A new Ipsos / Reuters poll shows that while belief in God and Afterlife is fairly strong across the globe, it is definitely in decline.
The Poll "finds that one half (51%) of global citizens definitely believe in a ‘divine entity’ compared to 18% who don’t and 17% who just aren’t sure."
While MSNBC ran with the headline of "Poll: Belief in supreme being strong across globe", I think that is quite a misrepresentation of an almost universal accelerating secularization.
Some findings from the poll are below the fold.
Definitive belief in a God or Supreme Being is highest in Indonesia (93%) and Turkey (91%) followed by Brazil (84%), South Africa (83%) and Mexico (78%). Those most likely to believe in “many Gods or Supreme Beings” live in India (24%), China (14%) and Russia (10%).
Surprisingly US does not seem to have a very high belief in God from the above.
Europeans seem to be the most atheistic:
Those who say they do not believe in God or Supreme Being(s) are most likely to live in France (39%) followed by Sweden (37%), Belgium (36%), Great Britain (34%), Japan (33%) and Germany (31%).
Asian countries have the highest percent of people being unsure:
Those most likely to lack a definite response are from Japan (54%) of which 34% believe sometimes and 20% are unsure; China (52%) of which 32% sometimes believe and 20% are unsure; and South Korea (50%) of which 32% sometimes believe and 18% are unsure.
On heaven and hell:
Indonesians are most likely to believe in going on to heaven or hell (62%), followed by those in South Africa (52%), Turkey (52%), United States (41%) and Brazil (28%). Of those who believe in heaven but not hell, those in the United States (4%) rank highest.
On creation:
Three in ten (28%) global citizens refer to themselves as “creationists and believe that human beings were in fact created by a spiritual force such as the God they believe in and do not believe that the origin of man came from evolving from other species such as apes” led by those from Saudi Arabia (75%), Turkey (60%), Indonesia (57%), South Africa (56%) and Brazil (47%).
On ceasing to exist:
One quarter (23%) say “you simply cease to exist” led by those in South Korea (40%) and Spain (40%) followed by France (39%), Japan (37%) and Belgium (35%).
The countries that participated in the survey are:
Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and the United States of America.
Update: Thanks to Catte Nappe here is the link to the data (pdf) - http://www.ipsos-na.com/...