59% of world population believes religion is good for country

The survey was carried out by international pollsters WIN/Gallup, who interviewed almost 67,000 people of different religious beliefs in 65 countries in all five continents to gauge opinion in the run-up to Easter.

Over half (59%) of global respondents said that religion plays a positive role.

However, 22% of respondents globally believe that religion plays a negative role in their country. Western Europe was significantly less net positive regionally (4%) than the rest of the world where overall net positivity is 37%.

The survey also found education and religious belief affect attitudes to spiritual belief.

Education proved a significant factor globally with those educated to Masters or PhD level being significantly less net positive about the role religion is playing (20%) increasing to 57% net positive for those with no education.

The poll also showed that the more highly educated people are, the less highly they think of religion. Other findings were that no German respondent said they did not know what they thought about the subject while in Japan 44% did not know.

Nine countries were highly sceptical and recorded overall negativity towards religion, including Denmark which was the most negative at -36 per cent and France which scored -22 per cent.

Globally Protestants and Muslims were the most net positive (60%) about the role of religion in their respective countries; Hindus were the least net positive (24%).

Western Europe was by far the most negative region, with 32% saying religion played a negative role in their country, 26% saying it played no role, and 6% saying they did not know.