Māori atheism on the rise: the legacy of colonisation is driving a decline in traditional Christian beliefs
Religious beliefs among Māori have shifted significantly over the past two decades.
The number of Māori identifying as having “no religion” in the census between 2006 and 2018 increased from 36.5% to 53.5%. Māori affiliation with Christianity has fallen from 46.2% to 29.9%.
Most participants framed their rejection of religion as an expression of resistance against the colonial systems of belief.
In fact, participants’ ideas of “religion” were primarily shaped by their experience of various Christian denominations and their knowledge of the Christian missionary history in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Accordingly, most of the people we spoke with viewed religion as a colonial tool for the oppression of Māori people and culture. Another participant noted:
I’ve only become very angry against religion over the last five years after I found out what they’ve done to my culture […] We’ve lost a lot of our culture from the Anglican missionary societies […] Removing one’s culture and then assimilating them into religion is […] like a double-edged sword of colonisation.
Some interviewees spoke about how Christianity had been used as a way to exert cultural superiority, labelling Indigenous beliefs and practices as “evil”.
Others argued that the God of the Bible is not indigenous to Aotearoa, but rather a creation myth from the Middle East and therefore inherently irrelevant to Māori people.
For most participants, “atheism” equated to non-belief in the existence of God and the rejection of monotheistic traditions, specifically Christianity.
In other words, being a Māori atheist did not necessarily mean the rejection of all supernatural beliefs.
While some individuals were confident in their non-belief in all supernatural phenomena, others were either ambivalent towards certain wairua (spirit, soul) beliefs or emphasised the need to understand Māori beliefs as metaphors for a way to live.
https://theconversation.com/maori-atheis...efs-214701
Religious beliefs among Māori have shifted significantly over the past two decades.
The number of Māori identifying as having “no religion” in the census between 2006 and 2018 increased from 36.5% to 53.5%. Māori affiliation with Christianity has fallen from 46.2% to 29.9%.
Most participants framed their rejection of religion as an expression of resistance against the colonial systems of belief.
In fact, participants’ ideas of “religion” were primarily shaped by their experience of various Christian denominations and their knowledge of the Christian missionary history in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Accordingly, most of the people we spoke with viewed religion as a colonial tool for the oppression of Māori people and culture. Another participant noted:
I’ve only become very angry against religion over the last five years after I found out what they’ve done to my culture […] We’ve lost a lot of our culture from the Anglican missionary societies […] Removing one’s culture and then assimilating them into religion is […] like a double-edged sword of colonisation.
Some interviewees spoke about how Christianity had been used as a way to exert cultural superiority, labelling Indigenous beliefs and practices as “evil”.
Others argued that the God of the Bible is not indigenous to Aotearoa, but rather a creation myth from the Middle East and therefore inherently irrelevant to Māori people.
For most participants, “atheism” equated to non-belief in the existence of God and the rejection of monotheistic traditions, specifically Christianity.
In other words, being a Māori atheist did not necessarily mean the rejection of all supernatural beliefs.
While some individuals were confident in their non-belief in all supernatural phenomena, others were either ambivalent towards certain wairua (spirit, soul) beliefs or emphasised the need to understand Māori beliefs as metaphors for a way to live.
https://theconversation.com/maori-atheis...efs-214701
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
