from Pew Research Centre
Younger people are just as likely as older people to hold some spiritual beliefs
Belief in life after death is widespread around the globe, as is the belief that spirits can reside in animals and in parts of nature such as mountains, rivers or trees, according to a Pew Research Center survey of three dozen countries with a wide range of religious traditions.
Moreover, the new survey shows that younger adults are at least as likely as older adults to hold these spiritual beliefs – unlike belief in God, which tends to be more common among older people, globally.
Over the last two decades, we’ve conducted surveys about religion and spirituality in more than 100 countries and territories. But in this survey, for the first time, we asked more than 50,000 people across six continents about some beliefs and practices that we previously had explored only in Asia or the United States.
This allows us to draw a fuller picture of spirituality around the world. Some of the concepts we asked about have roots in specific religious traditions – such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism, or Asian folk religions. Others are associated with less formal religious traditions that some people might label “New Age.”