John Humphrys has written a new book on religion called IN GOD WE DOUBT. YouGov did a poll which showed that 42% of us think that religion does harm. Despite that, only 16% of people describe themselves as Athiests and 9% as Agnostics. Only 17% thought the influence of religion was beneficial. 43% say they have never prayed and only 10% pray every night.
The finding I thought most bizarre was that 28% believe in God, while 26% say they believce in something, but they were not sure what - and they all vote Liberal Democrat. Sorry, I made that last bit up. But surely if you believe in "something" you have to know what it is you believe in! Just as well I am a confirmed Agnostic.
This made me think about what the religious views of my readers might be,so I though it was time I found out and havce created a very short, five question, survey for you to take.
Click Here to take survey
I had hoped that His Grace might have been able to guide me on the implications of the YouGov survey but he is uncharacteristically silent on the subject.
17 comments:
It's fairly simple isn't it?
Your belief is in some sort of "higher being", "creator", whatever, but lack the comprehension to develop this belief beyond the basic statement of existence.
Global secularism was largely discredited in the 1980's when researchers discovered that attitudes towards religion are much more contradictory and complex. In Europe organised, religious observance is on the decline. In South America, parts of America, Southern Africa and the Sub-continent religious observance is increasing. Not only is this another example of westernised values being applied to the world (if they would only catch up - Fukuyama's End of History and the Last Man) but also misunderstands the results Iain points to in the poll: people still believe in 'something', often for personal well being or to make sense of the world. Thus that we don't go to church on a Sunday it doesn't mean that we are increasingly secular; rather might indicate that we're looking elsewhere for meaning. Finally, its interesting that despite the claimed 'secularism', religion is still plays a role debates concerning the EU constitution preamble, the nature of national events for commeoration/rememberance.
Mr DAle,
His Grace is quiet due to rather upsetting personal circumstances.
He is grateful that you have taken this up, and he wishes you well.
Blessings,
+Cranmer
I do hope His Grace's problems not too serious, and in any case best wishes.
One thing that did strike me this last week is how, perhaps most on Merseyside, the Football Club and football supporters have replaced the Church and congregation as both a source of comfort and expression of support and community. Perhaps Everton or Liverpool have become the focus of their populations in the way the church was in previous centuries.
I find this most strange, but then I'm not an avid fan of the game.
Is this a thread on religion? Oh good. Or maybe I mean "Oh God". I have just finished reading a book by Lee Smolin called "The Problems with Physics" - it's about the triumphs and failures of String Theory (super or otherwise) to answer or come up with predictions that would possibly give us a theory that we can accept like The Standard Model (don't know what The Standard Model is? Shame on you). His book's last quarter chapter talks a lot about the problems with the culture of theoretical physics. A lot of it resonates with the culture of politics. A few people with good ideas surrounded by many hangers on in whose it's interest it is to predict the Next Big Thing. It is written for the layperson so shouldn't be beyond the reach of anyone who contribtes to this blog.
To be honest someone who spends their Saturday afternoons blogging on about their silly football team rather than trying to extend their knowledge of the actual universe they live in deserves not to be taken too seriously. (wink). But I still do.
- I’m not religious at all
- The reason for this is very simple
- It is because the claims of religion have been debunked
- Oh, quite some time ago now
- These videos are good
I have just finished watching "The Queen", the Helen Mirren film, on ITV.
It made me think that mass hysteria is much more subversive and much more decadent than religion ever could be.
The kind of mass hysteria apparent upon the death of Princess Diana was akin to that of apotheosis; more cult-like than any mad Texas hippy could conjure up and more pernicious and fascistic than any TV evangelist could ever engender.
Whether one likes it or not, societies are very religious, as a whole, and the prevalent religion is belief-in-nothingism. So prevalent is this cult, that upon the death of a relatively minor figure, an entire nation demands mass mourning upon pain of censure and perhaps, violence. They do this because they have nothing else. It is the flip side of cynicism, the bond that glues together daily life, but occasionally cynicism takes a bank holiday and becomes mawkish sentimentality (to paraphrase Oscar Wilde).
As someone wryly observed recently,
"your candle burned out long before the royalties ever did"
The high priest of modern religiosity is the Television. TV mediates public spirituality and leads the mood, extracting every last bit of saccharin from what should essentially be private moments of grief. It demands we all "go green" as a tenet of the faith. It tells us who are the saints and who are the sinners - who are the Palestinians and who are the Jews, etc.,etc.
When people believe in nothing, they will believe in anything. These days, they clutch at the flimsiest straws and every day they nail another scapegoat to the cross. See Matthew Parris' denuciation of the way Robert Murat has been treated, just because he has one eye and lives with his mother.
And when the plane is plunging out of the sky and somebody says "who will pray?" how many will say "get that fanatic out of here"? No, you will be hedging your bets and closing your eyes.
You may say you do not believe, but as sure as hell, you behave as if you do.
No, you will be hedging your bets and closing your eyes.
No I won’t. What kind of a God is it who expects me to spend the last minutes of my life making some grovelling apology if I am not to be cast into a lake of fire for all eternity? The answer is that it is a God who has been made in the image of man, and not the other way round.
WW - Excellent and thoughtful post (although why did you have to trip everyone who is familiar with Texas up over your reference to "Texas hippies" and where do you find them amidst the glitter, glamour and sincere interest in money in Texas)?
About mass hysteria - agree! Those people on the streets, with their cellophane-wrapped "bouquets" felt they were participating in a holy ritual and could have been moved to great violence in a nanosecond if the right person had commanded them. If Blair had commanded them to try to storm the Palace, they would have done so.
"and the prevalent religion is belief-in-nothingism." No. Only in the EUSSR, and that has been deliberate. 400m people against the rest of the world which cleaves to religion. Religion is growing with other populations. Just the EUSSR.
I agree with you about the plane plunging out of the sky. I doubt whether we would see anyone leap up and say, "There is no God!"
Didn't read the Matthew Parris piece because I read him ever more infrequently because he has become a prating lefty bore, so don't know about your example. But Murat doesn't "live with" his mother. He lives in England in his own home, but when he is over in Portugal, he stays at his mother's house. Why is this sinister?
I don't often agree with you, WW, but I was really interested in your post.
What a load of old bilge
Richard Dawkins writes: What a load of old bilge.
I always enjoy an intelligent argument I can engage with.
Richard Dawkins et al, Fundamentalist atheists are the most screeching, the angriest, the most attached to their dogma, the shrillest, the ones least inclined to make an argument except to shriek, "I hate you!".
If you get accosted by a fundie atheist at an airport, fleeeee, because he is after your soul.
Yeah, Richard Dawkins certainly has us with the force of his logic.
So in other word Iain your are saying that most people agree with my new religion - Humanism.
What your Tory research actually shows the president of the British Humanist Association (and we're all committed aethiests/agnostics) I'm looked up to as the new God by the majority of the British public.
We obviously need to implement a new progressive, representative democracy that takes into account my divity and places my worldview beyond question.
GOD? I think man in the form of "organized religion" has in many ways perverted and degraded the humanist message that is embedded in the religeous experience. We know that our brains are wired to experience spiritual thought and there must be a good reason for that in the greater scheme of things BUT when I look at the evil of Islamists who murder and maim in the most cruel ways and all in the name of God, then I hesitate to give my loyalty to any religion that does not fight tooth and nail against that kind of evil!
In the West we were able to tame the cruel and arrogant beast that is organized religion(remember all the burnings and murders and innocents killed by the Christian churh?) BUT evil men in positions of great power still threaten our enlightened society.
The message is this, BEWARE OF ANYONE WHO SAYS THAT THEY SPEAK TO GOD!
They are most likely either EVIL or MENTAL or BOTH!
Troll Patrol, the book is called "The Trouble with Physics".
Pedantic point regarding the survey: you can be Agnostic and Athist (or even Agnostic and belive in God). Agnostic is the belief that the existance of God cannot be proved or disproved.
Ioan
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