Belief and unbelief in God among Polish scholars and their views on the relationship between science and religion

Andrzej Gołąb

doi:10.18290/rpsych.2017.20.1-3en

Andrzej Gołąb Wyższa Szkoła Finansów i Zarządzania w Warszawie, Wydział Psychologii

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18290/rpsych.2017.20.1-3en

Keywords: Polish scholars; worldview; belief in God; science–religion relationship

Abstract

The paper presents selected results of a study on the religious views of 279 Polish scholars with a doctoral or higher degree. The percentage of scholars who declared belief in God was 56.3%. The four groups with the highest indices were chemists (80%), geographers and Earth scientists (76.2%), mathematicians and information technology specialists (73.1%), and medical scientists (64.5%). A small proportion of respondents (6.5%) chose the following option: “I don’t believe in a personal God but I believe in a higher power of some kind.” The percentages of atheists and agnostics were 18.3% and 7.2%, respectively. The subjects’ views on the relationship between science and religion were categorized according to the Barbour’s typology (Barbour, 1990). The largest proportion of the subjects (41.9%) denied the inevitability of conflict between science and religion; 13% held the opposite view. Some scholars (19.6%) expressed the view that science and religion should be treated as independent areas of inquiry. The relationship of dialog seemed to be the best form of their coexistence to 2% respondents, while 3.6% were in favor of the cooperation of science and religion in building a comprehensive worldview.

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