The Belfast Telegraph fills us in concerning the results...
"So 73% of Catholics in Northern Ireland want to remain within the United Kingdom. The opinion poll - conducted jointly by Queen's University and the University of Ulster - may raise eyebrows, but it cannot be dismissed lightly.
It is the latest in more than a decade of authoritative Life and Times surveys; this was no Mickey Mouse vox pop. It was professionally organised and covered a representative sample of the public.
It was properly weighted to take account of geographic and social class differences. Even if the results were 10% inaccurate, they would still indicate a radical change in Catholic views.
Previous polls have established benchmarks against which the new findings can be judged. Where once less than 20% of Catholics preferred living within the UK to a united Ireland, that figure is now 52%. The change in attitudes can be traced back to 2007, coinciding with agreement over a new Executive at Stormont dominated by the DUP and Sinn Fein.
The Republic's economy began a nosedive around the same time from which it has not recovered.
The combination of an acceptable Stormont partnership and an unattractive southern state appears to have had significant influence on Catholic opinion here. And why not?"
It was properly weighted to take account of geographic and social class differences. Even if the results were 10% inaccurate, they would still indicate a radical change in Catholic views.
Previous polls have established benchmarks against which the new findings can be judged. Where once less than 20% of Catholics preferred living within the UK to a united Ireland, that figure is now 52%. The change in attitudes can be traced back to 2007, coinciding with agreement over a new Executive at Stormont dominated by the DUP and Sinn Fein.
The Republic's economy began a nosedive around the same time from which it has not recovered.
The combination of an acceptable Stormont partnership and an unattractive southern state appears to have had significant influence on Catholic opinion here. And why not?"
The first thing I thought of when seeing this headline was akin to the line "The (Irish) Republic's economy began a nosedive around the same time from which it has not recovered." I thought that the basis for Catholics wanting to remain within the UK was rooted in simple economic self-preservation given that the Celtic Tiger appears to be in it's death throes.
That and I think that the conflict between different groups is largely distorted. Especially when one considers the following..
"The conflict in Northern Ireland is primarily ethnic and political, not religious, being a holdover from the British colonial establishment of the Ulster Plantation in 1609. Indicative of this is the fact that more people were killed in the intra-nationalist Irish Civil War of 1922–23, which pitted Catholic against Catholic, than the 3,523 deaths resulting from the thirty-two years of the modern inter-denominational Troubles." Vox Day
Whether it be because of economics or the Good Friday Agreement, here's to hoping for future prosperity for the people of that land.
"We have a contemporary example of this in the fighting in Ireland, which is really mostly political. It is between a Roman Catholic and Protestant group, at least in name. I asked several Irish Protestant ministers, who were in the heart of all this, "How is it that you allow Christians to fight and kill others?
"What do you mean 'Christians'?" they all asked me.
"Well, the Protestants right there in the midst of all that."
"Those people aren't Christians," was the answer they gave me. "They are nominal Christians. They never darken the doors of our churches".
Dr. D. James Kennedy; Skeptics Answered, pg 114
2 comments:
"We have a contemporary example of this in the fighting in Ireland, which is really mostly political. It is between a Roman Catholic and Protestant group, at least in name. I asked several Irish Protestant ministers, who were in the heart of all this, "How is it that you allow Christians to fight and kill others?
"What do you mean 'Christians'?" they all asked me.
"Well, the Protestants right there in the midst of all that."
"Those people aren't Christians," was the answer they gave me. "They are nominal Christians. They never darken the doors of our churches".
Dr. D. James Kennedy; Skeptics Answered, pg 114
That's an example of the no true Scotsman fallacy :x
But can we not differentiate between nominal (cultural) Cristians and practicing ones?
I heard one lady spout off at a meetup of a philosophy club that I attend that Timothy McVeigh was a "Christian" when no journalist/historian can provide that he was significantly Christian in his adult life.
In fact he claimed that he believed that "Science" was his religion.
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