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    Just Got Un-Christened
    By Tommaso Dorigo | May 31st 2009 08:21 AM | 14 comments | Print | E-mail | Track Comments
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    About Tommaso

    I am an experimental particle physicist working with the CMS experiment at CERN. In my spare time I play chess, abuse the piano, and aim my dobson...

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    The catholic church has long lost its race against islamism for the religious institution with more adepts. And they ache for it: you can tell from their resentful remarks on the matter. Bishops and spokespersons of the Vatican have been recently reported to say that the data need to be verified, that the number of muslims is inflated, that there is no clear record... The fact is, the data come from the World Christian Database, a US institute which is hard to refute. In 2007 it already estimated muslims to beat catholics 1.322 to 1.115 billions.

    Here is what I reported on the matter two years ago:

    It is funny to see how the Vatican disagrees and exhibits a good dose of dialectic contorsions. Felix Machado, acting as a spokesman, explains that “statistics is not always accurate” for muslims, while the data of catholics is unquestionable: “we have certain data, with no error margin: every parish, even the farthest, records its baptized. We have the name of every one of our followers.[...] How can one say who is a buddhist and who is not ? Who is a muslim and who is not ?“

    Well, dear Felix, I have news for you. I have been baptized, but as far as I am concerned you cannot count on me. I hereby claim to reject catholic religion, in case it was not clear. As for the other 1,114,999,999, they will have to be asked again if they feel catholic or not. Start soon, it might take a while.


    I am used to keep my word, although it is not always immediate to do it. This time it took me two years to find the stamina to investigate how to get un-christened, but I eventually did it. I can thus announce here today that I have officially taken the necessary steps which force the catholic church to accept that I do not belong to it any longer.

    Should you need to follow my steps, just visit www.uaar.it -it is an italian site, but they will be able to direct you to instructions in your mother tongue.

    Comments

    Hank
    I'm curious on how the numbers are calculated too.  Roman Catholics are one part of Christianity but are they being compared to both Sunni and Shiite Muslims?   Maronite Catholics have been around as long as RC so I wonder if they are in the numbers, along with the many "Bible-based" churches of varying names I see in California.

    Maybe Christianity needs a political arm like Organization of the Islamic Conference to take out ads and promote itself and get membership up.    Of course, if western atheists are in a rage about churches now, imagine if a religious organization calling itself "the collective voice of the Muslim Christian world and ensuring to safeguard and protect the interests of the Muslim Christian world" had official government sanction.  I assume atheists in Muslim countries are rather quiet about it.

    I know what people get for a Christening; a robe, a cap, some pizza fritta, but what does one get for an un-Christening, aside from dirty looks from one's mother?

    —
    Want more no-nonsense, independent science? Buy Science Left Behind
    Hank Campbell | 05/31/09 | 10:58 AM
    dorigo
    Hank,  you highlight the most troublesome point for me - my mother does not know, and I hope I can spare her the disappointment.
    Cheers,
    T.
    Tommaso Dorigo | 05/31/09 | 15:12 PM
    Daniel de França MTd2
     Roman Catholics are the largest christian sect, but it doesnt mean Christianity is not growing in numbers.It is on the other way around, spceialy in Latin America. Let me give you as an example of what is happening  here in Brazi:  most  Catholics long lost their faith because the church could not adapt its discourse to our times, so several small sub-sub-sects ( neo-pentecostals which is sect of pentecostals which evangelicas which is a sect of protestants) has been appearing and fulfilling the existencial needs of all those catholics. These new converts are now fanatical and do not adhere to moderate thoughts as they used to when they called themselves catholics.

    And what is interesting in this situation it is that the Catholic Church, unlike in the rest of the world, has a very numerous and active left wing here (there are many communists catholics here, for example) . They really help the poor, teach them familiar planning, DST prevention (at least this is what used to happen at the catholic school a studied when I was a child and a teenager), rights of minorities, and when funding is available they try to reach them with education. The problem it is that the Vatican is just concerned with the old, right wing part, with the outdated discourse,  that gets most of the funding.

    So, I can say that Catholics are just getting rid of their members to small sects which just have radical brainwashing methods...
    Daniel Rocha | 05/31/09 | 13:03 PM
    dorigo
    Hi Daniel,

    maybe it was wrong for me to mix the topic of this post -my personal decision to get unchristened- with the troubles of christians nowadays.

    I got un-christened because I am an atheist, and it bothered me to be counted as a christian. The situation in Brazil is quite interesting, but I  feel unprepared to discuss it, as well as its repercussions to the accounting of christians worldwide...

    Cheers,
    T.
    Tommaso Dorigo | 05/31/09 | 15:25 PM
    HedgehogFive
    How does one wash a brain?
    Erinaceus Europaeus | 06/01/09 | 10:37 AM
    dorigo
    I remember my mother cooking fried dumplings made of bovine brain thirty-something years ago. That was well before the word "prions" meant anything of course. Before making the dumplings, you'd have to wash the organ in cold water, but gently, to avoid breaking it apart -it tends to unfold like an accordion.

    Did I answer your question Erinaceus ?

    Cheers,
    T.
    Tommaso Dorigo | 06/01/09 | 11:01 AM
    I don't think it's so much, "washing a brain"..... Instead, it's the opening upod a mind, and allowing all the previous false teachings to evaporate, thus leaving space for updated, more realistic information. Non-polluted information, by the church, or any other religious organization's twisting of Knowledge and truth, which is of course only meant to do nothing for the individual but, meant only to forward that 'church's program for the domination of human thought processes and actions. IN OTHER WORDS, CONTROL, through INDOCTRINATION........... We're in the 21st century folks, we possess more knowledge than ever before....... Religion tries to make us deny that knowledge and be dependant on mysterious, invisible, IMAGINARY gods....... Religion tries to make us less than what we are. I say, "who needs something like that in our lives!!!!!" Only the weak of mind.

    ZarathustraMike (not verified) | 04/15/10 | 09:29 AM
    Jim Myres

    Interesting concept.

    Tommaso is trying to make a point against the Catholic (meaning Roman Catholic) Church, not the catholic (one, universal, apostolic Christian church as described in the Nicene Creed) Using an upper case "C" changes the meaning completely from a lower case "c."

    Tommaso also refers to our Muslim brothers using a lower case "m" which could be considered an insult to the religion of Islam and the Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him).

    This may be an assault on the God of Abraham, if so Tommaso will have succeeded in irritating the Muslims, Christians and Jews. As far as those of us who are Christian are concerned, we are a forgiving community - don’t push your luck with the other guys.

    Jim Myres

    Jim Myres | 05/31/09 | 14:58 PM
    dorigo
    Hi Jim,
    you attribute significance to insignificant facts. English is not my native language, and the way I attach capitals to nouns is pretty random.

    As for catholics being a forgiving community, I wonder what you think of the abortist physician who was taken down in a church today.

    Cheers,
    T.
    Tommaso Dorigo | 05/31/09 | 15:07 PM
    Gee, I can't imagine how it is possible to go through all the names, most of which I guess are scrawled in old leather bound volumes, and cross off the people who don't want to be there. How does one force them to reduce the figures?

    Kea (not verified) | 05/31/09 | 15:23 PM
    dorigo
    Dunno Kea - mine is just a gesture which means very little from a practical standpoint, but of course it asserts something important: the catholic church is not above the law, and it has to withstands laws that protect privacy. Much like a bank or an insurance company or any other business, italian law forces it to scratch all the information that concerns you, if you ask for it.

    Cheers,
    T.
    Tommaso Dorigo | 06/01/09 | 11:04 AM
    logicman
    The Cross that brought light to religion,  cast a gloom over philosophy and the sciences which soon lulled them to sleep in monasteries or sent them into exile among the Arabians.
    F. R. CAMPBELL

    That was written about the dark ages, when many books of science were banned or burned by the Catholic church.  I hope the creationists don't cause the same to be said about the 21st century.  Religion has its uses, but attacking science is'nt one of them.
    Patrick Lockerby | 06/01/09 | 11:10 AM
    Awesome Tommaso, I got unbaptized too last year... very liberating indeed. Sorry I missed your LHCb seminaire. I'll go through the slides next week :)

    giampiero (not verified) | 06/19/09 | 03:01 AM
    dorigo
    Thank you... Just received confirmation from them, so it's now official.

    So are you in LHCb ? Well, the slides, commented, are in two posts I wrote in the past few days... So you did not miss a lot. There were many interesting questions though.
    Cheers.
    T.
    Tommaso Dorigo | 06/19/09 | 04:53 AM