A Pot-Pourri of Beliefs

Posted on October 2, 2010 by Clive D. Field

Opinion pollsters Populus have recently released the results of an online survey of attitudes to topical questions, including a number of religious interest. Fieldwork was conducted between 20 and 23 August 2010 among a representative sample of 1,037 adult Britons aged 18 and over.

In the realm of what might be termed traditional beliefs, only 19% of Britons now accept the biblical account that God created the earth in six days and rested on the seventh. 55% think this to be untrue, while 25% are undecided. The biggest demographic difference is between men and women, 63% and 48% respectively disbelieving the Bible story.

Conversely, 67% of adults take a Darwinian line in thinking human beings to have evolved from apes. Just 14% consider this statement untrue, with 18% uncertain. Notable here are variations by socio-economic group, with 73% of ABs being evolutionists against 61% of DEs.

A minority (37%) now believe in life after death. This is a lower proportion than in most British polls on the subject since the Second World War, although not completely unprecedented (four surveys in the 1970s returned between 35% and 37%). See the time series at:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/figures/documents/afterlife.xls

A further 26% deny the existence of an afterlife and 37% are unclear. Women (44%) believe more than men (29%). Whereas 26% more women believe than disbelieve, for men there is a net 6% disbelief. Other groups registering large net belief figures are the 25-34s (+19%), the 45-54s (+17%), the over-65s (+14%) and the DEs (+25%).

As for alternative beliefs, opinions are less clear-cut. For example, 39% think that some people have genuine psychic powers and can foresee the future, but 32% disagree and 29% do not know. Women (50%) are almost twice as likely to believe in psychic powers as men (28%). Other highs are recorded among the middle-aged and the DEs.

Asked whether unidentified flying objects (UFOs) have visited the earth from other planets, 31% say this is the case, 31% that it is not so, with 38% unsure. Those aged 18-24 are particular disbelievers (45%, against 23% thinking the statement to be true).

As for time travel, 18% believe this to be possible, 49% impossible and 33% cannot say. 18-24s (31%) are most likely to accept the possibility, three times as many as among the over-65s (10%).

This is a somewhat disparate set of questions, and it is hard to draw very firm conclusions from them. Perhaps one of the most significant features is the large number of don’t knows, suggesting that people often struggle to engage with or comprehend the supernatural and transcendental, or perhaps simply do not care. Among those with firmer views, on the evidence here, Christian orthodoxy is more likely to be rejected than accepted.

For the full data tables from this survey, with breaks by gender, age, socio-economic group and region, see:

http://populuslimited.com/uploads/download_pdf-230810-Populus-Populus-poll—topical-questions.pdf

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Happy Birthday, Social Trends

Posted on July 3, 2010 by Clive D. Field

On 2 July the Office for National Statistics published the fortieth (2010) edition of Social Trends, the annual compilation of social data from governmental and other sources. Edited by Matthew Hughes, it can be bought as a print publication from Palgrave Macmillan (ISBN 978-0-230-24067-4, £55) but (together with data in Excel format) is also available for free download at:

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_social/Social-Trends40/ST40_2010_FINAL.pdf

As usual, a few of the tables or figures in this year’s edition touch on religious matters, the principal ones being:

TABLE 2.12: marriages by type of ceremony in England and Wales, 1981, 1991, 2001 and 2007 (source: Office for National Statistics). Total ceremonies in England and Wales have fallen from 352,000 to 231,500 between 1981 and 2007, and the number of religious ceremonies has declined from 51% to 33%. The proportion of religious ceremonies is higher in Scotland (48%) and Northern Ireland (71%).

FIGURE 13.17: proportion of people mixing at least once a month with others from different ethnic or religious backgrounds by location in England, April-June 2009 (source: Citizenship Survey, Department for Communities and Local Government). The most likely place to mix socially was at the shops (62%), followed by work, school or college (53%) or a pub, club, café or restaurant (47%). The figure for places of worship was 16%.

FIGURE 13.18: proportion of total amount given to charity by cause, 2008/09 (source: Charities Aid Foundation and National Council for Voluntary Organisations). Of the total £9.9 billion donated to charity, 15% is for religious causes. This is the biggest single category, followed by medical research (14%), hospitals and hospices (12%), overseas (12%), children and young people (11%), animals (5%) and education (4%). 

FIGURE 13.20: belief in God in Great Britain by gender, February 2007 (source: YouGov). 22% of adults aged 18 and over (17% of men and 26% of women) interviewed online claimed to believe in a personal God who created the world and heard their prayers, and a further 26% (22% of men and 29% of women) believed in ‘something’ but were unsure what that was. 16% of the sample, 22% of men and 10% of women, declared themselves atheists.

TABLE 13.21: attendance at church or religious services or meetings (other than rites of passage) by gender in Great Britain, 2008 (source: British Social Attitudes Survey, National Centre for Social Research). 57% of adults aged 18 and over stated that they never or practically never attended religious services, 63% of men and 52% of women. 14% were regular attenders (once a fortnight or more), 12% of men and 15% of women, rising to 19% among those aged 65 and over. 53% of the sample reported that religion was not at all important in their daily lives, 61% of men and 45% of women.

This will be the last edition of Social Trends to appear as a print publication. Henceforth, it will be disseminated solely via the web, with material being added throughout the year.

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Values and Religion

Posted on June 5, 2010 by Clive D. Field

A social psychological view of the connection between religion and values is offered in the recent article by Miriam Pepper, Tim Jackson and David Uzzell, ‘A Study of Multidimensional Religion Constructs and Values in the United Kingdom’, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Vol. 49, No. 1, March 2010, pp. 127-46.

The data derive from a general public sample and a churchgoer sample from two relatively affluent English towns. For the former, 2,000 questionnaires were hand-delivered to households in six diverse localities in Woking in March-April 2006, of which 260 were completed (13% response).

For the churchgoer sample 704 questionnaires were given out at 13 churches in Guildford in March-June 2006, of which 272 were returned (39% response). The churchgoer sample was older and more highly educated than the general sample.

The article attempts a systematic examination of the relationships between religiousness, conceptualization of God and value priorities. The values stem from Shalom Schwartz’s theoretical work: universalism, benevolence, conformity-tradition, security, power, achievement, hedonism, stimulation and self-direction.

The four religious indicators employed were: self-assessed religiosity, self-assessed spirituality, religious affiliation and attendance at a place of worship. In the general sample 23% of respondents had no religion and 53% never attended religious services. Conceptualization of God was measured on a five-point scale of agreement with 20 adjectives to describe God.

The quantitative aspects of the work are mainly presented through correlations with tests for statistical significance. The conclusions are summarized in the abstract thus:

‘Religiousness aligns most strongly along the conservation/openness to change value dimension, and spirituality is rotated further toward self-transcendence values. Findings suggest a shift among the religious away from an emphasis on security.

God concepts are uniquely related to some value types. Particularly among the churchgoers, for whom God concepts may be especially formative, characteristics attributed to God are reflected in value priorities. These findings support the theoretical assertion that conceptualization of God is a foundational religious belief implicated in more specific values, attitudes and beliefs.’  

For those of us whose religion and values diet has hitherto derived from the World Values Surveys, this new research can be quite difficult to digest!

To access this article, check first whether your institution (if you have one) has a print or online subscription to Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. If not, you can order a copy from the British Library Document Supply Centre or pay for access via the publisher’s website at:

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/123306094/issue

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God on the Buses

Posted on May 26, 2010 by Clive D. Field

Does God have an advertising budget? Presumably not, but his advocates and critics certainly do, and their rival campaigns to promote or debunk Him have featured in an unlikely place: the annual report for 2009 of the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) and Committee of Advertising Practice, which is available at:

http://www.asa.org.uk/About-ASA/Annual-Report.aspx

The ASA received 28,978 complaints about all kinds of advertisements in 2009, of which 5.5% related to two campaigns battling over God and run through banner posters on the outsides of buses. These accounted for more than half of the percentage increase in the total number of complaints to the ASA between 2008 and 2009.

The British Humanist Association opened the batting early in the year with its slogan ‘There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life’. This was the sixth most complained about advertisement in 2009, attracting 392 complaints. Critics alleged that it was offensive to people of faith and could not be substantiated. The ASA duly considered the matter and agreed that the claim was not capable of being objectively proved, while noting that the advertiser had avoided a hostile or offensive tone.

The Christian Party duly responded with a campaign proclaiming ‘There definitely is a God. So join the Christian Party and enjoy your life’. This was number 1 in the advertising complaint chart for 2009, drawing 1,204 complaints. Critics claimed that the advertisement was offensive to atheists and could not be substantiated. The ASA did not investigate in this instance, since advertisements for political parties lie outside its remit. Since the Christian Party, formed in 2004, managed to capture only 0.1% of the popular vote at the recent general election, or 18,623 votes, perhaps its bus advertising had limited impact.

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