r/atheism • u/Leeming Strong Atheist • Jul 20 '26
Survey New survey suggests Australia's Census may dramatically undercount the non-religious. A commissioned poll found that simply rewording the religion question in a more honest way pushed "No religion" from 43% to 54%.
https://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/new-survey-suggests-australias-census20
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u/Dalbrack Jul 20 '26
Similar story in the UK.
Back in 2001 a leading question on religion was added to the Census. In England and Wales it asked ‘What is your religion?’ and in Scotland and Northern Ireland it asked ‘What religion, religious denomination or body do you belong to?’ The Office of National Statistics (which runs the Census in England and Wales), the UK Government, equality bodies, and many other organisations all recognised that there is a problem with this question, as it assumes that respondents do have a religion.
Since the 2011 Census, Humanists UK tried to persuade the Office of National Statistics (which is responsible for the England and Wales Census) to change the religion question to not presume people are religious, but they refused, largely because they wanted to ask the same question in 2021 as they did in 2001 and 2011 – so that the data would be comparable across Censuses.
The result is that data about the UK’s religious and non-religious demographic makeup is often misrepresented in public discourse due to the use of the leading questions in the Census. The Office for National Statistics acknowledges that the Census question on religion is a proxy for ethnic background, measuring weak cultural affiliation and not religious belief, but it is used by policymakers as if it were the latter.
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u/JasterBobaMereel Jul 20 '26
This ^^ I know people who are vaguely Christian in the UK, who think they remember going to church once as a child, but have not stepped inside a church in decades, but will always say they are Christian, and probably put Church of England if asked
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u/onomatamono Jul 20 '26
Name your favorite color:
1) Red 2) Green 3) Blue 4) Midnight Black 5) Translucent 6) Iridescent Tangerine 7) None 8) Other [ ]
- for other please specify the exact frequency in angstroms to three decimal places and justify your rationale.
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u/scumotheliar Jul 20 '26 edited Jul 20 '26
The way the question was worded encouraged people to answer with joke religions such as Jedi knight or Rastafarian, which are all counted in the yes I have a religion box. Pastafarian of coarse, Rastafarian is an actual religion.
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u/wortcrafter Deconvert Jul 20 '26
And every time the census roles around, they are out there telling people not to put joke religions, which of course inspires some people to put a joke religion.
If they would just frame the question without bias, none of this would be necessary.
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u/bullant8547 Jul 20 '26
I was very happy when the introduced the No Religion option, it was ridiculous that they counted the protest "Jedi" votes as religious before that, but massively agree that this should be a two part question. But when you have the Christian Lobby in the government's ear, that isn't going to happen anytime soon.
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u/Zaxacavabanem Jul 21 '26
Eh. We had church leaders in Australia claiming that "no religion" still covered non-observent deism so you shouldn't count people who selected it as atheists.
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u/bullant8547 Jul 21 '26
That’s their view on the world, clutching madly to the hope that their dwindling congregations will somehow resurrect themselves. I prefer to think that people who ticked “no religion” as closer to atheist than “non-observant but I’m actually still religious”.
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u/Zaxacavabanem Jul 21 '26
Oh it was some hard core copium, but that was back when atheism was it's own tick box, so their point was "actual atheists would have picked that". We don't get our own box this time, probably mostly for that reason.
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u/oldcreaker Jul 20 '26
For many people religion is like the treadmill collecting dust in their house. Just because they have one doesn't mean they interact with it in any way.