Sacred or Secular? BBC NI news report on modern Ireland

[MichaelNugent]

Sacred or secular? The battle for the soul of modern Ireland - BBC Northern Ireland news report, includes opinions from Michael Nugent, Ivana Bacik, David Quinn and Vincent Twomey.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-16525904

[paolovf]

Vincent Twomey is quoted as saying:

"The church itself has contributed to the secularisation of society by failing to grasp the imagination of people, by failing to feed their intellectual thirst for the truth."

wow! What an unfortunate selection of words he decided to string together, how embarrassing

[aZerogodist]

In oneway I agree with DQ:

"Church bashing has replaced 'Brit bashing' in the national psyche,"

But there aways has been religious jokes, as nearly everyone attended mass so an easy topic to relate too.

Anti-catholic
What I'd like to know, who's the anti-catholic people akin to the the anti-English;

"It took us decades before we began to overcome some of our excessive anti-English feeling, is it going to take decades before some of the excessive anti-church feeling begins to diminish?"

Many people who suffered at the hands of the church are still believers, some have even forgiven their abuser, but not the way the 'holy' church treated them.

I suppose maybe the point DQ is indirectly making is due to Irish history, with British-rule and then the roman-catholic-rule of Ireland. Religion should be a part of one's life if they wish, not dictating their life by controling the country.

But it's still a weak argument to link the two on the same level, Ireland got independence from England by the gun w' the spilling of blood, now Ireland is moving towards independence from the vatican, but by knowleage, hard work n' perspiration of sweat.

I probably could paraphrase that better

[bipedalhumanoid]

"It took us decades before we began to overcome some of our excessive anti-English feeling, is it going to take decades before some of the excessive anti-church feeling begins to diminish?"

That's a very optimistic statement.

I envisage a time in the coming decades when David Quinn is an edlerly man and the only people left who take religion seriously are those members of his generation who were too stubborn or too stupid to learn how to use the internet properly.

[Dr Raskolnikov]

I just don't see how church hating and Brit hating are the same thing. The church represents an invisible tyrant who will prosecute you for thought crime while you sleep. It will judge you for what you get up to "between the sheets". It proposes the idea that we are created sick and commanded to be well.

Whereas the Brits have a monarch that, on the available evidence, appears to exist. Although I'm not sure about her son, who may well be the anti-christ.