Top 50 Atheistic, Agnostic Countries

[Proud_Democratt]

The Top 50

Below is a list of the top fifty countries containing the largest percentage of people who identify as atheist, agnostic, or non-believer in God.



Country Total Pop.(2004) % Atheist/actual # Agnostic/Nonbeliever in God (minimum - maximum)
1 Sweden 8,986,000 46-85% 4,133,560-7,638,100
2 Vietnam 82,690,000 81% 66,978,900
3 Denmark 5,413,000 43-80% 2,327,590-4,330,400
4 Norway 4,575,000 31-72% 1,418,250-3,294,000
5 Japan 127,333,000 64-65% 81,493,120-82,766,450
6 Czech Republic 10,246,100 54-61% 5,328,940-6,250,121
7 Finland 5,215,000 28-60% 1,460,200-3,129,000
8 France 60,424,000 43-54% 25,982,320-32,628,960
9 South Korea 48,598,000 30%-52% 14,579,400-25,270,960
10 Estonia 1,342,000 49% 657,580
11 Germany 82,425,000 41-49% 33,794,250-40,388,250
12 Russia 143,782,000 24-48% 34,507,680-69,015,360
13 Hungary 10,032,000 32-46% 3,210,240-4,614,720
14 Netherlands 16,318,000 39-44% 6,364,020-7,179,920
15 Britain 60,271,000 31-44% 18,684,010-26,519,240
16 Belgium 10,348,000 42-43% 4,346,160-4,449,640
17 Bulgaria 7,518,000 34-40% 2,556,120-3,007,200
18 Slovenia 2,011,000 35-38% 703,850-764,180
19 Israel 6,199,000 15-37% 929,850-2,293,630
20 Canada 32,508,000 19-30% 6,176,520-9,752,400
21 Latvia 2,306,000 20-29% 461,200-668,740
22 Slovakia 5,424,000 10-28% 542,400-1,518,720
23 Switzerland 7,451,000 17-27% 1,266,670-2,011,770
24 Austria 8,175,000 18-26% 1,471,500-2,125,500
25 Australia 19,913,000 24-25% 4,779,120-4,978,250
26 Taiwan 22,750,000 24% 5,460,000
27 Spain 40,281,000 15-24% 6,042,150-9,667,440
28 Iceland 294,000 16-23% 47,040-67,620
29 New Zealand 3,994,000 20-22% 798,800-878,680
30 Ukraine 47,732,000 20% 9,546,400
31 Belarus 10,311,000 17% 1,752,870
32 Greece 10,648,000 16% 1,703,680
33 North Korea 22,698,000 15% ( ? ) 3,404,700
34 Italy 58,057,000 6-15% 3,483,420-8,708,550
35 Armenia 2,991,000 14% 418,740
36 China 1,298,848,000 8-14% ( ? ) 103,907,840-181,838,720
37 Lithuania 3,608,000 13% 469,040
38 Singapore 4,354,000 13% 566,020
39 Uruguay 3,399,000 12% 407,880
40 Kazakhstan 15,144,000 11-12% 1,665,840-1,817,280
41 Estonia 1,342,000 11% 147,620
42 Mongolia 2,751,000 9% 247,590
43 Portugal 10,524,000 4-9% 420,960-947,160
44 United States 293,028,000 3-9% 8,790,840-26,822,520
45 Albania 3,545,000 8% 283,600
46 Argentina 39,145,000 4-8% 1,565,800-3,131,600
47 Kyrgyzstan 5,081,000 7% 355,670
48 Dominican Rep. 8,834,000 7% 618,380
49 Cuba 11,309,000 7% ( ? ) 791,630
50 Croatia 4,497,000 7% 314,790

The source:
http://www.pitzer.edu/academics/faculty/zuckerman/atheism.html

[Deja Q]

1. Man, look at all those commie countries...

:hide:




:sarcasm:

[no_hypocrisy]

2. Wait a minute -- Cuba has less atheists/agnostics than the U.S.?

Some numbers need to be verified, starting with this stat.

[Solon]

5. Cuba is a heavily Catholic country...

While the government, under Castro, was officially hostile towards the Church, they didn't really make a serious attempt at suppressing the religion itself. I guess another comparison would be in the USSR and the Russian Orthodox Church, at first they Communist party tried to suppress the church wholly, but for practical reasons they couldn't do it, and had an uneasy truce with that Church. Cuba, lately, has relaxed the rules on religion wholesale recently.

[Warpy]

7. Cuba is a VERY Catholic country

and Castro very wisely did not fight the church as much as the Soviets did.

I've known a lot of atheists from Islamic countries. I suppose it's not good for anyone's health to admit that while they're IN those countries, but I'll bet they'd make the cut if people could be honest there.

[lostexpectation]

3. Boy what a difficult chart

alot of the countries are "tradition" non-religious others would such as the communists one would have had religion gulaged out of them and numbers are probably still skewer by their governments

you may want to religion to wither and die like I do but gulagging ain't the way...

[shenmue]

4. Many of them...

seem to also be near the top of the 'standard of living' surveys every year.

:7

[smirkymonkey]

19. Interesting that, isn't it?

If I ever left the US (and if it was an easier process, I would) I would go to Northern Europe.

[Boojatta]

6. For doubters, could you post the countries in another sequence?

Specifically, could you focus on just the lowest percentage in each range? Could you start the list with the country that has a higher low number than any other country?

[Boojatta]

9. For example, Russia and Australia would tie with 24% each.

You could break the tie by putting Russia before Australia because the range for Russia is 24-48%, while the range for Australia is only 24-25%.

[Proud_Democratt]

10. The source offers no other type of chart or graph.

[BlueJazz]

8. Your post is flawed.

You didn't include the stats for the Holy Flying Spaghetti Monster. :evilgrin:

[hanginthere]

11. God is polling strong

in Muslim countries, and weak in Europe.

He must be doing a better job in the Middle East than in Catholic Europe, if we are to make any sense of his polling performance. And just perusing the numbers, he seems to be even weaker in Asia.
It must of been the whole typhoon/earthquake fiasco that so many are calling an "act of God"

Clearly an administration change is in order.

[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Inland]

13. Article on Czech Repub on front page of NYT on this. nt

[TallahasseeGrannie]

14. Fascinating

I find myself wondering how the church-going (temple, mosque, etc.) stats would line up. Specifically, I wonder what percentage of "religious" folks who attend religious institutions are actually agnostics but attend for cultural reasons.

I also wonder why the Scandinavian countries are so heavily agnostic/atheist. Is it so danged cold up there you can't convince anybody there IS a God? LOL

My goodness, if the Mormons have these stats, they must consider Scandinavia a very fertile missionary area!

T-Grannie

[TallahasseeGrannie]

15. Another question

the ranges are very wide in some of these. I wonder why? (i.e. Sweden, 46 to 85 percent. That's 40 percent!)

[ButterflyBlood]

18. According to the link, this is compiled from various polls

many of which vary greatly depending on the wording of the question and other factors.

However, some of these are kind of dubious. For example:

According to Inglehart et al (2004), Barrett et al (2001), the 1999 Gallup International Poll, and Johnstone (1993), less than 1% of those in Indonesia, Bangladesh, Brunei, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Iran, Malaysia, Nepal, Laos, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Philippines, are atheist, agnostic, or nonreligious.

Nepal, Afghanistan and the Philippines all have (or had in the past) strong communist movements, and Laos is controlled by a communist government still.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

16. Another question!

Vietnam, for exampe...is that heavily Buddhist? I wonder if they considered Buddhists atheists for this poll?

Wow, we could talk about this for weeks.

[ButterflyBlood]

17. I imagine the numbers for Vietnam come from the government

Which likely have skewed them to fit more what they want. If they were counting Buddhists as atheists, Thailand would be #1 by far (something like 92% Buddhist, approx. 4% Muslim and 1% Christian and they're the only ones that wouldn't count as atheist under that definition)

[Odin2005]

21. The Vietnam numbers are probably government BS.

Most Vietnamese, IIRC, adheare to the Mahayana (relgious) form of Buddhism (as opposed to the philosophical form, Hinayana Buddhism, which is an agnostic philosphy).

[NMMNG]

20. Gee, maybe if I win the lottery I can move to one of those countries

Considering I'm not welcome in this "Christian Nation" anymore. :eyes:(long story)