How many atheists are there in the world?

[Darwinian]

One report has the number as high as 50%

This may seem high but it must be noted that a lot of people subscribe to a faith not because they are true believes but because they live in an environment where professing their lack of belief would be detrimental to their survival or well being.

I've also come across many jews, for example, who while maintaining that they are jewish and following the traditions of their faith, when pushed, admit that they don't actually believe in any form of god at all.

For example, what are most atheists to do in predominantly religious cultures such as Iran, Pakistan or certain bible bashing U.S. states? They would be far more likely to simple go along with the majority and blend in rather than stand up and say it's all crap! After all, in many of these places it would be a matter of life and death. This is just human nature.

When I was younger and worked for the parks dept I was talking to my colleague and just happened to mention that I didn't believe in God. His reaction was one of stunned incredulity and actually got quite angry and spent the rest of his time trying to get me to 'see sense'. Now, this was in the pretty secular part of the south of England. You can see that if I was in a more religious part of the world where being an atheist was frowned upon I might have just kept quite or even lied and said I was a Christian.

To me this is typical tribal behaviour and you could imagine the scenario where an atheist was to 'come out' and then be pilloried and abused by other members of the community, even by fellow closet atheists who are relieved that any suspicion has been diverted from them.

If this is the case as I believe it to be it therefore follows that there must be some tipping point where the number of open atheists and non believers are such that any closet atheists grow more and more in confidence about professing their own personal worldview without fear of ridicule and reprisals.

This is why the so called 'atheist movement' is so important as far from having the agenda to convert true believers from their faith it simply allows those who are trapped in a lie to live their lives openly and honestly and if it forces others who have been the victim of indoctrination, propaganda and irrational thinking to re-evaluate their philosophies then all the better.