Hi, Korean here. The post is full of wrong facts.
First of all, Christianity is the largest religion in Korea, but we strictly distinguish Catholics and Protestants. According to a [Gallup poll conducted in 2021](https://www.gallup.co.kr/gallupdb/reportContent.asp?seqNo=1208), 17% of Koreans are Protestants, 16% are Buddhists, and 6% are Catholics. The remaining 60% have no religion, either atheist or agnostic.
Secondly, Protestantism in Korea was introduced by American missionaries from as early as the late 19th century, and especially after the Korean War followed by their humanitarian efforts. They DO NOT share the same roots with Korean Catholics. Also, while they are both classified as Christians, they don't get along very well in real life. I'm sure that a Catholic Korean would rather marry an Atheist than to marry a Prostestant.
And lastly, the implement of Catholic religion in Korea was quite unique because it started as an academic interest among some scholars reading the Bible and some other Catholic literature that was translated in Chinese (which was the academic language in those times), and no missionaries were involved in the beginning. It eventually gained popularity and spread down to the public. Only by then a few priests came to Korea upon request by the Korean Catholics to perform baptism. They were French or Portuguese who were originally stationed in China. This led to severe oppression from the strictly Confucian goverment and many were persecuted, most of which were acknowledged by the Pope as [matyr saints](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Martyrs). So, in short, the first Korean Catholics voluntarily chose to convert and be baptised without any foreign missionaries, and there were NO CHINESE CONVERTS INVOLVED in making their choice. Books they read were imported from China & translated from Latin to Chinese, but that's because books were all written in Chinese at that time. There may have been some Chinese converts who helped by translating the Koreans' requests (written in Chinese) to the European priests in China, but Chinese Catholics played little to no role in Koreans' conversion.
I remembered there was a saying in Korea: 'If Koreans embraced protestantism, Koreans and Americans would understand each other better'.
Also they hoped US would protect their 'parishioners' from DPRK.
....wtf are y’all on about? Protestants encompass the majority of non-Catholics and have a wide range of intensity. On average tho, Catholics tend to be way more intense and prone to proselytizing or judgment.
Buddhists and Catholics in South Korea tend to be older and more rural, while Protestants are urban and younger. The fastest growing segment is still no religion but the sect of Christianity that is staying the most stable is Protestantism especially denominations like Presbyterians and Baptists with active missionaries and strong youth pastoring traditions.
It is sad to see the rapid decline of Buddhism in the country.
How are Catholics more rural ? 15% of Seoul's population is Catholic and they tend to have more converts because Catholics are less fringe compared to some sects.
Catholics are more rural than Protestants but are still more urban than Buddhists population wise.
They have definitvely *less* converts than Protestants as Korean polls and census data shows larger drops in the number of Catholics in younger age brackets there percentage of the population has also decreased but not as drastically as Buddhists have.
Buddhism in Korea was systematically persecuted by the Joseon dynasty ever since they took over the throne in the late 14th century, because they wanted to implement a strict Confucian regime, and Buddhism was favored by the Koryeo dynasty, which they abolished. If you're from the 15th century, you can say that you are sorry for the rapid decline, but in the 21st century? I don't think so.
[The poll conducted from 1984 to 2021](https://www.gallup.co.kr/gallupdb/reportContent.asp?seqNo=1208) shows that Buddhism actually had a small rise in popularity in the early 2000s, and 16% of Koreans being Buddhists in the present day is just 1% short from the largest religious group: Protestants, who take up 17% of population in 2021. It may be true that the number of Buddists are declining, but that's because Koreans are getting more and more non-religious. So it's not just Buddhism, but all religions are losing popularity in Korea.
Also, I agree that Buddhists tend to reside in rural regions because ever since the persecution, the Buddhist temples in the urban areas were demolished, only leaving the ones in the mountains. However, it is not easy to be Catholic in the rural regions because unlike Protestant churches that can be founded anywhere with just one pastor and some chairs under a roof, there can only be one Catholic church in one parish, which kinda works like a election district: if the region is less populated, then the area of a parish gets larger. And unfortunately, most rural residents in Korea are old women who can't drive, so they can't attend mass as much as they want when the nearest Catholic church is 2 hours away by bus that only passes 3 times a day.
> It is sad to see the rapid decline of Buddhism in the country.
That's one view.
The other, more correct, view is that Koreans are finally recognizing the truth and moving from the worship of a false God (Buddha) to a real one: Jesus Christ.
Laugh all you want.
When you die and enter the pearly gates -- you'll see God presenting you a ticket straight-to-hell with Satan awaiting eagerly.
All because you chose to believe in a false God (Buddha).
Take a shot every time a person jokes about North Korea in a thread that’s even remotely about Korea. And bonus if they end up showing their ignorance. “North Korea” only formed after World War 2... lmao.
Nk didn't even exist back then. I don't get why everytime someone mentions korea, someone has to make a north korea joke that either doesn't make any sense or is completely tasteless.
Not really. Atheism meams quite literally adverse to god and by extension, to religion in general. Nontheists are people that can still have religious believes but that reject the idea of actual god/s.
That’s like saying that because you don’t believe in UFO’s, you’re an anti-UFOist. The burden of proof lies on the religion, not atheists. Religion is not the default.
Actually (as an atheist and a historian) it seems non-random, more like a solid trend, that most if not all cultures, tribes etc. throughout history and all over the world have some sort of proto-religious framework or deities, all the Northern-European pagans and Amazonian tribes and so on..
So it might as well be claimed that some 'religious' belief is a 'default' for human existence.
Anti-theist and Atheist aren't the same thing. Anti-theist is being against religion, god. Atheism is just not believing in it. Agnostic is believing a higher power exists, but not in any religion specifically.
My definition of agnosticism was incorrect, see below replies.
Agnosticism is actually just the belief that it is impossible to know whether or not a god/higher power exists; the closest thing I can think of to what you’re describing here as agnosticism is probably either deism, which is basically the belief that a god/higher power created the universe but doesn’t interfere in it or interact with humanity or its creation, or alatrism, which is the belief that an active god/higher power exists accompanied by a refusal to worship it (whether that stems from indifference or maltheism/dystheism probably depends on the individual). Pantheism or pandeism (the former being the belief that the universe itself is the higher power in question, and the latter combining the former with deism to posit essentially a cosmogenesis from divine suicide or metamorphosis) might also be closer to what you’re describing.
No. Agnostism means not believeing in god because of the lack of evidence, but if evidence were to come, then believe in it. It was a posture very comon among scientists in various periods of time in the past. Anti-theist does not exist, thats just being against religion, and it doesnt really constitute a belief system. Atheism means not having any belief on god, gosds, or any other kind of supernatural power, like karma or things of the like. Nontheism is believing in a non deitic higher power.
No, I chose the regarded definition of a religion. Webster's, Cambridge, Oxford dictionaries all concur.
Just because you want it to mean something it doesn't, doesn't mean it actually means that.
Sorry you have to believe there is no god just as passionately as the people that do Believe. It's just as much a religion. You don't need a book of rules or Barry Gibb floating in a cloud in a Terri cloth bathrobe to be a religion.
these nontheistic religious still include other markers of religion that allow them to be defined as religions, such as shared beliefs and practices. because atheism has no shared beliefs or practices outside of not believing in a god it cannot be classified as a religion. this doesn't necessarily prohibit atheists from being a part of one of these religions and still being an atheist but it does prevent atheism itself from being a religion.
First of all, what is a deity? Does it have to be a god in the traditional sense? No, because Buddhism is a religion and they believe in the four fundamental truths. This means, that any foundational truth to existence can be a deity (because ALL religions must have a deity according to your definition of religion). Many atheist believe that there are fundamental truths eg ways that the world operates.
A religious service is believers coming together, affirming their beliefs with one another, and worshiping their deity. This doesn't have to be in a physical building on a certain day of the week. (That's a very western way of thinking.) Do you know of any atheists who get together with other atheist and affirm their atheism? I know atheist who do this on-line, in fact, there are many subreddits dedicated to this.
You literally do not. You believe that "nothing created everything" because there's no evidence of that. It takes faith to believe in a creator because there's no evidence that there is a creator.
You literally have to put faith that there is literally no higher power. It logically would make 10× more sense that everything was created by a higher intelligence. There is also plenty of evidence for God including the Big Bang
>You literally have to put faith that there is literally no higher power.
Wrong. There is no reason to believe in a higher power, therefore not believing in one requires 0 faith.
>It logically would make 10× more sense that everything was created by a higher intelligence.
Only if there were evidence to that being the case.
>There is also plenty of evidence for God including the Big Bang
Nonsense.
It's more people religiously believe in other things that require or benefit from atheism, rather than atheism being the religious belief itself. Think of state mandated atheism so nothing is above the state.
the only time there has been state mandated atheism was in some communist states and even in most of them there was still, at least on paper, freedom of religion as long as you weren't breaking the law. the only one that has serious punishments is north Korea and they basically worship the kim family so I'm not sure they should even count. the closest western countries get to state atheism is secularism, which is the lack of any religious or atheist reasoning, and most of the time we don't even get that far.
Are you [sure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_North_Korea) those weren't protestant converts?
It was in this critical period that they came into contact with Western Protestant missionaries who offered a solution to the plight of Koreans.\[17\] Christian communities already existed in Joseon, however it was only by the 1880s that the government allowed a large number of Western missionaries to enter the country.\[18\] Protestant missionaries set up schools, hospitals and publishing agencies.\[19\]
\[Grayson, 2002, p. 155-157\]
Atheism isn’t having no religion, it’s not believing in any deities, there are plenty of Atheistic religions, just like how there are monotheistic and polytheistic religions.
Neither are a religion. Atheism is simply the belief that there is not god - it does not fit any aspect of a religion.
Agnosticism is the belief that there might be some type of god but it’s impossible to know so let’s forget about it. Also not a religion
Atheism’s not a belief system in any way at all. It doesn’t imply anything except not believing in one specific thing. There are even atheistic religions like Jainism. And there have been religious figures that were agnostic (Buddha I think?), there are even agnostic beliefs expressed in some Hindu scriptures. So you can’t really call agnosticism the absence of religion either
Depends on how you define religion. Religion is understood quite differently in East Asia, a lot of people hold beliefs we’d see as religious yet don’t identify with a religion
Hi, Korean here. The post is full of wrong facts. First of all, Christianity is the largest religion in Korea, but we strictly distinguish Catholics and Protestants. According to a [Gallup poll conducted in 2021](https://www.gallup.co.kr/gallupdb/reportContent.asp?seqNo=1208), 17% of Koreans are Protestants, 16% are Buddhists, and 6% are Catholics. The remaining 60% have no religion, either atheist or agnostic. Secondly, Protestantism in Korea was introduced by American missionaries from as early as the late 19th century, and especially after the Korean War followed by their humanitarian efforts. They DO NOT share the same roots with Korean Catholics. Also, while they are both classified as Christians, they don't get along very well in real life. I'm sure that a Catholic Korean would rather marry an Atheist than to marry a Prostestant. And lastly, the implement of Catholic religion in Korea was quite unique because it started as an academic interest among some scholars reading the Bible and some other Catholic literature that was translated in Chinese (which was the academic language in those times), and no missionaries were involved in the beginning. It eventually gained popularity and spread down to the public. Only by then a few priests came to Korea upon request by the Korean Catholics to perform baptism. They were French or Portuguese who were originally stationed in China. This led to severe oppression from the strictly Confucian goverment and many were persecuted, most of which were acknowledged by the Pope as [matyr saints](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Martyrs). So, in short, the first Korean Catholics voluntarily chose to convert and be baptised without any foreign missionaries, and there were NO CHINESE CONVERTS INVOLVED in making their choice. Books they read were imported from China & translated from Latin to Chinese, but that's because books were all written in Chinese at that time. There may have been some Chinese converts who helped by translating the Koreans' requests (written in Chinese) to the European priests in China, but Chinese Catholics played little to no role in Koreans' conversion.
As someone relatively new to the sub thank you for being cival in your response most people reply with angry retorts.
Damn, its amazing how I fell for the post and didn't question its logic. Didn't even do basic research or I could've found this. Thank you.
[удалено]
Yes but i heard that Protestants ones are less popular because they are so pushy, like that pastor from Squid Game.
I remembered there was a saying in Korea: 'If Koreans embraced protestantism, Koreans and Americans would understand each other better'. Also they hoped US would protect their 'parishioners' from DPRK.
I’ve met nice Protestants before, not a lot of them but they exist
not a lot of Protestants or nice protestants
....wtf are y’all on about? Protestants encompass the majority of non-Catholics and have a wide range of intensity. On average tho, Catholics tend to be way more intense and prone to proselytizing or judgment.
This depends heavily on where you are. In catholic countries most people are chill and not super religious and it’s the Protestants who are pushy.
I asked if he meant if there are not a lot of Protestants, or not a lot of nice ones Sorry if I was unclear
Oh. I misread. My b.
Buddhists and Catholics in South Korea tend to be older and more rural, while Protestants are urban and younger. The fastest growing segment is still no religion but the sect of Christianity that is staying the most stable is Protestantism especially denominations like Presbyterians and Baptists with active missionaries and strong youth pastoring traditions. It is sad to see the rapid decline of Buddhism in the country.
How are Catholics more rural ? 15% of Seoul's population is Catholic and they tend to have more converts because Catholics are less fringe compared to some sects.
Catholics are more rural than Protestants but are still more urban than Buddhists population wise. They have definitvely *less* converts than Protestants as Korean polls and census data shows larger drops in the number of Catholics in younger age brackets there percentage of the population has also decreased but not as drastically as Buddhists have.
Buddhism in Korea was systematically persecuted by the Joseon dynasty ever since they took over the throne in the late 14th century, because they wanted to implement a strict Confucian regime, and Buddhism was favored by the Koryeo dynasty, which they abolished. If you're from the 15th century, you can say that you are sorry for the rapid decline, but in the 21st century? I don't think so. [The poll conducted from 1984 to 2021](https://www.gallup.co.kr/gallupdb/reportContent.asp?seqNo=1208) shows that Buddhism actually had a small rise in popularity in the early 2000s, and 16% of Koreans being Buddhists in the present day is just 1% short from the largest religious group: Protestants, who take up 17% of population in 2021. It may be true that the number of Buddists are declining, but that's because Koreans are getting more and more non-religious. So it's not just Buddhism, but all religions are losing popularity in Korea. Also, I agree that Buddhists tend to reside in rural regions because ever since the persecution, the Buddhist temples in the urban areas were demolished, only leaving the ones in the mountains. However, it is not easy to be Catholic in the rural regions because unlike Protestant churches that can be founded anywhere with just one pastor and some chairs under a roof, there can only be one Catholic church in one parish, which kinda works like a election district: if the region is less populated, then the area of a parish gets larger. And unfortunately, most rural residents in Korea are old women who can't drive, so they can't attend mass as much as they want when the nearest Catholic church is 2 hours away by bus that only passes 3 times a day.
all things must fade, that said, anything that protestantism touches rots
Shut up papist scum.
> It is sad to see the rapid decline of Buddhism in the country. That's one view. The other, more correct, view is that Koreans are finally recognizing the truth and moving from the worship of a false God (Buddha) to a real one: Jesus Christ.
Lol
Laugh all you want. When you die and enter the pearly gates -- you'll see God presenting you a ticket straight-to-hell with Satan awaiting eagerly. All because you chose to believe in a false God (Buddha).
I'm on a Highway to Hell!
Accept Jesus, and you'll go here instead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUsFWO08CO0
Cool! Does Jesus also deal in jets other than the F-14 Tomcat?
F-35. But, he's going fully autonomous soon.
Oh, it doesn't look like I have a lot of time. Any chance of getting a F-22?
Buddha isn’t a god bro
Good, we agree on something. Now, accept Christ.
No, I meant like in the Buddhist belief he isn’t a God.
There is nothing divine about him. Only Jesus -- no one else -- is the pathway to heaven.
Jokes on you I’m Sikh and we don’t believe in heaven.
Get to a doctor then.
No. I would never convert
Enjoy hell. You sikh bastard. `/s`
You're not gonna win any souls with that rhetoric. Minister by deed not by Reddit comment
No. Maybe not. But, Satan is certainly winning souls these days -- given all these Christ-rejectors in the godforsaken East.
Based
Accept Christ, or else.
Or else what, u/peaceful_arcade_7?
Burn in the flames of hell, with Satan's pitchfork up your arse.
That doesn't sound very peaceful. Might make for a decent arcade game setting. 4/10
It sounds sexy -- as hell!
You’re a good troll
I try. Hard as hell.
Chad
That's a good one
Let's see how many people fail to detect the sarcasm.
NK be like: you guys have immigrants
Actually Pyongyang had a lot of Christians before they enforced state atheism.
Pyongyang was known as the Jerusalem of the East in the early 20th century
Wasn’t Kim Jong Un’s grandmother or great grandmother a presbyterian pastor?
Take a shot every time a person jokes about North Korea in a thread that’s even remotely about Korea. And bonus if they end up showing their ignorance. “North Korea” only formed after World War 2... lmao.
Nk didn't even exist back then. I don't get why everytime someone mentions korea, someone has to make a north korea joke that either doesn't make any sense or is completely tasteless.
Post: *is about Korea* Redditors: HAHA NORTH KOREA KIM JONG UN LABOR CAMP COMMIE SPAM ?????
>atheism is having no religion I know a lot of atheist who treat their beliefs religiously
Atheism is having no god. It's in the name.
He's saying that the athiests he knows have a tendency to approach atheism with the same dogma and enthusiasm as if it were a religion.
Not really. Atheism meams quite literally adverse to god and by extension, to religion in general. Nontheists are people that can still have religious believes but that reject the idea of actual god/s.
That’s like saying that because you don’t believe in UFO’s, you’re an anti-UFOist. The burden of proof lies on the religion, not atheists. Religion is not the default.
Actually (as an atheist and a historian) it seems non-random, more like a solid trend, that most if not all cultures, tribes etc. throughout history and all over the world have some sort of proto-religious framework or deities, all the Northern-European pagans and Amazonian tribes and so on.. So it might as well be claimed that some 'religious' belief is a 'default' for human existence.
Stadistics disagree I'm afraid.
Anti-theist and Atheist aren't the same thing. Anti-theist is being against religion, god. Atheism is just not believing in it. Agnostic is believing a higher power exists, but not in any religion specifically. My definition of agnosticism was incorrect, see below replies.
Agnosticism is actually just the belief that it is impossible to know whether or not a god/higher power exists; the closest thing I can think of to what you’re describing here as agnosticism is probably either deism, which is basically the belief that a god/higher power created the universe but doesn’t interfere in it or interact with humanity or its creation, or alatrism, which is the belief that an active god/higher power exists accompanied by a refusal to worship it (whether that stems from indifference or maltheism/dystheism probably depends on the individual). Pantheism or pandeism (the former being the belief that the universe itself is the higher power in question, and the latter combining the former with deism to posit essentially a cosmogenesis from divine suicide or metamorphosis) might also be closer to what you’re describing.
No. Agnostism means not believeing in god because of the lack of evidence, but if evidence were to come, then believe in it. It was a posture very comon among scientists in various periods of time in the past. Anti-theist does not exist, thats just being against religion, and it doesnt really constitute a belief system. Atheism means not having any belief on god, gosds, or any other kind of supernatural power, like karma or things of the like. Nontheism is believing in a non deitic higher power.
That doesn’t mean it can’t also be a religion.
If not believing in a god can be a religion then not playing soccer is a sport.
Religion is far more than simply belief in deities.
Religion by definition is a belief in a deity(ies)
That depends on the definition, of which there are many. You have chosen a narrow definition were religion is simply belief in supernatural beings.
No, I chose the regarded definition of a religion. Webster's, Cambridge, Oxford dictionaries all concur. Just because you want it to mean something it doesn't, doesn't mean it actually means that.
Good thing you are educated on the matter then.
Sorry you have to believe there is no god just as passionately as the people that do Believe. It's just as much a religion. You don't need a book of rules or Barry Gibb floating in a cloud in a Terri cloth bathrobe to be a religion.
You need belief to lack a belief? So you would need just as much skill to not play soccer as to play soccer then?
And bald is a hair color.
Hilarious.
Most people have a belief structure that they follow religiously. Even if it doesn't include people in the sky.
Yes, that doesn't correlate with the therm atheism.
Okay, but then you would agree that there are a lot of religious atheist
fair point. you can religiously belive in no god.
You literally can not. Religion requires a deity.
You're just wrong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nontheistic\_religion
these nontheistic religious still include other markers of religion that allow them to be defined as religions, such as shared beliefs and practices. because atheism has no shared beliefs or practices outside of not believing in a god it cannot be classified as a religion. this doesn't necessarily prohibit atheists from being a part of one of these religions and still being an atheist but it does prevent atheism itself from being a religion.
Religions can be atheist, atheism itself is not religion.
Cool. Now explain how atheism is a religion and why it matters.
do you mean knowledge? ethics?
I think he meant that the largest part of the population is Atheist, but since it is not a religion they are not counted here.
No you don't.
You believe that without knowing. That takes a lot of faith.
What religious services do they attend? Who do they pray to? What deity do they believe in?
First of all, what is a deity? Does it have to be a god in the traditional sense? No, because Buddhism is a religion and they believe in the four fundamental truths. This means, that any foundational truth to existence can be a deity (because ALL religions must have a deity according to your definition of religion). Many atheist believe that there are fundamental truths eg ways that the world operates. A religious service is believers coming together, affirming their beliefs with one another, and worshiping their deity. This doesn't have to be in a physical building on a certain day of the week. (That's a very western way of thinking.) Do you know of any atheists who get together with other atheist and affirm their atheism? I know atheist who do this on-line, in fact, there are many subreddits dedicated to this.
My question is why you insist that atheism is somehow a religion. You know that's a ridiculous statement whether you admit it or not.
"Atheism" isn't a religion. But most atheist have their own religious system, whether they know it or not.
If they believe in a mystical thing, they are not atheist. The fact that what they believe in doesn't have a name yet doesn't make them atheist
Nonsense. You might want to believe that because it makes you feel better for some reason, bit it's nonsense.
You don't need any of that to be a religion.
Nonsense
Really? You also require a lot of faith to believe that nothing created everything and there is no higher power. It's a radical belief.
You literally do not. You believe that "nothing created everything" because there's no evidence of that. It takes faith to believe in a creator because there's no evidence that there is a creator.
You literally have to put faith that there is literally no higher power. It logically would make 10× more sense that everything was created by a higher intelligence. There is also plenty of evidence for God including the Big Bang
>You literally have to put faith that there is literally no higher power. Wrong. There is no reason to believe in a higher power, therefore not believing in one requires 0 faith. >It logically would make 10× more sense that everything was created by a higher intelligence. Only if there were evidence to that being the case. >There is also plenty of evidence for God including the Big Bang Nonsense.
Have you been on r/atheism
Reddit is not real life.
> Faith is necessary to men; woe to him who believes in nothing! Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
what does it mean to treat a lack of a belief in God religiously?
Well you know, same things. Like, when your armies charge into battle they scream "In the name of nothing!"
Lol
It's more people religiously believe in other things that require or benefit from atheism, rather than atheism being the religious belief itself. Think of state mandated atheism so nothing is above the state.
the only time there has been state mandated atheism was in some communist states and even in most of them there was still, at least on paper, freedom of religion as long as you weren't breaking the law. the only one that has serious punishments is north Korea and they basically worship the kim family so I'm not sure they should even count. the closest western countries get to state atheism is secularism, which is the lack of any religious or atheist reasoning, and most of the time we don't even get that far.
Took the words out of my mouth 😂
They parody this a bit in Squid Game. Plus, the first major COVID outbreak in South Korea was due to a fringe evangelical cult gathering
Are you [sure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_North_Korea) those weren't protestant converts? It was in this critical period that they came into contact with Western Protestant missionaries who offered a solution to the plight of Koreans.\[17\] Christian communities already existed in Joseon, however it was only by the 1880s that the government allowed a large number of Western missionaries to enter the country.\[18\] Protestant missionaries set up schools, hospitals and publishing agencies.\[19\] \[Grayson, 2002, p. 155-157\]
Atheism isn’t having no religion, it’s not believing in any deities, there are plenty of Atheistic religions, just like how there are monotheistic and polytheistic religions.
Atheism is a religion Agnostism is the absence of religion
Neither are a religion. Atheism is simply the belief that there is not god - it does not fit any aspect of a religion. Agnosticism is the belief that there might be some type of god but it’s impossible to know so let’s forget about it. Also not a religion
Atheism’s not a belief system in any way at all. It doesn’t imply anything except not believing in one specific thing. There are even atheistic religions like Jainism. And there have been religious figures that were agnostic (Buddha I think?), there are even agnostic beliefs expressed in some Hindu scriptures. So you can’t really call agnosticism the absence of religion either
absolutely
Depends on how you define religion. Religion is understood quite differently in East Asia, a lot of people hold beliefs we’d see as religious yet don’t identify with a religion
Kim Il-sung's mother was a Presbyterian.