Christianity Offially on the UP in England and Wales

[Tellos Athenaios]

But that was my whole point Rhyfelwyr: it is often overlooked that if there are a few centuries in which religion is `dominant' then right now these would have to be numbered 20th and 21st....

[Rhyfelwyr]

But that was my whole point Rhyfelwyr: it is often overlooked that if there are a few centuries in which religion is `dominant' then right now these would have to be numbered 20th and 21st....

So you are saying the 20th/21st centuries are the high points of the influence of religion?

I don't deny Christianity tends to be oppressive today, I just wanted to show that historically this wasn't the case.

[Tellos Athenaios]

So you are saying the 20th/21st centuries are the high points of the influence of religion?

I don't deny Christianity tends to be oppressive today, I just wanted to show that historically this wasn't the case.

Of influence of religion. I do not even make the connection between “Christianity” and “oppression” just yet for two reasons:

1) When actual oppression does occur there tends to be a fair amount of “giftwrap this sordid powergrab with a religious ribbon and people will buy it” going on. So how much of that is truly in the spirit of a given religion, how much of it is carried out for religious motives and how much of it is simply carried out under the pretext of religious motives? My estimates would err on the pretext side of motives, rather than on the spirit of the faith side (which no two believers ever seem to agree on anyway).
2) Influence and oppression are not equal, more importantly oppression is not the only way for influence of religion to manifest itself. In the context of the late 20th and now 21st century it is telling that people seriously doubt whether or not Pakistani muslim sects are compatible with British society, when in the 19th and early 20th century everything was all good as long as you were loyal to the British Empire and the British armed forces were adjusted to be more accessible to people of different faiths than the CofE in order to employ Pakistani soldiers. In fact, the British Empire built mosques and special military burial sites to accommodate their Pakistani forces during the Great War.

On the other hand there's a lot of almost reactionary response toward things like the pill and similar issues which makes you wonder what happened to the quality those faiths exhibited in earlier times to adapt to their host culture and integrate rather than attempt to beat it out of the host culture.