Rosio Pavoris

Godlessness a growth market

THE 1981 census documented the fact that 88 per cent of the Australian nation held some form of religious belief. By 2001, the proportion of “believers” had dropped to 83 per cent. Yesterday’s release of the 2006 census results places the proportion of those with a faith at 79 per cent. Non-believers have gained nine percentage points in market share in 25 years.

Believers evaporated from this nation at a rate of five percentage points over the final 20 years of the 20th century. But in the first five years of the new century, this group yielded yet another four percentage points. Godlessness, it would seem, is on the up and gathering momentum.

Yes, yes, good news, and whatnot.

Still, it keeps surprising me how the entire English-speaking world is essentially insane.
Australia seems to have the excuse of mostly consisting of the descendents of prisoners (which, as you know, are statistically more likely to be religious), and the US has the whole religious persecution thing, driving fundies away from Europe and into the Americas.
Canada is just the US’ little brother (Québec, interestingly, is the least religious part of Canada; most of Canada has a level of creationism more or less in line with the US, but Québec could almost pass for a European country, so not another bad word about the Frenchies), but I’m not sure what excuse the UK has. Cultural protectivism seems to lead to incestuous degradation, I guess.