I'm a little confused about the data here--when were the surveys taken, if "East Germany" and "West Germany" are separate countries?

I'd be curious to know what the original question was. As presented here, the survey seems to conflate religion with monotheism. But not following a single, capital-G God is not the same as being secular. How would someone with strong beliefs in a polytheistic pantheon, kitchen gods, ancestral spirits, etc. answer?

Look at Japan -- only 4.3 percent have no doubt God exists, but only 8.7 percent are atheists. That leaves more than 85 percent of the population somewhere in the middle. (In the U.S., only 35+ percent are in the middle.)

"One of the most religious countries in the world" seems as though it should include more than 28 countries.

One of the most religious countries in the developed world, perhaps.

One thing I find interesting - of the countries studied, the US is one of the few who have never had a state religion, or a direct link between the religious power structure and the secular power structure. I wonder if there is a link.

I mean, "Tragic Kingdom" is a great album that factored heavily into my high school years, but to call No Doubt a god is perhaps a bit much.

Wow, I'm really surprised to
read such an Orientalist generalization about Pakistan on a site that
claims to critique stereotypical images.
I'm concerned with the
framing and presentation of this data. There's an obvious implication in
the post that being similar to Pakistan is negative and an indication
of intolerance. Using a Muslim-majority nation (a "darker" country) as a
measure for how intolerant the United States is falls into typical
Orientalist logic. Islamophobia, racism, sexism, homophobia, classism,
ableism, and other forms of oppression within the United States, as well
as in other white-majority nations, is because of white supremacist
capitalist heteropatriarchy. These systems of power and oppression are
structured from hundreds of years of colonialism and genocide. It is not
religiosity alone that makes the U.S. intolerant, although religiosity
was/is a powerful ideological and oppressive force used in imperialist
and colonial projects.

My issue is with the contrast between an
idealization of "secular nations" (identified as Great Britain in the
article) and Muslim-majority nations (identified as Pakistan) that are so often demonized and
depicted as "savage," "backwards," and "pre-modern." Making a remark
like "[The US] may be more like Pakistan than Great Britain" carries the
implication that Pakistan is intolerant and that Great Britain is "progressive," which not only overlooks how
systems of oppression manifests itself differently from country to country,
but also ignores the diverse lives, experiences, and voices within
Pakistan.

The World Values Survey found that the US is really rather unique among Western Christian states... it compared to Nigeria regarding religiosity.
http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/

I find "varies widely" to be obtuse when speaking of Western countries. It doesn't: With very few exceptions (the exception to the rule), these states are post-God. "Gott ist tot" 

I wonder what the translation of "God" was done for Japanese, where the concept of god can be captured in ten different words, some of which don't correspond at all - in a social sense - to anything approaching the Christian notion of their omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent god (let alone the rather confusing notion of the "holy trinity"). In Japan, the Shinto-based idea of "kami" can mean that you have your own personal god, and nothing strange about it; and btw your personal god is different than your friend's god, the god in the garden, the god in your kitchen, the god in the local shrine, the god in the old tree, the god in the river (in fact, the gods of/in places are often also the places themselves, so the god of the river is often indistinguishable from the river, but this is hardly a rule, and making generalizations of this kind are difficult due to lexical and social differences - and expectations - between Japanese and English, thus bringing me back to my original question how how did they translate the concept of "God" into Japanese).

Looking at the list, Japan's the only country that is listed that isn't primarily Christian, didn't have a strong history of Christianity, and has no strong history of a monotheism (even Buddhism practiced in Japan doesn't map onto monotheism). Therefore, other than being a outgroup (tested and reported for comparative purposes), I have no idea as to why it's even put in the category.

"atheism — a strong disbelief in God"

Atheism is not "a strong disbelief in God." Atheism is a lack of belief in gods. So the definition used by this study is totally wrong. We should expect much higher percentages if it was based on the actual definition.

The last graph ("Point Decline in Person's Belief") and accompanying table are have been inaccurately described both here and in the post the graph is from. The graph is measuring the difference between the number of religious people who used to non-religious and the number of non-religious people who used to be religious:

"Change in Belief: And the ISSP asked people whether their own beliefs had changed in their lifetimes. “Which best describe your beliefs about God?: 1. I don’t believe in God now, and I never have. 2. I don’t believe in God now, but I used to. 3. I believe in God now, but I didn’t used to. 4. I believe in God now and I always have."
The graph and table correspond to Table 7 in the report, which is showing “I believe in God now, but I didn’t use to.” minus “I don’t believe in God now, but I used to.”

Looking at the by age stats, every country in the paper, except Israel, has religion positively correlated with age and more religious people over 68 than religious people under 28.

Although 65 percent of the Israelis said they were sure there is a G-d, and only 6 percent said that they were atheist, I suspect you would get wildly different numbers if the question was "are you religious".  This is a very loaded political question in Israel, and you would get at least 65 percent saying they weren't (conservative estimate).  I just goes to show how extremely difficult doing cross-cultural comparisons in surveys is.  Slight changes to wordings on such squishy issues can have a very dramatic results.

 Frankly, it always freaks me out seeing how religious the US is. High religiosity tends to correlate with high assholeness in this country, policy-wise.

Two remarks on methodology:

- 4.3% believers for Japan. Japan is polytheistic and the question's exact wording will be very important.

- Atheists in East Germany. While there is a strong difference between East and West Germany and West Germany is generally less religious, I do believe that many of the people calling themselves "atheist" have not reflected about this particular term but use it as "I don't believe in god". It is more disinterest than a strong belief.

Other than that America's medieval high rates for religious believe are a well-known fact and show their ugly head in US politics very often.

What I wnt to know is who is taking all these surveys? Who gets asked? I know I've never have. I bet it isn't representative.

I am troubled by HOW this study was conducted, in the same way I am troubled by pretty much every study I see released to the public. The thing that bugs me? Look at the scant descriptions to be found about HOW the survey information was gathered.

From LiveScience: "Researchers looked at data from 30 countries where surveys, taken at two or more time points between 1991 and 2008, asked residents about their belief in God."

I hunted down the original report on the NORC at The University of Chicago website and searched it, coming up with "This paper analysis of the 30 countries that were in at least two of the three ISSP rounds and appear in the 1991-2008 merged ISSP Religion File created by GESIS. (ISSP = International Social Survey Program, GESIS = Not listed, unsure of what this acronym stands for)

Perhaps to insiders in this field of study, the organizations acronyms say it all, offering proof of the reliability of the information. For me, the average reader, there is nothing about this study that assures me about the reliability of the study.

How was the information gathered? Who did they ask for their opinions on religion? and MOST importantly, how many people were surveyed?

For all I know from the information offered, the tests could have been submitted to 10 or perhaps 100,000 or maybe 1,000,000 people. These people could have been chosen at random or they could have simply been whomever was closest to the surveying organizations. The people surveyed could have all been churchgoers or they could have all been random shoppers at a series of malls. They could have all been senior citizens or all been college students or all been kindergarteners. Who knows?

How on earth am I or YOU supposed to take a study seriously that offers NO meaningful information about how the surveys were conducted, to whom the questions were asked, and how small or large is the number of responses being considered to develop the results?

This sort of thing makes me question the validity of ALL survey information. It should serve as a caution to us all, to really think about and study what we read before we simple believe it.

Turkey is not in the west under these circumstances :)

Are we still in the cold war times. East and West Germany. Really stupid! Western US, Eastern US makes more sense than dividing Germany again...

Why do I not see Canada listed on here? Is it lumped in with "North America = USA"?

We do have a population of 37million+ and our landmass is bigger than USA. When I see "Northern Ireland" listed (!!) I question the lists even further.

Though with the survey questions asked maybe the stats would be skewed anyway.

The US and conservative Muslim countries are alike in fearing and reviling women and using religion as an excuse to limit and control them.
Also, the 3% atheist number for the USA is probably low because atheists are SO hated that it isn't even safe to admit to being one in the land of the free.

I would be interested to know which countries are more likely to believe in a non-personal and distant God.

I like how you use "similar" as a standard for comparison when there are so many other countries that can also be used on the same (minus the skin color) "similarities"

The interesting thing about Japan is that as well as there being several different prominent religions, they aren't practised by separate groups of people. My Japanese friends say it's pretty common these days for someone to be baptised at the Shinto shrine, married in a Christian church and buried in a Buddhist burial ground. This isn't seen as flippant or indecisive (as it might be in the West) - there are people who adhere to one religion only, but the majority of people seem to think that holiness is something all-encompassing, and that different religions are just different ways to access it.

This study Seems bunk. I'd like to learn more about the sources and researchers.

what do you mean by wrong religion and notably Muslim?do you have any proves?