According to the latest Census data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the greater Hobart area is now home to a perhaps surprisingly high percentage of people who follow no religion at all.

A huge 49.88 per cent of Hobartians chose “no religion” on their 2021 Census forms.

In terms of numbers, that’s 123,247 Hobartians who identify as non-religious out of a population of 247,086.

It’s a massive jump from the national average of 38.9 per cent.

Christianity is still holding strong in the Tasmanian capital, however, with 37 per cent of the city identifying as Christians – mostly Anglican and Catholic, which were almost evenly split.

Other religions held their own too – with 1.28 per cent of Hobartians identifying as Buddhists, 2.63 per cent identifying as Hindus, and 1.25 per cent of the city identifying as Islamic.

Only 17 individuals – or 0.006 per cent – followed Australian Aboriginal Traditional Religions.

Meanwhile, there were 203 people that followed Judaism, or 0.08 per cent, and 0.62 per cent of the city identified as Sikhs.

Some 15,495 of Hobartians didn’t fill in the religion box on their Census forms at all, while 846 described themselves as “secular”, and another 413 people said they held “other spiritual beliefs”.

The ABS said the percentage of Tasmanians as a whole who identified as having no religious affiliation was 50 per cent in 2021.

This was an increase from 38.2 per cent in 2016 – and from just 5.1 per cent in 1971.

“I’ve never felt the need for delegating my moral responsibility”

Hobart’s Kate Kelly said she didn’t decide to become an atheist – she just always was one.

“I’ve never believed in God and religion. I’ve never felt the need for delegating my moral responsibility to a higher power,” she said.

Ms Kelly, who is currently running as a candidate for Hobart City Council, said she’d long been concerned with the impacts of religion on women, minority groups and the LGBTIQ+ community.

“I think the institutions of religion have a lot to answer for in terms of colonisation and war and control of power structures and dogma,” she said.

“I think a lot of people question the hypocrisy of religion. If you’ve got very fundamentalist ideas that reject whole swathes of people in a society and reject science, I think people, are thinking about the future in a different way now.”

She said contemporary societies didn’t “need religion now in a way we did once” – to find community or a moral code.

Ms Kelly also thought Hobart residents were possibly becoming more science-literate.

“The great anathema to religion is critical thinking and scientific rigour,” she said.

She also said while she didn’t oppose religion, she believed morality and goodness weren’t solely religion’s domain.

“I think reverence is important and I think things need to be sacred to us, or we don’t value them,” she said.

“But I think we’re looking at the world now and saying what is sacred? Or communities, our natural environment – people are choosing to offer that the respect and reverence that they would have done in church.”

A small, but growing Jewish community

Unlike Hobart’s Christian community, the city’s small Jewish community is slowly growing.

Statewide, as of 2021, there were 376 Jewish people – an increase from 248 in 2011.

Jeff Schneider, president of the Hobart Hebrew Congregation, said young Jewish families and individuals “looking for a sea change” had recently moved to Tasmania.

“I suppose Covid was a factor in that. (Plus) a slower pace, fewer people,” he said.

Unlike a city like Melbourne, which has dense Jewish, Orthodox and Hasidic communities well-set up with kosher butchers, synagogues and schools, religious Hobart Jews don’t have a Rabbi – and must organise and cook their own traditional foods.

Mr Schneider said that was a challenge, but there were some upsides to practising Judaism in a small community.

“We have a beautiful synagogue here, the oldest in Australia and a diverse community. It’s certainly different to Jewish communities you find in the bigger cities,” he said.

“We allow people to explore their beliefs with pure curiosity”

Andrew O’Connor is on a path that few travel in Tasmania.

The secretary of the Tasmanian Pagan Alliance is a Wiccan – an alternative spirituality that focuses on witchcraft and nature worship.

“I don’t want to sound twee, but it does feel like the path chose me,” Mr O’Connor said.

He’s one of just 413 people in the greater Hobart area that were described on the 2021 Census as being of “other spiritual beliefs”.

Mr O’Connor thought the rise in atheism, or “no religion” in Tasmania was based on several factors.

“Previously religious groups, and usually Christian ones, provided more than just spiritual guidance. They were social fora, counselling, psychology, social welfare and entertainment,” Mr O’Connor said.

“I think people find these experiences in secular places now and thus don’t have that strong connection to religion because of it – almost like, what’s the point?”

He also said many people had been exposed to a “very narrow” experience of religion, with the individual and their thoughts subservient to those of God, with a focus on “thinking right and doing right as per the rules”.

Mr O’Connor also noted that with the national child sexual abuse royal commission, many people had lost faith in religion as a whole.

“For a lot of us in the pagan community we don’t see orthodoxy or “right thought” as the only way religion manifests, or spirituality, whatever. We share broad concepts and understanding of the divine but we acknowledge that everyone’s path is their own,” he said.

We allow people to explore their beliefs with pure curiosity – judgement-free.”

“Lots of the things our society values find their origins in Christianity”

The Right Reverend Richard Condie, the Anglican Bishop of Tasmania, said church leaders had been aware for many years of the growing secularism in Australia.

He said he suspected the Census was “catching up with reality” – although he noted there had been an ad campaign for the “no religion” answer on the census form.

“I think it indicates a dissatisfaction with institutional religion, and I understand why that has happened. But the majority of the world’s population is aware of a spiritual dimension to life, and I expect that many Tasmanians are also spiritual,” he said.

Rt Revd Condie said Anglican churches across Tasmania had actually seen “modest growth” in attendance over the past five years, “which indicates we are at least as strong as before the last census”.

Lots of the things our society values, like the dignity of all people, care for the vulnerable, humility, tolerance and respect find their origins in Christianity,” he said.

“The Christian faith has endured for 2000 years through many different cultural changes, and I expect it will endure as the culture continues to change. There are many churches in Hobart and across Tasmania from a variety of denominations who are continuing to grow from strength to strength.”