Monday, October 8, 2007

Religion and Social Issues

"The survey finds a strong relationship between a country's religiosity and its economic status. In poorer nations, religion remains central to the lives of individuals, while secular perspectives are more common in richer nations.1 This relationship generally is consistent across regions and countries, although there are some exceptions, including most notably the United States, which is a much more religious country than its level of prosperity would indicate. Other nations deviate from the pattern as well, including the oil-rich, predominantly Muslim -- and very religious -- kingdom of Kuwait."

Pew Research Center, October 4, 2007
Lot's more numbers in the report.
See also this, which taken from the same survey:
"Pakistanis who believe that religion and government should remain separate were only 33 per cent of the population in 2002. Five years later their size grew to 48 per cent, a 15 per cent increase. In Turkey, support for secularism declined by 18 per cent over the same period. In 2002, 73 per cent Turks said they believed religion and politics did not mix. Although secularists are still a majority in Turkey, their size declined to 55 per cent in 2007."

Pakistan Dawn, October 08, 2007

2 comments:

Kojudo Mayor said...

The studies have also showed that the number of suicides commited successfully is much, much higher in richer countries than in poorer countries.

You'd better watch out. You could be the next bunging jumping jumper in your rich country doing it without the elastic rope.

Atheist = Piece of talking meat. (There is no essence: the soul)

Anonymous said...

lol piece of talking meat. Lady Gaga anyone? :-]