An afterlife? Yes

I write this to laugh at the statement of my friend Johnny Mercado that “only 21 percent of urban students believe in life after the grave, a survey by McCann Erickson and Philippine Jesuits found” (Viewpoint, 11/1/11).

The notion that only one out of five Filipinos, in general or in any common sociodemographic group, believes in an afterlife is flatly contradicted by the SWS national surveys on religious beliefs.

In conjunction with the International Social Survey Program (www.issp.org), SWS has surveyed religious beliefs of Filipino adults three times, in 1991, 1998 and 2007. Each survey was nationwide, on a sample of 1,200 adults (error margin of 3 percent).

In the most recent survey, done on Nov. 30 to Dec. 3, 2007, the question on belief in life after death or “buhay sa kabila ng kamatayan” resulted in answers of 62 percent Definitely Yes, 19 percent Probably Yes, 8 percent Probably No, 9 percent Definitely No, and 1+ percent Can’t Choose/No Answer.

The 4-point answer design allows for two gradations of belief and disbelief. Personally, I consider “belief” as the sum of Definitely and Probably, which means four out of five. Those who prefer only the Definitely can see that believers in the afterlife are at least three out of five, not one out of five.

Since Johnny specified “urban students,” here are the demographics of the answers of Definitely Yes and Probably Yes in the 2007 survey on belief in life after death:

Definitely        Probably

Yes               Yes

Philippines             62          19

Urban             64          18

Rural             60          20

Class ABC        73          11

Class D           61          20

Class E           60          20

Males             61          21

Females           64          18

18-24             56          29

25-34             61          22

35-44             65          18

45-54             67          14

55 up             60          16

Up to some elementary   55          18

Up to some high school 59          21

Up to some college      65          19

College graduates       69          17

The lowest percentages of Definite believers are the 55 of elementary dropouts and the 56 in the 18-24 ages; yet these are outright majorities.  Note also that belief rises with schooling and social class, suggesting that the belief in an afterlife will be reinforced if people get better off over time.

The average result on the afterlife item for the 40 ISSP countries that did the last religion module was: 28 percent Definitely Yes, 25 percent Probably Yes, 17 percent Probably No, 20 percent Definitely No, and 10 percent Can’t Choose/No Answer. Thus the average definite/probable belief is 53 percent or just over half.

For the entire ISSP set, the percentages definitely/probably believing in an afterlife are: Turkey 94, Philippines 81, Chile, Ireland and United States 75, Mexico 74, Dominican Republic 72, South Africa 71, Poland and Cyprus 64, Italy 63, Israel 60, Venezuela 58, New Zealand, Switzerland and Taiwan 55, Croatia and Uruguay 54, Slovak Republic and Great Britain 53, Austria and South Korea 49, Sweden 47, Australia 45, the Netherlands, Portugal and Japan 44, Spain 43, Norway, Finland, Slovenia and Latvia 41, Ukraine 39, Russia 37, France and Germany 36, Hungary 35, Denmark 33, Belgium 28, and Czech Republic 26.

See, only Muslim Turkey (a relatively new ISSP member) exceeds the Philippines in belief in an afterlife.

Belief in God. On the other hand, I have no quarrel with Johnny’s continuation that “88 percent believe in a Supreme Being,” presumably also from the McCann survey.

The ISSP religion module (which all ISSP members run in full and in the same sequence, since the objective is international comparison) had two items to describe belief in God, one for firmness of belief and another for how long the belief has been held.

The first item offered six choices of firmness, and resulted in 81 percent of Filipinos choosing “I know that God really exists and I have no doubts about it,” and 9 percent choosing “While I have doubts, I feel that I do believe in God.”

The other results for firmness of belief were: 3 percent for “I find myself believing in God some of the time, but not at others,” 2 percent for “I don’t believe in a personal God, but I do believe in a Higher Power of some kind,” 2 percent for “I don’t know whether there is a God and I don’t believe there is any way to find out” i.e. the agnostics, and 3 percent for “I don’t believe in God” i.e. the atheists.

The second item, with four choices of length of time as a believer, resulted in 90 percent of Filipinos choosing “I believe in God now and I always have.” There were also 2 percent for “I believe in God, but I didn’t use to,” 1 percent for “I don’t believe in God now, but I used to,” and 4 percent for “I don’t believe in God now and I never have”; others couldn’t choose or didn’t answer.

Remember, there are no “wrong answers”!

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Contact SWS: www.sws.org.ph or [email protected].