Who Believes in God? New Global Survey on Religion

A new report (pdf) examines how deeply people in different countries believe in God, and how their belief has changed over time.

Anchor Lisa Mullins speaks with report author Tom Smith, of the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center.

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Lisa Mullins: I am Lisa Mullins and this is The World. There are many names for God. The idea is the same around the globe though; a higher power overseeing humanity. Researchers at the University of Chicago were more interested in the depth of belief in God in different countries. A new report gauges that depth based on data collected through surveys in 30 nations, almost all of them with Christian traditions. Tom Smith is the report’s author.

Tom Smith: Belief is strongest in developing countries as opposed to the most developed countries. In our case, the country with the highest level of belief in God and the lowest level of atheism was the Philippines.

Mullins: And what accounts for that?

Smith: You have several things going that leads to a very high level of belief in the Philippines. First, as I said in general, developing countries have a higher level of belief. Second of all, among Christian countries, Catholic countries have a higher level of belief than Protestant countries, and of course the Philippines is predominantly Catholic. Third, religion has a very strong emotional content. It’s not just an institution in the Philippines, this is really something that’s a very vital part of people’s everyday lives.

Mullins: Just to go back for one second, did you say there that the higher the level of poverty the greater the need, generally speaking, the greater the belief in God?

Smith: One of the explanations for why developing countries have higher belief in religion in general and God in particular is that the people in those countries have a lot of everyday stresses and threats to their material survival and that they find religion as something that helps them get through the material challenges.

Mullins: But then, how does that explain the belief in God here in the United States? You say in the Philippines, which you just mentioned, 94% of those people surveyed say they have always believed in God; in the United States, 81%…that’s basically second in line…81% said that they did. You could hardly count the U.S. as a developing country.

Smith: Yes, this is an example of what is sometimes called “American exceptionalism.” The United States has a very high level of belief for a country as economically advanced with its highest level of education as the United States has. It goes back to the founding of the United States in which we have the separation of Church and State. At first glance one would say, “Well, but doesn’t that weaken religion if the government isn’t staying behind religion?” What it does is it frees religion and it can either succeed and compete or it can compete and fail. What has happened in the United States is you have a very active, highly competitive religious market and that competition has strengthened religion in the United States.

Mullins: What did you find through the study about atheism?

Smith: Well, there are two areas of the world in which either atheism as a kind of adopted point of view or simply the lack of religion or the lack of any belief is particularly strong – in some of but not all of the ex-communist countries, the prime example being the former East Germany, and in the Scandinavian countries.

Mullins: One final question. What does this tell you and what kind of knock-on effect do you think that this has from foreign policy to social issues? What do you see as the value in a study like this?

Smith: I think it’s very important that they can understand religion in general. Religion as we see is a very powerful force in the world today, political force as well as a moral force, and belief in God, of course, is essential to understanding religions.

Mullins: That is Tom Smith who is a director at the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago and author of the study “Beliefs about God across Time and Countries.”

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