Religion and violence: what British people think about the connection between the two
Theos releases report: Killing in the Name of God: Addressing Religiously Inspired Violence, by Robin Gill.
[…] As part of our project on religion and violence, we commissioned the polling company ComRes to investigate what the British public thinks about the topic, testing their perceptions of eight statements about the interrelationship between the two.
The results were as instructive as they were unclear. In the first instance, the population did not, as a rule, think that religions were inherently violent, only 32% agreeing with that statement (and only 8% agreeing strongly) compared to 55% who disagreed. Men, older respondents, people from social grades C2 and DE and non-believers were more disposed to seeing an inherent connection between the two, but the difference was rarely huge. Conversely, however, nearly half the adult population (47%) agreed with the strong statement that ’The world would be a more peaceful place if no one was religious‘, a figure that rose to over half for men and people aged 35-54, and to over 60% among religious ‘nones’.
Only religious respondents themselves tended to disagree on balance with this statement. So: religions are not inherently violent but for many the world would be a better place if no one was religious.
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