Sunday, August 06, 2006

Is belief growing in Australia? No!

For a while now I have been hearing of the rising tide of Christian belief. Articles abound about the decline in non-belief as the nation looks to god for the answers. Like most other people this did not seem to gel with my day to day interactions with people where if anything most people seems less rather than more spiritual. Today I read about this new study that has taken 4 years to complete that looks at the beliefs of 13 to 29 year olds.

A summary of the actual report is found here: http://dlibrary.acu.edu.au/research/ccls/spir/sppub/sppub.htm

The report concludes that less than half of Generation Y have any spiritual beliefs at all and of those that do only 19% attend church. What does it mean? Firstly it puts to an end all of those who are claiming a rise in levels of belief. Secondly it highlights the secular nature of Australian society. Thirdly it indicates just how marginalised are the churches when it comes to speaking for Australians.

So to all those believers out there I have three things to say:

1) Yes you are a minority
2) Yes you only speak for yourself
3) Get out of politics, you obviously don't belong.

Have a nice day!!! :)