Britons' belief in God vanishing as religion is replaced by apathy

[Pah]

Extracted from an article in the News Telegraph
Britons' belief in God vanishing as religion is replaced by apathy
By Anthony King
(Filed: 27/12/2004)

To say that Britain is rapidly becoming a godless country would be too strong, but a YouGov survey provides overwhelming evidence that the British are now a largely irreligious people.

Only a minority believe that God exists and almost everyone acknowledges that Britain is becoming an increasingly secular society.

Instead, the national mood appears to be one of benign indifference. Most people give the impression of regarding religion almost as a consumer good, one to be consumed by those who happen to have a taste for it.

Moreover, the existing trend towards secularisation seems almost certain to continue. The incidence of religious belief has declined sharply in recent decades and young people today are significantly less religious than their elders.

More than a third of today's young people describe themselves as either agnostics or atheists. Among middle-aged people and the elderly, the figure is far smaller.

Whereas in 1968 more than three quarters of people, 77 per cent, said they did believe in God, that figure has fallen by nearly half to 44 per cent - a minority of the population.

The proportion prepared to admit that it does not believe in God has more than trebled from a mere 11 per cent in the late-1960s to 35 per cent today.

The nature of many people's beliefs also appears to be subtly shifting. Among the 44 per cent of YouGov's respondents who professed a belief in the Almighty, more than a tenth were clearly not monotheists in the usual sense, believing in one God and only one.

A fair proportion, three per cent, claimed to believe in more than one God and 10 per cent described themselves as believing in "some other kind of Supreme Being".

 

[Fluffy]

I think this is because of the terrible standard of the religious schools in Britain (on the large part). A large portion of religious couples send their children to religious primary schools in order to educate them in their faith. These children become so disillusioned with their religions that they reject them almost immediately. Indeed I have not heard a single good word about a religious primary school as opposed to a hoard of bad experiences.

Also, since Britain is now host to such a wide variety of religious beliefs in such a small area, people have more of an opportunity to experience new beliefs. Unless they set out to find a religion for themselves then this can lead to a fence sitting period in which a person, so overwhelmed by so many different theologies, just does not know where to start in order to find their god. However I would bet that almost all of the 66% of people who do not believe in God are agnostic rather than atheist and I think this is important

I think lumping the agnostics with the aetheists is unfair as well. Young people today are far more educated than they used to be. With this in mind it is perhaps to be expected that they adopt a undecided stance during their childhood since they see no reason to follow a religion for the sake of following one.