Facts of the Day

A global poll on religion and atheism has found that 59 percent of the people in the world think of themselves as religious and 13 percent see themselves as convinced atheists. The study found that worldwide the number of atheistsincreased by 3 percent in the same time period that the number who said they were religious dropped off by 9 percent.

Poor People More Religious

The bottom income groups are 17 percent more religious than those in the top income groups. Ghana leads the way among religious people with 96 percent of its respondents saying they think of themselves as religious. Nigeria was second at 93 percent, followed by Armenia and Fiji, which both came in at 92 percent. Macedonia rounded out the top five at 90 percent. 60 percent of the United States population considers itself to be religious, while 5 percent think of themselves as atheists.

China leads the way among atheist countries by far as 47 percent of the nation’s respondents think of themselves as convinced atheists. Japan was second at 31 percent followed by the Czech Republic at 30 percent. France came in fourth at 29 percent before another significant dropoff found South Korea and Germany tied at 15 percent.