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According to sociologists Ariela Keysar and Juhem Navarro-Rivera's 2013 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.
Countries with the greatest proportion of people without religion, including agnostics and atheists, from Irreligion by country (as of 2020): [42] Nonreligious population by country as of 2010 [43] Czech Republic 78.4% North Korea 71.3% Estonia 60.2% Hong Kong 54.7% China 51.8% New Zealand 48.2% [44] South Korea 46.6% Latvia 45.3%
The 2015 Pew Religious Landscape survey reported that as of 2014, 22.8% of the American population is religiously unaffiliated, atheists made up 3.1% and agnostics made up 4% of the US population. [63] In 2020, the World Religion Database estimated that the countries with the highest percentage of atheists were North Korea and Sweden. [64]
A census in May 1939, six years into the Nazi era [1] and a year following the annexations of Austria and Czechoslovakia [2] into Germany, indicates [3] that 54% of the population considered itself Protestant, 41% considered itself Catholic, 3.5% self-identified as Gottgläubig [4] (lit. "believing in God"), [5] and 1.5% as "atheist". [4]
Across Eastern Europe following World War II, new Communist states were antipathetic to religion. Persecutions of religious leaders followed. [ 140 ] [ 141 ] [ 122 ] Nearly all schools of the churches and many of the church buildings were closed Children were taught atheism, and clergy were imprisoned by the thousands. [ 142 ]
Most of the bishops arrested between 1928 and 1932 were arrested for reasons surrounding opposition to Metropolitan Sergius and his notorious declaration of loyalty. The state did officially maintain the line that church and state were separate in the Soviet Union during this time, despite the many arrests of people for not following their religious leaders.
However, the elimination of religion remained a fundamental ideological goal of the state. [5] There were two main principal anti-religious campaigns that occurred in the 1920s, with one surrounding the campaign to seize church valuables and the other surrounding the renovationist schism in the Orthodox Church.
Respondents to religious-belief polls may define "atheism" differently or draw different distinctions between atheism, non-religious beliefs, and non-theistic religious and spiritual beliefs. [180] A 2010 survey published in Encyclopædia Britannica found that the non-religious made up about 9.6% of the world's population, and atheists about 2.0%.