Friday 27 February 2009

Britons back religious values

Most British people want religion and religious values to have an important role in public life, a new BBC survey has found. The ComRes poll of 1,045 people found 62 per cent in favour. Around the same number (63 per cent) said that British law should respect and be influenced by the UK’s traditional religious values. Despite secularist calls to ‘free’ society from the views and beliefs of religious traditions, the survey demonstrates public support for religious values. Researchers found a higher proportion of Muslims and Hindus supporting the role of the country’s traditional (essentially Christian) values.

Source: BBC (24/2)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7906595.stm

2 comments:

Sally said...

Interesting, I wonder how most people would define religious values?

Olive Morgan said...

Yes, Sally, but I was interested in this BBC comment on the poll -

"They may be dubious about specific religious beliefs, and unwilling to accept the teaching of religious organisations about how they should lead their lives, but the survey suggests they are not yet ready to cast God out of public life."

Apparently there were only four questions asked, according to a complaint by the humanist society that, by not including non-religious people properly,the poll did not give a balanced picture.

However, the BBC poll indicates that even at a time when baptisms, church weddings and attendance at Sunday services are declining, people are unwilling for secularism to displace religion altogether.