Irreligion

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"Irreligious" redirects here. For the album by Moonspell, see Irreligious (album).

Not to be confused with Atheism or Secularity.

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Irreligion

Irreligion[hide]

Secular humanismFreethought

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Irreligion by country

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Irreligion (adjective form: non-religious or irreligious) is the absence, indifference to, or rejection of
religion.[1] 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.[2]

Irreligion may include some forms of theism, depending on the religious context it is defined against; for
example, in 18th-century Europe, the epitome of irreligion was deism,[3] while in contemporary East
Asia the shared term meaning "irreligion" or "no religion" (無宗教, Chinese pron. wú zōngjiào, Japanese
pron. mu shūkyō, Korean pron. mujonggyo), with which the majority of East Asian populations identify
themselves, implies non-membership in one of the institutional religions (such as Buddhism and
Christianity) and not necessarily non-belief in traditional folk religions collectively represented by
Chinese Shendao and Japanese Shinto (both meaning "ways of gods").[4]

According to cross-cultural studies, since religion and fertility are positively related while secularism and
fertility are negatively related, secularism is expected to decline throughout the 21st century.[5] By
2060, according to their 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.[6][7]

Contents

1 Etymology

2 Types

3 Human rights

4 Demographics

5 See also

6 Notes

7 References

8 Further reading

9 External links

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.[8]

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.

"Spiritual but not religious" rejects organized religion as the sole or most valuable means of furthering
spiritual growth. In contrast to religion, spirituality has often been associated with the interior life of the
individual.

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.

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.

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.[9]

Agnosticism is the view that the existence of God, of the divine or the supernatural is unknown or
unknowable.[10]

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.[11]

Apatheism is the attitude of apathy towards the existence or non-existence of god(s).[12][13]

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.[14][15][16]

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."[17] 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.[18][19]

Most Western 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."[20] 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."[21]

Demographics