4.4 Global Atheist Civilizations

THE GLOBAL CIVILIZATION OF NO RELIGION ATHEISM

INTRODUCTION:

The civilization of Atheism is the youngest among the league of the world’s large civilizations. During the last century, it has grown to be the third-largest in the world in terms of its adherents, claiming approximately 1166 million persons constituting 15.2% of the world population. As is true for Christianity and Islam, the geographical footprint of the civilization of Atheism is universal. Its growth in the 20^th century and in the recent decades has been phenomenal, possibly faster than the remaining five of the world’s six major civilizations. The narrative we have just portrayed about the modern civilization of atheism reflects its strengths. However, if we look at its global distribution and the trajectory of its world, a counter-narrative about the failure of modern atheism to catch human imagination can also be built. Below we identify some of its vulnerabilities in terms of its prospects to sustain for millennia. The other fire has, after all, sustained themselves for a long time, one and half million for Islam as a civilization, four million for Christianity and longer than that for the remaining three, Hinduism, Buddhism and ‘local religions’ as one genre.

The regional distribution of the civilization of atheism is heavily concentrated in North Asia. That region houses 841 million or 77 % of the worldwide adherents of Atheism. Among the Sinic region, atheist 736 million are in China alone, representing 53% of the Chinese population; 63.8 million in Japan, representing 51% of the Japanese population; 23.5 million in South Korea representing 45% of the population we find it important to club them together partly to negate the quick assumption that the atheists of China are masking their real belief because the all-powerful communist party of China continues to adhere to atheism as a state policy. That, for example, is not the case in Japan where Atheism is widespread at 51% of the population. Furthermore, modern economic development and the prosperity or freedom from worldly deprivations is not a compelling cause for converting to Atheism in Japan can be argued by comparing the per capita income of Japan with its Euro-American counterparts in the league of OECO, the organist ion of Economic Cooperation and Developments, constituting ______ Euro-American members with Japan as the only Afro-Asian member. The average GNI per capita income in the OECD is ______ USD@PPP, in Japan, it is _____ USD @ PPP. However the share of Atheism in Japan's population is _____ % and among the remaining members of OECD, it is _____%. The vast majority of the remaining OECD has retained its Christian heritage as a civilization.

Because of the above-mentioned features of 72% of global atheists, residing in the Sinic regions, we have mapped the following empirical map.

Rather than sticking to any given narrative about the prospects of Atheism to be a long-time member of the world’s major civilizations, we prefer to lay out the Barometer based data and facilitate a discussion. That would be truer to the logic of ‘Civilizations as a space for power play’.

Table # 3

GLOBAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE

CIVILIZATION OF ATHEISM

And its sub-civilizations

GROWTH IN CIVILIZATION OF ATHEISM DURING THE LAST ONE CENTURY

We will address this issue during the course of suitable exercises in the next section of this chapter devote to exercises.

GLOBAL ATHEIST CIVILIZATION DASHBOARD