(December 16, 2011 at 4:09 pm)Tiberius Wrote: He's actually speaking the truth. The UK's head of state is a monarch, who holds that her (and her family) were chosen by the Christian God to rule the country. The national religion is Church of England, which is a denomination of Christianity. There are 12 bishops as permanent (unelected) members of the House of Lords. I could go on...but I think it's pretty obvious that the idea of "secularism" as it is properly defined means nothing in the UK, and the UK is in fact a Christian country, much as Israel is a Jewish country, and Iran is a Muslim country.
I of course disagree that it should be seen as a Christian country, but as to what Cameron said; it's all factually accurate.
That is very unfortunate.
I have to wonder if it's preferable to have a secular state dominated by christians who claim this to be a christian nation like the US or a "christian country" whose populatoin are (compared to the US) significantly more secular.
Both seem to be rather rotten choices.
If today you can take a thing like evolution and make it a crime to teach in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools and next year you can make it a crime to teach it to the hustings or in the church. At the next session you may ban books and the newspapers...
Ignorance and fanaticism are ever busy and need feeding. Always feeding and gloating for more. Today it is the public school teachers; tomorrow the private. The next day the preachers and the lecturers, the magazines, the books, the newspapers. After a while, Your Honor, it is the setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth centry when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind. ~Clarence Darrow, at the Scopes Monkey Trial, 1925
Politics is supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. ~Ronald Reagan
Ignorance and fanaticism are ever busy and need feeding. Always feeding and gloating for more. Today it is the public school teachers; tomorrow the private. The next day the preachers and the lecturers, the magazines, the books, the newspapers. After a while, Your Honor, it is the setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth centry when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind. ~Clarence Darrow, at the Scopes Monkey Trial, 1925
Politics is supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. ~Ronald Reagan
