Religious Knowledge Weak in Northern Ireland

[holysee]

Contrary to popular perception, Northern Ireland is not more religious than the republic in the south, at least, not judging by a poll on religious knowledge.

An opinion poll conducted by Millward Brown Ulster on behalf of the Iona Institute and the Evangelical Alliances of Ireland and of Northern Ireland showed that levels of religious knowledge in the North are even lower than in the rest of the Emerald Isle.


The poll is a follow-up to a religious-knowledge poll conducted in the Republic of Ireland in April. This found low levels of basic religious knowledge in the population, especially among young people. This latest poll allows a comparison between levels of religious knowledge in the North and the republic, and between Northern Catholics and Northern Protestants.


The poll finds that levels of religious knowledge among Northern and Southern Catholics are roughly the same. However, in general, levels of religious knowledge among Northern Protestants are lower than among Northern Catholics. Thus Northern Ireland as a whole seems to show lower levels of religious knowledge. In the Republic of Ireland, the population is almost 90% Catholic.


http://www.zenit.org/article-21325?l=english

 

[Judy02]

Interesting...although a lack of knowledge definetely doesn't automatically make it less religious, or for people to have less faith. Knowledge is important, but its certainly not the only thing about faith. And there are some people who are definetely religious, but knowledge is lacking in some or several areas.

 

[holysee]

Interesting...although a lack of knowledge definetely doesn't automatically make it less religious, or for people to have less faith. Knowledge is important, but its certainly not the only thing about faith. And there are some people who are definetely religious, but knowledge is lacking in some or several areas.

Since two communites are locked in conflict supposedly about religion then the lack of religious knowledge points to the fact that the conflict actually has other roots. All these people who say that religion is the cause of most of the wars in the world tend to ignore little details like this.

 

[maitiu]

To put the above poster right, ROI had nothing to do with the 'war' in NI - it was merely between the two sides in NI while ROI just looked on and the people never understood 'why?'

ROI still has Religious Education, while NI's is being watered down thanks to the UK

 

[holysee]

I didn't mention the 26 counties. It was the two communities in the occupied 6 I was referring to.