Irreligion

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.^[4]

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";^[5] while the Oxford English dictionary defines it as want of religion; hostility to or disregard of religious principles; irreligious conduct;^[6] and the Merriam Webster dictionary defines it as "neglectful of religion : lacking religious emotions, doctrines, or practices".^[7]

• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.^[8]
• "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,^[9] but are sometimes classified as a wholly distinct group.^[10]
• 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.

Discover more about Types related topics

Agnostic atheism

Agnostic atheism

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 are agnostic because they claim that the existence of a demiurgic entity or entities is either unknowable in principle or currently unknown in fact.

Atheism

Atheism

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.

Agnosticism

Agnosticism

Agnosticism is the view or belief that the existence of God, of the divine or the supernatural is unknown or unknowable. Another definition provided is the view that "human reason is incapable of providing sufficient rational grounds to justify either the belief that God exists or the belief that God does not exist."

Deity

Deity

A deity or god is a supernatural being who is considered divine or sacred. The Oxford Dictionary of English defines deity as a god or goddess, or anything revered as divine. C. Scott Littleton defines a deity as "a being with powers greater than those of ordinary humans, but who interacts with humans, positively or negatively, in ways that carry humans to new levels of consciousness, beyond the grounded preoccupations of ordinary life".

Divinity

Divinity

Divinity or the divine are things that are either related to, devoted to, or proceeding from a deity. What is or is not divine may be loosely defined, as it is used by different belief systems.

Greek language

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece, Cyprus, southern Italy, southern Albania, and other regions of the Balkans, the Black Sea coast, Asia Minor, and the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning at least 3,400 years of written records. Its writing system is the Greek alphabet, which has been used for approximately 2,800 years; previously, Greek was recorded in writing systems such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic, and many other writing systems.

Antireligion

Antireligion

Antireligion is opposition to religion. It involves opposition to organized religion, religious practices or religious institutions. The term antireligion has also been used to describe opposition to specific forms of supernatural worship or practice, whether organized or not. The Soviet Union adopted the political ideology of Marxism–Leninism and by extension the policy of state atheism which opposed the growth of religions.

Apatheism

Apatheism

Apatheism is the attitude of apathy toward the existence or non-existence of God(s). It is more of an attitude rather than a belief, claim, or belief system. The term was coined by Robert Nash, theology professor at Mercer University, in 2001.

Apathy

Apathy

Apathy is a lack of feeling, emotion, interest, or concern about something. It is a state of indifference, or the suppression of emotions such as concern, excitement, motivation, or passion. An apathetic individual has an absence of interest in or concern about emotional, social, spiritual, philosophical, virtual, or physical life and the world. Apathy can also be defined as a person's lack of goal orientation. Apathy falls in the less extreme spectrum of diminished motivation, with abulia in the middle and akinetic mutism being more extreme than both apathy and abulia.

Negative and positive atheism

Negative and positive atheism

Negative atheism, also called weak atheism and soft atheism, is any type of atheism where a person does not believe in the existence of any deities but does not necessarily explicitly assert that there are none. Positive atheism, also called strong atheism and hard atheism, is the form of atheism that additionally asserts that no deities exist. Sometimes positive atheism goes by the term gnostic atheism to contrast with agnostic atheism, which is more correlated with weak atheism, and to stand opposite Gnostic theism on simple charts mapping different belief systems.

Antitheism

Antitheism

Antitheism, also spelled anti-theism, is the philosophical position that theism should be opposed. The term has had a range of applications. In secular contexts, it typically refers to direct opposition to the belief in any deity.

Deism

Deism

Deism is the philosophical position and rationalistic theology that generally 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. More simply stated, Deism is the belief in the existence of God, specifically in a creator who does not intervene in the universe after creating it, solely based on rational thought without any reliance on revealed religions or religious authority. Deism emphasizes the concept of natural theology.

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."^[11] 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.^[12][13]

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."^[14] 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."^[15]

Discover more about Human rights related topics

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) is a multilateral treaty that commits nations to respect the civil and political rights of individuals, including the right to life, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, electoral rights and rights to due process and a fair trial. It was adopted by United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2200A (XXI) on 16 December 1966 and entered into force on 23 March 1976 after its thirty-fifth ratification or accession. As of June 2022, the Covenant has 173 parties and six more signatories without ratification, most notably the People's Republic of China and Cuba; North Korea is the only state that has tried to withdraw.

Freedom of religion

Freedom of religion

Freedom of religion or religious liberty is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or community, in public or private, to manifest religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance. It also includes the freedom to change one's religion or beliefs, "the right not to profess any religion or belief", or "not to practise a religion".

Freedom of thought

Freedom of thought

Freedom of thought is the freedom of an individual to hold or consider a fact, viewpoint, or thought, independent of others' viewpoints.

Constitution of the People's Republic of China

Constitution of the People's Republic of China

The Constitution of the People's Republic of China is the supreme law of the People's Republic of China. It was adopted by the 5th National People's Congress on December 4, 1982, with further revisions about every five years. It is the fourth constitution in PRC history, superseding the 1954 constitution, the 1975 constitution, and the 1978 constitution.

1978 Constitution of the People's Republic of China

1978 Constitution of the People's Republic of China

The 1978 Constitution of the People's Republic of China was promulgated in 1978. This was the PRC's 3rd constitution, and was adopted at the 1st Meeting of the 5th National People's Congress on March 5, 1978, two years after the downfall of the Gang of Four.

Nonreligious population by country, 2010^[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.^[17] 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.^[18]

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.^[19]

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.^[20] 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.^[21] 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.^[22] 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.^[23][24]

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.^[1] 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.^[25] 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".^[26] Their 2017 report found that 62% of the globe identified as religious person, 25% as not religious person, and 9% as "convinced atheists".^[27] 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.^[28] In 2020, the World Religion Database estimated that the countries with the highest percentage of atheists were North Korea and Sweden.^[29]

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."^[30] 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.^[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%).^[30]

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.^[32]

This section is an excerpt from List of countries by irreligion § Countries and regions.

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" 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 than the numbers in the table below. For example, the WIN/GIA numbers from China were overestimated which in turn inflated global totals.^[33]

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)[34]	(2017)[35]	(2015)[36]	(2012)[37][38]	(2006)[39]	(2004)[40]
Afghanistan (details)			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)		64%	54%	51%
Bangladesh (details)		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)		5%	23%	16%	7%	9.11%
Indonesia (details)		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)			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)		6%	11%	10%
Palestinian territories		35%	19%	33%
Panama	4.8%	13%
Papua New Guinea		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%		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%

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). 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)[41]	Zuckerman (2004)[42][43]
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

Discover more about Demographics related topics

List of countries by irreligion

List of countries by irreligion

Irreligion, which may include deism, agnosticism, ignosticism, anti-religion, atheism, skepticism, ietsism, spiritual but not religious, freethought, anti-theism, apatheism, non-belief, pandeism, secular humanism, non-religious theism, pantheism, panentheism, and New age, varies in the countries around the world. According to reports from the Worldwide Independent Network/Gallup International Association's (WIN/GIA) four global polls: in 2005, 77% were a religious person and 4% were "convinced atheists"; in 2012, 23% were not a religious person and 13% were "convinced atheists"; in 2015, 22% were not a religious person and 11% were "convinced atheists"; and in 2017, 25% were not a religious person and 9% were "convinced atheists". According to the Pew Research Centre in 2012, 16% of the world is "religiously unaffiliated", which "include atheists, agnostics and people who do not identify with any particular religion in surveys"; of that overall category, many may still hold some religious beliefs and some engage in religious practices as well.

Church of Sweden

Church of Sweden

The Church of Sweden is an Evangelical Lutheran national church in Sweden. A former state church, headquartered in Uppsala, with around 5.6 million members at year end 2021, it is the largest Christian denomination in Sweden, the largest Lutheran denomination in Europe and the third-largest in the world, after the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania.

Cultural sensitivity

Cultural sensitivity

Cultural sensitivity, also referred to as cross-cultural sensitivity or cultural awareness, is the knowledge, awareness, and acceptance of other cultures and others' cultural identities. It is related to cultural competence, and is sometimes regarded as the precursor to the achievement of cultural competence, but is a more commonly used term. On the individual level, cultural sensitivity is a state of mind regarding interactions with those different from oneself. Cultural sensitivity enables travelers, workers, and others to successfully navigate interactions with a culture other than their own.

Korean language

Korean language

Korean is the native language for about 80 million people, mostly of Korean descent. It is the official and national language of both North Korea and South Korea, but over the past 75 years of political division, the two Koreas have developed some noticeable vocabulary differences. Beyond Korea, the language is recognised as a minority language in parts of China, namely Jilin Province, and specifically Yanbian Prefecture and Changbai County. It is also spoken by Sakhalin Koreans in parts of Sakhalin, the Russian island just north of Japan, and by the Koryo-saramcode: kor promoted to code: ko in parts of Central Asia. The language has a few extinct relatives which—along with the Jeju language (Jejuan) of Jeju Island and Korean itself—form the compact Koreanic language family. Even so, Jejuan and Korean are not mutually intelligible with each other. The linguistic homeland of Korean is suggested to be somewhere in contemporary Northeast China. The hierarchy of the society from which the language originates deeply influences the language, leading to a system of speech levels and honorifics indicative of the formality of any given situation.

Buddhism

Buddhism

Buddhism, also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in present-day North India as a śramaṇa–movement in the 5th century BCE, and gradually spread throughout much of Asia via the Silk Road. It is the world's fourth-largest religion, with over 520 million followers (Buddhists) who comprise seven percent of the global population.

Folk religion

Folk religion

In religious studies and folkloristics, folk religion, popular religion, traditional religion or vernacular religion comprises various forms and expressions of religion that are distinct from the official doctrines and practices of organized religion. The precise definition of folk religion varies among scholars. Sometimes also termed popular belief, it consists of ethnic or regional religious customs under the umbrella of a religion, but outside official doctrine and practices.

Muslim world

Muslim world

The terms Muslim world and Islamic world commonly refer to the Islamic community, which is also known as the Ummah. This consists of all those who adhere to the religious beliefs and laws of Islam or to societies in which Islam is practiced. In a modern geopolitical sense, these terms refer to countries in which Islam is widespread, although there are no agreed criteria for inclusion. The term Muslim-majority countries is an alternative often used for the latter sense.

Hiloni

Hiloni

Hiloni, plural hilonim, is a social category in Israel, designating the least religious segment among the Jewish public. The other three subgroups on the scale of Jewish-Israeli religiosity are the masortim, "traditional"; datiim, "religious"; and haredim, "ultra-religious" ("ultra-Orthodox"). In the 2018 Israel Central Bureau of Statistics' survey, 43.2% of Jews identified as hiloni.

Orthodox Judaism

Orthodox Judaism

Orthodox Judaism is the collective term for the traditionalist and theologically conservative branches of contemporary Judaism. Theologically, it is chiefly defined by regarding the Torah, both Written and Oral, as revealed by God to Moses on Mount Sinai and faithfully transmitted ever since.

American Jews

American Jews

American Jews or Jewish Americans are American citizens who are Jewish, whether by culture, ethnicity, or religion. Today the Jewish community in the United States consists primarily of Ashkenazi Jews, who descend from diaspora Jewish populations of Central and Eastern Europe and comprise about 90–95% of the American Jewish population.

Eastern Orthodoxy

Eastern Orthodoxy

Eastern Orthodoxy, also known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity, is one of the three main branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholicism and Protestantism. Like the Pentarchy of the first millennium, the mainstream Eastern Orthodox Church is organised into autocephalous churches independent from each other. In the 21st century, the number of mainstream autocephalous churches is seventeen; there also exist autocephalous churches unrecognized by those mainstream ones. Autocephalous churches choose their own primate. Autocephalous churches can have jurisdiction (authority) over other churches, some of which have the status of "autonomous" which means they have more autonomy than simple eparchies.

Phil Zuckerman

Phil Zuckerman

Philip Joseph Zuckerman is a professor of sociology and secular studies at Pitzer College in Claremont, California. He specializes in the sociology of substantial secularity. He is the author of several books, including Living the Secular Life (2014), What It Means to be Moral (2019) and Society Without God (2008) for which he won ForeWord Magazine's silver book of the year award, and Faith No More (2011).

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.^[44] 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".^[45]

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.^[46] 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.^[46] 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.^[47]

1981–2019

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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.^[44] 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.^[48]

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.^[44] 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.^[44]

Discover more about Historical trends related topics

Karl Marx

Karl Marx

Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 pamphlet The Communist Manifesto and the four-volume Das Kapital (1867–1883). Marx's political and philosophical thought had enormous influence on subsequent intellectual, economic, and political history. His name has been used as an adjective, a noun, and a school of social theory.

Max Weber

Max Weber

Maximilian Karl Emil Weber was a German sociologist, historian, jurist and political economist, who is regarded as among the most important theorists of the development of modern Western society. His ideas profoundly influence social theory and research. While Weber did not see himself as a sociologist, he is recognized as one of the fathers of sociology, along with Karl Marx and Émile Durkheim.

Émile Durkheim

Émile Durkheim

David Émile Durkheim was a French sociologist. Durkheim formally established the academic discipline of sociology and is commonly cited as one of the principal architects of modern social science, along with both Karl Marx and Max Weber.

Pippa Norris

Pippa Norris

Pippa Norris is a political scientist specializing in comparative politics. She is the McGuire Lecturer in Comparative Politics at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, and she has served as the Australian Laureate Fellow and Professor of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney, and Director of the Electoral Integrity Project.

United States census

United States census

The United States census is a census that is legally mandated by the U.S. Constitution, and takes place every ten years. The first census after the American Revolution was taken in 1790, under Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson; there have been 23 federal censuses since that time.

Civic engagement

Civic engagement

Civic engagement or civic participation is any individual or group activity addressing issues of public concern. Civic engagement includes communities working together or individuals working alone in both political and non-political actions to protect public values or make a change in a community. The goal of civic engagement is to address public concerns and promote the quality of the community.