A Study on People's Attitudes towards Religion and Religious Change in the Context of Thai Society

Abstract

This research aims to survey people's attitudes towards religion and religious changes in order to provide important information for relevant agencies to formulating guidelines for the development of the quality of Thai society. This was a survey under the 2018 International Social Survey Programme project (ISSP). The sample consisted of 1,535 Thai people aged 18 years and over, randomly selected according to multi-stage sampling. The research tool was a 39-items opinion survey on religious attitudes and religious change with a Cronbach's alpha coefficient of .77. The data were analyzed by using a percentage, mean and standard deviation. The results showed that the sample group had the highest level of confidence in religious organizations compared to other major social organizations. Most of the respondents agreed that religion brings more peace than conflict (50.5 percent), religious organizations have moderate social power (35.6 percent), people would be acceptable if heterosexual people or religious views differ greatly from their own to marry with relatives (44.3 percent), most of the respondents participating in religious activities several times a year (31.9 percent), most of the respondents religion does not barrier to gender equality (40.3 percent) and if legislation conflicts with the principles and religious teachings with the majority of people more likely to follow a religion than to follow that law (52.5 percent). In addition, most of the respondents had the most positive attitudes towards Buddhists (57.4 percent) and positive attitudes towards atheists or those with the least religious beliefs (21.1 percent).