Czech Out the Atheists: A Representative Study of Religiosity in the Czech Republic

Abstract

ABSTRACT In the secularizing Christian world the Czech Republic holds a leading position: it is the country with the highest percentage of religiously unaffiliated people in the world. The trend toward the secularization of the Czech Republic is closely related to the nation’s history. This study aims to explore the stratification of religious beliefs in different sociodemographic groups and to assess the differences between believers and nonbelievers. The survey was conducted on a representative sample from the Czech Republic. A total of 1,800 participants (46.6 ± 17.4 years; 48.7% of men) were included in the study. Bayesian statistical analysis methods were used. In this study, over 70% of Czechs refer to themselves as non-religious. The most important impact on a person’s attitude toward religion seems to be their family upbringing. The main difference between Czech believers and nonbelievers was found in their perception of the qualities of God. This study shows that Czech believers are in many aspects similar to those in Western Europe. On the other hand, Czech nonbelievers should not be seen as complete atheists; they are just religious skeptics who tend to fulfil their spirituality needs outside traditional religion.