By 2050, the unaffiliated population is expected to exceed 1.2 billion. But, as a share of all the people in the world, those with no religious affiliation are projected to decline from 16% in 2010 to 13% by the middle of this century.
“There are growing numbers of atheists/agnostics in countries across the world,” said Dr Lanman. “Our recently completed 'Understanding Unbelief' programme looked beyond the stereotypes and helped to document some of the world's rich diversity in atheism and agnosticism.
According to sociologists Ariela Keysar and Juhem Navarro-Rivera's review of numerous global studies on atheism, there are 450 to 500 million positive atheists and agnostics worldwide (7% of the world's population) with China alone accounting for 200 million of that demographic.
Atheists and religious skeptics can be executed in at least thirteen nations: Afghanistan, Iran, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritania, Nigeria, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Libya, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen.
In both samples, the study showed that those with documented religious affiliations lived an average of 9.45 and 5.64 years longer respectively than those who did not. When other important factors like gender and marital status were calculated, the number dropped to 6.48 and 3.82 years.
It follows, then, that atheism cannot replace religion, though in a secular context it can often prove to be a gratifying alternative for those seeking the benison of moral choice and the comfort of a common cause.
Modern growth. Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the world. In 1990, 1.1 billion people were Muslims, while in 2010, 1.6 billion people were Muslims.
The 2021 census found that 38.9% of Australian-born Australians claim no religion. In 2011 adults aged 18–34 were more than twice as likely as those in 1976 to have no religion (29% compared with 12%). The highest proportion of people who had no religion were young adults.
China. Officially, the People's Republic of China is an atheist state. According to World Population Review 2023, 91 per cent of the nation's population does not follow any religion.
The Chinese government is wary of religion for several reasons. China is officially an atheist state and Communist Party members are banned from believing in or practicing any faith; there is concern that religion can function as an alternative to Communism and thus undermine loyalty to the government.
Christianity, the largest religion in the United States, experienced a 20th-century high of 91% of the total population in 1976. This declined to 73.7% by 2016 and 64% in 2022.
A 2021 Gallup poll revealed another grim number for Christians: church membership in the US has fallen below 50% for the first time.
Some of the reasons were “logistical”, McConnell said, as people moved away for college or started jobs which made it difficult to attend church. “But some of the other answers are not so much logistics. One of the top answers was church members seem to be judgmental or hypocritical,” McConnell said.
Higher rates of depression in those lacking a religious affiliation may be due to the absence of social support from a faith community or lack of commitment to a belief system that makes sense of traumatic events and difficult life stressors.
Many people are atheists because they think there is no evidence for God's existence - or at least no reliable evidence. They argue that a person should only believe in things for which they have good evidence. A philosopher might say that they start from the presumption of atheism.
Relative to its own populations, Zuckerman ranks the top five countries with the highest possible ranges of atheists and agnostics: Sweden (46-85%), Vietnam (81%), Denmark (43-80%), Norway (31-72%), and Japan (64-65%).
Countries such as Japan, Hong Kong, and South Korea, known for their rapid economic growth and technological advancements, have witnessed a decline in religious identification as societal values shift towards a more secular and individualistic outlook.
In 1971, Christians represented 86.2% of the Australian population. In 2021, Christians were down to 43.9% of the population. The 2021 Census also show that identification with other religions besides Christianity has grown from 3.5% in 1996 to 10% of the population in 2021.
Hinduism is Australia's fastest growing religion. The diversity of modern Australia connects us to every part of the world, including South Asia.
Over the next four decades, Christians will remain the largest religious group, but Islam will grow faster than any other major religion. If current trends continue, by 2050 … The number of Muslims will nearly equal the number of Christians around the world.
77% of new converts to Islam are from Christianity, whereas 19% were from non-religion. Conversely, 55% of Muslims who left Islam became non-religious, and 22% converted to Christianity.