A Disparity in Soul and Afterlife Beliefs: Exploring Cultural Perspectives and Predictors in Nordic Countries

Drawing on data from Norway and Finland, we explore three questions in this paper. First, do nonreligious individuals in these two countries report believing in a soul? Second, do those same individuals report believing in an afterlife? And third, what factors predict believing in a soul? We find that 65.2% of unaffiliated individuals in Norway and 58.3% of unaffiliated individuals in Finland report believing in a soul, but much smaller percentages – 24.7% and 24.1%, respectively – report believing in an afterlife. We find that religiosity and spirituality do not predict belief in a soul, but that believing in an afterlife, reincarnation, and universal energy do. This leads us to believe that many of the nonreligious individuals who report believing in a soul in these two countries likely do not believe in a supernatural soul but rather use the word “soul” in a naturalistic sense to describe one’s personality or individual identity.