What is the approximate number or believers in the world?

Answer 1

There are many estimates. However, the most official update says that 12.7% of the world do not subscribe to any religion. 2.5% are atheists. It should be remembered that these figures are not reliable. In many parts of the world being openly atheist is not acceptable and prevents easy acceptance with the local society for business, friendship or political office. In in some cultures it is a death sentence. Atheists in many regions tend to keep their opinions to themselves and blend in with the local theist population.

Answer

Phil Zuckerman (Cambridge Companion to Atheism, Atheism: Contemporary Numbers and Patterns) says the worldwide total number of atheists, agnostics, and non-believers in God is somewhere between 505 million and 749 million. His numbers are conservative - were he to factor in a mere 0.25 per cent of such highly populated countries as Egypt, Brazil, Indonesia, Nigeria, Burma, Tanzania and Iran as non-believers, his estimates would be significantly larger.

Nonbelievers as a group come in fourth place after Christianity (2 billion), Islam (1.2 billion) and Hinduism (900 million) in terms of global ranking of commonly held belief systems.

Answer 2

Many will tell you otherwise, but 'Atheism' is not a belief; it is a little illogical to think of atheism as a specific, coherent belief. If you asked someone: "What are your interests and hobbies?" and she said "My most avid interest is in non-skydiving!" what exactly would you know about the person's interests? Nothing at all. There are some characteristics that might be shared by many atheists, but this does not make it a coherent belief system in and of itself. Some people coming from certain religious/faith traditions may believe that since an atheist is rejecting 'my' belief system, then he (the atheist) is accepting the fate of an eternity in hell, deliberately engaging in a life of sin without any hope of salvation, and these make up the 'belief' of atheism. But this is disingenuous at best. A clearer way to ask the question would be "How many people do not believe that there is a God?" or "How many people reject the existence of God?"

According to a recent poll, 16% of the United States has no religious affiliation and 4% of that is either atheist or agnostic
Atheism isn't a belief system and for a variety of reasons (legal and social) it's impossible to certain about numbers, but around 15% of the World's population identify themselves as non-religious or atheist.

Answer 3

It is difficult to be sure; many people simply don't think about religion, many are agnostic but, for any practical purpose, atheistic. Also many Buddhists do not believe in god. Around 2.3% of people in the world identify themselves as atheist with around 11.9% as non-religious.

Answer 4

Two studies carried out by Encyclopedia Britannica indicate that between 2.4 and 3.8% of the worlds population may be atheist, but it is difficult to make an accurate count as people interpret the meaning of the word in many different ways. There are also unknown numbers of people who are unsure on the matter, or would face discrimination if they were open about their atheism. Therefore, census and survey information is not completely reliable on producing hard numbers for this demographic.

What the data does seem to show is that western nations and current or former Communist countries have the highest number of atheists. For example, a poll of Europe in 2005 estimated that 33% of the population of France identified as atheist.

Answer 5

The short answer is no-one knows; between 2 and 11% of people call themselves atheist, 10-22% describe themselves as non-religious - however, in many countries there is enormous social or legal pressure to keep quiet about being an atheist. Based on that probably around a billion people in the world are atheist or non-believers.