Interesting Religious Statistics

[Jayhawker Soule]

I choose not to believe the accuracy of the findings ... Does that answer your questions adequately Deut.?

Yes. Thank you.

 

[anders]

Maybe it's to avoid prejudice, but Sweden does NOT have complete sparation of church and state. They still have an official state church -- Lutheran, if I'm not mistaken.

That was years ago. Until January 1, 2000 it was. Not anymore. But after 1686, until 1951, we weren't allowed to leave the Church of Sweden (CoS) unless claiming adherence to another governmentally accepted religion.

Lazy that I am, I really should complete the form to leave the Co S. Apart from the psychological satisfaction, it'll save me a couple of USD 100's per year in taxes. (As a service to all religious communities, our secular government collects the appropriate tax and distributes it to the respective communites.) There are numerous safeguards to see that religion data aren't available outside the taxation system. (And there are no official data on things like mother tongue etc. either.)

 

[cmotdibbler]

That was years ago. Until January 1, 2000 it was. Not anymore. But after 1686, until 1951, we weren't allowed to leave the Church of Sweden (CoS) unless claiming adherence to another governmentally accepted religion.

Lazy that I am, I really should complete the form to leave the Co S. Apart from the psychological satisfaction, it'll save me a couple of USD 100's per year in taxes. (As a service to all religious communities, our secular government collects the appropriate tax and distributes it to the respective communites.) There are numerous safeguards to see that religion data aren't available outside the taxation system. (And there are no official data on things like mother tongue etc. either.)

The Swiss also have the government collect taxes for the church. I got a bill for about $200 and was told threatened with deportation if I didn't pay. There was a small card I filled out when we arrived and I just put my wife's religion down. I managed to get removed from the tax duty but had to by "stricken from the church records". No burial, baptism, weddings etc would be performed on my behalf (I signed happily).

 

[SoliDeoGloria]

This one is my favorite:

80% of U.S. prisoners are Christian and 0.2% are atheists

Data source is The Federal Bureau of Prisons, March 1997.

Holysmoke.org - prisons

I couldn't help but almost chuckle at this one for a couple of reasons. First off, I know that this one is not true from personal experience. One of the reasons why a majority of inmates in the prisons I stayed at did not embrace Christianity is because of a cliche called "jailhouse conversion". Usually the idea behind it was that an inmate was trying to put on a hussle for the Paroleboard or whoever they felt could get them out of prison sooner. Becuase of that, most inmates try to avoid that steriotype by simply staying as far away from Christianity as they can.

On top of that, The Christian Research Journal just recently published an article(Volume 27/Number 06) titled "faith Behind the Fence: Religious Trends in U.S. Prisons". In it they note that : "According to a May 2004 report by the U.S. Department of Justice, by midyear 2003 there were more than 1.3 million persons in custudy in state and federal prisons in America. This number increases by an average of 3.7 percent per year, creating concerns over prisons becomming recruiting grounds for cults, alternative spiritual practices, and dangerous religious groups. Precise statistics on the religious demographics of U.S. prisons can be difficult because of differing procedure followed in each state. California, for example, has not done a valid study of inmate religious preferences in more than a decade. New York and Michigan lump several religions into an 'other' catagory. Colorado does not recognize the Nation of Islam and does not have s statistical catagory for it. Such information as is readily available, however, does allow for certain definitive conclusions.

The they go on to write about the influnce of Islam and other religious influences inside U.S. prisons stating some interesting facts.

Sincerely,
SolideoGloria

 

[Scuba Pete]

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics." Benjamin Disraeli