8 ms·

Here are the 10 countries/territories in which religion is least "important in daily life" according to the OP: Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Norway, Czech Republic

by cs702 5y ago

Here are the 10 countries/territories in which religion is least "important in daily life" according to the OP: Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Norway, Czech Republic, Japan, Hong Kong, United Kingdom, Finland, France. Here are the 10 countries/territories in which religion is most "important in daily life" according to the OP: Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Niger, Somalia, Indonesia, Yemen, Sri Lanka, Malawi, Burundi, Mauritania. Interesting: The least religious countries/territories have more economic, social, and political stability and are far wealthier and more technologically/scientifically advanced than the most religious ones. If I had to randomly choose a country in which I would be forced to live, I would rather it be in the top-10-least-religious group than the in the other (top-10-most-religious) group.

mgh2 5y ago
This trend, while generally true, has been examined through multiple sources and variables to find out what makes a country prosperous- the US is an exception though https://m-g-h.medium.com/in-data-we-trust-2978dacc8c22 https://m-g-h.medium.com/in-data-we-trust-2978dacc8c22
- tlogan 5y ago
  I think there is one more factor. Due to polarized state of our politics religion is used as “rally flag” or a way to show “family values”. On both sides.
  - ben_palaskas 5y ago
    Is it though? I am a christian in the US and have only met other christians at religious functions save for two or three occasions, where as everyone else I meet is not christian and probably not religious.
- chmod775 5y ago
  > the US is an exception though I would say people in the US just really like to profess to being Christian, even though they act the part in no way, shape, or form. Both country and people. It's more of a cultural 'thing' than actual belief or practice. The dichotomy of word and action is striking. Like watching someone claim to be a firefighter, attend training and seminars, then commit arson and not do any, you know, firefighting.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - crazygringo 5y ago
    There's no single definition of Christianity. There are so many denominations and different practices within, it's almost mind-boggling. So you may think people in the US merely profess being Christian according to your personal definition of whatever you think a Christian is or ought to be. But I can guarantee you the US is an extremely religious country and the different denominations are quite sincere in their beliefs. You don't have a monopoly on judging what "actual" Christianity is. In fact, your attitude is an extremely paternalistic, and frankly offensively, literal "holier than thou" position.
    - moistly 5y ago
      Dude, it isn’t like we can’t see what red-letter Jesus said and did, and also see that many — even a majority — of self-identifying “Christians” behave in ways that are in contradiction to His commandments. IOW, about as “Christian” as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is “Democratic”: the self-selected name does not represent the actual reality.
      - crazygringo 5y ago
        "Dude", if you think Christianity is mostly about what Jesus taught or his commandments... then I'm sorry but you don't understand Christianity at all. Christianity is a multifaceted historical phenomenon, a cultural tradition of which Jesus and even the text of the Bible is a small part. Saying Christianity is about what Jesus said and did makes as much sense as saying that the US is about the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. In both cases, it's not nothing, but neither is it the whole story, or even 10% of the story. You're free to decide what Christianity means to you, but not to prevent others from doing the same for themselves. After all, others doing it for themselves is precisely why "Christianity" is a family of seemingly countless denominations and divisions within. It's not a single monolithic thing, or even close to it.
- helsinkiandrew 5y ago
  But increasingly less: https://www.economist.com/united-states/2021/07/10/nothing-in-particulars-are-americas-fastest-growing-religious-group https://www.economist.com/united-states/2021/07/10/nothing-i...
  - mgh2 5y ago
    This is from an outsider’s view. No need to go to church, it helps, but it is not the main attribute of a Christian. In fact, these institutions have become so blatantly centers of salesmanship nowadays, that there is a greater probability of fakes and hypocrites attending today.
GekkePrutser 5y ago
One outlier is America of course. It has pretty high scores for importance in daily life and it's one of the wealthiest countries in the world. It does have very high differences in wealth distribution though, much more than the Nordic countries. But I think there's a large cultural aspect there too.
- brabel 5y ago
  There are always going to be exceptions to the rule, usually due to a strong counfounding factor that can explain the difference pretty well... For example, Saudia Arabia is wealthy and extremely religious... I hope I don't have to explain the counfounding factor in this case. Regarding the USA: even though it scores high in religious people rates, it's also one of the free-est places in the world, so people who are not believers are still relatively free to go about their daily lives without problem, unlike in most other highly religious nations. The USA also happens to have the biggest military in the world, capable of taking over and applying pressure on its enemies in order to further its economical interests... I think these two factors should be sufficient to explain quite well why the USA is an exception to the rule.
  - frosted-flakes 5y ago
    Why don't you just spell it out explicitly? What you are implying certainly isn't obvious.
    - brabel 5y ago
      I was trying to "imply" that religious countries tend to be poorer than non-religious countries according to the data (why that is, I am not sure myself but probably because religions limit your society and specially creativity in ways that are damaging to economical success) and if that's not the case for a particular country, that's just because there are stronger counfounding factors that can explain the disparity... is that what you were expecting me to say???
      - frosted-flakes 5y ago
tlogan 5y ago
That is one of the factors. The other factor can be that the least religious countries are the most homogeneous (with some exceptions).
- SamBam 5y ago
  Is this just a pet theory, or have you actually quantified the homogeneity of the most and least religious countries? While the Scandinavian countries are probably very homogenous, I'm guessing that at least some of the most-religious list (Ethiopia, Yemen, Sri Lanka, Malawi, Burundi, Mauritania) are fairly homogenous too.
  - kleton 5y ago
    None of the ones you named are particularly homogeneous. In Ethiopia and Malawi there is no majority ethnic group. Mauritania's largest ethnic group has a narrow (54%) majority. Yemen is in a civil war between its two largest endogamous sects. The central government of Ethiopia is at war with Tigrayan separatists. The central government of Sri Lanka only recently defeated the Tamil separatists.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
beaconstudios 5y ago
I think the causality is backwards; as countries become more prosperous they become less religious as the people become more cosmopolitan.
- megous 5y ago
  No for all the countries on that list. Communism also had a role...
  - maerF0x0 5y ago
    unfortunately I couldn't find the methodology, but it's very important to realize that self reported data is fraught with many many issues. In many communist countries religion (or at least freedom to choose from foreign or other religions) is suppressed. People which might have been religious do not become, and those that are might not tell the truth. Similarly in religious nations I'm sure we'd get a far lower "religious" rate if you went through a set of beliefs for each religion and see what things they actually practice. Eg: church attendance most weeks, prayer, reading the bible, taking communion, monogamy/marriage, etc... I'm sure if you go down that checklist the number of people who say they're "Christian" for whatever reason, would actually sharply decline when we consider their actual life practices. to make a HN analogy I can put CEO on my linkedin profile, but unless I incorporate something, sell something, hire people, build a business etc. am I really the CEO of anything the way that people interpret when they hear "CEO" ?
CitrusFruits 5y ago
I'm just going to go ahead and give a reminder that these statistics only represent correlation, not causality. My guess is that it's more that when you don't have things, the more you tend to have more of a motivation to seek religion. That being said, it would be an interesting study to find if there was a causal relationship between non religiousity and certain markers of prosperity. As a "practicing" Christian, I'd honestly love to know, regardless of what the results are.
throw0101a 5y ago
> Interesting: The least religious countries/territories have more economic, social, and political stability and are far wealthier and more technologically/scientifically advanced than the most religious ones. And 8/10 are in Europe, with 1 being run by a European country for the last century when it became developed.† Which also correlates to a lack of corruption: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index Which also seems to be inversely related to places where cousin marriage is prevalent: * PDF: https://www.gwern.net/docs/sociology/2019-akbari.pdf https://www.gwern.net/docs/sociology/2019-akbari.pdf * DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2019.07.015 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2019.07.015 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin_marriage#Prevalence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin_marriage#Prevalence There's also the fact that 7/10 the top democratic countries, many of which also appear on your list, are constitutional monarchies: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index What happened in European history that could have perhaps led to all of these countries moving in the same developmental direction? * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_Europe † IIRC, Japan also explicitly modelled their system after the UK's during the Meiji Restoration.
heresie-dabord 5y ago
Democracy does not need religion, nor does prosperity. Democracy definitely needs education and the participation of citizens in government. Some regimes use religion as part of propaganda that maintains the power structure. Monarchies, for example. Religion isn't necessarily unwelcome in democracy as long as it doesn't conflict with governance, health and education policy.

by cs702 5y ago

mgh2 5y ago

This trend, while generally true, has been examined through multiple sources and variables to find out what makes a country prosperous- the US is an exception though https://m-g-h.medium.com/in-data-we-trust-2978dacc8c22 https://m-g-h.medium.com/in-data-we-trust-2978dacc8c22

tlogan 5y ago
I think there is one more factor. Due to polarized state of our politics religion is used as “rally flag” or a way to show “family values”. On both sides.
- ben_palaskas 5y ago
  Is it though? I am a christian in the US and have only met other christians at religious functions save for two or three occasions, where as everyone else I meet is not christian and probably not religious.
chmod775 5y ago
> the US is an exception though I would say people in the US just really like to profess to being Christian, even though they act the part in no way, shape, or form. Both country and people. It's more of a cultural 'thing' than actual belief or practice. The dichotomy of word and action is striking. Like watching someone claim to be a firefighter, attend training and seminars, then commit arson and not do any, you know, firefighting.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- crazygringo 5y ago
  There's no single definition of Christianity. There are so many denominations and different practices within, it's almost mind-boggling. So you may think people in the US merely profess being Christian according to your personal definition of whatever you think a Christian is or ought to be. But I can guarantee you the US is an extremely religious country and the different denominations are quite sincere in their beliefs. You don't have a monopoly on judging what "actual" Christianity is. In fact, your attitude is an extremely paternalistic, and frankly offensively, literal "holier than thou" position.
  - moistly 5y ago
    Dude, it isn’t like we can’t see what red-letter Jesus said and did, and also see that many — even a majority — of self-identifying “Christians” behave in ways that are in contradiction to His commandments. IOW, about as “Christian” as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is “Democratic”: the self-selected name does not represent the actual reality.
    - crazygringo 5y ago
      "Dude", if you think Christianity is mostly about what Jesus taught or his commandments... then I'm sorry but you don't understand Christianity at all. Christianity is a multifaceted historical phenomenon, a cultural tradition of which Jesus and even the text of the Bible is a small part. Saying Christianity is about what Jesus said and did makes as much sense as saying that the US is about the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. In both cases, it's not nothing, but neither is it the whole story, or even 10% of the story. You're free to decide what Christianity means to you, but not to prevent others from doing the same for themselves. After all, others doing it for themselves is precisely why "Christianity" is a family of seemingly countless denominations and divisions within. It's not a single monolithic thing, or even close to it.
helsinkiandrew 5y ago
But increasingly less: https://www.economist.com/united-states/2021/07/10/nothing-in-particulars-are-americas-fastest-growing-religious-group https://www.economist.com/united-states/2021/07/10/nothing-i...
- mgh2 5y ago
  This is from an outsider’s view. No need to go to church, it helps, but it is not the main attribute of a Christian. In fact, these institutions have become so blatantly centers of salesmanship nowadays, that there is a greater probability of fakes and hypocrites attending today.

GekkePrutser 5y ago

One outlier is America of course. It has pretty high scores for importance in daily life and it's one of the wealthiest countries in the world. It does have very high differences in wealth distribution though, much more than the Nordic countries. But I think there's a large cultural aspect there too.

brabel 5y ago
There are always going to be exceptions to the rule, usually due to a strong counfounding factor that can explain the difference pretty well... For example, Saudia Arabia is wealthy and extremely religious... I hope I don't have to explain the counfounding factor in this case. Regarding the USA: even though it scores high in religious people rates, it's also one of the free-est places in the world, so people who are not believers are still relatively free to go about their daily lives without problem, unlike in most other highly religious nations. The USA also happens to have the biggest military in the world, capable of taking over and applying pressure on its enemies in order to further its economical interests... I think these two factors should be sufficient to explain quite well why the USA is an exception to the rule.
- frosted-flakes 5y ago
  Why don't you just spell it out explicitly? What you are implying certainly isn't obvious.
  - brabel 5y ago
    I was trying to "imply" that religious countries tend to be poorer than non-religious countries according to the data (why that is, I am not sure myself but probably because religions limit your society and specially creativity in ways that are damaging to economical success) and if that's not the case for a particular country, that's just because there are stronger counfounding factors that can explain the disparity... is that what you were expecting me to say???
    - frosted-flakes 5y ago

tlogan 5y ago

That is one of the factors. The other factor can be that the least religious countries are the most homogeneous (with some exceptions).

SamBam 5y ago
Is this just a pet theory, or have you actually quantified the homogeneity of the most and least religious countries? While the Scandinavian countries are probably very homogenous, I'm guessing that at least some of the most-religious list (Ethiopia, Yemen, Sri Lanka, Malawi, Burundi, Mauritania) are fairly homogenous too.
- kleton 5y ago
  None of the ones you named are particularly homogeneous. In Ethiopia and Malawi there is no majority ethnic group. Mauritania's largest ethnic group has a narrow (54%) majority. Yemen is in a civil war between its two largest endogamous sects. The central government of Ethiopia is at war with Tigrayan separatists. The central government of Sri Lanka only recently defeated the Tamil separatists.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

beaconstudios 5y ago

I think the causality is backwards; as countries become more prosperous they become less religious as the people become more cosmopolitan.

megous 5y ago
No for all the countries on that list. Communism also had a role...
- maerF0x0 5y ago
  unfortunately I couldn't find the methodology, but it's very important to realize that self reported data is fraught with many many issues. In many communist countries religion (or at least freedom to choose from foreign or other religions) is suppressed. People which might have been religious do not become, and those that are might not tell the truth. Similarly in religious nations I'm sure we'd get a far lower "religious" rate if you went through a set of beliefs for each religion and see what things they actually practice. Eg: church attendance most weeks, prayer, reading the bible, taking communion, monogamy/marriage, etc... I'm sure if you go down that checklist the number of people who say they're "Christian" for whatever reason, would actually sharply decline when we consider their actual life practices. to make a HN analogy I can put CEO on my linkedin profile, but unless I incorporate something, sell something, hire people, build a business etc. am I really the CEO of anything the way that people interpret when they hear "CEO" ?

CitrusFruits 5y ago

I'm just going to go ahead and give a reminder that these statistics only represent correlation, not causality. My guess is that it's more that when you don't have things, the more you tend to have more of a motivation to seek religion. That being said, it would be an interesting study to find if there was a causal relationship between non religiousity and certain markers of prosperity. As a "practicing" Christian, I'd honestly love to know, regardless of what the results are.

throw0101a 5y ago

> Interesting: The least religious countries/territories have more economic, social, and political stability and are far wealthier and more technologically/scientifically advanced than the most religious ones. And 8/10 are in Europe, with 1 being run by a European country for the last century when it became developed.† Which also correlates to a lack of corruption: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index Which also seems to be inversely related to places where cousin marriage is prevalent: * PDF: https://www.gwern.net/docs/sociology/2019-akbari.pdf https://www.gwern.net/docs/sociology/2019-akbari.pdf * DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2019.07.015 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2019.07.015 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin_marriage#Prevalence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin_marriage#Prevalence There's also the fact that 7/10 the top democratic countries, many of which also appear on your list, are constitutional monarchies: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index What happened in European history that could have perhaps led to all of these countries moving in the same developmental direction? * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_Europe † IIRC, Japan also explicitly modelled their system after the UK's during the Meiji Restoration.

heresie-dabord 5y ago

Democracy does not need religion, nor does prosperity. Democracy definitely needs education and the participation of citizens in government. Some regimes use religion as part of propaganda that maintains the power structure. Monarchies, for example. Religion isn't necessarily unwelcome in democracy as long as it doesn't conflict with governance, health and education policy.