Atheists More Irrational than Religious in U.S.A.

[yankee_doodle]

It’s remarkable that the most irreligious countries in the world today tend to have the least crime (particularly violent crime), the highest literacy rates, and among the highest living standards.

Old arguments like Stalin was an atheist therefore atheism must lead to oppression are so illogical they’re barely worth responding to (unfortunately people still gobble up this flawed logic, so we have to respond it … only if to point out how absurd these arguments are).

 

[josie_L]

It’s remarkable that the most irreligious countries in the world today tend to have the least crime (particularly violent crime), the highest literacy rates, and among the highest living standards.

Irreligious does not equate atheism.

Old arguments like Stalin was an atheist therefore atheism must lead to oppression are so illogical they’re barely worth responding to (unfortunately people still gobble up this flawed logic, so we have to respond it … only if to point out how absurd these arguments are).

I don’t think anyone has ever posited that argument “Stalin was an atheist therefore atheism must lead to opression” however, Communist countries predicated atheism (this was Karl Marx’s doing as he was an atheist who believed religion was an opium for the masses) which necessitated the removal of religion which led to many atrocities committed against those who would not relinquish their faith and/or freedom.

p.s. We cannot live in a world without God, I believe human chaos would ensue (this statement in no way is an indictment of atheists).

 

[josie_L]

Typo with the word “opression”, meant to write “oppression”. God bless.

 

[yankee_doodle]

Irreligious does not equate atheism.

I guess I should have clarified (and you’re right the terms are not exactly interchangeable). What I had in mind is countries like Sweden (where 80% claim no belief in god) or Japan (where 65% claim no belief in god).

I don’t think anyone has ever posited that argument “Stalin was an atheist therefore atheism must lead to opression”

That’s not true … but anyway

however, Communist countries predicated atheism (this was Karl Marx’s doing as he was an atheist who believed religion was an opium for the masses) which necessitated the removal of religion which led to many atrocities committed against those who would not relinquish their faith and/or freedom.

Yes it is true that Stalin believed religion aided the oppressive establishment by creating a fantasy world for the average person, making them thus less likely to resist exploitation by capitalists. However, it’s also true that there’s been plenty of Christian’s (including Catholics) that held communist sentiment (and appreciated Marx), as counter-intuitive as it might seem. There’s also of course plenty of atheists who strongly believe in market capitalism (in fact, arguably, we invented it). Adam Smith (author of “Wealth of Nations” and considered by many the father of modern market capitalism) was probably agnostic or atheist (see link here).

p.s. We cannot live in a world without God, I believe human chaos would ensue (this statement in no way is an indictment of atheists).

here’s the thing, if you’re right then it would be impossible to live in a world without god (since the existence of anything is manifested in itself; and things do not exist solely because we believe they exist).

If you’re wrong, then we already live in a world without god, and we always have.

 

[AntiTheist]

In your opinion, is there not also a desire to KILL then in our so-called evolutionary biological makeup?

This is a really good question, and I’m glad you’ve brought it up.

The reason that I say that our values come from several different sources is because I don’t think any one source can explain the way that we’re inclined to act.

You’re absolutely right that we can’t ground our actions purely in biology – because while on the one hand, there is a biological urge for social cohesion, there’s also a biological urge (manifesting more strongly in some than others) to harm others, to wipe out rival strains of DNA. For that reason, it would be silly to say that “all biological urges are moral.”

That’s not what I say at all. I think that our biological urges are tempered by, for example, our reason and our training. And I will grant you that while reason can be used to curb murderous urges, it could also be used to justify them.

I don’t think “values” are purely rational or purely biological or purely the result of training and social programming. I think that the way we behave is generally a mix of all of the above plus possibly some other sources that we haven’t figured out yet.

But that’s it. People do seem to have values, wherever they come from. Those values don’t seem to be supernatural.

You seem to have a reasonably positive spin on Human Nature and its intrinsic “good value” base from what I can reckon from your posts.

Well, you might be misreading me here, and I just want to clarify. I don’t think there are objective “good values” or “bad values.” There are just values, period.

Now I fully admit that I personally like some kinds of values better than others – and, as a sort of shorthand, I often use the word “good” to describe them – but I don’t typically go around lamenting that more people don’t live up to my personal values. I don’t have a need for other people to think or act like I do.

I live my life. I try to surround myself with people who have the kinds of values that I’m inclined to like. I oppose actions that my values incline me to oppose. And that’s pretty much it.

Are you at all troubled that, in the absence of Morality, the evolutionary urge to Kill won’t overwhelm your understood urge towards Altruism?

I’m not. Based on what I’ve observed of myself, I’m not at all likely to suddenly acquire an urge to kill. And if I ever did, I am quite certain that thanks to social restraints I would be too timid to act on such a desire.

I think you’re overstating the average person’s inclination to kill. As I’ve noted, I don’t think that most people are wandering around eager to kill and held back only by their notions of morality.

Most people have zero desire to kill others, and I think that most people who have been trained in society would find it difficult if not impossible to kill in any situation where their immediate survival is not at stake.

Do you believe then in the ultimate perfectibility of human nature by ways of evolution or are we stuck with the same natures we’ve always had as humans in history.

I think “perfection” is just an imaginary concept, and a fairly childish one at that. There’s no such thing as a “perfect” person – I’m not even sure that the concept has any specifics that would let us imagine what such a person would specifically act like (my guess is that every person imagining a “perfect” person would simply project his or her own values onto the imaginary character…which is precisely what happens in the case of most “gods”).

I don’t think human nature is going to essentially change any time soon. There are people you’ll like and people you’ll not like, and that’s about the whole of it.

Note: I’ve just noticed, while proofreading this post, that you used the word “evolution.” Biological evolution does not posit that species improve or get “better” – evolution, in its biological sense, just means change. So no, I don’t think we’re “evolving” towards better moral behavior or something like that. People are people; they act like people, which is to say that they manifest all kinds of behavior. A study of world literature will reveal that human nature has not inherently changed over the course of civilization.

on your reading of History AntiT where did all this bloodletting of the 20th century, the most progressive and secular in history, come from?

Well, a lot of the bloodletting that you’re thinking of came from political ideologies and totalitarian governments.

It came from dictators who probably believed that they were doing “good” or acting in the “greater good” of their countries. In other words, this “bloodletting” came from people who believed in morality. Now, it may be a kind of morality that your values and mine judge to be terrible, but that should just go to show you the folly of moral thinking.

In fact, I’d say that believing in the righteousness of one’s cause (in the morality of one’s cause) is more likely to lead to atrocity than the questioning of such ideas as “righteousness.”

I don’t even know what you’re trying to demonstrate here – that secularism necessarily leads to atrocity? Such an argument can’t be substantiated, as I’m sure you know, but I’ve already stressed that secularism, atheism, and not believing in the existence of morality are all separate things. You’re trying to conflate so many things here that you end up making no sense at all.

Anyway, thanks for the questions.

 

[KyivAndrew]

I say that our values come from several different sources …

People do seem to have values, wherever they come from. Those values don’t seem to be supernatural.

Well, you might be misreading me here, and I just want to clarify. I don’t think there are objective “good values” or “bad values.” There are just values, period.

You’re trying to conflate so many things here that you end up making no sense at all.

Anyway, thanks for the questions.

Thanks for the answers. I wasn’t trying to make a particular point but was just asking you to clarify as I’m fascinated hearing your rationale for values , that’s it. As above, you state “values don’t seem to be supernatural.” In other words, you are leaving the door open for a “supernatural” source for some of our values. That is new to me from you.

 

[KyivAndrew]

Yes it is true that Stalin believed religion aided the oppressive establishment by creating a fantasy world for the average person, making them thus less likely to resist exploitation by capitalists. However, it’s also true that there’s been plenty of Christian’s (including Catholics) that held communist sentiment (and appreciated Marx), as counter-intuitive as it might seem. There’s also of course plenty of atheists who strongly believe in market capitalism (in fact, arguably, we invented it). Adam Smith (author of “Wealth of Nations” and considered by many the father of modern market capitalism) was probably agnostic or atheist.

On your first point it wasn’t just Stalin who believed religion the opiate of the masses but just about all the rulers of Major Communist powers in the 20th Century – Lenin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, right up to Gorbachev in the Soviet Union. Mao in China. Pol Pot in Cambodia (educated in Paris). The “christian” communists you speak of were more common to Western Europe’s parties and never really held power over life and death in Communist Empires.

Nicholas Bukharin and Yevgeny Preobrazhensky in the standard communist textbook, the ABC of Communism wrote that what philosophers call ethics is merely “fetishism” of class standards. “Ethics transforms itself for the proletariat, step by step, into simple and comprehensible rules of conduct necessary for communism …and ceases to be ethics”. Here is a link to the full book courtesy of today’s Marxists. marxists.org/archive/bukharin/works/1920/abc/index.htm

On Adam Smith, good point Yankee. But my Political Economy Prof. back in University always stressed to us that Adam Smith dedicated just as much of his time to studying man’s moral sentiments as Smith did the free market. My prof. always stressed people overlooked this when condemning him for the “invisible hand”. I believe he was not an atheist but believed in God, just not in the common Catholic or Anglican understanding obviously, but I’m open to being corrected.

Christians have no monopoly on the free market, nor should they. Ayn Rand was the ultra-capitalist individualist and atheist of the 20th Century. How many students in university, even the ones in left-leaning studies, didn’t love her work I recall? She chided the Catholic right-winger Bill Buckley for being too smart to be a Christian. I think Buckley later had Whittaker Chambers (star of the Alger Hiss trial) write a stunning critique of her literary work.

Many Christians such as C.S. Lewis and I think Chesterton possibly believed in some sort of socialism. Friedrich Hayek, though a Catholic who met with Pope JP2, and, along with Milton Friedman, the biggest propagators of Free Markets from the last century (the Chicago school) didn’t seem to spend much time on religion, but strictly on liberty. I don’t believe the Free Market to be the preserve of Catholicism but I do believe Communism to be its antithesis whenever it has taken over a country.

Hope the workout and chow was good:shrug:

 

[yankee_doodle]

On your first point it wasn’t just Stalin who believed religion the opiate of the masses but just about all the rulers of Major Communist powers in the 20th Century – Lenin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, right up to Gorbachev in the Soviet Union. Mao in China. Pol Pot in Cambodia (educated in Paris). The “christian” communists you speak of were more common to Western Europe’s parties and never really held power over life and death in Communist Empires.

Right. The leading Soviets you mentioned were all Marxists in every way imaginable (in fact it was a litmus test for any position of power in the Soviet Union); and as you say western European communists never held real power (they only gained somewhat formidable power in Italy, but since they’ve diminished to near nothing).

This really proves my point. Western Europe is exceedingly secular. Fewer and fewer Europeans are religious, or believe in any of the hallmark tenants of Christianity. Yet there’s been no impetus towards communism. Therefore, the better and more proper view is there’s no relationship between atheism and communism, beyond the connection made by Marx (and at this point Marxism is uniformly rejected by virtually every state and people on earth).

Nicholas Bukharin and Yevgeny Preobrazhensky in the standard communist textbook, the ABC of Communism wrote that what philosophers call ethics is merely “fetishism” of class standards. “Ethics transforms itself for the proletariat, step by step, into simple and comprehensible rules of conduct necessary for communism …and ceases to be ethics”. Here is a link to the full book courtesy of today’s Marxists. marxists.org/archive/bukharin/works/1920/abc/index.htm

The fact is Karl Marx did advocate atheism, but just because a guy with a terrible theory advocated something (and his progeny instituted his ideas) doesn’t imply anything about atheism. Maybe Marx also liked pancakes, does that mean pancakes are terrible?

On Adam Smith, good point Yankee. But my Political Economy Prof. back in University always stressed to us that Adam Smith dedicated just as much of his time to studying man’s moral sentiments as Smith did the free market. My prof. always stressed people overlooked this when condemning him for the “invisible hand”. I believe he was not an atheist but believed in God, just not in the common Catholic or Anglican understanding obviously, but I’m open to being corrected.

Whether or not he believed in god is unclear, but one of his best friends was David Hume who probably was an atheist, and considering many of Smith’s comments the better view seems to be that he agreed with Hume and was not a theist (for instance, he expressly rejected Christianity, and generally referred to religion as ancient superstition or words to that effect).

However, you don’t have to be religious or a theist of any kind to think about morality.

Many Christians such as C.S. Lewis and I think Chesterton possibly believed in some sort of socialism. Friedrich Hayek, though a Catholic who met with Pope JP2, and, along with Milton Friedman, the biggest propagators of Free Markets from the last century (the Chicago school) didn’t seem to spend much time on religion, but strictly on liberty. I don’t believe the Free Market to be the preserve of Catholicism but I do believe Communism to be its antithesis whenever it has taken over a country.

Hope the workout and chow was good:shrug:

I agree (and communism get’s no sympathy from me that’s for sure). BTW I also enjoy Friedman quite a bit. You know there’s plenty of atheists and agnostics out there who loved Ron Paul, so we’re certainly not a monolithic block.

 

[AntiTheist]

In other words, you are leaving the door open for a “supernatural” source for some of our values.

Yes, I am, and let me elaborate on this point for a moment.

I can’t discount the possibility that anything supernatural exists, though I admit that not only is there no evidence for the supernatural, the entire universe seems to be throroughly natural in everything we can observe.

It is always possible that we will stumble onto evidence for the supernatural tomorrow or the next day; for now, however, what’s justified is to accept only natural claims.

And indeed, much about values indicates that they are totally natural. For instance, they vary greatly from place to place, agreeing only in matters that are logically necessary for an orderly society (i.e. no violation – or restricted violation, anyway – of the rights of property and life, which are essential to the ideas of civilization to begin with).

Take, for instance, the wildly different ages of sexual consent in different countries around the globe. Take, for instance, the Indian position that it is a grave moral offense to eat a cow. And a thousand other things I could list if I had the time or inclination.

We would expect that values delivered to people from a supernatural source would be more consistent than this. As it is, it looks precisely as if values developed naturally along different paths in different places – it doesn’t seem that anything “external” to the natural world is imposing them upon people.

Also, consider the fact that moral codes seem to change and develop within societies as well. For instance, two hundred years ago, you could have found a great many people who would have defended slavery on moral grounds (and more than a few of them, by the way, would use the Bible as justification for this). Nowadays, slavery is routinely condemned as an absolute evil in Western countries.

If moral codes had a supernatural origin, we would expect that a god – or some other supernatural being – could tell people what was “right” and “wrong” directly off the bat; instead, we find moral codes growing and changing, exactly what we would expect to see if they were the product of social interactions and conditions in a society.

So, in sum, I think the evidence convincingly points to values having a natural origin, but there is always a chance that this is not correct.

 

[josie_L]

I guess I should have clarified (and you’re right the terms are not exactly interchangeable). What I had in mind is countries like Sweden (where 80% claim no belief in god) or Japan (where 65% claim no belief in god).

Where are you getting your statistics from as I have the number of atheists in Sweden as somewhere around 20%? I believe it’s Zuckerman (Zimmerman), correct? If it is, his numbers do not correspond at all with other polls and/or surveys done concerning “religiosity” or lack thereof.

Yes it is true that Stalin believed religion aided the oppressive establishment by creating a fantasy world for the average person, making them thus less likely to resist exploitation by capitalists. However, it’s also true that there’s been plenty of Christian’s (including Catholics) that held communist sentiment (and appreciated Marx), as counter-intuitive as it might seem. There’s also of course plenty of atheists who strongly believe in market capitalism (in fact, arguably, we invented it). Adam Smith (author of “Wealth of Nations” and considered by many the father of modern market capitalism) was probably agnostic or atheist (see link

here).

Stalin wasn’t the only one to oppress religion and create a manufactured utopia, in fact, communism from it’s inception was violent and forceful in nature. Anyways, I would say I’m agreement with Andrew, however, I can understand how it bothers you to have all atheists lumped in with Communism but that’s not what I’m trying to suggest. What I wish to convey is that a world without God, and I mean this in the sense of allowing people to preach and practice their faith as they believe it to be true, would create chaos.

Here’s the thing, if you’re right then it would be impossible to live in a world without god (since the existence of anything is manifested in itself; and things do not exist solely because we believe they exist).

If you’re wrong, then we already live in a world without god, and we always have.

I know I can’t prove God but I know (through my own experiences) that He does exist, however, for someone who doesn’t believe it can be hard to relay such a fact, but I believe that what happened in Russia reveals to me that God does indeed exist for a world without him would be mayhem. I myself could not make sense of the world I live in without Him.

 

[yankee_doodle]

Where are you getting your statistics from as I have the number of atheists in Sweden as somewhere around 20%? I believe it’s Zuckerman (Zimmerman), correct? If it is, his numbers do not correspond at all with other polls and/or surveys done concerning “religiosity” or lack thereof.

Show me these “other polls” (I’m aware of one other poll that disagrees, to some degree, with Zuckerman … but you seem to be inferring there’s a bunch of polls that disagree with the Zuckerman poll)?

Stalin wasn’t the only one to oppress religion and create a manufactured utopia, in fact, communism from it’s inception was violent and forceful in nature. Anyways, I would say I’m agreement with Andrew, however, I can understand how it bothers you to have all atheists lumped in with Communism but that’s not what I’m trying to suggest. What I wish to convey is that a world without God, and I mean this in the sense of allowing people to preach and practice their faith as they believe it to be true, would create chaos.

That argument is so speculative and biased it reduces to the absurd.

I know I can’t prove God but I know (through my own experiences) that He does exist, however, for someone who doesn’t believe it can be hard to relay such a fact, but I believe that what happened in Russia reveals to me that God does indeed exist for a world without him would be mayhem. I myself could not make sense of the world I live in without Him.

That’s because you’re indoctrinated.

 

[KyivAndrew]

You to Josie:

That’s because you’re indoctrinated.

Now yankee, on this particular thread I think josie has been quite nice to you and let’s try to stick to the arguments per se and not resort to name-calling. Indoctrinated would mean our beliefs are wrong and insincere. Far from it. Let’s just deal with the issues and not get personal. It’s against the Forum Rules. As you have stated in other threads you find “Christian intelligence” to be an oxymoron which seems ironic because you spend so much time on CAF in debate. In any event, let’s stick to the issues and not each other.

 

[yankee_doodle]

You to Josie:

Now yankee, on this particular thread I think josie has been quite nice to you and let’s try to stick to the arguments per se and not resort to name-calling. Indoctrinated would mean our beliefs are wrong and insincere. Far from it. Let’s just deal with the issues and not get personal. It’s against the Forum Rules. As you have stated in other threads you find “Christian intelligence” to be an oxymoron which seems ironic because you spend so much time on CAF in debate. In any event, let’s stick to the issues and not each other.

I don’t consider the term indoctrinated an insult (or an ad hom attack) – however, I understand you guys probably do (I gotta stop posting here, this is getting just too darn absurd and pointless).

I’m really compelled to use the term brainwashed (but I thought indoctrinated was a nicer way to put it, so I went with it). What can I say … I think religion is ridiculous?

 

[josie_L]

I don’t consider the term indoctrinated an insult (or an ad hom attack) – however, I understand you guys probably do (I gotta stop posting here, this is getting just too darn absurd and pointless).

I’m really compelled to use the term brainwashed (but I thought indoctrinated was a nicer way to put it, so I went with it). What can I say … I think religion is ridiculous?

Yankee, how would you know if I was indoctrinated or brainwashed, are you privy to how my parents raised me (they weren’t religious although I managed to receive my sacraments) or what schools I went to, do you think it at all possible that I believe what I believe because I truly believe it (I never even went to church as a child, in fact, I only started going regularly when I was in my mid to late twenties). You don’t know anything about me, so don’t call me indoctrinated or brainwashed, but on the other hand if you do wish to know you have only to ask. God bless.

 

[yankee_doodle]

Yankee, how would you know if I was indoctrinated or brainwashed, are you privy to how my parents raised me (they weren’t religious although I managed to receive my sacraments) or what schools I went to, do you think it at all possible that I believe what I believe because I truly believe it (I never even went to church as a child, in fact, I only started going regularly when I was in my mid to late twenties). Are you so sure of your position that you would assume so much about me? You know nothing about me, so don’t call me indoctrinated or brainwashed, but on the other hand if you do wish to know you have only to ask. God bless.

I think religious faith can be indoctrination, or it can be solely the result of being misinformed and closed minded (but even that’s a form of indoctrination). This indoctrination is sustained by superstition and other irrational fears. I don’t reasonably think it can be explained any other way.

 

[josie_L]

I think religious faith can be indoctrination, or it’s the result of being misinformed and closed minded.

I am more open-minded than you are Yankee as I believe in God and science.

 

[josie_L]

I think religious faith can be indoctrination, or it can be solely the result of being misinformed and closed minded (but even that’s a form of indoctrination). This indoctrination is sustained by superstition and other irrational fears. I don’t reasonably think it can be explained any other way.

I think like all other people theists have free will and therefore believe in God willingly (although faith is a gift).

 

[wcknight]

Looks like both sides can be closed minded depending on your point of view. To reject everything as myth or conspiracy is just as closed minded as accepting everything that is taught or rumored.

Somewhere in the middle is objective truth. I find it as impossible to believe that thousands of folks are lying and making things up and engaged in a massive conspiracy to make the spiritual realm real, as I can believe that every rumor of paranormal activity actually happens.

Are the thousands of eyewitnesses to miracles all involved in a massive conspiracy or all duped into believing hoaxes perpetrated by seemingly holy and upright folks ? Consider, is a peron who is normally thought of as holy and upright even capable or likely to try to deceive others with fake miracles ??

Seems to me, to believe nothing is just as wrong as it is to believe everything.

 

[KEVIN_WILCOX]

Looks like both sides can be closed minded depending on your point of view. To reject everything as myth or conspiracy is just as closed minded as accepting everything that is taught or rumored.

Somewhere in the middle is objective truth. I find it as impossible to believe that thousands of folks are lying and making things up and engaged in a massive conspiracy to make the spiritual realm real, as I can believe that every rumor of paranormal activity actually happens.

Are the thousands of eyewitnesses to miracles all involved in a massive conspiracy or all duped into believing hoaxes perpetrated by seemingly holy and upright folks ? Consider, is a peron who is normally thought of as holy and upright even capable or likely to try to deceive others with fake miracles ??

Seems to me, to believe nothing is just as wrong as it is to believe everything.

Are you asking “Is there such a thing as ultimate truth or is all truth relative?”

 

[josie_L]

Show me these “other polls” (I’m aware of one other poll that disagrees, to some degree, with Zuckerman … but you seem to be inferring there’s a bunch of polls that disagree with the Zuckerman poll)?

I believe I already showed you two surveys, one from Eurobarometer and the other from World Values Survey (I’ll find them for you again if I must) which you discounted because of the huge discrepancy between Zuckerman’s percentages and those they cited, however, I found this on atheism.about.com/library/irf/irf03/blirf_sweden.htm

“The country has a total area of 173,732 square miles, and its population is an estimated 8.9 million. Approximately 81 percent of the population belong to the Church of Sweden. It is possible to leave the Church of Sweden, and an increasing number of persons do. In 1999 when the Church and the State separated, 33,299 persons left the Church of Sweden, more than twice as many as in the previous years. The number decreased somewhat in 2000, and increased to a record high 53,702 in 2001. In 2002 44,760 persons left the Church of Sweden.”

There are approximately 150,000 Roman Catholics. The Orthodox Church has approximately 100,000 members, and the main national Orthodox churches are Greek, Serbian, Syrian, Romanian, and Macedonian. There also is a large Finnish-speaking Lutheran denomination. While weekly services in Christian houses of worship generally are poorly attended, a large number of persons observe major festivals of the ecclesiastical year and prefer a religious ceremony to mark the turning points of life.

**Approximately 70 percent of children are baptized, 40 percent of all those eligible are confirmed, and 90 percent of funeral services are performed under the auspices of the Church of Sweden. Approximately 60 percent of couples marrying choose a Church of Sweden ceremony. **

. . . . Although no reliable statistics are available, it is estimated that 15 to 20 percent of the adult population are atheist.

By the way this information is based on the International Religious Freedom Report 2003​

If you look at the entry on top, Zuckerman claims that Sweden has 46-to 85% non-believers. If so, why put it above Vietnam, with 81% non-believers? Why not take the average and say “approximately 65,5%” unbelievers? Why use the higher number? The same goes for Denmark, with (according to Zuckerman) between 43% and 80% unbelievers. (That in itself will change the top 5 unbelieving countries, even with Zuckerman’s numbers, to 1) Vietnam 2) Sweden 3)Japan 4)Denmark 5)Czech Republic.) It seems that Zuckerman’s statistics for Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland (each with about double as many unbelievers in Zuckerman’s high estimate than his low estimate) is very unreliable

christianrethinker.wordpress.com/2009/06/14/atheistic-countries-have-the-most-healthy-societies/

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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. It is difficult to determine whether atheism is growing 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. While there is more atheists than ever before, polls show that atheism’s percentages seems to declining. This may be because birth rates in religious societies are much higher.[3] 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%.[4] 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.[5] 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.[6] 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.[7] 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%).[8]

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.[10] **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.[11] 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.[12]

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