One aspect of our species that is truly fascinating is the very existence of religion. The big four that are currently popular include Christianity (31.4%), Islam (23.2%), Hinduism (15.0%), and of course Buddhism (7.1%). Together they account for 76.7% of our entire species. Those percentages are via a pew survey from 2010. It has probably changed a bit since then, but not too dramatically. The percentages give you a rough idea, and that’s good enough.
Beyond those big 4, there are roughly 10,000 distinct religions (via African Studies Association; University of Michigan (2005). History in Africa. Vol. 32. p. 119). Most of course only have a small following.
Via a recent release of Pew data we now have a fascinating insight, a slightly different way of looking at this. Often people will identify as culturally religious, but often they don’t actually embrace the belief. For example, a national census might ask “What is your Religion?“, and many might simply tick a box such as Lutheran, Baptist, or Catholic without giving it too much thought because that is the tradition that they were raised in, and so this identifies their cultural identity and not what they actually believe.
A more pointed set of followup questions to gain a better insight would be these …
- “How important is religion in your life?”
- “How often do you pray?”
Using data that Pew have collected for such probing questions from multiple regional surveys, we now get an insight into how religious humans really are within different nations all across the globe (or should that be the Flat Earth, because some also believe that).
The details were published on Aug 9, 2024
- The Pew writeup on their results can be found here.
- They document their methodology here – and estimate the average margin of error to be roughly +/- 3%
- The full survey questions can be found here
For context, their “Most religious Nation” insight has been pulled together from data that comes from previous religion-focused Pew surveys conducted between 2008 and 2023: sub-Saharan Africa; the Middle East-North Africa region and many countries with large Muslim populations; Latin America; Israel; Central and Eastern Europe; Western Europe; India; South and Southeast Asia; and the United States.
Side Note: Yea this is Pew flexing the corporate muscles and announcing “Hey, we do this stuff on a global scale“. It triggers people like me into writing about it and so they get lots of free advertising. I’m OK with that, it is still fascinating.
OK, let’s jump into the reveal. Once I’ve done that, we can then mull over a few thoughts on why our species is religious.
Reveal 1: “How important is Religion to you?”
Here it all is within one picture. Clearly Indonesia is the winner and Japan is the least religious …
What we see above is open to interpretation. Pew simply report the statistics, they don’t strive to explain why. Here, we can briefly speculate on that data.
In the above what we appear to see is a pattern where wealthy nations tend to lean far less into religion, and less wealthy nations have populations that lean far more into religion with populations that deem it to be important. But that is not a hard rule, there are exceptions. For example, the US, one of the most wealthy nations, sits there in the middle with 42% saying religion is very important.
Another way to interpret the data is to derive a rule that Islam, as a system of belief, appears to be more important for individuals than other systems of belief. Once again, there are exceptions. For example, some Central and South American nations rank higher than some Islamic nations, as does Kenya which is 85% Christian.
I do also have to wonder about a couple of things …
- If asked, is there an existing social expectation within a specific religious or national culture to say that “religion is very important”, even if it is not actually very important?
- How well does the survey question translate? (It includes data from different surveys for different regions, so could the way the question was phrased be a factor in play).
One way to probe into that is to explore the actual practise of religion, and so we move on to the next reveal.
Reveal 2: “How often do you Pray?”
Here is the data for this question. Once again Indonesia is the most religious, but for many others there has been a change. Here the UK now ranks at the bottom …
Clearly it is very similar … and yet it is not the same.
One interesting insight noticed by Pew was this …
The survey found that while few East Asians consider religion very important in their lives or pray daily, many people across the region hold religious or spiritual beliefs and engage in traditional rituals. For example, many East Asians participate in rituals to honor their ancestors.
In other words, those ranking low by both measures do also appear to be rather religious.
Translation: Interesting as it all is, actually measuring this can be a very tricky question.
What does a survey like this really tell us?
Let’s take the UK as an example. It appears to be a nation where most don’t lean into religion in theory or in practise, but just how accurate a measure is that.
For example, if you don’t use any religious labels or practises at all, but instead take a completely different approach, would you still find the same?
We can test this by asking how many people in the UK believe in ghosts?
To accept that belief as real you need to not only accept that there is an afterlife, but you also need to believe that the paranormal is real. A survey from 2017 on that in the UK reveals that as many as one third do believe in ghosts.
The interesting observation there is that while organized religion has clearly declined, a belief in the paranormal and an afterlife still bubbles away amongst large swathes of the population.
There is perhaps a far more interesting question here.
Why are Humans Like This?
We humans are quite a superstitious lot. You might personally even find yourself doing stuff like this …
- If you travel to work a specific way, then it will be a good day at work.
- If you play a game on your smartphone and win then it is a good sign.
- Lucky socks, shirt, tie, etc…
- Lucky numbers, or avoiding some numbers.
Here for example are the options within a hotel elevator that I stayed in … no 13th floor …
I kind of get it in some ways. I can well imagine some guests choking on the idea of staying in a room on the 13th floor, and so to avoid all that fuss the hotel opted to not have a 13th floor. It’s a business decision the recognises some people don’t like 13.
Was there a magic air gap between floor 12 and 14 perhaps?
Why are we like this?
Skinner Box
In 1948 Burrhus Frederic Skinner published his now famous paper titled “‘Superstition’ in the Pigeon“. It offers an interesting suggestion.
The essence of that is what is now known as a “Skinner Box”.
Here is what he did.
He placed a collection of hungry pigeons in boxes, one per box. At totally random intervals an automated mechanism delivered food to the pigeon. What he observed is that whatever the pigeon just happened to be doing when the food arrived developed into a ritual that the pigeon then deployed to get more food …
One bird was conditioned to turn counter-clockwise about the cage, making two or three turns between reinforcements. Another repeatedly thrust its head into one of the upper corners of the cage. A third developed a ‘tossing’ response, as if placing its head beneath an invisible bar and lifting it repeatedly. Two birds developed a pendulum motion of the head and body, in which the head was extended forward and swung from right to left with a sharp movement followed by a somewhat slower return.
Religious pigeons!
Yes, but why?
Sitting between your ears is an amazing pattern matching machine. It seeks out and identifies patterns because that is a distinct attribute that greatly improves our survival.
The price we pay for this also comes at a cost. We end up seeing patterns in random noise … conspiracies, rabbits in clouds, etc…
We might indeed logically know as individuals that a specific superstitious ritual we do is not really going to make any difference, but we still cling to it anyway because it grants us emotional comfort via the illusion of control over quite random events.
If you find yourself doing stuff like this and are tempted to think, “Gosh, I must be a bit crazy”. Nope, you are not. All you are actually guilty of is being human. It’s a mechanism we use to handle inner tensions and anxieties.
It can of course, like many things, be taken to an extreme and manifest as OCD, but for most of us, that’s not the case.
It is all part of who we are and is just one part of the wider human experience.
This is perhaps why we have built up over time elaborate systems of belief that offer the illusion of control, easy answers, meaning, comfort, and a community that meets many of our social cravings.