Less than half of Britons believe in God

[2-0-Sixx]

Less than half of all Britons now believe in God: survey

Mon Dec 27, 2:12 PM ET


LONDON (AFP) - Less than half of all Britons now believe in God, a sharp drop from the more than three-quarters of the population who said they were believers in 1968, according to a survey published.


A new YouGov survey found that only 44 percent believed in God, compared to a Gallup poll survey in 1968 which found that 77 percent believed in God.


A majority of people in Britain neither hopes nor fears for a life after death, with just about a third believing in heaven, and even fewer in hell and the devil.


Young people especially are significantly less religious than older people, with more than a third describing themselves as either agnostics or atheists.


Among middle-aged people and the elderly, the figure is far smaller, according to the survey published in The Daily Telegraph.


The proportion who do not believe in God has trebled from 11 percent in the late-1960s to 35 percent today.


One in four of YouGov's sample, asked to say whether or not they believed in God, replied "don't know".


Among the 35 percent who said they did not believe in God, considerably more described themselves as agnostics rather than outright atheists.


YouGov conducted an online survey of 1,981 people across the country.


Some 81 percent of those polled said Britain was becoming more secular, with fewer people going to places of worship and believing in God, with even some of the non-believers regretting the trend.


Britain has a population of just under 60 million, according to official figures released in June.

 

[ColdBlooded]

No wonder they have so many problems gaining support amongst their people for the war in Iraq. These heathens don't understand that God is on OUR SIDE!

I bet Tony Blair is a believer.

 

[WHITE DEVIL]

If we nuked the heartland, we may have statistics approximating that.

 

[BaSICCally]

Maybe British kids are soft cheese dicks who have nothing to worry about in their life. Therefore don't question.

 

[2-0-Sixx]

Maybe British kids are soft cheese dicks who have nothing to worry about in their life. Therefore don't question.

WTF are you talking about??

 

[WHITE DEVIL]

lmfao

 

[2-0-Sixx]

lmfao

http://www.epsilonminus.com/godhatesthescene/

 

[m.w.merlino]

Maybe British kids are soft cheese dicks who have nothing to worry about in their life. Therefore don't question.

So, worrying about life and where you will end up leads you to choose theism? Instead of letting life guide you and living with the fact that you dont have all the answers, worrying about dying and the afterlife should be the alternative because it leads to believing in god? This is better in what way?

 

[BaSICCally]

Among the 35 percent who said they did not believe in God, considerably more described themselves as agnostics rather than outright atheists.

hmmmm... why didn't they report the percentage of agnostics?

An agnostic does not deny the existence of God and heaven but holds that one cannot know for certain whether or not they exist. The term agnostic was fittingly coined by the 19th-century British scientist Thomas H. Huxley, who believed that only material phenomena were objects of exact knowledge. He made up the word from the prefix a-, meaning “without, not,” as in amoral, and the noun Gnostic. Gnostic is related to the Greek word gnsis, “knowledge,” which was used by early Christian writers to mean “higher, esoteric knowledge of spiritual things” hence, Gnostic referred to those with such knowledge. In coining the term agnostic, Huxley was considering as “Gnostics” a group of his fellow intellectuals“ists,” as he called themwho had eagerly embraced various doctrines or theories that explained the world to their satisfaction. Because he was a “man without a rag of a label to cover himself with,” Huxley coined the term agnostic for himself, its first published use being in 1870.

Source: Dictionary.com

 

[Raphas]

america is the only developped country with most people believing in god and also one of the only that doesn't seperate religion from the State. What we learn in this article is not a surprise.

 

[2-0-Sixx]

hmmmm... why didn't they report the percentage of agnostics?

An agnostic does not deny the existence of God and heaven but holds that one cannot know for certain whether or not they exist. The term agnostic was fittingly coined by the 19th-century British scientist Thomas H. Huxley, who believed that only material phenomena were objects of exact knowledge. He made up the word from the prefix a-, meaning “without, not,” as in amoral, and the noun Gnostic. Gnostic is related to the Greek word gnsis, “knowledge,” which was used by early Christian writers to mean “higher, esoteric knowledge of spiritual things” hence, Gnostic referred to those with such knowledge. In coining the term agnostic, Huxley was considering as “Gnostics” a group of his fellow intellectuals“ists,” as he called themwho had eagerly embraced various doctrines or theories that explained the world to their satisfaction. Because he was a “man without a rag of a label to cover himself with,” Huxley coined the term agnostic for himself, its first published use being in 1870.

Source: Dictionary.com

...

No better to explain this word then the man who coined the term, Thomas Huxley (1869). When Huxley was looking for a way to describe his thoughts, he selected the early religious sect known as "Gnostics" as a prime example of men who claim knowledge of the supernatural without justification and he distinguished himself as an "agnostic" by stipulating that the supernatural, even if it exists, lies beyond the scope of human knowledge. We cannot say if it does or does not exist, so we must suspend judgment.
Agnosticism signifies the impossibility of knowledge in a given area. An agnostic is a person who believes that something is inherently unkowable by the human mind.

The term "agnostic" does not, in itself, indicate whether or not one believes in a god. Agnosticism can be either theistic or atheistic.

The agnostic theist believes in the existence of god, BUT maintains that the nature of god is unkowable.

The agnostic atheist maintains that any supernatural realm is inherently unkowable by the human mind and the existence of any supernatural being is unkowable as well.

 

[m.w.merlino]

^^thank you for that 2-0...this guy actually went to dictionary.com to look it up. wow.

 

[BaSICCally]

^^ Thanks Captain Obvious.

What is wrong with looking up a word?

 

[miggidy]

I used to think the United Snakes of America would emerge as Babylon....

But it is much clearer now that it will emerge out of Europe.
It's not just Britain, the French, Germans, and Russians are no different.
The EU us growing stronger and the Euro dollar will soon render all currencies worthless.

 

[ColdBlooded]

 

[BaSICCally]

I used to think the United Snakes of America would emerge as Babylon....

But it is much clearer now that it will emerge out of Europe.
It's not just Britain, the French, Germans, and Russians are no different.
The EU us growing stronger and the Euro dollar will soon render all currencies worthless.

I was thinking about this the other day. When I was looking at the map, I noticed that the size of the United States was about the size of Europe. The United States only being a little bigger. However the sive of the United states is a big reason America has been so succesfull, because of the size and availibity of resources from all the major cities in America. Since Europe has joined together, their resources have increased dramatically. Now that Europe is all together think of all the major cities now working with each other.

I think the Euro is a 1.20 to the U.S. dollar.

 

[TOKZTLI]

If half the Britons dont believe in God why are they warring with the God fearing Irish?

 

[miggidy]

I was thinking about this the other day. When I was looking at the map, I noticed that the size of the United States was about the size of Europe. The United States only being a little bigger. However the sive of the United states is a big reason America has been so succesfull, because of the size and availibity of resources from all the major cities in America. Since Europe has joined together, their resources have increased dramatically. Now that Europe is all together think of all the major cities now working with each other.

I think the Euro is a 1.20 to the U.S. dollar.

Yeah, I know I'll be keeping a close eye on them from now on....