Are religion statistics accurate?

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Are statistics about the numbers of adherents of particular religions and growth rates accurate? How exactly are they compiled to the degree of precision that they are? In reality different people show different levels of committment to different religions which are best seen as varying shades of grey. For example, Christianity is often touted as being the largest religion (on earth) but in Britain a significant proportion of people who say that they are Christian or fill in the Christian box on the census are just notionally Christian - that is celebrate Christmas (as a party) and rarely attend church apart from a wedding or a funeral - rather than actively participate in the religion. Hinduism is a largely hereditary religion where Indian culture and identity plays just as important as part as the spiritual beliefs. This results in many Hindus saying that they are Hindu because of their ancestry and culture rather than by belief or active participation in the spiritual side of things. Celebrate Diwali but rarely show any active interest in the religion outside of celebrations. Islam defines a tighter criteria for who is a believer and an unbeliever than most other religions do, but the reality is a vast variation in the level of knowledge of Islam and how much they put into practice amongst Muslims. Just because a Muslim abstains from alcohol, fasts in Ramadan, and prays 5 times a day doesn't mean that they are devout - because they could be locked into a routine. Judaism has some strange split beween its hereditary definition of being a Jew and it's belief and participation in the religion definition of being a Jew. Do atheist Jews by descent class as atheists or Jews in religion statistics?

I agree with your comments. My father says he is a Christian, but he never attends church, doesn't own a bible, doesn't pray, never talks about religion etc. I pressed him on this once and he equates "being a good person with being a Christian".

It seems clear to me that statistics grossly overestimate the number of (devout) adherents to all religions. A number of people have also told me that in their native towns in America they have to pretend to be Christians and even attend church otherwise they would face being ostracised by other (typically older) family members or within the workplace.

The greatest increase is in secularism, and it appears to be pretty much worldwide in varying degrees. Some more fundamentalist countries (or regions within countries) are notionally hanging onto their religions, but typically in the West secularism is eroding religion very quickly. Speaking from experience of England and France churches are falling into ruin or being converted into flats or other functions. The number of people attending churches is plummeting. Most people I know never attend church accept for the occasional traditional wedding of funeral, but even those are declining as people are shifting towards secular weddings and funerals. Religion is dying in the west, it is typically viewed as irrelevant to peoples' lives and nothing more than an eccentric hobby for people who are uneducated about sciences and evolution or who need an emotional prop to give their life some artificial meaning.

It's undeniable that there is a shift in the population base of Christianity amongst devout and moderately active Christians away from white westerners to the developing world and people living in Europe, the US, and Canada who originate from the developing world. In many parts of Britain Africans and Indians vastly outnumber white Europeans in church congregations, although there has been an increase in the number of white European Catholics as a result of eastern European immigration in recent years. There has been a revival of Christianity in Russia and some other former Soviet states that has pushed up the figures although there is little margin for a future increase here due to the very low birth rates.

Islam is still hanging on strong, although I believe the statistics overestimate but by a percentage margin smaller than those for Christianity, but I'm unsure about the true statuses of Hinduism and Sikhism.

You may like this.. The PewResearch survey compiles 35,000 interviews from across the U.S. and different denominations, and also asked participants about involvement in religion. I argue the core strength here is the extremely large number of interviews, rather than a reliance on institutional statistics. Besides, most institutions are so small that they probably can't afford statistics.

Measuring religion in the U.S. is extremely fascinating. The most religiously diverse country in the world, it also has wildly conflicting religious patterns and trends based on where one lives. For example, I grew up in the Northeast, and have many of the same anecdotes you guys do (parents rarely go to church, but say they pray daily). Now that I have moved South, that would be unthinkable outside of Atlanta and a few other large cities. I don't know if people here are truly more religious or not, but churches form the backbone of social, cultural and political life here, on both ends of the political spectrum.

35,000 is a drop in the ocean compared to the US adult population. I find it hard to believe figures from such a small sample are anywhere near accurate.

Do Americans who follow non-Christian religions find life easier in more secular areas like the east and west coasts than in the Bible belt?

http://religions.pewforum.org/pdf/repor ... y-full.pdf

Appendix 4, containing survey methodology, begins on page 113. They appear to sample based on a stratified random sample. That is, they have sampled their interviewees based on characteristics from U.S. Census data, and I would think American Community Survey data as well. They seemed to aim for representation among racial groups, income groups, and regions more than religion per se.

Obviously, 35,000 is way too small to make generalizations about the religious geography of the U.S. with a high degree of confidence. But bear in mind that the interview method employed here is extremely expensive. I'm really surprised a private foundation with no governmental support could pull it off. It's really more of a start in terms of assessing religiosity.

To your second point, I guess so, but I am not sure for a fact. I'm only one data point

On the survey test, it needs not be large as it was a just a statistical survey...it would have been valid with 300 or 3 million, it tests averages.

No, I doubt that most followers of non-Christian religions fit in any better. I have known hundreds of pagan friends, outright witches and they are always complaining about life and how people treat them pretty much everywhere. I never saw it, but they claim it so it must have some truth beyond them exaggerating.

I have an old friend, he converted from Catholicism to Greek Orthodoxy and is now a Luciferian Priest... he literally worships evil and is a member of the fascist party of Sicily, but lives in New York. He keep's his religion mostly secret, as he is in academia and needs not that sort of attention. He's a big freedom of religion guy (to the extreme) and helped raise funds to assist historical religious buildings in New York of assorted faiths so he's not a bad guy.

The east and west coasts have very high Catholic numbers, and many Catholics have disdain and concern for pagans. They won't admit it, but some Catholics believe in witches and don't want them around. Some are still superstitious. I grew up in New York, and we did not accept those people when I was a kid...I beat up a kid because he was a satanist and at the time I was seen in the right. It was another time in history...

When I was 16, a guy who used to train me said there are "Only three religions, Christianity, Judaism and Islam......the rest are firewood" but that was New York in the 1980s. I found that quote funny for years...as wrong as it is. (I know it's wrong)

Don't dismiss the piety of the coasts. They are just more private about faith than these modernist churches in the bible belt. Church is a place to herd up, we can pray to communicate to God, so why go to Church. I think most American's can get a sermon online if needed, and pray....it's the internet age.

An organized Church is less important today but that does not make our faith as Americans any-less. Religion of every kind, when organized has done more evil than good over the last 100yrs and continues to do so. Faith in God and Religion are separate things and rarely combine to create good together.

I've met about 50 pagans for every 1 Buddhist or Hindu I've met in America. They all have it amazingly better than in the 50's though.

And Merry Christmas...because I realize Muslims follow him too.