Posted by Hemant Mehta in 
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Beliefs Around the World
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Actually, the bottom map shows agreement with scientific consensus. You don’t have to applied one iota of critical thinking to accept the germ theory of disease.
well, there is one small error.. Czech Republic is actually mostly atheist/agnostic. Wiki:
According to the 2001 census, 59% of the country is agnostic, atheist, non-believer or no-organised believer, 26.8% Roman Catholic and 2.5% Protestant.
AFAIK it’s the only country in the world where atheists are majority.
I recently picked up a copy of Mapping History: World Religions which shows the spread of various religions through time. Very interesting. My assumption would be that the truth (with a capital T) would spread everywhere simply by virtue of being true…much like the spread of scientific learning.
Then again the Abrahamic faiths are pretty worldwide so maybe that’s not too good a point.
Another small error, the French speaking (western, hugging lake Geneva) area is mostly Protestant, Geneva being the home of Calvinism and all. Still it’s a good point that most people follow the religious beliefs they were given, and so religion really is rarely a conclusion one arrives at.
Not sure “mostly believe in the theory of evolution” applies to that block in N. America – you know, the bit below Canada and above Mexico. What’s that place called, again? Otherwise, though, good graph.
1) Actually, I think that’s the whole point
2)Tell that to Bill Maher.
The Philippines is also marked wrong, being predominantly Roman Catholic with Roman Catholic + Muslim southern regions.
But I guess that’s besides the point.
According to the World Values Survey 2005
With 42% claiming a particular religion Britain cannot be considered “Mostly Protestant”. I’d like the colour changed to white please…like Antarctica who also have no dominant religion.
Despite the small number of errors, this map is a stunning arguement against the infallibilty of any one religion. Most people believe what they believe because of where they were born. Period.
But atheism isn’t a religion or faith, so it wouldn’t be included on the map.
[...] Science (hat tip to Friendly Atheist) [...]
There’s an old Chinese saying, and a very true one:
Religions are many, but reason is one.
And more seriously, science is an international and cross-ethnic business. But with religion, one gets the circumstance that the most segregated hour of the week in the U.S. of A. is 11 AM Sundays, as MLK Jr. noted.