As was the case in , most religiously unaffiliated people continue to express some level of belief in God or a universal spirit. Nearly one-in-ten U. There is considerable variation in the way members of different religious groups conceive of God.
For example, seven-in-ten Christians think of God as a person with whom people can have a relationship. Among non-Christian faiths, it is more common to see God as an impersonal force. Although the share of adults who believe in God has declined modestly in recent years, among those who do believe in God, views about the nature of God are little changed since In both and , roughly two-thirds of people who believe in God said they think of God as a person, while just under three-in-ten see God as an impersonal force.
The survey also finds that, overall, women are more likely than men to say they believe in heaven, and those with less than a college degree are more likely than those with a college degree to express this view. Slightly bigger shares of blacks and Hispanics than whites say they believe in heaven, and older Americans are slightly more likely than younger adults to hold this belief. In many cases, however, these demographic differences in belief in heaven are smaller within religious traditions than among the public as a whole.
Among evangelical Protestants, for example, men are just as likely as women to believe in heaven, and young people are just as likely as older evangelicals to hold this belief. However, there are minimal differences between men and women and between younger and older adults on this question.
Among members of other Christian traditions, smaller majorities say the Bible is the word of God. There has been little change in recent years in the share of Christians who believe the Bible should be interpreted literally, word for word. For the most part, however, differences in beliefs about the Bible are larger across religious traditions e.
Respondents in the survey who are affiliated with a religion were asked to choose one of three statements that best reflects their view of how their religion should engage with modernity. Muslims are closely divided on whether their religion should preserve traditional beliefs and practices or adjust traditional beliefs and practices in light of new circumstances.
Another key adaptation that may help religious belief derives from our ability to to anthropomorphise objects. Have you ever seen the outline of a person only to realise that it is actually a coat hung on the door?
This capacity to attribute human forms and behaviours to non-human things shows we also readily endow non-human entities, such as gods, with the same qualities that we possess and, as such, make it easier to connect with them. In addition to these psychological aspects, the ritual behaviour seen in collective worship makes us enjoy and want to repeat the experience. Dancing, singing and achieving trance-like states were prominent in many ancestral societies and are still exhibited by some today — including the Sentinelese people , and Australian aborigines.
As well as being acts of social unity, even more formal rituals also alter brain chemistry. They increase levels of serotonin, dopamine, and oxytocin in the brain — chemicals that make us feel good, want to do things again and provide a closeness to others.
In Russia, by contrast, the nationalistic overtones of both Rodnovery and the Orthodox church wins them tacit political backing. Online movements gain followers at rates unimaginable in the past. MeToo started out as a hashtag expressing anger and solidarity but now stands for real changes to long-standing social norms.
And Extinction Rebellion has striven, with considerable success, to trigger a radical shift in attitudes to the crises in climate change and biodiversity. None of these are religions, of course, but they do share parallels with nascent belief systems — particularly that key functionalist objective of fostering a sense of community and shared purpose. Some have confessional and sacrificial elements, too. So, given time and motivation, could something more explicitly religious grow out of an online community?
The full proposition is a complicated logic puzzle, but crudely put, it goes that when a benevolent super-intelligence emerges, it will want to do as much good as possible — and the earlier it comes into existence, the more good it will be able to do. An artificial super-intelligence could have some of the qualities of a deity Credit: Getty Images. Predictably, that only made the idea explode across the internet — or at least the geekier parts of it — with references to the Basilisk popping up everywhere from news sites to Doctor Who , despite protestations from some Rationalists that no-one really took it seriously.
Their case was not helped by the fact that many Rationalists are strongly committed to other startling ideas about artificial intelligence, ranging from AIs that destroy the world by accident to human-machine hybrids that would transcend all mortal limitations.
Such esoteric beliefs have arisen throughout history, but the ease with which we can now build a community around them is new. The 17th-Century French mathematician suggested non-believers should nonetheless go through the motions of religious observance, just in case a vengeful God does turn out to exist. Now there is, comes the reply.
Levandowski, who made a fortune through self-driving cars, hit the headlines in when it became public knowledge that he had founded a church, Way of the Future , dedicated to bringing about a peaceful transition to a world mostly run by super-intelligent machines. We plan on doing so by keeping track of who has done what and for how long to help the peaceful and respectful transition.
Levandowski is not alone. Other fledgling transhumanist religious movements focus on immortality — a new spin on the promise of eternal life. Still others ally themselves with older faiths, notably Mormonism. Are these movements for real? But as missionary religions know, what begins as a mere flirtation or idle curiosity — perhaps piqued by a resonant statement or appealing ceremony — can end in a sincere search for truth.
The UK census found that Jediism, the fictional faith observed by the good guys in Star Wars , was the fourth largest religion: nearly , people had been inspired to claim it, initially by a tongue-in-cheek online campaign. Ten years later, it had dropped to seventh place, leading many to dismiss it as a prank. But as Singler notes, that is still an awful lot of people — and a lot longer than most viral campaigns endure. But officials who apparently assumed it was not a genuine census answer did not record it as such.
Scientology was barred from recognition as a religion for many years in the UK because it did not have a Supreme Being — something that could also be said of Buddhism. In fact, recognition is a complex issue worldwide, particularly since that there is no widely accepted definition of religion even in academic circles. The acid test, as true for neopagans as for transhumanists, is whether people make significant changes to their lives consistent with their stated faith.
And such changes are exactly what the founders of some new religious movements want. Official status is irrelevant if you can win thousands or even millions of followers to your cause. After a decade spent working on engineering solutions to climate change, its founder Olya Irzak came to the conclusion that the real problem lay not some much in finding technical solutions, but in winning social support for them.
So three years ago, Irzak and some friends set about building one. Periodically they include rituals, particularly at traditional holidays. At Reverse Christmas, the Witnesses plant a tree rather than cutting one down; on Glacier Memorial Day, they watch blocks of ice melt in the California sun.
The congregation numbers a few hundred, but Irzak, as a good engineer, is committed to testing out ways to grow that number. Among other things, she is considering a Sunday School to teach children ways of thinking about how complex systems work. Recently, the Witnesses have been looking further afield, including to a ceremony conducted across the Middle East and central Asia just before the spring equinox: purification by throwing something unwanted into a fire — a written wish, or an actual object — and then jumping over it.
Recast as an effort to rid the world of environmental ills, it proved a popular addition to the liturgy. Transhumanism, Jediism, the Witnesses of Climatology and the myriad of other new religious movements may never amount to much.
But perhaps the same could have been said for the small groups of believers who gathered around a sacred flame in ancient Iran, three millennia ago, and whose fledgling belief grew into one of the largest, most powerful and enduring religions the world has ever seen — and which is still inspiring people today. But maybe the two images are equals: the visit of the Wise Men to the baby Jesus is just another story to tell.
A parochet is a curtain that covers the Ark chamber which contains the holy Torah scrolls in a Jewish synagogue. It creates a physical barrier between the human realm and that of divine truth, and communicates that believers are in the presence of holy mysteries. This parochet is beautifully decorated: embroidered flowers flourish around symbols of Jewish worship. In the centre are the Ten Commandments, which God handed down to Moses on two stone tablets.
These form the basis of a moral code for people to live by, providing a clear sense of right and wrong. The community who worshipped at this synagogue would have been reminded of these lessons whenever they saw their parochet. This statue probably represents Odudua, an earth goddess revered by the Yoruba people of West Africa. Her face shows the marks of deliberate scarring a sign of great beauty and she wears fine jewellery. The statue is carved from solid ebony, and the artist depicts Odudua as a powerful, maternal figure.
The Yoruba believe that she helps to guarantee fertility, safe pregnancy and the birth of a healthy child. Many religions use ceremonies and works of art to mark key moments in the life-cycle: birth, the end of childhood, marriage and death. These rituals and objects provide structure to life, create bonds within a community, and help people to make sense of transitions and feel protected.
Beneath him, little men and women are kneeling. They represent the family who paid for the embroidery to be made. By doing so, and by including their portraits within it, they hoped to gain blessings that would secure them a good reincarnation, moving them closer to nirvana.
An ex-voto is a gift left at a shrine in thanks for divine attention. This one shows a man in Rome who has been hit on the head by a falling flower-pot! Luckily, the Madonna and Christ Child who we see hovering in the sky above him have protected him from serious harm. For centuries Catholics around the world have produced ex-votos to show their gratitude for the miraculous interventions of holy figures in their lives. Many ex-votos refer to healings from sickness or accidents. In a world that can feel dangerous and uncertain, it is comforting to believe that you can face the trials of everyday life with divine help and protection.
Scientology is a set of beliefs — including the belief in an alien overlord called Xenu — developed by the American science-fiction writer, L.
Ron Hubbard. Like in other religions, Scientologists believe that you are essentially a spiritual entity that can survive the death of your body. The Church of Scientology has been and continues to be a controversial organisation. For example, it wages a campaign against psychiatry, denouncing it as unscientific.
Joining the Church of Scientology involves signing a legal contract promising not to leave the organisation for one billion years and giving large financial donations. Its most famous member is the American film star, Tom Cruise. He joined in and has since made some pretty remarkable statements. For that reason, many European governments have labelled it as a cult. Cruise himself is known to have tried to charm the governments of countries where Scientology is in legal trouble.
Kabbalah is an ancient esoteric branch of Judaism that focuses on the mystical interpretation of the Bible. The Kabbalah Centre attempts to show how these mystical teachings have a universal spiritual significance that can be applied in everyday life. Imagine that! I started to see patterns in my life. I woke up. It also influenced her music, in particular, the album Ray of Light. Her Super Bowl Halftime Show was similarly full of esoteric symbolism: for example, the stage displayed a huge piercing eye, as well as a winged sun-disk used by ancient Egyptian mystics.
However, some Jewish scholars accuse Madonna of distorting and commercialising Kabbalah. This is sometimes referred to as cultural appropriation i. What do you think? Starring in blockbuster franchises like Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean, actor Orlando Bloom felt he needed some peace and quiet in his life.
For that reason, he converted to Buddhism during a ceremony at the Soka Gakkai International Centre in Britain in
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