sociologu
“Claims that the UK is now a secular society are wrong. Both religious activity and religious belief are flourishing.” To what extent do sociological arguments and evidence support this view?”
Sociologists have long been divided on the issue of whether the UK is now a secular society. By this we mean is religious activity and religious belief declining? Religious activity is the participation of religious activities, examples of these include: Sunday morning church services, baptisms and church weddings. Whereas religious belief is the belief in the supernatural or spiritual aspects of religion. Sociologists, who agree that secularisation is taking place, also will agree that the main cause is an increasingly rational, scientific outlook in society which is incompatible with religion. Secularisation, defined by Wilson, is a process “Whereby religion loses its influence over the various spheres of social life”. However, this argument is questionable as not all sociologists will agree, instead they will argue that that secularisation is not present or it is not changing. In the following answer i will assess whether both religious activity and religious belief are flourishing or not.
The British Social Attitudes Survey shows that the percentage of the population attending church in England was 11.1 per cent. However, in 2005 this had drastically declined to 6.6 per cent. Crockett (1998) estimated that in the year of 1851 40% or more of the adult population attended church on Sundays. This is a much higher figure than today, which has led many sociologists to claim the 19th Century was a “Golden Age” for religion, but this is an open debate. Further evidence supports the view that religious activity has fallen, evidence for this is the number of baptisms and church weddings has fallen, however these do remain more popular than Sunday church services. Yet only a third of weddings in 2006 were in a church. One measure of the institutional weakness of
Sociologists have long been divided on the issue of whether the UK is now a secular society. By this we mean is religious activity and religious belief declining? Religious activity is the participation of religious activities, examples of these include: Sunday morning church services, baptisms and church weddings. Whereas religious belief is the belief in the supernatural or spiritual aspects of religion. Sociologists, who agree that secularisation is taking place, also will agree that the main cause is an increasingly rational, scientific outlook in society which is incompatible with religion. Secularisation, defined by Wilson, is a process “Whereby religion loses its influence over the various spheres of social life”. However, this argument is questionable as not all sociologists will agree, instead they will argue that that secularisation is not present or it is not changing. In the following answer i will assess whether both religious activity and religious belief are flourishing or not.
The British Social Attitudes Survey shows that the percentage of the population attending church in England was 11.1 per cent. However, in 2005 this had drastically declined to 6.6 per cent. Crockett (1998) estimated that in the year of 1851 40% or more of the adult population attended church on Sundays. This is a much higher figure than today, which has led many sociologists to claim the 19th Century was a “Golden Age” for religion, but this is an open debate. Further evidence supports the view that religious activity has fallen, evidence for this is the number of baptisms and church weddings has fallen, however these do remain more popular than Sunday church services. Yet only a third of weddings in 2006 were in a church. One measure of the institutional weakness of