World population by irreligiosity, brighter being more so, drabber less.
Boycy was asking me if Christianity or Islam was bigger (it’s Christianity). Looking it up, I was shocked at what’s number 3. Irreligion. What?
According to the venerable Wiki 16-20% of the population is ‘irreligious’ which I suppose would be like irresponsible, but not irradiated. Communist China, of course, is propping those numbers up (and the estimates of 8-93% there are pretty dubious). I also think a lot of people are cobbling together spirituality in non ‘organized’ ways, especially in places where religion is sorta banned.
By some estimates Irreligion is also the fastest growing ‘religion’ in America.
Anyways, Wikipedia, blowing my mind, all the time.
Unfortunately, I think the statistics on religious numbers have a massive margin for error and should be treated with extreme caution.
Examples include:
– if you’re a citizen of the Maldives you’re de facto Muslim (you cannot be the former without being the latter), regardless of your actual belief
– you can only legally belong to an approved religion in China, such as the Chinese Roman Catholic Church, so smaller faiths are underrepresented by fear of prosecution
– the punishment for apostacy in most Muslim countries is extreme, including execution, so the numbers of real, believing Muslims will be smaller than the statistics imply (think about the reasoning for this.. disturbing, no?)
– of those who nominally call themselves Christian in the UK (down from 71% in 2001 to 54% now), half don’t believe Jesus was the son of God and two thirds don’t believe he was physically resurrected! Only 10% of these self-described Christians think that moral guidance comes from religion (see http://richarddawkins.net/articles/644941-rdfrs-uk-ipsos-mori-poll-1-how-religious-are-uk-christians)
– the Roman Catholic Church gets to decide how many Catholics there are, and unsurprisingly they inflate the figures. As a Catholic, you can only be expunged from the RCC’s records via their approval for ex-communication, which has become rather difficult of late
All groups have a self interest in inflating their membership, some on pain of death, some through manipulation. Then there are the flocks of worshippers who either disbelieve much of their own religion, picking and choosing despite no legitimacy for so doing, or who simply don’t practice or act as members of their faiths are required to do by their own rules. So do these people really belong to a religion? Are they religious, spiritual, lazy, scared, stupid or some sort of mix? Who knows?
What is clear is that there’s no real way of knowing for sure how many Christians, Muslims or any other religion there are, save to some extent counting those who live in circumstances where they can freely choose AND freely reveal their choice. As is demonstrated by the UK statistics, even that may not give a true picture.
Wait, so Africa, as continent, is more ‘irreligious’ than a lot of other places (eg. North America, even USA, and Aus)? Strange…
I suspect indi’s got it wrong. Brighter probably indicates more religiosity rather than less.
I don’t know, I think it makes sense for North America and South America, by area. I suspect this is not very well measured at all in certain places. So much room for inaccuracy. Should just not be presented for global comparison. The dangers of wiki….I reckon it is making the world as a whole a lot less perceptive.
Kind of like Hulu, “see this is your brain on tv, this is your brain on hulu…” :)
You’re right
World population by irreligiosity, brighter being less so, drabber more.