How Many Atheists
In The World?
 Sharon Fair

Graphic Rule

From: "Positive Atheism" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
To: "Sharon E. Fair"
Subject: Re: Request
Date: Thursday, March 15, 2001 9:01 AM

Encarta suggests the percentage of "weak" atheists (all nontheists -- ranging from those who simply lack a god belief to those who assert that all god claims are falsehood) to be significantly above the incidence of Muslims and slightly above that of Roman Catholics.

However, the most thorough assessment of religious trends lives on adherents.com. To wade through these over 57,000 statistics would be quite a chore. Suffice it to say that if by atheist you mean somebody who consciously and deliberately rejects as falsehood the claim that gods exist, we're about four percent. If by atheist you mean somebody who lacks belief in gods for whatever reason (and this form of atheism is compatible with the agnosticism that simply doesn't know), then we're over one-fifth of the world's population.

Cliff Walker
"Positive Atheism" Magazine
Five years of service to
     people with no reason to believe

Graphic Rule

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