New survey by Humanist Society Scotland Sheds Light on Religious Change in the Country

In the 2011 census of Scotland, the country got to know that more people were falling under the “No religion” category , a common change among a large number of Western countries. In that survey, 36.7% of the participants stated they didn’t have any affiliation with religious organizations. Going back to the 2001 census, it is observable that this figure hovered around 28%.

The census also highlighted another change in the country, where 52% of the marriages in Scotland were a part of civil ceremonies, rather than religious ones. Also, local government officers were the individuals conducting these ceremonies. If anyone were to go all the way to census in 1971, the official figure for these types of marriages stood at 31%.

Growing change among the Scottish

The Humanist Society Scotland published a survey with the help of Survation, a polling firm, to know about the current spiritual and religious beliefs among the Scottish population. The results of the survey show the degree of change that has taken place in the country over the past few years.

With over 1,000 participants, 59% of the individuals identified themselves as non-religious. Going deeper into this figure, 62% of the women and 55% of the men gave this answer. 51% of the individuals said they don’t believe life exists after death, 60%have the opinion that angels are non-existent. Also, 65% believe evil spirits don’t exist while 67% of the participants fail to believe there are divine miracles.

After going through these findings, Gordon MacRae, the Chief Executive of Humanist Society Scotland made several statements. He understands there is a significant number of people who don’t associate themselves with any religion. Also, he wants people to know the number of people who believe in religion is in the minority. Due to this reason, he believes Scotland can no longer call itself a country based on faith.

He said public service providers must identify the requirements of the whole population, even if they are not religious. He added to this statement by saying there were several occasions where requests by non-religious people were called “anti-religious,” or “militant.”

According to MacRae, local authorities, hospitals, schools, and other people can no longer make an assumption Scotland is a faith-based country when the majority fall into the non-religious category.

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