The Religion Monitor - Exploring Religiosity globally by the Bertelsmann Stiftung
The Bertelsmann Stiftung's RELIGION MONITOR is an instrument which
looks at the issues of religion and faith to an unprecedented degree.
It was developed by religious scientists, sociologists, psychologists
and theologians and was first employed in 2007.
In a
representative survey, 21,000 people from all continents and world
religions were asked about their views on the world and the meaning of
life, their religious practices and notions of God. The project will be
repeated and expanded at regular intervals in order to carry out and
produce an empirical study of the development of religiousness. For more information about the Bertelsmann Religion Monitor click here (pdf).
Participation I: The International Survey
Everyone may participate anonymously in the international Religiousness Survey by Internet. It takes about 20 minutes. At the end of the survey your own personal profile of religiousness is generated and compared to the representative results of your country.
Participation II: Scientific Data
The Religion Monitor offers loads of internationally comparable, empirical data for scientific research. For example, I participated in a study on the religiosity of Muslims in Germany, which is available for free download (pdf) - in English, German and Turkish.
For my part, I am glad that foundations as the Bertelsmann Stiftung are conducting and financing studies on religion worldwide. And I hope that many people may participate, thereby contributing to a better understanding of Homo sapiens religiosus.
The German Chronologs-Post on the "Religionsmonitor".
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Did you know that the link above to the online anonymous survey actually goes straight to your personal survey answers?
Dear stunt_girl, thank you, I didn't notice that one! After having finished the survey for myself, I wanted others to have the chance to enjoy it, too. I now mended the link. Thanks for the hint! Best wishes!
G'day Michael,
Just did the questionnaire and found some things about it that were problematic. For example, one of the first questions was about my interest in religious issues. Given that I am looking at religion as a natural phenomenon, my interest is very high but, surely, that should not be relevant to an estimate of my religiousness. One could just as well ask a criminologist if they are interested in crime and use that statistic to determine their criminality. The problem, of course, is that the interest is at the meta-level.
Another problem was the question about adhering to religious commandments in daily life. Given that these commandments are to a certain degree coincident with secular morality, even atheists will behave in ways largely consistent with those commandments. That is very different from behaving in such ways because of a wish to honour the commandments. The question seems ambiguous.
The question about considering religious issues from other perspectives is also problematic - the perspective I use is evolutionary. Again, this has nothing to do with being religious.
The next section - about the effect of your own religious beliefs upon children's upbringing - is also problematic. Do 'religious beliefs' mean 'beliefs about religion' or something like 'religion-based beliefs'? Depending upon which is the answer, atheists are liekly to give very different answers since they will not have any of the later but many of the former kind of belief.
Finally, the section on conceptions of God has the scale turned around which is difficult to notice and almost led me to give the opposite answers to what I actually think.
Having said all this, I am well aware that writing survey questions is very difficult, especially ones that are to be relevant across a broad range of people.
Dear Konrad,
thanks for your comment! And, yes, I agree! I can't imagine a single survey concerning religion(s) in international and intercultural contexts without the mentioned problems. What's more, the very fact that a survey is aimed at religion may induce some unconscious biased answering patterns etc.
On the other side, we would lose tremendous perspectives in the scientific study of religion if we would abstain from such questionnaires. I think the best way is to use several sources (as i.e. surveys, censusses and ethnological observations) to explore distinct topics (as i.e. the connection of religions and demography). And I am endorsing the Religion Monitor because they are offering their data to specialists for free without trying to enforce any specific agenda. As I shared some of your concerns in my studies on Muslim religiosity in Germany and comparing religious experiences in different countries and cultures, I was free to choose the questions and data sets that met my objections.
Thanks for your sound comment!
"Did you know that the link above to the online anonymous survey actually goes straight to your personal survey answers?"
I deleted the session-ID in the URL. Now, it's ok.