Irreligion in Croatia

The growing population of irreligious Croats has been attributed to modernization. Even though the 2011 census showed that 4.57% of Croats considered themselves irreligious, Gallup polls conducted in 2007 and 2008 found that 30.5% of respondents did not consider religion important in their lives. The Japanese research center, Dentsu, conducted a survey in 2006 concluding that 13.2% of Croats declare themselves irreligious, compared to the 7% found by a 2010 Eurobarometer survey across Europe.[1][2]

Irreligious Croatians

"Without a god, without a master", slogan of atheistic campaign from 2009
Total population
Population in Croatia: 4,284,889 Not religious or spiritual: 301,371 (2011)
Regions with significant populations
Istria County, Croatian Littoral, Gorski kotar, Zagreb

Evidence suggests irreligion is the fastest growing religious status in Croatia.[3] The number of agnostics and skeptics rose by more than 20 times in the last ten years, while the number of atheists almost doubled. The increase in agnosticism is also attributed to public figures declaring themselves agnostic, such as President Ivo Josipović.[4] Several irreligious organizations were founded in the 2000s, such as Protagora, David, Glas razuma - Pokret za sekularnu Hrvatsku, Nisam vjernik. They organized public actions such as the "Conference of reason" and campaign "Without a god, without a master".[5]

Demography

According to the 2011 census, there are 32,518 agnostics, 163,375 atheists, and slightly more than 93,000 refused to answer. The only counties where the number of irreligious people exceeded 30,000 were Istria, Primorje-Gorski Kotar and Split-Dalmatia . The highest number of irreligious people live in Istria (15.88%) and Primorje-Gorski Kotar (12.11%) counties and the City of Zagreb (11.56%).[6]

Locally, the largest share of irreligious people in Croatia is in Medulin municipality (23.51%), and from the cities, in Pula (23.01%). Town of Rovinj is the only town which has more than 20% of the irreligious people in addition to two Zagreb neighborhoods - Donji grad and Gornji Grad–Medveščak. In the first 20 Croatian municipalities and cities with the highest proportions of irreligious population are mostly Istrian cities and municipalities of Istria and Primorje-Gorski Kotar counties, then central neighborhoods of Zagreb and the cities of Rijeka and Vis.[6] Considering each county individually, it can be seen that the largest share of irreligious population generally lives in towns in several counties, often county seats.

On the other hand, Dalmatian municipalities Kijevo and Lokvičići have no irreligious residents. In 20 local administrative units with the lowest percentage of irreligious population (less than 0.33%), mostly are municipalities in southwestern and eastern Croatian counties, and the only city among them is the City of Otok in Vukovar-Srijem County with 0.28% of irreligious population.[6]

Table

Based on official data from the 2001 and 2011 censuses, following data on the distribution of religious and irreligious population in Croatia can be ascertained.[6][7]

	2001 census				2011 census
County	Religious		Irreligious		Religious			Irreligious
	Number	%	Number	%	Number	%	% change	Number	%	% change
Zagreb	299,123	96.59	10,573	3.41	302,871	95.36	1.25 u	14,735	4.64	39.36 t
Krapina-Zagorje	139,449	97.91	2,983	2.09	129,297	97.29	7.28 i	3,595	2.71	20.52 s
Sisak-Moslavina	174,856	94.32	10,531	5.68	162,831	94.43	6.88 j	9,608	5.57	8.76 f
Karlovac	134,223	94.67	7,564	5.33	121,914	94.58	9.17 d	6,985	5.42	7.65 g
Varaždin	179,444	97.12	5,325	2.88	167,591	95.25	6.61 k	8,360	4.75	57.00 v
Koprivnica-Križevci	120,728	97.00	3,739	3.00	111,157	96.17	7.93 g	4,427	3.83	18.40 r
Bjelovar-Bilogora	126,219	94.84	6,865	5.16	113,595	94.85	10.00 c	6,169	5.15	10.14 e
Primorje-Gorski Kotar	273,410	89.49	32,095	10.51	260,326	87.89	4.79 m	35,869	12.11	11.76 l
Lika-Senj	52,136	97.13	1,541	2.87	49,503	97.20	5.05 l	1,424	2.80	7.59 h
Virovitica-Podravina	89,748	96.10	3,641	3.90	81,683	96.28	8.99 e	3,153	3.72	13.40 c
Požega-Slavonia	82,959	96.65	2,872	3.35	75,678	96.98	8.78 f	2,356	3.02	17.97 b
Brod-Posavina	171,494	97.02	5,271	2.98	153,910	97.06	10.25 b	4,665	2.94	11.50 d
Zadar	155,010	95.66	7,035	4.34	162,045	95.31	4.54 v	7,972	4.69	13.32 o
Osijek-Baranja	316,599	95.79	13,907	4.21	291,534	95.57	7.92 h	13,498	4.43	2.94 i
Šibenik-Knin	108,088	95.75	4,803	4.25	103,789	94.89	3.98 p	5,586	5.11	16.30 p
Vukovar-Srijem	199,023	97.19	5,745	2.81	175,091	97.53	12.02 a	4,430	2.47	22.89 a
Split-Dalmatia	434,740	93.76	28,936	6.24	422,328	92.86	2.86 q	32,470	7.14	12.21 n
Istria	176,886	85.72	29,458	14.28	175,014	84.12	1.06 s	33,041	15.88	12.16 m
Dubrovnik-Neretva	116,886	95.13	5,984	4.87	116,148	94.76	0.63 t	6,420	5.24	7.29 j
Međimurje	113,685	96.00	4,741	4.00	108,549	95.38	4.52 o	5,255	4.62	10.84 k
City of Zagreb	715,972	91.89	63,173	8.11	698,664	88.44	2.42 r	91,353	11.56	44.61 u
Croatia	4,180,678	94.21	256,782	5.79	3,983,518	92.97	4.72 n	301,371	7.03	17.36 q

Research

A general scarcity of scientific research on irreligion in Croatia means that there is no way to know what proportions of subgroups such as voters, workers in specific industries, etc. are irreligious.[8]

International longitudinal research Aufbruch conducted in 1997 in ten countries of Central and Eastern Europe revealed that in Croatia, 31.5% of respondents considered themselves very religious, 42.6% somewhat religious, while the remaining 26% said either that they are not religious, or that they are somewhat or completely irreligious.[8] On the question which examined the image of God, 25.6% of respondents said they sometimes do not believe in God or do not believe in him at all.

Research of the irreligious' attitudes toward religion and faith, revealed that all respondents differentiate religion and faith, and some church and religion. Among the critics of religion, respondents usually cited control and deceive of the masses, financial interest action, fundamentalism arising from religion, aggressive intrusion into the social sphere, the separation of people and imposing one value system as the only correct one, while those who expressed a positive attitude emphasized that religion plays an important role in society and history.[8]

Irreligion in politics

Although a connection between religion and political preferences has not been rigorously studied, there is evidence of correlation with five out of six Croatian presidential elections resulting in presidents who declared themselves irreligious. Ivica Račan, 7th Prime Minister, Zoran Milanović, 10th Prime Minister and 5th President of Croatia,[9] Many public figures are self-declared atheists: Vesna Pusić, former First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign and European Affairs, Milanka Opačić, former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Social Policy and Youth, Šime Lučin, former Interior Minister, MP Marija Lugarić.[10] Some prominent leaders of New Atheist activist organizations, namely Neven Barković from Nisam vjernik, publicly expressed support for US-led intervention against Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in 2013.[11]

See also

• Religion in Croatia
• Irreligion

References

1. "図録▽世界各国の宗教". .ttcn.ne.jp. Retrieved 2016-07-20.
2. "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2010-12-15. Retrieved 2012-10-16.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
3. "Nevjernici u Hrvatskoj u porastu – Protagora". Protagora.hr. 2012-12-17. Archived from the original on 2013-12-15. Retrieved 2016-07-20.
4. "Obrazovanje je glavni neprijatelj Crkve - H-Alter - Udruga za medijsku kulturu". H-Alter. Retrieved 2016-07-20.
5. Piše: srijeda, 16.1.2013. 20:24 (2013-01-16). "Skup razuma: "Nećemo šutke promatrati kako Crkva pruža pipke i odvlači društvo u srednji vijek" - Vijesti". Index.hr. Retrieved 2016-07-20.
6. http://www.dzs.hr/Hrv/censuses/census2011/results/xls/Grad_03_HR.xls
7. "SAS Output". Dzs.hr. Retrieved 2016-07-20.
8. "Vjera u obrazovanje i obrazovanje u vjeri. Stavovi i iskustva nereligioznih roditelja prema religiji i vjeronauku u javnim školama u Republici Hrvatskoj | Branko Ančić". Academia.edu. 1970-01-01. Retrieved 2016-07-20.
9. Pongračić/CROPIX (2011-06-04). "Milanović: Kršten sam i oženjen u crkvi, ali vjernik nisam. Kao i svaki čovjek, tragam za smislom -Jutarnji List". Jutarnji.hr. Retrieved 2016-07-20.
10. "Blog evolutionis » Poznati hrvatski ateisti i agnostici". Blog.skeptik.kolar.foundation. Archived from the original on 2016-01-31. Retrieved 2016-07-20.
11. "Maske padaju: balkanski 'novi ateisti' i sirijski teroristi vole se javno". Sahar TV Bosnian. 2016-12-16. Retrieved 2017-02-20.

External links

• Protagora, udruga za zaštitu prava ireligioznih osoba i promicanje ireligioznog poimanja svijeta
• Nisam vjernik, neformalna skupina građana nevjernika u Hrvatskoj
• David, udruga građana za zaštitu ljudskih prava
• Glas Razuma - Pokret za sekularnu Hrvatsku
• Vjeronauk.org …jer vjeronauku je mjesto u crkvi.