Posted: Nov 22, 2019 8:10 pm
The thing to remember is that census figures are self-reports, and a fuckton of Australians, mostly older, simply tick the box of their family's tradition religion without actually being in any way meaningfully religious - for example a third-generation Italian-Australian may tick Catholic out of habit, but not because they go to church or believe Catholic dogma, but because that's the section of the cemetery their grandparents are buried in.
As Hermit posted, church/mosque/synagogue/temple attendance is very low here. What may be driving a skewing towards fundamentalism within the church-going population (and numbers of churches, etc) is simply that those who were once more moderate in their religion now simply don't bother with it at all.
Anyway, in looking around fro some stats I came across this opinion poll: https://mccrindle.com.au/insights/bloga ... fographic/
It's a bit scattershot, but it's got some interesting stuff in it, including a set of approval ratings of religious descriptors, in which "Practicing Christian" scores +28% and "Fundamentalist Christian" scores -31%, and the general statistic that of the 92% of Australians who are not regular church attendees, 47% give the reason as religion being irrelevant to their lives - and yet some of those are clearly still ticking a box other than "No religion" on the census. Go figure.
My own mother only ever ticked "No religion" on the census once she was past 80 years old, and needed my help with the form. Prior to that she ticked Catholic out of habit/loyalty to her late parents, but she was the least religious person you could imagine, beyond a sort of wishy-washy pantheism. She often said that the last religion to offer something that gelled with her thoughts was the Ancient Egyptian worship of the sun as giver/sustainer of life. And yet, Catholic for census purposes
As Hermit posted, church/mosque/synagogue/temple attendance is very low here. What may be driving a skewing towards fundamentalism within the church-going population (and numbers of churches, etc) is simply that those who were once more moderate in their religion now simply don't bother with it at all.
Anyway, in looking around fro some stats I came across this opinion poll: https://mccrindle.com.au/insights/bloga ... fographic/
It's a bit scattershot, but it's got some interesting stuff in it, including a set of approval ratings of religious descriptors, in which "Practicing Christian" scores +28% and "Fundamentalist Christian" scores -31%, and the general statistic that of the 92% of Australians who are not regular church attendees, 47% give the reason as religion being irrelevant to their lives - and yet some of those are clearly still ticking a box other than "No religion" on the census. Go figure.
My own mother only ever ticked "No religion" on the census once she was past 80 years old, and needed my help with the form. Prior to that she ticked Catholic out of habit/loyalty to her late parents, but she was the least religious person you could imagine, beyond a sort of wishy-washy pantheism. She often said that the last religion to offer something that gelled with her thoughts was the Ancient Egyptian worship of the sun as giver/sustainer of life. And yet, Catholic for census purposes