[Stats] Why the gods are not winning

"A myth is gaining ground. The myth seems plausible enough. The proposition is that after God died in the secular 20th century, He is back in a big way as people around the world again find faith. [...]

The evangelical authors of the WCE lament that no Christian "in 1900 expected the massive defections from Christianity that subsequently took place in Western Europe due to secularism…. and in the Americas due to materialism…. The number of nonreligionists…. throughout the 20th century has skyrocketed from 3.2 million in 1900, to 697 million in 1970, and on to 918 million in AD 2000…. Equally startling has been the meteoritic growth of secularism…. Two immense quasi-religious systems have emerged at the expense of the world's religions: agnosticism…. and atheism…. From a miniscule presence in 1900, a mere 0.2% of the globe, these systems…. are today expanding at the extraordinary rate of 8.5 million new converts each year, and are likely to reach one billion adherents soon. A large percentage of their members are the children, grandchildren or the great-great-grandchildren of persons who in their lifetimes were practicing Christians""

edge.org May 1 , 2007

[Stats] Atheism: Contemporary Rates and Patterns

"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.

[...]

According to Inglehart et al (2004), 31% of those in Norway do not believe in God. According to Bondeson (2003), 54% of Norwegians said that they did not believe in “a personal God.” According to Greeley (2003), 41% of Norwegians do not believe in God, although only 10% self-identify as “atheist.” According to Gustafsson and Pettersson (2002), 72% of Norwegians do not believe in a “personal God.” According to Froese (2001), 45% of Norwegians are either atheist or agnostic."

This chapter is forth-coming in the Cambridge Companion to Atheism, edited by Michael Martin, Cambridge University Press, 2005

A very thorough summary! Being Norwegian I took out the part about Norway as an example.