I find Vietnam surprising. Nearly all of the Vietnamese homes I have been in have altars. I have an altar in my house because I have a Vietnamese wife. I have been to temples in Vietnam full of people burning incense and fake money, praying for wealth, good health and good fortune. I have known people who have invited Buddhist monks around to their house to exorcise spirits or to contact the spirits of their ancestors. Many Vietnamese may not see themselves as practising Buddhists though, even though they go to the pagoda to pray and burn incense. My wife still goes to the pagoda to burn incense and pray sometimes, but she says she is not religious. I say I am not religious, but I haven't set foot inside a church to worship in over 30 years.
It might depend on how the question is asked. I find Vietnamese people highly superstitious, and yes reverent of ancestors, but not religious. You might call this religion. But maybe others, including the Vietnamese, would not.
I teach English in Vietnam and religion usually comes up after a few lessons. I have only met a few people, out of the few dozen I have asked, that said they are not religious. Then I ask about the burning incense and ancestor worship type things and they always say that they do them. So even most of the ones that don't claim to be religious seem to still participate in religious ceremonies.
@kalbahamut - pretty much the same as in China. Most people don't describe themselves as religious, however, yet they still follow a ton of superstitions and visit temples etc.
Living in France, I'm not surprised at all and I'm always amazed by how much foreign country tend to see us as an ultra-religious country. Here even the catholic are not so church-going and are sometime anticlerical.
Not exactly. I am not sure about South Korea, but Japan does follow a brand of polytheism, where multiple religions are followed simultaneously, so perhaps the same is happening in South Korea.
It's not asking for atheist countries though, it's asking for irreligious countries. People who are members of a religion can technically be counted as irreligious depending on how the term is defined. For Azerbaijan those people might be Muslims but they don't see it as very important or impactful in their day to day lives.
Good quiz. I can say jokingly that the religion of (my home country) Estonia is singing, but that's not exactly what you want to hear.
@ Stigni: North Korea has Juche, that means they "believe" Kim is a god.
@ PorcNBeanz: Irreligion isn't the same as intellect. Finland, Switzerland and Taiwan aren't on this list, but yet they're in the top 10 of every PISA test.
Cold sucks so badly that people living there know there can be no god. If a generous and loving god exists, he wouldn't make people live in the climate of Finland/Sweden
most tropical countries are poor or at least not rich, and most poor people are religious. I'm not saying that religious people are idiots and cannot make any money or a living, I'm just saying that secular countries are more developed. May or may not be a coincidence.
Christianity... In France, each baptized person is christian, according to christian leaders. I presume it's the same in other so-called christian countries. Your percentages must be the official ones !
I've been baptized when I was a few days old. I don't believe in any god, and my parents or my brother don't. But four french "christians"... Sorry for my english.
'Not religious' is an ambivalent term. Does it mean 'I believe in god but don't go to church' or does it mean 'I don't believe in god', or it may be 'I'm not affiliated with an official relgion but I am spiritual'.
Everyone is free to choose their interpretation, of course, so it's difficult to draw any conclusions whatsoever from this quiz :)
In the source it says the numbers are for people who answered as "not a religious person" or "a convinced atheist". Everyone knows what an Atheist is so I'd say non-practicing believers (e.g. a Christian who's not praying or going to church or doing anything other than carry that "title" Christian) would fall into the category of "not a religious person". But it's very difficult to say because not everyone thinks alike and polls are just representative numbers.
@MyOriginalLife, it looks like your figure for 71% Christain in the UK is out of date. The 2001 census had a figure of 72%, but the most recent census in 2011 showed only 59% identifying as Christain. Most of the surveys I have heard or seen in the last few years comment on the rise of those identifying as 'non religious, agnostic or atheist' so I suspect (and accept that is nothing more than supposition on my part) that the downward trend in those identifying as Christian will have continued.
@MyOriginalLife, as the survey shows, your numbers are wrong. People just put down "Christian" on the census and stuff (often on the behalf of others including very young children who can't possibly have decided) because they might, for example, have a wedding in a church.
In the uk most people would consider themselves Christian because its taught from birth and is in the culture, but no one ever actually goes to church and people only celebrate Christian holidays for commercial reasons
Yep, I remember filling in a census with a group of housemates at university. Most ticked "Christian" despite being nothing of the sort and knowing very little about the faith. They never planned on going to church except to get married. Last study I saw had church attendance in the UK at 6% and predicted to fall to 4% in the next few years.
I'd like to see the sources for this quiz because these results seem quite dubious. I imagine the discrepancy comes down to definitions of "belief" and "deity" as I know first hand that Japan has an overwhelming majority of religiously apathetic citizens. Some may counter that their fusion of Shinto and Zen Buddhism favors belief in a deity but I don't think it's a fair comparison to compare the spiritual avatars of Buddhism to the monotheistic god of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. Additionally, Azerbaijan and Albania are Muslim majority countries and while the latter is likely filled with nonpracticing Muslims, I doubt the integrity of the intel regarding Azerbaijan.
Self-perception is just one criterion about religiousness and varies widely between cultures.
Czech Republic is traditionally regarded as the most atheist European country and is also high on this list, but I have a friend who moved there from Slovenia and to him CZ seems more religious. Simply put – Slovenes might go to church only on Christmas, Easter, funerals, weddings etc, not care much about God but consider themselves religious in a poll. Czechs would do the same but claim they're not religious.
I live in Israel, typed it just for fun. I think the issue here is what is "religious." With so many very strictly observant Jews, Muslims and Christians, anyone who is not very observant probably defines themselves as "not religious" though nearly everyone observes the holidays and traditions and probably most of them believe in God. In the U.S. most of those people would be more likely to say they are religious, because they are comparing themselves to atheists. .. . .. the sliding scale.
Reminds me of an old joke about a first-year University of Chicago student who goes home for the holidays. His mother asks, "how are you son?" He replies, "relative to what?"
Flawed quiz. There's no way Sweden can be in second place, when Norway is not even mentioned. Such small (population) and neighboring countries are usually not THAT different, and I am Norwegian, so I know. I know for sure, that not ~50% is Christian or religious. That percent is much lower, and irreligious percent is much higher!
These polls must be a joke or something. Finland and Norway not at least 80% irreligious? Yeah right.
And no, it's not about "boo hoo that's what the people answered" - if you've lived in these countries you know that believers are very, very rare. Walking on the streets you're probably more likely to run into a convicted murderer than a religious person. It's a shame that people behind these polls decided to take a shortcut and just make up numbers out of their heads.
It is possible that people just took the question to mean something different to what you took it to mean. Whether someone is "a religious person" is a very subjective question. For some people it is clear, but not for others.
22% of people in Norway believe in God. Yet over 50% is religious? I agree, that sounds weird.
I'm wondering whether they even did that poll in Norway.
The only reason I can think of, with not having Norway up there, is if the survey was not done in every country. Being from Norway, and being interested in religion, I know there are no surveys done where over 50% of the population said they were religious. That would be insane.
I'm very surprised that Israel made the list considering that they are supposed to be a Jewish country and that it is in the Middle East making the rest of the population likely to be Muslim.
Juche has many aspects of a religion. In my mind, it reaches past a political ideology. In any case, they North Koreans didn't take this poll and aren't included in the source. How many Koreans in the North genuinely believe in Juche is an unknowable question, but I imagine most of them would say they have absolute faith in Great Leader
What? Everyone in Vatican is an immigrant. There are no people born in Vatican at all. The people living in Vatican are clergymen, monks, nuns and such who should not be into babymaking. There has been a few babies born in Vatican though during the WW2 when pregnant jewish women were hiding in Vatican., but those kids for sure did not get a Vatican citizenship.
Yeah, as a Finn myself, I'm totally questioning Finland's absence on this list. We're not religious, I'd know that. Approx. 71% of Finns belong to Evangelical Lutheran Church, yet ≤10% of them are active church goers. The reason for this is that were born as members of the church (as our parents most likely were members) and then we're just too lazy to leave/resign/whateververbissupposedtobecorrect the church.
I expected Finland, Norway, Iceland to be on the list.
But not necessarily Russia, Belgium, Cuba - I'd expect to find Uruguay and Taiwan above those.
Norway has about 22% who believes in God, so how over 50% can be religious is a mystery. My only guess is that the survey this quiz was based on, was not conducted in all countries. Norway and Finland's absent might just have been due to them not being surveyed. Anything else makes little sense to me. As a Norwegian interested in religion, I would have know if there were any survey's where the majority of Norwegian identify as religious.
I think it would be high on the list, but getting good stats out of North Korea is futile. They have largely replaced religion with a cult of personality for the Kim dynasty. According to Wikipedia, about 64% of the citizens might be considered irreligious, but that has to be mostly speculation.
Religion is truly the "Opiate of the masses", as they struggle to survive and strive to purchase eternity in heaven while their leaders bleed them dry so that THEY might live a life of luxury here on earth. I am not being "casually offensive", I am being a realist.
Well, a decrease in religiousness does cause an increase in intellectuality and education. Which in their turn benefit factors like wealth, economical stability, freedom, etc.
Of all the former Soviet SSRs, apart from Estonia, Azerbaijan is the one I'd expect to show up here the least. Interesting. Is that new following the update? [edit: looking at the stats apparently I've taken this twice before, and I've missed Azerbaijan every time while usually getting all the others. Maybe it will finally sink in this time.]
I got it this time. and now I find it curious that I would make this statement in late 2018 which was after I had visited Moldova, Georgia, and Armenia all of which are extremely religious. ..hmm... oh well at least it finally sank in.
I feel like it’s a tossup on whether a post-communist nation is very religious (Poland, Romania, Armenia) or very atheist (Estonia, Czechia, Azerbaijan). I would love to see an explanation why.
Yeah, I honestly expected more former Communist Bloc countries to be on here, but I've also heard that some Eastern European countries, like Poland and Hungary, are quite conservative. Not sure why there's such a discrepancy. As it turns out according to the source, Slovenia and Latvia are very near misses, and Ukraine and Lithuania aren't very far off either.
Very interesting quiz: What actually is 'Religion'?..... it means different things to different people. Some people are religious because they truly believe that their God is somehow aware of everything and is capable of deciding the fate of the world and all within. Many others say they are 'Religious' because their parents say they are and everyone they know says they are, they don't want to be a troublemaker and the rituals and ceremonies keep them playing along with the crowd. Some people are fence-sitters, they have no real faith or belief in any deity, but when asked about religion answer one that they choose, much like the way some people say they support football teams although they know nothing about them and don't watch them. Then there are those that say they are religious out of fear, fear of being ostracised for not believing, fear of being the odd-one-out, fear of upsetting the status quo or fear of giving offence to all the others that are the same: Which are you?
Poland is one of the most Catholic countries in Europe, and among the most religious and conservative. I think they only get beat out by Romania, Moldova, and maybe the Vatican.
I know the feeling, I guessed Kazakhstan out of boredom (not suprised it wasn't listed)...when I saw Azerbaijan I was like 'ah man, closer than I thought I would!'. :P
Isn't it that the remaining religous parts are like hyper-orthodox or something? From what i've learned a good part is more into 'cultural judaism' (taking part out of tradition and bonding, not out of belief in any supernatural). If this is indeed correct, than Israel seems a bit bipolar to me. :P
Always tricky how it is determined, the Netherlands is according to its own central bureau for statistics only 51% or 52% irreligious, per 2019. It considers this as not being in a deity (mainly focussing on christianity, judaism and islam), quite a bit around here are spiritual though.
Given what i've understood about irreligiousity I thought Iceland would have been in the list, but apparently not.
I've noticed that many people in Protestan countries believe that Catholic countries are very religious. Probably true for Poland but not Spain, France or Ireland. I've never met a religious person in Spain who was born after the 70's
I feel like guessing formerly (or currently) authoritarian countries and guessing European (especially primarily Protestant) countries is a good rule of thumb for this quiz
Hmm. Something seems off with this quiz. I'm especially not buying that Israel is an irreligious country. Some people must have a WAY different definition of "irreligious" than me, idk.
Vietnamese outside vietnam are more likely to be religious, as they were fleeing communism.
@ Stigni: North Korea has Juche, that means they "believe" Kim is a god.
@ PorcNBeanz: Irreligion isn't the same as intellect. Finland, Switzerland and Taiwan aren't on this list, but yet they're in the top 10 of every PISA test.
I've been baptized when I was a few days old. I don't believe in any god, and my parents or my brother don't. But four french "christians"... Sorry for my english.
Everyone is free to choose their interpretation, of course, so it's difficult to draw any conclusions whatsoever from this quiz :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_irreligion
Czech Republic is traditionally regarded as the most atheist European country and is also high on this list, but I have a friend who moved there from Slovenia and to him CZ seems more religious. Simply put – Slovenes might go to church only on Christmas, Easter, funerals, weddings etc, not care much about God but consider themselves religious in a poll. Czechs would do the same but claim they're not religious.
And no, it's not about "boo hoo that's what the people answered" - if you've lived in these countries you know that believers are very, very rare. Walking on the streets you're probably more likely to run into a convicted murderer than a religious person. It's a shame that people behind these polls decided to take a shortcut and just make up numbers out of their heads.
I'm wondering whether they even did that poll in Norway.
The only reason I can think of, with not having Norway up there, is if the survey was not done in every country. Being from Norway, and being interested in religion, I know there are no surveys done where over 50% of the population said they were religious. That would be insane.
It's Called Vatican City :)
I expected Finland, Norway, Iceland to be on the list.
But not necessarily Russia, Belgium, Cuba - I'd expect to find Uruguay and Taiwan above those.
Norway has about 22% who believes in God, so how over 50% can be religious is a mystery. My only guess is that the survey this quiz was based on, was not conducted in all countries. Norway and Finland's absent might just have been due to them not being surveyed. Anything else makes little sense to me. As a Norwegian interested in religion, I would have know if there were any survey's where the majority of Norwegian identify as religious.
Religious countries are obviously still lacking in most of these factors.
the most arch religious of all
Surprinsingly didn't work.
Given what i've understood about irreligiousity I thought Iceland would have been in the list, but apparently not.
Also forgot Azerbaijan :(