Most adults in 17 countries say belief in God not necessary to be moral, have good values: study

By Ryan Foley, Christian Post Reporter Sunday, April 30, 2023

Adults in more than a dozen countries say it's not necessary to believe in God to lead moral lives or have good values, according to a recent study.
The research, based on responses to the Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Survey conducted in the spring of 2022, was released on April 20. When asked if it was “necessary or not necessary to believe in God in order to be moral and have good values,” majorities of respondents based in the secular Western European countries of Sweden (90%), France (77%), the United Kingdom (76%), the Netherlands (76%), Spain (74%), Belgium (69%), Italy (68%), Germany (62%) and Greece (60%) said it wasn't necessary.
Most respondents in other countries located outside Western Europe but still considered to be part of Western civilization, including Australia (85%), Canada (73%) and the United States (65%), also maintained that a belief in God is not necessary to “be moral and have good values.” Majorities of respondents in the Eastern European nations of Poland (67%) and Hungary (63%), which have governments sympathetic to traditional values and religion, said the same.
People in Israel and Singapore were more evenly divided on the question, with 50% and 54% of those surveyed, respectively, saying that a belief in God was a prerequisite for morality and having good values. Malaysia was the only country where the overwhelming majority of participants (78%) saw belief in God as necessary for leading a moral life with good values.
In the U.S., those who believe religion is not important (92%) and the religiously unaffiliated (88%) were most likely to view a belief in God as unnecessary for living a moral life and having good values. Majorities of all subgroups based on partisan identification, education level, gender and age group indicated that a belief in God was not necessary to live a moral life. Even among those who described religion as “important” to them, a narrow majority (51%) suggested that a moral life is possible in the absence of a belief in God.
As a whole, Protestants were evenly split on the necessity of a belief in God for living a moral life with good values. Majorities of white mainline Protestants (69%) thought it was not necessary to believe in God in order to live a moral life with good values, while majorities of black Protestants (59%) and white Evangelical Protestants (57%) took the opposite view.
Among Catholics in the U.S., 63% thought that a moral life with good values did not require a belief in God. That figure rose to 67% among white, non-Hispanic Catholics and dropped to 61% among Hispanic Catholics.
A difference in views between the religiously affiliated and the religiously unaffiliated regarding the necessity of a belief in God to living a moral life with good values extended across all the countries surveyed, although in all but one case, majorities belonging to both groups did not think a belief in God was a requirement for achieving such a life.
The difference between the share of the religiously unaffiliated who saw a belief in God as unnecessary for a moral life with good values and the religiously affiliated who concluded the same ranged from 37 percentage points in Greece to 10 percentage points in Sweden.
The share of religiously affiliated respondents who considered a belief in God necessary for achieving a moral life with good values ranged from 49% in Singapore to 86% in Sweden.
The percentage of religiously unaffiliated respondents who said the same ranged from 76% in Singapore to 97% in Australia. A similar divide emerged within each country surveyed on the necessity of a belief in God for conducting a moral life with good values based on political ideology, although in all but two cases, majorities of all ideological subgroups contended that a belief in God was not necessary to live a moral life with good values.
The gap between left and right when it comes to the insistence of a lack of a connection between belief in God and the ability to live a moral life with good values ranged from a high of 40 percentage points in Poland to a negligible 1 percentage point difference in Sweden, where those in the political center were actually most likely to place a premium on a belief in God as an important factor in a person’s ability to live a moral life with good values.
The share of respondents on the political right who did not think a belief in God was necessary to live a moral life with good values ranged from 43% in Israel to 92% in Sweden, while the percentage of those on the left who said the same ranged from 62% in Israel to 93% in Sweden.
The Global Attitudes Survey is based on responses collected from 3,581 adults in the United States from March 21-27, 2022, and 18,782 adults from 16 other countries from Feb. 14-June 3, 2022.

Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: [email protected]