Syria

vivatifosi

TruckerT wrote: »

How does the CIA know that there are 1.8m christians in Syria? Do Syrians have to register their religion somewhere? Do you have to be a christian if you want to live in Maaloula? Do all these christians actively 'believe', or were they just labelled at birth?

antrobus wrote: »

Don't know. It's possible they employ some kind of 'agent' who is responsible for finding these sort of things out. It might not be that complicated. Simply tapping the right words into Goggle can some times produce wonders.

I don't think the CIA is secretly using some kind of "skynet" technology that zooms in on churches and works out how many people are going in and out of the ones in Syria. More likely, they have a standard format for the World Fact Book and fit the available data into their format, which probably comes from the relevant government. This is most likely why the countries I quoted initially had different definitions. Similar data is available in other publications from the EU, UN and other publishers, it just so happens that I have an old copy of the CIA World Fact Book on my bookshelf.

In terms of how "Christian" people are in Syria I don't know. I daresay that some people there are only nominally muslim too.

Annie_Nameless

antrobus wrote: »

Don't know. It's possible they employ some kind of 'agent' who is responsible for finding these sort of things out. It might not be that complicated. Simply tapping the right words into Goggle can some times produce wonders.

Are you suggesting that the CIA regards Google as the fount of all knowledge?

Apparently not. Leicester is only 18.6% muslim according to the 2011 census.
http://www.leicester.gov.uk/your-council-services/council-and-democracy/city-statistics/religion/

I wonder what percentage of the population of Maaloula is officially Christian - I don't recall any journalist feeling a need to justify their description of the place - it just seems to have a lot of ancient 'christian' buildings.

P.S. Clapton might have a point.:)

TruckerT... aka Annie Nameless...

vivatifosi

Annie_Nameless wrote: »

TruckerT... aka Annie Nameless...

vivatifosi, aka confused:huh:

TruckerT

vivatifosi wrote: »

vivatifosi, aka confused:huh:

Annie is my neighbour, and we sometimes share the laptop.

The confusion is obviously contagious! We apologise.

Trucker Nameless

TruckerT

antrobus wrote: »

Don't know. It's possible they employ some kind of 'agent' who is responsible for finding these sort of things out. It might not be that complicated. Simply tapping the right words into Goggle can some times produce wonders.



Apparently not. Leicester is only 18.6% muslim according to the 2011 census.
http://www.leicester.gov.uk/your-council-services/council-and-democracy/city-statistics/religion/

P.S. Clapton might have a point.:)

If somebody came onto Al Jazeera and described Leicester as a Christian English City, what would be your first reaction?

TruckerT

antrobus

TruckerT wrote: »

If somebody came onto Al Jazeera and described Leicester as a Christian English City, what would be your first reaction?

TruckerT

To fact check the claim.

And then point out that, according to the 2011 census, Leicester is only 32.4% Christian, that some 27.5% claim that their 'main language' is something other than English, and that 34% of the population of Leicester were not born in the UK.

These things are not that difficult to find out. They are examples of what the likes of the CIA refer to as OSINT - open source intelligence. They have people who can use Google.:)

https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/2010-featured-story-archive/open-source-intelligence.html

TruckerT

antrobus wrote: »

To fact check the claim.

And then point out that, according to the 2011 census, Leicester is only 32.4% Christian, that some 27.5% claim that their 'main language' is something other than English, and that 34% of the population of Leicester were not born in the UK.

These things are not that difficult to find out. They are examples of what the likes of the CIA refer to as OSINT - open source intelligence. They have people who can use Google.:)

https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/2010-featured-story-archive/open-source-intelligence.html

Within my lifetime in the UK, it was common to have to tick a box headed 'Religion' - the choice was mostly between 'C.of E.' and 'R.C.', and the answer 'none' was controversial at best and unacceptable at worst.

These days, we are sometimes asked to define our ethnicity, but we only have to answer if we feel like it.

The debate about face-veils has escalated in the last 24 hours (but, so far, the issue of English people wearing a silver cross around their neck has not re-surfaced).

Does your 'statistic' of 32.4% imply that a third of the population of Leicester routinely attends a Christian church? If not, then how is the figure useful?

Last night, we were again presented with the spectacle of a national 'leader' (Assad) getting down on his knees to pray. I dare say that Google will provide footage of many national leaders doing a similar thing. !!!!!! do they pray for?

TruckerT

Granariesgirl

TruckerT wrote: »

Last night, we were again presented with the spectacle of a national 'leader' (Assad) getting down on his knees to pray. I dare say that Google will provide footage of many national leaders doing a similar thing. !!!!!! do they pray for?

TruckerT

That they don't get killed before they get a chance to spend all the ill-gotten money they've stashed away in offshore bank accounts?
This could apply to any politician, of any party, ANYWHERE, not just Assad!
:cool: