Fast facts
- Began
- Doubt is ancient; organised atheism and humanism date from the Enlightenment, and the modern unaffiliated surge from the late 20th century
- Founder / origin
- No founder. Influential voices include David (PBUH) Hume, Bertrand Russell, and more recently Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris
- Followers
- About 1.2 billion religiously unaffiliated worldwide — the third-largest group after Christians and Muslims
- Figure from
- Pew Research Center, Global Religious Landscape (2020 estimates); the 2021 Census for England and Wales recorded 37.2% reporting no religion
- Where
- China, Japan, western and northern Europe, Australia, the United States, urban Britain
- Scriptures
- None. Reference points include the Humanist Manifestos and the popular science-and-religion literature
- View of God
- None affirmed. Atheists hold there is no God; agnostics hold it cannot be known; most of the unaffiliated are simply indifferent
Distinguish three very different people
- The convinced atheist: has arguments, has read some of the literature, wants a real debate
- The agnostic: open, unsure, often more interested in whether God can be known than in whether He exists
- The 'nothing in particular': the largest group by far — not hostile, simply never asked the question, and often still believes in something
Typical positions
Morality comes from empathy, evolution and social contract rather than from God. The universe is explained by physics without needing a designer. Religion is explained sociologically as a human product. Suffering counts against a good and all-powerful God. Extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence, and religious claims have not met that bar.
Most of the time the objection you hear is not really an argument about cosmology. It is about the behaviour of religious people, about women, about violence, or about a bad experience with a church.
Why the group is growing
In Britain and much of Europe the shift is driven less by argument than by disaffiliation from Christianity. Pew's projections nevertheless expect the unaffiliated share of the world population to fall by 2060, because religious populations are younger and have more children.
The Islamic view
Where it meets Islam, and where it differs
Common ground
- A demand for evidence and for reasons, which Islam welcomes — the Qur'an repeatedly asks people to look, reflect and reason.
- Rejection of blind imitation and inherited belief; the Qur'an criticises exactly that in those who said they simply follow their fathers.
- Rejection of clergy claiming authority over conscience, and of religion used as a tool of power.
- Honest disgust at hypocrisy and at religion practised without justice.
Where Islam differs
- Islam holds that the universe has a beginning and therefore a cause, and that design and order point beyond themselves.
- Islam holds that objective moral obligation needs a lawgiver; without one, 'wrong' reduces to preference or convention.
- Islam holds that revelation is a real source of knowledge, and offers the Qur'an itself as the evidence rather than asking for blind acceptance.
- Islam answers suffering with a life that continues, a perfect accounting, and a wisdom that is not always visible from inside the test.
Talking points
- Ask what would change their mind. If the answer is 'nothing', the conversation is not really about evidence, and it is worth saying so kindly.
- Start with the universe having a beginning: everything that begins has a cause, and an infinite regress does not explain anything. Keep it short and let them respond.
- On morality, ask whether torturing a child for fun is actually wrong, or only disapproved of. Most people will not accept the second answer, and that is where the conversation gets interesting.
- On the Qur'an, do not assert — invite. Its preservation, its challenge to produce its like, and what it says about the human being are things they can examine for themselves.
- When the objection is really about Muslims rather than about God, do not defend the indefensible. Agree that wrong is wrong, then bring it back to the question of truth.
Avoid
- Do not quote the Qur'an as proof to someone who does not accept it as authority. Establish the Creator first.
- Do not use the 'science in the Qur'an' arguments loosely; a scientifically literate atheist will take them apart, and rightly.
- Do not treat unbelief as stupidity. Many have thought about this far more than the average believer.
- Do not chase a win in front of an audience. Plant something they will still be turning over next week.
Sources
- Pew Research Center, Global Religious Landscape (2020) and The Future of World Religions (2015)
- Office for National Statistics, Census 2021: Religion, England and Wales
- Qur'an 52:35–36; 2:170; 3:190–191; 2:23
This overview describes the tradition as its own followers describe it. The Islamic view is kept in its own section above so the description stays honest.
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