So Harris-Decima and Canadian Press recently reported that fewer than three-quarters of Canadians believe in a god. Here’s the breakdown:
The poll found 72 per cent of respondents said they believed in a god, while 23 per cent said they did not believe in any god. Six per cent did not offer an opinion.
Results may not total 100 per cent because of rounding.
And, furthermore…
- Women (76 per cent) were more likely than men (67 per cent) to say they believed in a god.
- Canadians over the age of 50 (82 per cent) were far more likely than those under the age of 25 (60 per cent) to say they believed in a god. More than one in three (36 per cent) of those under the age of 25 said they did not believe in any god.
- English Canadians (73 per cent) were more likely than French Canadians (67 per cent) to say they believed in a god.
- Belief in a god is higher in rural Canada (76 per cent) than in urban Canada (69 per cent).
I’m not going to smugly celebrate results such as these, however accurate — this isn’t a football game or election we’re talking about, after all — but I will celebrate this: Canadians appear less-reluctant — or socially repressed — to declare their nonbelief than in years past and, certainly, less-reluctant than… elsewhere.
“Canada’s secularism stands in clearer distinction, when compared to the cultural and political influences of religion in the United States,” said [Harris-Decima President Bruce] Anderson. “In one Harris Interactive study in the United States, conducted in 2007, the number who said they were non-believers was only eight per cent.”
Of course there’ll be some ’splainin’ to do:
Keith Howard, a United church minister and executive director of the church’s Emerging Spirit program, said the results of the new survey do not represent a dramatic change from previous polls about Canadians’ beliefs.
[...]
Howard said his sense is that people who believe in a god increasingly imagine a nebulous but powerful force for good, rather than the traditional concept of a deity.
Indeed, he likened the concept to that of the Force in the Star Wars movies.
Which, for nonbelievers, kinda says it all, doesn’t it?
Full disclosure: I was raised in the United Church.
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Being “God-free” reflects a belief, but doesn’t mean one has let go of the mentality of the religious. Toronto Mayor David Miller has embraced the pagan animist belief that inanimate objects can be “evil” with his gun-ban idea. Al Gore is Jerry Falwell for trendy urban liberals. God is merely out of fashion, but the need to follow, to belong and to condemn is alive and well.
Keith Howard’s right, in my experience. Just from personal anecdotes, it seems a lot more people are identifying as “spiritual” or similar, a vague PC-ish mishmash of Eastern religions, Western Paganism and Xianity lite, kind of thing. Which, y’know, is a little better in that they tend to keep it to themselves and not condemn others*, but they’re still giving in to the urge to believe without really thinking about why they believe.
[*] Except skeptics. We’re universal buzzkills.
Well, it’s been suggested that there might be a “god centre” in the brain, or some sort of evolutionary, biological imperative which benefited our belief-without-evidence ancestors. Dawkins talks about it, if I recall correctly, in The God Delusion, how we’re hard-wired to believe our parental figures who, for example, warn us away from the edge of the cliff, since “learning through experience” in that case would be rather catastrophic.
And Sam “Swoon” Harris argues for hard scientific research into what happens in the brain during, for lack of a better description, “religious” or “spiritual” experiences, since such events can be chemically-induced — and, hey, at this point, let’s mark the passing of LSD’s inventor, Dr. Albert Hoffman, just one month ago, at 102.
I must say, though, that Mr. Howard would’ve struck a chord closer to my heart had he referenced Tinkerbell dying if we don’t all clap our hands, rather than those dumb Star Wars movies. </blasphemy>
Well, it’s been suggested that there might be a “god centre” in the brain, or some sort of evolutionary, biological imperative which benefited our belief-without-evidence ancestors. Dawkins talks about it, if I recall correctly, in The God Delusion, how we’re hard-wired to believe our parental figures who, for example, warn us away from the edge of the cliff, since “learning through experience” in that case would be rather catastrophic.
True, true. (Must get around to reading The God Delusion one of these days).
While we’re dropping names, Michael Shermer made a similar argument in How We Believe (I think). Our brains are extremely good at seeing patterns and jumping to conclusions based on scant data. Probably a survival trait for hunter-gatherers, but we’re a little too good at it, since in addition to seeing tigers in the high grass and avoiding the poison berries after one taste, it leads to superstition, stereotypes and magical thinking.