Maybe not:
A survey of 37,000 churches, shows the number of people going to Sunday Mass in England averaged 861,000, compared with 852,000 AnglicansOoops.
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*All together now: "It isn't, and don't call me Shirley...."
***The Anglicans will just rise above this one, Albert***
ReplyDelete:-D
An Anglican country? Let's see... 852,000 divided by 62,000,000 gives around 1.4 % by my calculations. So, no it isn't an Anglican country.
ReplyDeleteA Catholic country? 861,000 divided by 62,000,000 gives - well, not much either.
Without all the statistics to hand I'd guess that by far the majority are not religious at all which makes the UK, what, a country of heathens? I'll take that.
Well, according to the link, thee are 25 million people who regard themselves as Anglicans, and 4.2 million who regard themselves as Catholics. So maybe not a heathen country, just a country of apathetic types who like to lie in on Sunday?
ReplyDeleteThanks for the post Patently - it doesn't surprise me. Catholic churches are much fuller than Anglican ones (there are of course, fewer of them however).
ReplyDeleteAnonymous
Without all the statistics to hand I'd guess that by far the majority are not religious at all
What would you base your guess on?
Albert, the fact that a little under 3% of the population goes to Anglican or Catholic church every Sunday! That leaves 97% who... don't.
ReplyDeleteOf course, there are very many other religions having followers who would raise that figure, but I find it hard to believe that it would reach 50% (again, you'll have to excuse my extrapolating without the hard facts but I think the point is valid).
Patently, while there may be 25 million people who list themselves as Anglicans, what does that really mean if only 850,000 attend church on a Sunday?
What does it mean? Well, it tells us a lot about the Anglican church... ;-)
ReplyDeleteAnon,
ReplyDeletethe fact that a little under 3% of the population goes to Anglican or Catholic church every Sunday! That leaves 97% who... don't.
Certainly, but how confident are you that you can infer from that to the conclusion "that by far the majority are not religious at all"?
It strikes me that there is ground between being in Church on Sunday, on the one hand, and being not religious at all.
Let's try it here:
Patently, are you religious at all?
Did you go to Church last Sunday?
Patently, quite!
ReplyDeleteAlbert - I take your point. There certainly is ground between those two "extremes". Perhaps some redefinition would help.
I would say that the point at which one becomes "religious" is the point at which one believes in the existence of a God (or Gods, or some other supernatural being) who has some measure of control over our lives, whether that is through day-to-day influence or by bringing the universe into being in the first place. Is that a fair definition?
Of course, the upshot of this is that none of the data we have (church attendance on the one hand and, what, census answers on the other?) is fit to answer the question of whether the UK is "religious" or not according to that definition.
My gut still says not though! ;-)
Anon,
ReplyDeleteYes, that seems like a good definition. There are still problems though. Some Buddhists may regard themselves as religious, but not believe in any deities, while the original meaning of "atheism" was more someone who lived without a deity, but still perhaps believing there is one.
Oddly, it's hard to get clear figures on how many people believe in God. The NSS says it's only about 38%, but the Telegraph says it's more like 68%.
http://www.secularism.org.uk/only38ofbritonsbelieveingod.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2111174/Intelligent-people-less-likely-to-believe-in-God.html
It may also be worth wondering how many people pray. My guess is that many of those who don't officially believe in God do pray at some times (after all, most non believers are agnostic, not atheist, and even an atheist may doubt his position and want to hedge his bets at times!). If so, then even if the lower figure for belief in God is accepted, then it can still be doubted that "by far the majority [of the UK] are not religious at all".
"which makes the UK, what, a country of heathens?" Probably not, but quite likely pretty thoughtless. I reckon there's naught for anyone's comfort in these figures!