A recent poll in New Zealand showed that the majority of the population are against having Christianoty as thier official religion.
Only 35% (a third) agree with christianity being the official religion of New Zealand.
"To put this in context, in the 2006 census more than two million New Zealanders, or 55.6 per cent of those who answered the Census question about religious affiliation, said they were affiliated with a Christian religion." Said Mr Kalafatelis, The director of Research New Zealand.
The poll found men to be more opposed to Christianity than women with 63% of men disagreeing compared to 54% of women. The poll also found that under 18's were also more opposed than women. it's a sure sign that the youth are starting to move away from organzided religion.
Research New Zealand, a social and business research company, polled 501 randomly selected people aged 15 and over, between June 7 and 9.
The survey followed a call from Destiny Church leader Brian Tamaki for official recognition of Christianity.
If your head of state has to be a member of one particular church (Anglican/Church of England) and cannot be a member of, or even married to a member of another church (the Catholic church), then you already have an official religion.
ReplyDeleteI'm visiting NZ from London in late June this year for a few weeks and will be touring the North and South islands by car.
ReplyDeleteI'm one of the founders of a new atheist organization in the UK that has the sole purpose of 'the advancement of atheism'. We describe ourselves as strong/positive atheists who actively oppose religion and all the harm it does. We do not tolerate or respect religious claims or beliefs, irrespective of this causing offence to the individual who holds these beliefs; it is the belief we are targetting and not the individual who holds such beliefs or faith.
We welcome any links we can make with similar organizations and I would be interested in liasing or meeting with strong atheists when I visit NZ.
Many thanks,
Kind regards,
Mark
marketon@aol.com