The US is generally thought to be far more religious than Europe – especially Western Europe. Americans are much more likely to be “certain” that God exists, to pray every day, to say religion is “very important” in their lives, and to attend religious services on a regular basis. Here’s a chart made by the sociologist Ryan Burge, which compares weekly religious attendance in US states and European countries:
With a few notable exceptions (such as famously Catholic Poland), there is almost no overlap. US states have much higher rates of religious attendance than European countries. In fact, the least religious US state, New Hampshire, has a higher rate of religious attendance than no less than 20 European countries – including Britain, France and Germany.
But has religious attendance in the US been overestimated? A new paper suggests it might.
Economist Devin Pope obtained a large dataset comprising the locations of millions of smartphone users at various times of day. These locations were inferred based on ‘pings’ made by the smartphones at particular latitude-longitude coordinates. For example, if a user’s smartphone pinged at the coordinates of a church, it was inferred that the user was attending a religious service.
Encouragingly, the dataset looked to be reasonably representative. For example, the distribution of smartphone users across US states was similar to the actual distribution of people across states. Users in the dataset were slightly wealthier than the average American – which isn’t surprising since they were selected for owing a smartphone (though these days, the vast majority of Americans can afford one).
Using the smartphone data, Pope was able to estimate the percentage of Americans who attend religious services yearly, monthly and weekly. What did he find? The chart below compares his results with those from Pew Research surveys.
As you can see, Pope’s results suggest that yearly attendance has been underestimated but that weekly attendance has been substantially overestimated. According to Pew Research surveys, 22% of Americans attendance a religious service each week. But according to smartphone data, the figure is closer to 5%. (Pope defined ‘weekly’ attendance as going at least three times per month).
Incidentally, one reason why the smartphone data gives a higher figure for yearly attendance is that Pew Research asks about religious attendance “aside from weddings and funerals”, whereas the smartphone data makes no such distinction.
One reason surveys might overestimate religious attendance is social desirability bias. Saying you go to church regularly makes you sound like a good person, especially in a God-fearing country like the US. So some Americans might tell pollsters they go to church regularly when they actually go irregularly, or not at all.
However, it’s also possible that the smartphone data are biased and weekly attendance hasn’t been overestimated. Indeed, the sociologist Lyman Stone is not convinced by Pope’s analysis.
He gives a number of reasons why the smartphone data would yield ‘too low’ estimates of weekly attendance: some people don’t take their phones to church; some of those who do turn them off or put them on airplane mode; and older churches have poor signal quality because they’re often made of stone. (According to a survey Pope himself carried out, less than 80% of Americans “always” take their phones to church.)
For my own part, Stone’s scepticism seems justified. On the other hand, if Pope is proven correct, the US will fall down the rankings of weekly attendance to become just an ordinary European country – and a lot of our assumptions will have to be revised.
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“Bomb Houthi bases to rubble.”
Thus Britain’s diplomacy and foreign policy nowadays, even when (as one respondent said on GB news yesterday) “I thought we were skint?” The Saudis, backed by the US, have been bombing Yemen to rubble for many years, creating the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis in the process. I guess there are always more people left to bomb.
Which snowflake was it who used to say “Jaw jaw, not war war”? Oh yes, it was Churchill, wasn’t it.
An where is the EU in all this? Do they not use these waterways for their imports and exports? Why isn’t Germany or France bombing “houthi bases to rubble”?
A potential beneficiary could be Sino-Europe rail freight. It’s been growing over the years, although the Russia/Ukraine war is a problem, no doubt. https://www.zieglergroup.com/the-best-china-to-europe-freight-transport-methods-compared/
As long as they drop bombs, it creates a demand for more. BAE share price showed a predictable increase.
Remember Aden? I bet Ansar Allah do….
Morning all! Talk about shooting yourself in the foot!
https://www.euractiv.com/section/circular-materials/news/recycling-market-in-europe-faces-collapse-after-eu-waste-export-ban/
Digital ID A Hacker’s Dream
latest leaflet to print at home and deliver to neighbours or forward to politicians, media, friends online.
Well I’ve been banging on about this for ages now. The fact that it is the persecuted Christians in majority-Muslim countries who should be given priority as far as granting them asylum in the West goes. To be fair though, I’ve no idea on the stats of who makes up what percentage of ‘refugees’ who come to our lands. I just presume they’re mostly Muslim because those are the countries they’re coming from.
Raymond Ibrahim has been shining a light on the persecution of Christians in other parts of the world for years. Here he gives the rationale as to why these people should be prioritized, but also explaining why they are not;
”All emotionalism and name-calling aside — that is, the stuff of American politics — there are, in fact, several objective reasons why the West should give priority, if not exclusivity, to Christian refugees from the Muslim world — and some of these are actually to the benefit of western nations. Consider:
Christians are real victims of persecution. From a humanitarian point of view — and humanitarianism is the chief reason cited in accepting refugees — Christians should receive top priority simply because they are the most persecuted group in the Middle East. As former Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop once put it, “I think that Christian minorities are being persecuted in Syria and even if the conflict were over they would still be persecuted.”
Indeed. While they are especially targeted by the Islamic State and other professional jihadists, before ISIS, Christians were and continue to be targeted by Muslims — Muslim mobs, Muslim individuals, Muslim regimes, and Muslim terrorists, from Muslim countries of all races (Arab, African, Asian, etc.) — and for the same reason: Christians are infidel number one.
Conversely, Muslim refugees are not fleeing direct persecution, but chaos created by the violent and intolerant teachings of their own religion, Islam — hence why violence and intolerance follows Muslims into Europe.
Muslim persecution of Christians has been further enabled by western policies. Western nations should accept Christian refugees on the basis that western actions in the Middle East are directly responsible for exacerbating the plight of Christian minorities. Christians were not terrorized in Bashar Assad’s Syria, or Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, or Muamar Gaddafi’s Libya. Their persecution grew exponentially only after the U.S. and other western states interfered in those nations in the name of “democracy.” All they did is unleash the jihadist forces that the dictators had long kept suppressed.”
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/01/what_if_the_west_only_accepted_christian_refugees_from_the_muslim_world.html
Surprised that this isn’t being covered here. Journalist and podcaster Gonzalo Lira has died while held captive in Ukraine. Tucker Carlson has given his death the coverage as a political prisoner it deserves. RIP Lira.
https://twitter.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1745863377493143906
Agreed. I followed his Ukraine coverage closely. He predicted his own death in his last video when he was a few miles from the border with Hungary I think. While exhaling cigarette smoke. He was a very brave man and I salute him.
A US citizen denied the protection or assistance of the US because he did not follow the warmongers’ line… or rather, he helped expose it for the criminality it is.
““Sir Ed Davey has refused to apologise over his position in the Post Office scandal””
Channelling his inner Diane Abbott. He and people like him should be dragged “of coursing” from their chairs into the street and hung from the nearest lamppost while their legs kick uselessly and their faces turn black. Of course.
Seconded. Davey is another Lib Dim – no misspelling – nutjob. A complete drain on the planet and the people on it. The reality – an oxygen thief.