Ian Curran – Deputy Features Editor
Tomorrow evening, the inaugural meeting of the 261st session of the College Historical Society will take place in the presence of one of the world’s leading philosophers and several distinguished guests, including Senator Ivana Bacik and Professor Peter Simons, the chair of moral science in Trinity, will respond to a paper authored by auditor Huw Duffy on the topic of modern atheism. With the census looming and one controversial Facebook campaign set up in the last month by Atheist Ireland designed to encourage Irish citizens to be, “Honest to Godless,” and tell the truth about their religion (or lack there of), the theme of the meeting is definitely of relevance to a lot of people.
With all of this in mind, the University Times put together a survey to gauge student attitudes to atheism and humanism and to see what boxes will be ticked and in what order in the census by Trinity students. So will Professor Dennet feel at home during his visit to Dublin University? Well it certainly looks that way with 36.2% of surveyed students saying that they do not believe in a god compared to 27.9% who say that they are practicing members of an organized religion. But it doesn’t explain that while 34% of Trinity students say that they will be ticking the Roman Catholic box in the next census, the atheists are only 12% behind at 22%. Clearly people who are said that they don’t believe in a god are still ticking the Roman Catholic box. This may go some way to proving Atheist Ireland’s point that non-believers are still identifying themselves as Catholics.
Fifteen or even ten years ago, it would have been hard to imagine such a close race between Catholicism and atheism. One would think that agnosticism might have received a higher percentage of the votes but a meagre 7.9% of TCD students identify themselves as members of the latter category. What is truly surprising is that more TCD students would identify themselves as atheist than lapsed Catholics (10.2%). In fact, a higher percentage of Trinity students actually identify themselves as atheists than any other religion that appeared on the census in 2006 other than Roman Catholic; including Church of Ireland and Islam. Of course there was the obligatory, “Jedi,” who completed the survey but a shocking scarcity of, “Sith,” subscribers.
The public’s attitude to atheism has yielded many a silly statement over the course of history; whether it’s George Bush’s half-baked notion that atheists shouldn’t be considered citizens of the U.S. or one surveyed Trinity student’s statement that atheists are, “attention-seeking.” But according to our survey, most students feel that there is little or no stigma attached to calling one’s self an atheist in contemporary Irish society (32.8%). However, only a very slightly smaller percentage of students feel that there is a definite stigma attached public and private individuals who call themselves atheists (25.1%). Slightly smaller than this again is the percentage of students who fell that those in the public eye who identify themselves as secularists face negative publicity (21.6%). It’s a fair point, considering the fact that only two openly atheist members of the Oireachtas; Ivana Bacik and Ruairi Quinn. Remember the media coverage after Mick Lally’s death? Many major newspapers paid more attention to the fact that he received a secular funeral than his acting achievements. They paid morbid attention to his atheism and quoted him ad nauseum, in saying that religion was nothing more than, “codology.” This writer can’t help but feel that while there is a strong trends towards atheism among Ireland’s student population, maybe this attitude isn’t mirrored in Irish public life on the whole.
“Countmeout.ie,” is a website set up to provide people who were rattled by the allegations of child abuse in the church with an avenue for them to leave or, “defect,” as the website called it, from the church. It set up a three step programme for defection which involved sending a letter to the defectors parish and asking for the person to be removed from the records of the church. As of the 12th of October 2010, after a change in canon law that disallows defection from the church, the website has become an information source for those interested in defecting. According to our survey, 27.1% of Trinity students have actively left an organized religion. This figure marginally trumps the 26.9% of students who say that they are practicing members of an organized religion and the roughly 23% who are still members of a religion but choose not to practice. The site’s popularity and these figures definitely give credence to the notion that there is a growing current of disbelief and doubt in religion in Irish social life.
