Poll shows more Brits believe in both aliens and ghosts than believe in God

This poll was conducted by Ripley's Believe It Or Not! London so take it for what it's worth. I think another thing worth mentioning is that believing in the existence in extraterrestrial life isn't the same as believing in extraterrestrial visitation/contact/occupation/etc.

Now that I got those caveats out of the way. From OpenMinds.tv (via Obscuragator):

This poll, conducted by Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! London, found that, out of 1,500 adults polled, more than half believe in aliens, whereas only a quarter said they believe in God. Sixty-four percent of the 500 kids polled said they believe in aliens, whereas thirty-three percent said they believe in God. And, surprisingly, twenty-six percent of these kids actually believe that aliens are not only here on Earth, but are also disguised as humans.

I felt this required a little more confirmation so I Google'd it and found it on a few (mostly UK) sources, including Metro.co.uk:

The poll also showed that adults are more likely to believe in ghosts than possess a belief in the almighty father.

From the children polled, nearly two thirds believe that aliens and ghosts existed, whilst half were confident of the existence of UFO’s.

Ripley's is not a typically cited pollster but maybe that's a good thing!

But that is crazy! It's bat crap crazy.

People are so ill-informed!

God was not born on Earth ... therefore ... He is an ALIEN

God is an Alien by simple elimination and common sense.

Now, as for Ghosts, it seems like they were born on Earth, so they are not Aliens.



P

Well if that's the case, it is now the time for all the lords in Britain to be relinquished of their respective duties.

There really is no need for them, if you don't believe in them.

well gods losing his appeal when theres still no proof of his existence,another 100 years then that believe maybe going out of excistence,the world is changing people.

originally posted by: sparky31
well gods losing his appeal when theres still no proof of his existence,another 100 years then that believe maybe going out of excistence,the world is changing people.

The Abrahamic religions are in their death throes. People will have to figure out how to start religions based on aliens and ghosts -- with collection plates, of course.

originally posted by: Tangerine

originally posted by: sparky31
well gods losing his appeal when theres still no proof of his existence,another 100 years then that believe maybe going out of excistence,the world is changing people.

The Abrahamic religions are in their death throes. People will have to figure out how to start religions based on aliens and ghosts -- with collection plates, of course.

I'll just throw this out there for anyone desiring to start a UFO cult — probably can't go wrong with a saucer shaped collection plate!

I don't have any confidence in public opinion.

Public opinion has given us Labour and Conservative governments since 1945.

a reply to: theantediluvian

they poled 1500 people out of 63.7 million or so , so how does this represent the british people ?

originally posted by: tom.farnhill
a reply to: theantediluvian

they poled 1500 people out of 63.7 million or so , so how does this represent the british people ?

Do you understand statistics? The poll was probably not conducted properly so the results are not scientific. However, it is possible to poll a small number of people and extrapolate results from that number. However, why do you doubt that belief in God is waning in Britain? That's pretty well known. The Abrahamic religions are in their death throes.

a reply to: Tangerine

The Abrahamic religions are in their death throes.

I'm not as sure about that as you. Islam and Christianity have framed the conflicts we see occurring in the world these past two decades.

On-topic - People have believed in ghosts since before monotheistic religions so that aspect is unsurprising. It's a part of the human experience to have first or second-hand encounters with the *unknown.* Belief in 'aliens' is possibly a hard-wired extension of society's general suspicions of there being something more to life than we can directly account for.

originally posted by: Kandinsky
a reply to: Tangerine

The Abrahamic religions are in their death throes.

I'm not as sure about that as you. Islam and Christianity have framed the conflicts we see occurring in the world these past two decades.

On-topic - People have believed in ghosts since before monotheistic religions so that aspect is unsurprising. It's a part of the human experience to have first or second-hand encounters with the *unknown.* Belief in 'aliens' is possibly a hard-wired extension of society's general suspicions of there being something more to life than we can directly account for.

The three Abrahamic religions have, indeed, framed the conflicts we see occurring in the world these past several decades. But I think that's symptomatic of their death throes. They're frantic and going out with a bang. Of course they'll probably take the rest of us with them--or most of the rest of us.

I should have said that the Abrahamic religions are fading in the Western world, especially Europe.

a reply to: Tangerine

I guess we'll see and 'finger's crossed' that the temperature comes down in the ME too.

a reply to: theantediluvian

Whats to say Aliens, Ghosts and Gods don't all come from the same place?

That being up the way!

a reply to: Tangerine

i was questioning the fact that they polled 1500 people out of a total of 63.7 million and then made their claim that the british peoples belief in god is waning .

i could poll 1500 people in cornwall and then claim the the british people prefer cider to beer .

the point that i was making was that the percentage is to small to make any sense or be of any use .

originally posted by: tom.farnhill
a reply to: Tangerine

i was questioning the fact that they polled 1500 people out of a total of 63.7 million and then made their claim that the british peoples belief in god is waning .

i could poll 1500 people in cornwall and then claim the the british people prefer cider to beer .

the point that i was making was that the percentage is to small to make any sense or be of any use .

The percentage is probably not too small if proper statistical methods were used. Of course, they weren't used so, bottom line, the results aren't valid. Nevertheless, isn't it well known that, at the very least, church-going in Britain has bottomed-out?

a reply to: tom.farnhill

Actually, a decent pollster using good methods can get accurate results with as few as 800 people, with a margin of error of only a few %.. Usually, they use a larger sample size, which generally makes the results more accurate.

What you're proposing by asking "1500 from Cornwall" would not be a representative of the population, even of Cornwall, unless you made sure you had the right mix of men, women, age groups, social economic groupings etc that represented a slice of the population.

There is a whole science behind opinion polls - it's worth looking into it.