State Religion

Islam (various sects), Christian (various sects), Buddhism
Razib Khan over at Gene Expression indirectly makes an interesting point, which I’d not previously realised and which is illustrated by the map: How few countries actually have an official state religion. And how many we would think have an official religion (eg. USA, Brazil, Spain) actually don’t.

OK if you follow the link behind the map some of the data are a bit debatable, but however one cuts the numbers it means that somewhere around 90% of the world’s population live in countries with no official state religion. And many of the countries which do have a state religion are tiny (eg. Lichtenstein, Yemen, Bhutan).

Another interesting thing is that over 50% of the countries with a state religion are Islamic. Does this say something about Islam or about the underlying mindset of the peoples of these countries?

It also demonstrates how far behind the game we English are in clinging to our official state religion. Time to wake up and smell the coffee?