Believing—Part 1

Abstract

Orthodox beliefs, alternative beliefs, and religious experience, as evidenced by sample surveys, are the focus of this chapter. Belief in God, particularly in a personal God, has declined significantly, as has belief in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. Belief in an afterlife, which was stable until the 2000s, is also now falling; so, too, is belief in heaven, hell, and reincarnation. However, a myriad of alternative beliefs, stoked nowadays by social media and fake news, remain pervasive, including among young people and orthodox believers, but they are often highly individualized, rather than forming a coherent intellectual system. Moreover, the extent to which, collectively or severally, they can be considered as ‘religious’ is a matter of debate (especially with imported beliefs that have tended to secularize in the United Kingdom). A similar consideration applies to religious experience, an active field of quantitative research before the millennium, albeit, regrettably, not since.