Least and most religious nations

[thir]

That, as a matter of fact, has very little to do with exposure to other religions but a lot with embracing their own culture and religion in an environment that is both alien and sometimes even hostile.

Good point. That does happen a lot, and very natural too. I even think that the religion becomes the culture, whether people are very relgious or not. An identity marker, as it were.

Same happens to Ex-Yugoslavs when they emigrate to Switzerland, as well as probably Latinos when they emigrate to the US. Second and even third generations of immigrants are often much more conservative when it comes to their culture and religion than their parents or grandparents who originally emigrated.

That, however, does suprise me. What I was taught was the parents and grandparents were very conservative - as we talked about above they are the ones who experience the cultural shock on entering a new country - but research shows that after 3-4 generations most people have adopted the identity of the now homecountry.

But ultimately I believe that the downfall of religions in western Europe is a result of hedonism.

Commercialism, materialism, indulgence-culture..
Your primal function in life is to BUY.

I wouldn't even say that people believe less, but they believe less in a certain religion. Instead, they pick whatever damn well they please, be it a little bit buddhism there, a little bit cabalism there and of course tons of esoteric hocus pocus, all that based on christian believes they once learned about in school.

Nonsense. The new (or old) pagan religions are not based on Christianity - rather the other way around.

At least that's the impression I get when I look around at my friends. Most of them do believe in something, but don't really have a clue in what they believe.

And that is the impression people get when they are used to dogmatic religions.
However, I think the important thing here is that dogmatic religions tend to diminish with better conditions, but non-dogmatic religions or spiritualism are still there - or again there.