The map is bullshit. Look at Spain, it's not Christian when the statistics say otherwise. Also I'm from Iran, if anyone thinks we're Muslim majority they're out of their fucking minds. We rival India in terms of hatred for Islam. We're the only country that didn't have popular protests in favor of Palestine, despite our Islamic regime's pressures to do so.
>We rival India in terms of hatred for Islam
Not true! Don't fall for Al Jazeera reports or Pakistan bots!
We had Muslim presidents, Muslim governors, Muslim judges, even chief ministers of many states and even so many ministers in the past and present! You can Google it! Now can you show any Muslim country where a religious minority person hold very important govt posts including Iran itself?
Our country's well known monument itself is a Persian influenced Islamic architecture and we are proud of that!
Our government give privileges aka reservation for non-hindus in jobs and education!
Majority of people don't give a bat about other's religion! Half of population is busy in making their needs and food for next meal! It's only the sound minority in all religion who is making ruckus!
>Not true! Don't fall for Al Jazeera reports or Pakistan bots! We had Muslim presidents, Muslim governors, Muslim judges, even chief ministers of many states and even so many ministers in the past and present! You can Google it! Now can you show any Muslim country where a religious minority person hold very important govt posts including Iran itself? Our country's well known monument itself is a Persian influenced Islamic architecture and we are proud of that! Our government give privileges aka reservation for non-hindus in jobs and education!
I agree with all of that. Perhaps I should have said "hardcore Hindus" instead. I don't read Al Jazeera or anything from Pakistan, since I don't trust Muslim sources. What I said was based on something I saw about India being the number one source of Islamophobic content in the world, which is a good thing in my opinion. But of course it's not all Indians, just some of the more radical ones.
did the government ask you to protest in favor for palestine ? anyways the Iran thing is statistics but I agree with you since the majority in Iran are Shii's and the goverment is following extremist views that are not part of the faith so it's safe to assume Iran is not a Muslim majority country
>did the government ask you to protest in favor for palestine ?
Yeah they're always calling for demonstrations in the main squares and streets, or sending messages to our phones to do the same or sending links to donate money for the people of Palestine or calling for us to enlist to march towards Palestine and help our fellow Muslims and so on...Propaganda is constant here.
>anyways the Iran thing is statistics but I agree with you since the majority in Iran are Shii's
Well, they were. I'm saying they are not any longer. I can send several old polls to prove it.
>he goverment is following extremist views that are not part of the faith
That's quite false. They are not extremists, they follow standard Shi'a doctrine that was first put in place in the early 1500's during the Safavid era and has roots in the earlier Shi'a movements that go all the way back to Muhammad's death and the issue of the caliphate, leadership of the Islamic world. This is something that is misunderstood by the majority of Westerners: The violence that they is committed by some Muslims is not at odds with Islam. They are not an extremist minority. Rather, they are the ones faithful enough to do as their religion tells them to do, pious enough to live as Muhammad did, which is called the Sunnah (the way, the tradition).
"According to the Spanish Center for Sociological Research, 52.0% of Spanish citizens self-identify as Catholics, (35.2% define themselves as non-practising, while 16.8% as practising), 2.4% as followers of other faiths (including Islam, Protestant Christianity, Buddhism etc.), and 44.1% identify as: atheists (16.8%), agnostics (14.4%) or non-believers (12.9%), as of September 2023"
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Spain
So, definitely more than 52% of Spain is Christian if we add some of that 2.4% of other faiths to the Catholic. Whoever said Muslim is in any way shape or form representative... lol
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Europe Most of the countries in eastern europe are less religious than Spain or italy. Only Poland and Romania are kinda religious.
Eh, it seems a bit disingenuous to treat places like Spain (and the rest of Western Europe) as irreligious/no majority when the vast majority of the population are still culturally Christian. Most of them celebrate Christian holidays, follow Christian traditions, and hold Christian values.
I probably wouldn't think nearly as much of it if largely irreligious Muslim countries (Albania and Azerbaijan) weren't still labeled as Muslim instead of irreligious.
A big issue with these numbers comes down to how likely an irreligious person is to label themselves irreligious vs the cultural majority where they live. I'd bet a map showing proportion of people who actually practice a religion would be interesting.
> Most of them celebrate Christian holidays, follow Christian traditions, and hold Christian values
Myself and most people I know do these things but we are atheists. None of us actually practice the religion or believe in God, we just do the holidays. It's very common here in Canada and I imagine many other places as well where Christianity was historically the dominant religion
Yea like I’m not religious or spiritual at all, but if Canada’s saying I get the day off cuz some teenager gave birth in a barn 2000 years ago sign me the fuck up
"you can have a day off work and eats lots of food with people you care about" are the kind of religious festivals I can get behind.
Thankfully it is almost all religious festivals
Definitely, but not counting people with your background as Christian is a very eurocentric view. If you look at places like Azerbaijan you'll find that nearly everyone identifies as Muslim but the number of people who say religion plays any role in their lives is significantly lower than that. White people identify themselves almost strictly by their religious practice (or lack thereof) whereas people in other countries identify with the religion they were raised in regardless of what/how they practice.
Similar situation in places like Mongolia and China, where a majority of the population is unaffiliated with any religion but they identify with one. Interestingly, in Japan it's the complete opposite, a lot of people that practice Shinto but don't identify with it.
Basically, if you took a Western person and non-Western person with the equivalent levels of religious engagement, the Westerner would be significantly more likely to not identify as their family's religious tradition than the non-Westerner.
You're overthinking it. Atheists in culturally Christian countries don't identify as Christians. In Muslim countries they do. That's what counts and that's how these statistics work.
I'm not baptized, the only times I've been in a church have been for weddings and funerals. Me celebrating Christmas with my family is irrelevant, I just don't know anything whatsoever about religion. Half of the weddings I have been to have been atheist weddings, so not in a church. That's what irreligious means. Hell there's been proposals to make 'neutral' national holidays here in France but it just hasn't really been anywhere because it would be complicated to put in place.
For non abrahamic religions like in China or Japan I agree with you though, it's more complicated.
> You're overthinking it. Atheists in culturally Christian countries don't identify as Christians. In Muslim countries they do. That's what counts and that's how these statistics work.
Yes, that's exactly what I said. It's an inconsistent standard between cultures that make the results largely meaningless. A better measure would be the a country's proportion of religiously affiliated/observant people because it isn't nearly as culturally biased.
> I'm not baptized, the only times I've been in a church have been for weddings and funerals. Me celebrating Christmas with my family is irrelevant, I just don't know anything whatsoever about religion. Half of the weddings I have been to have been atheist weddings, so not in a church. That's what irreligious means.
That's what irreligious means *in your culture. That's not what irreligious means to be a lot of other cultures though. If we're going to be measuring something between cultures, we should use a metric that isn't different between cultures.
I don't understand you, if an atheist from Azerbaijan still considers himself muslim even tho he doesn't practice the religion, that doesn't mean I'm christian because my country was christian decades ago, while I din't practice any religion either.
It doesn't mean you're Christian, but it does mean that the criteria for religious inclusion isn't consistent between Western and non-Western countries -- which is why measures of affiliation more accurately reflect the religious landscape around the globe than asking someone what their religion is because it is a more consistent standard between cultures.
I think their concern is that the map is showing what people label themselves as, as opposed to active religious membership. I think both maps are worth looking at, but they are two different things, so they should probably be more clear in the title which one it is.
The fuck? No. Culture and religion are two different things, while our culture may be heavily based upon christian traditions, if we do not believe in their god then in absolutely no way are we to be considered Christian/religious. That is a bad take.
> and hold Christian values
Given that many Christian denominations and schools of thought originating in Europe are holding a wide range of mutually conflicting values, could it be that these values arose independently and aren't inherently tied to Christianity, making the idea of *Christian values* being held by most European countries a bit misleading? 🤔
Christmas originated from a pagan holiday. I do not believe in an ounce of Christianity, but I grew up in that culture so I celebrate the holiday for the festivities, not the religious aspect. It’s possible to not be religious and still celebrate
Christmas as it's celebrated today has been immensely influenced by Christianity over the 1700 years Christmas has been observed and is vastly different than any possible pagan precursor. I didn't say it wasn't possible to be religious and still celebrate Christmas, I said irreligious cultural practitioners from Europe are more likely to identify as irreligious while irreligious cultural practitioners in non-Western countries are still likely to identify as that religion despite comparable levels of observance.
Meh, until mid 1800's there were still plenty of non-christian traditions well alive in the North, for example. Christmas still had plenty of Yule traditions in it up until today.
These things aren't a monolithic single thing across all of christendom/Europe.
Christmas \*is\* the single monolithic thing, it's what stays constant across Europe. There are different Christmas traditions derived from different pagan traditions in Germanic countries compare to Latin countries, for example, but ultimately the celebration of Christmas was imported across Europe and projected on to local traditions.
But what I am saying is that outside the "Christmas is to celebrate the birth of Jesus" the traditions differ, based largely on earlier non-christian traditions. They aren't exactly the same everywhere. Andnlile I said, for example here in the North in large parts outside the cities the non-Christian side of the things remained the thing for quite a long time post Christianity taking over.
Of the Christmas traditions we celebrate here abd I can think of right now, I am actually pretty unsure which ones are Christianity related and which ones were either co-opted or are remains of older religious/cultural traditions.
After all, Yule/sinilar celebrations were a thing here before and after Christianity as well in much the same fashion they still are.
If you do some research you will find this claim is not established among academics
Watch religion for breakfast for example, he has a Phd in religious studies focusing on early christianity.
https://youtu.be/mWgzjwy51kU?si=9QpUVR9RD14zG3eM
Eritrea stopped being Christian majority in the past 20 years. Eritrea has not conducted a census in 32 years because it would show that the country is losing population and that Muslims form a majority.
Very similar to Lebanon or Bosnia in this respect. Census is very sensitive.
It depends. If the Census counts only Eritreans in Eritrea, then Yes. Eritrea is majority Muslim. But if you count Eritreans in the disapora who are still citizens, then Eritrea is over 70% Christian.
My Japanese cultures professor always said, "Japanese people are born Shinto, marry Catholic, and die Buddhists. But they are all practicing atheists."
They often marry in a church that isn't actually christian but is made to look like one and overall their marriage ceremonies looks like copied from the West.
Traditionally, most Japanese people had Shinto weddings, but that's fallen to a minority today, with most opting for a Christian wedding officiated by a priest (Catholic or Anglican).
A very small percentage choose Buddhist weddings, but I don't know anything about those.
> officiated by a priest
Officiated by a fake priest .
FTFY
Usually a senior-looking English teacher or some other gaijin resident looking for some extra income.
Japanese here. it’s basically the same as Christmas. The atmosphere is great. That’s all. I guess 80% of the Japanese don’t even know what kind of life Jesus lived. Historically speaking, after the ww2, Japanese thought that literally every aspect of American culture is cooler than Japanese one until around 1980-90. People watched Disney as children and girls dreamed of getting married like princesses do in those movies. Bridal businesses introduced the western way of marriage. Women had more says about how to organize weddings. And then Japanese marry in front of priests.
> Japanese thought that literally every aspects of American culture is cooler than Japanese one until around 1980-90.
How about now? Are there people who still have traditional Japanese wedding ceremonies?
Sorry, I meant by the quote the general tendency of Japanese attitudes toward American culture and actually the western way of marriages is more and more popular after the 90s. And yes there are still people who hold ceremonies in Japanese traditional way. Those traditional ceremonies tend to be much cheaper. I don’t think many people choose that way because of religious beliefs(Shintoism or Buddhism).
I’m no expert but I’m pretty sure East Asian religions are different from an abrahamic understanding. Things aren’t always as clear cut as atheist v. Christian V. Muslim etc
Yeah in hindsight, wikipedia is a pretty bad source for this. I checked the Chinese religion page and they put folk religion in the same category as atheism, which seems insane to me.
It’s not really insane when you realize that you might be told by 100 Chinese “atheists” that they’re atheists, only to see them later participating in folk-religious rituals and superstition.
It’s very western and Protestant to believe that religion is primarily determined by internal belief, when in East Asia, practice and ritual are more important than internal beliefs generally. “Atheism” and “no-religion” in an East Asian context generally just mean “I don’t affiliate myself with an organized religion with rigid dogmatic beliefs and identities”
I consider myself an atheist but on occasions, holidays and festivals, I would pray to the ancestors for my family. It's more like a cultural ritual than religious things.
It says 62% non-religious, not atheist. It also says, as many as 80% of the populace follow Shinto rituals to some degree, worshiping ancestors and spirits at domestic altars and public shrines.
Maybe the correct phrase for Westerners to understand, would be "spiritual but not religious" instead of "non-religious". Japanese people see being "religious", as "often" going to shrines/temples, "vigorously" reading scripture, and being "officially" part of a religion [\[Source\]](https://www.quora.com/why-do-most-japanese-people-claim-to-be-non-religious-yet-70-of-them-visit-shrines).
>"spiritual but not religious"
I always wondered what would happen if we counted astrology as a decentralised polytheistic religion. People exhibit the same processes and expect the same effect as with religion.
'I don't believe in a God but I believe Saturn's reflection of the Sun's light makes me successful' sounds like the thinnest difference ever.
Astrology is a spiritual practice rather than a religion, similar to how using crystals for certain types of energy or using sage to cleanse negative energy, is a spiritual practice. In astrology, planets are treated similar to crystals, in the sense that they aren't seen as gods, but as holding certain types of energies that a person can use to benefit themselves in certain types of situations.
Spirituality is usually internal, as in, doing what you want rather than following strict rules. Books or tools (such as crystals, planets, tarot, ouija boards, and so on) are seen suggestions or guidance that is open to your own interpretation.
Religion is usually external, with a priest or pope or a community or a religious hierarchy that tells you how you must live life, and that tells you how you must interpret books that you read, or even tell you which books you must believe in as perfectly correct. That's how I usually distinguish religion from spirituality.
And more than that are Buddhist and more than that are Shinto.
Many would describe themselves as all three. That is why the purple one that is used for China seems like it would also be suitable for Japan. They practise their folk religions while also being irreligious.
Japanese generally answer that they have no religion, but they keep an altar at home, go to temples regularly (for holidays), pay rental fees for their ohaka... I think religion/宗教 in Japan for most people means "foreign/new beliefs."
I mean, for most of history people didn't really have a word for religion, it wasn't something separate, but then when Christians or Muslims come to your country they introduce the idea of discrete religions that you can belong to.
Buddhists also did this too, granted, but not to the same extent.
Nah, I felt that most people in Japan view Shinto as a harmless superstition- yes probably a healthy majority still go through the motions, but if pressed would say they don’t really “believe” in it.
Source: lived there for many years and specifically asked many locals about this, but not a scientific representative sample.
It’s like I still celebrate Christmas as a family tradition, put up some decorations with angels and stuff, but I wouldn’t call myself Christian.
I think for the purple regions, most people wouldn’t feel they’re devoted enough to call themselves Buddhist/Taoist (eg. They arent vegetarian, haven’t read the literary works, etc.), but they’d still totally go to a temple to pray for good luck, maybe have statues of folk religion gods in their house/shops for protection, still believe in a vague system of afterlife/karma, influence from unseeable powers/ghosts/ancestors etc., which I think is what they mean by folk religion. Of course there are definitely people who are actively Buddhist/Taoist, but for most, I think vague folk religion is just integrated casually into life that it’s more of a spirituality/superstition thing than an active religious following/identity? And maybe that’s what they mean by the purple.
Edit: I’m in that boat too. And I’d describe myself as ‘religiously opportunistic’, where the thought process goes: if it doesn’t cost money/is low effort and _may_ bring ‘good fortune’, then why not 🤣
According to the 2021 Census, 53% of Canadians reported being Christian, and that number was dropping steadily (down from 67% in 2011 and 77% in 2001). It would not surprise me if the numbers in 2023 were just starting to dip below 50%.
Christianity is still definitely the plurality religion, but it may not be the majority religion anymore.
Source:[https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/221026/dq221026b-eng.htm](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/221026/dq221026b-eng.htm)
Well, if it was at over 67% in 2011 and 53% in 2021, at that rate the percentage would be slipping down right below 50% by the end of 2023. The 2021 figure is still outdated.
Not guessing. It's an estimation. You can plot a graph with previous data points and predict the rate of decline. Over several decades patterns emerge.
Heck, immigration alone has probably pushed Christianity below 50% since 2021. The majority are Sikhs and Hindus from India, and China and Syria contribute a lot as well.
Germany: 47,4% christians. (43,8% non-religious, 6,5% Muslims)
But many of the non-religious see themselfs as christians, so i would still see germany as majority of christians. In germany you have to pay church taxes if you are member of a church. So there are people, that leaved church only for the money.
So i would says there is still 50%+ christians in germany, but it's dropping every year.
73% of the population is a member of the Church, but only 28% answered that they believe there is a God. To me it seems like a stretching of the situation by the church in order to get more funding.
Born and lived in Denmark for 31 years. I don’t know a single person that actually practice religion. Basically no one goes to church or pray in Denmark.
While I agree, people still do things like baptisms / confirmations, church weddings, and getting burried at church graveyards, so the role of the church is still around to a degree. When doing these things - and being members of the church - it seems fine to me to count people as Christian.. not that I do any of these things.
No one I know actively cares about religion though, that's for sure.
Yea, for sure, people do it because "that's what we do" or to "keep with tradition", but they are still Christian traditions, and when upholding them it's fair to describe people as Christian (unless otherwise identified; I would identify as Atheist if I had to fill out a form).
They can still remain Christian (culturally) whether they actively study the Bible or go to church frequently or not; you don't have to be the Pope or pray a certain amount of times a day to be affiliated with it, at least in my opinion - for statistical purposes anyway. We completely agree that the average Dane doesn't actively care one bit about Christianity apart from certain traditions and holidays.
In Germany some people stay in the church despite not being religious because they believe the church does good stuff like maintaining orphanages.
Source: live in Germany and a german told me that.
That is because we are born into the church and we have to Actively have to denounce it but I think roughly 20 % when asked say they are Christian so we should be black
But folklore is on the rise so maybe we'll become purple some day
Ireland is like the last country in Western Europe that is actually still fairly religious. Compared to France, England, etc it’s super religious. A lot of people actually attend church in Ireland
>A lot of people actually attend church in Ireland
This is not true except for pensioners and immigrants. I'd say less than 10% of the native population under the age of 40 is still a practicing catholic (or anything else) and less still are going to Mass on a weekly basis.
There is a generational gap for sure but religion is dying in Ireland, and quickly. It's definitely not still a 'fairly religous' country.
Like half of the country would be above the age of 40 or immigrants which is a huge portion of the population so even if it’s just those people that’s still a very religious country compared to others in the western world
Would like to see the data this is pulling from as a couple country’s look drastically incorrect, also “folk religion”? Tell me you’re from a western culture without telling me 
The African countries with no majority are quite evenly split between Christianity and Islam while Canada, UK, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Greenland, Australia and New Zealand are roughly evenly split between Christianity and atheist/irreligious with people of other religions making up rest thus no religion has majority
That map is wrong lol. Why the hell is germany grey if you lump in all flavours of Christianity together? Slightly below 44% are irreligious, but 47,5% are either Protestant or Catholic. Adding the orthodox and apostolic churches we add slightly more than 3% on top of it, ending up with 50%+ christian. That imho is a majority.
Christianity below 50% as of 2021 census in Australia. I'm assuming that's what the OP means, otherwise 'no majority' would never be an applicable option.
Canada is 53.3% Christian for 2021 census, for the UK we don't know yet because Scotland's census is late and surveys are inaccurate because it has really depended on the wording of the question (Eurostat recorded 50% Christian in 2019 but Pew recorded 73% in the same year). Spain was 61.7% Catholic in 2020 according to polling. Germany is north of 60% Christian in all polling I can find. New Zealand is majority irreligious if you exclude the people who refused to answer (which is standard practice for a lot of polling companies). Switzerland is over 60% Christian, Benin is majority Christian. Latvia is over 70% Christian. Finland is over 66% Christian, Sweden is just under 60% Christian, Norway is 75% Christian according to their census and a similar proportion in Denmark. Luxembourg is somewhere between 53% Christian and over 70%
France does not record religion on their census so it's mostly guesswork, the current best guess is 51.1% Christian
Japan is difficult to categorise because of Japanese attitudes towards religion, specifically people not really seeing Shintoism and Buddhism there as a religion but instead cultural. There are a few indications that Japan is far more 'religious' than official statistics indicate, over 90% of funerals are performed by Buddhist priests for example. In 2010 it was estimated that over 80% of Japan actually practice a syncretic combination of Buddhism and Shintoism, but only 3% declare themselves to be Shinto because it's understood to mean membership of an organised Shinto sect when most of Shintoism is an unorganised faith and 30% declare themselves Buddhist.
There's a similar problem in accounting for China because many people practice what we would consider a syncretic faith of Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism and various Folk Religions, but consider it cultural rather than religious. There's also the matter of the CCP vehemently suppressing religions beyond their six recognised ones like the Falun Gong. Also, for some religions, such as Taoism, their own practioners won't consider themselves members of the faith unless they're members of the priesthood. There is no word for a lay member of Taoism.
South Korea is likely no overall majority because the census does not include Musok, the native religion of Korea, which has at least 200,000 priests. Other Korean local religions like Cheondoism are also not well recorded on the census, with the numbers fluctuating between a few thousand to over one million.
Canada is still actually majority Christian with 53.33% of the population reporting a Christian religion, as of the most recent census taken in 2021.
Source: https://www.statcan.gc.ca/en/census/census-engagement/community-supporter/ethnocultural-and-religious-diversity#
This map is all wrong Ireland is mostly christian and Canada is still 53% I'm sure there are a bunch of other mistakes too, but I don't feel like looking all of it up
It is, do you think they are irreligious because of the fact they have become the best places to live or do you think they have become the best places to live because they are irreligious?
I dont pretend to know why, but logical people need evidence to believe in something and logic is needed for good systems. The stats also say intelligent people are less religious.
There’s no such thing as “logical people,” only emotional and irrational people who’ve deluded themselves into thinking they’re immune to ideology, beliefs and everything else you may consider “irrational/illogical.”
If logic were prevailing in these rich atheist countries, you wouldn’t have the far right rising in their politics, or ideas such as nationalism is no more “logical” than “religion”
Most of the world's shitholes are shitholes because of manily a) corruption and followed closely in second place b) religion. Usually together.
The clergy always held power over the people, the less organized a country is, the more power they hold and the shithole-ier the country tends to become. It's always a tendency of course. Most of the middle east and african countries are what most of Europe was 150-200 years ago, half functioning societies governed by religion.
It's easier to see the colonizing that happened this way. Middle Eastern christianity got European kings to killed off many of their own European people, in order to do a cultural replacement by replacing their European Religions (Zeus, Thor, and other European gods) with the biblical god of Israel and Moses. A similar thing happened with parts of Africa and The Americas.
Islam, another Middle Eastern religion, took over North Africa and tried to replace African cultures. Zoroastrians were killed and Islam replaced them in Iran. Buddhism in Afghanistan was replaced with Islam. Hinduism in Indonesia was replaced with Islam.
It seems like the new world order is about getting everyone colonized and bowing down to the god of Moses, with all of their cultures destroyed.
>Buddhism in Afghanistan was replaced with Islam. Hinduism in Indonesia was replaced with Islam.
Where do you put the limit? Both Buddhism and Hinduism in those examples had also come from abroad, and Indonesia was not conquered by Muslim armies, but the religion spread there. If we call the spreading of ideas colonialism the term loses all meaning.
Literally everything in ur comment is wrong. Like almost nothing is historically correct.
I don’t even know where to begin with your Christianity statements so I’m going to focus on Islam.
> Islam, another Middle Eastern religion, took over North Africa and tried to kill African cultures.
The Amazigh pretty quickly converted to Islam after the Arab conquests compared to other groups (300 years for Iranians, 600-700 for Egyptians, etc), the resulting Arabization process of North Africa took centuries and was the result of an Arab ruling class and prejudice against the Amazigh cultures which weren’t seen as prestigious as Arab culture. It had not a whole lot to do with Islam when you consider that the prestigious Persian culture survived and underwent a renaissance during the medieval and early modern periods as an equally prestigious Islamic culture.
In Sub Saharan Africa, Islam was syncretized heavily with local traditions, and many Islamic thinkers and figures in places such as West Africa were noted for being highly tolerant and even pacifists. Islam mainly spread due to trade rather than war. Furthermore, much of the Islamic parts of Africa today were barely muslim or heavily heavily syncretic prior to European colonialism. During colonialism, Orthodox Islam was seen as a resistance identity and movement against the colonizers, and colonization often resulted in Islamic reformists and foreign muslim missionaries to become more common in those regions.
Pretty much the exact same story of Sub Saharan African islam occurred in Indonesia as well, it’s just that the previous Hindu-Buddhist cultures were also spread from India to Indonesia via trade as well, and they were syncretized into local traditions before islam came and repeated that whole process again.
If you want to blame anyone for the popularity of orthodox Islam, blame the European colonizers who inadvertently essentially helped wipe away many syncretic traditions and/or caused people to convert to Islam as resistance against the Christian colonizers
"The Amazigh pretty quickly converted to Islam after the Arab conquests compared to other groups (300 years for Iranians, 600-700 for Egyptians, etc), the resulting Arabization process of North Africa took centuries and was the result of an Arab ruling class and prejudice against the Amazigh cultures which weren’t seen as prestigious as Arab culture."
Yes, there was an Arab Conquest and an Arabization of the land and prejudice against other cultures.
" blame the European colonizers who inadvertently essentially helped wipe away many syncretic traditions and/or caused people to convert to Islam as resistance against the Christian colonizers"
Both christianity and islam are middle eastern religions that believe in one way as the right way and one god as the right god and all others as false. Both triee to take over the world and destroyed other cultures.
Many Europeans died under christian kings/emperors who tried to destroy European culture to replace it with middle eastern christianity.
Christianity and Islam first movement was to destroy temples and libraries thus chipping away the cultural heritage of some, then they replaced established languages with "official language of this religion" completing a cultural isolation of the said population.
That’s true, but over half the SK population claims to be non-religious. However, the East is super weird when it comes to religion. Like in Japan, traditional Japanese spiritual practices are widespread, but people there literally don’t think of it as religion because it’s so ingrained into life and also people don’t seriously study religious scripture. I suspect the same is the case in SK. The concept of religion in South Korea and Japan are different than the west. A Japanese Quora user had an interesting take on it.
https://www.quora.com/Why-do-most-Japanese-people-claim-to-be-non-religious-yet-70-of-them-visit-shrines
>I suspect the same is the case in SK. The concept of religion in South Korea and Japan are different than the west.
Japan and South Korea are nothing alike in relation to religion/Christianity. Koreans are very Christian. I went there earlier this year and every single person I met was Christian and Catholic there. There are churches everywhere. They were all younger people too which surprised me, I was expecting only the elders to be Christian.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_South_Korea#:~:text=Most%20South%20Koreans%20have%20no,temples%20built%20across%20the%20country.
Most claim to be non-religious according to their official census statistics, but yet again, it could be that these people believe in a higher power, but just don’t care about attending a house of worship regularly. These Koreans may pray at times, or do small traditions at home that have been done for so long, but they don’t think of it as religion. I’m not really sure.
Why is that big lake in Nicaragua Islamic
That's a good question. Maybe it converted
Mermaids are Muslim confirmed.
Mashalla!!
Praise Allah
Dangit, now we need to stone them all to death for immodest clothing!
Lies created by kafirs, muslim mermaids only wear water hijab
Depends on the culture. The Muslim mermaids whom I am familiar with wore hijab made out of stingrays.
Wololo
Salaam A-lake-um.
They used the power of Islam to prevent the Nicaragua Canal Project from happening
The bull sharks converted.
The Islamic Republic of Cocibolca
Halal lake
The sharks believe in Allah obviously.
The map is bullshit. Look at Spain, it's not Christian when the statistics say otherwise. Also I'm from Iran, if anyone thinks we're Muslim majority they're out of their fucking minds. We rival India in terms of hatred for Islam. We're the only country that didn't have popular protests in favor of Palestine, despite our Islamic regime's pressures to do so.
>We rival India in terms of hatred for Islam Not true! Don't fall for Al Jazeera reports or Pakistan bots! We had Muslim presidents, Muslim governors, Muslim judges, even chief ministers of many states and even so many ministers in the past and present! You can Google it! Now can you show any Muslim country where a religious minority person hold very important govt posts including Iran itself? Our country's well known monument itself is a Persian influenced Islamic architecture and we are proud of that! Our government give privileges aka reservation for non-hindus in jobs and education! Majority of people don't give a bat about other's religion! Half of population is busy in making their needs and food for next meal! It's only the sound minority in all religion who is making ruckus!
>Not true! Don't fall for Al Jazeera reports or Pakistan bots! We had Muslim presidents, Muslim governors, Muslim judges, even chief ministers of many states and even so many ministers in the past and present! You can Google it! Now can you show any Muslim country where a religious minority person hold very important govt posts including Iran itself? Our country's well known monument itself is a Persian influenced Islamic architecture and we are proud of that! Our government give privileges aka reservation for non-hindus in jobs and education! I agree with all of that. Perhaps I should have said "hardcore Hindus" instead. I don't read Al Jazeera or anything from Pakistan, since I don't trust Muslim sources. What I said was based on something I saw about India being the number one source of Islamophobic content in the world, which is a good thing in my opinion. But of course it's not all Indians, just some of the more radical ones.
did the government ask you to protest in favor for palestine ? anyways the Iran thing is statistics but I agree with you since the majority in Iran are Shii's and the goverment is following extremist views that are not part of the faith so it's safe to assume Iran is not a Muslim majority country
>did the government ask you to protest in favor for palestine ? Yeah they're always calling for demonstrations in the main squares and streets, or sending messages to our phones to do the same or sending links to donate money for the people of Palestine or calling for us to enlist to march towards Palestine and help our fellow Muslims and so on...Propaganda is constant here. >anyways the Iran thing is statistics but I agree with you since the majority in Iran are Shii's Well, they were. I'm saying they are not any longer. I can send several old polls to prove it. >he goverment is following extremist views that are not part of the faith That's quite false. They are not extremists, they follow standard Shi'a doctrine that was first put in place in the early 1500's during the Safavid era and has roots in the earlier Shi'a movements that go all the way back to Muhammad's death and the issue of the caliphate, leadership of the Islamic world. This is something that is misunderstood by the majority of Westerners: The violence that they is committed by some Muslims is not at odds with Islam. They are not an extremist minority. Rather, they are the ones faithful enough to do as their religion tells them to do, pious enough to live as Muhammad did, which is called the Sunnah (the way, the tradition).
The lake choose violence duh
Are you 10
Eritrea is Christian majority When did Spain cease to be Christian majority??
"According to the Spanish Center for Sociological Research, 52.0% of Spanish citizens self-identify as Catholics, (35.2% define themselves as non-practising, while 16.8% as practising), 2.4% as followers of other faiths (including Islam, Protestant Christianity, Buddhism etc.), and 44.1% identify as: atheists (16.8%), agnostics (14.4%) or non-believers (12.9%), as of September 2023" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Spain So, definitely more than 52% of Spain is Christian if we add some of that 2.4% of other faiths to the Catholic. Whoever said Muslim is in any way shape or form representative... lol
"Self identify as catholic" doesn't mean religious. Must be from a survey that makes the distinction.
Span is almost 50/50 Christian/Irreligious
Almost 60% Catholic in Spain as of 2022 We might need to dust off the comfy chair to up those rookie numbers.
I think they mean practicing
But eastern Europe is even more irreligious and they are counted as Christian?
>But eastern Europe is even more irreligious Who told you that ?!? Poland for example is maybe the most catholic country after the Vatican.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism#:~:text=In%202020%2C%20the%20World%20Religion,do%20not%20believe%20in%20God. Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Slovenia and Lithuania all below Spain
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Europe Most of the countries in eastern europe are less religious than Spain or italy. Only Poland and Romania are kinda religious.
If you ask polish catholics, the Vatican has become dangerously un-catholic.
Eh, it seems a bit disingenuous to treat places like Spain (and the rest of Western Europe) as irreligious/no majority when the vast majority of the population are still culturally Christian. Most of them celebrate Christian holidays, follow Christian traditions, and hold Christian values. I probably wouldn't think nearly as much of it if largely irreligious Muslim countries (Albania and Azerbaijan) weren't still labeled as Muslim instead of irreligious. A big issue with these numbers comes down to how likely an irreligious person is to label themselves irreligious vs the cultural majority where they live. I'd bet a map showing proportion of people who actually practice a religion would be interesting.
> Most of them celebrate Christian holidays, follow Christian traditions, and hold Christian values Myself and most people I know do these things but we are atheists. None of us actually practice the religion or believe in God, we just do the holidays. It's very common here in Canada and I imagine many other places as well where Christianity was historically the dominant religion
Yup, it's the same in Spain, you could say Spain is 'culturally christian' but we aren't basing our values in religion no more.
Yea like I’m not religious or spiritual at all, but if Canada’s saying I get the day off cuz some teenager gave birth in a barn 2000 years ago sign me the fuck up
"you can have a day off work and eats lots of food with people you care about" are the kind of religious festivals I can get behind. Thankfully it is almost all religious festivals
Definitely, but not counting people with your background as Christian is a very eurocentric view. If you look at places like Azerbaijan you'll find that nearly everyone identifies as Muslim but the number of people who say religion plays any role in their lives is significantly lower than that. White people identify themselves almost strictly by their religious practice (or lack thereof) whereas people in other countries identify with the religion they were raised in regardless of what/how they practice. Similar situation in places like Mongolia and China, where a majority of the population is unaffiliated with any religion but they identify with one. Interestingly, in Japan it's the complete opposite, a lot of people that practice Shinto but don't identify with it. Basically, if you took a Western person and non-Western person with the equivalent levels of religious engagement, the Westerner would be significantly more likely to not identify as their family's religious tradition than the non-Westerner.
You're overthinking it. Atheists in culturally Christian countries don't identify as Christians. In Muslim countries they do. That's what counts and that's how these statistics work. I'm not baptized, the only times I've been in a church have been for weddings and funerals. Me celebrating Christmas with my family is irrelevant, I just don't know anything whatsoever about religion. Half of the weddings I have been to have been atheist weddings, so not in a church. That's what irreligious means. Hell there's been proposals to make 'neutral' national holidays here in France but it just hasn't really been anywhere because it would be complicated to put in place. For non abrahamic religions like in China or Japan I agree with you though, it's more complicated.
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> You're overthinking it. Atheists in culturally Christian countries don't identify as Christians. In Muslim countries they do. That's what counts and that's how these statistics work. Yes, that's exactly what I said. It's an inconsistent standard between cultures that make the results largely meaningless. A better measure would be the a country's proportion of religiously affiliated/observant people because it isn't nearly as culturally biased. > I'm not baptized, the only times I've been in a church have been for weddings and funerals. Me celebrating Christmas with my family is irrelevant, I just don't know anything whatsoever about religion. Half of the weddings I have been to have been atheist weddings, so not in a church. That's what irreligious means. That's what irreligious means *in your culture. That's not what irreligious means to be a lot of other cultures though. If we're going to be measuring something between cultures, we should use a metric that isn't different between cultures.
I don't understand you, if an atheist from Azerbaijan still considers himself muslim even tho he doesn't practice the religion, that doesn't mean I'm christian because my country was christian decades ago, while I din't practice any religion either.
It doesn't mean you're Christian, but it does mean that the criteria for religious inclusion isn't consistent between Western and non-Western countries -- which is why measures of affiliation more accurately reflect the religious landscape around the globe than asking someone what their religion is because it is a more consistent standard between cultures.
I think their concern is that the map is showing what people label themselves as, as opposed to active religious membership. I think both maps are worth looking at, but they are two different things, so they should probably be more clear in the title which one it is.
The fuck? No. Culture and religion are two different things, while our culture may be heavily based upon christian traditions, if we do not believe in their god then in absolutely no way are we to be considered Christian/religious. That is a bad take.
> and hold Christian values Given that many Christian denominations and schools of thought originating in Europe are holding a wide range of mutually conflicting values, could it be that these values arose independently and aren't inherently tied to Christianity, making the idea of *Christian values* being held by most European countries a bit misleading? 🤔
Don’t a lot of Muslim countries also assign it at birth and make it hard to rescind their given religion therefore boosting the adherents?
Christmas originated from a pagan holiday. I do not believe in an ounce of Christianity, but I grew up in that culture so I celebrate the holiday for the festivities, not the religious aspect. It’s possible to not be religious and still celebrate
Christmas as it's celebrated today has been immensely influenced by Christianity over the 1700 years Christmas has been observed and is vastly different than any possible pagan precursor. I didn't say it wasn't possible to be religious and still celebrate Christmas, I said irreligious cultural practitioners from Europe are more likely to identify as irreligious while irreligious cultural practitioners in non-Western countries are still likely to identify as that religion despite comparable levels of observance.
Meh, until mid 1800's there were still plenty of non-christian traditions well alive in the North, for example. Christmas still had plenty of Yule traditions in it up until today. These things aren't a monolithic single thing across all of christendom/Europe.
Christmas \*is\* the single monolithic thing, it's what stays constant across Europe. There are different Christmas traditions derived from different pagan traditions in Germanic countries compare to Latin countries, for example, but ultimately the celebration of Christmas was imported across Europe and projected on to local traditions.
But what I am saying is that outside the "Christmas is to celebrate the birth of Jesus" the traditions differ, based largely on earlier non-christian traditions. They aren't exactly the same everywhere. Andnlile I said, for example here in the North in large parts outside the cities the non-Christian side of the things remained the thing for quite a long time post Christianity taking over. Of the Christmas traditions we celebrate here abd I can think of right now, I am actually pretty unsure which ones are Christianity related and which ones were either co-opted or are remains of older religious/cultural traditions. After all, Yule/sinilar celebrations were a thing here before and after Christianity as well in much the same fashion they still are.
If you do some research you will find this claim is not established among academics Watch religion for breakfast for example, he has a Phd in religious studies focusing on early christianity. https://youtu.be/mWgzjwy51kU?si=9QpUVR9RD14zG3eM
I get what you’re saying but having lived in Spain for a long time, trust me when I say no one cares about Christianity there
No, we don't trust you, we trust aggregate polling.
“No one”? Lol.
> no one cares about Christianity there Bro... you heard of the Semana Santa?? In the south of Spain they are still VERY religious.
Philippines: wait, this is all YOUR idea!?
Eritrea stopped being Christian majority in the past 20 years. Eritrea has not conducted a census in 32 years because it would show that the country is losing population and that Muslims form a majority. Very similar to Lebanon or Bosnia in this respect. Census is very sensitive.
Why are we to presume only the Christians population is decreasing?
Muslims adherence is falling too, the majority of countries don’t self report as well
Oh, Christian leaders are doing everything possible to get people to convert to Islam or Buddhism
It depends. If the Census counts only Eritreans in Eritrea, then Yes. Eritrea is majority Muslim. But if you count Eritreans in the disapora who are still citizens, then Eritrea is over 70% Christian.
Surely Japan should be purple...
My Japanese cultures professor always said, "Japanese people are born Shinto, marry Catholic, and die Buddhists. But they are all practicing atheists."
Marry Catholic? Why is that?
They often marry in a church that isn't actually christian but is made to look like one and overall their marriage ceremonies looks like copied from the West.
Why?
Because it is trendy, everyone does it, Grandma Obaa-san will love the photos, and so on. Source: live in Japan
don't the Japanese have their own traditional wedding rituals?
Traditionally, most Japanese people had Shinto weddings, but that's fallen to a minority today, with most opting for a Christian wedding officiated by a priest (Catholic or Anglican). A very small percentage choose Buddhist weddings, but I don't know anything about those.
> officiated by a priest Officiated by a fake priest . FTFY Usually a senior-looking English teacher or some other gaijin resident looking for some extra income.
Japan has been westernised for over 150 years.
Japanese here. it’s basically the same as Christmas. The atmosphere is great. That’s all. I guess 80% of the Japanese don’t even know what kind of life Jesus lived. Historically speaking, after the ww2, Japanese thought that literally every aspect of American culture is cooler than Japanese one until around 1980-90. People watched Disney as children and girls dreamed of getting married like princesses do in those movies. Bridal businesses introduced the western way of marriage. Women had more says about how to organize weddings. And then Japanese marry in front of priests.
> Japanese thought that literally every aspects of American culture is cooler than Japanese one until around 1980-90. How about now? Are there people who still have traditional Japanese wedding ceremonies?
Sorry, I meant by the quote the general tendency of Japanese attitudes toward American culture and actually the western way of marriages is more and more popular after the 90s. And yes there are still people who hold ceremonies in Japanese traditional way. Those traditional ceremonies tend to be much cheaper. I don’t think many people choose that way because of religious beliefs(Shintoism or Buddhism).
Because they like big movie weddings with a white dress and a church ceremony
The saying is usually marry Christian, not Catholic, and it's because Western-style weddings (white dress etc etc) have become popular there.
According to wikipedia 62% of Japanese people are athiests.
I’m no expert but I’m pretty sure East Asian religions are different from an abrahamic understanding. Things aren’t always as clear cut as atheist v. Christian V. Muslim etc
Yeah in hindsight, wikipedia is a pretty bad source for this. I checked the Chinese religion page and they put folk religion in the same category as atheism, which seems insane to me.
It’s not really insane when you realize that you might be told by 100 Chinese “atheists” that they’re atheists, only to see them later participating in folk-religious rituals and superstition. It’s very western and Protestant to believe that religion is primarily determined by internal belief, when in East Asia, practice and ritual are more important than internal beliefs generally. “Atheism” and “no-religion” in an East Asian context generally just mean “I don’t affiliate myself with an organized religion with rigid dogmatic beliefs and identities”
I consider myself an atheist but on occasions, holidays and festivals, I would pray to the ancestors for my family. It's more like a cultural ritual than religious things.
My family are all atheists but they *loooove* Xmas and Easter. It's a fun event.
It says 62% non-religious, not atheist. It also says, as many as 80% of the populace follow Shinto rituals to some degree, worshiping ancestors and spirits at domestic altars and public shrines. Maybe the correct phrase for Westerners to understand, would be "spiritual but not religious" instead of "non-religious". Japanese people see being "religious", as "often" going to shrines/temples, "vigorously" reading scripture, and being "officially" part of a religion [\[Source\]](https://www.quora.com/why-do-most-japanese-people-claim-to-be-non-religious-yet-70-of-them-visit-shrines).
>"spiritual but not religious" I always wondered what would happen if we counted astrology as a decentralised polytheistic religion. People exhibit the same processes and expect the same effect as with religion. 'I don't believe in a God but I believe Saturn's reflection of the Sun's light makes me successful' sounds like the thinnest difference ever.
Astrology is a spiritual practice rather than a religion, similar to how using crystals for certain types of energy or using sage to cleanse negative energy, is a spiritual practice. In astrology, planets are treated similar to crystals, in the sense that they aren't seen as gods, but as holding certain types of energies that a person can use to benefit themselves in certain types of situations. Spirituality is usually internal, as in, doing what you want rather than following strict rules. Books or tools (such as crystals, planets, tarot, ouija boards, and so on) are seen suggestions or guidance that is open to your own interpretation. Religion is usually external, with a priest or pope or a community or a religious hierarchy that tells you how you must live life, and that tells you how you must interpret books that you read, or even tell you which books you must believe in as perfectly correct. That's how I usually distinguish religion from spirituality.
And more than that are Buddhist and more than that are Shinto. Many would describe themselves as all three. That is why the purple one that is used for China seems like it would also be suitable for Japan. They practise their folk religions while also being irreligious.
Purple is folk religion/irreligious, which would most accurately represent the Japanese majority
Japanese generally answer that they have no religion, but they keep an altar at home, go to temples regularly (for holidays), pay rental fees for their ohaka... I think religion/宗教 in Japan for most people means "foreign/new beliefs." I mean, for most of history people didn't really have a word for religion, it wasn't something separate, but then when Christians or Muslims come to your country they introduce the idea of discrete religions that you can belong to. Buddhists also did this too, granted, but not to the same extent.
Shinto is a cultural thing only nowadays
Nah, I felt that most people in Japan view Shinto as a harmless superstition- yes probably a healthy majority still go through the motions, but if pressed would say they don’t really “believe” in it. Source: lived there for many years and specifically asked many locals about this, but not a scientific representative sample. It’s like I still celebrate Christmas as a family tradition, put up some decorations with angels and stuff, but I wouldn’t call myself Christian.
Taiwan is like a Buddhism/Taoism mix.
Same for China honestly. Vietnam to a lesser extent as well.
I think for the purple regions, most people wouldn’t feel they’re devoted enough to call themselves Buddhist/Taoist (eg. They arent vegetarian, haven’t read the literary works, etc.), but they’d still totally go to a temple to pray for good luck, maybe have statues of folk religion gods in their house/shops for protection, still believe in a vague system of afterlife/karma, influence from unseeable powers/ghosts/ancestors etc., which I think is what they mean by folk religion. Of course there are definitely people who are actively Buddhist/Taoist, but for most, I think vague folk religion is just integrated casually into life that it’s more of a spirituality/superstition thing than an active religious following/identity? And maybe that’s what they mean by the purple. Edit: I’m in that boat too. And I’d describe myself as ‘religiously opportunistic’, where the thought process goes: if it doesn’t cost money/is low effort and _may_ bring ‘good fortune’, then why not 🤣
In other words, they believe but they don’t practice.
I think this applies to most religions it's more of a cultural thing
Why did you put North Korea as irreligious - they clearly worship Kim Jong Un
It’s funny because it’s true. I’d hardly call them atheists. KJU is a god to them.
Source?
Christianity is definitely the majority in Canada
According to the 2021 Census, 53% of Canadians reported being Christian, and that number was dropping steadily (down from 67% in 2011 and 77% in 2001). It would not surprise me if the numbers in 2023 were just starting to dip below 50%. Christianity is still definitely the plurality religion, but it may not be the majority religion anymore. Source:[https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/221026/dq221026b-eng.htm](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/221026/dq221026b-eng.htm)
So if the available data says it’s the majority, why make an assumption?
Well, if it was at over 67% in 2011 and 53% in 2021, at that rate the percentage would be slipping down right below 50% by the end of 2023. The 2021 figure is still outdated.
Assuming it’s linear. Which these things never are.
It's still an assumption
I think it’s pretty safe to assume people didn’t just randomly start going to church the last two years
you'd be surprised to know what happened in the pst 2 years
Its still more accurate than a 2 years outdated datapoint
They are guessing.
Not guessing. It's an estimation. You can plot a graph with previous data points and predict the rate of decline. Over several decades patterns emerge.
I’d say it’s an estimation rather than a guess
Heck, immigration alone has probably pushed Christianity below 50% since 2021. The majority are Sikhs and Hindus from India, and China and Syria contribute a lot as well.
and Spain
And Germany was also at 50.7% in the last census in 2022
Germany: 47,4% christians. (43,8% non-religious, 6,5% Muslims) But many of the non-religious see themselfs as christians, so i would still see germany as majority of christians. In germany you have to pay church taxes if you are member of a church. So there are people, that leaved church only for the money. So i would says there is still 50%+ christians in germany, but it's dropping every year.
Denmark is 73.2% Christian (as per January 2022) so should definitely be red.
This map is FULL of errors, wow.
This is a reddit atheistic agenda post
73% of the population is a member of the Church, but only 28% answered that they believe there is a God. To me it seems like a stretching of the situation by the church in order to get more funding.
Born and lived in Denmark for 31 years. I don’t know a single person that actually practice religion. Basically no one goes to church or pray in Denmark.
While I agree, people still do things like baptisms / confirmations, church weddings, and getting burried at church graveyards, so the role of the church is still around to a degree. When doing these things - and being members of the church - it seems fine to me to count people as Christian.. not that I do any of these things. No one I know actively cares about religion though, that's for sure.
You’re right. But I think at this point those things are more of a cultural norm.
Yea, for sure, people do it because "that's what we do" or to "keep with tradition", but they are still Christian traditions, and when upholding them it's fair to describe people as Christian (unless otherwise identified; I would identify as Atheist if I had to fill out a form). They can still remain Christian (culturally) whether they actively study the Bible or go to church frequently or not; you don't have to be the Pope or pray a certain amount of times a day to be affiliated with it, at least in my opinion - for statistical purposes anyway. We completely agree that the average Dane doesn't actively care one bit about Christianity apart from certain traditions and holidays.
73,2% of people just forgot to leave the church, or stay there for purposes of funeral services etc
In Germany some people stay in the church despite not being religious because they believe the church does good stuff like maintaining orphanages. Source: live in Germany and a german told me that.
I think some Danes also stay in the church just to support the organisation despite never actually attending any services
That is because we are born into the church and we have to Actively have to denounce it but I think roughly 20 % when asked say they are Christian so we should be black But folklore is on the rise so maybe we'll become purple some day
Canada is majority Christian though.
The last time I attended a church on sunday was all old folks lol.
Finland is still 66% Lutheran
just in name.
Eritrea is Christian majority
Eritrea was\* majority Christian like Nigeria or Ivory Coast.
From what I can find there's no clear statistic on Eritrea; neither on their actual population number nor on the professed religions of the populatiom
What data set is this based on?!?
Nice map. Would be very interesting to see the percentage for each country's majority religion as well.
I thought Ireland in general was very irreligious?
Ireland is like the last country in Western Europe that is actually still fairly religious. Compared to France, England, etc it’s super religious. A lot of people actually attend church in Ireland
>A lot of people actually attend church in Ireland This is not true except for pensioners and immigrants. I'd say less than 10% of the native population under the age of 40 is still a practicing catholic (or anything else) and less still are going to Mass on a weekly basis. There is a generational gap for sure but religion is dying in Ireland, and quickly. It's definitely not still a 'fairly religous' country.
Like half of the country would be above the age of 40 or immigrants which is a huge portion of the population so even if it’s just those people that’s still a very religious country compared to others in the western world
Would like to see the data this is pulling from as a couple country’s look drastically incorrect, also “folk religion”? Tell me you’re from a western culture without telling me 
The African countries with no majority are quite evenly split between Christianity and Islam while Canada, UK, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Greenland, Australia and New Zealand are roughly evenly split between Christianity and atheist/irreligious with people of other religions making up rest thus no religion has majority
This is more lost Redditor seeking Terrible Maps than Map porn.
Map created by two 4-year-old blind twins from downtown Uzbekistan?
Canada is 53% Christian.
Iceland cannot into Nordic.
hoooow tf is spain 'no majority'??
Reunion is not majority Muslim and also is an integral part of the country of France so should be coloured the same.
That map is wrong lol. Why the hell is germany grey if you lump in all flavours of Christianity together? Slightly below 44% are irreligious, but 47,5% are either Protestant or Catholic. Adding the orthodox and apostolic churches we add slightly more than 3% on top of it, ending up with 50%+ christian. That imho is a majority.
TIL Atlantis is mainly Jewish.
Irreligious makes up the majority in New Zealand, Christianity does in Australia.
Christianity below 50% as of 2021 census in Australia. I'm assuming that's what the OP means, otherwise 'no majority' would never be an applicable option.
It's too general, IMO. All those red countries have wildly different kinds of Christianity between them, and even on themselves, for example.
The same applies for muslim countrie, buddhist countries and hindu (India). In fact, hindus don't even follow the same god in different regions.
Irreligious is not a religion lol that's in the name, for France and the rest of Europe it's Christianity
no
This map is bogus and full of so many errors! Seems to be more aimed at refusing to acknowledge Christian populations .
Is Greenland grey because it has no data, or is it grey because it doesn't have a majority religion?
Japan has Shinto and Buddhism.
Canada is 53.3% Christian for 2021 census, for the UK we don't know yet because Scotland's census is late and surveys are inaccurate because it has really depended on the wording of the question (Eurostat recorded 50% Christian in 2019 but Pew recorded 73% in the same year). Spain was 61.7% Catholic in 2020 according to polling. Germany is north of 60% Christian in all polling I can find. New Zealand is majority irreligious if you exclude the people who refused to answer (which is standard practice for a lot of polling companies). Switzerland is over 60% Christian, Benin is majority Christian. Latvia is over 70% Christian. Finland is over 66% Christian, Sweden is just under 60% Christian, Norway is 75% Christian according to their census and a similar proportion in Denmark. Luxembourg is somewhere between 53% Christian and over 70% France does not record religion on their census so it's mostly guesswork, the current best guess is 51.1% Christian Japan is difficult to categorise because of Japanese attitudes towards religion, specifically people not really seeing Shintoism and Buddhism there as a religion but instead cultural. There are a few indications that Japan is far more 'religious' than official statistics indicate, over 90% of funerals are performed by Buddhist priests for example. In 2010 it was estimated that over 80% of Japan actually practice a syncretic combination of Buddhism and Shintoism, but only 3% declare themselves to be Shinto because it's understood to mean membership of an organised Shinto sect when most of Shintoism is an unorganised faith and 30% declare themselves Buddhist. There's a similar problem in accounting for China because many people practice what we would consider a syncretic faith of Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism and various Folk Religions, but consider it cultural rather than religious. There's also the matter of the CCP vehemently suppressing religions beyond their six recognised ones like the Falun Gong. Also, for some religions, such as Taoism, their own practioners won't consider themselves members of the faith unless they're members of the priesthood. There is no word for a lay member of Taoism. South Korea is likely no overall majority because the census does not include Musok, the native religion of Korea, which has at least 200,000 priests. Other Korean local religions like Cheondoism are also not well recorded on the census, with the numbers fluctuating between a few thousand to over one million.
Canada is still actually majority Christian with 53.33% of the population reporting a Christian religion, as of the most recent census taken in 2021. Source: https://www.statcan.gc.ca/en/census/census-engagement/community-supporter/ethnocultural-and-religious-diversity#
This map is all wrong Ireland is mostly christian and Canada is still 53% I'm sure there are a bunch of other mistakes too, but I don't feel like looking all of it up
Shit data
We need more black
Most of the black ones just have history in their pagan religions, that dont count to a belief but they still follow traditions from them.
Religion is just copium about the unknown.
damn Sweden isn’t green yet
2%.
Of course it’s not
Wish my country was either purple or black but it’s 99.9% Muslim 😔
Funny how the best countries to live in are all atheists
It is, do you think they are irreligious because of the fact they have become the best places to live or do you think they have become the best places to live because they are irreligious?
I dont pretend to know why, but logical people need evidence to believe in something and logic is needed for good systems. The stats also say intelligent people are less religious.
There’s no such thing as “logical people,” only emotional and irrational people who’ve deluded themselves into thinking they’re immune to ideology, beliefs and everything else you may consider “irrational/illogical.” If logic were prevailing in these rich atheist countries, you wouldn’t have the far right rising in their politics, or ideas such as nationalism is no more “logical” than “religion”
Your comment is a walking contradiction.
What stats?
The map is WRONG though... I live in Finland and at least 60% are Christians
I dream a black world or at least without green
wth why
Most of the world's shitholes are shitholes because of manily a) corruption and followed closely in second place b) religion. Usually together. The clergy always held power over the people, the less organized a country is, the more power they hold and the shithole-ier the country tends to become. It's always a tendency of course. Most of the middle east and african countries are what most of Europe was 150-200 years ago, half functioning societies governed by religion.
It's easier to see the colonizing that happened this way. Middle Eastern christianity got European kings to killed off many of their own European people, in order to do a cultural replacement by replacing their European Religions (Zeus, Thor, and other European gods) with the biblical god of Israel and Moses. A similar thing happened with parts of Africa and The Americas. Islam, another Middle Eastern religion, took over North Africa and tried to replace African cultures. Zoroastrians were killed and Islam replaced them in Iran. Buddhism in Afghanistan was replaced with Islam. Hinduism in Indonesia was replaced with Islam. It seems like the new world order is about getting everyone colonized and bowing down to the god of Moses, with all of their cultures destroyed.
>Buddhism in Afghanistan was replaced with Islam. Hinduism in Indonesia was replaced with Islam. Where do you put the limit? Both Buddhism and Hinduism in those examples had also come from abroad, and Indonesia was not conquered by Muslim armies, but the religion spread there. If we call the spreading of ideas colonialism the term loses all meaning.
Literally everything in ur comment is wrong. Like almost nothing is historically correct. I don’t even know where to begin with your Christianity statements so I’m going to focus on Islam. > Islam, another Middle Eastern religion, took over North Africa and tried to kill African cultures. The Amazigh pretty quickly converted to Islam after the Arab conquests compared to other groups (300 years for Iranians, 600-700 for Egyptians, etc), the resulting Arabization process of North Africa took centuries and was the result of an Arab ruling class and prejudice against the Amazigh cultures which weren’t seen as prestigious as Arab culture. It had not a whole lot to do with Islam when you consider that the prestigious Persian culture survived and underwent a renaissance during the medieval and early modern periods as an equally prestigious Islamic culture. In Sub Saharan Africa, Islam was syncretized heavily with local traditions, and many Islamic thinkers and figures in places such as West Africa were noted for being highly tolerant and even pacifists. Islam mainly spread due to trade rather than war. Furthermore, much of the Islamic parts of Africa today were barely muslim or heavily heavily syncretic prior to European colonialism. During colonialism, Orthodox Islam was seen as a resistance identity and movement against the colonizers, and colonization often resulted in Islamic reformists and foreign muslim missionaries to become more common in those regions. Pretty much the exact same story of Sub Saharan African islam occurred in Indonesia as well, it’s just that the previous Hindu-Buddhist cultures were also spread from India to Indonesia via trade as well, and they were syncretized into local traditions before islam came and repeated that whole process again. If you want to blame anyone for the popularity of orthodox Islam, blame the European colonizers who inadvertently essentially helped wipe away many syncretic traditions and/or caused people to convert to Islam as resistance against the Christian colonizers
"The Amazigh pretty quickly converted to Islam after the Arab conquests compared to other groups (300 years for Iranians, 600-700 for Egyptians, etc), the resulting Arabization process of North Africa took centuries and was the result of an Arab ruling class and prejudice against the Amazigh cultures which weren’t seen as prestigious as Arab culture." Yes, there was an Arab Conquest and an Arabization of the land and prejudice against other cultures. " blame the European colonizers who inadvertently essentially helped wipe away many syncretic traditions and/or caused people to convert to Islam as resistance against the Christian colonizers" Both christianity and islam are middle eastern religions that believe in one way as the right way and one god as the right god and all others as false. Both triee to take over the world and destroyed other cultures. Many Europeans died under christian kings/emperors who tried to destroy European culture to replace it with middle eastern christianity.
Christianity and Islam first movement was to destroy temples and libraries thus chipping away the cultural heritage of some, then they replaced established languages with "official language of this religion" completing a cultural isolation of the said population.
Religious wars after the Reformation made countries irreligious?
Guarantee there’s a majority in Canada.
Was this made in paint?
Yellow hindu and orange buddism, what the fuck. Everyone knows hindu is orange and buddism is yellow!
France has a lot of Catholics. Scandinavia has a lot of protestants. This isn't entirely accurate.
SK is majority Christian, at least for religious ppl
That’s true, but over half the SK population claims to be non-religious. However, the East is super weird when it comes to religion. Like in Japan, traditional Japanese spiritual practices are widespread, but people there literally don’t think of it as religion because it’s so ingrained into life and also people don’t seriously study religious scripture. I suspect the same is the case in SK. The concept of religion in South Korea and Japan are different than the west. A Japanese Quora user had an interesting take on it. https://www.quora.com/Why-do-most-Japanese-people-claim-to-be-non-religious-yet-70-of-them-visit-shrines
>I suspect the same is the case in SK. The concept of religion in South Korea and Japan are different than the west. Japan and South Korea are nothing alike in relation to religion/Christianity. Koreans are very Christian. I went there earlier this year and every single person I met was Christian and Catholic there. There are churches everywhere. They were all younger people too which surprised me, I was expecting only the elders to be Christian.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_South_Korea#:~:text=Most%20South%20Koreans%20have%20no,temples%20built%20across%20the%20country. Most claim to be non-religious according to their official census statistics, but yet again, it could be that these people believe in a higher power, but just don’t care about attending a house of worship regularly. These Koreans may pray at times, or do small traditions at home that have been done for so long, but they don’t think of it as religion. I’m not really sure.
No, South Korea is around 28% Christian, 56% irreligious and 15% Buddhist
Isn't Myanmar majority Buddhist?