Why I Believe Most People Are Not “True” Atheists

A google search (at Pew Research Center etc) or a wikipedia check will tell you the top six religions of the world consist of the following (ranked by # of followers for each group - data is a few years old, when world population stood at 7.3 billion):

1. Christianity, 2.3 billion
2. Islam, 1.8B
3. Atheism/Irreligion, 1.2B
4. Hinduism, 1.15B
5. Buddhism, 521 million
6. Chinese Traditional Religions, 300-400M

As someone fascinated by all things religious, I am not surprised that most of the world is religious (83%) vs irreligious (1.2B/7.3B or 17%). What surprised me, as someone born in China, an officially atheist country, is that the majority (or at least half) of Chinese are found to be religious (50-53%). 30% of us adhere to one of our traditional religions (Taoism, Confucianism etc), 18.2% are Buddhists, while 5% practice other religions (mainly Islam or Christianity).

Atheists or irreligious people make up 47-50% of China''s population. In absolute numbers, China has the largest number of atheists in the world, yet in terms of %, Chinese are not that different from the rest of humanity. Atheists are in the 60-75% range in European countries like Sweden, Denmark, Czech or Estonia, 50-60% in neighboring Hong Kong, Korea and Japan.

Due to China''s large population, even smaller religions there have significant number of followers. For example, Christians, at 2-3%, number 30-40 million, while Muslims, at 1-2%, number some 20-25 million. In absolute numbers, China has more Christians than any European country except Russia, and more Islamic followers than most Middle Eastern nations except Iran/Turkey.

I think by far the largest religion in China is ancestor worship - practically every ethnic Chinese (ie,1.25 billion Han people, 90% of total population of 1.4b) has practiced it in one form or another. Is ancestor worship a religion or part of Taoism or Confucianism? I am not too sure, but it sounds awfully like a religion no matter how it is classified if you read the following description about the practice:

"Ancestor worship is a religious practice based on the belief that deceased family members have a continued existence, that the spirits of deceased ancestors will look after the family, take an interest in the affairs of the world, and possess the ability to influence the fortune of the living." (www.nationsonline.org)

Peter Kreeft, Boston College philosophy professor, an ardent proponent for arguments for the existence of God, claims that 99% of the people in the world believe in God''s existence. I used to think Kreeft''s claim is outrageous. Not anymore, after I have thought it through.

If half of Chinese, who claim to be atheists, still can persuade themselves to practice ancestor worship regularly, which means they are at least open to the idea of some kind of spiritual existence, how many Chinese are absolute, hard-core, convinced atheists?

We may not believe in a God in the Judeo-Christian or Islamic sense, and we may not participate in organized religions as average Americans do (reportedly 50% or more Americans are regular church goers), we nonetheless believe in the spirit more or less as much as the rest of humanity. In other words, we Chinese have our own definition of "God" - even if we don''t call that "thing" by "that name."

So, I agree with Professor Kreeft''s claim that the vast majority of people (maybe even 99%) in the world believe in God, and - let me add - we believe in God or gods with different definitions, and we believe in God or gods even when we deny its/their existence.