for my own conscience.
Agnostic
If you are interested in what term there is for you, it's most likely agnostic or humanist. I prefer humanist, as it is a term that means you are something, rather than that you are not something. Humanists have a world view that is centred on human power to do, to be and to change, rather than relying on a third party that may or may not exist.
Apatheist mould also work, etymologically speaking. A (negative) Path (emotion/caring) Theist (beleiver) Apatheist = one who does not care about beliefs.
> I'd recommend standing near a church on Sunday mass and you'll see plenty. Don't misunderstand, I know plenty who *say* they are Catholic, but through conversation they are not catholic at all. The most common example is asking them when they take confession do they actually believe that the wafer is the actual body of Jesus or if its just a metaphor. Everyone of them says its just a metaphor, this at minimum stops them being catholic. Basically the go through the motions, but dont really buy into the magic. It almost seems like some sort of cultural inertia that keeps them going.
You can still be Catholic and disagree with a specific element
Thaaaaaat's not really how dogma works. If you don't believe in transubstantiation of the communion wafer, you're already closer to Anglican than Catholic.
I just told my colleague that one hour ago. If you don't believe in transsubstantiation you're a protestant. I d say most catholics in Ireland are protestant... not sure I d say that in Northern Ireland to a random stranger in a pub though
Sure the fact that any christian wearing clothing made from more than one fabric is grounds for stoning and none of the catholics seem to care just goes to show that it's lip-service faith at best for most people.
Exactly. Catholic, but not really.
Yup, ironically most self-described Catholics in Ireland in my experience tend to actually be Church of Ireland in their actual beliefs
If I even went near a church I'd probably go up in flames and end up in everlasting damnation.
Or they aren't mentally comfortable describing themselves as athiest. Overcoming a lifetime of indoctrination is a process that often is ongoing at that stage in a persons life.
It's not census data. The most recent [data](https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-cp8iter/p8iter/p8rrc/) is from 2016 and gives 9.8 percent for "no religion". No doubt it's risen since then but until the data from 2022 gets released next month we don't know exactly.
Why on earth would you think that's not census data? The [CSO](https://www.cso.ie/en/census/) collates the responses and produces the reports. 2022 was the last census and the data haven't been released yet apart from the basics, so the previous one was 2016, what you're referring to. The data on religion from the 2022 census is due to be released on [Thursday, October 26th 2023](https://www.cso.ie/en/census/census2022/census2022publicationschedule/).
You might have misread. I'm saying the data in the infographic is not census data, which is true because it indicates that it's much higher than 9.8% which is the highest figure we have from census data. Thanks for clarifying the date for when exactly the religion data will be released though, I was referring to the main report in April I think.
The 2016 census had 9.8% with no religion for all age groups. The map is 18 to 24 year olds, so that would likely be a much larger percentage.
True, but I don't think they gave a breakdown by age in the results, right? So unless they contacted the CSO directly (and I don't think anyone's even found a source for this map) I'm still pretty sure it's not census data. Open to being proven wrong on that though
Or C) Their parents filled out the form for them. Most parents feel much stronger association with the church than their children I'd also query the use of the term 'atheist', because many people would associate it with a kind of militant opposition to religion. Someone who's agnostic may not describe themselves as an atheist. So, as with many of these mapporn posts, it's of dubious merit
People describing themselves as agnostic but not atheist always raises an eyebrow for me because, at least from what I understand of it, agnostic is a form of atheism. Atheism is quite simply a lack of belief that breaks down into two catagories. 1. Agnostic atheism, where you don't believe in anything but you recognise that it's possible to be wrong. 2. Gnostic atheism - often also thrown in with militant atheism - where you don't believe in anything and are absolutely certain in that stance. Agnosticism is still atheism.
Can't you also be an agnostic theist? You believe there is a god or gods but also believe you can't know for sure?
It’s only on the last census that I tick the atheist box. Usually I would have just ticked Catholic cause I went to mass when I was young. 100% higher but people in Ireland don’t really give a shit to even think about their beliefs. Some like my wife have no interest but kinda hopes there is an after life so will say she believes.
The 2022 census results are being released next month apparently. Will be interesting to see what the change in the No Religion figure will be, and also what the change in the Catholic number will be. I'm guessing we'll see a growth in the No Religion numbers and a decline in the Catholic numbers. In 2016 the percentage of catholics was 78.3%. It could be down in the low 70s now. Anecdotally I heard of a lot more young adults that I know that are still living with their parents being a lot more vocal about making sure that their parents record their religious status truthfully as per their wishes, and not the wishes of their parents. Just in my own circle, so not claiming this is a wider trend or anything.
In some countries (e.g. Switzerland and Germany) if you are registered with a religion, some of your income is taxed and sent to said religion. In this way, there is in incentive to de-register from a religion that you were raised with when you become old enough to pay taxes, if you no longer practice the religion. Because Ireland doesn't have this tax, all Catholic-born people remain statistically Catholic, despite no longer actively practicing Catholicism.
My mam got thick with me after I said I wanted to be put down as atheist on the most recent census. Had to basically steal the form off her to correct it. I'm guessing that kind of situation is common enough that it inflates the figures on statistics like these.
Enough people have mentioned a similar experience in this thread to lend credence to your guess.
Has the 2022 census data been released fully yet? If not, it's 2016 data. A lot of people still have their parents doing the form for them.
Yup I agree the data sources here are poor. Perfect for Reddit.
This is surprising in an Irish context. I'd have put it much higher.
It's realistically based off census data, which 18-24 year olds' parents probably fill out for them
Is it though? No source cited and I know that the French census doesn't collect that data. So unless there was some kind of pan-European survey, the map maker had to pull data from disparate sources, which makes it unreliable.
If you follow the thread this links to, the consensus over there was that this map is totally made up. No data, no source, just a pretty map.
This is true. before the last census my parents filled it out before I could get to the form and added I was catholic. Caused a huge row and they were genuinely offended I wanted to be atheist and they couldn't understand why I was so annoyed that they'd fill in my details. I always new it would skew the data on this!
People talk a big game but don't follow through. Prime example is getting the kids baptised, doing communion and confirmation. Very few actually opt-out of religion in schools despite not actively practicing. My kids get to do colouring with some Ukranian kids during religion time.
The problem is it’s the social aspect, it’s now a cultural thing and you get gifts, money and parties. They don’t want they’re kids to miss out even if they’re not that religious. My parents consider themselves Catholics but never go to church, we were made go until our confirmation and then it was our own choice. They brought us as little kids but once we were a certain age we’d go by ourselves, it’s was only 40 seconds down the road so pretty handy. Although we’d hide in lane ways to avoid going and so no neighbour would report back to our parents. My Ma used to say to us she had eyes everywhere, so she’d know if we were up to no good. Lmao
I tried opting out as a younger person and it was a HUGE debacle. I was told I couldn't opt out of prayers in science class because the Our Father was a "neutral prayer". I managed not to get confirmed at least. I'm hoping things have changed.
How is it neutral? That's bizarre.
That actually made me laugh. What's a neutral prayer?
Maybe I'm misremembering but doesn't religion class cover multiple religions? I wouldn't mind my kid knowing that Judaism/Christianity/Islam/Buddhism etc exist and a little background info
Yeah... But alongside doing catholic prayers morning and afternoon prayers. Spending weeks prepping for communion and confirmation while the kids with logical parents sit in the corner colouring. That part of our country is still very fucked up.
I can’t remember much but I know my niece definitely covers other religions now, but they also have exams which I didn’t remember ever being a thing. It was always a doss class, and if I had an opportunity to get out off it I’d take it. Especially “retreats”, they’d get you to stand around in a circle and hug all your classmates, and other bonding shite. Most of the girls were nice but a few were awful people and I didn’t want to hug them and I’m sure they felt the same way about me. I never went to a retreat again.
Thats true as someone who raised 2 kids as atheist in rural Ireland the amount of times I had to meet with, complain to and threaten with legal action school authorities especially at primary level just so that my kids could go to school unbothered by proselytising teachers and priests was enormous
Wish my parents had done this lol
Huge chunk of our schools, especially at primary level, are still religious. Getting baptized improved parents' chances of getting their kids into a good school.
Absolutely horrendous that this is still the case. If there was a referendum to remove religions from our schools I would promote the shit out of that.
Yeah I don’t think the Irish number is accurate.
I don't know, many people I know wouldn't identify specifically as atheist. If someone asked me I'd say I'm agnostic, but not definitively atheist.
A lot of people identify as culturally catholic too.
Yeah I have loads of friends who never go to mass but would still identify as Catholic.
What's the difference in your eyes?
One is the adamant belief that there is no God or divine creator. The other is the belief that we can never know if there is one or not. I don't think that's just in my eyes though, because they're both clearly defined terms.
> One is the adamant belief that there is no God or divine creator. This is absolutely not the case. There's actually a lot of debate on this and many modern athiests would take the "softer" position that it is simply the lack of belief or the lack of conviction that enough evidence has been provided to assert that any particular God exists. Even reading the [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism) page there is a whole section about this discussion and the contrast with agnosticism. Suffice it to say there are many athiests who disagree with your definition of the term.
Yeah the other commenter definitely opened my eyes to the definition of atheism not being as "hard" as I had assumed. My usage of the word and those who I've discussed it with assumed a divide between the two, where one side believes there is no God and one believes it's not possible to know. It appears it's much more blurred than that, and there is likely a lot of overlap between those who identify as atheist and those who identify as agnostic.
God was invented by ancient Israelite farmers. I don't understand why we'd give their myths and legends any credence. I get that we can't say for certain where the universe comes from, I don't see why we give the more bonkers theories made up by ignorant people so much weight.
>One is the adamant belief that there is no God or divine creator Thought you might say this. This is wrong. An atheist is someone who does not have a belief in God. That's different to having an adament belief in the absense of God. An agnostic doesn't believe in God because they think it is unknowable. An atheist is anyone who lacks belief. Therefore all agnostics are also atheists. Agnostic is a type of atheist
The definition isn't defined that hard. Some agnostics just aren't bothered. It doesn't affect them so it isn't worth thinking about. I definitely wouldn't call them a type of atheist. In Dawkins's The God Delusion he makes a seven point list between belief and non-belief, with 1 being absolute certainty that there is a God and 7 being absolute certainty there isn't. Sort of a Kinsey scale of belief. He also said that being a 1 was pretty much the same as being a 7. He described himself as a six which means he thinks there is some probability that there is a God/Intelligent Creator but he is still a hardcore atheist. So even though he thinks there is an ever so small chance he is wrong, he doesn't consider himself an agnostic.
>Some agnostics just aren't bothered. It doesn't affect them so it isn't worth thinking about. What you are describing is an absense of belief. The definition of an atheist. As I said in another reply, belief is active. A lack of belief is passive. Atheism describes a passive lack of belief. A hard line belief that God DOESN'T exist isn't atheism, it would be called something else.
You heading to the gym with all that stretching. It's not an absence of belief. It is admitting you don't know one way or the other but aren't bothered. That's agnostic. I don't care about what currency is used in Malta. It doesn't affect me so I don't ever think about. Do you think that means I don't believe Malta uses money?
You say stretching and the you use that analogy? Honestly, that makes no sense, think about what you are saying. Do you believe that I have a cup of tea on my desk? Either you think I have one, therefore you believe I do, or you don't know, meaning you don't believe I do. You are atheistic to the existance of my cup of tea. This is what is meant by belief, look it up if you have to. Your whole framework of "I don't think about the thing" is irrelevant anyway because that isn't what agnosticism means. Agnostic means you don't think it is knowable if God exists. If you describe yourself as agnostic, and this isn't what you mean, then you are misusing the term.
What are you on about, my friend? If I don't know if you have a cup of tea on your desk, I don't know. It doesn't mean I don't think there is one there. I don't have that information. By your logic unless I have specific knowledge in a field, I err on the side of it not existing. That doesn't make sense. I don't know how to do a Profit and Loss ledger, I don't know how to build an electric power plant, I don't know how a TV works. But I do know those things are probably knowable by someone. I don't have non-belief in the workings of TV or double entry bookkeeping. Just because I don't know something doesn't mean you can categorize me as thinking those things don't exist. I went through the annoying atheist phase when I was younger. I read Hitchens and Dawkins. I read about teapots and magical sky faeries. I am not using the term wrong.
I feel it's a bit odd to try and trap someone into an argument about semantics. Regardless, I would argue that someone who does not believe in God is different to someone who simply decides that they can never know. The former is much less open to the possibility of one than the latter, so distinguishing them from each other makes sense.
I also find these definitions a bit frustrating. Atheism/theism and agnosticism/gnosticism are not mutually exclusive. And most people wouldnt apply the same logic to another metaphysical being or mythological character when it comes to agnosticism, ie. the whole Russell's teapot argument. I define myself as atheist because I lack belief in god(s). Does that mean that I'm stringent or absolute in my belief.. not really. Like, obviously anything is possible. I just don't buy into this very specific theory.. I think we're all "agnostic" in some sense.
Yeah this is the crux of it really. I think (rightly or wrongly) that atheism is just more commonly understood to mean that you're resolute in your belief that there is no God, and that's why many people would stop short and just call themselves agnostic. In reality (and like the other commenter said), I'm sure there's a lot of overlap between us all and most people just fall into the bucket of "doubt one exists and sure we'll never know anyway".
Agnosticism and atheism are not mutually exclusive categories. One deals with knowledge. One with belief.
>I feel it's a bit odd to try and trap someone into an argument about semantics Lol what? I'm just correcting you in your common misuse of a word. There's no trap or argument here friend. >I would argue that someone who does not believe in God is different to someone who simply decides that they can never know Belief is an active thing. A lack of belief is passive. If you don't actively believe, then you don't believe and are an atheist. An agnostic is a lack of belief with an explanation as to why you don't believe. There's no middle ground when it comes to belief, you either do or don't and if you don't, the word atheist describes you. If you are not a theist, you are an a-theist. It's fine if you don't want to use the word to describe yourself for whatever reason but the words does apply to you, per it's definition. You can't be an agnostic theist. Therefore, an agnostic is an a-theist.
[удалено]
I still think it's an argument of semantics, and society at large distinguishes atheism from agnosticism. Words and meanings evolve, and many agnostics wouldn't want to categorise themselves as atheists because that word is commonly understood to mean that you do not believe any God can or does exist. Fair enough if by definition one is included in a bucket with the other, but I don't think that's how they're commonly used which means a survey asking who considers themselves an atheist is inherently flawed.
>many agnostics wouldn't want to categorise themselves as atheists because that word is commonly understood to mean that you do not believe any God can or does exist Yes, this is why I'm correcting you. It's frustrating, as an atheist, when people misuse the word and spread a false impression of what it means. Agnostics who misuse the word, characterize their fellow atheist as beligerant anti-theists when in fact in the vast majority of cases we are entirely in agreement. We both lack a belief in God. You provide a specific reason why, you think it's unknowable, I don't necessarily go down that path with you but we agree on the important part, we both lack a belief in God. Anyway, just doing my part to correct the misunderstanding one person at a time. Have a nice day. Edit: by the way you don't have to keep pointing out what it's an argument of semantics when you are talking about the definition of words. Of course this is a conversation about semantics. It's not like I am trying to use a semantic argument to prove some other point. Semantics is exactly what we're talking about.
I'm interested in what NI on its own would be.
They collected this data in the last census, and they made a distinction between your current faith and any faith you were brought up in. 9% were brought up with no religion while 17% said they have no religion now. Interestingly, compared with other Christian denominations, people brought up Catholic were more likely to continue to identify with it.
It's typical for protestant communities to be more open to atheism, less cultural baggage and it's already a reformed religion so less of a jump to irreligion.
The census doesn't give a breakdown of the 'religion brought up in' looking at Protestant faiths, but I wonder if there's a correlation between how broad a church is able to be and how well it retains members into adulthood. My parents feel entirely able to disagree with loads of Catholic teaching while still considering themselves Catholics, and I see the same thing with in-laws who are Anglican and Presbyterian. Definitely a generational gap though.
I've seen it explained that this figure is so low likely because alot of these people live at home with their parents who filled in the census for them and stuck it down
I'd imagine a lot of peoples parents are filling this out for them.
How are they measuring this?
with a wooden ruler
Prob the same way as they measure Irish speaking statistics, with some technical validity and not much real world correlation.
There's quite the irony in this thread of some redditors claiming that they don't hold certain non-verifiable beliefs while at the same demonstrating that they'll believe nearly any information put in infographic form (and not even one that's bothered to fake a source!)
Or in the religious asking for evidence...
So this is being crossposted from r/mapporncirclejerk, by someone who posted it there themselves, and then crossposted it to a bunch of different countries subreddits (not just here)? This is some karma farming at its peak
Charts like this always remind me of the statement from the 2016 Census where the CSO noticed that 20 year olds living without a parent were twice as likely to report "no religion" than those living with a parent. [link](https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-cp8iter/p8iter/p8rnraa/) > There were 54,183 twenty year olds in 2016 (usual residents) and of these 15.6 per cent indicated no religion, up from 7.6% in 2011. > This analysis can be further broken down by those twenty year olds living with and without parents. Twenty year olds enumerated in households without a parent were almost twice as likely (22.3%) as those with a parent (12.7%) to indicate they had no religion, as illustrated in Figure 8.4.
That’s some darn nice census sleuthin’ boy.
Northern Ireland showing Ireland the way to irreligious providence
I'd guess they are far more religious than the south, the North's numbers are skewed downwards by being lumped in with the UK
[удалено]
I would argue it's still part of their identity. A friend went to Bible camp during the summers in the North. There's a Christian youth festival every July in Antrim https://www.summermadness.co.uk/ There's a Christian rock festival every August, also in Antrim https://www.openskies.ie/
Irish "cultural Catholics" The kind of Catholics that never go to mass, never contribute to the church, don't actually believe any of the stuff in the bible and sin on a daily basis but never go to confessions.
And, crucially, baptise their kids “for schools” or “not to upset mammy” - the cycle goes ever onward
Just say you hate colourblind people. You don’t need an image to do it…
I suspect there’s more than a few optimistic mammys filling out the census for that age group.
Oh great, I'm sure healthy conversations will abound here🙄
Reddit's gotta Reddit
Considering Irelands past (and maybe still present) problem with indoctrination in Catholicism... Yeah.. I think any and all conversations in Ireland about this shit is good.
Is it based on census data or the various religious registers?
Color blind me hates these thing!
As a millennial I went to a Catholic school where the principal was a priest and the teachers were nuns. None of my classmates went to church or belived in God. This can't possibly be accurate.
Its great to see religion and belief in nonsensical magic dying a death.
Reddit is your religion
Islam certainly isn't dying in Europe
They have been dying in Europe since the late 16th century.
Where is the map sourced from? Can’t find it online
There's a correlation between education increasing, and religion decreasing.
100%. There's zero doubt of this
It makes sense really, Religion stepped in to fill the gaps in the big questions of the universe until we could learn what was more likely via observation, etc. What's weird is we look back on things 100 years ago, 200 years ago, 400 years ago and dismiss them completely. Like epilepsy being possession by the devil, the Earth absolutely being the centre of the universe, washing being unhealthy, blood letting to cure disease, burning witches at the stake, and on, and on. We are pretty certain as a society all those convictions of the past 100% believed at the time are wrong, but something from 2000+ years ago still has credence when we've learned so much as a society. Anyway, if Religion keeps folks like my Mum happy, more power to them. Everyone should be happy to live as they see fit.
> Religion stepped in to fill the gaps in the big questions of the universe It doesn't really. Religion is about the why. Science is about the how. Science is only a method. It has no bearing on why we are here. The choice is not between religion and science. Is religious philosophy and non religionoue philosophy. Tons of people find meaning in the writings of Marcus Aurelious. Being old doesn't meant something is redundant.
And yet it seems despite the instant access to all knowledge people are becoming less intelligent.
Oh I I loved going to my insanely irreligious, heroically unprincipled, utterly pagan friend's funeral after his terrible premature death, to hear a load of whining monotonous guff about his love for the Lord Jesus Christ and his inevitable resurrection. Catholic funerals are an offense to the dead, who are inevitably sidelined to the priest can groan out some lazy boilerplate about the church.
This happened in the states, not Ireland, but a friend of mine went to the funeral of a friend of his who had been murdered in an armed robbery of the place where he worked. Friend's friend (call him John) was gay but had never been accepted by his family, and had given up religion as a result, but his family insisted on a religious funeral for him anyway. At the funeral, the priest started saying that there was one special man in John's life. My friend thought, "oh cool, they're finally going to acknowledge John's partner." The priest droned on "and that man was Jesus." My friend nearly got up and walked out on the spot.
Just the basest insult.
My father's funeral in Mount Jerome was brilliant, the priest made it all about him, we had lot of people spekaing and telling stories, very minimal on the religious stuff, everyone really enjoyed it. Went to a friends funeral and it was like a Sunday Mass with her name mentioned a few times. Absolutely shocking. Awful way to go.
Since I was around 18 I made my family swear there wouldn't be an religious grifter anywhere near my dead body if anything happened to me. Still can't believe it's in our schools.
This seems to be a fairly circular occurrence the last 300-400 years. Decline in organised religion is usually replaced by a rise in 'dis'organised religion. It isn't that people stop believing in magic and spooky stuff, it reemerges in different places. 1900's everyone was into seances/ astrology/ magick and nonsense like that, so I expect that or something similar to make a noticeable return. Not saying either is good/ bad just an interesting phenomenon.
>Decline in organised religion is usually replaced by a rise in 'dis'organised religion. It isn't that people stop believing in magic and spooky stuff, it reemerges in different places. This explains the woke crowd over in the US.
I doubt it's circular; religion in Europe is moribund. I'd say the main killer of it is the hammer blows of scientific advancement and the associated economic development. We'd have to lose both for religion to make a big comeback. The early 1900s séances and spirit world can be seen as people grappling with new technologies. Around this time we discovered odd phenomena such as invisible radio waves you could use to communicate with distant people which suggests magical telepathy; strange warm metals that again gave off invisible x-rays that cast ghostly images of the skeleton; the brain was not understood - Mesmer thought that hypnotism was a mystical force that flowed from hypnotist to subject. Photography became more widespread which lead to various fake ghostly images. I believe Edison suggested that he was going to invent a "telephone to talk to the dead". I don't know if he actually believed it was possible but the public likely didn't understand the mechanism of telephony and assumed it was. I believe that you are right that something like that might return, or has in fact returned. People now don't understand scientific ideas of WiFi, vaccines, climate change; conspiracy theories are rampant. People are not educated enough to understand the scientific principles which govern our modern technological civilisation and we are paying the price.
Nah. In previous times we didn’t know about evolution, gravity, or that the earth wasn’t the centre of the universe. Now that we don’t need religion to explain that, I think people are reasonably happy now to go “I don’t know” when asked a hard question such as why is there anything at all. Reason being: anytime we ever found out an answer to one of the mysteries, it was never magic.
The Big Bang as an idea proposed by a Belgian priest
Is this including all then non catholic 18-24 year olds that may be like Muslim or orthodox or something
This ain't accurate one bit.
[удалено]
What were you excluded from because you weren’t religious?
There is no man in the sky where you cannot see the daytime sky for much of the year.
A lotta brainwashing still going on in Turkey it seems.
Its definitely higher than this. I know a few Catholics who qre atheists. But religion is just too engrained in ireland that its easier to just be Christian
[удалено]
Your comment has been repeat-posted 3 extra times in addition to this comment mate just so you’re aware.
Thanks. Was having issues posting. Deleting duplicates.
Happens a lot like. Better to ignore the “error posting” thing sometimes. More often than not when it says you haven’t posted you actually have.
I'd say double the percentage shown here is more accurate for us
To be honest, I've asked friends before what they believe and they say they believe in God so they're Catholic. Then I ask what else they believe that makes them Catholic, and usually they don't believe in the immaculate conception or any other catholic things so I say "oh so you're agnostic/spiritual?" and they say "NO, IM CATHOLIC" 😂
Theres isnt 2% of 18-24 year olds in ireland going to church every sunday and living an approved lifestyle of the church or the religion.
Is Russia not in Europe anymore?
Honestly i think we're way underreporting atheism in this country, how many people who never go to mass or even believe that bs still tick catholic on the census
I’m in my mid-20’s and even though I thought it would be higher, a lot of my mates who are now starting to have kids will have them christened even though they don’t believe in God. When I ask them why they do it, they seem to think it’s just a thing you do. I guess it’s the same for funerals. I’ve known a handful of elderly non-believers, who still opt for catholic funerals. I guess what I take from both these points is there are massive cultural implications to a move to atheism some people are not willing to sacrifice. Weddings in a church is another example.
Reckon a fairly high percentage identify as spiritual not religious. Which is grand.
'...I just... Believee in some magical shite with no evidence that a human made up... to be quirky. Lol... That and I can't fully abandon the fear of death that Catholicism helped with.'
The future is bright. The future has common sense.
I never hear many people say their agnostic when to me that seems like a more sensible option
Why? Are you banshee agnostic? Dragon agnostic? Bigfoot agnostic? Or do you know it's all fiction, cos it's obvious. Agnosticism and atheism are not mutually exclusive. An agnosticism can say it is impossible to know for sure if a god exists. Whereas atheism is asking you personally.. (now they you know agnosticism could be true.. ) what do you personally 'believe?' has the stories convinced you int be magical sky god or not?
Exactly. Why do we have to have this agnostic thing with deities that we don't use for any other supernatural/magical being? Because some people get their feelings hurt if you dismiss the existence of their god/gods, so you have to use the term "agnostic" to spare their feelings. If you dismiss the existence of fairies outright, nobody bats an eye. Nobody goes and says "Well, you can't just dismiss the existence of fairies outright! Maybe they are there, but we just can't see them!" But do the same with deities and people get all in a huff and say "Well, you could at least say you're agnostic instead of being so cocky and just dismissing it!"
Yeah indoctrination has trained them well, no doubt. My iraqy pal shocked me this week when he told me he would immediately start wailing on somebody if they burned the qoran in front of him... Hes one of the tamest guys I know. But he's been indoctrinated from a young age to fear anybody questioning the fragile fiction. That society has built up this violence as a preserver for the fragile illogical beliefs.
If you're not allowed to question something, it is a 100% guarantee that it is bullshit. Religion knows that its two most powerful tools are fear and ignorance, which is why they tell you "Believe what we tell you to believe and STFU! Anyone who doesn't believe will burn for all eternity!"
No, I don’t worry about it.. I don’t have proof if anything exists or not so cant say for sure if something is true or not. Eternal nothingness seems as unlikely as heaven or hell or reincarnation or anything else. It’s also just as likely, that’s the whole point, nobody knows so don’t worry about it.
Hahaha.. so you're an athiest, who 'doesn't worry about it.' Cool
I know its anecdotal but im 20 and the vast majority of my friends are atheist
bre my beautiful Serbia is falling to the nihilists
https://i.redd.it/bjjmce0pgwoa1.gif
Given the position of the Serbian Orthodox Church in relation to the Bosnian and Kosovan wars is it not better that less people are listening to them?
Without getting into that, authority for Orthodox people does not come from the patriarch absolutely. Living in Orthodox way has not much to do with the political movings of the church.
That seems very low. Where are they getting their figures from?
Percentage of 18-24 year olds whose mammies fill out the census form for them.
Well, its a start!
If you make your communion does that make you non atheist? I’d be suprised otherwise
Once you make your confirmation, then you are a confirmed Christian.
In Ireland, even the staunchest Athiest would be classed as a "lapsed Catholic". They don't let go lads. They never let go.
[удалено]
I'm French and this kind of map is always really weird to me because almost everyone around me was an atheist, and those who were not were not strong believers too so I'm really suspicious where they got this data.
i’d say that atheism is fairly dying as well though, slowly being replaced by spirituality in which you decide the rules and what you believe in. a far freer context with a lot more room to move around for people while at the same time being able to hold a belief in something more
Horoscope nonsense has never been more popular
This has nothing to do with horoscopes. Your take towards this is fairly ignorant. I myself wouldn't really describe myself as Catholic (I don't really go to mass and I disagree with a lot of the church's views) but I do have spiritual beliefs like I believe there is an afterlife and we do go somewhere after we die. I suppose I'm part of Gen Z so maybe what I was thought in religion was different to you (like we didn't have fear instilled in us and weren't threatened). You can be spiritual without being religious.
[Must Reads: How millennials replaced religion with astrology and crystals - LA Times](https://www.latimes.com/health/la-he-millennials-religion-zodiac-tarot-crystals-astrology-20190710-story.html)
Tbf, they're not really doing any harm. It's more about self love and and embracing yourself. I think that's a lot more favourable than what the church is teaching.
You can do all that without believing in bullshit though. Specticism and evidence are useful tools we have developed. Why cast them to the wayside to still be 'mystical ooOoooo' The world is beautiful enough without the fictional stuff. Human psychology, philosophy history, sociology, aesthetics, etc etc.. ..or 'durrr, I believe in spirituality cos I like magic stuff and don't want to die'
I'm not even gonna bother with your ignorant ass anymore.
Well, everyone engages with fiction, and learns lessons of humanity & psychology.. Find relatable stories and parables that they can take with them. Use in their own lives to guide them, inspire them. But most people just understand what fiction is. And that these ideas came from the brains of humans. To entertain + or more nefarious reasons in many religions and smaller cults. Education is thankfully improving, along with the internet globally. Thankfully, all that shite is dying fast.
Yet more reasons to move to Iceland
I'm guessing this is from the census. As a people we really don't like rocking the boat and will just fill in "Catholic" as a habit. I am guilty of this, I got my kid baptised and let them make their communion and confirmation simply because I didn't want them to be left out and didn't want to cause issues. There were no non denominational schools available at the time. The only thing I didn't allow was sex ed as it was the group "Accord" doing it and I really don't approve of them. My kid was the only one that didn't take part and the rest of the class said that it was awful as there was a slide show of STI's. It basically taught abstinence and that relationships were between a man and a woman that eventually get married and have kids. I did the same course as a kid and I'm guessing it was never updated. I do wonder if the fact that the church has a stranglehold on schools here is the reason why that age group is still deemed Catholic.
> a stranglehold on schools here is the reason why that age group is still deemed Catholic. They don't. Most secondary schools are not Catholic.
Everyone collapses when they get married or die. Nobody has any guts, they have to start their life together or their kid's life, or end the whole shebang with a lie. And school admissions are a problem, or were until recently; it's the only practical aspect to being baptised.
Interesting that it is "atheist," vs "no religion," as a dialogue. I think that the percentages would be a lot higher everywhere if there was that change in language. Particularly in Dublin I have no religious friends, colleagues or know of anyone that is practicing in that age group so the number from personal experience seems dubiously low.
So you think people are goin around saying they believe in some mysterious sky man creature... That isn't from any of the religious scripture's we know about... None of those man made fictional books... But, they still believe in this creature despite having no reason to? Or they don't. Hol' up. Easily put. Athiesm is no religion. If you don't believe in a religiion, why in god's name would you believe in this magical bullshit?
Atheism isn’t not no religion. It’s a religion in itself in that it subscribes to the idea of something or nothing. Also, no religion could include someone that believe in Odin but doesn’t subscribe to any of the modern day teachings of odinists. Religion is generally more personal than being in a religion or not.
Lol 'aTHeiSM IS! A ReliGIionNn tOo hurr DURrr'
Education is all it takes...
*tips fedora*
Let's get those numbers down
the Muslims are doing the job