Book contents
- The Cambridge History of Atheism
- The Cambridge History of Atheism
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Part I Preliminaries
- Part II Atheisms in History
- Part III Reformation, Renaissance, Enlightenment
- Part IV Classical Modernity: Philosophical and Scientific Currents
- Part V Classical Modernity: Social and Political Currents
- Part VI Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries: Intellectual and Artistic Currents
- Part VII Lived Atheism in the Twentieth- and Twenty-First Centuries: Case-Studies
- Part VIII Emerging Atheisms in the Twenty-First Century
- 54 New Atheism
- 55 The Internet and the Social Media Revolution
- 56 The Atheist Spring? Emerging Non-belief in the Islamic World
- 57 Intersectional Atheisms: Race, Gender, and Sexuality
- 58 Religion for Atheists? Transhumanism, Mindfulness, and Atheist Churches
- 59 Atheism Throughout the World
- Part IX Conclusion
- Index
- References
59 - Atheism Throughout the World
from Part VIII - Emerging Atheisms in the Twenty-First Century
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 September 2021
Book contents
- The Cambridge History of Atheism
- The Cambridge History of Atheism
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Part I Preliminaries
- Part II Atheisms in History
- Part III Reformation, Renaissance, Enlightenment
- Part IV Classical Modernity: Philosophical and Scientific Currents
- Part V Classical Modernity: Social and Political Currents
- Part VI Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries: Intellectual and Artistic Currents
- Part VII Lived Atheism in the Twentieth- and Twenty-First Centuries: Case-Studies
- Part VIII Emerging Atheisms in the Twenty-First Century
- 54 New Atheism
- 55 The Internet and the Social Media Revolution
- 56 The Atheist Spring? Emerging Non-belief in the Islamic World
- 57 Intersectional Atheisms: Race, Gender, and Sexuality
- 58 Religion for Atheists? Transhumanism, Mindfulness, and Atheist Churches
- 59 Atheism Throughout the World
- Part IX Conclusion
- Index
- References
Summary
Two informed estimates of the numbers of atheists and/or agnostics in the world, each published in the last fifteen years by reputable social scientists in major reference works, place the figure around or above half a billion people (Zuckerman 2007; Keysar and Navarro-Rivera 2013). Both rely, in very large measure, on what their authors readily admit to being reasonable guesswork. There is no shame whatsoever in this. Rigorous, nationally representative surveys don’t exist in large swathes of the world. In many places where they do, respondents may have reasonable anxieties about declaring, even on a seemingly confidential poll, a politically ‘wrong’ answer – in either direction. For example, China and Vietnam are the world’s first and fifteenth most populous countries, both are officially atheist, and neither is famous for freedoms of conscience or religion.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge History of Atheism , pp. 1095 - 1112Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021
References
Barrett, D. B., Kurian, G., and Johnson, T. (eds.). 2001. World Christian Encyclopedia: A Comparative Survey of Churches and Religions in the Modern World: Volume 1, 2nd edition. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Berlinerblau, J. 2013. ‘Jewish atheism’, in Bullivant, S. and Ruse, M. (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Atheism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 320–6.Google Scholar
Bullivant, S. 2020a. ‘Explaining the rise of “nonreligion studies”: subfield formation and institutionalization within the sociology of religion’. Social Compass 67(1), 86–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bullivant, S. 2020b. ‘We confess that we are atheists’. New Blackfriars 101(1092), 120–34.Google Scholar
Bullivant, S., and Lee, L. 2016. The Oxford Dictionary of Atheism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bullivant, S. and Ruse, M. (eds.) 2013. The Oxford Handbook of Atheism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bullivant, S., Farias, M., Lanman, J., and Lee, L. 2019. Understanding Unbelief: Atheists and Agnostics Around the World: Interim Findings from 2019 Research in Brazil, China, Denmark, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Twickenham: Benedict XVI Centre for Religion and Society.Google Scholar
Day, A. and Lee, L. 2014. ‘Making sense of surveys and censuses: issues in religious self-identification’. Religion 44(3), 345–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edgell, P., Gerteis, J., and Hartmann, D. 2006. ‘Atheists as “other”: moral boundaries and cultural membership in American Society’. American Sociological Review 71(2), 211–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frazier, J. 2013. ‘Hinduism’, in Bullivant, S. and Ruse, M. (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Atheism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 367–79.Google Scholar
Gervais, W. M., and Najle, M. B. 2018. ‘How many atheists are there?’. Social Psychological and Personality Science 9(1), 3–10.Google Scholar
Gervais, W. M., Shariff, A. F., and Norenzayan, A. 2011. ‘Do you believe in atheists? Distrust is central to anti-atheist prejudice’. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 101(6), 1189–206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hackett, C. 2014. ‘Seven things to consider when measuring religious identity’. Religion 44(3), 396–413.Google Scholar
Humanists International. 2019. The Freedom of Thought Report 2019: A Global Report on the Rights, Legal Status and Discrimination Against Humanists, Atheists and the Non-religious: Key Countries Edition. Available at: https://fot.humanists.international (accessed 13 May 2020).Google Scholar
Kettell, S. 2013. ‘Faithless: the politics of New Atheism’. Secularism and Nonreligion 2, 61–72.Google Scholar
Keysar, A. and Navarro-Rivera, J. 2013. ‘A world of atheism: Central and Eastern Europe’, in Bullivant, S. and Ruse, M. (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Atheism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 553–86.Google Scholar
Martin, M. (ed.) 2007. The Cambridge Companion to Atheism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Oak, S.-D. 2012. ‘Competing Chinese names for God: the Chinese term question and its influence upon Korea’. Journal of Korean Religions 3(2), 89–115.Google Scholar
Remmel, A. and Friedenthal, M. 2020. ‘Atheism and freethought in Estonian culture’, in Bubík, T., Remmel, A., and Vaclavik, D. (eds.), Freethought and Atheism in Central and Eastern Europe: The Development of Secularity and Nonreligion. London: Routledge, 84–110.Google Scholar
Sullivan, A., Voas, D., and Brown, M. 2012. The Art of Asking Questions about Religion. London: Centre for Longitudinal Studies.Google Scholar
Taira, T. 2012. ‘New atheism as identity politics’, in Guest, M. and Arweck, E. (eds.), Religion and Knowledge: Sociological Perspectives. Farnham: Ashgate, 97–113.Google Scholar
Tanaka, K. 2010. ‘Limitations for measuring religion in a different cultural context: the case of Japan’. Social Science Journal 47(4), 845–52.Google Scholar
Tomka, M. 2004. ‘Post-Communist Europe and the continued existence of atheism’. Concilium 2, 105–13.Google Scholar
US Census Bureau. 2018. ‘2018 national and state population estimates’. Available at: www.census.gov/newsroom/press-kits/2018/pop-estimates-national-state.html (accessed 29 May 2020).Google Scholar
Vallely, A. 2013. ‘Jainism’, in Bullivant, S. and Ruse, M. (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Atheism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 351–66.Google Scholar
Wilson, J. 2019. The Religious Landscape in South Sudan: Challenges and Opportunities for Engagement. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace.Google Scholar
Wuthnow, R. 2015. Inventing American Religion: Polls, Surveys, and the Tenuous Quest for a Nation’s Faith. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Xiaoyang, Z. 2010. ‘In the name of God: translation and transformation of Chinese culture, foreign religion, and the reproduction of “Tianzhu” and “Shangdi”’. Journal of Modern Chinese History 4(2), 163–78.Google Scholar
Yang, F. and Hu, A. 2012. ‘Mapping Chinese folk religion in Mainland China and Taiwan’. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 51(3), 505–21.Google Scholar
Zuckerman, P. 2007. ‘Atheism: contemporary numbers and patterns’, in Martin, M. (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Atheism. New York: Cambridge University Press, 47–65.Google Scholar