Irreligion or nonreligion is the absence or rejection of religion, or indifference to it. 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 any religion. The population of the religiously unaffiliated, sometimes referred to as “nones”, grew significantly in recent years, though its future growth is uncertain. Objective irreligion is difficult to isolate because many of the global “nones” actually hold religious beliefs and some engage in religious practices.
Irreligion takes many forms, ranging from the casual and unaware to full-fledged philosophies such as secular humanism. Other examples are atheism, agnosticism, and antitheism. Social scientists tend to define irreligion as a purely naturalist worldview that excludes a belief in anything supernatural. The broadest and loosest definition, serving as an upper limit, is the lack of religious identification, though many non-identifiers express metaphysical and even religious beliefs. The narrowest and strictest is subscribing to positive atheism. Measurement of irreligiosity requires great cultural sensitivity, especially outside the West, where the concepts of “religion” or “the secular” are not rooted in local culture.
Etymology
The term irreligion is a combination of the noun religion and the ir- form of the prefix in-, 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
- 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.
- Agnosticism is the view that the existence of God, of the divine or the supernatural is unknown or unknowable.
- Antireligion is opposition or rejection of religion of any kind.
- Apatheism is the attitude of apathy or indifference towards the existence or non-existence of god(s).
- Atheism is the lack of belief that any deities exist or, in a narrower sense, positive atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities. There are ranges from Negative and positive atheism.
- Deism is the philosophical position and rationalistic theology that rejects revelation as a source of divine knowledge, and asserts that empirical reason and observation of the natural world are exclusively logical, reliable, and sufficient to determine the existence of a Supreme Being as the creator of the universe.
- 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.
- Naturalism is the idea or belief that only natural (as opposed to supernatural or spiritual) laws and forces operate in the universe.
- Secular humanism is a system of thought that prioritizes human rather than divine matters. It is also viewed as a humanistic philosophy viewed as a nontheistic religion antagonistic to traditional religion.
- 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” is a designation coined by Robert C. Fuller for people who reject traditional or organized religion but have strong metaphysical beliefs. The SBNR may be included under the definition of nonreligion, but are sometimes classified as a wholly distinct group.
- 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.
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
Nonreligious population by country, 2010.
Although 11 countries listed below have nonreligious majorities, it does not necessary correlate with non-identification. For example, 58% of the Swedish population identify with the Lutheran Church. 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 formally 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 is 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 “without religion” (wú zōngjiào in Chinese, mu shūkyō in Japanese, mu jong-gyo in Korean), but “religion” in that context refers only to Buddhism or Christianity. Most of the people “without religion” 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.
The WIN-Gallup International Association (WIN/GIA) poll results below are the totals for “not a religious person” and “a convinced atheist” combined. Keysar et al. have advised caution with WIN/Gallup International figures since more extensive surveys which have used the same wording for decades and have bigger sample sizes, have consistently reached lower figures. For example, the WIN/GIA numbers from China were overestimated which in turn inflated global totals.
| Country or region | WIN/GIA(2017) | WIN/GIA (2015) |
WIN/GIA (2012) |
Dentsu (2006) |
Zuckerman |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Afghanistan (details) |
9% | 15% | |||
 Albania (details) |
39% | 8% | |||
 Argentina |
34% | 20% | 26% | 13% | 4–8% |
 Armenia |
6% | 5% | 5% | 34% | |
 Australia (details) |
63% | 58% | 58% | 24–25% | |
 Austria |
53% | 54% | 53% | 12% | 18–26% |
 Azerbaijan (details) |
64% | 54% | 51% | ||
 Bangladesh (details) |
19% | 5% | |||
 Belarus |
48% | 17% | |||
 Belgium (details) |
64% | 48% | 34% | 35% | 42–43% |
 Bosnia and Herzegovina |
22% | 32% | 29% | ||
 Brazil (details) |
17% | 18% | 14% | ||
 Bulgaria (details) |
39% | 39% | 30% | 30% | 34–40% |
 Cameroon |
17% | ||||
 Canada (details) |
57% | 53% | 49% | 26% | 19–30% |
 Chile |
34% | ||||
 China (details) |
90% | 90% | 77% | 93% | 8–14% |
 Colombia |
14% | 17% | 15% | ||
 DR Congo |
17% | ||||
 Croatia (details) |
13% | 7% | |||
 Cuba |
7% | ||||
 Czech Republic (details) |
72% | 75% | 78% | 64% | 54–61% |
 Denmark (details) |
61% | 52% | 10% | 43–80% | |
 Dominican Republic |
7% | ||||
 Ecuador |
18% | 28% | 29% | ||
 Estonia (details) |
60% | 76% | 49% | ||
 Fiji |
8% | 7% | 6% | ||
 Finland (details) |
55% | 42% | 44% | 12% | 28–60% |
 France (details) |
50% | 53% | 63% | 43% | 43–54% |
 Georgia (details) |
7% | 13% | |||
 Germany (details) |
60% | 59% | 48% | 25% | 41–49% |
 Ghana (details) |
1% | 2% | |||
 Greece |
22% | 21% | 4% | 16% | |
 Hong Kong |
63% | 70% | 60% | ||
 Hungary |
43% | 32–46% | |||
 Iceland (details) |
49% | 44% | 41% | 4% | 16–23% |
 India (details) |
5% | 23% | 16% | 7% | 9.11% |
 Indonesia (details) |
30% | 15% | |||
 Iran (details) |
20% | 1% | |||
 Iraq (details) |
34% | 9% | |||
 Ireland (details) |
56% | 51% | 54% | 7% | |
 Israel (details) |
58% | 65% | 15–37% | ||
 Italy (details) |
26% | 24% | 23% | 18% | 6–15% |
 Japan (details) |
60% | 62% | 62% | 52% | 64–65% |
 Kazakhstan (details) |
11–12% | ||||
 Kenya (details) |
9% | 11% | |||
 Kosovo |
3% | 8% | |||
 Kyrgyzstan |
7% | ||||
 Latvia |
52% | 50% | 41% | 20–29% | |
 Lebanon (details) |
28% | 18% | 35% | ||
 Lithuania |
40% | 23% | 19% | 13% | |
 Luxembourg |
30% | ||||
 Malaysia |
23% | 13% | |||
 Malta |
1% | ||||
 Mexico (details) |
36% | 28% | |||
 Moldova |
10% |