82% of Brits think religion does more harm than good

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Shock as poll for newspaper finds results that fit with newspaper's editorial line

Not nearly as good an abuse of polling to find the desired results as the poll the British Humanist Society did a while ago o/c.

82% of those questioned say they see religion as a cause of division and tension between people. Only 16% disagree.

An impressively loaded question there...

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Bearing in mind what the phrase "religious person" means in contemporary British society, this a clever question indeed... these days it more-or-less means that someone is devoutly religious.
There isn't really a contradiction between describing yourself as a Christian and also as not being religious, strange as that might seem. Been the case for at least thirty years.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

This is news? This has always been the case to some degree (even in the 19th century), especially since the 1960's.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

That high? Suprising.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Bearing in mind the distribution of declared atheists, agnostics etc in the last census, this is interesting. Not suprising though.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Different, obviously, as the religious demographics of overwhelmingly Catholic Poland are very different to the U.K's.

Recent Polish immigration to the U.K has resulted in a fairly large uptick in attendences at Catholic churches IIRC.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I have come to the conclusion that any poll on a religious topic in this country is a waste of time and money.

Sensible conclusion really

There's an interesting tendency for people asked questions on a religious topic to give the answer that they assume the person asking the question wants...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

then they would NOT believe religion does more harm than good.

The 82% question was a rigged one designed to get a nice high number to make a sensationalist headline out of.
Besides, when people think of religion they don't always think of Christianity you know...

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Then why did about two-thirds of the people question in the poll consider themselves to be Christians?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Btw, is it just me, or does he basically use the same post for any topic?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

"Of the 50309000 people living in England, 3166200 usually attend church on a Sunday; regular churchgoers therefore amount to 6.3% of the total population..."

Unless you believe that someone must attend Church every Sunday to be allowed to call themselves Christian (a detestable idea IMO), what has that got to do with the fact that a very high % of the population here call themselves Christians?Regular Church attendence is just not a major part of religious culture in the U.K anymore; and by American standards it never was.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

First, the survey says "regularly", defined as "usually attend church on Sunday", not "every Sunday".

So what? In practice there is very little difference between the two things. Do you think that people who do not attend Church regularly have no right to call themselves Christians?

You must be logged in to read this quote.

What is the Church though? Personally I believe that the Churches people go to on Sundays and on other holy days are creations of humans, not of God, and that the Church is something altogether different.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

You are missing the point here; religious culture in Britain differs from religious culture in America is one fundamental way, namely that religion here is a very personal thing, rather than something more collective (with the interesting exception of singing hymns and the like; something we've always liked).
As such, Church attendence in Britain has always been significantly lower than in the United States; even in the 19th century (when the social pressure of Church going was at it's greatest) only a minority of people could be considered to have been regular Church-goers.

It's significant that the more radical Protestant groups in Britain (going all the way back to the Lollards) always placed great emphasis on Bible reading, individual religious observation and religious observation within groups smaller than conventional Churches.