Talk:Demographics of atheism

New survey 2009
American Religious Identification Survey 2008

Interactive map for the survey

Westernism and Pro Atheism
There is a lot of interpretation of conflicting studies and polls and most of these clarifications seem to have a pro-atheist slant. There is also little information or references related to countries in the souther hemisphere or far east. This is a very west focused entry.

I will add to the above that it also seems to conflate "religious" and "holds the opinion that there is a higher power". Those are VERY different. I for example am not religious at all. I'm not baptized, haven't set foot in a religious institution in decades, don't pray etc. But I do think there there is a God out there, in some form. Note the use of "think" as opposed to "believe", which is another mistake made in this entry. Most of us "think" there is a God....it's not something that someone else told us and we "believe" it. Most human beings, just looking up at the sky at night, see (obviously subjective and non-scientific) evidence of the existence of God. That has nothing to do with the dogma of any given organized religion. See the entry on Deism. 2600:6C52:6200:16E:A590:C847:2C49:6B89 (talk) 23:47, 11 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Think and believe means the same thing. There can't be a god. A god means a mind that started time off. Time cannot be started off by a mind, because for something to be started off by a mind, there must have been time before it was started off. So the concept of God is nonsensical. To think that stars, planets, life etc, was designed, is fallacious. To say stars, planets, life, etc need a designer but the designer doesn't, is the special pleading fallacy. Until a designer of star's planets, life, etc, shows up and demonstrates it's the designer, there's no good reason to think there is such a designer. Q123q321 (talk) 01:02, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

Projections on the global decline of irreligion and the growth of religion
Eric Kaufmann notes that demography is the most predictable of the social sciences.

Kaufmann, who authored the book Shall the Religious inherit the earth?, wrote about religion growing in the 21st century:


 * "I argue that 97% of the world's population growth is taking place in the developing world, where 95% of people are religious.


 * On the other hand, the secular West and East Asia has very low fertility and a rapidly aging population.."

Kaufmann makes a strong argument that religion is going to grow in its market share compared to nonreligion/irreligion. The article should note this matter.

I think the article should have a projections section.Knox490 (talk) 13:03, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

atheism vs philosophical physicalism vs scientific physicalism
Atheism (athéisme) is a weak metaphysical worldview because it doesn't include specific metaphysical answers. 'Scientific physicalism' (physicalisme scientifique) is stronger because it is based on the foundations of substantiality (David Deutsch, Chiara Marletto, Max Tegmark, etc.), information theory, physics, neuroscience, chemical [origin] abiogenesis of life, etc. 'Philosophical physicalism' (physicalisme philosophique; common physicalism) provides answers during debates, but it doesn't rigorously analyze the foundations of substantiality.

Not believing in a self-caused cosmogonic person doesn't mean that:
 * 1) You care about physicalist theories.
 * 2) Your physicalist theories are of the same nature.

Not all antisupernaturalists have the same agenda. It's like claiming that all theists act as a consciously united and coherent group. 2A02:2149:8B29:8900:4041:7D0E:B0A2:90F3 (talk) 01:44, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

bad page
The page gives percentages that don't believe a God exists, then says lower percentages are atheists. It has polls that seem way too low for atheists. What is life force or higher power? Why not simply ask do you believe in X, do you not believe n X, and do you not know if you believe in X?