by Gabbie
It’s hard to find any definitive data on this subject, since sources choose different ways to gather their information; i.e., the questions that are asked of the people surveyed. For example, the Gallup poll here: http://www.gallup.com/poll/114211/Alabamians-Iranians-Common.aspx asked people whether they considered religion to be an important part of their daily lives. Their results showed Egypt as the most religious country, with 100% responding with “yes,” and Estonia as the least – only 14% gave yes as their answer. The median was a substantial 82%, and the U.S. fell below, at 65%.
A different question was asked by the polltakers here, http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/rel_chu_att-religion-church-attendance. The percentages of this poll reflect the amount of people who claim to attend church at least once a week. As their question is different, so are their results: Nigeria is listed as the most religious at 89%, and Russia as the least religious at only 2%. Rather than a median, Nationmaster used a weighted average, which was 26.2%.
These polls bring up some interesting issues; mainly, what are the possible reasons for these discrepancies? For countries that showed up lower on the second list, does this mean that residents consider religion important, but do not think that church-going is an essential part of religion? Or, for countries that showed up lower on the first list, does it mean that citizens attend church but it is not meaningful to them? If the answers to these questions are yes, then what does that say about these countries?
Works Cited
"Church Attendance Statistics - Countries Compared - NationMaster." NationMaster - World Statistics, Country Comparisons. Nationmaster.org. Web. 09 Dec. 2010. http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/rel_chu_att-religion-church-attendance
Crabtree, Steve, and Brett Pelham. "What Alabamians and Iranians Have in Common." Gallup.Com - Daily News, Polls, Public Opinion on Government, Politics, Economics, Management. Gallup, Inc., 9 Feb. 2009. Web. 09 Dec. 2010. http://www.gallup.com/poll/114211/Alabamians-Iranians-Common.aspx
You pose some good questions when examining polling data, as you should when looking at polls: looking at HOW the question was asked, looking at WHO was asked, looking at HOW the poll was conducted to come up with the numbers and then HOW that data was conveyed. Drawing conclusions from there......well, that's a whole other thing, isn't it? Keep thinking. -- Ms. H
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