But you should be able to rely on actual surveys where people self-report their answers to specific questions like “Do not believe in God”, as in the Eurobarometer and Pew surveys in the Wiki I linked to above.
Do you trust my previous response of C of E?
Sure. But that tells me that you’re a member of the CoE, the well-known marriage-conducting and village-fete-organizing group. It doesn’t tell me anything about your religiosity. Hell, I’m baptized Anglican, too.
I agree that the UK is majority non-religious. The surveys I’m referencing asked actual questions relating to beliefs, not just group membership.
Although I would encourage you to actually put down that you’re non-religious in the next census.
I think we agree absolutely on that. (though I don’t know what it even means to be a “member” of the CofE).
I wasn’t suggesting that you may have thought I was lying about that response, apologies if it came across like that, my point about “trust” was the census makers would be wrong to trust my (arguably factually correct) CofE reporting as indicating anything about my religiosity.
Even worse is the fact (in the UK at least) the census question is optional, simplistic and that parents get to answer for minors.
My point to DrDeth was that you can’t rely on such a study, carried out in that manner, to give you an accurate picture about religiosity.
I agree that it takes surveys of that kind to better portray what is going on. The censuses? not so much (plus 10 years can be a long time culturally)
Well I take no blame for it, my wife filled it in for all of us in 2011 and didn’t even given it a thought (that level of cultural, reflexsive response is exactly what the CofE relies on to retain some vestige of power), but certainly this time a more accurate answer was given.
It’ll be interesting to see what comes out of it this time (although given it is still optional we can’t trust the absolute numbers but the relative change will be interesting)
It means here that you self-reported as belonging to the CoE on the census.
No, I got what you meant, and I agree.
It’s strange because you’re both responding to my post #215, but that post already directly addresses this point.
I’ll try rephrasing it then.
The OP is asking what a world without the majority being religious would look like. In describing religion (s)he talks about “dogmatic adherence” and society being “built on” religion.
So the question is not asking about what people write on a form. As Novelty_Bobble correctly points out, in the UK it’s normal for people to claim membership of the Anglican or Catholic churches, whether or not they believe the actual spiritual claims. If we’re doing polls, note that according to YouGov, only 28% of Britons believe that Jesus was the son of god. And only around 1% of the population can be seen at church on a given week (cite).
And again, relating this to the OP, the UK (and other countries I already discussed at length, like China) are already there – they’re already places where the majority of people don’t go to church, don’t claim to have any personal relationship with a god, don’t have any specific spiritual beliefs at all and don’t consult any religion when deciding issues like legalizing gay marriage.
They then clarified:
And that wasn’t what I was citing. I’m referring specifically to what people say they actually believe.
No, this (especially with regards to China) is you assertion, but people’s actually stated beliefs, and observed practices, don’t agree with that assertion.
Where in China? Which region, since China is a big place with a lot of diversity. City or countryside? Did you interact with the educated elite or peasant farmers?
Basing an opinion on a small sample of people in one area doesn’t give a full picture.
For example, if someone came to America and lived in California working for Google for 8 years, he might say that Americans are not religious at all. If he lived in the rural south, he might say that Americans are religious fanatics.
According to the Council on Foreign Relations
Religious observance in China is on the rise. Amid China’s economic boom and rapid modernization, experts point to the emergence of a spiritual vacuum as a trigger for the growing number of religious believers, particularly adherents of Christianity and traditional Chinese religious groups.
Yeah, that’s a silly “clarification”, as if we’re counting even a non-specific feeling that there may be an afterlife, then even I, a professed atheist, am “religious”.
That clarifying post completely changes the topic from the original question to a new and pointless one.
No, we established you have no idea what you’re talking about. You’ve never been to China, but you think the fact that you attended an African ritual once that you know better about Chinese people’s beliefs than a person who lived there for 8 years, speaks fluent Chinese and has participated in many Chinese rituals.
Hey, you were the one hung up on what the OP intended. At least as long as you thought it supported what passes for your argument.
My experience of African folk religion spoke to the prevalence of literal beliefs in people who appear to outsiders to just be engaging in “cultural practices”, nothing more.
I “know better” because I have actual data self-reported by those same people. I will take that over one set of anecdotes from one avowed atheist about what “many” people spontaneously told him about their beliefs, thanks.
I’m not disputing anything you said - but why would someone do that? I mean , I can understand the idea of a non-observant person who doesn’t follow all ( or any) of the rules or rituals while still having at least some religious belief or someone who gets married or has their children baptized into a church to avoid family arguments or even someone who gets married in a particular church because they like the setting - but I don’t understand why someone would answer a census saying that they belong to a religion while neither believing in it nor practicing it.
Interesting. Reading the text describing “folk religion”, l would include Judaism. But i bet they don’t.
(I am a Jew.)
I think it’s the formalities around Judaism (the Laws, the regular synagogue worship, the fact that you have a conversion process) that largely distinguishes it.
It is only a mystery if you imagine that religion is a big and important part of the average UK citizen’s life, or if you think that the Church of England actually amounts to religion in the first place. Broadly speaking most people just have a cultural affiliation to it with no real thought going into it beyond a general celebration of the seasonal milestones.
As I said, my wife filled it out and didn’t really think that is was a question worth any real thought. Even though she is just as much an atheist and non-religious as I am. Were I the one filling it in I’d have answered differently.
If you asked me where I come from in the UK I’d instinctively tell you the North-East and would probably tick such a box in a census. Now I don’t live there anymore, haven’t done for most of my adult life and it has no huge significance to me. Same with religion.
A good example, we got married in my wife’s childhood home. A little hamlet on the edge of the Yorkshire moors. Proper Cathy and Heathcliffe territory (but without the death and doom) A lovely spot and chosen for purely aesthetic and accessibility reasons. We had to have a chat with the vicar beforehand (fair enough, their church, their rules) and it was as stereotypically C of E as you imagine. Nice cup of tea with a selection of biscuits. The conversation ranged over many areas, how we met, what our hopes and plans were for the future, cricket, nature, literature, films and TV, general knowledge (OK, not the last one).
When we left, I turned to my wife and said “you do realise that he didn’t ask us anything about our beliefs, religion, god or the Church of England”.
That sums up the average relationship with the established church.
Yeah and I’m responding to the OP (and the title of the thread) as well as his new tangent.
You can just stay on the tangent, and that’s fine, it’s just meaningless that’s all:
“What would a society where only a minority technically meet some arbitrary definition of religious that even includes many atheists be like?” – very obviously no change.
“What would a society without religion having a day-to-day influence on behaviour and public policy be like?” – that question is even easier to answer as there are countless real-world examples.
We’re talking about why those self reports are extremely misleading. Just repeating them again is not addressing that.
Think of it as similar to the Jewish community. I have several Jewish friends who are at most agnostic but still are proud Jews; they contribute a lot to their local synagogue and still raise their children into the faith.
Think of “Church of England” as similar to that, but without the contribution part.
It’s not a “tangent” when it’s the OP clarifying what they meant.
Says you. They go enough into their methodology, and their awareness of the issue of getting actual numbers, that I’m way more inclined to trust them, than one biased outsider’s anecdotes of the “many” Chinese spontaneously declaring their firm non-spirituality to him.
Call it whatever you want, I’m answering the original question and the new one.
I never disagreed with the cite, so you choosing to frame it as either believing me or the cite is disingenuous.
I’m disagreeing with how you’re interpreting that data.
There is no new question, that’s what “clarifying” means - that was the question all long.
I’m not “interpreting” it at all, I’m taking it as saying what it says - that 294+ million Chinese believe in Chinese folk religion. You’re the one who’s interpreting it as meaning that China is a minority religious country, and practically a naturalist atheist one at that.
What are the “developed countries” Any in Latin America? Africa? Which nations in Asia are “developed”?
Why not? Pretty much everyone has to respond, and they get to respond anonymously. As opposed to a poll or survey, where some refuse, more ignore and a few participate.
Now sure, just because someone checks the box “CofE” does not mean that are deeply religious as say American Evangelicals. Their faith may be deep or shallow or even doubters. But it does mean they are not atheists.
Not at all.
True, as I said above, the census does not measure a degree of religiosity. And if your claim was that most people in the UK were not deeply religious, then the census would not disprove that. But your claim was that most of the world was atheist. People can be like me- a doubting skeptical Christian, who never attends church- and still not be atheist.
A place can be "where the majority of people don’t go to church, don’t claim to have any personal relationship with a god, don’t have any specific spiritual beliefs at all and don’t consult any religion when deciding issues like legalizing gay marriage" and still not be anywhere close to being majority atheist. In fact, the census shows that people who "don’t go to church, etc etc" do not consider themselves to be atheists.