Sephardic Jews in the Netherlands of Sephardic Jewry in Amsterdam, the Mahamad also closely controlled the process of re-judaization - that is helping those whose families had been secretly living as Jews while being outwardly Catholic return to a full Jewish life. In this process, several individuals rejected Rabbinic Judaism or advanced ideas outside of the norms of Judaism at that time and were disciplined by the Mahamad through the process of herem, which could be anything from denial of Torah honors to an outright ban on the individual. The most famous of those to receive a full ban herem was philosopher Baruch Spinoza, whose
Religion in Scotland 1980s it was just over 30 per cent. The decline was not even geographically, socially, or in terms of denominations. It most affected urban areas and the traditional skilled working classes and educated working classes, while participation stayed higher in the Catholic Church than the Protestant denominations. In the 2011 census roughly 54 per cent of the population identified with a form of Christianity and 36.7 per cent stated they had no religion; 5.5 per cent did not state a religion. In 2001, there were a significantly lower 27.5 per cent who stated that they had no religion (which compares