The good BHA (the British Humanist Association) are campaigning for a change in next year’s national census. The problem? The question “What is your religion?” leads to a very distorted picture of the state of religion in the UK.
As the BHA explain on their website, asking “What is your religion?” implies that you DO have a religion, and it prompts people to tick a religion, regardless of how strongly they hold their beliefs. For example, someone who goes to church every week may tick the same box as someone who was baptized but never thinks about church. Consequently, people of religion are hugely over-represented, and all thanks to this one biased question.
This over-representation of the religious population has been used to justify various detrimental religious policies, including the expansion of faith based schools and keeping the 26 Bishops in the House of Lords as of right. To help stop this, if in doubt choose ‘no religion’ in 2011!