Late last year I reviewed a book by an American sociologist on Danish secularism. The book was titled Society without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us About Contentment, and apparently its publication resulted in some controversy in Denmark, in large part due to perceived misrepresentation of the Danish populace by the author. I suspected at the time that part of the issue was that of cultural miscommunication; what "secular" and "religious" are in the United States and Denmark vary a great deal, and the author was attempting to communicate primarily to an American audience to whom the Danish would seem very secular indeed. In any case, I thought it would be informative if I looked in the World Values Survey at differences in attitudes and opinions in regards to religion when comparing Denmark, the United States and Great Britain. The last as an outgroup which I presumed (rightly I would judge after looking at the data) as somewhere between the United States and Denmark when it comes to religion. Data below.
| Denmark | Britain | USA | |
| Religion not important at all | 29.6 | 29.7 | 4.9 |
| Never think about meaning & purpose of life | 4.2 | 16.9 | 1.8 |
| A religious person | 76.5 | 41.6 | 82.5 |
| God not at all important | 25.5 | 21.5 | 3.7 |
| Get no comfort & strength from religion | 67.4 | 62.6 | 20.4 |
| Clear guidelines about what is good and evil | 10.4 | 41.5 | 49.2 |
| Belong to religious denomination | 90 | 83.4 | 78.5 |
| Attend religious service once a week or more | 2.7 | 14.4 | 45.2 |
| Moments of prayer & meditation – No | 48.9 | 50.2 | 10.7 |
| Pray to God outside of religious service at least once a week | 20.3 | 28.9 | 77.7 |
| Don't believe in God | 31.1 | 28.2 | 4.4 |
| Don't believe in life after death | 61.7 | 41.7 | 18.9 |
| Don't believe in hell | 90.5 | 64.7 | 25.4 |
| Don't believe in heaven | 81.6 | 44.1 | 12.5 |
| Church does not give answers to moral problems | 80 | 67.3 | 42.5 |
| Church does not give answers to family life | 85 | 70 | 39 |
| Church does not give answers to spiritual needs | 48.9 | 41.9 | 25.5 |
| Church does not give answers to social problems | 88.5 | 73 | 54.4 |
| Strongly disagree that politicians who don't believe in God are unfit for office | 60.3 | 30.6 | 8.5 |
| Strongly agree that religious leaders should not influence how people vote | 61.2 | 25.4 | 22.3 |
| Strongly agree it is better if office holders are religious | 2.1 | 4.6 | 17.6 |
Please observe that in this sample if all of those who do not believe in God define themselves as not religious, then 10% of Danes who consider themselves religious do not believe in God. In the American sample if all those who do not believe in God are not religious, then 25% of those who are not religious do not believe in God, which is what other surveys generally find.
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Strongly agree it is better if office holders are religious - (US = 17.6%) ... seems rather low. One point of agreement between atheists and believers in the US is that an admittedly areligious candidate for any public office is doomed, and the known exceptions to this rule can (literally) be counted on the fingers of one hand.
Never think about meaning & purpose of life - (British tally is not "somewhere between the United States and Denmark" but almost three times the two combined. Perhaps the poor Brits were more seriously traumatized by a certain Monty Python classic?
pierce, there are other agree classes. strongly agree is the most extreme.
I cannot help but think there is something lost in translation here. As a Dane myself I do not recognize Denmark as a place where 75% would consider themselves "religious" in the "believe in a god" sense, more like in the "believe there is more between heaven and earth" sense.
Also, for the "Belong to religious denomination" it should be said that by default you belong to the Church of Denmark (Folkekirken) here and you need to actively opt out (which few people do). I suspect that a lot of those 90% of the Danes fall into that category.
thomas, yes.
Religion in Denmark is about tradition and identity (i.e. group identity), rather than supernatural beliefs (according to a Danish person I've just spoken to!). Which kinda confirms the case Zuckerman is making.
This is so interesting. What I'd be particularly interesting to ask the survey participants is who/why answered that yes, they ARE a religious person but still answered that religion is not important at all (or some of the other seeming inconsistencies.) I agree with the above commenters that these inconsistencies probably lie in a translation/definition issue, but I'd just like to see how these people rectify these seemingly opposing statements internally.