English

Adjective

1. not religious; secular

Irreligion is a lack of religion, indifference to religion, or hostility to religion. Depending on the context, it may be understood as referring to atheism, agnosticism, deism, skepticism, freethought, secular humanism or general secularism.

Conviction

Irreligious people may have convictions equal in depth to those of religious adherents. For instance, followers of the life stance of Humanism regard themselves as just as deeply believing in their life stance as corresponding to any religious belief.

Irreligious theist

Although people classified as irreligious might not follow any religion, not all are necessarily without belief in the supernatural or in deities; such a person may be a non-religious or non-practicing theist. In particular, those who associate organized religion with negative qualities, but still hold spiritual beliefs, might describe themselves as irreligious. It also must be noted that in countries such as China, the government discourages religion, and in countries such as Saudi Arabia, the government essentially requires religion, so the numbers might not be entirely accurate.

Statistics by country

Notes and references

See also

• Agnosticism
• Antitheism
• Antireligion
• Atheism
• Ignosticism
• Nontheism
• Post-theism
• Postchristianity
• Secular humanism
• Secularity
• Skepticism

Laodicean, civil, congregational, godless, indevotional, indevout, indifferent, indifferentist, laic, laical, lay, lukewarm, nonclerical, nonecclesiastical, nonministerial, nonobservant, nonordained, nonpastoral, popular, profane, secular, secularist, secularistic, temporal, undevout, undutiful, unreligious