A recent survey has found that, for the first time, atheists in the UK outnumber those who believe in God. Or do they? Because an awful lot depends on exactly what people are asked.
The “Explaining Atheism [1]” project is a global research initiative led by Queen’s University Belfast and recently released interim findings appearing to show that atheism is now more widespread than theism in the UK.
The study surveyed approximately 25,000 individuals across six countries, including Brazil, China, Denmark, Japan, the UK, and the USA. It draws upon data from the British Social Attitudes Survey, the World Values Survey, and an earlier project by the same team, “Understanding Unbelief” (2017-2021).
According to the British Social Attitudes Survey (BSAS), belief in God in the UK dropped from 41.8 pc in 2008 to 37.4 pc in 2018. During the same period, the percentage of people who say they do not believe in God rose from 35.2 pc to 43pc.
However, a survey conducted by the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) put the number of atheists in Britain at 26pc, not 43pc.
Why the difference? It seems to come down to how the question is asked. The BSAS asked people point-blank whether they believed in God or not. But the ISSP asked a wider range of questions from emphatic atheism to emphatic theism and everything in between.
A similar phenomenon was observed in Ireland [2], where the wording of the Census 2022 question “What is your religion?” was modified to “What is your religion, if any?” The first response option was “no religion”, whereas this had been the last option in the 2016 Census. This change led to a big increase in “no religion” responses. No surprise there.
Prof. Stephen Bullivant [3], a sociologist of religion at St Mary’s University in London, noted that in some countries, the term ‘atheist’ carries a degree of stigma, and people may avoid identifying as such, even if they do not believe in God or practice any religion. Conversely, in other cultures, atheism or secularity has become the norm, leading respondents to self-identify as atheists, even if they still hold some belief in God.
Interestingly, the “Explaining Atheism” study also found [4] that “non-belief in God does not necessarily rule out belief in other supernatural phenomena, as most atheists and agnostics express some type of supernatural belief.”
By the way, the findings [5] indicate that belief, or non-belief, in God is predominantly influenced by socialisation, rather than by factors such as education, fear of death, or a need for structure. Parental upbringing and societal expectations about religion were identified as the most significant factors. For instance, those not exposed to religious practise by their parents during childhood were more likely to identify as atheists.
In other words, we are very conventional. If the broad social convention is religious, then we are more likely to be religious, and if the convention is broadly secular, we are more likely to be secular, or even atheistic. We don’t seem to think as much about our beliefs as we might like to imagine.