China and Europe stand out on world map of atheism

[haidian]

China and Europe stand out on world map of atheism

• August 26, 2018

by FRANK JACOBS

Never mind whether you regularly visit a place of worship: do you consider yourself a religious person? Yes, said 62% of 60,000 people across 68 countries polled by WIN/Gallup for a survey published in 2017. Back in 2005, the score for that answer was 77%.

Minus 15 percentage points in just 12 years – that’s a fairly steep decline. Does that mean that atheism is gaining ground worldwide? Yes, but not by as much as these figures seem to suggest, for three reasons.

Firstly, because there’s a large and growing middle between those who positively believe in God and those who positively don’t. In 2005, just 5% of those surveyed in 2005 considered themselves 'convinced atheists' – the remaining 18% were non-religious or 'don’t knows'. In 2017, the fish-nor-fowl brigade had grown to 30%. ‘Convinced atheists’ had increased as well, but only to 9%.

Secondly, because our beliefs are not necessarily coherent. People may believe in aspects of religion even if they don’t consider themselves religious (and vice versa). As other results from the survey show, a higher percentage than those who say they’re religious believe in a soul (74%) and God (71%). Inversely, a lower percentage believe in things that many theologians would say are essential to religion, such as heaven (56%), hell (49%) and life after death (54%).

And thirdly, the battle between God and his Absence for a share of mankind’s mental space is not just a linear retreat of divinity before materialism. A 2012 WIN/Gallup poll showed a lower share of religiosity (59%) and a higher share of atheism (13%) than the more recent one.

While most of us consider our beliefs (or lack thereof) a highly personal matter, what the successive WIN/Gallup polls also clearly show is that a number of external factors predict whether or not we believe in a Supreme Being.

Age, income and education level play a role. Beliefs diminish as people earn more and/or have received a higher education. Curiously, they also fade as people get older: the most recent survey compares 18-24-year-olds to over-65s, and consistently finds gaps in the belief in God (74% vs. 67%), life after death (60% vs. 45%), the soul (78% vs. 68%), hell (57% vs. 35%) and heaven (64% vs. 46%).

As these maps of atheism around the world show, geography also is a factor. For cultural, social and/or political reasons, some countries have a much higher degree of atheism. Europe is a regional hotbed, but even here, direct neighbours may be at great variance.

The most godless country in the world, however, is China. According to the survey, fully 67% of respondents in China considered themselves 'convinced atheists' – more than double the percentage in the world’s second-most atheistic country, Japan (29%). South Korea, at #5 in the ranking (with 23%) is another East Asian centre of atheism; but 18 of the other 20 leading countries are in Europe.

Slovenia (28%) leads the European league table, followed by the Czech Republic (25%), France and Belgium (both 21%). Then there’s Sweden (18%), Iceland (17%), Spain (16%), Germany and Denmark (both 14%) and the UK (11%). Norway, Austria and Estonia all have 10% committed atheists, while Latvia, Ireland, Portugal and Albania are at 9%. Italy, home of the Catholic Church, has 8%.

The only non-European countries this high up in the list are Australia (13%) and Canada (10%). At the same time, Europe is home to some of the least atheistic countries in the world (or at least in this survey): Bosnia, Macedonia and Poland only have 1% atheists, Bulgaria and Romania just 3%.

Outside the developed world, there are some surprisingly high scores, for example for DR Congo, with 8% atheists (the only three other African countries on the list, Ivory Coast, Ghana and Nigeria, score 0%).

Mexico is another regional champion, its 8% atheists outperforming all the other Latin American countries marked on this map (all scoring 2-3%). The darker-coloured patch just north of Brazil is French Guyana, which is counted as part of France.

And what about the U.S.? America scores 7%, which is near the median, and in the company of Greece and Russia. Americans are only slightly less atheistic than Israelis, Finns and Mongolians (all 8%), and slightly more so than Ukrainians, Lithuanians and Vietnamese (all 6%).

If, as the saying goes, there are no atheists in foxholes, then there must be plenty of foxholes in Iraq, Azerbaijan, the Philippines, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea – all countries with 0% atheists.

There’s just a little more room for unbelief in Pakistan and Thailand (both 1%), and Lebanon, India and Armenia (all 2%). The scores in fairly secular Argentina and Serbia are still fairly low (4%), but 1 in 25 inhabitants of the Islamic Republic of Iran also consider themselves a ‘convinced atheist’.

The relatively low scores for atheism don’t necessarily mean that religion has an unassailable position - far from it. Many places have very high scores of 'non-religious' people. However, that category is broad enough to encompass both believers who think of themselves as non-fundamentalist, non-believers who feel the need to obfuscate their disbelief, and anyone in between.

It’s no surprise that highly secularised societies such as Sweden (55%) and Australia, Estonia and Norway (all 50%) score near the top. A somewhat bigger surprise is that they’re all overtaken by Vietnam (57%) and Azerbaijan (64%). Britain (58%) is in second place worldwide.

As with the atheism ranking, most high scores are achieved in Europe (leaving little room for the explicitly faithful): Ireland, Finland, Denmark and the Czech Republic all score 47% (as does Canada). They’re followed by Germany (46%), Belgium, Austria and Latvia (43%) and Spain (41%).

However, just 5 out of the 10 countries with scores in the thirties are European: Bulgaria and Ukraine (both 36%), Lithuania (34%), Iceland (32%) and Albania (30%). The others are South Korea (37%) and – perhaps surprisingly – Iraq (34%), ahead of the U.S. (32%), Japan (31%) and Indonesia (30%).

That puts the non-religious share of Iraq and Indonesia, both perceived as strongly Muslim nations, ahead of those of more secular countries such as France and Portugal (29%), Mexico (28%) and Slovenia (25%), and both Russia and China (23%).

 

[haidian]

The non-religious in Africa can be counted in the single digits: 9% in the DR Congo, 6% in Ivory Coast, 2% in Nigeria and 1% in Ghana. There are also some single-digit countries in Europe, notably Kosovo (3%), Romania (6%) and Poland (9%). Non-religiosity also scores low in India (3%) and Pakistan (5%), Paraguay (7%) and the Philippines (9%).

There’s a bit more societal room for those not committed to the extremes of faith or doubt in Macedonia and Panama (both 10%), Colombia (11%) and Turkey (12%), Greece and Brazil (both 15%), and Ecuador, Argentina and even Iran (all 16%). Serbia (17%), Italy (18%) and Bangladesh (19%) have similar levels of non-religiosity. As do Peru (20%), Mongolia and Bosnia (both 20%).

Aggregating all scores, the WIN/Gallup poll found that the least religious countries were China, Sweden, the Czech Republic and the UK, in that order. Most religious: Thailand, Nigeria, Kosovo and India.

As mentioned, being religious and believing in God are not entirely the same (at least from a statistical point of view). In five countries, fully 100% of respondents expressed their belief in God: Azerbaijan, Ghana, Indonesia, Kosovo and Nigeria.

And the various Scandinavian state churches report membership of between 60% and 85% of their national populations, while most Danes, Norwegians and Swedes consider themselves to be non-religious or full-blown atheists.

https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/china-and-europe-stand-out-on-world-map-of-atheism

 

[Yongpeng Sun-Tastaufen]

I'm from China and I'm atheist. China has never been a religious country.

 

[haidian]

“fully 67% of respondents in China considered themselves 'convinced atheists' ”

That means still one third of Chinese are not atheists.

 

[Yongpeng Sun-Tastaufen]

“fully 67% of respondents in China considered themselves 'convinced atheists' ”

That means still one third of Chinese are not atheists.

Taoists. A few are Muslims and Christians.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

https://m.scmp.com/news/china/polic...theist-communist-party-trying-eradicate-islam

Is China’s atheist Communist Party trying to eradicate Islam?

Green-domed mosques still dominate the skyline of China’s “Little Mecca”, but they have undergone a profound change – no longer do boys flit through their stone courtyards en route to classes and prayers.

In what locals said they fear is a deliberate move to eradicate Islam, the atheist ruling Communist Party has banned children under 16 from religious activity or study in Linxia, a deeply Islamic region in western China’s Gansu province that had offered a haven of comparative religious freedom for the ethnic Hui Muslims there.

China governs Xinjiang, another majority Muslim region in its far west, with an iron fist to weed out what it calls “religious extremism” and “separatism” in the wake of deadly unrest, throwing ethnic Uygurs into shadowy re-education camps without due process for minor infractions such as owning a Koran or even growing a beard.

Now, Hui Muslims fear similar surveillance and repression.

“The winds have shifted” in the past year, said a senior imam who requested anonymity. “Frankly, I’m very afraid they’re going to implement the Xinjiang model here.”

Local authorities have severely curtailed the number of people over 16 officially allowed to study in each mosque and limited certification processes for new imams.

How China is trying to impose Islam with Chinese characteristics in the Hui Muslim heartland

They have also instructed mosques to display national flags and stop sounding the call to prayer to reduce “noise pollution” – with loudspeakers removed entirely from all 355 mosques in a neighbouring county.

“They want to secularise Muslims, to cut off Islam at the roots,” the imam said, shaking with barely restrained emotion. “These days, children are not allowed to believe in religion: only in communism and the party.”

More than 1,000 boys used to attend his mid-sized mosque to study Koranic basics during summer and winter school holidays but now they are banned from even entering the premises.

His classrooms are still full of huge Arabic books from Saudi Arabia, browned with age and bound in heavy leather. But only 20 officially registered pupils over the age of 16 are now allowed to use them.

China orders crackdown on large outdoor religious statues to ‘prevent commercialisation’

Parents were told the ban on extracurricular Koranic study was for their children’s own good, so they could rest and focus on secular coursework. But most are utterly panicked.

“We’re scared, very scared. If it goes on like this, after a generation or two, our traditions will be gone,” said Ma Lan, a 45-year-old caretaker, tears dripping quietly into her uneaten bowl of beef noodle soup.

Inspectors checked her local mosque every few days during the last school holiday to ensure none of the 70 or so village boys were present.

Their imam initially tried holding lessons in secret before sunrise but soon gave up, fearing repercussions.

Instead of studying five hours a day at the mosque, her 10-year-old son stayed home watching television. She said he dreamed of being an imam, but his schoolteachers had encouraged him to make money and become a communist cadre.

The Hui number nearly 10 million, half the country’s Muslim population, according to 2012 government statistics.

In Linxia, they have historically been well integrated with the ethnic Han majority, able to openly express their devotion and centre their lives around their faith.

Women in headscarves dish out boiled lamb in mirror-panelled halal eateries while streams of white-hatted men meander into mosques for afternoon prayers, passing shops hawking rugs, incense and “eight treasure tea”, a local speciality including dates and dried chrysanthemum buds.

But in January, local officials signed a decree pledging to ensure that no individual or organisation would “support, permit, organise or guide minors towards entering mosques for Koranic study or religious activities”, or push them towards religious beliefs.

“I cannot act contrary to my beliefs. Islam requires education from cradle to grave. As soon as children are able to speak we should begin to teach them our truths,” he said.

“It feels like we are slowly moving back towards the repression of the Cultural Revolution,” he said, referring to a nationwide purge from 1966 until 1976 when local mosques were dismantled or turned into donkey sheds.

Other imams complained authorities were issuing fewer certificates required to practise or teach and now only to graduates of state-sanctioned institutions.

“For now, there are enough of us, but I fear for the future. Even if there are still students, there won’t be anyone of quality to teach them,” one imam said.

Local authorities failed to answer repeated calls seeking comment but Linxia’s youth ban comes as China rolls out its newly revised Religious Affairs Regulations.

The rules have intensified punishments for unsanctioned religious activities across all faiths and regions.

Beijing was targeting minors “as a way to ensure that faith traditions die out while also maintaining the government’s control over ideological affairs”, said William Nee, a China researcher at Amnesty International.

Another imam said the tense situation in Xinjiang was at the root of changes in Linxia.

The government believed that “religious piety fosters fanaticism, which spawns extremism, which leads to terrorist acts – so they want to secularise us”, he said.

Xinjiang crackdown must go on to subdue ‘terror risks’, China says

But many Hui are quick to distinguish themselves from Uygurs.

“They believe in Islam too, but they’re violent and bloodthirsty. We’re nothing like that,” said Muslim hairdresser Ma Jiancai, 40, drawing on common stereotypes.

Sitting under the elegant eaves of a Sufi shrine complex, a young scholar from Xinjiang said his family had sent him alone aged five to Linxia to study the Koran with a freedom not possible in his hometown.

“Things are very different here,” he said with knitted brows. “I hope to stay.”

 

[AViet]

I am sure the polls data in Vietnam is fake. Regarding atheism, Vietnamese can be even more as atheist than Chinese. Perhaps we are the most atheist people in this world. While most are nominal Buddhist, Buddhism has never been a real religion in Vietnam, in the sense of a religion like Islam or Christian.

Buddha, to most of Vietnamese, is like an advisor or teacher, not like a God. Sometimes we will listen to him and sometimes not.

 

[prashantazazel]

Somehow, most of the atheists and irreligious are found in more successful, advanced and less violent societies

 

[TaiShang]

Positive development. Secularism is the road to development and harmony. China should speed up the work to eradicate all organized and politicized religions from public sphere.

I think, with the increased capability of the state, this is more doable today than in the past. And we are seeing encouraging signs of it.

In Mainland China, I believe a good portion of those answered as non-atheist are Daoist. In Taiwan, it is so, including myself. Dao is more of a culture, way of life, than religion as it does not tend to become political. In that, it has a folkloric value. It is nice to join temple parades. In Mainland China, I have seen those folkloric expressions during times of happiness, such as new store openings and weddings.

Less organized religion=more peace.

 

[rcrmj]

Somehow, most of the atheists and irreligious are found in more successful, advanced and less violent societies

irony isnt it ``

 

[haidian]

East Asia is the least religious region in the world while South Asia is the most.

 

[LASER1]

Somehow, most of the atheists and irreligious are found in more successful, advanced and less violent societies

And when you look at the United States of America.

Obama taking the oath over Bible, and their national motto is "In God we trust"

Even Chinese atheism have Chinese characteristics. aka, they are superstitious.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

And when you look at the United States of America.

View attachment 494953
Obama taking the oath over Bible, and their national motto is "In God we trust"

Even Chinese atheism have Chinese characteristics. aka, they are superstitious.

That not a requirement. Several Presidents didn’t use a Bible.

 

[prashantazazel]

And when you look at the United States of America.

View attachment 494953
Obama taking the oath over Bible, and their national motto is "In God we trust"

Even Chinese atheism have Chinese characteristics. aka, they are superstitious.

I suppose Obama did that to appeal to the conservatives in the US. It is not a requirement. The best areas of the US have a very high percentage of irreligious folk. Say LA.

 

[Mista]

It's the lunar 7th month now. Do mainland Chinese 'celebrate' the festival? I know the Chinese in Malaysia, HK and Taiwan celebrate the festival too so I assumed it was a common Chinese cultural festival. But I was surprised that many mainland Chinese tourists were curious about the festivities when they visited Singapore during this period.

Singapore:

Taiwan: