Religion: Cause Of Evil, Not Force For Good?

The headline from a recent YouGov poll gave two key facts about young people in Britain:

• Religious figures have the least influence on their lives.
• More say religion is a force for evil than a force for good.

The 2011 Census suggested 59% of the population defined themselves as Christian and just 25% said they had no religion, but it seems that when looking at 18-24 year olds there is a very different picture.

Friends and family obviously dominated the question about who had most influence on their lives but only 12% feel influenced by religious leaders, which was far less than politicians (38%), brands (32%) and celebrities (21%).

Religion's reputation also seems to have suffered with young people, 41% agree that “religion is more often the cause of evil in the world” and only 14% say it is a cause for good.

When asked if they believe in God, only 25% said they did; 19% believed in some non-Godlike “spiritual greater power” and a further 38% claimed no belief no God or spiritual power whatsoever.

Amongst believers, the most represented denominations were Church of England (13%), then Roman Catholic (9%) and Muslim (4%).

The Huffington Post reported that A Church of England spokesperson said: "It is unsurprising that this sample of less than 1,000 people gives a different result than a Census of tens of millions of people. Even then these figures show more people choosing belief over non-belief."
Do you think this is an accurate picture? Do you think that 18-24 year olds are 'less religious' than the rest of the population? Why? Do you think their views are heavily influenced by the media? Do the the media portray a 'fair image' of religion? Why/not?

Read more at: http://yougov.co.uk/news/2013/06/24/british-youth-reject-religion & http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/06/25/religion-cause-of-evil-force-for-good-_n_3494971.html