Friday 9 March 2007

51% deified

According to a recent poll 60% of Australians think Jesus is either God (51%) or specially connected to God (9%). In other words, the majority of Australians think very highly of Jesus. This is also significant, because it assumes people's belief in the existence of God to start with, a fact often undermined in reports about secular society. When I last looked, the world's population was 6.7 billion, and according to the Cambridge Companion to Atheism only 500-750 million of them are atheists (that's just over 11%). God is still in the house, and Jesus is more often than not with him.

People surveyed were also asked who they thought Jesus would vote for—Kevin Rudd or John Howard. 27% said Rudd, 14% Howard, but a very wise 30% said they were unsure. Pollsters would no doubt be intrigued by the stat that among 'regular churchgoers' (whatever that means), despite being painted as conservatives by most people, Kevin Rudd is just ahead by 25% to 19%.

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

According to your posted link 51% of Australians believe that Jesus is the Son of God. What the Son of God means may be different from person to person. So the claim that 51% of Australians think Jesus is God is perhaps not an accurate description of the poll result. But if it is accurate then it is a poor reflection the ability of the churches to teach the message of the incarnation, if more than half of the population can give assent to the the poll question in a way that would ignore his humanity.