Petition about inflated church membership

[Trinoc]

I urge everyone to check out this e-petition about the misuse of baptism numbers by churches to claim that everyone baptised is a follower of their religion, and to sign it if they agree with it. There are only a couple of weeks left to the deadline, so please take a few minutes off from festivities to sign.

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Falsehood/

[Mulder]

I don't like to burst your bubble but those petitions were launched by Tony Blair as a bit of spin. I know someone who ran one and once its time was up everyone who had signed it got an email explaining government policy and why they weren't going to change it! Worse, they will get your email address - they'll probably put it on a disc and post it to spammers! :smiley:

[The Great Bymble]

In my case I received an invitation to join YouGov and get paid to take surveys - recent questions centred around Iraq,and whether Gordon Brown resembled Iosef Stalin or Mr Bean.Thus is Spin created...
Can't say that I've noticed any extra spam being blocked.

[Mulder]

I should hope you DO get paid to give away personal information! Who knows what it will be used for. Once you've given it to the world you lose all control over it. It may get used many times but you only get paid once.

[Trinoc]

Just to clarify, I don't see the petition itself as likely to have any effect. It's well known that people in power only use petitions (if at all) to get a better idea of how many people they are ignoring in their choice to go ahead with their chosen policies regardless.

This all stems from a thread on the Science Forums (http://www.sciencefile.org/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1198340930/0) where we have been discussing ways for atheists to make their presence known, in opposition to the ways that religious groups are dishonestly inflating estimates of their own followings in order to gain power and influence. The inherent bias of census questions in favour of religion of upbringing rather than current religion (or more usually, lack if it) is one such example.

An obvious first step is to encourage everyone to support the National Secular Society. Other ideas include as many people as possible demanding that the churches where they were baptised delete their records on the grounds that they did not consent to being enrolled. Also a campaign of requests for voluntary excommunication. Of course these are publicity stunts which have no real effect (except NSS membership, which has demonstrated real benefits). The point is that religions are currently winning the spin war, so unless we respond in kind (though without resorting to their kind of dishonesty), we may well find our rights to deny and criticise religious beliefs, not to mention to be free from faith-based laws, severely curtailed.

To adapt from Edmund Burke: All that is necessary for religion to succeed is that atheists do nothing.

[Fiona]

The scottish census included the religious question but it asked both religion you were brought up and religion now. I understand the england and wales census did not. That would be a start though

[Trinoc]

The scottish census included the religious question but it asked both religion you were brought up and religion now. I understand the england and wales census did not. That would be a start though

As I understand it, the government wants to remove the second question from the Scottish census rather than give it to the rest of us, so that the churches can continue to inflate their membership figures and claim special privileges. I suggest everyone should write to or email their MPs asking for religious membership to be accurately enumerated.