Ask yourselves how in the age of reason, was the consensus conclusion that the state needed to be neutral in terms of faith? Just scan any history book and you will see sectarian conflict devastating the UK and Europe. How many wars were fought over varying interpretations of Christian scriptures? Secularism worked, because the differences between protestants and Catholics are not so great. As you have mentioned in other posts, our Venn diagram had large shaded areas. You referred to this as the āsubstrate.ā This is the underlying beliefs, customs and objectives of these various factions were fairly harmonious so long as they could move away from the theological disagreements which in the past were enough to provoke conflict. This is no longer true. We now have a significant population that do not share so large a shaded Venn diagram and they are aggressive in inserting their customs into our social fabric, and forcing us to back pedal on our customs. Like so many other nice things that once worked in a homogeneous society, we now cannot afford to remain a secular society. We need to entrench on the values we want to preserve against these new influences or we will not prevail as a culture.
Forgive me, itās probably my reading - but I canāt really identify if you are agreeing or arguing against me?
Iām presuming you are disagreeing with my previous point.
Britain has never been a secular country, and it isnāt today. It has always been Christian. His Majesty the King is the head of the Church of England. The official state religion of Britain is Church of England/Scotland. We are not a secular society.
That said, I am glad you seem to agree Britain should not be secular(?)
āForgive me, itās probably my reading - but I canāt really identify if you are agreeing or arguing against me?ā
Grudgingly agreeing with caveats.
The point I was making, was that the gambit of religious belief was materially restricted to Catholics, Anglicans (halfway between Catholic and Protestant) and Protestants, with some Agnostics/ Secular Humanists in the mix, all with a Christian/Classics based education. All shared common moral codes, common stories and common myths. Even now I assume you are not saying we should all be Anglicans and any Catholics will be barred from office? That was the old game. was it not? āSecularā then meant something different from today, it meant not sectarian rather than atheistic. I do not want Britain to be sectarian, that would lead to a much worse place. It would tear us apart into smaller and weaker groups and not bring us together. The current situation requires a ābroad church.ā
Understood. No I am absolutely not saying there should be any individual discrimination based on faith. Only that the state should remain and be more robust in its broad Christian heritage - Celebrate it, promote it, encourage, and discriminate in favour of it at a societal level, not individual level. What does that mean? Christmas trees and Easter decorations at Downing Street, with no other religious festivals holidays celebrated. It means government funding for Christian organisations and events etc, no other faiths. Etc. it does not mean fussing over denomination.
Essentially the state should be encouraging us to all follow along with Christianity, without caring at all if any one particular individual really believes in immaculate conception or sacraments, or even if you actually believe in a super natural being. Itās about tradition, values, our heritage and robustly defending and promoting that.
I am not religious at all, Iām agnostic at best. But now, I think itās time we try to at least pretend we are Christian again, and go through the motions. To me it really comes from a sense of duty now.
Then I think we are in full agreement.
Whilst I agree to an extent, I think that there should be a focus on Anglicanism (once we fix the church), at least in England and Wales. The King is, after all, Defender of the Faith, and whilst as an atheist who would like to be Christian, I can construct arguments for monarchy and believe in monarchy, the best argument for it is that the King is Godās legitimate representative here on Earth. This requires his denomination(s) (he, of course, changes denomination when entering Scotland) to be correct. It would be most strange if Godās representative on Earth were, himself, a heretic.
Iām not saying that there isnāt a place for Catholics, Orthodox, or anyone else, but that we should try and make Anglicanism the preeminent denomination. We should also return the rule that all schools, unless specifically set up as a faith school, must have a generally Anglican religious undertone, for example. This is technically the law already under Section 70 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, but has not been enforced since 2004, when OFSTED declared that 76% of all schools were not compliant with the law, and they werenāt going to bother enforcing it anymore. In other words, a quango unilaterally decided to de-Christianise the UK.
This seems reasonable to me. Rather just a return to what was, which is fine, and less effort/change. However, I think we are quite some way from that though and, at least for now we can achieve much the same just with a broader Christianity - seems an easier sell to me in the short term.
I do particularly enjoy that this is agnostic/atheist people debating restoring Christianity and the denominations of it. I suspect this is actually entirely consistent with history, where this has been debated many, many times in the history of these lands, probably by people with similar perspectives 
I do particularly like Gods earthly representative being British, of course. I presume thatās why we donāt have earthquakes.
And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon Englandās mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On Englandās pleasant pastures seen?
And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark Satanic mills?
Bring me my bow of burning gold:
Bring me my arrows of desire:
Bring me my spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire.
I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand
Till we have built Jerusalem
In Englandās green and pleasant land.
