From the start of July to the end of September this year, 605 members of the Icelandic state church left the congregation. Conversely, membership of the three free churches in Iceland rose by 149 collectively in the same time period.

The same stretch of time also saw an increase of 21 people prescribing to other religions and 435 people with no religion whatsoever. This information was released on the website of Statistics Iceland today. Iceland’s state church is Lutheran, like in other Nordic countries.

All Icelanders are automatically members of the state church unless they opt out. Many Icelanders still hold baptisms and confirmation ceremonies are commonplace, even if they are only an excuse for a party and presents for most Icelandic teenagers.

Source: Morgunblaðið
Image: Flickr

Labels: Church, Religion, Statistics

Well this is the kind of light-hearted news you need in the midst of a kreppa. According to the updated Global Peace Index, the yardstick of peace the world over, Iceland is the second most peaceful nation on the planet.

New Zealand comes top of the list, and Japan follows Iceland in third place. Somalia and Iraq occupy the bottom two places on in the list. According to the index, the world is less peaceful than last year despite the fact that the number of weapon-based conflicts has decreased.

The list is published and updated by the Institute for Economics and Peace. The index is based on 23 criteria, such as the rate of violent crime, political stability and military spending, which are then combined with social criteria such as prevalence of corruption, freedom of the press, respect for human rights and school attendance.

The index shows that the most progress has been made on the continent of Africa since the last list was compiled four years ago, where there is now less conflict and lower military spending alongside improving internal relations.

For Iceland however, it seems just another one of those statistics that can be added to its laundry list of superlatives. The news comes despite recent events involving angry ash-spewing volcanoes.

Source: mbl.is
Image: nick_rusill

Labels: Peace, Statistics