I have been noting this more recently and it seems to be a trend, at least with people I converse with on the regular. The really religious types aren’t animal people or downright dont like them. The more chill or agnostic types seem to be more apt to love animals.
I could go on my theory of this but I’m interested to see if anyone thinks this is a trend.
You’d want to show a significant negative correlation between religiosity and friendliness toward animals. ‘Secular’ would just be one end of the religiosity dimension.
Secular just means not religious, we are comparing the religious with the not religious. How religious an individual is, is way way too subjective to hold any weight at all. Comparing different religions/sects could bring interesting results.
Yes, the religiosity dimension has secular at one end and religious at the other. You want to establish whether that dimension is aligned with friendliness to animals. How religious people are is measured all the time, but of course methods can be questioned. I agree that would be interesting; surely a religion’s views on animals would have some affect on its adherents.