"The Decline of Religious Beliefs in Western Europe" by Mattei Dogan, in International Social Science Journal (Sept. 1995), UNESCO, 1 rue Miollis, 75732 Paris, Cedex 15, France.

Do you believe in God? To that simple question, most Western Europeans still answer yes. But over the past three decades, observes Dogan, director of research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris, Europeans have become much less religious.

It is well known, he notes, that Catholics' attendance at Mass, along with the number of baptisms, marriages, and religious burials, has generally declined in recent decades. Among West German Catholics under 30, for example, 52 percent in 1963 were churchgoers, but only 18 percent of their counterparts in 1982 were. With the general decline in religious practice, Dogan maintains, has come an erosion in fundamental religious beliefs, although international survey researchers have only recently sought to measure it.

One such survey in 1990-91 found that outside of Ireland (50 percent) and Poland (73 percent), only a minority of believers rates God as very important in their lives. In France, for example, of the 62 percent pro- fessing belief, only 13 percent consider God very important in their lives; in Britain, the corresponding figures are 78 percent and 19 percent. In the United States, 89 percent say they believe, and of them, 58 percent rate God's role in their lives as very significant.

When people say they believe in God, moreover, they may or may not have the per- sonal God of the Jewish and Christian Bible in mind. Given some other choices, the biblical God won an absolute majority in only five countries: Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, and the United States. "Some sort of spirit or life force" was preferred by 34 percent in France, 41 percent in Britain, 45 percent in western Germany, and 46 percent in Sweden.

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