The Pew Research Center continues to plow through past data to find nuggets of information that will shed new light on how the world is different. This time they’ve turned up a yawning gulf between rich and poor countries on religion and whether or not you’re having a good day.
Forty-four wealthy and not-so-wealthy countries were surveyed by Pew on a number of subjects, but what really caught my eye was the disparity on religious views.
Asked if religion plays a very important role in their lives, nearly 99 percent of Pakistanis answer in the affirmative. Over 80 percent of those surveyed in Senegal, Indonesia, Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda, Philippines, Kenya, Egypt, Jordan and El Salvador also believe religion is very important.
The United States is the only major developed country that says religion plays a very important role in the lives of its people. More than half of Americans (54 percent) answered a resounding yes.
Waaaaay down the list were China, Czech Republic, Japan, France, Russia, South Korea and Britain. All were below 20 percent.
Pew says that people in richer countries tend to place less emphasis on the need to believe in God in order to be moral and have good values than people in poorer countries do.
In America, 53 percent say belief in God is a prerequisite for being moral and having good values, much higher than, say, the 23 percent in Australia and the 15 percent in France.
In the same study, Pew also asked everyone to tell them if they were having a particularly good day, and guess what? Poorer countries are a lot more upbeat than the wealthier countries.
Having the best day of all are the Nigerians, nearly 60 percent say their day is going just great. Colombia, Kenya, Nicaragua and Brazil also are above the 50 percent mark.
Things are not so hot, though, in South Korea and Japan. In both countries, less than 10 percent of the people say they’re having a particularly good day.
Ever-optimistic Americans again lead the developed world in happiness. Just over 40 percent say their day was excellent. This question probably was asked before the winter of 2015 set in. Just guessing.
