Maps and Graphs About Religion in America (That You Need to See)

Social scientist Dr. Ryan Burge makes fascinating maps and graphs about religion and politics in America, largely from General Social Survey data. Here I examine his work on a ton of topics, including: political partisanship of evangelicals, US states with the most atheists and agnostics, religious majorities in each state, LGBT inclusion by religious denomination, and more.

I hope you guys like this near copy of JackSucksAtGeography but with scholarly sources.

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[wojtek]

In Poland religion was super important during 1980s because of John Paul II and his role in trying for independence from the Soviets. Poland after the war used to be almost entirely Catholic. It's not surprising to see the elderly going to church multiple times a week. The youngest rarely even attend what is effectively "Catholic lessons" (30-70% depending on the region and school). Generally the older the person the more religious. Parents tend to be firm believers and children are often completely agnostic calling themselves Christian just because that's a big part of being Polish and they just don't care enough to find out anything about religion and what they really are. Poland also has separation of church and state only on paper. In practice the church tells who to vote for (all churches agree with the current ruling party and the ruling party agrees with the church)

[johnfinnell]

As a recently retired Catholic priest, I am happy to have discovered your channel and grateful for your overview and insights. I relish opportunities to listen to those who are not Catholic and not religious. My understanding of Jesus, at least as the 4 canonical Gospels present him, is that he was sharply critical of the religious establishment of his time and most of his criticisms could apply to all of our religious establishments today. At the same time, he did not advocate a revolt or abandonment of Jewish teachings, but rather an appreciation and application of their foundational values. He is portrayed more frequently away from temple or synagogue, meeting ordinary folks "where they are at", listening to them and responding to their needs although he does show up and participate in religious institutions at appropriate times}. Not once does he scold the ordinary folks or tell them to go home and get their act together before he has time for them. All of this guides me to value organized religion enough to dedicate my life to serve in it, but also to keep a critically reflective stance about everyone and everything in it.

[leefi]

The fact that Oregon has a low church-going populace (and few Republicans) and a high proportion of atheists, is one of the reasons that despite having never been to Oregon, we sold our home in Houston and moved to Portland. It is an amazing city, populated by kind people who value your character more than your fashion choices. Houston is all about status and upward mobility. Portland is sure of itself. I think that our lack of religion makes us a kinder, gentler place.

[MrWill]

New Englander here! A lot of people in my area (especially those of Irish, Italian and Portuguese descent) consider themselves culturally catholic, regardless of how *religious* they are. When I was a kid we went to church maybe, like, 5 or 6 times. But when I told my mom I’m an atheist when I was a teenager, she seemed upset. For all of 5 minutes.

[victoriandino]

My 85 year old grandparents are atheist, and have been for most of their lives, so they’re really breaking the mold.

[deadtornadoYT]

Hey! First time viewer and Utahn here.
Our religious statistics have definitely changed a lot especially the last decade, seeing as we have a lot of non-religious people moving in for work related purposes. Along with this, a lot of my generation starting to leave the church, and Salt Lake City becoming a fairly large city. We are still really religious compared to many states, but these trends seem to be changing quite fast.

[AardvarkDK]

11:09 Here's a story from Denmark - hope I remember it correctly. A few years ago an American sociologist wrote a book about religion in Scandinavia. He did field studies and asked people: "Do you believe in God." Most would say no, or something like "Weeell, there might be something out there." He would ask people "Do you believe in Heaven/Hell/an afterlife", and basically everyone would say no. He asked them "Do you believe in Jesus Christ", and they might say "I suppose the stories are vaguely based on a real person, but obviously he wouldn't have been the son of any god." And, of course, hardly any of them ever went to church - except for Christmas-time, and that's just out of tradition.

And then he'd ask them "Do you consider yourself a Christian?", and a surprisingly large number would say "Sure." And he'd go "But... how? You don't believe in God or Heaven or Jesus Christ and you never go to church - how can you consider yourself a Christian?" And they'd say "Well, I try to be a good person and think of people who are less fortunate in life than myself." So while Danes are technically atheists or agnostics, many of them consider themselves Christians because they think that Christianity is purely a question of behaviour, not belief. This is probably very, very different from certain American types of Christianity.

[tinyspiderqueen]

As a former southern Baptist I can certainly see why it’s in decline. Being 3 and hearing a grown red faced man screaming about hell fire and damnation while other adults cry and scream and run around the building can be a traumatic and unwelcome experience.

[vohbovohborian]

For Europe, take into account that many countries like Germany and Belgium have high degrees of recent immigrants.
If you were to limit it to people that have lived in Belgium for 20+ years, the numbers would be crazy low.
In my village, it is DEFINITELY less than 1%.
We have 7000 people here and when I peek inside the one church during a mass, there are less than 20 people there.

[Leszek.Rzepecki]

Speaking as a 67 year old atheist, atheist since late teens/early 20s, and a follower of your channel, I guess I'm an outlier in both senses. Being atheist at my age, and following your channel at my age. I guess some of us just don't fit the mould.

[louderthangod]

There’s a thing a dog trainer told me about called the extinction burst when a dog is parking to get your attention, they’ll be loudest right before they stop. The escalating aggression of religious groups in politics despite general shrinking numbers and poor recruitment with young people so I’m hoping this is their extinction burst before their numbers get too small to influence anything.

[neitan]

Proud Oregonian here! A lot of the state is actually very religious and conservative outside of the Willamette Valley cities (i.e. Eugene, Salem, Portland). But the younger generations are generally less religious than older generations, even in more rural areas. Oregon has always seemed very polarized to me with vegan off-grid hippies on one hand and evangelical fanatics on the other. Both groups are pretty self-righteous and judgey, though, so I see them as two sides to one coin; both camps are pretty fundamentalist.

[SaltyWitch]

Lifelong Utahn here, and Mormons are definitely waking up. Yes people are moving here in droves, that helps increase numbers, but those ex-Mormon videos you’re seeing are opening more eyes than you might think. Young people aren’t turning to religion the way their parents did.

[Veles_]

Polish guy here(sorry if i screwed up english a bit), so imagine you have a country that was under comiunuism and one of the bigger factors of getting the hell out of that system was having the first polish pope - John Paul II, church in general was seen as rebelious and against the authoritarian goverment. The majority of adults living in here are a bit older (wich usually comes with being a deeper beliver bc of living through the pope stuff and overthrowing comiunism) and a really big chunk of young adults emigrates bc of polish shitty (in my and i guess theirs opinion) political, economical, so on so forth landscape. Poland and Hungary are kinda like the red states of EU, we sure have bigger cities with progressive ppl but there's a lot really conservative guys living in here

[saronicle]

If you’re wondering why Utah was blank in the salary graph it’s because all LDS church positions are unpaid. There are reimbursements available for certain things like church activities, but everyone earns their money through jobs like cashier or dentist.

[KillmanPit]

Hey! Viewer from Poland here! So religious landscape in Poland is both simple and complicated. It's simple because it's so predominantly Catholic that it's basically synonymous with Christianity here. It's also very complicated because Poland has had a difficult history. It has been a European superpower for about 300 years and then completely disappeared from the maps for 150. During that time Catholicism slowly intertwined itself with patriotism and the very idea of Poland. So much so that even when Poland was under strictly atheistic soviet regime the church survived. And that's because it was basically impossible to get it out of people's minds as a shorthand for being a patriot. And during this time still church was seen as a place of free thought and free speach. A sentiment only emboldend by a Pole being chosen to be a pope (John Paul II). About this time church also became synonymous with anti - communism. After Poland got independent once again in 1990 church still has its very privileged position it owes its admitedely pro-polish and pro-freedome past. But it's slowly wailing as more and more scandals arise as well as more and more secular youth getting to voting age. Its very slow though. We never really had a separation of church and state. "religion" is tought in public school and its basically just Catholic catechism made into school curriculum. And although it's not mandatory it is counted for your average which matters for your high school admission (and being an easy way to raise that average it still rocks a solid attendence even though more and more people are more and more secular). Complicated stuff. A lot of interesting history. Cheers.

[hellohsaytin]

The "How important is religion to you?" May have some skewed results, because even though i am a firm Atheist, i would not say that religion is not important. I think it is extremely important to discuss religion and bring attention to the ridiculous hypocrisies involved. So i would say that as an Anti-theist, i find religion as a topic very important indeed.

[electronmess]

😄 I find the Czech Republic - as an undefined hole where researchers didn't even bother to measure church attendance - to be HILARIOUS. And yes, it makes complete sense. Cheers from a Czech fan, Drew!

[Miki_Naz]

Guy from Poland here, 22 years old. Situation with religion here is kinda unique, with long history. In a period when the rest of Europe began Secularization, our country wasn't on the map, since our occupants didn't like religion and persecuted it, clinging on to it became part of keeping our national identity. Later both during ww2 and during communism, church was helping with fighting the oppressors, and believing gave us hope, later John Paul II becoming a pope yet again linked religion with patriotism, so after the fall of communism in 1989, our country began with a huge Credit of trust towards the church. Right now a lot of young people are leaving church, but since there are a lot of old people here, church still has A LOT of influence. Cross is in every institution right next to national emblem, religion is taught in schools by a priest or a nun (it's not mandatody but 90% of primary school kids go, when i was in school it was closer to 99%), you baptize your children even if you are not a practicing Christian, because it's not worth fighting with your religious grandma or other family members over it. Not to mention catholic church has a lot to say in our politics (like our recent banning of abortion in 2020), since our ruling party is catering to the old people, and it's pretty good tactic for them to do what church wants in exchange for them saying during mass how good ruling party is and how bad and immortal opposition is. Thus separation of state and church exists only on paper.

[sagemodead]

Being an atheist in KY is a lot of fun to say the least. A majority of mine and my wife’s families are always preaching at us, because we don’t attend church. They don’t even know we’re atheists yet, I can’t imagine the reaction whenever they hear that.