The recent flurry of books on atheism, including Richard Dawkins The God Delusion and Christopher Hitchens' God is not Great, plus books by Daniel Dennett, Michael Onfray and Sam Harris, has fired speculation that atheism may be on the rise. Titles such as Nick Gisburne's The Atheists are Revolting! Taking Back the Planet: Saying No to Religion suggest a new militancy.

It is easy to read too much into the success of a handful of books written by talented bestselling authors backed by powerful marketing machines. Survey research suggests that the percentage of people identifying themselves as atheists in Britain remains low at around eight per cent, with a further ten per cent identifying as 'agnostic,' although the numbers have been growing slowly. Around the world, there are estimated to be more people with traditional religious views than ever before, and they constitute a growing proportion of the world's population.

Probe a bit deeper, and the waters become muddier. Although relatively few people identify themselves as atheist in Britain, much larger numbers, about 20 per cent of the population, say they are 'not a religious person' or do not believe in God. Does that mean such people are 'secular'? Not necessarily so, because it is possible to be 'spiritual', and to believe in supernatural powers, energies, fates or 'Spirit', without identifying as religious or theistic. Seventy two per cent of the population of England and Wales identified as 'Christian' in the 2001 Census, with a further five per cent identifying with other religions.

The percentage of people identifying themselves as atheists in Britain remains low at around eight per cent

Whatever this signifies, it does not suggest vast reserves of militant atheists or extensive attachment to secularism.

At this point it is useful to distinguish between atheism and secularism. Atheism is a disbelief in God and atheists may oppose theism, or religion in general whilst secularism is more likely to be for something. Secularism is a much broader category of commitment, rather than one of opposition. To put this another way, an atheist is making a stand against a particular sort of sacred (God), whilst a secularist is likely to have his or her own sacred commitment(s) – for example, to 'humanity', scientific rationality, liberty, republicanism, the preservation of tile planet, the nation, and soon. To divide tile British population in to people who are religious and secular is therefore less illuminating than looking at the variety of sacred commitments in contemporary British society, a very under-researched topic. To my mind what is most important for contemporary reflection is to broaden out the categories of 'the religious' and 'the secular' to the point where they start to break down. As long as the former continues to be identified with theism and the latter with atheism, the majority of the British population will continue to fall outside both of them.

My dissatisfaction with the current crop of books on atheismism is that they perpetuate an unduly narrow understanding of religion. Not only are they written from a deeply Judeo-Christian point of view, they also misrepresent the diversity within these traditions by identifying them chiefly with a set of beliefs, including belief in a supernatural God. Dawkins gives it away by speaking repeatedly of 'faith-heads'.

Monotheism is the exception rather than the rule in religious history, with polytheism being the norm on which monotheism has to be slowly imposed. Belief in a multiplicity of divine beings and powers is still common in many parts of the world, and is reviving in some circles in the West. It is also increasingly common for westerners to describe themselves not as religious but as spiritual and to embrace belief in a more diffuse sacred 'Energy' or Spirit than in a personal deity.

In addition, 'belief' is a relatively insignificant aspect of religion. You can be profoundly religious without being able to articulate your beliefs at all. Religion is the place where a group or society holds up an image of what is most sacred to it. By way of symbols and ritual practices, involving the body and the emotions as well as the head, the sacred is articulated, reinforced, celebrated, internalised, and integrated into living biographies.  There is thus a great deal of overlap between religion and other sacred affirmation, including weddings, national days of remembrance, court hearings, birthday parties, openings of parliament and soon. Insofar as all recognise some reality which transcends everyday life in terms of its value, truth, beauty, goodness or significance, they all sacralise. Likewise, they all express a commitment which goes beyond - but need not contradict - what can be rationally justified.

The distinction between theistic and non-theistic forms of sacred commitment can be important. But what divides many modern societies is not so much religion versus atheism or secularism as the wide variety of sacred commitments held by their members. Some religious people may share more sacred commitments with secularists than some varieties of secularists do with each other. Recognise this and you see that the picture is more complex and less oppositional than authors like Dawkins and Hitchens would have us believe.

Professor Linda Woodhead is Director of the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society Programme. This Current Debate was originally published in Britain in 2008, and it is re-published here with the kind permission of the author and publisher.