Wednesday, May 14, 2003
Faith Falls Out of Favour in Canada
According to the last census a growing number of Canadians no longer identify with any faith label. According to the story, 16% or approximately 4.8 million Canadians reported having no religion as released in a census report by Statistics Canada yesterday. I think the news organizations that have replayed this story this week are jumping the gun saying this means that all those people are purely secular in nature. That is to say that all of them don't believe in god. I would suspsect that a good number just don't identify with any particular religion in general. However, given the same question it is indeed an ever increasing number which I view as a good sign. Fewer than 1% identified themselves in the same manner pre-1971. I do believe the world would generally be a better place if we could shed the shackles of religion and mysticism and I think it's inevitable that it will happen but it will be a few hundred years yet. I have faith ;o)
According to the last census a growing number of Canadians no longer identify with any faith label. According to the story, 16% or approximately 4.8 million Canadians reported having no religion as released in a census report by Statistics Canada yesterday. I think the news organizations that have replayed this story this week are jumping the gun saying this means that all those people are purely secular in nature. That is to say that all of them don't believe in god. I would suspsect that a good number just don't identify with any particular religion in general. However, given the same question it is indeed an ever increasing number which I view as a good sign. Fewer than 1% identified themselves in the same manner pre-1971. I do believe the world would generally be a better place if we could shed the shackles of religion and mysticism and I think it's inevitable that it will happen but it will be a few hundred years yet. I have faith ;o)
Friday, May 02, 2003
You Believe What?
Came across this interesting poll that claims to have a handle on what your neighbours believe in or at least in the U.S. anyway. Not suprisingly 90% of folks believe in god in one form or another. There are some interesting fun facts that don't make much sense if you actually go read the poll results. For instance, women are more likely than men to hold Christian and non-Christian beliefs. What does that mean exactly? Another one states that 1% of Christians don't believe in god? Huh? Say that again? 31% of those polled believe in Astrology ... good grief, this one I have a problem with. If you've ever seen the Amazing Randi on tv or anywhere there's a bit he does with a group of people. He distributes a horoscope to everyone in the audience telling them it was written for them based on their sign. Audience members are asked to identify themselves as to what sign they are prior to this. Then with a show of hands he asks audience members to indicate if they felt the horoscope applied to them and of course most of the audience raises their hands. Then he asks the audience members to pass their horoscope to the person sitting to their left and have them verify their neighbours horoscope. This is normally followed by much laughter when they all realize they all have the exact same horoscope. I think it's a very convincing argument that people want to believe, need to believe, in something.
Came across this interesting poll that claims to have a handle on what your neighbours believe in or at least in the U.S. anyway. Not suprisingly 90% of folks believe in god in one form or another. There are some interesting fun facts that don't make much sense if you actually go read the poll results. For instance, women are more likely than men to hold Christian and non-Christian beliefs. What does that mean exactly? Another one states that 1% of Christians don't believe in god? Huh? Say that again? 31% of those polled believe in Astrology ... good grief, this one I have a problem with. If you've ever seen the Amazing Randi on tv or anywhere there's a bit he does with a group of people. He distributes a horoscope to everyone in the audience telling them it was written for them based on their sign. Audience members are asked to identify themselves as to what sign they are prior to this. Then with a show of hands he asks audience members to indicate if they felt the horoscope applied to them and of course most of the audience raises their hands. Then he asks the audience members to pass their horoscope to the person sitting to their left and have them verify their neighbours horoscope. This is normally followed by much laughter when they all realize they all have the exact same horoscope. I think it's a very convincing argument that people want to believe, need to believe, in something.
