Increase in people identifying as having No Religion

GhostyMcGhost

hinault wrote: »

No : the census form asks only one question what is YOUR (singular) religion and provides a range of multiple choice answers.

The claim made earlier about 2011 and 2016 census answers are b/s spoofery.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b97zJxKEqAk

robindch

hinault wrote: »

The census does not ask for the religious affiliation of each member of the household present on census night.

You might like to check out Delirium's excellent post on just this topic from earlier on this morning. That post is here:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=103321852&postcount=196

Please study the photographs of the last census forum which Delirium helpfully included, paying specific attention to the top-left (where it says "Person 1" and "Person 2" on the two images) and the bottom-right, where it says "What is your religion".

From this, we can see that yes, indeed, the census does in fact request each member of the household to confirm his or her religious affiliation.

I hope this post clears up any residual confusion on the topic.

eviltwin

hinault wrote: »

A single census form is delivered to each house.

The census form asks "what is your religion" and it provides one set of multiple choice answers.

The census simply asks - what is YOUR (singular) religion.

The census does not ask for the religious affiliation of each member of the household present on census night.

Yes it does. There is a separate set of questions for each person. The ' What is your religion' question is not the main occupant, it's whoever is the subject of that section.

For example, I filled out the census in our house. I didn't tick my religious persuasion 4 times, I correctly ticked the box as it related to each individual.

I can't figure out if you are being deliberately obtuse or if you genuinely don't understand how the census works

Pherekydes

hinault wrote: »

No : the census form asks only one question what is YOUR (singular) religion and provides a range of multiple choice answers.

This question is asked of each individual.

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magicbastarder

hinault wrote: »

No : the census form asks only one question what is YOUR (singular) religion and provides a range of multiple choice answers.

the census only cares about the religion of the person filling out the form, not about the religion of the others in the house? is that what you're claiming?

PopePalpatine

Pherekydes wrote: »

Ah, Hinault, have you just outed yourself as not living here? Everyone here knows that the census asks the religious affiliation of every individual.

Mr Monaghan's not going to be pleased.

Hotblack Desiato

It asks for each person 'what is your name?'

I wonder did any morons fill in their own name 5 or 6 times.

eeguy

IMO the issue is twofold.

1) the Census assumes that you have some form of religion, which leads the person to give a religion as an answer. Since it doesn't assume you can speak Irish, why does it assume you have a religion?

2) the Census makes no distinction between practicing Catholics and "cultural" Catholics. I believe this is hugely important, as the number of Catholics supposedly in this country doesn't correlate with the number of people attending mass and contributing financially to the church. While I don't have stats (who does?) you can see in newspaper reports that parishes around the country are under tremendous pressure to keep open.

pauldla

A lot more going on the Ignore List now, I'd say....

Peregrinus

The census form doesn't "assume that you have some form of religion"; it explicitly offers "no religion" as a box you can tick.

The census doesn't distinguish between practising atheists and cultural atheists either. So what? The census collects information about people's identification. Further information about what that identification means and how it expresses itself is certainly interesting, but its not the kind of information that lends itself to being collected in a census, and no country in the world does this through its census. For that you want qualitative, not quantative research (and such research has been undertaken in Ireland, and you will find it if you google, and it will be a lot more use to you than anything that could be garnered through the census.

smacl

Peregrinus wrote: »

The census doesn't distinguish between practising atheists and cultural atheists either

What exactly is a practising atheist, or a cultural atheist for that matter? The census doesn't actually allow for atheism at all, as No religion is not a synonym for atheist. e.g, if you accept that there are some Catholics that don't believe in God but still tow the line from a cultural standpoint, which box should they tick?

So what? The census collects information about people's identification. Further information about what that identification means and how it expresses itself is certainly interesting, but its not the kind of information that lends itself to being collected in a census, and no country in the world does this through its census. For that you want qualitative, not quantative research (and such research has been undertaken in Ireland, and you will find it if you google, and it will be a lot more use to you than anything that could be garnered through the census.

It is also dubious quantitative data though as it is pigeon holing a wide ranging subjective value and going on to treat it as a valid discrete result for statistical purposes, e.g. one person declaring themselves Catholic might have diametrically opposed views, ethos and beliefs to another. From what I can see, it is the only such subjective question on the census, and while the results are interesting I don't think they're a useful basis for any decision making.

Peregrinus

smacl wrote: »

What exactly is a practising atheist, or a cultural atheist for that matter? The census doesn't actually allow for atheism at all, as No religion is not a synonym for atheist.

The sentence doesn't suggest atheism as a possible answer, but it does allow for it, since people can (and do) write "atheist" in the "other" box. As a result we can analyse the unbelieving community as between those identifying as atheists, those identifying as agnostics, those who merely state that they have no religion and those who simply don't answer the question on religion (though of course the latter group may not all be unbelievers).

smacl wrote: »

e.g, if you accept that there are some Catholics that don't believe in God but still tow the line from a cultural standpoint, which box should they tick?

They should tick the box that reflects their identity (just as people should do if they have no religion but nevertheless believe in God).

smacl wrote: »

It is also dubious quantitative data though as it is pigeon holing a wide ranging subjective value and going on to treat it as a valid discrete result for statistical purposes, e.g. one person declaring themselves Catholic might have diametrically opposed views, ethos and beliefs to another. From what I can see, it is the only such subjective question on the census, and while the results are interesting I don't think they're a useful basis for any decision making.

Question 11 about "ethnic or cultural background" is similar in addressing topics that are cultural constructs and that may be differently understood by different respondents.

As for how to understand the answers to these questions and how useful they are, it's worth pointing out that very similar questions are asked in the censuses of many other countries, so there appears to be quite a widespread belief that they are useful and meaningful. The UK Office of National Statistics engaged in public consultation about the census form a few years back and then published the results; nearly all of the stakeholders consulted wanted the religion question retained for a variety of (stated) reasons, and in fact the only respondents who opposed the inclusion of the question were those who had an ideological reason for doing so. If you google it you'll find the published report on the consultation.

Finally, in the present forum it's worth pointing out that the census question provides powerful and concrete evidence of the growth of unbelief in Ireland, and a quite detailed demographic picture of the unbelieving community, and the corresponding decline in identification with a religion. Is that really information that you'd prefer not to have?

magicbastarder

eeguy wrote: »

2) the Census makes no distinction between practicing Catholics and "cultural" Catholics.

'please indicate in the box provided just how catholic you are (on a scale of 0 to 100)'

looksee

Peregrinus wrote: »

The census form doesn't "assume that you have some form of religion"; it explicitly offers "no religion" as a box you can tick.

I think eeguy's point is valid. To be a neutral question it should ask 'do you follow a religion yes/no? please specify' or words to that effect.

Peregrinus

"The objectives of the Cluniac reformation were not fully achieved due to opposition from secular authorities. Discuss.

Candidates who fail to achieve at least a Grade C in their answer to this question may not tick the 'Catholic' box."

spacecoyote

smacl wrote: »

if you accept that there are some Catholics that don't believe in God but still tow the line from a cultural standpoint, which box should they tick?

How is this in any way possible? Don't the two go hand in hand, if you identify as a catholic, by extension you have to believe in god, whether you're a practicing catholic or not.

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Peregrinus

looksee wrote: »

I think eeguy's point is valid. To be a neutral question it should ask 'do you follow a religion yes/no? please specify' or words to that effect.

Well, as pointed out back on page 2 of this thread, Ireland would be out of line internationally in taking that approach.

I understand why you feel that form of question would be "neutral", but in order to achieve what you regard as neutrality you're complicating the question and making two distinct demands on respondents - Do you follow a religion? Specify.

You'd want to talk to the occupational linguists and the psychologists about whether this makes for a better designed form, leading to a better response rate or better data, but there's a bit of a clue in the fact that no other country takes this approach, and in the fact that the other census questions are framed as simply as possible and seek to elicit only one item of information. Compound structures in census questions are not a good idea.

Basically, there's no evidence that the question "What is your religion?" confuses people who have no religion, and if you're making a case to change the question that evidence is the first thing you're going to need. "What soccer team do you follow?" is not a question that stumps people who have no interest in soccer, especially when "I have no interest in soccer" is one of the answers suggested. And I think the same goes for religion, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary.

A comparison with section 14 of the census form is interesting. Section 14 has two questions. First, "can you speak Irish?", with "Yes" and "No" boxes. Secondly, "If 'Yes', do you speak Irish . . . ," followed by boxes for "daily", "weekly", etc, all the way to "never".

In theory, you could take the same approach in section 12, first of all asking about religions identification and then following up with a qualitative question to elicit more information. But you have two problems:

First, you'd have to decide what quality you were measuring in the follow-up question. Frequency of attendance at worship? Intensity of religious belief? Fidelity to the ethical precepts of the religion? Firmness of identification? Comprehensiveness of embrace of teachings? And you'd need to choose a quality which was equally valid for/relevant to all the possible religious identifications. (Good luck with that.)

Secondly, you'd need to make a case about why the state should care about this particular quality. What public policy is served by gathering this information? What is it needed for? And, if there is a public policy objective here in gathering this information, is the census the best place to achieve it?

magicbastarder

spacecoyote wrote: »

How is this in any way possible? Don't the two go hand in hand, if you identify as a catholic, by extension you have to believe in god, whether you're a practicing catholic or not.

'please indicate if you do not profess a belief in god, but still feel a sense of shame or guilt while enjoying many practices modern ethics tells us is OK'

smacl

Peregrinus wrote: »

The sentence doesn't suggest atheism as a possible answer, but it does allow for it, since people can (and do) write "atheist" in the "other" box. As a result we can analyse the unbelieving community as between those identifying as atheists, those identifying as agnostics, those who merely state that they have no religion and those who simply don't answer the question on religion (though of course the latter group may not all be unbelievers).

Just because someone puts in atheist under Other, write in your RELIGION (n.b. their capitalisation, not mine) does not make atheism a religion. The possibility exists to write whatever nonsense you care to in that box, but that does not make every answer valid or reasonable. You could argue that the fault is largely with the question.

They should tick the box that reflects their identity (just as people should do if they have no religion but nevertheless believe in God).

Which for a Catholic that doesn't believe in God is what exactly?

Question 11 about "ethnic or cultural background" is similar in addressing topics that are cultural constructs and that may be differently understood by different respondents.

Hardly subjective in the same sense, where the principal answers are grouped under White, Black or Black Irish, Asian or Asian Irish, or Other, including mixed background. Interesting that travellers have to be White in this question.

As for how to understand the answers to these questions and how useful they are, it's worth pointing out that very similar questions are asked in the censuses of many other countries, so there appears to be quite a widespread belief that they are useful and meaningful. The UK Office of National Statistics engaged in public consultation about the census form a few years back and then published the results; nearly all of the stakeholders consulted wanted the religion question retained for a variety of (stated) reasons, and in fact the only respondents who opposed the inclusion of the question were those who had an ideological reason for doing so. If you google it you'll find the published report on the consultation.

Argumentum ad populum?

Finally, in the present forum it's worth pointing out that the census question provides powerful and concrete evidence of the growth of unbelief in Ireland, and a quite detailed demographic picture of the unbelieving community, and the corresponding decline in identification with a religion. Is that really information that you'd prefer not to have?

The information shows that the majority of Irish people identify as Catholic. What it doesn't show is that the majority of Irish people reject Catholic dogma on many social issues and would like to see a greater separation of church and state. As such, the census results on religion lend a favourable bias to the RCC which is undeserved.

Peregrinus

spacecoyote wrote: »

How is this in any way possible? Don't the two go hand in hand, if you identify as a catholic, by extension you have to believe in god, whether you're a practicing catholic or not.

Well, you may think so, but there may be people who disagree with you and who practice Catholicism and consider themselves Catholic while not believing in God, or doubting the existence of God.

More to the point, though, the Census question on religion can't assume that all religions are like Catholicism. Whatever about being Catholic while not believing in God, it's certainly possible to be, e.g., Jewish or Buddhist while not believing in God. And, on the other side, it's obviously to be not religious, yet believe in God.

The census doesn't measure belief in God at all, and doesn't attempt to.

magicbastarder

the census is not a 'behaviours and attitudes' survey; it almost by definition cannot deal in nuance, and cannot deal with non-binary questions about religion without becoming a morass.

smacl

spacecoyote wrote: »

How is this in any way possible? Don't the two go hand in hand, if you identify as a catholic, by extension you have to believe in god, whether you're a practicing catholic or not.

Seems to be common enough, even among the clergy according to this thread on the Christianity forum. I've met plenty of people who go through the motions expected of them and are nominally Catholic but when asked don't really believe it to be true. Those who still want the church wedding, church funeral, baptise their kids etc... because it is the default social behaviour rather than that they believe in God.

Peregrinus

smacl wrote: »

Just because someone puts in atheist under Other, write in your RELIGION (n.b. their capitalisation, not mine) does not make atheism a religion. The possibility exists to write whatever nonsense you care to in that box, but that does not make every answer valid or reasonable. You could argue that the fault is largely with the question.

I'm not saying that atheism is a religion. I don't believe it is.

Nor am I saying that those who write "atheist" in the box are offering an invalid answer to the question.

smacl wrote: »

Which for a Catholic that doesn't believe in God is what exactly?

"Catholic", evidently. If it wasn't, they wouldn't have ticked the "Catholic" box.

smacl wrote: »

Argumentum ad populum?

No, I don't think so. Census forms aren't designed by the masses; they're very carefully designed by people who are interested in securing solid and valuable data, and who draw on considerable experience and expertise, and who mostly have no emotional or ideological investment one way or the other in either talking up or talking down the extent of religious identification. And when a bunch of different attempts to frame a question to do this in different countries all come up with remarkable similar questions, that's probably not a coincidence; there are some principles widely accepted by statisticians and social researchers which are being applied here which tend to the conclusion that this is the optimal form of the question.

smacl wrote: »

The information shows that the majority of Irish people identify as Catholic. What it doesn't show is that the majority of Irish people reject Catholic dogma on many social issues and would like to see a greater separation of church and state. As such, the census results on religion lend a favourable bias to the RCC which is undeserved.

I disagree. The census doesn't show that that the majority reject much Catholic dogma or that they would like to see greater separation of church and state, but nor does it show or attempt to show the contrary. It offers no information at all on that subject. As such, I don't think it can be said to be biassed one way or the other.

smacl

Peregrinus wrote: »

"The objectives of the Cluniac reformation were not fully achieved due to opposition from secular authorities. Discuss.

Candidates who fail to achieve at least a Grade C in their answer to this question may not tick the 'Catholic' box."

Or even

Do you believe in God?

-Yes.

What is your religion?
.Catholic
.Protestant
.Other

-No.

Allah?

:pac:

eeguy

Peregrinus wrote: »

The census form doesn't "assume that you have some form of religion"; it explicitly offers "no religion" as a box you can tick.

Of course it assumes.

What car do you drive?
Peugeot
Honda
Nissan
Ford



No car.

wench

eeguy wrote: »

Of course it assumes.

What car do you drive?
Peugeot
Honda
Nissan
Ford



No car.

Have you looked at the actual question on car usage?

H9: How many cars or vans are owned or available for use by your household?
1
2
3
4 or more
none

eeguy

wench wrote: »

Have you looked at the actual question on car usage?

H9: How many cars or vans are owned or available for use by your household?
1
2
3
4 or more
none

My point was to show that the religion question was leading. Cars were just an example.

wench

eeguy wrote: »

My point was to show that the religion question was leading. Cars were just an example.

And mine was that the same question format is used elsewhere on the survey. It doesn't suddenly become leading when used for religion.

looksee

Mod: the car question is irrelevant, please drop it.

Peregrinus

Wench is correct: "What is your X?", where one of the possible answers is "no X" is a common form for census questions, both in Ireland and elsewhere. It's also commonly used in other information-gather exercises, and if you have evidence that it's a technique which tends to bias respondents against answering "no X" now would be a really good time to produce that evidence. Without any evidence, calling for changes to the census form is pissing into the wind, basically.

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Peregrinus

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And people who do that are not being counted as Catholics. The "78.3% Catholic" figure being quote in the papers is not 78.,3% of those who answered the question; it's 78.3% of the entire population. So this isn't something which lead to an overstatement of the number of Catholics, or which represents a bias towards Catholicism.

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Peregrinus

No, you don't. The "not stated" category is reported separately. It always has been, SFAIK. The same goes for the other census questions.

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magicbastarder

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'what is your level of education' would be considered a fair question, with a perfectly logical answer being 'none'.

eeguy

Peregrinus wrote: »

Wench is correct: "What is your X?", where one of the possible answers is "no X" is a common form for census questions, both in Ireland and elsewhere. It's also commonly used in other information-gather exercises, and if you have evidence that it's a technique which tends to bias respondents against answering "no X" now would be a really good time to produce that evidence. Without any evidence, calling for changes to the census form is pissing into the wind, basically.

Yes, because such an open question leads people to give a descriptive answer. Given that most people in this country have been raised Catholic, they're more likely to answer Catholic even if they don't believe and don't go to mass, instead of a binary "no" answer.

You're correct that its used in information gathering, but in this case you may be getting incorrect information.

Given the discussions around Catholic control of schools and hospitals, we really should get the most accurate data, rather than rely on people throwing "Catholic" on the form because its the first box on the list, rather than provoking the question "Am I religious?"

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eeguy

magicbastarder wrote: »

'what is your level of education' would be considered a fair question, with a perfectly logical answer being 'none'.

University of life or school of hard knocks?

infogiver

magicbastarder wrote: »

the census is not a 'behaviours and attitudes' survey; it almost by definition cannot deal in nuance, and cannot deal with non-binary questions about religion without becoming a morass.

I'm giggling here because I'm imagining a kind of reverse Spanish Inquisition where if you tick the Catholic box a bunch of pro secularists will burst in the kitchen door immediately with the torture equipment in a big suitcase:
"When were you last at confession?"
"When is ascension Sunday?"
"Sing Tantum Ergo!All of it!!!"

smacl

Peregrinus wrote: »

I disagree. The census doesn't show that that the majority reject much Catholic dogma or that they would like to see greater separation of church and state, but nor does it show or attempt to show the contrary. It offers no information at all on that subject. As such, I don't think it can be said to be biassed one way or the other.

Biased is probably the wrong word as to some it could suggest intention. The principal reason that questions tend not to change on the census is because to introduce change affects the potential to compare data from one survey to the next, which is seen as of paramount important to statisticians keen to investigate trends. The problem here is that being a Catholic in the 60s or 70s has very different implications from being a Catholic today, where the former was indicative of broad support for the Catholic church and adherence to Catholic dogma whereas the latter is primarily a personal choice that carries no such baggage. As such the comparative value of the data is flawed, as we're not really comparing like with like, yet the results fail to highlight this. Rather than saying the question is biased, I'd say the CSO are over invested in not changing questions as to do so fecks up their natty little graphs. As a result of this, I'd say by not revising the census we're missing a rare opportunity to measure the actual state of religiosity and secularism in this country. TBH, I couldn't care less about how many people identify as atheist or Catholic as these are personal subjective choices. I would be interested in knowing how many people would identify as secularist as this is a useful statistic for how we mould society moving forward. Looking at the controversy surrounding the likes of the NMH, the citizens assembly, and attitudes towards LGBT equality, there would appear to be a sea change Irish behaviour that the census is entirely failing to capture.

smacl

infogiver wrote: »

I'm giggling here because I'm imagining a kind of reverse Spanish Inquisition where if you tick the Catholic box a bunch of pro secularists will burst in the kitchen door immediately with the torture equipment in a big suitcase"

Really? So far as I can tell, at least as many Catholics are also secularists as not. If we're talking about torturing people for not adhering to the right religious dogma, going to be very hard to outdo the Vatican

infogiver

smacl wrote: »

Really? So far as I can tell, at least as many Catholics are also secularists as not. If we're talking about torturing people for not adhering to the right religious dogma, going to be very hard to outdo the Vatican

I think your taking me too seriously altogether

iguana

....... wrote: »

Is it not a legal requirement to go to school in this country until you are 15 or so?

No. It's a legal requirement for children to receive a minimum level of education. How the child receives that minimum education is up to the parents.

robindch

Peregrinus wrote: »

What public policy is served by gathering this information? What is it needed for? And, if there is a public policy objective here in gathering this information, is the census the best place to achieve it?

The RCC and our good friends, the Ionanists, use this information to justify their continued control of a significant amount of state-funded services - mostly schools and hospitals - the two refuges of the uninformed + the gullible and the sick + the receptive.

The question "What religion are you" consists of two questions "Do you have a religion?" and, "If yes, what is your religion?" By careful conflation of two questions into one, and by ordering of choices to leave the main religions listed first with "none" at the end, the CSO is tilting the odds slightly, but noticeably, in favour of the RCC's political aims. In any case, the CSO provides no information regarding what the question actually means in the first place - and it could be legitimately interpreted as "What religion were you born into?", "What religion claims you?", "What religion do you primarily feel you belong to", "What religion do you practice?", "What religion do you believe that selecting here will improve something?" and no doubt a few more.

We know that this tilt is happening because - for example - of the decline of what might be termed religious morality as defined by the RCC, by the decline in the number of weddings in RCC premises, by the often-observed collapse in the numbers attending church and the virtual disappearance of any priests younger than sixty years old.

The relative stability of the figures provided by the census suggests that these figures themselves are the ones which are wildly outlying, and therefore predictably inaccurate.

robindch

infogiver wrote: »

I think your taking me too seriously altogether

If you don't want to be taken seriously, you might wish to consider posting, not in A+A where posters usually aim to be interesting, humorous or both, but here.

magicbastarder

he made a joke, someone took it seriously, so he mentioned 'it was just a joke', and gets a warning?

what is this, the spanish inquisition?

beauf

I wasn't expecting that....