Statistical Analysis Of Atheism

Although atheists are a minority in most countries, they are relatively numerous in Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, current and former communist states, and to a lesser degree, United States States.

The disbelief or doubt about the existence of God are especially prevalent among scientists, a tendency already quite marked at the beginning of the ^twentieth century , developing so dominant during the century. In 1914, James H. Leuba found that about 1 000 scientists in the United States, randomly selected, 58% expressed disbelief or In Europe and the United States

The percentages of people who reported in 2005, believing in the absence "of God, spirit or life force" in European countries.

The percentages of people who reported in 2005, believing in a God, in European countries.

In Sweden ^{United Kingdom}

According to a 2004 survey by the BBC , 40% of people did not believe that God exists ^{United States}

The percentages of people identifying with a religion in North America (studies conducted between 1991 and 2001 ).

Atheists are officially legally protected against discrimination in the United States. They were among the most militant advocates of the legal separation of church and state. The courts of the United States regularly, so often very controversial, interpreted the implementation of the constitution regarding the separation of church and state as protecting freedoms of non-believers in the same way they have banned the establishment of a state religion. Some atheists summarize the legal situation with the expression of religious freedom also means the absence of religion ^{Studies and statistics}

Some governments have promoted the atheism , while others have strongly condemned, atheism may be over-reported or under-reported in different countries. There are many debates about the correctness of any assessment method, because the risk of discrimination (intentional or not) towards a belief system without organized structure is high. In addition, many surveys on religious identification ask respondents to identify as an agnostic or atheist, which is a potential source of error, since these two concepts are interpreted differently by most people. In addition, many of these studies measure only the number of irreligious people, rarely the actual number of atheists or grouped atheists and agnostics in the same unit.

The following studies are in chronological order, but were made with different methodologies, making uncertain any statement on trends in the prevalence of atheism in any country. However, the correlation of the various items allows a fairly close to the reality of different situations:

• The report ARIS 2001 has found that while 29.5 million Americans in the United States (14.1%) describe themselves as having no religion, only 0.4% (902 000) call themselves atheists, 991 000, 0.5% identify with the agnosticism . This trend is much less pronounced on the east and west coasts of the country and among the more educated strata of the population.
• A survey in the United States in 2007 showed that 8% of Americans are atheists, or 24 million Americans, and this according to a poll Pew conducted on 35,000 people between May and August 2007. It also indicates that Americans doubting the existence of God, agnostic , up 21% of the population or 63 million people in 2007 .

Although the error inherent in the polls is debatable, there is over the polls for the U.S., a percentage of atheists in the population from 4% in 2005 to 5% in 2006 (+25% in one year ) and 8% in 2007 (+100% in two years). The Pew poll cited in the above list is considering 12% of Americans not believing for the next generation.

• The latest survey in Canada was held between 22 and 26 May 2008, and was conducted on a sample of 1000 people, by Canadian Press Harris-Decima. It indicates that 23% of Canadians are atheists. The percentage of agnostics is 6% .

We can compare the figures with those of Canada in 2001, which accounted 16.5% of atheists in the population . In 7 years, the number of non-believers in Canada has increased by 32%.

• Phil Zuckerman, Professor of Sociology established a ranking of the most "atheists" in 2007 .

References

See also

Related articles

• Atheism

External links and sources

• (In) This article is partially or entirely from the article in English entitled " Demographics of atheism "(see the list of authors )

• Sociology Portal
• Portal atheism

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