80% support for total separation of church and state, says new report
Atheist Ireland welcomes the findings, from today’s report by We The Citizens, that more than eight in every ten Irish people want the church and state to be totally separate, and that 65% strongly agree that this should happen.
We also welcome that seven in every ten Irish people want religious education to focus on teaching students about different religions rather than promoting one set of religious beliefs, and that less than two in every ten disagree that this should happen.
It is a fundamental test of democracy that the Government stays strictly neutral on questions of religious and nonreligious philosophical beliefs, thus protecting equally the right of every citizen to freedom of conscience.
We The Citizens is calling for a national Citizens’ Assembly to give ordinary Irish people a structured direct say in our political decisions. You can read the full report on the We The Citizens website.
4 Comments
Hopefully moves to get the the Irish Embassy to the Holy See reopened will fail. Nobody gives us a good reason for why it should be reopened. Opening it again would undermine the duty to keep the state and religion separate.
The Holy See is masquerading as a state and thus has no right to let the Irish Taxpayer fund an embassy. Please search for Robertson’s The Case of the Pope on Amazon.
How is honouring with an embassy, a religious entity that would ban even the poorest of people from protecting themselves from HIV, that would ban abortion if death from pregnancy was still as common today as it once was, that would impose censorship on criticism of the Catholic faith, that does not ensure that Sunday collection money actually ends up lodged in the bank, that had to be forced to implement child protection, that claims the right to force a boy to confess the sin of masturbation to a priest on pain of everlasting punishment, that adds to the troubles of a depressed child by saying that there is a place called Hell where mommy and daddy might go to forever, supposed to do much for human rights? It has no credibility for a start!
I draw much hope from reports and comments like this. If Ireland could get it right it will serve as an example for the great unwashed, given Ireland’s religious turmoil of the past!