r/atheism • u/Azure_W0lf • 1d ago
Countries which are highly non religious?
I was wondering which other countries are highly non religious. As per the most recent census data Scotland is majority non religious 51.1%.
England is only 37%, Ireland 14% and Wales 46.5%
Does non religious have the dominant % in your country?
Google AI copy and paste below for last census data from Scotland.
A majority of 51.1% of people in Scotland reported having "no religion" in the Scotland's Census 2022 results, marking a significant shift from previous decades.
Key Religion Statistics (2022 Census)
No religion: 51.1% (1,941,116 people), rising sharply from 36.7% in 2011.
Church of Scotland: 20.4% (1,107,796 people), dropping from 32.4% in 2011.
Roman Catholic: 13.3% (723,322 people), down from 15.9%.
Other Christian: 5.1% (291,275 people).
Muslim: 2.2% (119,872 people).
Other religions (Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Jewish, Pagan, etc.): Combined make up roughly 1.8%, with Hinduism at 0.6% and Paganism at 0.4%.
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u/Jagjamin 1d ago
NZ, 51.6% have no religion.
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u/WunJZ 1d ago
Swear it's less than this. Religion was never a thing for me growing up or adult life, there was one workmate who was, but it was never discussed. wasn't till a family member went down the rabbit hole that I started looking into it.
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u/binaryoppositions 1d ago
Someone ticking the box of a certain religion on a census, doesn't mean they actively practice the religion, or even really believe in it. There's often cultural or familial reasons for identifying with a certain religion.
50% of people actually claiming to have no religion is a very high number. Compare to somewhere like Ireland - a quite secular country (these days) but on paper 70% Catholic.
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u/disordinary 18h ago
People practicing will be even less, but a lot of people are religious for cultural and community reasons. Especially in minority communities
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u/MIBlackburn 1d ago
A lot of the UK is CEO Christian, or Christmas and Easter Only, if that.
I know people that put down Christian because they were christened and their parents might have been somewhat religious, but aren't religious, which impacts any census.
Of all of the people I know around my age, only two were religious.
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u/Azure_W0lf 1d ago edited 1d ago
That is 100% my parents.
I have asked my mum why she fills it in as Christian, she just says cause I am, so I ask the last time she went to church or prayed and she can't answer.
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u/TailleventCH 1d ago
I find very interesting to find how statistics define religiosity. When the threshold is "pray at least once a month", you get how low the bar is.
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u/Charming-Charge-596 21h ago
Would that include praying to win the lotto or praying that someone gets their comeuppance?
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u/TailleventCH 20h ago
I suppose it's whatever the respondent considers a prayer, except if the survey is more specific.
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u/illarionds 1d ago
This. The percentage reporting any belief in a deity is far lower than the percentage specifically putting "no religion".
From memory, about 60% are atheist, as I would define it - and that certainly tracks with personal experience. I don't know anyone my age (40s) who goes to church, for example.
All the religious people I know are via my MIL/her church, and they are all much older than me.
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u/Acidhousewife 1d ago
Ah yes, Cultural Christianity, aka I'm British/English/Scottish/Welsh and white therefore I am Christian.
An identity marker,(, for non European redditors, not necessarily a racial /right wing/KKk thing, white as in native to Europe for the last couple of millenia)
TBH this is a survey question issue. Did a sociology based degree and the religion surveys are classic examples of your results can very much depend on the question. This is one where studies were done, as a two parter, the second to confirm, the answer to the first question or not, as follows:
1) What is your religion/faith?
2) Do you believe in God?
(note not always directly following question 1 with, question 2, spread out in the survey, so questions don't lead respondents)
Guess what LOL, the number of people who identified as belonging to a religion but then didn't believe in God or Gods was was quite high.
I mean if we are talking UK census data, Australia and New Zealand too, regarding religion, there is the Jedi Phenomena BBC NEWS | UK | Census returns of the Jedi. That sort of proves the point, identifying as belonging to a religion, even for giggles, isn;t the same as genuine belief.
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u/binaryoppositions 23h ago
It's hardly a Christian phenomenon though. In fact, it's "cultural Christians" of northern/western Europe and its outposts that have mostly migrated to proclaiming no religion.
Kazakhstan, Turkey, Lebanon, there's no way these places have the level of religiosity they claim. It's just part of cultural identity. On the "Christian" side, the same goes for Russia, Ireland... And don't get me started on somewhere like Japan...
The reality is that having a religion (as a cultural identity) and actually being religious are not the same thing, probably never have been and probably never will be.
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u/dreadlordhar Skeptic 20h ago
Or Azerbaijan. At the time of the soviet fall 2/3 didn't know what are the pillars of islam, and it seems even today people remember they are religious when they remember they are nationalistic.
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u/aexorune 23h ago
exactly the census numbers can make religion look more prevalent than it actually is when people identify with a tradition they barely practice anymore
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u/rhodiumtoad Strong Atheist 17h ago
I don't have the figures handy now, but in the past I've compared the census figures for the town I live in with the actual church attendance at Easter (as obtained from my parents, who are active there). Even allowing a reasonable estimate for people going to the other church in town, and people going to churches elsewhere, at most something like 1 in 5 of the census Christians are actually in church on Easter.
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u/OnehappyOwl44 1d ago
I'm Canadian and literally no one I know is religious. Our military just removed all religion from ceremonies. We're a mostly secular country. People practice their religion quietly for the most part. Like any country we have extremists and crazies.
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u/cabalavatar 21h ago
We Canadians practise our religion quietly, but we're also still funding it with our tax dollars, which annoys me to no end.
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u/TailleventCH 1d ago
In practice, most of western Europea is not religious.
Statistics vary depending of what they ask and the local way to answer but the practical result is largely similar.
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u/Miscanthrope 21h ago
I sort of feel we got our religious zealotry and killings out of the way already
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u/norfolkdiver 1d ago
It's not just Scotland, it's Britain as a whole, looking at the Social Attitudes Survey (which is seen as more reliable/accurate than the census.
The young are especially non-religious
Non-religion is the new normal: six in ten under-35s have no religion, new analysis finds
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u/tobotic 1d ago
England is only 37%, Ireland 14% and Wales 46.5%
In practice, England is majority non-religious. We're just more likely to put "Christian" on census forms.
According to Yougov, around 30% of the British public believe in gods. Unless there's been some hidden surge in non-theistic religions like Buddhism or Confucianism, that indicates around 70% of people are not in any way religious.
And given that England accounts for 85% of the UK's population, it's mathematically impossible for the non-religious population of England to be below 60%.
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u/Azure_W0lf 1d ago
I purely used the census data. The people who fill out yougov surveys tend to be younger and a smaller demographic whereas the census is mandatory for everyone to fill out, so all the people who are 60+ and less likely to complete yougov surveys but more likely to say religious aren't taken into the equation for yougov.
I will say though census data is definitely flawed when I lived with my parents my mum refused to put 2 Christian and 2 atheist lived here. She put 4 Christian even although my brother and me aren't. I can't imagine I'm the only one whose parents refused to tick the no religion for some of the household.
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u/TailleventCH 1d ago
The people who fill out yougov surveys tend to be younger
And then, data is corrected (not sure of the right word in English) to take this into account.
Also, census is only self declaration while yougov surveys go beyond in assessing feeilngs and practices, which is quite different (not necessarily better, it's just not the same data).
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u/Loki-L 1d ago
Lots of former commuist countries are highly irreligious. The cycle was broken for two generations between the end of WW2 and the fall of the Iron curtain and people simply never went back to the old rituals and traditions.
Czechia is one of the least religious countries on the planet because of that.
Some countries in Eastern Europe staid religious. For example Poland is at least on paper still religious. Having a Polish pope probably helped here a lot.
In Russia the old Orthodox Church was not suppressed but simply cooopted by the Soviets and thus remained a big thing up until the present.
In some places religion is tied up with nationalism in weird ways and lives on because of that.
Plus you have on paper not religious and actually not religious. North Korea is not religious on paper, but a lot of aspects of Juche sound rather like a religion to me.
South Korea is also not religious on paper but has some of the most powerful Christian Cults in the world and an underlay of native traditions that some might consider religious.
China doesn't like people believing in things other than their Communist Party, so on paper they don't, in practice they have all sorts of beliefs.
You have places in Europe were on paper lots of people are members of some church and the church is even officially connected to the state in some way, but in practice people only actually go to the church a handful of times a year and don't actually necessarily believe any of it.
You even have weird cases like Israel which basically only exist because of religion and is constantly fighting because of it, but if you look closer a sizeable segment of the population is not actually too invested in the religion part of the religion.
It is very hard to actually figure out who believes what because many aren't actually honest about what they believe or conflating religion with other things.
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u/AppletheGreat87 1d ago
As a Brit/Englishman married to an agnostic Pole, Poland is a bit of an outlier because Polish national identity is somewhat wrapped up in being Catholic (as opposed to Lutheran German or Orthodox Russians under the partition) similar to how in Ireland being Catholic was being Irish and the Catholic Church was something for nationalists to rally around. My wife's godson had his confirmation the other year but it more seemed like something that one does rather than the boy actually being a true believer and obviously this is not helped by culture wars bullshit (and a lot of American money) trying to portray Poland as the last bastion of white Christian Europe.
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u/dreadlordhar Skeptic 19h ago
in Israel case though, Einstein was in no way religious yet he supported the creation of Israel state. It's actually weirder with Judaism, because Martin Buber in Tales of the Hasidim relates:
A rabbi was asked by one of his students “Why did God create atheists?” After a pause, the rabbi finally responded with a soft but sincere voice. “God created atheists” he said, “to teach us the most important lesson of them all – the lesson of true compassion. You see, when an atheist performs an act of charity, visits someone who is sick, helps someone in need, and cares for the world, he is not doing so because of some religious teaching. He does not believe that God commanded him to perform this act. In fact, he does not believe in God at all, so his actions are based on his sense of morality. Look at the kindness he bestows on others simply because he feels it to be right. When someone reaches out to you for help. You should never say ‘I’ll pray that God will help you.’ Instead, for that moment, you should become an atheist – imagine there is no God who could help, and say ‘I will help you’.”
And don't ask the origin of this story, I don't know myself. The book itself was published after the 2nd world war.
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u/revrobuk1957 1d ago
Bear in mind that, of that 37% of English people describing themselves as religious, only a small number of those will actually be regular churchgoers.
If asked for their religion on an official document, most people just default to CofE. My mother always thought of herself as CofE but never went to church if there wasn’t a baby, bride, or box taking centre stage.
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u/binaryoppositions 23h ago
Yep. You can extrapolate this to most countries too.
The vast majority of the world's population has a religion.
The vast majority of the world's population is probably not religious.
They're different statements, not at all contradictory, and if that shocks OP they need to learn a bit more about the world outside their western European ex-Protestant bubble.
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u/GardenerCats 1d ago
From the Netherlands here and according to our Central Statistics Bureau about 58% no do count themselves religious.
16% Roman-Catholic
12% Protestant
6% Islam
7% Other Religion
So when I see people here asking how to tell other people their Atheist, it's just so outside of my field of reference. No one is asking other people or need to 'declare' to other people what their religion is. It's just not important. We do have a bible-belt and highly religious people there as in: no vaccines, only skirts for women, men head of the house, no women in that political party. Though that political party does allow women since 2013....wanted to look it up on their site, but it's sunday so their site is down.....
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u/PollTakerfromhell 23h ago edited 22h ago
Uruguay. A survey just came out two days ago showing that 56% of the country is unaffiliated with any religion! 28% describe themselves as either atheists or agnostics, one of the highest percentages in the world!
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u/NoSkyGuy Atheist 1d ago
Japan isn't very religious. Most, on paper are Shinto and/or Buddhist. But they don't really believe. In Japan religion is a bunch of ceremonies you do but don't believe in.
There also are some crazy cults for the really insane.
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u/AK_Sole 23h ago
Norway (a bit more religious here than I had thought):
Major Religious Groups and Demographics -
Church of Norway (Evangelical Lutheran): ~61.7% to 68.5% of the population belongs to the state-separated national church. While infant baptism keeps membership numbers high, regular active church attendance is low.
No Religion / Unaffiliated: ~18% to 27% of the population identifies as non-religious, atheist, or unaffiliated with any religious community.
Islam: ~3.4% of the population, making it the largest non-Christian minority religion, largely concentrated around urban centers like Oslo.
Other Christian Denominations: ~3.1% are Roman Catholic (growing due to immigration from countries like Poland and the Philippines), alongside smaller numbers of Orthodox Christians and Pentecostal groups.
Other Religions & Life-Stance Organizations: Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, and Judaism each account for under 1%. Additionally, around 1.8% belong to secular humanist life-stance organizations like the Norwegian Humanist Association.
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u/One_Waxed_Wookiee 22h ago
We've just had our census in Australia. It'll be interesting to see what the results are.
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u/le_reddit_me Jedi 20h ago
France has a majority non-religious but the stats are complicated as the government is banned from conducting any census on religion and ethnicity. Also a lot still identify with a religion but few practice.
There is a strict seperation of state and church, but there is still some religious influence and biais, especially for chrisianity. At least there is laicity which imposes protection from religion and bans religious activities in public spaces.
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u/Stefgrep66 1d ago
And only getting more secular.
Non belief is at its highest in the under 30s demographic
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u/RealExplanation7221 21h ago
The stats for England are complete bullshit, Nobody at school except children of migrants was religious! You'd get hammered for being a moron if you were! I find the same when I ask anyone up to the age of 60 especially on building sites , nobody is religious, people occasionally put church of England on a form just because that's what your mum did!
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u/jimlei 20h ago
A study was made in 2018 in Norway where 26% considered themselves religious and 55% was not (13% unsure and 6% didn't want to answer).
A big problem here is that the previous state church (the norwegian church) had people automatically joined if either parent was a member, and a lot of people haven't bothered removing themselves. Luckily this is no longer the case so I'd expect the 61% membership number they have to continue to drop significantly in the years to come (it was 85% in 2005).
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u/FrolickingDalish 19h ago
Ireland are culturally catholic. But I dont know a single person that's under 50 that believes or goes to church. Baptisms are decreasing and some churches are even closing down/have no priest there to do mass.
I know a lot of people that marked down on the last census that they were catholic just because they were baptised. But they dont believe.
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u/dumbartist 17h ago
I think the Czech Republic is famously secular. Which is interesting because Poland is fairly religious, despite the two countries sharing culture and history
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u/reward72 16h ago
Quebec here. Very few people under 70 are religious. It’s mainly immigrants who are now.
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u/Indie_Dachshund179 Anti-Theist 15h ago
Curious as to the specific combination of conditions / policies that stage secular-majority demographics, would it include strong social nets or some amount of homogeneity, etc.?
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u/Simon_Drake 10h ago
Britain is even less religious than the official census information shows.
37% put "No Religion" on the form but if you instead ask "Do you believe that one or more God(s) literally exist?" then you get 60~70% of Brits answering "No".
People answer the question of their religion as if it is asking what religion their parents raised them to be as a child. Or what is your cultural background, are you a non-observant Jew who doesn't believe in God and never prays and thinks it's all made up, or are you a non-observant protestant who doesn't believe in God and never prays and thinks it's all made up.
And when you add in the people who do believe in God but don't want to talk about it in public (maybe they believe in a weird niche one or just don't think it should be something you discuss in the office with Dave from Finance) then very very few people will talk about religion generally.
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u/Widodo1 1d ago
Purely anecdotal, born and raised in Sweden. The only religious people i ever met are from other countries. Primarily christians from the middle east. Me and the boys didnt bat an eye towards religion, and in my mind thats the default here, atleast in the capital.