Thursday, June 21, 2012

An idea whose time has come

It was a conversation with Stephen Batchelor that led to me starting this site. He said to me 'it's an idea whose time has come'. This obviously resounded with me personally but today the Australian Bureau of Statistics released its first lot of data from the 2011 Census and the figures provide support for the idea that 'secularising' the dharma is the way to go if we are to adapt it to this time and place.

A full 22.3% of Australians are 'nones' - up from 15% five years ago - that's a 47% increase! Christianity continued its steady decline. Interestingly, if you look at the Christian religions separately, Catholicism  is the only one with more adherents than 'No Religion' - with 25.3%. Buddhism is the largest non-Christian religion. (If you click on the link above you'll need to scroll about half way down the page.)

From the site:
Since the first Census, the majority of Australians have reported an affiliation with a Christian religion. However, there has been a long-term decrease in affiliation to Christianity from 96% in 1911 to 61% in 2011. Conversely, although Christian religions are still predominant in Australia, there have been increases in those reporting an affiliation to non-Christian religions, and those reporting 'No Religion'.


RELIGIOUS AFFILIATIONS

>







Population

Proportion born 
overseas(a)
Religion
'000

%

%





Christian
13 150.6

61.1

22.9

Catholic
5 439.2

25.3

24.0
Anglican
3 680.0

17.1

17.5
Uniting Church
1 065.8

5.0

11.4
Presbyterian and Reformed
599.5

2.8

26.3
Eastern Orthodox
563.1

2.6

43.6
Baptist
352.5

1.6

28.8
Lutheran
251.9

1.2

24.5
Pentecostal
238.0

1.1

32.6
Other Christian
960.7

4.5

31.0

Non-Christian
1 546.3

7.2

67.0

Buddhism
529.0

2.5

69.4
Islam
476.3

2.2

61.5
Hinduism
275.5

1.3

84.3
Judaism
97.3

0.5

48.9
Other non-Christian
168.2

0.8

57.2

No Religion
4 796.8

22.3

22.5

Total(b)
21 507.7

100.0

26.1





(a) Proportion of people reporting this religion who were born overseas.
(b) Total includes inadequately described (supplementary codes) religions and people who did not state a religion.

2 comments:

  1. Religion is just a label. I wonder how many's awareness is the same, regardless of the label, or the words!!

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  2. It'd definitely be interesting to have a national measure on awareness, yes! However I'm not sure I agree that religion is 'just a label'. It tends to indicate certain meanings although I suspect there are many.

    What is more interesting to me is the growing number of people who are specifically indicating 'no religion'. The article showed that it tended to be most prevalent in the 15-34 year age group. What this suggests to me is continuation of a trend from my own generation (the next one up in years) which saw many begin declaring 'no religion' but also many that in reality were of 'no religion' if you look at their lives but they keep a notional connection to their family of origin's religion. I've found this is either to keep the parents happy, to give them a greater sense of meaning at their wedding/ children's baptism, or simply something to identify with. So perhaps it's that trend just continuing where the sentimental and perhaps obligatory identification with the religion of origin has weakened.

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