界定宗教身份：缺乏宗教信仰面向的考察

Abstract

宗教社會學向來著重於「有」宗教信仰面向的研究，直到晚近有關缺乏宗教信仰面向的探討，才成為西方社會學一個新興的熱門議題。本文採用五期五次台灣地區社會變遷基本調查資料(2009年)，試圖從缺乏宗教信仰的角度，找出比較適切的變項來界定人們的宗教身份。經驗分析的結果發現，一般研究常用的「你目前的宗教信仰是？」所界定的無宗教信仰者，仍有高比率的人相信各種宗教信念，去宗教場所的百分比也高於不去者，其中還有一些人是對宗教抱持無所謂信不信的態度，但是該變項卻缺少了中立宗教性的類別，因此未能充分而有效地區分人們缺乏宗教信仰的差異。本文分析的結果發現，「相不相信宗教」變項區分了「不相信」和「無所謂相不相信」為兩個類別；另一個變項「對上帝的看法」除了有多元的缺乏宗教信仰測量，還包含了多向度的神觀，因此是兩個適切的宗教身份變項，可做為未來宗教社會學研究區分人們宗教差異，可參考的新變項。

Understanding the absence of religiosity is a new focus among researchers of the sociology of religion. The authors use data from the 2009 Taiwan Social Change Survey to explain the diversity associated with the lack of religiosity. Results indicate inconsistency in the numbers of people who describe themselves as non-religious but who still hold positive attitudes toward many religious beliefs, or who otherwise participate in religious activities. The evidence suggests that the survey item wording “What religion do you believe in now?” fails to identify existing variety in the lack of religiosity. In contrast, “How do you believe in religion?” allows a respondent to express either “religious indifference” or “anti-religion” opinions. Further, questions about “views of God” provide multiple categories of irreligion and multi-dimensional perceptions of God. The authors conclude that “How do you believe in religion?” and “views of God” represent two testable variables for identifying survey respondents’ religious statuses.