Demographics of atheism

It is difficult to quantify the number of atheists in the world. Different people interpret "atheist" and related terms differently, and it can be hard to draw boundaries between atheism, non-religious beliefs, and non-theistic religious and spiritual beliefs. Furthermore, atheists may not report themselves as such, to prevent suffering from social stigma, discrimination, and persecution in certain regions. Despite these problems, most studies indicate that the non-religious make up about 12-15% of the world's population.

Atheism studies and statistics

As some governments have strongly promoted atheism, whilst others have strongly condemned it, atheism may be either over-reported or under-reported for different countries. There is a great deal of room for debate as to the accuracy of any method of estimation, as the opportunity for misreporting (intentionally or not) a category of people without an organizational structure is high. Also, many surveys on religious identification ask people to identify themselves as "agnostics" or "atheists", which is potentially confusing, since these terms are interpreted differently, with some identifying themselves as being both atheist and agnostic. Additionally, many of these surveys only gauge the number of irreligious people, not the number of actual atheists, or group the two together.

Statistical problems

Statistics on atheism are often difficult to represent accurately for a variety of reasons. Atheism is a position compatible with other forms of identity. Some atheists also consider themselves Agnostic, Buddhist, Jains or hold other related philosophical beliefs. Some people even list their religion as "Jedi" on such surveys. Therefore, given limited poll options, some may use other terms to describe their identity. Some politically motivated organizations that report or gather population statistics may, intentionally or unintentionally, misrepresent atheists. Survey designs may bias results due to the nature of elements such as the wording of questions and the available response options. Also, many atheists, particularly former Catholics and former Mormons, are still counted as Christians in church rosters, although surveys generally ask samples of the population and do not look in church rosters. Other Christians believe that "once a person is [truly] saved, that person is always saved", a doctrine known as eternal security. Statistics are generally collected on the assumption that religion is a categorical variable. Instruments have been designed to measure attitudes toward religion, including one that was used by L. L. Thurstone. This may be a particularly important consideration among people who have neutral attitudes, as it is more likely prevailing social norms will influence the responses of such people on survey questions which effectively force respondents to categorize themselves either as belonging to a particular religion or belonging to no religion. A negative perception of atheists and pressure from family and peers may also cause some atheists to disassociate themselves from atheism. Misunderstanding of the term may also be a reason some label themselves differently.

Discrimination

Main article: Discrimination against atheists

Legal and social discrimination against atheists in some places may lead some to deny or conceal their atheism due to fears of persecution. A 2006 study by researchers at the University of Minnesota involving a poll of 2,000 households in the United States found atheists to be the most distrusted of minorities, more so than Muslims, recent immigrants, gays and lesbians, and other groups. Many of the respondents associated atheism with immorality, including criminal behaviour, extreme materialism, and elitism. However, the same study also reported that, “The researchers also found acceptance or rejection of atheists is related not only to personal religiosity, but also to one’s exposure to diversity, education and political orientation — with more educated, East and West Coast Americans more accepting of atheists than their Midwestern counterparts.”

Distribution of atheists

Though atheists are in the minority in most countries, they are relatively common in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, in former and present Communist states, and, to a lesser extent, in the United States. A 1995 survey attributed to the Encyclopedia Britannica indicates that the non-religious are about 14.7% of the world's population, and atheists around 3.8%. Another survey attributed to Britannica shows the population of atheists at around 2.4% of the world's population. Yet another survey shows the atheist and non-religious population at around 9.3, slighty lower. This may be because they used a stricter definition of atheism. It is difficult to determine whether atheism is in decline or not. What is certain is that in the some areas of the world(such as Europe) atheism and Secularization seems to be on the rise, but on a global scale atheism seems to declining, because of the high birth rates in religious societies This is similar to a 2002 survey by Adherents.com, which estimates the proportion of the world's people who are "secular, non-religious, agnostics and atheists" as about 14%. A 2004 survey by the BBC in 10 countries showed the proportion of the population "who don't believe in God" varying between 0% (Nigeria) and 39% (UK), with an average close to 17% in the countries surveyed. About 8% of the respondents stated specifically that they consider themselves to be atheists. A 2004 survey by the CIA in the World Factbook estimates about 12.5% of the world's population are non-religious, and about 2.4% are atheists. A 2004 survey by the Pew Research Center showed that in the United States, 12% of people under 30 and 6% of people over 30 could be characterized as non-religious. A 2005 poll by AP/Ipsos surveyed ten countries. Of the developed nations, people in the United States had most certainty about the existence of God or a higher power (2% atheist, 4% agnostic), while France had the most skeptics (19% atheist, 16% agnostic). On the religion question, South Korea had the greatest percentage without a religion (41%) while Italy had the smallest (5%).

A study has shown atheism to be particularly prevalent among scientists, a tendency already quite marked at the beginning of the 20th century, developing into a dominant one during the course of the century. In 1914, James H. Leuba found that 58% of 1,000 randomly selected U.S. natural scientists expressed "disbelief or doubt in the existence of God" (defined as a personal God which interacts directly with human beings). The same study, repeated in 1996, gave a similar percentage of 60.7%; this number is 93% among the members of the National Academy of Sciences. Expressions of positive disbelief rose from 52% to 72%. (See also The relationship between religion and science.)

Atheism in Europe

The percentage of people in European countries who said in 2005 that they believe in a god.

According to the most recent Eurostat Eurobarometer poll, in 2005 , 52% of European Union citizens responded that "they believe there is a God", whereas 27% answered that "they believe there is some sort of spirit or life force" and 18% that "they do not believe there is a spirit, God, nor life force". Results were widely varied between different countries, with 95% of Maltese respondents stating that they believe in God, on the one end, and only 16% of Estonians stating the same on the other. Several studies have found Sweden to be one of the most secular countries in the world. According to Davie (1999), 85% of Swedes do not believe in God. In the Eurostat survey, 23% of Swedish citizens responded that "they believe there is a God", whereas 53% answered that "they believe there is some sort of spirit or life force" and 23% that "they do not believe there is any sort of spirit, God, or life force". This, according to the survey, would make Swedes the third least religious people in the 25-member European Union, after Estonia and the Czech Republic. In 2001, the Czech Statistical Office provided census information on the ten million people in the Czech Republic. 59% had no religion, 32.2% were religious, and 8.8% did not answer.

A 2006 survey in the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten (on February 17), saw 1,006 inhabitants of Norway answering the question "What do you believe in?". 29% answered "I believe in a god or deity", 23% answered "I believe in a higher power without being certain of what", 26% answered "I don't believe in God or higher powers", and 22% answered "I am in doubt". Depending on the definition of atheism, Norway thus has between 26% and 71% atheists. Still, some 85% of the population are members of the Norwegian state's official Lutheran Protestant church. Parts of this deviance is due to the fact that Norwegians are signed into this church at birth, and that signing out, if they are even aware of being signed in, is a time-consuming, bureaucratic affair yielding no immediate gains.

In France, only about 12% of the population reportedly attends religious services more than once per month. In a 2003 poll 54% of those polled in France identified themselves as "faithful", 33% as atheist, 14% as agnostic, and 26% as "indifferent". However, either the poll results appear to be flawed or the categories were not mutually exclusive, as the total percentages add up to 127%.

In the United Kingdom, a poll in 2004 by the BBC put the number of people who do not believe in a god to be 40%, In the YouGov poll men were less likely to believe in a god than women and younger people were less likely to believe in a god than older people.

In early 2004, it was announced that atheism would be taught during religious education classes in the United Kingdom. A spokesman for the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority stated: "There are many children in England who have no religious affiliation and their beliefs and ideas, whatever they are, should be taken very seriously." There is also considerable debate in the UK on the status of faith-based schools, which use religious as well as academic selection criteria.

As a former Soviet state, Russia has a high prevalence of atheism. According to a 2002 survey by the All-Russia Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM) 32% of those surveyed self-described as non-religious, agnostic or atheist. Of the 58% self-describing as Russian Orthodox Christian, 42% said they had never been in a church.

Atheism in North America

A 2004 BBC poll showed the number of people in the US who don't believe in a god to be about 10%. A 2005 Gallup poll showed that a smaller 5% of the US population believed that a god didn't exist. The 2001 ARIS report found that while 29.5 million U.S. Americans (14.1%) describe themselves as "without religion", only 902,000 (0.4%) positively claim to be atheist, with another 991,000 (0.5%) professing agnosticism.

The percentage of people in the North America who identify with a religion as apposed to having "no religion" (1991), (2001).

Atheists are ostensibly legally protected from discrimination in the United States. They have been among the strongest advocates of the legal separation of church and state. U.S. courts have regularly interpreted the constitutional requirement for separation of church and state as protecting the freedoms of non-believers, as well as prohibiting the establishment of any state religion. Many atheists sum up the legal situation with the phrase: "Freedom of religion also means freedom from religion."

In Board of Education of Kiryas Joel Village School District v. Grumet, Justice Souter wrote in the opinion for the Court that: "government should not prefer one religion to another, or religion to irreligion." Everson v. Board of Education established that "neither a state nor the Federal Government can... pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another". This applies the Establishment Clause to the states as well as the federal government. Interestingly, several state constitutions make the protection of persons from religious discrimination conditional on their acknowledgment of the existence of a deity. These state constitutional clauses have not been tested. Additionally, some state constitutions (namely, Arkansas, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and North Carolina ) forbid atheists from holding public office, although most agree that, if challenged, these requirements would be ruled unconstitutional under Article Six of the United States Constitution. Civil rights cases are typically brought in federal courts; so such state provisions are mainly of symbolic importance.

In the Newdow case, after a father challenged the phrase "under God" in the United States Pledge of Allegiance, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals found the phrase unconstitutional. Although the decision was stayed pending the outcome of an appeal, there was the prospect that the pledge would cease to be legally usable without modification in schools in the western United States, over which the Ninth Circuit has jurisdiction. This resulted in political furor, and both houses of Congress passed resolutions condemning the decision. A large group consisting of many Senators and House Representatives was televised standing on the steps of Congress, hands over hearts, swearing the pledge and shouting out "under God". The Supreme Court subsequently reversed the decision, ruling that Michael Newdow did not have standing to bring his case, thus disposing of the case without ruling on the constitutionality of the pledge. Regarding this, atheists point out that the phrase "under God" was not originally in the Pledge of Allegiance, but added in 1953 during the Cold War to counter the USSR's official atheist state. Two years later, the phrase “in God we trust” was added to US paper currency.

Atheism is more prevalent in Canada than in the United States, with 19-30% of the population holding an atheistic or agnostic viewpoint. The 2001 Canadian Census states that 16.2% of the population holds no religious affiliation, though exact statistics on atheism are not recorded. Separation of church and state is guaranteed by the Mexican Constitution but the majority of the population identifies as Roman Catholic (89%).

Atheism in Asia

In Israel, some 20% of Israelis who were born ethnically Jewish consider themselves "secular" or hilonim, but many of them still maintain their religious practice for family or national reasons.

East Asian religions blur the lines between faith and western atheism, making classification of certain adherents of Buddhism and Taoism difficult. Japan can be especially confusing, with most of the population incorporating practices from multiple religions into their lives (see Religion in Japan). Western atheism is not, however, uncommon in Communist nations, such as the People's Republic of China, where 59% of the population claimed to be non-religious (see Religion in China).

Atheism in Oceania

The 2006 Australian Census showed that a total of 18.7% were categorized as having "No Religion", which is a growth of 3.2% since the 2001 Census. 18.7% of respondents ticked "no religion", though the percentage that either did not state their religion or were deemed to have described it inadequately has not been released yet (there are often popular and successful campaigns to have people describe themselves as nonsense religions (eg. Jedi)). Despite the low atheism percentage weekly attendance at church services is only about 1.5 million, or about 7.5% of the population. According to the 2006 Census, 32% of the New Zealand population had no religious affiliation, and another 13% did not provide adequate information.

See also

• Atheism
• List of atheists