BBC's Spurious Reports on 'Religion Dying Out'.

[Teddy Bear]

It's heartening that more and more of the mainstream media are becoming aware of the different elements of BBC bias, and their techniques for perpetrating it, and report on it.

The BBC puts out two spurious reports about religion dying out, just before the Census. How strange
By Ed West Religion Last updated: March 24th, 2011

Now that’s funny. Just as we’re all about to fill in a Census, the most controversial issue of which is the question of religion, the BBC carries two highly spurious stories about the decline of faith.
Firstly there was this:

Two-thirds of Britons not religious, suggests survey
Nearly two-thirds of people do not regard themselves as “religious”, a new survey carried out to coincide with the 2011 Census suggests.

And how was this scientifically calculated survey carried out?

The British Humanist Association (BHA), which commissioned the poll, said people often identified themselves as religious for cultural reasons.
The online poll asked 1,900 adults in England and Wales a question which is on this month’s census form.

This led to some people suggesting that Census results, which will probably show that two-thirds of people describe themselves as Christian, are inaccurate or even false. But as the (non-religious) academic Eric Kaufmann put it, there are three dimensions of piety: affiliation, belief and attendance. One can be a “non-believer” and still identify as a Christian, and wish to live in a society guided by Christian beliefs.

Then came this ridiculous claim:

Religion may become extinct in nine countries, study says
A study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers.
The study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.

You have to go to the end to find this:

”Obviously we don’t really believe this is the network structure of a modern society, where each person is influenced equally by all the other people in society,” he said. However, he told BBC News that he thought it was “a suggestive result”. ”It’s interesting that a fairly simple model captures the data, and if those simple ideas are correct, it suggests where this might be going… Obviously much more complicated things are going on with any one individual, but maybe a lot of that averages out.”

In other words, this has no bearing on the real world, where religion always reappears to fill a spiritual vacuum. Religion certainly isn’t dying out in my city, if only because atheistic societies with sub-replacement fertility rates need to import religious people to keep them in the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed.
Two non-stories – I assume all the Skeptics out there will rip them to pieces. It couldn’t possibly be the case that the BBC is actually trying to influence the Census. And look, now there’s another one.

[djfearross]

This is link which led into the, "religion becoming extinct" story.
Of course, physics was not predicting anything so the title was soon changed.

Attachments:

[Teddy Bear]

History predicts the end of the BBC - just a question of time.

I bet my 'prediction' is more accurate, and I'll also bet quite a few of those at the BBC will be praying in the process

[djfearross]

The team took census data stretching back as far as a century from countries in which the census queried religious affiliation: Australia, Austria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Switzerland.

I won't even bother mentioning why that survey was pretty pointless and would only be a headline for the BBC.