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Irreligion is the neglect or active rejection of religion and, depending on the definition, a simple absence of religion.
The Catholic Church is "the Catholic Communion of Churches, both Roman and Eastern, or Oriental, that are in full communion with the Bishop of Rome ." The church is also known by members as the People of God, the Body of Christ, the "Temple of the Holy Spirit", among other names. According to Vatican II's Gaudium et spes, the "church has but one sole purpose–that the kingdom of God may come and the salvation of the human race may be accomplished."
Cultural Muslims or nominal Muslims or non-practicing/observing Muslims are people who identify as Muslims but are not religious and do not practice the faith. They may be secular and irreligious individuals who still identify with Islam due to family backgrounds, personal experiences, ethnic and national heritage, or the social and cultural environment in which they grew up. The concept is not always met with acceptance in conservative Islamic communities.
As of the year 2023, Christianity had approximately 2.6 billion adherents and is the largest-religion by population respectively. According to a PEW estimation in 2020, Christians made up to 2.6 billion of the worldwide population of about 8 billion people. It represents nearly one-third of the world's population and is the largest religion in the world, with the three largest groups of Christians being the Catholic Church, Protestantism, and the Eastern Orthodox Church. The largest Christian denomination is the Catholic Church, with 1.3 billion baptized members. The second largest Christian branch is either Protestantism, or the Eastern Orthodox Church.
The Catholic branch of Christianity is the dominant religion in Mexico, representing 78% of the total population as of 2020. In recent decades the share of Catholics has been declining, due to the growth of other Christian denominations – especially various Protestant churches, Jehovah's Witness and Mormonism – which now constitute larger shares of the population. Conversion to non-Catholic denominations has been considerably lower than in Central America, and central Mexico remains one of the most Catholic areas in the world.
Religion in Italy is characterised by the predominance of Christianity and an increasing diversity of religious practices, beliefs and denominations. Most Christians in Italy adhere to the Catholic Church, whose headquarters are in Vatican City, Rome. Christianity has been present in the Italian Peninsula since the 1st century.
Christianity has dominated Guatemalan society since its Spanish colonial rule, but the nature of Christian practice in the country has changed in recent decades.
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.
Christianity is the predominant religion in Costa Rica, with Catholicism being its largest denomination. Catholicism is also the state religion, but the government generally upholds people's religious freedom in practice.
Estonia, historically a Lutheran Christian nation, is today one of the "least religious" countries in the world in terms of declared attitudes, with only 14 percent of the population declaring religion to be an important part of their daily life. This is thought to largely be a result of the Soviet occupation of Estonia in 1940, prior to which Estonia had a large Christian majority.
Religion in Latin America is characterized by the historical predominance of Catholicism, and growing number and influence of a large number of groups that belong to Protestantism, as well as by the presence of Irreligion. According to survey data from Statista in 2020, 57% of the Latin American population is Catholic and 19% is Protestant.
Irreligion is prevalent in Germany. In a time of near-universal adoption of Christianity, Germany was an intellectual centre for European freethought and humanist thinking, whose ideas spread across Europe and the world in the Age of Enlightenment. Later, religious traditions in Germany were weakened by the twin onslaughts of Nazi rule during World War II and that of the Socialist Unity Party in East Germany during the Cold War. In common with most other European societies, a period of secularisation also continued in the decades that followed. While today Christianity remains prevalent in the north, south, and west of Germany, in the east relatively few Germans identify with any religion whatsoever.
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.
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.
Irreligion in Croatia pertains to atheism, agnosticism, and lack of religious affiliation in Croatia. The growing population of irreligious Croats has been attributed to modernization. Even though the 2011 census showed that only 4.57% of Croats considered themselves irreligious, Gallup polls conducted in 2007 and 2008 found that 30.5% of respondents did not consider religion important in their lives. The Japanese research center, Dentsu, conducted a survey in 2006 concluding that 13.2% of Croats declare themselves irreligious, compared to the 7% found by a 2010 Eurobarometer survey across Europe.
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.
The decline of Christianity in the Western world is the decreasing Christian affiliation in the Western world. While most countries in the Western world were historically almost exclusively Christian, the post-World War II era has seen developed countries with modern, secular educational facilities shifting towards post-Christian, secular, globalized, multicultural and multifaith societies. While Christianity is currently the predominant religion in Latin America, Europe, Canada and the United States, the religion is declining in many of these areas, including Western Europe, North America, and Oceania. A decline in Christianity among countries in Latin America's Southern Cone has also contributed to a rise in irreligion in Latin America.
Irreligion in Peru refers to atheism, deism, religious skepticism, secularism, and humanism in Peruvian society. According to article 2 of the Peruvian Constitution: "No person shall be persecuted on the basis of his ideas or beliefs". According to the 2017 Peruvian Census data, 1,180,361 Peruvians or 5.1% of the population older than 12 years old describes themselves as being irreligious, but some sources put this number higher at 8.2%.
References
- ↑ "PUBLIC OPINION POLLS ON RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION IN GUATEMALA: 1990-2018" (PDF). Prolades.com. Retrieved 9 April 2023.
- ↑ Believe in God World Values Survey 2017-2022 Wave
- ↑ Spirit and Power: Survey of Pentecostals in Guatemala - Analysis (Association of Religion Data Archives)
- ↑ United States Department of State; International Office for the Freedom of Religion (2022). "GUATEMALA 2021 INFORME INTERNACIONAL SOBRE LA LIBERTAD DE RELIGIÓN" (PDF) (in Spanish). International Religious Freedom Report.
- ↑ Guttmacher Institute, p. 33
- ↑ Informe de Desarrollo Humano, p.85-86
- ↑ Spiritual and Power - A 10 countries surveys of Pentecostals Pew Forum Research (page 77, 78 and 79.)
- ↑ Bolaños, Rosa María (10 December 2015). "Pobreza sube a 59.3%: Son 9.6 millones de guatemaltecos los afectados". Prensa Libre (in Spanish).
- ↑ "CONSTITUCIÓN POLÍTICA DE LA REPUBLICA DE GUATEMALA" (PDF). 27 May 2014. Archived from the original (PDF) on 27 May 2014. Retrieved 16 October 2018.
- ↑ "Los múltiples rostros de la diversidad" (PDF). Url.edu.gt. Retrieved 16 October 2018.
- ↑ "Los jóvenes sin religión | República". Archived from the original on 2015-12-10. Retrieved 2018-10-16.