GOD IS OK - IT IS JUST THE RELIGION BIT WE DONT LIKE Australia is one of the least devout countries in the Western world, although two-thirds of its population identifies itself as Christian, an international survey has found. Religion does not play a central part in the lives of many Australians: 48 per cent of Australians surveyed said they did not partake in personal prayer and 52 per cent said they rarely attended a place of worship. The survey questioned 21,000 adults. It found that levels of religious identity in Australia were on par with Germany and Switzerland, significantly less than the US but greater than Britain.Forty-four per cent of Australians considered themselves religious but said religion did not play a central role in their lives, a third said they did not believe in a divine power or in life after death. Half the Australians surveyed considered religion the least important when compared with family, partners, work and career, leisure time and politics. Worldwide, the young are more religious than reputed, with only 13 per cent having no appreciation for God or faith in general, so expressions of faith during the recent World Youth Day should have come as no surprise.Australians had a largely positive perception of God. Most thought of God as a loving, kind-hearted being and there was a strong religious vitality among the nation's youth, with one in five considered to be deeply religious, the survey found. Seventy-two per cent of Australia's young adults believe in God or a divine power and/or a life after death - this is even more than in the over-60 age group. Almost half of those under 30 said that they partake in prayer on a more or less regular basis and the same proportion see God as a personal being. These figures clearly refute the assumption that religious belief is dwindling. On average, Church attenders are older, better educated and more likely to be female, married and born overseas. Catholics represented the largest faith group and Christian denomination in Australia, but were not the most devout. That was left to a small group of free church and Pentecostal Protestants. Source: Compiled by APN from media reports
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