Irreligion (adjective form: non-religious or irreligious) is the absence, indifference to, or rejection of religion. According to the Pew Research Center's
2012 global study of 230 countries and territories, 16% of the world's
population is not affiliated with a religion, while 84% are affiliated.
There are many forms and subsets of irreligion, ranging from the casual and unaware to full-fledged philosophies such as secular humanism. Varieties include atheism, agnosticism, antitheism and more. Being objectively irreligious, as delineated in social sciences, is basically adhering to a purely naturalist worldview, without influence from supernatural faith. The broadest definition is lacking religious identification, though many of the non-identifying express various metaphysical beliefs, and the narrowest and strictest is positive atheism. The global demographics of irreligion are estimated based on the former as maximum, and the latter as minimum, therefore ranging between 450 million to 1.6 billion people. Measuring objective irreligiosity requires cultural sensitivity, especially outside the West, where the concepts of "religious" and "secular" are not rooted in local civilization.
There are many forms and subsets of irreligion, ranging from the casual and unaware to full-fledged philosophies such as secular humanism. Varieties include atheism, agnosticism, antitheism and more. Being objectively irreligious, as delineated in social sciences, is basically adhering to a purely naturalist worldview, without influence from supernatural faith. The broadest definition is lacking religious identification, though many of the non-identifying express various metaphysical beliefs, and the narrowest and strictest is positive atheism. The global demographics of irreligion are estimated based on the former as maximum, and the latter as minimum, therefore ranging between 450 million to 1.6 billion people. Measuring objective irreligiosity requires cultural sensitivity, especially outside the West, where the concepts of "religious" and "secular" are not rooted in local civilization.
Etymology
The term irreligion is a combination of the noun religion and the prefix ir-, signifying "not" (similar to irrelevant). It was first attested in French as irréligion in 1527, then in English as irreligion in 1598. It was borrowed into Dutch as irreligie in the 17th century, though it is not certain from which language.
Types
- Secular humanism embraces human reason, ethics, social justice, and philosophical naturalism while specifically rejecting religious dogma, supernaturalism, pseudoscience, and superstition as the bases of morality and decision making. Secular humanism posits that human beings are capable of being ethical and moral without religion or a god.
- Freethought holds that positions regarding truth should be formed on the basis of logic, reason, and empiricism, rather than authority, tradition, revelation, or other dogma. In particular, freethought is strongly tied with rejection of traditional religious belief.
- Theological noncognitivism is the argument that religious language – specifically, words such as God – are not cognitively meaningful. It is sometimes considered as synonymous with ignosticism.
- Naturalism is the idea or belief that only natural (as opposed to supernatural or spiritual) laws and forces operate in the universe. Adherents of naturalism assert that natural laws are the rules that govern the structure and behavior of the natural universe and that the changing universe at every stage is a product of these laws.
- Atheism is the rejection of belief that any deities exist or, in a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities. There are ranges from Negative and positive atheism.
- Agnosticism is the view that the existence of God, of the divine or the supernatural is unknown or unknowable.
- Agnostic atheism is a philosophical position that encompasses both atheism and agnosticism. Agnostic atheists are atheistic because they do not hold a belief in the existence of any deity and agnostic because they claim that the existence of a deity is either unknowable in principle or currently unknown in fact.
- Deism is the philosophical position that rejects revelation as a source of religious knowledge and asserts that reason and observation of the natural world are sufficient to establish the existence of a Supreme Being or creator of the universe.
- Apatheism is the attitude of apathy towards the existence or non-existence of god(s).
- Antireligion is opposition to religion of any kind. It can describe opposition to organized religion, religious practices, religious institutions, or specific forms of supernatural worship or practice, whether organized or not.
- Secularism is overwhelmingly used to describe a political conviction in favour of minimizing religion in the public sphere, that may be advocated regardless of personal religiosity. Yet it is sometimes, especially in the United States, also a synonym for naturalism or atheism.
- "Spiritual but not religious", a common self-appellation for people who reject traditional or organized religion as the sole or most valuable means of furthering spiritual growth. The SBNR may be included under the definition of nonreligion, but are sometimes classified as a wholly distinct group.
Human rights
In 1993, the UN's human rights committee declared that article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights "protects theistic, non-theistic and atheistic beliefs, as well as the right not to profess any religion or belief."
The committee further stated that "the freedom to have or to adopt a
religion or belief necessarily entails the freedom to choose a religion
or belief, including the right to replace one's current religion or
belief with another or to adopt atheistic views." Signatories to the
convention are barred from "the use of threat of physical force or penal
sanctions to compel believers or non-believers" to recant their beliefs
or convert.
Most democracies protect the freedom of religion, and it is largely implied in respective legal systems that those who do not believe or observe any religion are allowed freedom of thought.
A noted exception to ambiguity, explicitly allowing non-religion, is Article 36 of the Constitution of the People's Republic of China
(as adopted in 1982), which states that "No state organ, public
organization or individual may compel citizens to believe in, or not to
believe in, any religion; nor may they discriminate against citizens who
believe in, or do not believe in, any religion." Article 46 of China's 1978 Constitution
was even more explicit, stating that "Citizens enjoy freedom to believe
in religion and freedom not to believe in religion and to propagate
atheism."
Demographics
Although 11 countries listed below have nonreligious majorities, it
does not mean that the majority of the populations of these countries
don't belong to any religious group. For example, 58% of the Swedish population belongs to the Lutheran Christian Church, while 59% of Albanians declare themselves as religious.
Also, though Scandinavian countries have among the highest measures of
nonreligiosity and even atheism in Europe, 47% of atheists who live in
those countries are still members of the national churches.
Determining objective irreligion, as part of societal or individual levels of secularity and religiosity, requires cultural sensitivity from researchers. This especially so outside the West, where the Western Christian concepts of "religious" and "secular" are not rooted in local civilization. Many East Asians identify as "not religious" (wú zōngjiào in Chinese, mu shūkyō in Japanese), but "religion" in that context refers only to Buddhism or Christianity. Most of the "not religious" practice Shinto and other folk religions. In the Muslim world, those who claim to be "not religious" mostly imply not strictly observing Islam, and in Israel, being "secular" means not strictly observing Orthodox Judaism. Vice versa, many American Jews share the worldviews of nonreligious people though affiliated with a Jewish denomination, and in Russia, growing identification with Eastern Orthodoxy is mainly motivated by cultural and nationalist considerations, without much concrete belief.
A Pew 2015 global projection study for religion and nonreligion,
projects that between 2010 and 2050, there will be some initial
increases of the unaffiliated followed by a decline by 2050 due to lower
global fertility rates among this demographic. Sociologist Phil Zuckerman's
global studies on atheism have indicated that global atheism may be in
decline due to irreligious countries having the lowest birth rates in
the world and religious countries having higher birth rates in general.
Since religion and fertility are positively related and vice versa,
non-religious identity is expected to decline as a proportion of the
global population throughout the 21st century.
By 2060, according to projections, the number of unaffiliated will
increase by over 35 million, but the percentage will decrease to 13%
because the total population will grow faster.
According to Pew Research Center's 2012 global study of 230
countries and territories, 16% of the world's population is not
affiliated with a religion, while 84% are affiliated. A 2012 Worldwide Independent Network/Gallup International Association
report on a poll from 57 countries reported that 59% of the world's
population identified as religious person, 23% as not religious person,
13% as "convinced atheists", and also a 9% decrease in identification as
"religious" when compared to the 2005 average from 39 countries.
Their follow-up report, based on a poll in 2015, found that 63% of the
globe identified as religious person, 22% as not religious person, and
11% as "convinced atheists".
Their 2017 report found that 62% of the globe identified as religious
person, 25% as not religious person, and 9% as "convinced atheists".
However, researchers have advised caution with the WIN/Gallup
International figures since other surveys which use the same wording,
have conducted many waves for decades, and have a bigger sample size,
such as World Values Survey; have consistently reached lower figures for
the number of atheists worldwide.
Being nonreligious is not necessarily equivalent to being an
atheist or agnostic. Pew Research Center's global study from 2012 noted
that many of the nonreligious actually have some religious beliefs. For
example, they observed that "belief in God or a higher power is shared
by 7% of Chinese unaffiliated adults, 30% of French unaffiliated adults
and 68% of unaffiliated U.S. adults."
Out of the global nonreligious population, 76% reside in Asia and the
Pacific, while the remainder reside in Europe (12%), North America (5%),
Latin America and the Caribbean (4%), sub-Saharan Africa (2%) and the
Middle East and North Africa (less than 1%).
The term "nones" is sometimes used in the U.S. to refer to
those who are unaffiliated with any organized religion. This use
derives from surveys of religious affiliation, in which "None" (or "None
of the above") is typically the last choice. Since this status refers
to lack of organizational affiliation rather than lack of personal
belief, it is a more specific concept than irreligion. A 2015 Gallup poll concluded that in the U.S. "nones" were the only "religious" group that was growing as a percentage of the population.
