Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
The European continent today is split in public attitudes toward religion, minorities and social issues such as gay marriage and legal abortion.
People who are active in religious congregations tend to be happier and more civically engaged than either religiously unaffiliated adults or inactive members of religious groups, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of survey data from the United States and more than two dozen other countries.
Europe’s religious landscape is changing: The Christian share of the population is declining while the religiously unaffiliated population is increasing. In addition, Muslim populations in Western European countries continue to grow in both absolute and percentage terms due to immigration, relatively high fertility rates, and a relatively young population. Jewish populations, meanwhile, appear to be […]
The majority of Europe’s Christians are non-practicing, but they differ from religiously unaffiliated people in their views on God, attitudes toward Muslims and immigrants, and opinions about religion’s role in society.
Islam is the most common state religion, but many governments give privileges to Christianity.
On environmentalism and homosexuality, Orthodox Christians are largely united in their views. Most Eastern Orthodox Christians – whose spiritual leader, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, has been called the “Green Patriarch” – favor environmental protection, even at the expense of economic growth. And the vast majority of Orthodox Christians say homosexuality should be discouraged by society, though […]
Despite the concerns and perceived challenges they face, 89% of Muslims say they are both proud to be American and proud to be Muslim.
More than two decades after the fall of the Soviet Union and the arrival of free elections in much of Central and Eastern Europe, the level of support for democracy across the region is mixed, especially in comparison with other regions previously surveyed by Pew Research Center. In sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, for example, […]