God Other Mysteries
Soul or spirit, angel or afterlife: Here’s what Canadians believe, and why.

BY GABRIELLE BAUER

Does your neighbour believe in a supreme being? Does your accountant believe in angels? Is your doctor anticipating an afterlife? Do your own beliefs fall in step with those of other Canadians’? Such questions rarely come up in our day-to-day lives. We’re more likely to talk about the stock market or that leak in the basement than how we came to exist or what follows life on earth. So Reader’s Digest designed a survey to find out what Canadians believe about these mysteries, as well as the attitudes and experiences underlying their beliefs. The telephone survey, conducted by Ipsos-Reid in mid-2003, garnered responses from over 1,000 adult Canadians of all ages and backgrounds.

What we found amid the diversity of people’s responses is that Canadians care deeply about their beliefs, whether conventional or not, and speak eloquently about the experiences that led them to their convictions. More than the stock market, such beliefs matter to Canadians.

The ultimate question
Is there a God? For 64 percent of our respondents, the answer is a definite yes. “I grew up believing in God, and I still believe,” says Roberta Doell of Warman, Sask. “There’s a greater being out there, and a reason for everything. There has to be.”

At the opposite end of the spectrum, ten percent of Canadians state they don’t believe in God—although many prefer to label themselves as agnostic rather than atheist. Says Jeff of St. Andrews, Man.: “I’m a scientific guy, and I believe science has disproved a lot of religion. But I’ve been in situations where I felt a need to appeal to a higher power.”

In between the firm believers and the skeptics lies a sizable minority—14 percent—that vacillates between belief and doubt. “I’m not sure I believe in God, but I do believe in some kind of afterlife; in something beyond my everyday experience,” says Roxanne MacDonald of Hamilton. “I consider myself both skeptical and open to other possibilities.”

The nature of God
Of course, the term God doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone. While Alexander Muise of Cape Breton, N.S., believes that “God is a man who cares about people,” Peter H., an Ontario resident, has a different view. “The beauty of nature suggests a master intelligence,” he says, “but there’s no evidence this intelligence is either loving or concerned with people.”

Only 17 percent of believers agree with Muise’s concept of God as a person. The dominant view of God, shared by 77 percent of believers, is that of an “impersonal spiritual force.”

God loves, say most Canadians, but does he punish? Only 13 percent of believers concur with the notion that “God punishes through illness such as AIDS, misfortune, or natural disasters such as floods or earthquakes.” Meanwhile, 78 percent agree that “God is the one who created you but left you with free will.”

Regardless of how they envision a supreme being, the great majority of believers value their faith in God. Faith gives “more meaning” to life for 81 percent and gives a sense of protection to 75 percent. Only 13 percent say faith makes their lives “more frightening.”

And then what?
Although many world religions teach of a life after death, only 55 percent of Canadians buy into the notion. Evidently belief in God and belief in eternal life don’t automatically coincide.

If not an afterlife, then what? According to 11 percent of Canadians, you simply cease to exist when you die. A further 27 percent say they don’t know, and a scant seven percent embrace the idea that people are “ultimately reincarnated.”

The concept of reincarnation helps Lisa of Windsor make sense of the injustices of life on earth. “People reap the rewards of their good deeds in their next life,” she says. But Alan Ott of Toronto rejects the notion of reincarnation as a leveller of injustice. “I have a hard time buying the idea that I might come back with a deformity or as an animal if I lead a bad life,” he says. “Not that I intend to lead a bad life, mind you.”

The practice of belief
Two thirds of our survey’s respondents identified themselves as Christian. Within Christianity, Roman Catholicism claims the largest number of adherents (37 percent of respondents), followed by various denominations of Protestantism (30 percent). Other respondents identified with Judaism (one percent), Islam (one percent), Buddhism (one percent) and Hinduism (less than one percent).

These numbers leave out an important slice of the pie: the 18 percent of Canadians who don’t follow any particular religion. These are the people who report no religious affiliation on Census Canada questionnaires, and their number has grown significantly: from close to 1.8 million Canadians in 1981 to 4.9 million in 2001.

Religiously affiliated or not, most Canadians don’t attend regular worship services. Only 23 percent take part in religious services “once a week or so.” Around one third attend occasionally, while another third say they “never, or almost never” attend.

Richard Soucé of Toronto considers himself a firm believer in God but says, “I don’t feel I have to go to church every week to be religious or spiritual.” How, then, does he express his faith? “It’s enough to lead a good life,” he says. “God knows what we’re up to whether we’re in a church or not.”

Indeed, judging from the 45 percent of Canadians who say they pray every day, a lot of worship goes on outside church walls. As Barbara Derby of Victoria sees it, “God makes house calls.”
Believers are equally divergent in their views on the scriptural texts of their faiths. As many as 44 percent maintain the texts are to be taken literally, while three in ten contend the texts “were written so long ago they’re no longer relevant.”

Spiritual seekers
A massive 95 percent of our respondents expressed belief in at least one spiritual (or supernatural) phenomenon. But people appear to be highly selective, embracing the supernatural forces that make sense to them while rejecting the others. Thus, as many as 61 percent of Canadians believe in angels, but only 37 percent place their bets on ghosts. Just 20 percent of respondents put any store in forecasting systems such as tarot cards or the I Ching.

The concept of synchronicity or meaningful coincidences elicits widespread belief among Canadians. Where skeptics see randomness, 59 percent of Canadians see evidence of design. Marylin, a 68-year-old who lives near Vancouver, claims to have witnessed several such coincidences. After driving home from the hospital, where her father had just died, she recalls an uncommonly large owl flying right up to her windshield. “It had freckles, just like my father, and I took it to be Dad’s spirit,” she says.

Many researchers argue that some paranormal experiences originate in the brain rather than “out there,” but some of our respondents disagree. In fact, 23 percent of those who believe in supernatural occurrences cite “personal experience” as the driving force behind their belief. Among the believers in angels, 26 percent claim to have felt the presence of angels in their own lives. Barbara Derby once had to drive her critically ill husband to hospital—through rush-hour traffic in an unfamiliar city. “I was scared to make the trip, but I found my way without a problem,” she recalls. “I felt I was being led by angels.”

Spiritual, but not religious
To some degree, religious and spiritual beliefs converge in the same individuals. For example, belief in angels—espoused by 61 percent of Canadians overall—surges to 79 percent among those who definitely believe in God. By the same token, belief in supernatural phenomena is lowest among people who don’t believe in God.

Where religion and spirituality part ways is at the level of religious observance. Canadians who rarely or never attend religious services are more likely to believe in things such as astrology, past-life regression and witchcraft than their weekly attending counterparts. These unchurched Canadians fall into a category that Robert Fuller, a professor of religious studies at Bradley University in Peoria, Ill., has termed “spiritual, but not religious.”

What causes these spiritual seekers to turn away from traditional expressions of faith? Fuller says our increasingly diverse society is a key factor. “We all know more people of other faiths or of no faith than our grandparents did,” he says. “Exposed to these influences, we lose confidence that any religious institution has a monopoly on religious truth. So we stop attending our institutions and seek truth along more private paths.”

It’s a view echoed by many of our respondents. “I don’t like the power of priest figures or the church’s treatment of women,” offers Roxanne MacDonald in explanation for her alienation from the Catholic church. “When I was a child preparing for Confirmation, the priests got all caught up in the fact that the other kids and I weren’t singing well enough. It seemed arbitrary and not very spiritual.” Others, like Peter H., have gone sour on the idea of “believing what you’re told to believe.”

Still others hold beliefs that just don’t mesh with any established creed. “If there’s no heaven for my cats, I don’t want to go there,” says 50-year-old Kimberly of Winnipeg. Strapped on the hands by nuns as a child, Kimberly says her church taught her fear. Today, she expresses her spiritual needs through “ethnic cooking and supporting the conservation of flora and fauna.”

The great gender divide
Our findings suggest that men and women differ substantially in matters of spirit. While most people of either gender believe in something, women believe more readily and more ardently. Significantly more definite believers in God show up among women (70 percent) than men (57 percent). Women also envision a more loving God, pray more frequently and draw more meaning from their faith.

Women are also more likely to embrace the possibility of a spirit world. Plausible to only 53 percent of men, angels hold sway with 69 percent of women. And substantially more women (27 percent) than men (18 percent) trace their beliefs in paranormal phenomena to firsthand experience.

The fruits of higher learning
Does advanced education breed a more critical, unbelieving mind? Our findings suggest this is true, but only to a modest degree. Definite belief in God stands at 74 percent among Canadians without a high-school diploma and at 60 percent among those with university degrees.

Some nonbelievers, like Laura Christine of Calgary, trace their skepticism directly to their education. Brought up Catholic, Christine says she began doubting the existence of God when she started reading philosophy books at school. With five years of university behind her, Christine, now 24, says she finds her inspiration “not in faith, but in literature.”

For most Canadians, however, a university degree doesn’t get in the way of faith. What may change is their notion of God. Only 12 percent of university-graduated believers regard God as a person, compared with 29 percent of believers with less than a high-school diploma.

Belief in paranormal phenomena dips only slightly, however, in the university-educated set. For example, over half (54 percent) of university graduates believe in angels—close to the 61 percent in the general population. Plus university graduates are less likely to derive a “sense of protection” from the supernatural realm, suggesting that education takes some of the muscle out of these beliefs.

Beliefs and the life cycle
If education moderates belief, age and life experience appear to strengthen it. Twenty-seven percent of Canadians profess their belief in God has increased over time—more than twice as many as the 13 percent who report a decrease.

Among those who say their belief is stronger, 32 percent note that having children was a factor. More surprisingly, 34 percent say that a “personal orfamily illness” increased their belief in God. Twenty-three percent credit “natural disasters or wars.”

Why would calamity enhance belief? In Roberta Doell’s case, a dying grandfather’s change of heart—from skeptic to believer—put an end to her own uncertainty. “I figured God was at work if even a lifelong nonbeliever like my granddad could develop faith,” she says.

A death also strengthened belief in Sinead,* who lives in Halifax. “Before my father died,” she says, “I dreamed he wouldn’t see the end of the year. He then got sick and died before the year was out—a man who had never been seriously ill before. That’s when I knew we humans are not alone in the universe.”

What’s next?
When it comes to beliefs, there’s every reason to expect the remarkable diversity of Canadians will persist. Jo-Anne Elder, co-editor of Voices and Echoes: Canadian Women’s Spirituality, also foresees a surge in male spirituality. “I get the sense the male midlife crisis is veering away from its former focus on sexuality,” she says. “The sports car and younger partner isn’t what the aging man wants, it’s family and meaning. And spirituality is a part of all that.”

Robert Fuller, meanwhile, anticipates a collective shift towards a more abstract, impersonal image of God. “We’ll be viewing God as something akin to ‘the force’ in the movie Star Wars—as an energy, a consciousness, rather than a person who favours some but not other humans,” he says. “We’ll be looking to tap into this divine spirit, both through established and unconventional channels.”

If such shifts in belief await us, our survey also suggests that, with few exceptions, Canadians are unwilling to give up on belief itself. While no single statement can accurately sum up Canadians’ beliefs about God and other mysteries, one sentiment may come close: “There’s gotta be something.”