{"id":266,"date":"2010-07-07T18:12:00","date_gmt":"2010-07-07T17:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/epiphenom\/2010\/07\/what-values-motivate-the-non-religious-in-the-uk.html"},"modified":"2014-11-12T05:04:00","modified_gmt":"2014-11-12T04:04:00","slug":"what-values-motivate-non-religious-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/epiphenom\/2010\/07\/what-values-motivate-non-religious-in.html","title":{"rendered":"What values motivate the non-religious in the UK?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Most research on religion is done in the US, a country which is something of an outlier among modernised nations because of the importance of religion in daily life. So, for example, the non-religious in the US tend to be \u2018disagreeable\u2019<\/a> (meaning that they are nonconformist and prefer to go their own way). But is this something general about the non-religious, or does it simply tell us something about what it takes to be openly non-religious in the USA?<\/p>\n

So a recent analysis of the values of the religious and the non-religious in the UK is particularly interesting. The UK is moderately godless \u2013 few people go to Church, and a substantial minority (30-40%) don\u2019t believe in God.<\/p>\n

The researchers sent surveys to 2,000 people in two towns in the south east of England (Woking and Guildford, to be precise) and got 260 back. So it\u2019s not exactly a random sample! They asked people about their values, using a standard scale (the Schwartz Value Scale) which splits values into nine broad categories.<\/p>\n

You can see their main findings in the figure. Basically, the peaks relate to values that are endorsed more strongly by the religious. The troughs relate to values that are endorsed more strongly by the non-religious.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>These are the values held dear by the non-religious in the UK:<\/p>\n