But just how many many people in the world declare themselves to be atheists, agnostics or non-believers? Gathering information on non-belief has tended to be difficult, given the social stigma attached with declaring oneself to be an atheist. Aside from being ostracised by family members, such a person runs a risk of facing problems at his place of employment, difficulty in running for public office. In certain Islamic countries, the act of apostasy (abandoning the faith) is a capital crime that attracts the death penalty. For this reason, incidences of self professed non-belief tends to be concentrated in mainly liberal democracies in the northern hemisphere, especially Europe (including Australia and New Zealand).
Despite the difficulty in compiling data, a number of studies have been conducted to establish how many people in the world declare themselves to be atheist, agnostic, or non-religious. In this post we shall look at a few.
Worldwide
As part of the 2007 Cambridge Companion to Atheism, Phil Zuckerman, in the third chapter – Atheism: Contemporary Numbers and Patterns – compiled ‘a list of the top fifty countries containing the largest percentage of people who identify as atheist, agnostic, or non-believer in God’. According to Zuckerman, these figures are a ‘presentation of the findings of the most recently available surveys concerning rates of atheism, agnosticism, and non-belief in God in various countries worldwide’:
|
Country |
Total country |
% Atheist/Agnostic/ Nonbeliever in God |
Number of Atheists/Agnostics |
|
Sweden |
8,986,000 |
46 – 85% |
4,133,560 – 7,638,100 |
|
Vietnam |
82,690,000 |
81% |
66,978,900 |
|
Denmark |
5,413,000 |
43 – 80% |
2,327,590 – 4,330,400 |
|
Norway |
4,575,000 |
31 – 72% |
1,418,250 – 3,294,000 |
|
Japan |
127,333,000 |
64 – 65% |
81,493,120 – 82,766,450 |
|
Czech Republic |
10,246,100 |
54 – 61% |
5,328,940 – 6,250,121 |
|
Finland |
5,215,000 |
28 – 60% |
1,460,200 – 3,129,000 |
|
France |
60,424,000 |
43 – 54% |
25,982,320 – 32,628,960 |
|
South Korea |
48,598,000 |
30 – 52% |
14,579,400 – 25,270,960 |
|
Estonia |
1,342,000 |
49% |
657,580 |
|
Germany |
82,425,000 |
41 – 49% |
33,794,250 – 40,388,250 |
|
Russia |
143,782,000 |
24 – 48% |
34,507,680 – 69,015,360 |
|
Hungary |
10,032,000 |
32 – 46% |
3,210,240 – 4,614,720 |
|
Netherlands |
16,318,000 |
39 – 44% |
6,364,020 – 7,179,920 |
|
Britain |
60,271,000 |
31 – 44% |
18,684,010 – 26,519,240 |
|
Belgium |
10,348,000 |
42 – 43% |
4,346,160 – 4,449,640 |
|
Bulgaria |
7,518,000 |
34 – 40% |
2,556,120 – 3,007,200 |
|
Slovenia |
2,011,000 |
35 – 38% |
703,850 – 764,180 |
|
Israel |
6,199,000 |
15 – 37% |
929,850 – 2,293,630 |
|
Canada |
32,508,000 |
19 – 30% |
6,176,520 – 9,752,400 |
|
Latvia |
2,306,000 |
20 – 29% |
461,200 – 668,740 |
|
Slovakia |
5,424,000 |
10 – 28% |
542,400 – 1,518,720 |
|
Switzerland |
7,451,000 |
17 – 27% |
1,266,670 – 2,011,770 |
|
Austria |
8,175,000 |
18 – 26% |
1,471,500 – 2,125,500 |
|
Australia |
19,913,000 |
24 – 25% |
4,779,120 – 4,978,250 |
|
Taiwan |
22,750,000 |
24% |
5,460,000 |
|
Spain |
40,281,000 |
15 – 24% |
6,042,150 – 9,667,440 |
|
Iceland |
294,000 |
16 – 23% |
47,040 – 67,620 |
|
New Zealand |
3,994,000 |
20 – 22% |
798,800 – 878,680 |
|
Ukraine |
47,732,000 |
20% |
9,546,400 |
|
Belarus |
10,311,000 |
17% |
1,752,870 |
|
Greece |
10,648,000 |
16% |
1,703,680 |
|
North Korea |
22,698,000 |
15%* |
3,404,700 |
|
Italy |
58,057,000 |
6 – 15% |
3,483,420 – 8,708,550 |
|
Armenia |
2,991,000 |
14% |
418,740 |
|
China |
1,298,848,000 |
8 – 14%* |
103,907,840 – 181,838,720 |
|
Lithuania |
3,608,000 |
13% |
469,040 |
|
Singapore |
4,354,000 |
13% |
566,020 |
|
Uruguay |
3,399,000 |
12% |
407,880 |
|
Kazakhstan |
15,144,000 |
11 – 12% |
1,665,840 – 1,817,280 |
|
Mongolia |
2,751,000 |
9% |
247,590 |
|
Portugal |
10,524,000 |
4 – 9% |
420,960 – 947,160 |
|
USA |
293,028,000 |
3 – 9% |
8,790,840 – 26,822,520 |
|
Albania |
3,545,000 |
8% |
283,600 |
|
Argentina |
39,145,000 |
4 – 8% |
1,565,800 – 3,131,600 |
|
Kyrgyzstan |
5,081,000 |
7% |
355,670 |
|
Dominican Republic |
8,834,000 |
7% |
618,380 |
|
Cuba |
11,309,000 |
7%* |
791,630 |
|
Croatia |
4,497,000 |
7% |
314,790 |
(from 2007 Cambridge Companion to Atheism – Chapter 3 – Atheism: Contemporary Numbers and Patterns [Zuckerman], pg.56)
Europe
According to Wikipedia, Eurostat is a Directorate-General of the European Commission located in Luxembourg. Its main responsibilities are to provide the European Union with statistical information at European level and to promote the harmonisation of statistical methods across the Member States of the European Union, candidate countries and European Free Trade Association countries. Since 1973, the European Commission has been monitoring the evolution of public opinion in the Member States, thus helping the preparation of texts, decision-making and the evaluation of its work. In 2005 it came out with its Eurobarometer survey, and below were the findings with regard to the study of religiosity across Europe:
|
Country |
Belief in a god |
Belief in a spirit |
Belief in neither a spirit, god or life force |
|
95% |
2% |
1% |
|
|
95% |
3% |
1% |
|
|
90% |
7% |
2% |
|
|
90% |
8% |
1% |
|
|
81% |
16% |
3% |
|
|
81% |
12% |
6% |
|
|
80% |
15% |
1% |
|
|
74% |
16% |
6% |
|
|
73% |
22% |
4% |
|
|
67% |
25% |
7% |
|
|
61% |
26% |
11% |
|
|
59% |
21% |
18% |
|
|
54% |
34% |
8% |
|
|
49% |
36% |
12% |
|
|
48% |
39% |
9% |
|
|
47% |
25% |
25% |
|
|
44% |
28% |
22% |
|
|
44% |
31% |
19% |
|
|
43% |
29% |
27% |
|
|
41% |
41% |
16% |
|
|
40% |
40% |
13% |
|
|
38% |
48% |
11% |
|
|
38% |
40% |
20% |
|
|
37% |
49% |
10% |
|
|
37% |
46% |
16% |
|
|
34% |
27% |
33% |
|
|
34% |
37% |
27% |
|
|
32% |
47% |
17% |
|
|
31% |
49% |
19% |
|
|
23% |
53% |
23% |
|
|
19% |
50% |
30% |
|
|
16% |
54% |
26% |
(from the 2005 Eurobarometer survey)
What about Africa?
From Zuckerman’s report:According to a 2004 survey commissioned by the BBC, Hiorth (2001) Inglehart et al (2004, 1998), Barrett et al (2001), the 1999 Gallup International Poll, and Johnstone (1993), less than 1% of those in Algeria, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Chad, Cote D’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Zimbabwe, and Zambia, are atheist, agnostic, or nonreligious.According to Johnstone (1993), 2.7% of those in Congo, 4% of those in Zimbabwe, 4% of those in Namibia, 1.5% of those in Angola and the Central African Republic, and 5% of those in Mozambique are nonreligious.According to a 1999 Gallup International Poll, nearly 11% of South Africans chose “none” as their religion. According to Inglehart et al (2004), 1% of South Africans do not believe in God.
Uganda
As far as Uganda is concerned, Uganda Bureau of Statistics in 2002 conducted the Uganda Population and Housing Census in which household-based data on population, housing, agriculture, micro and small enterprises as well as community–based data was collected. It is considered to be the most comprehensive census ever undertaken in Uganda, gathering data from up to the sub-county level. on religious affiliations of Ugandans, it reported the following:
| Religious Denominiations | Number | Percent |
| Catholics | 10,242,594 | 41.9 |
| Church of Uganda | 8,782,821 | 35.9 |
| Muslims | 2,956,121 | 12.1 |
| Pentecostals | 1,129,647 | 4.6 |
| SDA | 367,972 | 1.5 |
| Other Christians | 286,581 | 1.2 |
| Traditional | 241,630 | 1.0 |
| Other Non-Christians | 159,259 | 0.7 |
| Orthodox | 35,505 | 0.1 |
| Bahai | 18,614 | 0.1 |
| None | 212,388 | 0.9 |
(from Uganda Population and Housing Census pg.8)