Global Index Of Religion And Atheism – Religion On The Decline
Posted by Phil Ferguson on August 16th, 2012 – 1 Comment – Posted in UncategorizedA new study called the “GLOBAL INDEX OF RELIGION AND ATHEISM” asked this question around the world.
Question: Irrespective of whether you attend a place of worship or not, would you say you are a religious person, not a religious persons or a convinced atheist?
I do not like the what they question is phrased. ”Convinced atheist”? one is not convinced of atheism. One is an atheist when they are NOT convinced of one or more god(s). However, it is what the asked. I expect that not only are the vast majority of people that selected “not a religious person” not part of the problem but, many of them are actually atheist but did not like the choice of “convinced atheist.”
Here is the result for the world – only 59% of the world is religious.
Sampling the world seems pretty tough. Look in the methodology and it says the China numbers are based on an online survey of 500 people. There is probably still some systemic pressure on the Chinese to answer Atheist as well. Then the pollsters project that result on the whole population of China which has a large influence on the world numbers.
Basically, don’t take this too seriously.