| Country | Percent Atheist |
|---|---|
| East Germany | 88.20% |
| Slovenia | 29.80 |
| Russia | 27.30 |
| Israel | 25.60 |
| Netherlands | 24.10 |
| Hungary | 23.30 |
| Norway | 14.90 |
| Britain | 14.00 |
| West Germany | 12.10 |
| New Zealand | 11.50 |
Note that these terms are from Greeley's statistical study and are noted here not as an endorsement of the terminology, but so that statistical researchers will be able to identify which columns are the source of the data in the summary tables presented on this page. "Agnosticism" and "atheism" are widely accepted as have different meanings. Based on the questions used in the survey, Greeley's category "softest core atheists" fall under the common definition of agnostics, which is why their numbers have not been included in the "atheist" totals.
Note: The Communist nations of China, Cuba and North Korea were not included in this study. These countries may or may not be among the "Top 10 Most Atheist Countries" in the world. Sociologically, Communism is as much a religion as other "traditional" religions such as Islam or Christianity, although it promotes (often forcibly) beliefs which would categorize its adherents as atheists. So in Communist countries, large proportions of people may be properly classified as atheists and also Communists, but they would not be considered secular or "nonreligious" in the sociological sense.
Source: International Social Survey Program's study of religion in 1991, as reported in "The Demand for Religion: Hard Core Atheism and 'Supply Side' Theory" by Wolfgang Jagodzinski (University of Cologne) and Andrew Greeley (University of Chicago, University of Arizona).
Adherents.com plans to revise the "Top 10" list presented on this page through the use of our entire collection of statistics, without relying primarily on one source (Greeley's paper). Accurate data for China and North Korea remains unavailable. We do not believe the composition of this list will change considerably.
We have already pointed out the possibility that North Korea and China should be on this list but were not included among countries Greeley had data for. Still, William Slawski wrote the following criticism of this page (3 April 2000):
The use of the term ["softest core atheists"] is carried over from the source of the statistics,which was a paper called "The Demand for Religion: Hard Core Atheism and "Supply Side" Theory."When using statistics to make a presentation, it is often troublesome to remove them too far from the context from which they were originally presented.The abstract at the top of the paper ends with the following sentence: "Finally it considers the one thoroughly secularized country -- East Germany -- and concludes that the 'demand' for religion can be diminished considerably if a ruthless government takes control of the process of religious socialization." The paper studied only 17 countries. The Adherents.com site entitiles their web page "Top 10 Countries With Highest Percentage of Atheists (1991)." The original source of the statistics wasn't an inquiry into which countries had the highest rate of atheism, but rather the effects of oppressive governments on religion. To call the adherents.com web page misleading would be accurate.
