{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.02068345323741007, 'fraction_numerical': 0.01079136690647482, 'mean_word_length': 5.704819277108434, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Religion as a Means of Perceived Security

Despite the ubiquity of religion, religiosity varies substantially at the individual and societal levels. This chapter presents a study that sought set to replicate and extend previous findings regarding Norris and Inglehart’s (2004) secure society theory of religiosity, which states that religiosity varies with the extent to which one feels secure in one’s environment. The relationship between individual perceptions of societal security—as opposed to national indicators of societal security—and religiosity has not previously been investigated. The study analyzed data from the General Social Survey, supplemented by Federal Bureau of Investigation and US Census data. The results indicated that the extent to which one feels safe walking around one’s neighborhood at night predicts religiosity, even when crime rate, poverty rate, age, sex, and race are controlled statistically. Additionally, time series analyses of data from 1980 to 2012 provided partial support for the secure society theory, with neighborhood fear and poverty predicting future religiosity.