
Large shares of adults in most of the 36 countries we surveyed say religion helps society rather than harms it. Most also say religion encourages tolerance, not intolerance. But people are slightly more divided about whether religion encourages superstitious thinking.
Religion is generally seen more positively by:
- People in middle-income countries, compared with those in high-income countries
- Religiously affiliated people, compared with those who are unaffiliated
- People who say they pray daily, compared with those who pray less often
Does religion help society?
Views of religion’s impact on society are broadly positive. A 36-country median of 77% say religion mostly helps society, while a median of 19% say it mostly hurts.
Views are particularly positive in parts of Asia, the Middle East and Africa. For example, at least 90% of adults surveyed in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Kenya, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Tunisia say religion helps society.

Elsewhere, people are somewhat more divided. Around six-in-ten or more adults in some high-income countries – Chile, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Poland, Singapore, South Korea and the U.S. – see religion as a positive force. But in Australia, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom, around half or more say religion hurts society.
Does religion encourage tolerance?
People also broadly view religion as encouraging tolerance rather than intolerance.
Adults in middle-income countries have more positive views of religion than adults in high-income countries. Nearly all Tunisians (98%) and Indonesians (95%) say religion encourages tolerance. So do majorities across most countries surveyed in South and Southeast Asia, Latin America, and sub-Saharan Africa.

High-income nations are divided on whether religion encourages tolerance or intolerance. Large shares in some high-income countries, including Singapore (79%), Hungary (72%), Italy (70%) and Israel (70%), say religion encourages tolerance. At the same time, small majorities in Sweden (62%), Germany (57%), the Netherlands (57%), the UK (57%) and Australia (56%) say religion encourages intolerance.
Does religion encourage superstitious thinking?

Globally, people are more divided when it comes to whether religion encourages superstition. A 36-country median of 52% say religion does not encourage superstition, while 42% say it does.
While people in middle-income countries are relatively more positive about religion’s impact on superstitious thinking than those in high-income ones, the gap is less pronounced than on the other two questions about religion’s impact on society.
For example, three-quarters of adults or more in middle-income countries like Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Tunisia and Turkey say religion does not encourage superstitious thinking. But in other middle-income countries – such as Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and the Philippines – views of religion’s impact are more evenly divided.
Among the high-income countries, Hungary, Italy, Poland and Singapore stand out as the only places where majorities say religion does not encourage superstition. In the other high-income countries surveyed, much smaller shares say this. And majorities in Australia, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the UK say religion encourages superstition.
How do views of religion’s impact on society differ?

Overall, people who pray at least daily are more positive about the impact of religion on society than those who pray less often. This is consistent across all three of the questions about religion and public life discussed in this chapter.
Similarly, people who say they belong to a religion themselves also tend to see religion in more positive terms – again, across all three questions – than those who are religiously unaffiliated (those who identify as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular”).
Views by religiousness
People who say they pray daily are more likely than others to say religion helps society, encourages tolerance and does not encourage superstitious thinking. In many cases, these differences are sizable. For example, 85% of Australians who pray at least once a day say religion mostly helps society, compared with 37% of Australians who pray less frequently.
These differences tend to be particularly large in less religious, high-income countries like the Netherlands and France. The differences are generally less pronounced or not significant in highly religious, middle-income countries like Bangladesh and Malaysia.
Views by religion

The religiously affiliated tend to be more positive about religion than the unaffiliated in all countries where this analysis is possible – and across all questions asked about religion’s impact on society. For example, in Peru, 82% of Christians say religion encourages tolerance, compared with 53% of Peruvians who do not have a religious affiliation.
Peru exemplifies another pattern: In some middle-income countries, even the unaffiliated express mostly positive views of religion.
Across the 36 countries surveyed, certain religious groups stand out. Muslims are generally the most likely to say religion helps society, encourages tolerance and does not encourage superstition. For example, nearly all Muslims in Tunisia (99%) and Indonesia (95%) say religion encourages tolerance.
But it’s also the case in countries where Muslims are in the minority:
- Muslim Israelis are more likely than Jewish Israelis to say religion encourages tolerance and helps society.
- In the U.S., both Muslims (83%) and Christians (77%) overwhelmingly agree that religion encourages tolerance, compared with 52% of Jewish Americans and 32% of religiously unaffiliated Americans.
- In India, similar majorities of Hindus and Muslims say that religion encourages tolerance.
Only in Sri Lanka are Muslims significantly less likely than other religious groups to say religion encourages tolerance, even though a large majority of Sri Lankan Muslims (75%) take this position.
Particularly in the Sub-Saharan African, Latin American and Asia-Pacific countries surveyed, large majorities of Christians also generally say religion helps society and encourages tolerance. For example, 96% of South Korean Christians say religion mostly helps society.
In some European countries, though, Christians are less positive about religion’s role in society – even if they remain more positive than unaffiliated people. In Sweden, only about one-third of Christians say religion encourages tolerance, and 54% of Swedish Christians say religion encourages intolerance.
Buddhists across Southeast Asia overwhelmingly say religion helps society and encourages tolerance. This is especially the case in Sri Lanka, where at least nine-in-ten Buddhists agree with each statement. Smaller majorities of Buddhists in South Korea and Japan say the same.
Hindus in Bangladesh are more likely to say religion helps society (95%) and doesn’t encourage superstitious thinking (70%) than are Indian Hindus (78% and 53%, respectively). However, India’s Hindu majority is similar to Bangladesh’s Hindu minority on the belief that religion encourages tolerance (68% vs. 62%).
Views by age

Older people are more likely than younger people to dismiss a connection between religion and superstition. This is true in more than half of the countries surveyed, and the pattern is more common in Latin America and Europe than in other regions. But age differences are somewhat muted when it comes to whether religion helps society and whether it increases tolerance.
Some of these age differences are also related to differences in religiousness, as younger adults tend to be less religiously observant in many countries.