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Studies on the demographics of atheism have concluded that self-identified atheists comprise anywhere from 2% to 11% of the world's population, whereas irreligious individuals comprise anywhere from 10% to 22% of the world's population.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=The World Fact Book: Religions )〕〔〔 Several comprehensive global polls on the subject have been conducted by Gallup International: their 2012 poll found that 13% of respondents were "convinced atheists" and their 2015 poll indicated that 11% were "convinced atheists".〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Global Index of Religion and Atheism )〕 In Scandinavia and East Asia, and particularly in China, atheists and the nonreligious are the majority.〔 Of the global atheist and nonreligious population, 76% reside in Asia and the Pacific, while the remainder reside in Europe (12%), North America (5%), Latin America and the Caribbean (4%), sub-Saharan Africa (2%) and the Middle East and North Africa (less than 1%).〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.pewforum.org/global-religious-landscape-unaffiliated.aspx )〕 In Africa and South America, atheists are typically in the single digits.〔 Historical records of atheist philosophy span several millennia. Atheistic schools are found in early Indian thought and have existed from the times of the historical Vedic religion.〔 〕 Western atheism has its roots in pre-Socratic Greek philosophy, but did not emerge as a distinct world-view until the late Enlightenment.〔. "Atheism had its origins in Ancient Greece but did not emerge as an overt and avowed belief system until late in the Enlightenment." 〕 Discrepancies exist among sources as to how atheist and religious demographics are changing. Social scientific assessment of the extent of "atheism" in various populations is problematic. First, in most of the world outside of East Asia most populations are believers in either a monotheistic or polytheistic system. Consequently, questions to assess non belief often take the form of any negation of the prevailing belief rather than an assertion of positive atheism and these will then be accounted accurately to rising "atheism".〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Millennials Losing Faith In God: Survey )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Section 6: Religion and Social Values | Pew Research Center for the People and the Press )〕 According to the 2012 Gallup International survey, the number of atheists is on the rise across the world, with religiosity generally declining. However, other global studies have indicated that global atheism may be in decline due to irreligious countries having the lowest birth rates in the world and religious countries having higher birth rates in general.〔 ==Studies and statistics== The demographics of atheism are substantially difficult to quantify. Different people interpret atheism and related terms differently, and it can be hard to draw boundaries between atheism, nonreligious beliefs, and nontheistic religious and spiritual beliefs. Furthermore, atheists may not report themselves as such, to prevent suffering from social stigma, discrimination, and persecution in some countries. Because some governments have strongly promoted atheism and others have strongly condemned it, atheism may be either over-reported or under-reported for different countries. There is a great deal of room for debate as to the accuracy of any method of estimation, as the opportunity for misreporting (intentionally or not) a category of people without an organizational structure is high. Also, many surveys on religious identification ask people to identify themselves as "agnostics" or "atheists", which is potentially confusing, since these terms are interpreted differently, with some identifying themselves as being agnostic atheists. Additionally, many of these surveys only gauge the number of irreligious people, not the number of actual atheists, or group the two together. For example, research indicates that the fastest growing religious status may be "no religion" in the United States, but this includes all kinds of atheists, agnostics, and theists. Non-religious people make up 9.66%, while one fifth of them are atheists.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Demographics of atheism」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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