United Kingdom Census 2001 - Religion

Religion

Although the 1851 census had included a question about religion on a separate response sheet, whose completion was not compulsory, the 2001 census was the first in Great Britain to ask about the religion of respondents on the main census form. An amendment to the 1920 Census Act (the Census (Amendment) Act 2000) was passed by Parliament to allow the question to be asked, and to allow the response to this question to be optional. The inclusion of the question enabled the Jedi census phenomenon to take place in the United Kingdom. In England and Wales 390,127 people stated their religion as Jedi, as did 14,052 people in Scotland. The percentages of religious affiliations were:

  • Christian: 72.0%
  • Muslim: 3%
  • Hindu: 1%
  • Sikh: 0.6%
  • Jewish: 0.5%
  • Buddhist: 0.3%
  • Any other religion: 0.3%

15% declared themselves of no religion (including Jedi at 0.7%, so more than declared themselves as Sikh, Jewish or Buddhist) and 8% did not respond to the question.

Read more about this topic:  United Kingdom Census 2001

Famous quotes containing the word religion:

    Where beauty is worshipped for beauty’s sake as a goddess, independent of and superior to morality and philosophy, the most horrible putrefaction is apt to set in. The lives of the aesthetes are the far from edifying commentary on the religion of beauty.
    Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)

    Democracy and Republicanism in their best partisan utterances alike declare for human rights. Jefferson, the father of Democracy, Lincoln, the embodiment of Republicanism, and the Divine author of the religion on which true civilization rests, all proclaim the equal rights of all men.
    Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)

    I told him that Goldsmith had said,... “As I take my shoes from the shoemaker, and my coat from the taylor, so I take my religion from the priest.” I regretted this loose way of talking. JOHNSON. Sir, he knows nothing; he has made up his mind about nothing.”
    Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)