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] The population of the religiously unaffiliated, sometimes referred to as "nones", has grown significantly in recent years. [3] 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. [4]
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. [5]
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"; [6] while the Oxford English dictionary defines it as want of religion; hostility to or disregard of religious principles; irreligious conduct; [7] and the Merriam Webster dictionary defines it as "neglectful of religion: lacking religious emotions, doctrines, or practices". [8]
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." [12] 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. [13] [14]
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." [15] 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." [16]
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. [18] 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. [19]
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. [20]
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. [21] 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. [22] 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. [23] 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. [24] [25]
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 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. [26] 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". [27] Their 2017 report found that 62% of the globe identified as religious person, 25% as not religious person, and 9% as "convinced atheists". [28] 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. [29] In 2020, the World Religion Database estimated that the countries with the highest percentage of atheists were North Korea and Sweden. [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." [31] 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 and vice versa. [32] 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%). [31]
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]
The Pew Research Centre data in the table below reflects "religiously unaffiliated" which "include atheists, agnostics and people who do not identify with any particular religion in surveys".
The WIN-Gallup International Association (WIN/GIA) poll results below are the totals for "not a religious person" (regardless of whether they had some religious affiliation) and "a convinced atheist" combined.
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). Does not include the broader number of people who do not identify with a religion such as deists, spiritual but not religious, pantheists, New Age spiritualism, etc.
Pew | WIN/GIA | Dentsu | Zuckerman | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Country or region | (2012) [35] | (2017) [36] | (2015) [37] | (2012) [38] [39] | (2006) [40] | (2004) [41] |
Afghanistan (details) | < 0.1% | 9% | 15% | |||
Albania (details) | 1.4% | 39% | 8% | |||
Argentina | 12.2% | 34% | 20% | 26% | 13% | 4–8% |
Armenia | 1.3% | 6% | 5% | 5% | 34% | |
Australia (details) | 24.2% | 63% | 58% | 58% | 24–25% | |
Austria | 13.5% | 53% | 54% | 53% | 12% | 18–26% |
Azerbaijan (details) | < 0.1% | 64% | 54% | 51% | ||
Bangladesh (details) | < 0.1% | 19% | 5% | |||
Belarus | 28.6% | 48% | 17% | |||
Belgium (details) | 29% | 64% | 48% | 34% | 35% | 42–43% |
Bosnia and Herzegovina | 2.5% | 22% | 32% | 29% | ||
Brazil (details) | 7.9% | 17% | 18% | 14% | ||
Bulgaria (details) | 4.2% | 39% | 39% | 30% | 30% | 34–40% |
Cameroon | 5.3% | 17% | ||||
Canada (details) | 23.7% | 57% | 53% | 49% | 26% | 19–30% |
Chile | 8.6% | 34% | ||||
China (details) | 52.2% | 90% | 90% | 77% | 93% | 8–14% |
Colombia | 6.6% | 14% | 17% | 15% | ||
DR Congo | 1.8% | 17% | ||||
Croatia (details) | 5.1% | 13% | 7% | |||
Cuba | 23% | 7% | ||||
Czech Republic (details) | 76.4% | 72% | 75% | 78% | 64% | 54–61% |
Denmark (details) | 11.8% | 61% | 52% | 10% | 43–80% | |
Dominican Republic | 10.9% | 7% | ||||
Ecuador | 5.5% | 18% | 28% | 29% | ||
Estonia (details) | 59.6% | 60% | 76% | 49% | ||
Fiji | 0.8% | 8% | 7% | 6% | ||
Finland (details) | 17.6% | 55% | 42% | 44% | 12% | 28–60% |
France (details) | 28% | 50% | 53% | 63% | 43% | 43–54% |
Georgia (details) | 0.7% | 7% | 13% | |||
Germany (details) | 24.7% | 60% | 59% | 48% | 25% | 41–49% |
Ghana (details) | 4.2% | 1% | 2% | |||
Greece | 6.1% | 22% | 21% | 4% | 16% | |
Hungary (details) | 18.6% | 43% | 32–46% | |||
Iceland (details) | 3.5% | 49% | 44% | 41% | 4% | 16–23% |
India (details) | < 0.1% | 5% | 23% | 16% | 7% | 9.11% |
Indonesia (details) | < 0.1% | 30% | 15% | |||
Iran (details) | 0.1% | 20% | 1% | |||
Iraq (details) | 0.1% | 34% | 9% | |||
Ireland (details) | 6.2% | 56% | 51% | 54% | 7% | |
Israel (details) | 3.1% | 58% | 65% | 15–37% | ||
Italy (details) | 12.4% | 26% | 24% | 23% | 18% | 6–15% |
Japan (details) | 57% | 60% | 62% | 62% | 52% | 64–65% |
Kazakhstan (details) | 4.2% | 11–12% | ||||
Kenya (details) | 2.5% | 9% | 11% | |||
Kosovo | 1.6% | 3% | 8% | |||
Kyrgyzstan | 0.4% | 7% | ||||
Latvia | 43.8% | 52% | 50% | 41% | 20–29% | |
Lebanon (details) | 0.3% | 28% | 18% | 35% | ||
Lithuania | 10% | 40% | 23% | 19% | 13% | |
Luxembourg | 26.8% | 30% | ||||
Malaysia | 0.7% | 23% | 13% | |||
Malta | 2.5% | 1% | ||||
Mexico (details) | 4.7% | 36% | 28% | |||
Moldova | 1.4% | 10% | ||||
Mongolia | 35.9% | 29% | 9% | |||
Morocco (details) | < 0.1% | 5% | ||||
Netherlands (details) | 42.1% | 66% | 56% | 55% | 39–44% | |
New Zealand (details) | 36.6% | 20–22% | ||||
Nigeria (details) | 0.4% | 2% | 16% | 5% | 1% | |
North Korea | 71.3% | 15% | ||||
North Macedonia | 11% | 10% | 9% | |||
Norway (details) | 10.1% | 62% | 31–72% | |||
Pakistan (details) | < 0.1% | 6% | 11% | 10% | ||
Palestinian territories | < 0.1% | 35% | 19% | 33% | ||
Panama | 4.8% | 13% | ||||
Papua New Guinea | < 0.1% | 5% | 4% | |||
Peru (details) | 3% | 23% | 13% | 11% | 5% | |
Philippines (details) | 0.1% | 9% | 22% | 11% | ||
Poland (details) | 5.6% | 10% | 12% | 14% | 5% | |
Portugal | 4.4% | 38% | 37% | 11% | 4–9% | |
Puerto Rico | 1.9% | 11% | ||||
Romania (details) | 0.1% | 9% | 17% | 7% | 2% | |
Russia (details) | 16.2% | 30% | 23% | 32% | 48% | 24–48% |
Saudi Arabia (details) | 0.7% | 24% | ||||
Serbia | 3.3% | 21% | 21% | 19% | ||
Singapore (details) | 16.4% | 13% | ||||
Slovakia | 14.3% | 23% | 10–28% | |||
Slovenia | 18% | 53% | 30% | 35–38% | ||
South Africa (details) | 14.9% | 32% | 11% | |||
South Korea (details) | 46.4% | 60% | 55% | 46% | 37% | 30–52% |
South Sudan | 1% | 16% | ||||
Spain (details) | 19% | 57% | 55% | 47% | 16% | 15–24% |
Sweden (details) | 27% | 73% | 76% | 58% | 25% | 46–85% |
Switzerland (details) | 11.9% | 58% | 47% | 17–27% | ||
Taiwan | 12.7% | 24% | ||||
Tanzania | 1.4% | 2% | ||||
Thailand | 0.3% | 2% | 2% | |||
Tunisia | 0.2% | 33% | ||||
Turkey (details) | 1.2% | 12% | 15% | 75% (anomalous) | 3% | |
Uganda (details) | 0.5% | 1% | ||||
Ukraine | 14.7% | 42% | 24% | 23% | 42% | 20% |
United Kingdom (details) | 21.3% | 69% | 66% | 31–44% | ||
United States (details) | 16.4% | 39% | 39% | 35% | 20% | 3–9% |
Uruguay (details) | 40.7% | 12% | ||||
Uzbekistan | 0.8% | 18% | ||||
Venezuela | 10% | 2% | 27% | |||
Vietnam | 29.6% | 63% | 54% | 65% | 46% | 81% |
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). Does not include the broader number of people who do not identify with a religion such as deists, spiritual but not religious, pantheists, New Age spiritualism, etc.
Country | Pew (2012) [42] | Zuckerman (2004) [43] [44] |
---|---|---|
China | 700,680,000 | 103,907,840 – 181,838,720 |
India | 102,870,000 | |
Japan | 72,120,000 | 81,493,120 – 82,766,450 |
Vietnam | 26,040,000 | 66,978,900 |
Russia | 23,180,000 | 34,507,680 – 69,015,360 |
Germany | 20,350,000 | 33,794,250 – 40,388,250 |
France | 17,580,000 | 25,982,320 – 32,628,960 |
United Kingdom | 18,684,010 – 26,519,240 | |
South Korea | 22,350,000 | 14,579,400 – 25,270,960 |
Ukraine | 9,546,400 | |
United States | 50,980,000 | 8,790,840 – 26,822,520 |
Netherlands | 6,364,020 – 7,179,920 | |
Canada | 6,176,520 – 9,752,400 | |
Spain | 6,042,150 – 9,667,440 | |
Taiwan | 5,460,000 | |
Hong Kong | 5,240,000 | |
Czech Republic | 5,328,940 – 6,250,121 | |
Australia | 4,779,120 – 4,978,250 | |
Belgium | 4,346,160 – 4,449,640 | |
Sweden | 4,133,560 – 7,638,100 | |
Italy | 3,483,420 – 8,708,550 | |
North Korea | 17,350,000 | 3,404,700 |
Hungary | 3,210,240 – 4,614,720 | |
Bulgaria | 2,556,120 – 3,007,200 | |
Denmark | 2,327,590 – 4,330,400 | |
Turkey | 1,956,990 - 6,320,550 | |
Belarus | 1,752,870 | |
Greece | 1,703,680 | |
Kazakhstan | 1,665,840 – 1,817,280 | |
Argentina | 1,565,800 – 3,131,600 | |
Austria | 1,471,500 – 2,125,500 | |
Finland | 1,460,200 – 3,129,000 | |
Norway | 1,418,250 – 3,294,000 | |
Switzerland | 1,266,670 – 2,011,770 | |
Israel | 929,850 – 2,293,630 | |
New Zealand | 798,800 – 878,680 | |
Cuba | 791,630 | |
Slovenia | 703,850 – 764,180 | |
Estonia | 657,580 | |
Dominican Republic | 618,380 | |
Singapore | 566,020 | |
Slovakia | 542,400 – 1,518,720 | |
Lithuania | 469,040 | |
Latvia | 461,200 – 668,740 | |
Portugal | 420,960 – 947,160 | |
Armenia | 118,740 | |
Uruguay | 407,880 | |
Kyrgyzstan | 355,670 | |
Croatia | 314,790 | |
Albania | 283,600 | |
Mongolia | 247,590 | |
Iceland | 47,040 – 67,620 | |
Brazil | 15,410,000 |
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. [45] 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". [46]
Rates of people identifying as non-religious began rising in most societies as least as early as the turn of the 20th century. [47] 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. [47] 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. [48]
This section relies largely or entirely upon a single source .(July 2022) |
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. [45] The United States was a dramatic example of declining religiosity –with the mean rating of importance of religion dropping from 8.2 to 4.6 –while 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. [49]
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. [45] 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. [45]
In sociology, secularization is a multilayered concept that generally denotes "a transition from a religious to a more worldly level." There are many types of secularization and most do not lead to atheism, irreligion, nor are they automatically anti-thetical to religion. Secularization has different connotations such as implying differentiation of secular from religious domains, the marginalization of religion in those domains, or it may also entail the transformation of religion as a result of its recharacterization.
The study of religiosity and intelligence explores the link between religiosity and intelligence or educational level. Religiosity and intelligence are both complex topics that include diverse variables, and the interactions among those variables are not always well understood. For instance, intelligence is often defined differently by different researchers; also, all scores from intelligence tests are only estimates of intelligence, because one cannot achieve concrete measurements of intelligence due to the concept’s abstract nature. Religiosity is also complex, in that it involves wide variations of interactions of religious beliefs, practices, behaviors, and affiliations, across a diverse array of cultures.
Religion has been a major influence on the societies, cultures, traditions, philosophies, artistic expressions and laws within present-day Europe. The largest religion in Europe is Christianity. However, irreligion and practical secularisation are also prominent in some countries. In Southeastern Europe, three countries have Muslim majorities, with Christianity being the second-largest religion in those countries. Ancient European religions included veneration for deities such as Zeus. Modern revival movements of these religions include Heathenism, Rodnovery, Romuva, Druidry, Wicca, and others. Smaller religions include Indian religions, Judaism, and some East Asian religions, which are found in their largest groups in Britain, France, and Kalmykia.
Accurate demographics of atheism are difficult to obtain since conceptions of atheism vary considerably across different cultures and languages, ranging from an active concept to being unimportant or not developed. Also in some countries and regions atheism carries a strong stigma, making it harder to count atheists in these countries. In global studies, the number of people without a religion is usually higher than the number of people without a belief in a deity and the number of people who agree with statements on lacking a belief in a deity is usually higher than the number of people who self-identify as "atheists".
Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities. Atheism is contrasted with theism, which in its most general form is the belief that at least one deity exists.
Atheism, agnosticism, scepticism, freethought, secular humanism or general irreligion are increasing in Australia. Post-war Australia has become a highly secularised country. Religion does not play a major role in the lives of much of the population.
In the United States, between 6% and 15% of citizens demonstrated nonreligious attitudes and naturalistic worldviews, namely atheists or agnostics. The number of self-identified atheists and agnostics was around 4% each, while many persons formally affiliated with a religion are likewise non-believing.
According to sociologists as of 2022, "the proportion of atheists in the US has held steady at 3% to 4% for more than 80 years." According to the Pew Research Center in a 2014 survey, self-identified atheists make up 3.1% of the US population, even though 9% of Americans agreed with the statement "Do not believe in God" while 2% agreed with the statement "Do not know if they believe in God". Other polling by Gallup in 2022 showed that 17% of respondents replied "No" when asked "Do you believe in God?", and another from 2023 found that 12% of respondents replied they "Do not believe in" God with 14% replying they were "Not sure about" the existence of God. Regardless of question or polling service, there is evidence the number of people not believing in God is increasing.
Irreligion in Belgium pertains to citizens of Belgium that are atheist, agnostic, or otherwise unaffiliated with any religion. Irreligion is the second most common religious stance in Belgium, following Catholicism.
Irreligion in Estonia pertains to atheism, agnosticism, and secularism of the people and institutions of Estonia. Irreligion is prominent in Estonia, where a majority of citizens are unaffiliated with any religion. Estonian irreligion dates back to the 19th century, when Estonian nationalists and intellectuals deemed Christianity a foreign religion in opposition to Estonian independence. Irreligion in Estonia was later accelerated by the Soviet occupation of the Baltic states, in which state atheism was enforced. By some metrics, Estonia is the most irreligious country in the world.
Irreligion in Ireland pertains to the population of Ireland that are atheist, agnostic, or otherwise unaffiliated with any religion. The 2022 census recorded that 14% of the population was irreligious; the second largest category after Roman Catholicism. The population was traditionally devoutly Catholic throughout much of Ireland's modern history, with a peak of 94.9% identifying as Catholic in the 1961 census. This percentage has declined to 69% in the 2022 census, the lowest recorded. Conversely, those with no religion made up less than 0.1% of the population in 1961; the proportion grew slowly until the 1991 census where it began to rapidly increase to its current share of 14% of the population in 2022.
According to public opinion polls, irreligion in Uruguay ranges from 30 to 40 to over 47 percent of the population. Uruguay has been the least-religious country in South America due to nineteenth-century political events influenced by positivism, secularism, and other beliefs held by intellectual Europeans. The resistance of the indigenous population to evangelization, which prevented the establishment of religion during the colonial era, has also been influential. According to Nestor DaCosta (2003), irreligion has historically been a feature of Uruguayan identity.
The relationship between the level of religiosity and the level of education has been studied since the second half of the 20th century.
China has the world's largest irreligious population, and the Chinese government and the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) are officially atheist. Despite limitations on certain forms of religious expression and assembly, religion is not banned, and religious freedom is nominally protected under the Chinese constitution. Among the general Chinese population, there are a wide variety of religious practices. The Chinese government's attitude to religion is one of skepticism and non-promotion.
Irreligion in Israel is difficult to measure. Though Israeli Jewish society is highly secularized when compared to the rest of the Middle East, the importance of religion in state life leaves little room for total disengagement from it. Some 20% of Israeli Jews do not believe in a deity, and some 15% claim to observe no religious practices. Israeli Arab society is much more religious, with any degree of secularity barely acknowledged.
Philip Joseph Zuckerman is a sociologist and professor of sociology and secular studies at Pitzer College in Claremont, California. He specializes in the sociology of substantial secularity and is the author of eight books, including Beyond Doubt: The Secularization of Society (2023) What It Means to Be Moral: Why Religion Is Not Necessary for Living an Ethical Life (2019).
Irreligion in Latin America refers to various types of irreligion, including atheism, agnosticism, deism, secular humanism, secularism and non-religious. According to a Pew Research Center survey from 2014, 8% of the population is not affiliated with a religion. According to Latinobarómetro, the share of irreligious people in Latin America quadrupled between 1996 and 2020, from 4% to 16%.
Irreligion in Italy includes all citizens of Italy that are atheist, agnostic, or otherwise irreligious. Approximately 12% of Italians are irreligious, and no affiliation is the second most common religious demographic in Italy after Christianity. Freedom of religion in Italy was guaranteed by the Constitution of Italy following its enactment in 1948. Until then, the Catholic Church was the official state church of Italy.
In sociology, desecularization is a resurgence or growth of religion after a period of secularization. The theory of desecularization is a reaction to the theory known as the secularization thesis, which posits a gradual decline in the importance of religion and of religious belief itself, as a universal feature of modern society. The term desecularization was coined by Peter L. Berger, a former proponent of the secularization thesis, in his 1999 book The Desecularization of the World.