October 5 - Christianity a 'Faded Memory' for Most Young Britons

It found that young people were more likely to put their faith in friends, their family or themselves than in God.

Sylvia Collins-Mayo, a sociologist of religion and one of the researchers behind the study, said: "For the majority, religion and spirituality was irrelevant for day-to-day living; our young people were not looking for answers to ultimate questions and showed little sign of 'pick and mix' spirituality."

She said that young people only sought a religious perspective on "rare occasions" and that when they did, they often "made do" with a "very faded, inherited cultural memory of Christianity in the absence of anything else." This tended to be in times of difficulty, for example, after suffering a bereavement or illness in the family.

Infrequent churchgoers tended to be uncertain about the nature of God, with 23 percent saying they believed God was someone they could know personally, 22 percent saying they believed in some sort of higher power or life force but not a personal God, and 12 percent saying that they did not think there was any sort of God, higher power or life force. Forty-three per cent said they did not know what to think about God.