Agnosticism/atheism is now the most common view among British men

[muriel_volestrangler]

and among 18-34 year olds:
Poll question: Do you believe in God?

      Yes   No  Don't know
  Men 39%  43%  19%
Women 49%  29%  22%
18-34 37%  45%  19%

Also, about one-eighth of the adult population actually attends a place of worship several times a year (28% of the 44% who believe in God).

These look like more agnostics/atheists than earlier polls have shown (one caveat: the poll is taken from an internet panel of pre-registered respondents. While it is weighted for age, gender, 'social class', region, voting and newspaper reading habits, that weighting may not transfer to religious opinion).

The difference between men and women is notable, I think; it matches my experience, but I haven't noticed it in past surveys.

http://www.yougov.com/yougov_website/asp_besPollArchives/pdf/STI040101003_2.pdf
also: http://www.travel.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/12/27/nfaith27.xml&sSheet=/portal/2004/12/27/ixportal.html
(note: the Telegraph report makes it clear that the "No, I don't believe in God" numbers include many who describe themselves as agnostic).

[trotsky]

1. How interesting!

I wonder why there is a such a gender gap.

[fshrink]

2. Atheist women are hot!!!!

Even more so in the UK. Although I catch myself wondering whether the percentages invert from age 34 and above...
As an aside, statistics is not reliable because the mode of response induces self-selection bias (as in mail-in polls). Oh, well... feels good anyways...

[progressoid]

3. Makes me wonder what other parts of the 'western' world are like

Of course it's also rather depressing to know how populated we are with believers here in the good ole usa. Every day I feel more and more like I've been living in the wrong place and the wrong time.

[onager]

4. Cheer up! We're Number 4 world-wide!

That's according to adherents.com, which "estimates" the worldwide religious population.

Now some of those "estimates" should probably be taken with a grain of salt as big as the Biblical Mrs. Lot.

For example, the Catholic Church has been claiming 60 million American members for DECADES now...ever since the 1940's, I think. You see the "60 million" number thrown around by Catholic DU'ers all the time.

But that represents the number of BAPTIZED Catholics, not currently practicing members. And Catholics are baptized as helpless infants, when they can't protest. AFAIK, the Church doesn't track how many people leave. But we can guess from the news stories about dioceses closing down and churches going empty in Boston--one of the most Catholic parts of the country.

The Top Ten:

1. Christianity: 2 billion
2. Islam: 1.3 billion
3. Hinduism: 900 million
4. Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist: 850 million
5. Buddhism: 360 million
6. Chinese traditional religion: 225 million
7. Primal-indigenous: 150 million
8. African Traditional & Diasporic: 95 million
9. Sikhism: 23 million
10. Juche: 19 million

You can see the whole list here: http://adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html