Think you know the 'nones'? Pew study reveals nonreligious adults' nuanced beliefs

Those who are religiously unaffiliated are less likely to hold spiritual beliefs or engage in religious practices — but in a number of countries, many such “nones” have nuanced beliefs, and still hold there’s an unseen spiritual reality and life after death, despite their negative views of religion’s impact on society, according to a new survey.

On Sept. 4, Pew Research Center released its latest findings on “nones” — self-described atheists, agnostics and those who cite their religion as “nothing in particular” — based on nationally representative surveys of 22 nations across the globe, including the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

Drawing from surveys that encompassed 36 nations, Pew focused on the 22-nation subset in which “nones” constituted a large enough sample to analyze separately.

Across those 22 nations, Pew found that “about a fifth or more of ‘nones’ believe in life after death.”

At the same time, those segments can vary widely among nations, with 19 percent of Hungary’s “nones” claiming either a definite or probable possibility of life after death, and 65 percent of the demographic doing the same in Peru. The South American nation was among seven of the 22 nations Pew studied where more than 50 percent of “nones” said they believe in life after death.

Pew also found that “large shares of ‘nones’ in some countries say ‘there is something spiritual beyond the natural world, even if we cannot see it.'” It pointed to Mexico and Brazil, where respectively 61 percent and 65 percent of those who are religiously unaffiliated “express this belief.”

“Many religiously unaffiliated adults also express belief in God,” said Pew, highlighting South Africa (77 percent), Brazil (92 percent), Colombia (86 percent) and Chile (69 percent).

However, Pew noted, that trend isn’t in evidence in Europe and Australia.

In the latter, only 18 percent of “nones” profess a belief in God, while in Sweden the number is just 10 percent and even less (9 percent) in Hungary.

In the U.S., less than half (45 percent) of “nones” admit belief in God, according to a 2023 Pew survey.

Many religiously unaffiliated people tend to believe that animals “can have spirits or spiritual energies,” said Pew. It noted at least 75 percent of “nones” in Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Greece share this view.

Importantly, Pew underscored that “nonbelief isn’t always the main reason people have no religious affiliation.”

Pew noted its 2023 U.S. survey found that 30 percent of “nones” cited “bad experiences with religious people” as “an extremely or very important reason they are nonreligious.”

A roughly equal share in the same survey (32 percent) pointed to nonbelief in God or a higher power as why they identify as “nones.” But an even larger number (47 percent) shared they identify as “nones” because they “don’t like religious organizations.”

While “sizable shares of ‘nones'” in Pew’s 22-nation subset do admit to some spiritual beliefs, Pew also found “some express a more consistently secular outlook” that rejects belief in God, the afterlife and a transcendent spiritual reality.

That’s the case in Sweden, where more than half (52 percent) of adults have no religious affiliation, and 28 percent of the total adult population affirms an across-the-board secular outlook on those points.

Adults in Australia (24 percent), the Netherlands (24 percent) and South Korea (23 percent) share similar across-the-board views, noted Pew.

By comparison, just 8 percent of the U.S. public (where 29 percent are religiously unaffiliated) express a consistently secular opinion on God, the afterlife and spiritual reality. Similarly only 14 percent of Canadians (out of 41 percent religiously unaffiliated) and only 2 percent of Mexicans (out of 20 percent religiously unaffiliated) hold such consistently secular views.

Pew said that in “nearly all” of the 22 countries it focused on, the largest group of “nones” are those who list their religious affiliation as “nothing in particular,” rather than identifying as atheists or agnostics. In most cases, that share — especially in Latin America and Asia — outranked the combined totals of atheists and agnostics.

Two exceptions were Greece and Italy, where Pew found atheism to be “the most common affiliation among ‘nones.'”

The other exception was France, where atheists were the largest single group (21 percent) of “nones,” but were not a majority. The remainder of France’s 44 percent religiously unaffiliated population identified as either “nothing in particular” (17 percent) or “agnostic” (6 percent).

Among the countries Pew studied, it found “adults ages 18 to 39 are much more likely than older adults to identify as ‘nones.'”

Generally, “adults with more education are somewhat more likely than those with less education to be religiously unaffiliated,” said Pew.

Pew also found that “among religiously unaffiliated adults, women are generally more likely than men to hold most of the religious and spiritual beliefs asked about in the survey.”

Women who are “nones” also are typically “more likely than men to believe in reincarnation,” said Pew.

But as for belief in God, religiously unaffiliated women only outpaced their male counterparts in “four of the 15 countries with sufficient sample sizes to analyze differences by gender.”

Pew’s data also found “many ‘nones’ express negative views about religion’s influence on society.” It found religiously unaffiliated adults in 12 of the 22 countries were more likely to say religion encourages intolerance, with nearly three out of four “nones” in Australia, Sweden and Germany holding this view. A majority of “nones” in every country claimed religion “encourages superstitious thinking.”

“Across the countries surveyed, a median of 53 percent say religion mostly hurts society, while a median of 38 percent say it mostly helps,” said Pew.

In addition, Pew found that “majorities of ‘nones’ in nearly every country we analyzed do not think it is important for their national leader to have strong religious beliefs.”

Pew’s data also highlighted the complex and at times puzzling nature of religious self-identification.

In the United Kingdom, for example, 8 percent of atheists expressed a belief in God. Pew noted the inconsistency, explaining that “small shares of respondents in many places say they are atheists in answer to a religious identification question, yet they say they believe in God or affirm other religious or spiritual beliefs in response to other questions.”

Similarly, a number of self-identified Christians in several nations do not profess a belief in God. In Sweden, for example, “just 58 percent of self-identified Christians say they believe in God,” said Pew.

Pew noted that some scholars of religion think such inconsistency “actually is the norm, not the exception, when one looks deeply into the religious identities, beliefs and practices of people around the world.”

Pew’s data was collected in several surveys conducted in 2023 and 2024, with the overall combined number of respondents exceeding 84,000.

The study was part of the Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures project, which Pew said “analyzes religious change and its impact on societies around the world.”