Chart of religion or belief change in Britain over a generation
The folks at BRIN have been busy putting together this fab chart showing generational changes in religion in Britain. The data are from the 2008 British Social Survey and show the religion in which people were brought up on the left, and their current religion on the right. Connecting the two are ‘pipes’ showing how people have switched – the fatter the pipe, the more people have followed that path.
Religious change in Britain
Continues: http://epiphenom.fieldofscience.com/2010/08/pic-of-week.html
The “No religion” camp has rocketed into top place, pushing down each Christian category by one place. It’s worth noting that if the Christian groups were recombined, however, they would still outsize the “No religion” category on these particular findings (it would be a much more boring chart, though!)
Fascinating pictures of belief change in UK and USA – a basis for grand cunning plans, and stimulating many further questions.
Could the data be analysed by age group to indicate changing rates for society generally, and at what age do individuals typically change or revert? What are the geographical, historical, educational, economic, familial etc correlating factors?
Why are some groups more stable/ labile (and is there a multiple identifiers or social stressors effect eg ‘Black Protestants’ – compare our immigrant nonEuropean nonChristian groups, Jewish history, the Cold War ‘Polish Catholics’ and ‘Muslim Obama’)? What distinguishes the ‘most successful’ faiths (perhaps factors of social boundaries and distinctiveness, present or promised reward, love-rejection or dominance-submission dimensions, characteristics of doctrine or worship, etc)?
Biology – fertility and longevity – affects absolute numbers, and high reproduction rates promoted by religion (10 children per woman has been sustained) exemplify an aggressive self-righteousness. This is even more objectionable in an overpopulated world facing crises of climate, resources and environment.
Clever diagrams pointing to human narratives to be researched, social change to be achieved.