Even the Independent admits: Irish are converting to Protestantism

[they don't love you like i love you]

For the record and as I've said in some places before, in my scene and subculture I've interacted with many people outside the US, including many who are Christian (actually from places like Scandinavia probably a higher percentage are practicing Christians than the population at large, which perhaps isn't that surprising since it's not part of mainstream culture there) and many who post on their Facebooks or last.fm pages about finding Christ and a personal relationship with Jesus stuff that oakvale finds so creepy (including at least one from Ireland FYI) and counting all that I still have never met anyone identifying as Catholic. Including those from very heavily Catholic countries. Now you might say that this makes a statistically insignificant number of the population, and you'd be correct, but still I'd say since this stands in such stark contrast to the country overall it's clear that there's something at work and influencing here and thus you clearly can't just say "everyone in Ireland/country thinks this way".

I remember getting in a debate with belgiansocialist about this and people who are involved in the scene in Belgium and those who still identify as Christian and go to Christian hardcore shows and he basically came to the conclusion of "Wow your scene sounds like a really messed up cult."

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

you clearly can't just say "everyone in Ireland/country thinks this way".

Nobody was ever claiming 'everyone'.

[they don't love you like i love you]

A couple years ago on another forum I posted at, we had a breakdown of like this: 20% Christian, 50% Decidedly not Christian but not particularly anti-Christian, just apathetic and with an attitude of "Well if you're liberal/progressive still I don't care" and 30% virulently anti-Christian and Einzige-esque. So we felt quite a bit outnumbered and kind of banded together, had lots of PM stuff and AIM chats (heh showing the era here) and I got to know the other people in the "Christian clique" pretty well. No one in it was Catholic. At the time I didn't put much thought into it. I just sort of accepted that people heavily involved in the scene, even if Christian were never Catholic, it was just a group you didn't find it, and never put much thought into this because it was how I discovered things to be in the years prior. I never quite thought as to why this is and the rather interesting sociological reasons when you think about it. The fact that this is even true if transferred to other countries is interesting as well. But there's clearly some sort of effect and factor going on here that's more than just political, if compared to the rest of the population you can't just chalk it up to "the Catholic Church doesn't represent their rather progressive views of Christianity well and thus none of them stay Catholic even if brought up that way." What exactly is the big underlying difference here?

[patrick1]

A couple years ago on another forum I posted at, [snip]

Honestly, you should spend less time on forums and experience the world directly.  Your niche forums are not representative of reality and this 1000% goes for this place too.  Further, you are wasting your brain power continually going over these obsessions.