God Survey

There have been some huge changes in the religious beliefs of Canadians during my lifetime.   The pace of change is accelerating faster and faster.  Why is this occurring, and what does it mean?

Figure 1

According to the 2017 CROP Panorama survey of 6,288 Canadians surveyed, only 65% of us still believe there is a God.

In 2005, there used to be 81% of Canadians who believed.  That is a 2.02%/yr drop on average over this 11 year period.  This exponential decay rate cuts the number of believers in half every 35 years.

But what kind of God do people believe in?

Figure 2 shows that in 2016, just 22% believe the dogma taught by their chosen religion.  In 1998, it used to be 36% who believed the dogma of their organized religion.

Figure 2

The biggest group believes in a god they fashioned for themselves.  This is sometimes referred to as a "Smorgasbord god", where you pick and choose the various aspects and characteristics of the God you wish to believe in; a customized god exactly to your liking.  In this way, your god can always be pleased about you, for your Designer god likes and supports everything you choose to do, or refrain from doing.  Of course, your customized god is not the God of the Bible, but you're OK with that.  It is curious that this freedom god choice has declined since 1998.

Figure 3

N.B.   When you create your own customized god, this is worshiping an idol you created in your own mind.  You are not worshiping the one true God of the Bible.  This is sin contrary to God's Commandment #2 (You shall not make for yourself any idol, nor bow down to it or worship it.).  Now, back to our surveys.

The third type of god is "A force of which we are all part"; a pantheism where Mother Earth, every rock, tree, and life on the planet communes with all us humans, and us with them.  Exactly what this means, I am not sure, but it appears to be some modern (or ancient) form of Spiritualism.  This has significantly increased since 1998, growing at 3.7%/yr, doubling and re-doubling every 19.1 years.

The fourth type of god is the Atheistic Materialism defined by "Life is a purely biological phenomena".  In 1998, this was just 7% of the people, but has grown to be 20% of the population in 2016, a growth rate of 6%/yr on average; doubling and re-doubling every 11.7 years.

How strong are these beliefs in god?

In Figure 3 for 2017, only 21% said their religious beliefs were very important to them.  Of those who felt it was very important or somewhat important was a total of 49% of people surveyed.

Figure 4

Figure 4 shows the trend in strength of religious beliefs has been dropping like a stone since Year 2000, dropping at 7.36%/yr on average; halfing and halfing again every 9.5 years.

As religious beliefs get watered down by customized god, Spirituality, or Darwinistic Materialism, we get the double whammy effect as all religious beliefs become less and less important in the life of the average Canadian.

As a business consultant and marketing expert, their usual advice to a business would be to "understand the customer's needs, then serve those needs".  In their report and Blog, CROP says:

"If they [the Church] want to stay socially relevant, these institutions have some serious catching up to do to get back in sync with people's values."

Figure 5

 In the USA, 63% are absolutely certain about their belief in God.

In Europe, it's even worse.

Figure 5 shows that Romania ("Rou" on map, dark blue colour code) is the most religious country, where 55% of adults say they are highly religious, 50% say religion is important in their lives, 50% attend a worship service at least monthly, 44% pray daily, and 64% believe in God with absolute certainty.

Estonia ("EST' on map, light blue colour code) is the least religious country, where 7% of adults say they are highly religious, 6% say religion is important in their lives, 10% attend a worship service at least monthly, 9% pray daily, and only 13% believe in God with absolute certainty.

We have a lot of work in front of us if we are going to save the majority so as to get them to Heaven.