Europe

Literally all the Nordic countries have Christian crosses on them, duuuude.

Jokes aside, here is something I learned about religion from a friend whose extended family is from a third world country:

They are strongly religious, because they have nothing else.

They live in sheds made of scrap metal. They never get to dee doctors. Many can't afford to go to university. It's not a given that they will have food every day. The young people leave the country in droves to work in more well to do countries. Many never come back and will live their whole lives as glorified wage slaves in countries where they are second class citizens. In their home country, the government is corrupt and run by mafia types. There is nothing for you if you weren't born into one of the few rich families or if one of your family members didn't succeed in marrying a person from a well off country. You're cooked, then.

It's a level of desperation none of us can comprehend. When you're in a situation this dire and nothing will get better any time soon, does it help to know that there is no God, no higher power that sees and acknowledges your pain and helps you hold on to hope for a better tomorrow? No. You have to believe that there is a plan. You have to believe someone is looking out for you and that you weren't born into this hole in the ground for no reason. You have to believe. Else there is no point to living.

I live in Denmark. I have a cross on my flag (oldest flag still in use in the whole world btw and also the trendsetter for all the other Nordics having cross flags), I have a country peppered with empty churches that work more as museums than churches, but they didn't appear by themselves.

They are tombstones from a time in my country's history where the common man didn't have much of anything in terms of comfort. Only a hundred years ago there were still people in my country, who lived in absurd poverty, who sometimes had to starve through brutal winters and who worked themselves into early graves.

They went to church. They prayed to God and they believed because that's all you have when the winter is rough and the only food there is left is grain and water.

With the introduction of the welfare system, we slowly had most of our needs met as citizens. Education and healthcare were covered through taxes. We recieved the freedom to pursue careers and family dynamics that fit us rather than taking what we could get. And when you build a society where you aren't in a constant state of survival, you don't need God all that much. You can safely and without any cost to yourself, sit and ponder the meaning of life and come to the conclusion that there really is no evidence to prove that there is any meaning. No higher power. It doesn't hurt to conclude that when you have all your meals, you have comfortable place to live and so on.

Religion is not the cause of suffering in other countries, but a symptom of social systems that don't work. Religion can be used as a tool to survive hardship or it can become a weapon to control others, but at the end of the day, religion itself is nothing more than a symptom. If every country on earth had the same conditions as mine does, I think religion generally would become more of a cultural thing than something people live by and believe in.

We still have Christian holidays. Christmas, Easter, all that. Teens are confirmated at 14, it's really popular here. Many couples get married in churches and have their kids baptized in them. It's cultural. Many people in Denmark call themselves culture-Christians. I know several. We pay taxes to the church. You have to actively sign papers and seek out a priest to not be a member of the church when you're an adult.

It is our culture and our history. We are a Christian country, but secularism is common because we don't need to believe in God to function day to day. It is a luxury to not be religious.

I was baptized, but I rejected confirmation long before turning 14. I left the church at 20 and no longer pay church taxes. I have donated my body to organ donation and medical science after I die. I will probably not be buried by the church. I have to be a member to do that. That is the last true power the church holds in my country. They have an iron grip on death. I always pictured myself be cremated and tossed into the wind when I died, but thats probably not legal so eh. My death doesn't belong to me, anyway, but to whomever may care when I'm gone.

I still have respect for religious people. My best friend is a deeply devout Muslim. I have gone to church every Sunday of December one year, just to experience what that was like and I enjoyed it. If I'd been more disciplined, I think I would have gone a few more Sundays the rest of the year. Because to me it is culture and its fun to experience it even if I have very little use for it in my day to day life.

All five Nordic countries are in the top six

How is this possible? Respondents where surely bribed with hapinness!/s

Generally it‘s probably not a good idea to tie this to a single metric but religion could be a part of it. I would guess a strong social state is the bigger factor however. Perhaps all these things go hand in hand.

Also among the least religious in the world! Maybe religion isn’t really helping?

Israel is in 8th place and very religious. It seems to me to be a combination of having a strong welfare state. What is intressting is that Costa Rica is that no country is really strong in every parameter. Many of the Nordic countries seem to be about the least willing to help strangers for example.

Israel is also in the top 10. It has a quite religious population.