What proportion of the world believes in God or a Higher Power?
Between 87.6 to 92.2% of the world’s population professes belief in God, deities or similarly understood Higher Power. Nationwide, in the U.S., this is an easier question to answer. Gallup, Harris, and other polls, including Kosmin (1990 survey of 113,000 Americans) consistently indicate that between about 91 and 96% of Americans say they believe in God. A worldwide figure is more difficult to ascertain, but a recent estimate based on a country-by-country study is available. Pitzer College sociologist Phil Zuckerman compiled country-by-country survey, polling and census numbers relating to atheism, agnosticism, disbelief in God and people who state they are non-religious or have no religious preference. These data were published in the chapter titled “Atheism: Contemporary Rates and Patterns” in The Cambridge Companion to Atheism, ed. by Michael Martin, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK (2005). Zuckerman totaled the survey-based and poll-based estimates of non-believers from th
