Profiles of religious belief Religious belief in the UK Why is the distribution curve this shape? Less than 8% of the UK population takes part in any religious activity. More than 60% of UK adults claim not to believe in a god. More than 65% of young people claim not to believe in a god. A significant number of politicians in the UK are quite happy to state that they are atheists. The majority of people in the UK are indifferent towards religion (they are "apatheists") - it has not meaning in their day to day lives. Many people are very concerned about the sort of things they see being done in the name of religion. Religious belief in the USA Why is the distribution curve this shape? Church attendance is high in the USA. Fundamentalism and creationism are very powerful in the USA. No US politician dare admit to being an atheist. One third of the US population believes that evolution doesn't happen. Two thirds of the US population believes that a god created the Universe. Profile of belief within the C of E The CofE has moved a long way from the time when it was viewed as "the Tory party at prayer." Most CofE members have liberal attitudes towards issues relating to gender and sexuality as well as towards sometimes controversial topics such as birth control and abortion. The CofE does have problems outside the UK - particularly the intolerant attitudes expressed by African churches. Other Christian sects in the UK, the Catholic Church for example, would not follow this profile since their attitudes tend to be less tolerant. The profile would be more like the one shown for Islam below. There is a big difference between the beliefs of the Catholic Church as stated by the hierarchy and the attitudes expressed by lay Catholics - which explains why Catholic families are no larger than for the population as a whole. Profile of belief within Islam The teachings of Islam and the beliefs of many individual Muslims tend to be intolerant on a number of social issues: Gender. Like all religions, Islam remains very male dominated and this shows when comparing the rules applied to women with those applied to men. Sexuality. Many Muslims have an intolerant attitude toward homosexuals. Apostasy. Many Muslims are intolerant towards those who decide to abandon Islam. Note: "many" does not mean "all". There are liberal Muslims who have no problem with women exposing their hair, with the total equality of women, with people following their own sexuality and with those who decide either to follow a different religion or to give up religion altogether. However, in general, such liberal attitudes are expressed by a minority of Muslims. If we are wrong we would like to hear about it.

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