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Austin's Atheism Blog

By Austin Cline, About.com Guide to Atheism since 1998

Where are the Atheists?

Thursday January 26, 2006
There are a lot more atheists in the world than many in America seem to realize; it's just that America isn't one of the nations where atheism is common enough. Other nations have far more atheists, at least as a percentage of their total population, than the United States does.

Adherents.com lists the top 50 countries in terms of what proportion of the population are atheists, agnostics, or otherwise nonbelievers in gods. Some of the most attractive are:

Sweden: 46 - 85%
Denmark: 43 - 80%
Norway: 31 - 72%
Japan: 64 - 65%
Czech Republic: 54 - 61%
Finland: 28 - 60%
France: 43 - 54%
South Korea: 30 - 52%
Germany: 41 - 49%
Hungary: 32 - 46%
Netherlands: 39 - 44%
Britain: 31 - 44%

Now, given how common it is for religious theists to think that their religion and their theism are prerequisites for morality, it's worth consider just how these nations compare to the United States — a "Christian" nation — when it comes to crime, violence, health care, infant mortality, etc.

The sad truth is, most of the nations of this list do far better than the United States. Is it because they have more atheists? That's not very plausible — although there might be a connection between doing better in such areas and not having problems with religious ideology intruding on things like science. At the very least, though, it makes it clear that an absence of theism and Christianity do not make things worse.

 

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