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Yes, the US scores much higher in religiosity ... when you use self-reported numbers. But it turns out a lot of Americans lie about church attendance, at least

Yes, the US scores much higher in religiosity ... when you use self-reported numbers. But it turns out a lot of Americans lie about church attendance, at least. If you survey how many butts are in the pews on Sunday and compare that to the population of a city and weight it by how often people say they go to church, there is a nearly a 2:1 discrepancy. This isn't where I first read that statistic, but it is the first Google search that seems credible. https://churchleaders.com/pastors/pastor-articles/139575-7-startling-facts-an-up-close-look-at-church-attendance-in-america.html https://churchleaders.com/pastors/pastor-articles/139575-7-s...

kijin 8y ago
But the self-reporting bias isn't unique to America. There are plenty of people in other parts of the world who say they belong to a religion but don't actually participate in religious activities with any regularity. It depends on the religion, of course, but at least with Christianity there's no fundamental contradiction in going to church only once or twice a year and still calling yourself a believer. If there's a similar bias in other parts of the world, the statistics still leave the U.S. with a higher overall religiosity.
- indigochill 8y ago
  A weird thing happens in Iceland which is that people are born nominally "members of the Church of Iceland". Some portion of their taxes then go to support the church. If they want their taxes to go somewhere else, they have to proactively register as some other faith (and only those who care will bother). So you have a massive discrepancy between how many Icelanders are "statistically Christian" and it's not even Icelanders self-reporting, but the church itself for political/funding reasons. How massive? As of 2017, statistically 70% of Icelandic citizens belonged to the Lutheran Church. But only ~11% actually attend church (http://www.iamreykjavik.com/religion-in-iceland http://www.iamreykjavik.com/religion-in-iceland)

kijin 8y ago

But the self-reporting bias isn't unique to America. There are plenty of people in other parts of the world who say they belong to a religion but don't actually participate in religious activities with any regularity. It depends on the religion, of course, but at least with Christianity there's no fundamental contradiction in going to church only once or twice a year and still calling yourself a believer. If there's a similar bias in other parts of the world, the statistics still leave the U.S. with a higher overall religiosity.

indigochill 8y ago
A weird thing happens in Iceland which is that people are born nominally "members of the Church of Iceland". Some portion of their taxes then go to support the church. If they want their taxes to go somewhere else, they have to proactively register as some other faith (and only those who care will bother). So you have a massive discrepancy between how many Icelanders are "statistically Christian" and it's not even Icelanders self-reporting, but the church itself for political/funding reasons. How massive? As of 2017, statistically 70% of Icelandic citizens belonged to the Lutheran Church. But only ~11% actually attend church (http://www.iamreykjavik.com/religion-in-iceland http://www.iamreykjavik.com/religion-in-iceland)