Secularization in the UK - Essay Example

? Secularization in UK Secularization in UK Introduction A society is the mix of culture, race, cast, creeds and religions. In every society it is seen that the values are shifted with the span of time and people see continuous change within them. Some time the shift can be extreme especially when it is related to religion. Nowadays it is mostly seen that religion has been segregated into two extremes. Either an individual is secular when it comes to religion or an extremist. Extremism in religion mostly happens when followers start to believe that their religion is the ultimate paradigm, and everyone in this world should follow it (Goodwin, 2007). Whereas secularization believes that no religion would be given privilege by a particular society in any respect (D’Costa, 2005). Secularization does not only mean cultural shifts but it also means development of science as perfectly described by Max Weber that secularization is “the disenchantment of the world” meaning that it eradicates superstition and replaces it with logic and science (Artigas, 2001). As the time goes by the meaning of secularism in respect of detaching oneself from religion started increasing, especially in the west. The new generation now is least bothered about religious norms and more bothered about the materialistic things in this world. If it is analyzed that which area in the west is getting the most affected it would certainly be the United Kingdom. UK at a point in history was very strict with religion and the church regulations, people who defied it saw death penalties as a punishment (Parsons, 1989). But nowadays religion has gone in the backdrop of people living in the UK. The main reason of this research is the prevalence of secularism as the concept is making its way into the daily life of the citizens of UK and religion have taken a back seat in their lives. Hypothesis By the introduction, it is clear that the main reason of the dissertation is to verify the trend of following religion in The United Kingdom. Mathematically it could be said that: Ho: Religion is declining in the United Kingdom. Ha: Religious practices are accelerating in the United Kingdom Literature Reviewed Mostly for this dissertation, census of the United Kingdom would be used and primary data would be taken for consideration, processed and then an analysis of the key trends would be presented in this dissertation. The census which would be used in analyzing the dissertation would be dated from year 1850 up to year 2004. The entire census between this timescale would be in view for analyzing the thesis. The censuses which were available to be analyzed were the reports of 1881, 1911 and 2001 which had the relevant data. Methodology It is important in a dissertation that methodology of the research is concrete and clear to the reader so that the analysis which is presented to the reader is to the point and accurate. This dissertation is mainly about checking the reduction or increment ratio in the followers of the religions present in the United Kingdom. Mainly data from the census of 1881 and data of census 2001 would be used in comparison to see that if the followers of the religion in UK have declined or inclined. Also some data from the census of 1911 could be retrieved for use in this research. For this mostly interactive graphical presentation of tables and graphs would be helpful to understand the nature of the advancement or turnover. The quantitative data from these censuses would identify the upheavals from the year 1850 to 1911 till 2001 and tell that how much the human point of view about religion has changed and if now having a religion matters or not. As only the available data is of the year 1881, 1911 and 2001 census the limitation is that , there would be huge gap between the statistics of population and changes in the religious and secular sides . This would limit our research to just few census and information about religion given in it. But it does not mean that it would not give us the significant factors that we are looking for, it will tell us the fluctuations of how much in ratio has religious practices inclined or declined in over 150 years, but still it is a great limitation concerning the fact that the quantitative data for years between these two census in religious context is not available to analyze. Other than simple analysis of the given quantitative data, statistics would be available to foresee what kind of future religious practices would behold. Or is secular system seeping its way in to the United Kingdom quickly or not. Also another limitation is that in some census outcomes, only the data of Ireland is present and not of England, so that also puts a barrier in to research as complete data about religions is not been given. Also it is observed that only in 1881 religious sittings were being observed in the census and after that they were not recorded, so by looking at the other census data the amount of religious sittings could not be determined. Another hurdle was that theoretical form of data was available for the census of 2001, but this was easily solved by putting all the data in to pie charts to help understand the statistics. The strength of this kind of approach is to keep the statistics simple and easy for others to understand, if a lot of data from the census would be included in to the dissertation not only it will make it very confusing but also it would be difficult to analyze generalized conclusion through that much data. The charts are given so that it becomes easier to interpret the outcome of the censual data which is given. Calculations Some of the tables originally present in the census are incorporated in this research for further analysis. Three important tables from difference census have been taken so that difference between these years could be analyzed, those census are of years: 1881 1911 2001 Census of 1881 Starting from the census of 1851, the first thing which is important to notice is the number of sects present at that time. So that it can also be analyzed that how much variety of religions has been introduced since then. The image below gives the details about what kind of Christians were present in 1851 (Census of Great Britain, 1851, Religious worship, 2007). The image above tells that the prominent religions institutions at that time were “church of England and Ireland, Scottish Presbyterians, Independent or Congregationalists, Baptists, Society of Friends, Unitarians, Moravians, Wesleyan Methodists, Calvinistic Methodists, Sandemenians, New Church, Brethren, Lutherans, German Protestant Reformers, Reformed Church of the Netherlands, French Protestants, Roman Catholics, Greek Church, German Catholics, Italian Reformers, Catholic and Apostolic Church, Mormons and Jews”. That was not it; some of these sects also have their subsidiaries, which is interesting to look upon as it would have never occurred in to the human mind that in an era where modernity in religion was not that common, a variety of a number of Christian religions are present to be worshipped, in total 40 kind of different religions including Jews were found to be existing in the census of 1881. After that it is important to see that as so many sects to worship, how many people were in attendance to their holy places to worship. The table below gives the stats from census of 1851. this table will give the total number of sacred places present, depicting the number of sitting and number of attendance present in that sitting(Census of Great Britain, 1851, Religious worship, 2007). The above image tells us that how many people were engaged in the religious activities at that time. By looking at the table above it can for sure be said that people were rather much attached to their religions during that era even though a great number of religions were present but still people used to attend services and remain intact with their faith. These numbers can easily be understood by the pie chart given below Assuming that none of the people who attended the services were present in another shift, by looking at the above pie charts it could be said that 42% people in 1881 attended morning services, 29% of the people attended afternoon services and then 28% percent of the people attended the evening services out of all the people who were present Another pie chart below would give us the ratio of absentees in contrast with people who attended the services. Looking at the above pie chart it could be said that only 35 % of the people in England and Wales were able to become a part of the sittings where as 65% which was the majority were not attending religious sittings. This could be possible because at that time holy sitting could have taken place at areas which were not accessible easily and transportation was one hurdle persisting for the local communities in that era, so people who lived faraway could not attend these kinds of sittings, or people who did not have the proper mode of transportation also faced difficulties. Census of 1911 Looking at the data of 1911 of Ireland, it can be said that total 18 kind of different religions including all the branches of Christianity are present in Ireland at the time of census. IRELAND Males Females 1. CHRISTIAN RELIGION 2186525 2193721 Church of England (Anglican Communion) 285238 291381 Roman Catholic 1629577 1613094 Presbyterian 219792 231629 Wesleyan Methodist 29774 32623 Congregationalist (Independent) 4500 4870 Baptist 3953 4278 Society of Friends (Quaker) 1119 1361 Lutheran 239 133 Salvation Army 762 913 Eastern Churches 21 9 Unitarian 3659 4147 Other (or undefined) Christians 7891 9283 2. NON-CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS 2711 2574 Jewish 2622 2527 Hindu 2 2 Sikh Jain Mohammedan 8 Zoroastrian (Parsi) 1 Buddhist 6 3 Confucian Animistic or other Primitive Religions Other (or unspecified) non-Christian Religions 72 42 3. NO RELIGION OR UNSPECIFIED - Atheist, &c. 448 148 Information refused 1355 1024 Others unspecified 1009 704 TOTAL POPULATION 2192048 2198171 The Graphical Presentation of this data is given below that signifies the amount of Christians present at that time in Ireland which is for sure more Christians in ratio then their present number these days. By looking at the above table it can be said that religion had started to spread in the form of variety but again the churches for Christianity got limited. Here only the population statistics of Ireland are present and that of entire Great Britain is not available (British Empire, 2007). Census of 2001 Now the religious data onwards is not exclusively present in the data of the census. So directly we would jump to the census of 2001 and check out what kind of reports the census of 2001 have generated. In 2001 there were 37.3 million people who stated their religion as Christian. In England 3.1 % population stated that they are Muslims whereas in Whales the ratio was 0.7%. Other religions that were stated were “Hinds, Sikh, Jewish and Buddhist”. If the variety of religion is been compared with 1881 it can be seen that, the diversity has certainly grown in forms of different religions and declined in case of Christianity. And there were 7.7 million people who said that they do not have any religion, which again if compared to census of 1881 tells that people in that era value religion in its true spirit but nowadays having a religion or not does not matter anymore. As the religion question is now voluntary 4,011,000 people did not answered that questioned at all. That is 7.7 percent of the population. That is a major group which did not answer, in total 52.7 million people participated in the census (National Statistics 2001). Graphical Representation of 2001 Statistics As mostly data tables were present when religious statistics were concerned so the theoretical data has been converted into a pie chart for better understanding. The Graph above presents the percentage of people who are segregated through religion in 2001. If it is looked upon closely it can be said that there is a major number of people who do not believe in religious ceremonies or activities. For them Christmas is a universal holiday and just a way to celebrate and give gifts to their friends and families and nothing else for them there is no “Eid or Diwali or no Hanukah” (Pafumi 2010). These people just lead on their lives without a faith or a belief and think secularism is important and materialistic things are rather more vital and self fulfilling. These kinds of people think that logic and scientific reasoning can justify everything in life and faith and beliefs are just myths of human brain, as their morality suggests that mind can logically perceive all the happenings around the world and there is no need to stick to any particular religious dogma. The fact that several people did not bother to consider religious values are of the view that faith is from within, it cannot be instilled by preaching. Analysis If all three years of data is been compared to each other it can be said that as the time passed by more and more people began to ignore the fact of religion in their life, as it is seen in 2001 census pie chart the amount of people who do not bother to tell their religion were 7.7 percent and amount of people who did not have any religion were 14.6% making a big category of people who are now not bothered by the fact that faith should rule their lives. This was not the case in the other two census reports. Conclusion Even though the research was limited to only two census that is of 1881 and 2001 it can be fairly said that religion is declining in the United Kingdom. So accepting the null hypothesis that religion is not now an important part of human life and secularism has spread in the minds of the people and here we reject our alternative hypothesis that says that religion is inclining in the United Kingdom. It is really alarming and rather disturbing to see that now as the world trends are continuously evolving; people are going away from religion rather than coming towards it. It would be no shock if at the end of this world people would totally stop following any religion that is present in the current era. As the era becomes secular the sayings of Steven Weinberg makes much more sense than it did before i.e. “Religion is an insult to human Dignity. With or without it, you’d have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to bad things, it takes religion” (Pafumi 2010). May be that is why people prefer having secularism in their life then having a solid faith, so that they are protected from evil thoughts and evil doings. References Goodwin, B. 2007. Using political ideas. 5th ed. West Sussex: John Wiley and Sons Ltd. D’Costa, G. 2005. Theology in the public square: church, academy and nation. Illustrated. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell Artigas, M. 2001. The Mind of the Universe: Understanding Science and Religion. Reprint. Radnor: Templeton Foundation Press. Parsons, G. 1989. Religion in Victorian Britain: Interpretations. Illustrated, Reprint. Manchester : Manchester University Press. Census of Great Britain. 1851. Religious Worship.[Image Online]. Available at [Accessed 03 February 2011] Census 2001 - Ethnicity and religion in England and Wales. National Statistics.[Online]. . [Accessed 03 February 2011] British Empire. 1911.Religions of the population in those Colonies & C For which Returns are available.[ Table]. Available at [Accessed 03 February 2011] Pafumi, G.R. 2010. Is Our Vision of God Obsolete? Xlibris Corporation. Read More