In which I geek out over a new study...

I've written here before about religion, and I will do so again, I'm sure. That shouldn't be surprising. I studied the anthropology of religion at university, and I'm very interested in what people believe and why they believe what they do. Today, I found a report on NBC News online about a new report from the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life* that talks about how many people claim affiliation with which religions around the world.

I recently read about a report from the same group that showed a new high of 19.6 percent of individuals in the United States claimed to be unaffiliated with any religion as of this year. This new study shows that 16.3 percent of the world's population claims not to be affiliated with any religion. The study points out that religious non-affiliation does not necessarily mean that those claiming not to be a member of any religion do not believe in a higher power. While the category includes atheists and agnostics, it also includes people who do believe in a deity or higher power but do not report membership in or association with any religion.

The study also found that a majority of the population in six nations reported that they are not affiliated with any religion. The largest number came from the Czech Republic, where 76 percent of the population reported no religious affiliation, followed by North Korea, with 71 percent; Estonia, with 60 percent; Japan, with 57 percent; Hong Kong, with 56 percent, and China, with 52 percent of the population claiming no affiliation with any religion.

Parsing the numbers in another way, the Pew report also shows that 76 percent of the religiously unaffiliated live in Asia and the Pacific region, while 12 percent of those not claiming any religions affiliation live in Europe, 5 percent live in North America, 4 percent life in Latin American and the Caribbean, 2 percent live in Sub-saharan Africa, and less than 1 percent live in the Middle East and North Africa.

The numbers of the non-affiliated put them in third place for total adherents (or non-adherents) to religion. The Pew study shows that 32 percent, or 2.2 billion people around the world, claim Christianity as their religion. Of those, half say that they are Catholic, 37 percent claim to be Protestant, and 12 percent are Greek or Russian Orthodox. Islam is the only other religion to claim more members than the unaffiliated, with 23 percent of the world's population. After the 16.3 percent who claim no affiliation, the next largest group are Hindus, who make up 15 percent of the global population, while 7.1 percent are Buddhists, and 0.2 percent, or around 15 million, claim Judaism as their religious affiliation.

One statistic that interested me is that 405 million people, or about 5.9 percent of the world's population, claim to follow folk or traditional religions, with 70 percent of those 405 million people living in China.

Another interesting breakdown of the statistics in the Pew study showed that only 3 percent of Hindus live where they are in the minority, while 13 percent of Christians and 27 percent of Muslims live in areas where they are not in the majority. On the other hand, 72 percent of Buddhists live where they are in the minority, over 99 percent of those practicing folk or traditional religions are in the minority where they live, and virtually all of those claiming "other" as their religion, 0.8 percent of the world's population, live where they are in the minority.

The numbers in the Pew report were generated through study of national census numbers and surveys from around the world.

What does all this mean? I'm sure I don't know, aside from the fact that there are a lot of religious people in the world but that the numbers of those who don't claim to belong to any particular religion seem to be growing. It would be difficult to know why those who don't claim any religion take that stance without going out and talking to them. It would also be interesting, particularly, to talk to those who don't claim a religion but who nevertheless do believe in a god, many gods, or some other form of higher power. I would also be interested in knowing how many, out of those who do claim a religion, participate actively in exercises related to their religion, either alone or in community with others. Another interesting study would be how religious adherents' experience of their religions differ depending on whether they live where their religion is in the majority or is a minority of the local population.

I'm sure there are people working on many of these issues, or have already done studies and I just haven't stumbled on their reports yet. Sadly, my local libraries, both public and university, are either lacking in materials related to religion or are difficult for me to get to on a regular basis. The Internet is also a good resource, but it is sometimes more difficult to evaluate the authoritativeness of things published online. Other times, I imagine, I just don't come up with the correct search terms.

Anyway, if you've read this far, congratulations. I know that statistics can be dry, boring, and sometimes confusing. This is important information, though, I think, and I thought I would share.

---------------------------------

* I could not get a link to the study itself to work, but there is a working link to it in the NBC story that I linked to.

In the name of God? Really?

I'm really not what you'd call a religious person. Even so, I don't have a problem with religion in general, and while I'm agnostic on the subject of deity, I tend to lean toward their being some kind of power that we don't yet understand, some kind of organizing force, in the universe. Might just be the laws of physics, might be something more godlike, as many people define that concept. I haven't seen conclusive proof of it, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

At any rate, I don't go around dismissing or disrespecting religion in general or, usually, in specific.

I have my moments however, when I question the usefulness of some forms of religious belief, that some believers interpret as giving them the right to hurt, maim, and kill anyone who does not conform to their particular set of beliefs. So, stories like the one I read this morning on Yahoo! news, reported from an ABC News story, make me angry and sad, in turn. But mostly angry.

The story reports yet another incident in Pakistan where parents have been arrested for allegedly killing their daughter by pouring acid over her head and face, and all over her body. Then, then waited overnight to take her to a hospital, where she died in what was described as a "slow and excruciatingly painful" manner.

Her crime, as her parents perceived it? She talked to an "unknown boy".

Excuse me?

Yes, I know that rigid and strict interpretations of some forms of Islam regard a woman talking to, or even being seen with, a boy they are not related to by blood as a sin. One thing that has always puzzled me about these "honor killings", though, is that we never hear about the boys being punished for talking to the girl. But that's not the point here.

The point here is that people are going around killing, sometimes killing their own children, for something so trivial as talking to someone of the opposite sex that they aren't related to. That just isn't right. I don't care how ingrained in their culture or religion it is. It. Is. Just. Not. Right.

I'm NOT being anti-Islamic here, believe me. I would be saying the same thing if it were members of any other religion involved in something this stupid and horrible.

To make the point that this sort of thinking is not confined to Islam, let me remind you that there are people, advocates of what is called Christian Reconstructionism, who believe that the laws of the Old Testament should be enacted into secular law in the United States. This would include making such things as blasphemy (that would be cussing, among other things), adultery, children talking back to their parents, lying about one's virginity, apostasy (leaving your church or declaring unbelief in God), witchcraft, homosexuality, or bearing false witness in court, crimes punishable by death. Basically, they believe that anyone who does not conduct their life in accordance with the Reconstructionist interpretation of what God wants deserves to die.
Not that much different from many of the things that the most strict forms of Islam advocate, is it?

This philosophy also considers democracy to be incompatible with Christianity, by the way, and advocates institution of a theocracy in the United States. Just so you know where they're coming from politically.

And lest you think that this is just a small group of religious nut-jobs who have not had any influence on wider Christianity as it is practiced in the United States today, among those who have been influenced by Christian Reconstructionism and the related Dominionist Theology, consider that Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and D. James Kennedy (all of whom are or were very widely known televangelists, with large followings) all spoke admiringly and approvingly of books advocating this religious philosophy. The "father of Christian Reconstructionism", Rousas John Rushdoony, was on Robertson's "700 Club" television show several time.

Additionally, David Barton, a revisionist historian whose most recent book, "The Jefferson Lies", was withdrawn from publication by its Christian publishing house for being largely made up out of whole cloth, is an adherent of Reconstructionism. Barton has had a huge influence on the Christian Right and has been supported publicly by people like former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee and broadcaster Glenn Beck. So, it isn't as if the views of Christian Reconstructionism haven't found their way into what has become widely recognized, if not precisely mainstream, religious and political thought in the United States.

The point that I'm trying to make here, although it's taking me a lot more words to do it than I had anticipated, is that while religion and religious believers have made wonderful contributions to the world, religion also manages, sometimes, to bring out the absolute worst, and most vicious, in human nature. And that part of religion, I don't believe, should be immune from criticism just because it is rooted in religious belief.

So, no, it isn't okay, no matter if you believe, as those parents in Pakistan apparently did, to go around killing your kids because they were disobedient in ways that are a normal part of human nature. Girls are going to want to talk to boys, and boys are going to want to talk to girls. What is not natural is thinking that this desire to socialize is a bad thing, to be prevented by whatever means necessary, including homicide.

As a trivial aside, by the way, while I was doing research for this post, I discovered that Rushdoony, the "father of Reconstructionism", grew up not far away from where I live now, in the small Central California town of Kingsburg. For some reason, I find that to be really creepy.

Getting older? Yes. Growing up? Not if I can help it...

I hate those, "Oh, my God, I'm old" moments. Like the one I just had over on Facebook.

Although I suppose it's appropriate, since tomorrow is my birthday.

One of my friends posted on Facebook, talking about a co-worker of hers who made a comment to the effect that Enya shouldn't be called a "New Age" artist becuase she had records come out in the 90s, and that's old.

My response was:

Your co-worker makes the 90s sound like so long ago. Sheesh, I remember the first time the Beatles were on the Ed Sullivan show. I was only 7 years old. Closest thing to a religious experience I've ever had. No, really.

And it's the truth. I was 7 years old in February, 1964, when the Beatles first came to the United States and appeared on the Sullivan show. I had already gone to bed. There was school the next day, and my bedtime at that age was 7:30 p.m. on school nights. But my parents were watching the show, and suddenly I heard this wonderful noise coming from the living room. I had to get up and see what it was.

It was amazing, was what it was. I'd never heard anything like it, and I liked what I heard and what I saw. A lot. Changed my life. I was not kidding when I said it was the closest thing to a religious experience I've ever had. Starting the next day, when my friends were running home after school to watch cartoons, I was running home to watch to local versions of American Bandstand. There were a couple of them in the Los Angeles area that came on every afternoon.

What can I say. I was a precocious kid, anyway, and that music was infectious. That Sunday evening and the days following gave me a love of music that I retain to this day.

So, anyway. Now I feel old. Just because someone on Facebook knowns someone who thinks that something from the 90s is old. Ah, well. You're only as old as you feel, and if its too loud, you're too old. Honestly, I have days where it is too loud, and I am too old.

But there are those other days, the ones where there's no such thing as loud enough if the right song is playing. I may be getting older, but I refuse...simply refuse...to grow up.