Britain won't be Christian nation by 2030

[FredisDead]

http://news.in.msn.com/international/article.aspx?cp-documentid=5896555

Britain may no longer be a Christian country by 2030 as the number of non-believers is set to overtake the number of Christians, a media report said.

Christianity is losing more than half a million believers every year, while the count of atheists and agnostics is going up by almost 750,000 annually, the Daily Mail reported.

Research by the House of Commons Library found that while Christianity has declined, other religions have seen sharp increases.

In the last six years, the number of Muslims has surged by 37 percent to 2.6 million; Hindus by 43 percent and Buddhists by 74 percent. But the number of Sikhs and Jewish believers fell slightly, according to the Mail Friday.

[laconicsax]

1. The first domino to fall?

[ShadowLiberal]

2. The numbers are probably worse for Christianity then they appear by those numbers

Of the 41.1 million Christians I'll bet a sizeable minority of them, say at least 5 million (hard to make an educated guess without #'s on church attendance among those Christians, but could be quite a bit more then 5 million), are just calling themselves Christians because they never really thought too much if they really believe in God, and just think of themselves as Christian because they were raised that way.

I used to be the same way, scared to speak out or even think it through at all if God existed, because you're not supposed to, and doing so would be sinful according to the church.

Eventually I started to do so anyway around the time I turned 18, and realized I barely had any belief in God at all. Still, it took me another year or two, till I decided I didn't believe at all. What pushed me over the edge was disagreeing so much with Christianity preachings on social issues (especially religious right politicians talking about those issues), and the realization that if God was like the Christian religious right really claimed on those social issues I'd probably be going to hell anyway. I mean there's so many sins in the bible it's impossible to go without sinning constantly when even thinking things can be sinful. I can't be the only one who thought this way, as church attendance declined nationwide when Bush was wrapping himself around the religious right during the 2004 election.

[intaglio]

5. It's better than that

As of 2007
BBC report 2 April 2007
Source pdf

Only 15% are regular Church goers (at least once per month)
A further 7% are occasional (more than 6 times a year)
3% are "fringe" (once a year)
5% Go to weddings, funerals and baptisms and might go to church again
1% do not go to the ceremonies but might go to church again
6% follow other religions


A total of 37% admitted or possible faithful.

Now check the British Social Attitudes survey graph from Wikipedia dated 2009. 50.7% identify as "no religion", 43.7% say Christian, 5% other, non-Christian with 0.5% not sayng.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bsa-religion-question.svg

[progressoid]

3. I've been watching QI lately.

And those guys beat up on religion a LOT (but in a fun way ). I doubt they could get away with that on broadcast TV here.

[Arugula Latte]

4. Damn. I'm jealous.

Why does this country have to be so effing stupid and backwards while Europe leaps ahead of us?

[white_wolf]

6. They sent all their religious nutjobs here to colonize the America...

and now their laughing at us? That's my guess.

[Arugula Latte]

7. ...

Greg Proops: "How come we got the grumpy boat of bandy-legged Puritans? How come we didn't get the Italian party boat with the cappuccino makers and the gelato machine?"