Stats on religion: USA, Britain, Italy, France, Germany

I just feel like having drunk sour milk unknowingly, because I wrote the text below before discovering that the numbers were from December 2006. But anyway, have a look at stats from last year!

A Financial Times/Harris Poll has revealed a lot of interesting numbers on religion in USA, Britain, Italy, France and Germany. Here are some of the results I found most interesting:

As expected, Americans for a large part believe in God, so 73% is no surprise. In fact, it might as well have been higher. The French has the largest amount of Atheists, which is also no surprise. Both Britan and Germany are OK too. There are more than twice as many believers in USA as there is in Britian. That's interesting, it being often referred to as the "51st state" and all.
Now to the question of veils, France is the most trigger-happy, while USA is the most liberal. That's not so strange, but what surprised me is that USA is also a warm defender of blasphemy. While in Laicist France there are 42% who thinks blasphemy should be outlawed, and 41% who said it shouldn't, in USA 52% says blasphemy should not be outlawed. And only 31% says it should be outlawed. I find this rather heartwarming. (Unfortunately, I think Americans prefer not to take blasphemy to the courts, but rather send a well armed militia to the blasphemer.)

Anyway, it's quite clear that the French, Brits and Germans are skeptical, but not so much in a philosophical way. It's more a pragmatic attitude: no extreme displays of religion and no blasphemy either. Americans, however, like their religions loud.