S01E38 - Analytic Atheism in Japan: Thinking Styles and Religious Belief

This research paper investigates why some people in Japan lack religious faith, specifically testing the analytic atheism hypothesis. Through two large-scale surveys, the authors confirmed that individuals who utilize logical, deliberate thinking are less likely to hold supernatural beliefs, though this link is relatively modest in the Japanese context. The study also examined the inCREDulous hypothesis and the mind-blind hypothesis, finding that a person's childhood exposure to religious actions and their level of empathic concern are even stronger predictors of faith than cognitive style. By validating these three distinct theories, the researchers demonstrate that secularism is driven by a combination of cognitive processing, social learning, and emotional intelligence. Ultimately, the work fills a gap in cross-cultural psychology by proving that these cognitive foundations for atheism apply to non-Western, low-religiosity societies like Japan.Ishii, T. and Watanabe, K. (2026) ‘Analytic Atheism in Japan: Examining the Association Between Analytic Thinking and Religious Beliefs’, Secularism and Nonreligion, 15(1), p. 9. Available at: https://doi.org/10.5334/snr.229.