Irreligion Explained

Irreligion is the absence or rejection of religious beliefs or practices. It encompasses a wide range of viewpoints drawn from various philosophical and intellectual perspectives, including atheism, agnosticism, skepticism, rationalism, and secularism. These perspectives can vary, with individuals who identify as irreligious holding a diverse array of specific beliefs about religion or its role in their lives.^[1]

According to the Pew Research Center's 2012 global study of 230 countries and territories, 16% of the world's population does not identify with any religion.^[2] A 2017 Worldwide Independent Network/Gallup International Association report on a poll from 57 countries reported that 25% said they were not a religious person, and 9% responded as "convinced atheists".^[3]

The population of the religiously unaffiliated, sometimes referred to as "nones", has grown significantly in recent years.^[4] Measurement of irreligiosity requires great cultural sensitivity, especially outside the West, where the concepts of "religion" or "the secular" are not always rooted in local culture.^[5] Those who do not affiliate with a religion are diverse. Pew Research Center's global study from 2012 noted that many of the nonreligious overlap with some religious measures.

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 French: irréligion in 1527, then in English as irreligion in 1598. It was borrowed into Dutch as Dutch; Flemish: irreligie in the 17th century, though it is not certain from which language.^[6]

Definition

Irreligion is defined as a rejection of religion, but whether it is distinct from lack of religion is disputed. The Encyclopedia of Religion and Society defines it as the "rejection of religion in general or any of its more specific organized forms, as distinct from absence of religion";^[7] while the Oxford English Dictionary defines it as want of religion; hostility to or disregard of religious principles; irreligious conduct;^[8] and the Merriam Webster Dictionary defines it as "the quality or state of being irreligious", and defines "irreligious" as "neglectful of religion: lacking religious emotions, doctrines, or practices".^[9]

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 unknown in fact.
• Agnosticism is the view that the existence of God, of the divine or the supernatural is unknown or unknowable.
• Alatrism or alatry (Greek: from the privative ἀ- + λατρεία (latreia) = worship) is the recognition of the existence of one or more gods, but with a deliberate lack of worship of any deity. Typically, it includes the belief that religious rituals have no supernatural significance, and that gods ignore all prayers and worship.
• Anti-clericalism is opposition to religious authority, typically in social or political matters.
• 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.
• Antitheism is the opposition to theism. The term has had a range of applications. It typically refers to direct opposition to the belief in any deity.
• 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.
• Ignosticism, also known as igtheism, is the idea that the question of the existence of God is meaningless because the word "God" has no coherent and unambiguous definition.
• Ietsism is an unspecified belief in an undetermined transcendent reality.
• Naturalism is the idea or belief that only natural (as opposed to supernatural or spiritual) laws and forces operate in the universe.
• New Atheism is the positions of some atheist academics, writers, scientists, and philosophers of the 20th and 21st centuries.
• Secular ethics is a branch of moral philosophy in which ethics is based solely on human faculties such as logic, empathy, reason or moral intuition, and not derived from belief in supernatural revelation or guidance—a source of ethics in many religions.
• Secular humanism is a system of thought that prioritizes human rather than divine matters.
• Secular liberalism is a form of liberalism in which secularist principles and values, and sometimes non-religious ethics, are especially emphasised.
• Secular paganism is an outlook upholding virtues and principles associated with paganism while maintaining a secular worldview.
• Post-theism is a variant of nontheism that proposes that the division of theism vs. atheism is obsolete, that God belongs to a stage of human development now past. Within nontheism, post-theism can be contrasted with antitheism.
• Religious skepticism is a type of skepticism relating to 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.^[10]
• "Spiritual but not religious" (SBNR) 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,^[11] but are sometimes classified as a wholly distinct group.^[12]
• 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.
• Transtheism, refers to a system of thought or religious philosophy that is neither theistic nor atheistic, but is beyond them.

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."^[13] 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.^{[14] [15]}

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 believe in, any religion; nor may they discriminate against citizens who believe in, or do not believe in, any religion."^[16] 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."^[17]

Demographics

See main article: List of countries by irreligion. In 2020, the World Religion Database estimated that the countries with the highest percentage of atheists were North Korea and Sweden.^[18]

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.^[19] 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.^[20]

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.^[21]

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.^[22] 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.^[23] 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.^[24] 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.^{[25] [26]}

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.^[2] 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 a religious person, 23% as not a religious person, 13% as "convinced atheists", and also a 9% decrease in identification as "religious" when compared to the 2005 average from 39 countries.^[27] Their follow-up report, based on a poll in 2015, found that 63% of the globe identified as a religious person, 22% as not a religious person, and 11% as "convinced atheists".^[28] Their 2017 report found that 62% of the globe identified as a religious person, 25% as not a religious person, and 9% as "convinced atheists".^[29] However, some researchers have advised caution with the WIN/Gallup International figures since other surveys have consistently reached lower figures for the number of atheists worldwide.^[30]

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." Being unaffiliated with a religion on polls does not automatically mean objectively nonreligious since there are, for example, unaffiliated people who fall under religious measures, just as some unbelievers may still attend a church or other place of worship.^[31] 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%).^[32]

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.^[33]

By population

The Pew Research Centre in the table below reflects "religiously unaffiliated" which "include atheists, agnostics, and people who do not identify with any particular religion in surveys".

The Zuckerman data on the table below only reflect the number of people who have an absence of belief in a deity only (atheists, agnostics). These do not include the broader number of people who do not identify with a particular religion, such as deists, pantheists, and spiritual but not religious people.

Country	Pew (2012)^[34]	Zuckerman (2004)^[35] ^[36]
	700,680,000
	72,120,000
	26,040,000
	23,180,000
	20,350,000
	17,580,000
	22,350,000
	50,980,000
	17,350,000
	15,410,000

Historical trends

According to political/social scientist Ronald F. Inglehart, "influential thinkers from Karl Marx to Max Weber to Émile Durkheim predicted that the spread of scientific knowledge would dispel religion throughout the world", but religion continued to prosper in most places during the 19th and 20th centuries.^[37] Inglehart and Pippa Norris argue faith is "more emotional than cognitive", and advance an alternative thesis termed "existential security." They postulate that rather than knowledge or ignorance of scientific learning, it is the weakness or vulnerability of a society that determines religiosity. They claim that increased poverty and chaos make religious values more important to a society, while wealth and security diminish its role. As need for religious support diminishes, there is less willingness to "accept its constraints, including keeping women in the kitchen and gay people in the closet".^[38]

Prior to the 1980s

Rates of people identifying as non-religious began rising in most societies as least as early as the turn of the 20th century.^[39] In 1968, sociologist Glenn M. Vernon wrote that US census respondents who identified as "no religion" were insufficiently defined because they were defined in terms of a negative. He contrasted the label with the term "independent" for political affiliation, which still includes people who participate in civic activities. He suggested this difficulty in definition was partially due to the dilemma of defining religious activity beyond membership, attendance, or other identification with a formal religious group.^[39] During the 1970s, social scientists still tended to describe irreligion from a perspective that considered religion as normative for humans. Irreligion was described in terms of hostility, reactivity, or indifference toward religion, and or as developing from radical theologies.^[40]

1981–2019

In a study of religious trends in 49 countries from 1981 to 2019, Inglehart and Norris found an overall increase in religiosity from 1981 to 2007. Respondents in 33 of 49 countries rated themselves higher on a scale from one to ten when asked how important God was in their lives. This increase occurred in most former communist and developing countries, but also in some high-income countries. A sharp reversal of the global trend occurred from 2007 to 2019, when 43 out of 49 countries studied became less religious. This reversal appeared across most of the world.^[37] The United States was a dramatic example of declining religiositywith the mean rating of importance of religion dropping from 8.2 to 4.6while India was a major exception. Research in 1989 recorded disparities in religious adherence for different faith groups, with people from Christian and tribal traditions leaving religion at a greater rate than those from Muslim, Hindu, or Buddhist faiths.^[41]

Inglehart and Norris speculate that the decline in religiosity comes from a decline in the social need for traditional gender and sexual norms, ("virtually all world religions instilled" pro-fertility norms such as "producing as many children as possible and discouraged divorce, abortion, homosexuality, contraception, and any sexual behavior not linked to reproduction" in their adherents for centuries) as life expectancy rose and infant mortality dropped. They also argue that the idea that religion was necessary to prevent a collapse of social cohesion and public morality was belied by lower levels of corruption and murder in less religious countries. They argue that both of these trends are based on the theory that as societies develop, survival becomes more secure: starvation, once pervasive, becomes uncommon; life expectancy increases; murder and other forms of violence diminish. As this level of security rises, there is less social/economic need for the high birthrates that religion encourages and less emotional need for the comfort of religious belief.^[37] Change in acceptance of "divorce, abortion, and homosexuality" has been measured by the World Values Survey and shown to have grown throughout the world outside of Muslim-majority countries.^[37]

See also

• Antireligion
• Apostasy
• Faith deconstruction
• Importance of religion by country
• Infidel
• Laїcité
• Pantheism
• Post-theism
• Secular religion
• Transtheism

Bibliography

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• Book: Richard Henry Popkin . Arie Johan Vanderjagt . Scepticism and irreligion in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries . 1993 . Brill . 978-90-04-09596-0.
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• Book: Dillon . Michele . 2015 . Christian Affiliation and Disaffiliation in the United States: Generational and Cultural Change . Hunt . Stephen J. . Stephen J. Hunt . Handbook of Global Contemporary Christianity: Themes and Developments in Culture, Politics, and Society . . . Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion . 10 . 10.1163/9789004291027_019 . 346–365 . 978-90-04-26538-7 . 1874-6691.
• Book: Eller , Jack David . 2010. What Is Atheism?. Zuckerman. Phil. Phil Zuckerman. Atheism and Secularity. Volume 1: Issues, Concepts, Definitions. Santa Barbara, California. Praeger. 978-0-313-35183-9. 1–18.
• Book: Eller , Jack David . . 2017. Varieties of Secular Experience. Zuckerman. Phil. Phil Zuckerman. Shook. John R.. The Oxford Handbook of Secularism. New York. Oxford University Press. 499ff. 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199988457.013.31. 978-0-19-998845-7.
• Book: Glasner , Peter E. . 1977. The Sociology of Secularisation: A Critique of a Concept. London. Routledge & Kegan Paul. 978-0-7100-8455-2.
• Encyclopedia: Iversen. Hans Raun. 2013. Secularization, Secularity, Secularism. Runehov. Anne L. C.. Oviedo. Lluis. Encyclopedia of Sciences and Religions. Dordrecht, Netherlands. Springer. 2116–2121. 10.1007/978-1-4020-8265-8_1024. 978-1-4020-8265-8.
• Book: Josephson , Jason Ānanda . 2012. The Invention of Religion in Japan. Chicago. University of Chicago Press. 9780226412337.
• Lois Lee, Secular or nonreligious? Investigating and interpreting generic 'not religious' categories and populations. Religion, Vol. 44, no. 3. October 2013.
• Book: Mullins , Mark R. . 2011. Religion in Contemporary Japanese Lives. Lyon Bestor. Victoria. Bestor. Theodore C.. Theodore C. Bestor. Yamagata. Akiko. Routledge Handbook of Japanese Culture and Society. limited. Abingdon, England. Routledge. 63–74. 978-0-415-43649-6.
• Book: Schaffner . Caleb . Cragun . Ryan T. . 2020 . Chapter 20: Non-Religion and Atheism . https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9789004331471/BP000022.xml?body=pdf-43180 . Enstedt . Daniel . Larsson . Göran . Mantsinen . Teemu T. . Handbook of Leaving Religion . . . Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion . 18 . 10.1163/9789004331471_021 . free . 242–252 . 978-90-04-33092-4 . 1874-6691.
• Book: Smith , James K. A. . James K. A. Smith. 2014. How (Not) to Be Secular: Reading Charles Tayor. Grand Rapids, Michigan. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. 978-0-8028-6761-2.
• Book: Taylor , Charles . Charles Taylor (philosopher). 2007. A Secular Age. Cambridge, Massachusetts. Belknap Press. 978-0-674-02676-6. A Secular Age.
• Book: Taylor , Charles . Charles Taylor (philosopher). . 2011. Why We Need a Radical Redefinition of Secularism. Mendieta. Eduardo. Eduardo Mendieta. VanAntwerpen. Jonathan. The Power of Religion in the Public Sphere. New York. Columbia University Press. 34–59. 978-0-231-52725-5. 10.7312/butl15645.6. https://archive.org/details/powerofrelig_xxxx_2011_000_10862422/page/34.
• Book: 2010. Warner. Michael. Michael Warner. VanAntwerpen. Jonathan. Calhoun. Craig. Craig Calhoun. Varieties of Secularism in a Secular Age. Cambridge, Massachusetts. Harvard University Press. 978-0-674-04857-7.
• Book: Zuckerman. Phil. Phil Zuckerman. Galen. Luke W.. Pasquale. Frank L.. 2016. Secularity Around the World. The Nonreligious: Understanding Secular People and Societies. New York. Oxford University Press. 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199924950.001.0001. 978-0-19-992494-3.
• Book: Zuckerman. Phil. Phil Zuckerman. Shook. John R.. 2017. Introduction: The Study of Secularism. Zuckerman. Phil. Phil Zuckerman. Shook. John R.. The Oxford Handbook of Secularism. New York. Oxford University Press. 1–17. 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199988457.013.1. 978-0-19-998845-7.

External links

• The Understanding Unbelief program in the University of Kent.
• "Will religion ever disappear?", from BBC Future, by Rachel Nuwer, in December 2014

Notes and References

1. Web site: Eldridge . Stephen . Irreligion Definition, Overview, & Examples Britannica . . 14 April 2024.
2. Web site: The Global Religious Landscape. Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. 18 December 2012. 18 December 2012.
3. Web site: Religion prevails in the world. WIN/Gallup International. 14 November 2017 . 2018-02-27. https://web.archive.org/web/20171114113506/http://www.wingia.com/web/files/news/370/file/370.pdf . 2017-11-14.
4. Web site: Lipka . Michael . 7 Key Changes in the Global Religious Landscape . Pew Research Center . 2 April 2015.
5. Zuckerman, Phil; Galen, Luke W.; Pasquale, Frank L. (2016). "Secularity Around the World". In: The Nonreligious: Understanding Secular People and Societies. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 6–8, 13–15, 32–34.
6. Web site: Irreligie . . . 2007 . 29 January 2019.
7. Encyclopedia: Swatos . William H. Jr. . Irreligion. Colin. Campbell. Encyclopedia of Religion and Society . AltaMira Press . Walnut Creek, Calif. . 1998 . 0-7619-8956-0 . 37361790 . 239.
8. 99697.
9. Merriam Webster, irreligious
10. [Jacques Berlinerblau]
11. Zuckerman, Galen et al., p. 119.
12. Zuckerman, Shook, (in bibliography), p. 575.
13. Web site: CCPR General Comment 22: 30/07/93 on ICCPR Article 18 . Minority Rights Group . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20150116043952/http://www.minorityrights.org/3273/normative-instruments/ccpr-general-comment-22-300793-on-iccpr-article-18.html . 2015-01-16 .
14. Web site: 1 August 2003. Discrimination against religious minorities in Iran . International Federation for Human Rights . 3 March 2009.
15. Web site: The Evolution of Religious Liberty as a Universal Human Right: Examining the Role of the 1981 United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief . BYU Law Review . 3 March 2009 . Davis . Derek H. . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20110723210828/http://www.law2.byu.edu/lawreview/archives/2002/2/dav2.pdf . 23 July 2011 .
16. Web site: Chapter two – the fundamental rights and duties of citizens . Constitution of the People's Republic of China . Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor . 2013-06-09 . https://web.archive.org/web/20180323100707/http://www.hkhrm.org.hk/english/law/const03.html . 2018-03-23 . dead .
17. Book: https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E4%B8%AD%E5%8D%8E%E4%BA%BA%E6%B0%91%E5%85%B1%E5%92%8C%E5%9B%BD%E5%AE%AA%E6%B3%95_(1978%E5%B9%B4)#%E7%AC%AC%E4%B8%89%E7%AB%A0_%E5%85%AC%E6%B0%91%E7%9A%84%E5%9F%BA%E6%9C%AC%E6%9D%83%E5%88%A9%E5%92%8C%E4%B9%89%E5%8A%A1 . Wikisource . People's Republic of China 1978 Constitution. zh:中华人民共和国宪法 (1978年). zh. 1978. 24 May 2021.
18. Web site: Atheist World Rankings . ARDA . 2022-04-19 . 2022-10-28.
19. Web site: Statistik. www.svenskakyrkan.se. 15 November 2023 .
20. Book: Zuckerman. Phil. Atheism and Secularity Vol.2. 2010. Praeger. 978-0313351815. Ch. 9 Atheism And Secularity: The Scandinavian Paradox.
21. Zuckerman, Galen et al., "Secularity Around the World". pp. 30–32, 37–40, 44, 50–51.
22. Web site: The Future of World Religions: Population Growth Projections, 2010–2050. Pew Research Center. 5 April 2012.
23. Book: Zuckerman. Phil. Martin. Michael. The Cambridge Companion to Atheism. limited. 2007. Cambridge Univ. Press. 978-0521603676. 59.
24. Ellis . Lee . Hoskin . Anthony W. . Dutton . Edward . Nyborg . Helmuth . The Future of Secularism: a Biologically Informed Theory Supplemented with Cross-Cultural Evidence . Evolutionary Psychological Science . 8 March 2017 . 3 . 3 . 224–43 . 10.1007/s40806-017-0090-z. 88509159 .
25. Web site: Why People With No Religion Are Projected To Decline As A Share Of The World's Population. Pew Research Center. 7 April 2017.
26. Web site: The Changing Global Religious Landscape: Babies Born to Muslims will Begin to Outnumber Christian Births by 2035; People with No Religion Face a Birth Dearth . Pew Research Center . 5 April 2017.
27. Web site: Global Index of Religion and Atheism . WIN/Gallup International . 13 January 2015 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20121016062403/http://redcresearch.ie/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/RED-C-press-release-Religion-and-Atheism-25-7-12.pdf . 16 October 2012 .
28. Web site: Losing our Religion? Two Thirds of People Still Claim to be Religious. 13 April 2015 . WIN/Gallup International . https://web.archive.org/web/20150430232945/http://www.wingia.com/web/files/news/290/file/290.pdf. 30 April 2015 . dead.
29. Web site: Religion prevails in the world. WIN/Gallup International. 14 November 2017 . 2018-02-27. https://web.archive.org/web/20171114113506/http://www.wingia.com/web/files/news/370/file/370.pdf . 2017-11-14.
30. Book: Keysar. Ariela. Navarro-Rivera. Juhem. Bullivant. Stephen. Ruse. Michael . The Oxford Handbook of Atheism. 2017. Oxford University Press. 978-0199644650 . 36. A World of Atheism: Global Demographics.
31. Book: Johnson . Todd . Zurlo . Gina . Cipriani . Roberto . Garelli . Franco . Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion: Volume 7: Sociology of Atheism . 2016 . Brill . Leiden . 9789004317536 . 56The intersection of religion among the global uaffliated –60 . Unaffiliated, Yet Religious: A Methodological and Demographic Analysis.
32. Web site: Religiously Unaffiliated . The Global Religious Landscape . Pew Research Center

    Religion & Public Life

    . 18 December 2012 .
33. Web site: Percentage of Christians in U.S. Drifting Down, but Still High. 24 December 2015. Gallup . Frank . Newport . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20240106163050/https://news.gallup.com/poll/187955/percentage-christians-drifting-down-high.aspx . Jan 6, 2024 .
34. Web site: Religiously Unaffiliated. 18 December 2012 . Pew Research Center . The Global Religious Landscape . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20211107004340/https://www.pewforum.org/2012/12/18/global-religious-landscape-unaffiliated/ . Nov 7, 2021 .
35. Web site: The Cambridge Companion to Atheism . PDF Drive.
36. Web site: 81-F77-Aeb-A404-447-C-8-B95-Dd57-Adc11-E98.
37. Inglehart . Ronald F. . Giving Up on God The Global Decline of Religion . Foreign Affairs . September–October 2020 . September/October 2020 . 20 September 2020.
38. Ikenberry . G. John . Book review. Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide . Foreign Affairs . November–December 2004 . November/December 2004 . 10.2307/20034150 . 20034150 . 20 September 2020.
39. Vernon . Glenn M. . The Religious "Nones": A Neglected Category . Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion . 1968 . 7 . 2 . 219–229 . 10.2307/1384629. 1384629 .
40. Book: Schumaker . John F. . Religion and Mental Health . 1992 . Oxford University Press . New York . 0-19-506985-4 . 54.
41. Duke . James T. . Johnson . Barry L. . The Stages of Religious Transformation: A Study of 200 Nations . . 1989 . 30 . 3 . 209–224 . 10.2307/3511506. 3511506 .