Irreligion in Croatia

Irreligion in Croatia refers in its narrowest sense to agnosticism, atheism, secular humanism, and general secularism of at least 300.000 non-religious Croatian citizens. Increase of the number of irreligious people is usually interpreted by the modernization marked with tendency of secularization and the progress of science and technology that directly affect human society.

Although 2011 census showed that 7% of Croatian citizens considered themselves irreligious, Gallup polls conducted in 2007 and 2008 found that 30.5% of respondents do not consider religion important in their lives, responding negatively to the question "Does religion has an important place in your life?"

Japanese research center Dentsu conducted survey in 2006 and concluded that 13.2% of the Croatian population declare themselves as irreligious.^[1] Eurobarometer survey conducted in 2010 questioned the religiosity in European countries on the basis of personal beliefs that "God exists", that "there is some sort of spirit or life force" and that "there is no sort of spirit, God or life force". 69% of respondents stated that they believed that God existed, 22% believed that there was some sort of spirit or life force, while 7% believed that there was none of the above.^[2]

Some evidences suggests that irreligion is the fastest growing religious status in Croatia.^[3] Number of agnostics and skeptics rose more than 20 times in the last ten years, while the number of atheists almost doubled. Increase of the number of agnostics in Croatia is usually explained by the fact that many public figures, such as President Ivo Josipović, more often declare themselves as agnostics.^[4] Several organisations that promote irreligious or oppose religious belief, such as Protagora, David, Glas razuma - Pokret za sekularnu Hrvatsku, Nisam vjernik, were founded in the last decade. They organised several public actions such as the "Conference of reason" and campaign "Without god, without a master". ^[5]

Demography

2011 census revealed that there were 32,518 agnostics and skeptics and 163,375 atheists in Croatia. Slightly more than 93,000 refused to answer on question about their religion. In addition, religion is unknown for 12,460 citizens. Highest percentage of irreligious people in Croatia was recorded in Zagreb (11.56%). Istria, Primorje-Gorski Kotar and Split-Dalmatia are the only counties in which the number of irreligious people exceed 30.000. Looking at the relative share in the population by county, the highest number of irreligious people live in the northwest Croatia, namly in Istria (15.88%) and Primorje-Gorski Kotar (12.11%) counties and the City of Zagreb (11.56%). These three are the only counties where the proportion of irreligious people in the total population exceeds 10%.^[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				Change
	County	Religious		Irreligious		Religious		Irreligious		2001 / 2011
		Number	%	Number	%	Number	%	Number	%	Religious, %	Irreligious, %
01	Zagreb	299.123	96,59	10.573	3,41	302.871	95,36	14.735	4,64	u 1,25	t 39,36
02	Krapina-Zagorje	139.449	97,91	2.983	2,09	129.297	97,29	3.595	2,71	i 7,28	s 20,52
03	Sisak-Moslavina	174.856	94,32	10.531	5,68	162.831	94,43	9.608	5,57	j 6,88	f 8,76
04	Karlovac	134.223	94,67	7.564	5,33	121.914	94,58	6.985	5,42	d 9,17	g 7,65
05	Varaždin	179.444	97,12	5.325	2,88	167.591	95,25	8.360	4,75	k 6,61	v 57,00
06	Koprivnica-Križevci	120.728	97,00	3.739	3,00	111.157	96,17	4.427	3,83	g 7,93	r 18,40
07	Bjelovar-Bilogora	126.219	94,84	6.865	5,16	113.595	94,85	6.169	5,15	c 10,00	e 10,14
08	Primorje-Gorski Kotar	273.410	89,49	32.095	10,51	260.326	87,89	35.869	12,11	m 4,79	l 11,76
09	Lika-Senj	52.136	97,13	1.541	2,87	49.503	97,20	1.424	2,80	l 5,05	h 7,59
10	Virovitica-Podravina	89.748	96,10	3.641	3,90	81.683	96,28	3.153	3,72	e 8,99	c 13,40
11	Požega-Slavonia	82.959	96,65	2.872	3,35	75.678	96,98	2.356	3,02	f 8,78	b 17,97
12	Brod-Posavina	171.494	97,02	5.271	2,98	153.910	97,06	4.665	2,94	b 10,25	d 11,50
13	Zadar	155.010	95,66	7.035	4,34	162.045	95,31	7.972	4,69	v 4,54	o 13,32
14	Osijek-Baranja	316.599	95,79	13.907	4,21	291.534	95,57	13.498	4,43	h 7,92	i 2,94
15	Šibenik-Knin	108.088	95,75	4.803	4,25	103.789	94,89	5.586	5,11	p 3,98	p 16,30
16	Vukovar-Srijem	199.023	97,19	5.745	2,81	175.091	97,53	4.430	2,47	a 12,02	a 22,89
17	Split-Dalmatia	434.740	93,76	28.936	6,24	422.328	92,86	32.470	7,14	q 2,86	n 12,21
18	Istria	176.886	85,72	29.458	14,28	175.014	84,12	33.041	15,88	s 1,06	m 12,16
19	Dubrovnik-Neretva	116.886	95,13	5.984	4,87	116.148	94,76	6.420	5,24	t 0,63	j 7,29
20	Međimurje	113.685	96,00	4.741	4,00	108.549	95,38	5.255	4,62	o 4,52	k 10,84
21	ZagrebCity of Zagreb	715.972	91,89	63.173	8,11	698.664	88,44	91.353	11,56	r 2,42	u 44,61
–	Croatia	4.180.678	94,21	256.782	5,79	3.983.518	92,97	301.371	7,03	n 4,72	q 17,36

Researches on irreligion

Scientific researches of irreligion in Croatia are generally scarce,^[8] so it is not possible to know which and what are the differences between religious and irreligious population in for example work on public projects that are important to the community, membership in voluntary associations, going to public meetings, voting in local elections, attending protest demonstrations and political rallies, donating time and money to certain purposes including secular, etc. In addition, it is not researched nor how society perceives irreligious people as one of its component parts, what is their position in society, etc.

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.

International research ISSP that was conducted in 2008, explored the socio-demographic and religious characteristics of religious and irreligious people. Researches concluded that the level of education negatively correlated with the degree of religiosity, and that irreligious people largely live in the cities than in the countryside, while this difference is less pronounced with religious people.^[8]

In a research of attitudes of irreligious people towards religion and faith, it was revealed that all respondents differentiate religion and faith, and some church and religion. Attitudes toward religion vary from nothing positive to positive. 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 the connection between religious and political preferences was not examined, in the last four presidential elections, Croatian voters elected presidents who declared themselves as irreligious or agnostics. Ivica Račan, 7th Prime Minister, Zoran Milanović, 10th Prime Minister,^[9] 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 and others declared themselves as atheists.^[10]

See also

• Religion in Croatia

References

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.