On the one hand, Im glad they dont (like most) tag atheism and agnosticism as religions, which they are not. However, I find these statistics suspicious and misleading, for three reasons. I question how these statistics were compiled, to what degree they reflect the true attitude and lifestyle of those labelled as belonging to one religion or another, and why non-believers were apparently excluded from the survey. Heres a thought: around 1/3-1/2 of Jewish people consider themselves Jewish by ethnicity and culture, but reject a belief in the supernatural aspects of the religion. How those people are counted depends largely on who is doing the survey. Some religions are, at core, atheistic, yet are counted as religions. The demographics of atheism are substantially difficult to quantify. Different people interpret atheism and related terms differently, and it can be hard to draw boundaries between atheism, nonreligious beliefs, and nontheistic religious and spiritual beliefs. Furthermore, atheists may not report themselves as such, to prevent suffering from social stigma, discrimination, and persecution in some countries.--from the Wikipedia article on the demographics of atheism. Incidentally, I am an atheist and in all my nearly 59 years have never been included in any survey on this that I recall.
Posted on: Sun, 22 Jun 2014 15:02:22 +0000
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