Surprising Maps and Graphs About Religion (US and Worldwide)

atheists are banned from holding public office in eight US states Pennsylvania Maryland North Carolina South Carolina Tennessee Mississippi Arkansas Texas wait if I live in Texas I can't run for public office wait well here's a local news site of Texas inapplicable Texas constitutional provision prevents atheists from holding public office Texas is one of seven states that has a defunct provision in its Constitution that prohibits atheists from holding public office. Article 1, Section 4 of the Texas Constitution states that no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification for any public office or office. In this state no one can be excluded from holding office because of their religious feelings, as long as they recognize the existence of a Supreme Being, but the No Religious Test Clause of the United States Constitution makes it clear that restrictions like the one in Texas are unconstitutional.

The question arose again. in 2014, when a candidate running for Austin City Council distributed a mailer claiming that her opponent was an atheist and therefore legally barred from holding public office in the state. Wow, that's incredibly petty and bigoted, so even though the requirement is unenforceable, it is still on the books because it has never been legally challenged by a candidate and because no candidate has ever been denied the opportunity to serve because It's interesting, it seems like an atheist needs to run openly for public office in Texas. I mean, they're not going to do it. get elected, but maybe just to confront this more directly, so these laws are technically unenforceable because of the US Constitution, but is it really that

surprising

that eight different states in the US don't want to that atheists hold public office?

Personally, I'm surprised Alabama and Oklahoma haven't joined in the fun welcome to another video of religious

maps

and charts like last time, most of them coming from social scientist Dr. Ryan Burge, one of the only people making Twitter is even somewhat bearable for This time I pulled some from Reddit, but only those who actually cited a reliable source, can find links to everything I use in the description. Oh, and this time I wanted to say hello to Dr. Burge. I'm glad you seem to approve of the last video and I hope you don't mind if I make another one of these, you know, I like to make sure I cite where I got all the material for this video, it wouldn't be possible without you, so thanks if you get me some followers on Twitter, that's the least I can do to reward you for your work, the second largest religious tradition in each state, okay, this is kind of like old 2010.

Of course, Christianity is the largest

religion

in each state. runners-up, the first thing I find notable is how prevalent Judaism is. Judaism isn't really that big of a

religion

, especially compared to something like Islam. I thought places like Ohio, Pennsylvania, most of the Northeast were going to be more Islamic. I thought New York, sure, Judaism, but no. I didn't expect this to also spread Judaism in Minnesota. That surprises me. I wonder if that has changed in recent years. This map is something like 12 years old. Do you know what if you know an updated version of This map I would really like to see it maybe I will cover it in a future video and fix any issues here Islam in Texas not

surprising

Florida not surprising the other parts of the south I imagine there are not many Muslims there treated particularly well, that's all I can think of when I see how rare South Carolina Bahá'ís are.

I mean, there are so few in the entire world it's hard to believe. I almost think maybe maybe a group of Bahá'ís. Somehow they are registered there and in some official organizational way, although they don't actually live there and some count them. Maybe that's true, but I'm inclined to doubt that because Bahá'ís are not a great faith. not at all, Indians get a very random selection from Delaware and Arizona. I'm not surprised that Hindus are second in a given state, but Delaware and Arizona are odd and then Buddhist on the west coast and in the Rocky Mountains, I think that makes I imagine they would be in line with the rest of the South , so I guess Islam is okay, starting to see some of Ryan Burge's ideas.

I work here this is the Christian denomination with the most followers in each state we will see how this contrasts with the last one. The Catholic Church is very dominant here in almost the entire country. I would say I'm surprised about Texas because it feels very Protestant a lot of the time, but South Texas is a different ball game, the Southern Baptist convention really dominates the Bible Belt. I guess the Bible and Bible belt must be NIV or New King James. It occurred to me that many of my viewers might not. Get that, uh, yeah, I guess you had to be there and by being there I mean traumatized by the Southern Baptist Church in some way, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, with a big bite out there dominating Utah and Idaho, you know in my latest

maps

and video graphics someone let me know that it is now considered taboo or offensive for Mormons at least 12 to call them Mormons now because the name changed a while ago, but I have never obeyed or respected the doctrine of the Mormon church, not when they were excluding blacks from the priesthood, not when they said that the more you believe, the whiter and more charming you become, not when they not only pressure but severely indoctrinate so many of their children and I will not obey or respect his doctrine at no time.

Soon, of course, I will be kind and compassionate to any Mormon I talk to or Latter-day Saint I talk to, and if calling them a Mormon in conversation with them in any way impedes our progress or our camaraderie in any discussion, then sure. . I'll call them whatever they want, I think it's just basic respect, but when I'm making an educational video and I'm talking about Mormons, which is how everyone knows them, I'll call them Mormons, I'm sorry, and lastly, West Virginia, Washington, and Alaska is mainly non-denominational, what a strange handful of places. Okay, let's switch it up from the last Maps video and look at a couple of world maps.

Four out of 10 countries have official state religions or preferred religions. You have many old ones. Soviet countries are hostile to religious institutions, plus China and Vietnam and then mostly Islamic countries that have an official state religion. North Africa Middle East Middle East South Central Asia makes sense Russia says preferred or favored I really wonder where they are going with that now I mean Putin is saying that his enemies are possessed and influenced by Satan himself and that the Russian Christian people He must rise up and defeat Satan, so we'll see where that leads. If you want to know more about that madness from a reliable source, then.

We will link a video by religion, log in in the description so you can verify that Putin is crazy. You have Iceland, the UK, Norway and Denmark all have an official state religion but they also have religious freedom but on top of that they are also some of the most atheist countries, if not the most atheist countries in the world, funny how it works that. Clearly, the official state religion can function in several different ways. You definitely don't have religious freedom in somewhere like Saudi Arabia which has an official state religion, but in other places I would imagine.

That preferred or favored is even more variable. I'm familiar with this at least because my wife grew up in Indonesia, but Indonesia has official religions that you basically have to identify to be a citizen there. What they told me about why If you have official religions that you must identify with to be a citizen, they were reacting with fear of Chinese-style communism, which of course is extremely harsh for any religious establishment and they didn't want to be like that, they wanted to be something else. . possibly more like Europe or the West in general, so they said you have to be religious here.

I don't think most places in Indonesia really care that much, although you can sign up and say you're whatever and no, no government man. He will come knocking on your door because you didn't go to church enough, but it's different everywhere if you live in a place that has a preferred religion, tell me your experience, why did they do this? What does that look like more for Ryan? Burge, what is the relationship between economic advancement and religiosity at the country level? It is clearly negative in countries where the GDP is less than twenty-five thousand dollars, more than 75 percent think that religion is very important among countries where the GDP is greater than thirty-five thousand dollars, fifteen percent or less think that religion is very important, starting from here where there is a lot of poverty Ethiopia Senegal almost 100 percent say that religion is very important, the GDP increases only a little Paraguay Georgia and there is a significant drop in people who say that religion religion is very important very important for them keep going Mexico Argentina Chile Croatia keeps going down it seems like there is some kind of sweet spot between Japan and Sweden where the GDP is higher and it doesn't need to be higher for them to say that religion is not very important after this point it looks like GDP and religiosity have a more positive correlation, a big part of that is probably the United States which is a massive outlier.

I mean really high GDP and look where we are, we are more terrible compared to Greece or Romania or Paraguay at least when it comes to religiosity. I have discussed in several previous videos that the more stable and more prosperous a society becomes, the less religious people indicate that religion is a kind of social safety net in a way it is something that makes people feel like they are flourishing when things that they need to flourish, the actual material that they need to flourish, is not necessarily there. This graph seems to reinforce that idea. Map of world religions.

I could spend all day looking at this, but I'll try. To be brief, let's look at how Europe is divided, so you have Ireland, Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, Croatia, all Catholic, but then you start to switch a little to Protestantism when you get to Germany, Denmark and Northern Europe , and then you go back to Catholicism when you arrive. to Poland, but then you go east and you see a lot of Orthodoxy, not everyone is the same type of Orthodox, but I guess they have the same color and look at this, interesting, there is a type of Buddhism that predominates in strange places.

I uploaded it because I thought it would be another country, but no, that's Russia, that's just Russia, there's a Buddhist part of Russia and it's not in the East. Wow, I definitely learned something. You have the only blue part of the map. Israel, it's great here. Let's look at how Islam is divided, although I wonder how they got the data, because isn't Saudi at least self-reporting being one hundred percent Sunni and this means that at least some of its population appears to be Shia? Africa divided by North and South by Sunni Islam and a combination of Christianity and popular religions Madagascar just had a spot of Catholicism right in the middle.

Here's something I find interesting, I think especially because my wife grew up in Indonesia, most of Indonesia is Sunni, but because of the Dutch colonization, I think there are many places that are Protestant, especially when you get to the east, like West Papua, Yes, I could go through this forever, but we should move on, wait, wait, one last thing. I like how all this says there is no religion. Does that just mean that no, this is not really a religious man? But because conversion therapy is such a religious issue where I live I tend to see it that way, as you can see most of the world including Western Europe does nothing about conversion therapy at all only Germany has it illegal Germany based in Brazil based in Ecuador France United Kingdom Iceland northern Europe the rest of Europe and Asia just hit them all interesting Canada says limited because maybe I'm wrong here but I thought the Trudeau Administration did this at the level Federal It is illegal in Canada, this was done in 2020 so maybe that has happened since this map was created just for any of you who are not familiar with conversion therapy.

Conversion therapy means trying to use some type of psychological or, let's face it, religious technique or intervention to change. someone's sexual orientation, no rigorous scientific study has shown that conversion therapy works, but that's not why people believe it works, at least where I live, for religious reasons outside the US, I can't say altogether. but no, it doesn't work, no method has worked, just as you can't force someone to be gay, you can't force them to be straight, indicate the religious anecdotes in the comments, well, I read this book, gay girl, good Lord, or I read it. this book by Christopher Yuan and they said they were gay but through the love of Christ they are, no they didn't, they just felt bad about being gay, plus anecdotes, not data, show meA study.

I dare you, okay, go back to the US, now this one. might be the most shocking thing in this video, are you ready for this part of every religious tradition that self-identifies as evangelical Protestant or born again, you know there is a Catholic group, there are some Orthodox, there are some Christians, yes, many Christians actually They identify as evangelical, even if you're not Protestant now, but get this, nineteen percent of Republican Jews identify as evangelical when it comes to Muslims. 39 of Republican Muslims identify as evangelical Buddhists. 25 percent of Republicans identify as evangelical Hindus if you are a Republican. 37 identifies as evangelical.

How crazy is that? Evangelical is not a religious identifier for many people, it is primarily political. I think at this point we all realize that for Christians to identify as evangelical is simultaneously theological and political, but for non-Christians it seems to be primarily political enough that they can identify as such without actually indicating that they are. Christian, of course, as we see that the majority of non-Christians who identify as evangelicals are Republicans, but there remain a substantial minority of Hindus, Buddhists, especially Muslims and Jews, who are Democrats and identify as evangelicals. I love this tweet in response to Ryan Burge loving them both.

Percent of born-again agnostic independents imagine being born again and choosing absolutely zero sides in religion and politics. What do you think this is? The most shocking thing about this video. For me, it's the top 20 religious traditions of the United States Catholic Church that win. by a huge margin but by a huge advantage over anyone else nondenominational is second of course nondenominational has no denomination but they are generally Protestants of some Southern Baptist flavor but perhaps without much dogma or ties. For a segregation like the one the Southern Baptist convention has, I'm sure the non-denominationals are more diverse than the Baptists, but in my experience at several of these churches, they are pretty similar to any moderate Baptist church I've ever been to. .

Look to the right where Islam is on this list and then scroll to the bottom and look where Orthodox Judaism is. Now there are other types of Judaism. I see another tweet from Ryan Burge saying that conservative Jews have a significant but still small turnout. number compared to the rest on this list, there is also a significant proportion of Reform Jews in the US, but even all of them together don't come close to rivaling Islam, but they are still apparently the second largest religion in many state. I'm confused when talking about non-denominational percentage of all non-denominational followers, this is color coded with purple and blue being the highest percentages, 15 to 20 percent, has a group in Washington, Oregon , Colorado, Oklahoma, Ohio, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, is not discernible. geographic distribution there, I mean, they're not along any kind of mountain range or ethnic group or anything like that, it seems like I imagine we'll see this continue to increase and majority denomination in many more states in just a few years actually not there is denomination California Utah Massachusetts everyone says no, we like our denominations here number of people per religious congregation Ryan Birch says that in the United States there are 461 people for each religious congregation, so this is not the size of the congregation, but This is the ratio of people to the number of congregations that there are in the liberal West Coast area, there are many people per religious congregation on the East Coast, the same in Michigan, the same again in the Chicago area, the same in Florida and Louisiana, curiously in the south.

Louisiana at least has the same thing, what we are seeing here is the effect of places that have large populations, but in places that have large denser populations you tend to see a little less religion and that is born here too if you go to places very rural in the US, so here in the deep south, a little bit in Appalachia and especially on the east side of the Rocky Mountains, you'll see a lot of religious congregations because of the number of people they have there, oh, I like it . The colors in this one percent of each county that is part of a religious body, the darker the color, the higher the percentage of people who look, just east of the Rocky Mountains, you see a high percentage of people who They belong to a religious body and it is not surprising that there are many people in the Bible Belt.

Utah is about belonging to a religious community. Here is an interesting place to observe everything that surrounds New York City. He appears to have a high percentage of membership in a religious congregation. New Hampshire and Oregon seem to have the least religious affiliation there, but if you look at the latest map and chart video I made, that shouldn't surprise you. This is what I find really fascinating if the American religion were represented by 1000 people, with Protestants being the largest by far. nothing in particular comes second and Catholic comes third. It's a bit shocking to see how big atheists and agnostics look compared to everyone else.

I mean, you have more than Jews or Mormons, Muslims, Buddhists. Here is Ryan Burgess' interesting commentary for every Mormon in the world. In America, there are 76 Christians for every Muslim, there are 53 Christians for every Jew, there are 25 Christians, most Americans are still Christians, yes, even as big as nothing in particular is, if you combine Protestants and Catholics, no there is competition, they beat everything else combined. I'm old enough to remember the hysteria around Muslims in the wake of 9/11. Lots of concern that they were trying to take over the country in 2020. There are 10 counties in the US where Muslims make up at least six percent of the population. 2627 have no measurable data.

Muslim population and there is a spread, it's hard to even see any of those counties that have more than six percent, six percent is a small number to begin with, it looks like New York City, Detroit, somewhere in New Mexico with the that I'm not familiar with. I have no idea there was a Muslim community that was so significant in New Mexico proportionally, at least I should say maybe there just aren't many people in that county. I think this is Buffalo, New York, the Chicago area, but yeah, the point is that Muslims are not a particularly significant portion of the population almost anywhere in the US.

I also remember the hysteria around Muslims, you know? I remember being in church and them preaching sermons about how they were going to come and take over and that Christians need to have more babies. to deal with the imminent rise of Muslims, it's just xenophobia, that's all it was. I shouldn't say that people still think like that. I still think there is hysteria around Muslims being here, it just may not be discussed as publicly. as it was at that time, although I personally have many disagreements with the doctrine of most forms of Islam, I will say that Islam and Muslims are two different things.

Muslims are welcome as my neighbors. I will be happy to treat you well as long as you treat me. Well, you know, every Muslim I've ever met in the US has felt the same way. Well, the last one and I'm including it because not long ago I was driving through rural Texas and I saw that there appears to be a Methodist Church. Everywhere I go, in every small town, I wonder: how did they have time to set all this up? Is there a Methodist Church everywhere, like in every town with more than 2000 people in the US?

Well, Ryan Burge tweeted something about that. counties that have a United Methodist Church red is yes gray is no basically everywhere except Alaska and Utah are almost one hundred percent yes throughout the entire Midwest the entire east coast from north to south is simply yes the United Methodist Church has actually explored and established territory in all parts of the US good work Methodists, he says easily, the most geographically dispersed denomination, yes, that's fine with you, that's all I have for you. I hope you learned something and had some fun along the way, remember to check out Dr.

Ryan. Burge on Twitter is definitely worth following and he makes my Twitter experience really worth it which really says something, go show them some love with that. Thanks for watching. I've been Drew, a genetically modified skeptic. A special thanks to my sponsors for their constant support. love and support if you want to know more from me then subscribe as always if you are an apostate in need there are resources linked in the description to help you find community and mental health support remember to be kind to others in the comments and until next time time remains skeptical