Random Person
Senior Member
Why make any assumptions?
No. Not a 0.0000000001% difference, a 10% difference. A 10% difference consistently over 50 years.
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Australian Bureau of Statistics releases the 2016 Census 'Religion' data
- Thread starter bilby
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Why make any assumptions?
No. Not a 0.0000000001% difference, a 10% difference. A 10% difference consistently over 50 years.
LordKiran
Veteran Member
I'm making no assumptions. I am providing plausible reasons for why 10% of the population is unrepresented. They may or may not have anything to do with it in reality, but until you or anyone else can say otherwise, they remain plausible.
fromderinside
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Preferred not to state. 10%
Found it?
Found it?
LordKiran
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Easy enough.
bilby
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Yeah, it's been an idiosyncracy of the Census for many decades that the 'Religion' question is optional. Other census questions are mandatory.
There are a number of problems with the 2016 Census, which the ABS has tried to correct for; How successful they have been, nobody knows. 2016 was the first census largely conducted online, rather than via paper questionnaires, and the implementation of the online data collection was deeply flawed, which meant that many people were unable to complete their census on the allotted day. In addition, the ABS made changes to the way in which data was retained that could potentially identify individual citizens' responses, keeping name and address data for four years, rather than the 18 months previously allowed; as a result, there was much discussion of refusal to respond, due to concerns that personal data might be misused, stolen from, or even sold by the ABS - but how much refusal actually happened is unknown. Some people didn't submit a form at all; others submitted forms with personally identifying data (such as names and/or addresses) omitted. The ABS claims a 'participation rate' of 96%, but clearly not all of that 96% completed all of the 'mandatory' sections of the form, much less the optional 'Religion' section.
It may require several decades to determine whether there are any major outliers in the 2016 data that can be attributed to these problems; And the ability to make that assessment will depend to some degree on how well the ABS recovers from these issues to conduct a less problematic survey in 2021 and beyond.
Random Person
Senior Member
No. I looked but all I found was,
"EXPLANATORY INFORMATION
'No religion' is equivalent to 'Secular Beliefs and Other Spiritual Beliefs and No Religious Affiliation"
Where did you see it?
bilby
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Random Person
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I wonder why the Australian government doesn't ask people if they are atheist? If the "No-Religion" are actually atheist that would give Australian atheists a lot of political clout.
bilby
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You answered your own question. Christians (particularly Catholics) are significantly over represented in Parliament compared to their proportion of the general population, and this is reflected in both major political parties.
Atheists don't have much political clout in Australia despite our numbers, and the powers that be are very happy to keep it that way.
Random Person
Senior Member
That doesn't make sense. Atheists could possibly outnumber Catholics in your country. The point to conducting a census is to insure groups aren't under represented.
I imagine Catholics would be outraged if there wasn't a box for them to check off.
bilby
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How does it not make sense for the people in power to try to remain as powerful as possible?
The point of conducting a census is to provide information for the government (and others) to act upon; What actions the government chooses to take is determined by the opinions of the people in power, not by the information they use in making those decisions.
It's a representative democracy, and it's dominated by two parties. Neither party has anything to gain from throwing out policies that are supported by their caucus, in an attempt to attract a voting bloc that is by definition unpredictable and non-homogeneous. Espousing causes that are opposed by the Catholic church is likely to lose you the votes of Catholics; But it is far from guaranteed to attract any votes from Atheists, who are more likely to be interested in other policy areas. Atheists are not a united bloc.
Look at the way politicians behave in regard to other tribalistic issues - say, sports. Politicians on both sides of the chamber wave the green and gold flags whenever an Australian sports team plays a major match, particularly if they play against a hated rival. Supporting the Wallabies when they play the All Blacks is a 'no lose' proposition for an Australian politician. Of course, lots of Australian voters don't give a rats arse about Rugby Union - but trying to appeal to the 'No Rugby' demographic gains you a tiny number of votes (if any), while costing you the much larger number of votes of those who think Rugby is vitally important, and who are INCENSED that you didn't support their team.
Some voters will say "I am not voting for him, he didn't support the Wallabies" or "I like him, he supports the Wallabies". But nobody says "I'm going to vote for him, because he shares my lack of interest in Rugby".
It's the same with religion - believers are fanatical, and like footy fans, will change their allegiance based on a perceived lack of support for their beliefs. But non-believers are (by definition) apathetic, and will only consider specific policy measures, each on its merits. That's not a level of support that a politician will stick his or her neck out over.
Random Person
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bilby
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That's correct, at least on certain issues, where the Christian position is antithetical to the reasonable position. Marriage equality is one obvious policy area where the Australian Parliament has a position that is distinctly opposed to both reason and the majority will of the people, and where that opposition is almost entirely based on religious belief.
Of course, there are many important issues in the modern world that are not addressed by (mainstream) Christianity, and a number of issues where Christians have reached the correct answer (even if they sometimes arrived at the answer by invalid or unsound reasoning). So in those policy areas, the parliament may well represent some or all of the 30% of the population who have no religion. Again, atheists are not a united political bloc.
ronburgundy
Contributor
In part, but that's a bit circular if used as the complete explanation. While there is less pressure to lie about being an atheist today, that is a consequence of their being more atheists.
The reduced stigma then in-turn helps more people to both "come out" and to be willing to honestly evaluate the idea, and intellectual honesty is the enemy of faith and theism.
Fear and coerced conformity are the primary basis that most theists have been theists. So, any reduction in those emotional pressures that undermine honest reasoning will tend to decrease theism and thus increase actual atheism, in addition to allowing closeted atheists to come out.
ronburgundy
Contributor
You must know the only people on the planet that do that. Even atheistic scientists don't do that. They may want to and try to, but the inherent nature of human cognition essentially precludes being able to avoid unscientific emotional biases 100% of the time. There is plenty of evidence to show that theists make science-based decisions less often and that the stronger and more certain one is their theism, the more they deviate from science-based decisions.
Confidence and strength of sincere belief determines how much self-labeled "theists" actually act like they believe what they claim to believe, and thus deviate from science-based decisions.
People that actually believe that the power of prayer more than they trust modern medicine are more likely to pray than see a doctor to cure a ailment. Most "theists" in the US and likely all the one's you know don't do that because most of them are weak or insincere in their claimed "theism", where "God" is just some vague notion of "something higher" and the Bible is a just book they never read and don't really think contains any special truths.
The more theists actually have a specific notion of a personal God, and the more they know and read the founding texts of their religion, the more they actions are shaped by those beliefs and differ from the actions of non-believers. No, it's not going to change minor daily activities like how they put on underwear, but it will impact some important actions.
Also, many theists that won't act on their beliefs when it might harm themselves, will act on those beliefs if the harm is to others. For example voting is an action, and many theists vote based on religious beliefs in ways that cause harm to other people. This includes everything from voting against climate change policies because only God controls the climate (around 1 in 4 Americans hold this view) to voting to block gay rights, abortion rights, etc.
This just needed to be quoted.
How fucking pathetic is it that people don't just believe but seek out blatant, inhumane, dangerous falsehoods about their fellow human beings just to protect themselves from the discomfort of developing a conscience instead of an ideological identity.
I noticed LionIRC did not mention abortion. Probably because 70% are requested by Christian women. Talk about embarrassing!
And nothing in this world, NOTHING, breaks down families better than religion. Talk to teenagers living in the streets and find out how many of them were abused or thrown out by religiously-addled parents.
Besides your fallacious attempt to equate correlations with causation, your claims about even the correlations are the opposite of reality.
In the countries like the US where atheism is rising, domestic violence rates have dropped massively, about 70% in the US over the last couple of decades. The rates of domestic violence (such as partners murdering their wives) is generally highest is the states with higher religiosity (e.g., southern states). The countries in the world with the worst treatment of women and most domestic violence are the more devoutly religious and theistic countries. This includes the Muslim countries, some which still make it legal to kill your wife, but also includes the strongly Catholic and Christian Orthodox nations of Eastern Europe and South America.
This map shows countries with worse records on domestic abuse and physical violence against women as darker green. Increasingly non-theistic countries like Japan, Scandinavia, France, and the UK have the lowest levels. Whereas heavily Christian Eastern Europe, South America, and the Muslim world have the highest levels of violence (domestic and otherwise). America is actually less religious than most of these, but is also a bit of an exception because while most of its citizens are religious, its strong secular constitution and 1st Amendment that these religious people constantly seek to destroy make it unlike most of the other countries with high religiosity who also have high domestic violence. China is another outlier, but its state-sponsored misogyny long predates its non-theistic modern communism.
It's interesting though, because religion probably isn't a causative factor in domestic violence (at least in all cases). Rather, what we're seeing is that when nations modernize and educate their people, laws and rationality strengthen, and religion/patriarchy dissolve. As a consequence of this modernization there is less need for violence, and it falls further away.
So the trend is really 'when people become smarter they're less likely to be religious'.
ronburgundy
Contributor
Besides your fallacious attempt to equate correlations with causation, your claims about even the correlations are the opposite of reality.
In the countries like the US where atheism is rising, domestic violence rates have dropped massively, about 70% in the US over the last couple of decades. The rates of domestic violence (such as partners murdering their wives) is generally highest is the states with higher religiosity (e.g., southern states). The countries in the world with the worst treatment of women and most domestic violence are the more devoutly religious and theistic countries. This includes the Muslim countries, some which still make it legal to kill your wife, but also includes the strongly Catholic and Christian Orthodox nations of Eastern Europe and South America.
This map shows countries with worse records on domestic abuse and physical violence against women as darker green. Increasingly non-theistic countries like Japan, Scandinavia, France, and the UK have the lowest levels. Whereas heavily Christian Eastern Europe, South America, and the Muslim world have the highest levels of violence (domestic and otherwise). America is actually less religious than most of these, but is also a bit of an exception because while most of its citizens are religious, its strong secular constitution and 1st Amendment that these religious people constantly seek to destroy make it unlike most of the other countries with high religiosity who also have high domestic violence. China is another outlier, but its state-sponsored misogyny long predates its non-theistic modern communism.
BTW, you might be curious whats going on with the southernmost part of South America and why its domestic violence level resembles North America and Northern Europe moreso than the rest of Latin America. Well, those countries are Chile and Argentina which are the least religious counties in South America with the highest percentage of "irrelgious" people (people who report being "non-religious", "athiest", or "agnostic).
Also, I forgot to include my link to the BJS stats showing the 70% decline in domestic assaults over that last 20 years while theism has been declining. Note the graphs on pages 3 and 4. Also, since willingness to report domestic violence has actually increased, that means the real decline in actual domestic violence is even more extreme, because the violence was even higher in the past than these graphs indicate.
https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/ndv0312.pdf
ronburgundy
Contributor
Besides your fallacious attempt to equate correlations with causation, your claims about even the correlations are the opposite of reality.
In the countries like the US where atheism is rising, domestic violence rates have dropped massively, about 70% in the US over the last couple of decades. The rates of domestic violence (such as partners murdering their wives) is generally highest is the states with higher religiosity (e.g., southern states). The countries in the world with the worst treatment of women and most domestic violence are the more devoutly religious and theistic countries. This includes the Muslim countries, some which still make it legal to kill your wife, but also includes the strongly Catholic and Christian Orthodox nations of Eastern Europe and South America.
This map shows countries with worse records on domestic abuse and physical violence against women as darker green. Increasingly non-theistic countries like Japan, Scandinavia, France, and the UK have the lowest levels. Whereas heavily Christian Eastern Europe, South America, and the Muslim world have the highest levels of violence (domestic and otherwise). America is actually less religious than most of these, but is also a bit of an exception because while most of its citizens are religious, its strong secular constitution and 1st Amendment that these religious people constantly seek to destroy make it unlike most of the other countries with high religiosity who also have high domestic violence. China is another outlier, but its state-sponsored misogyny long predates its non-theistic modern communism.
It's interesting though, because religion probably isn't a causative factor in domestic violence (at least in all cases). Rather, what we're seeing is that when nations modernize and educate their people, laws and rationality strengthen, and religion/patriarchy dissolve. As a consequence of this modernization there is less need for violence, and it falls further away.
So the trend is really 'when people become smarter they're less likely to be religious'.
That is part of it, but while the data I presented here is correlational, there is every reason and tons more evidence to think that religion has it own more direct causal influence. In particular, Abrahamic monotheism which was designed to promote violent authoritarian control and rationalize mistreatment of people deemed "lower", among them women. Even just more generally, authoritarianism causally promotes violence as a means to enforce the obedience to unjustified masters that is inherent to authoritarian worldviews. There really is no more of a pro-authoritarian philosophy or value system than Abrahamic monotheism which commands that some unquestionable authority whose existence must be blindly accepted against all reason be obeyed because by his own decree, he is the source of all morals and all that should be. Growing up theist is like growing up with domestic abuse where God "the father" is a chronic abuser and user of violence for no reason other than he doesn't like what some people feel, think, and do in their own bedroom. Psychologically, that should have at least some of the same causal impacts on the likelihood of being violent and abusive as one's actual father being violent and abusive. And the evidence supports this. Just like all victims of abuse won't become abusers, all theists won't be wife beaters. There are many moderating factors that contextualize the relationship, but that doesn't mean that religious belief and theism don't have a net causal influence that increases the frequency of domestic and other forms of violence.
I'm bookmarking this thread. Ronburgundy and Bilby have made it a valuable resource in the fight against religious lies and fear mongering.