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Never Knowing when to shut up!
It’s rare I bother writing to the editor but poor research always irks me. Had the author of the Independent piece that Sarah pointed out bothered to research the issue he’d have found the obvious reason why the number of atheists in Ireland appears to be so small. So in case the paper doesn’t print my terse reply here it is:
In Friday’s article David Quinn points out that the number of self-described atheists in this country according to the 2006 census is very small. Had Mr. Quinn researched the phrasing of the question on the census form he would have discovered that under the heading titled ‘Religion’, those not subscribing to the major faiths were offered the choice of ‘No Religion’ or ‘Other’. As an atheist I’d regard it as bizarre to fill in the ‘Other’ box as that would be identifying atheism as a religion which it isn’t. The logical choice for myself and the many atheists in this country is to correctly identify themselves as having no religion. It was the only accurate answer to the question. Perhaps we could be offered with a specific choice for atheism in the next Census, but to be honest I’d rather the CSO didn’t bother wasting resources on such a minor issue. The demographical implications of people subscribing to none of the major faiths and having no belief in a deity whatsoever are identical so it would serve no purpose.
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nice one Dave. I suggest you write that on real paper and send it in. I find with the Irish Times they would ignore an email but publish a written letter. Odd, but there you go…
Well… it would be interesting to see the results of how many people listed themselves as “JEDI” as I know there are atheists who marked themselves that way.
I disagree about your assumption that non-religious and atheist self-identification serves the same purpose. To me someone identifying as have “no-religion” might as yet be ever-so-slightly god-fearing and would not make a positive identification with atheism. They may be lapsed and apathetic, or vaguely spiritual but not in an organized way.
This would make a big difference in how those individuals would feel about certain issues- such as the education of their children in state-administered schools which teach religion classes.
They should change the form. It is a minute difference- but offering atheists a way to identify themselves amongst the major religions would probably bring out more responses. Certainly it would highlight a trend towards atheism in Ireland- which the state may or may not actually want to know.