From The Cambridge Companion to Atheism Edited By Michael Martin www.pitzer.edu/academics/...theism.html

Assessing rates of belief or disbelief among large populations is extremely difficult. Determining what percentage of a given society believes in God – or doesn’t -- is fraught with methodological difficulties, most importantly: 1) low response rates, 2) non-random samples, 3) adverse political or cultural climates, and 4) problematic cross-cultural terminology. A brief discussion of each is warranted before presenting an accumulation of statistics concerning rates and patterns of atheism worldwide...

...Any assessment of the rates and patterns of atheism worldwide must keep the above methodological limitations in mind. That said, the enterprise isn’t completely futile. We can make reliable estimates( iii ). Though methodological flaws hamper all sociological inquiries, in the words of Robert Putnam (2000:23): “we must make do with the imperfect evidence that we can find, not merely lament its deficiencies.”


Below is a presentation of the findings of the most recently available surveys concerning rates of atheism, agnosticism, and non-belief in God in various countries worldwide( iv )...

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