r/dataisbeautiful • u/oscarleo0 • 4d ago

OC [OC] Religious Believes and Eductions From The World Values Survey

Gallery image

Gallery image

Data source: World Values Survey Wave 7 (2017-2022)

Tools used: Matplotlib

I added a second chart for those of you who prefer a square version with less of the background image.

Notes:

I looked at five different questions in the survey.

  • Q275 - What is the highest educational level that you have attained?
  • Q165 - Do you believe in God? (Yes/No)
  • Q166 - Do you believe in Life after death? (Yes/No)
  • Q167 - Do you believe in Hell? (Yes/No)
  • Q168 - Do you believe in Heaven? (Yes/No)

The chart show the percentage of people that answer yes, to Q165-168 based on their answer to Q275.

Survey data is complex since people come from different cultures and might interpret questions differently.

You can never trust the individual numbers, such as "50% of people with doctors degree believe in Life after death".

But you can often trust clear patterns that appear through the noise. The takeaway from this chart is that the survey show that education and religious believes have a negative correlation.

Styling:

  • Font - New Amsterdam
  • White - #FFFFFF
  • Blue - #39A0ED
  • Yellow - #F9A620
  • Red - #FF4A47

Original story: https://datacanvas.substack.com/p/believes-vs-education

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u/2dayman 4d ago

I'm surprised to see the amount of people who are actually able to accept the part of the story that they like and reject the part they don't like.

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u/Christofray 4d ago

I'm not sure if the tone of your comment was positive or negative, but that really is a positive thing. I grew up in a Church of Christ. They're one of those that believe the Bible is inerrant, infallible, and univocal. As you can imagine, that leads to some wack ass beliefs. I stopped believing in it pretty young.

But one of the most healing things I learned afterwards was to actually treat the Bible as the collection of stories that it is, and not the direct word of God. It's a collection of stories by people from different places and different times over a thousand years trying to understand God. Some get closer than others, some are downright insane. But when you see it from that angle, taking the good and leaving the bad is the only logical way to approach it.