Nonreligious Individuals Research Articles

A Threat to the Occident? Comparing Human Values of Muslim Immigrants, Christian, and Non-religious Natives in Western Europe.

With a growing Muslim population, many European countries need to integrate Muslims into their societies. One aspect that can hinder successful integration are substantial differences in human values. This is because such values are consequential for attitudes as well as behavior. We compare basic human values between Muslim immigrants and non-Muslim natives in four European countries with distinct immigration histories and integration politics: Belgium, France, Germany, and Sweden. For most insightful comparisons, we contrast values of Muslim immigrants with those of Christian natives as well as those of non-religious natives. We employ data of more than 50,000 individuals based on the first eight waves of the European Social Survey. Our findings reveal significant differences in value priorities between Muslims, Christians and non-religious individuals in all four countries. Amongst other things, Muslim immigrants score particularly high in conservation values (security and tradition/conformity). At the same time, they also score higher in self-transcendence values (benevolence as well as universalism). While many of these findings are in line with theory and previous research, the higher score in universalism is unexpected. A potential explanation is the combination of religious traditionalism and discrimination experiences. In other words, religious traditions are associated with more conservative views, but being subject to marginalization can still result in an appreciation of equal opportunities. We find only limited support for differences in hedonism. Religiosity correlates with values of tradition/conformity for Muslim immigrants as well as for Christian natives. Thus, accounting for religiosity renders differences in these values between Muslims and other groups statistically insignificant. While most of these findings hold in all countries, differences are most pronounced in Sweden and lower in the other three countries, which is also true after accounting for differences in socio-economic status and religiosity between the three groups. This suggests that a combination of a country's history of diversity and national integration policies either encourages the convergence of values or leads to a solidification of value differences between groups. We discuss these political and social implications of our findings.

Revisiting methodological basis of religiousity research in sports

Sport is still a «blind spot» in religious studies; meanwhile, the phenomenon of modern sport, from the point of view of its sociocultural determination, value and semantic content, is of great interest to the sciences of religious rituals. At first glance, the empirical facts about sport are quite ordinary. For all participants and attentive observers, physical efforts and sport results are fed by carefully constructed worlds of sacred stories, symbols and personal rituals. The increasing number of athletes involved in sports activities claim the priority of spiritual growth in the process of training and competitions over physical metamorphoses. Champions talk frankly about their religious views and demonstrate confessional affiliation, building bridges between personal rituals and their victories or defeats, which makes it possible to think about including sports in the field of religious studies. The objective of the present research is to analyze the theoretical and methodological foundations of studying the phenomenon of athletes’ religious commitment, as well as adapting existing approaches to distinguishing types of religious and non-religious individuals, taking into account the specifics of this group. Based on the results of empirical studies of the last twenty years developed in Russian sociology of religion, the author reveals their potential for solving urgent problems. In this article, the author focuses on the methods of studying the religiosity of modern athletes. One of the problems is the construction of classification demonstrating athletes’ religiosity taking into account the specifics of their activities, as well as the possibilities of representing their beliefs through religious practices before / during / after competitions.

Asymmetric Information and Culture: Evidence from Takaful Health Insurance

The existence of asymmetric information in insurance markets has been studied extensively in the economics literature, whereas the factors likely to influence asymmetric information have had less attention. Using individual level insurance data from a Takaful health insurance company located in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), we consider how culture and religion influence asymmetric information. Our sample is unique because all the individuals in our sample reside in the UAE, but they originate from 141 different countries. We find evidence of a correlation between risk and claim performance among religious and non-religious individuals, suggesting the existence of asymmetric information in both groups. However, we find that the correlation for religious individuals is lower than that for the non-religious group. Our results are similar when we consider major Muslim holidays and the Monday effect. Finally, we provide some evidence that cultural background is also related to claim performance.

MISCONCEPTION ABOUT ISLAM: AS A CAUSE FOR EMERGENCE OF INSURGENCY IN NIGERIA, BOKO HARAM GROUPS A CASE STUDY

Any misconception under Islam is considered as a misinterpretation of Islam despite the nature and disparity in understanding Islamic view scholarly and religious perspectives. The ignorance and non-religious individuals find it difficult to differentiate between renowned scholars and students ward manifested. It is recorded that scholars differ in terms of their views as experts, some speak on areas that are not their field of studies which generate faulty logic reasoning, deliberate distortion, and misinterpretations from the so-called scholars in Nigeria. Boko Haram emerged based on negative misconceptions and perceived some extreme views that are in conjunction and misleading towards Islam. To root out the insurgency from any society, there must be effective majors to be addressed, such as the root causes for the emergence, reasons for misconception, good governance and Justice within society and regulating the system of da’awa and dua’at (views preaching for and qualification of a preacher). Therefore, the paper will deliberate such issues through the writings of experts and suggest lasting solutions to such issues.

More than Nothing: Examining the Worldview Influences of Nonreligious College Students

Nonreligious individuals are often defined by their absence of a religious worldview rather than the worldview that might take its place. This study examines data from a unique survey that asked a representative sample of first-year college students to identify important influences on their worldview at the beginning and end of the year. Cross-sectional analyses show that nonreligious students are less likely than religious students to identify family background or cultural traditions as important worldview influences, but are more likely to say that sexual orientation is an important influence on their worldview. Longitudinal analyses show that individuals who were nonreligious at a previous time are less likely to identify family as an important influence at a later time regardless of whether they are still nonreligious. Individuals who become nonreligious over time shift their perceived worldview influences away from religious beliefs and cultural traditions to philosophical traditions. These findings help contribute to our understanding of the content and dynamics of secular worldviews.

Exploring Groupness—A Mixed Methods Imitation Game Inquiry

This article describes the use of a mixed methods research approach to explore the dynamics of social group construction with Imitation Game experiments. More specifically, we analyzed in which ways, and how effectively, people draw boundaries in social interaction. That is, we studied ways in which people distinguish between group members and outsiders. Our study included a group of active Christians (n = 20) and non-religious individuals (n = 19) in Finland. We conceptualized the Imitation Game as a mixed data collection instrument because it combines both qualitative and quantitative data in an integrated manner. As part of our analysis, we introduce an indicator called the Sequential Identification Ratio (SIR), which is an indicator of how accurately participants draw boundaries in the Imitation Game. The results based on the SIR indicate that group boundaries are established with 4 different strategies: experiential, epistemic, axiological, and linguistic. Finally, we show how a mixed methods researcher can conduct a form of quantitizing to use both quantitative and qualitative aspects of Imitation Game data.

Concealment of nonreligious identity: Exploring social identity threat among atheists and other nonreligious individuals

Negative attitudes toward the nonreligious persist in America. This may compel some nonreligious individuals to conceal their identity to manage feelings of social identity threat. In one correlational study and one experiment, we found evidence of social identity threat and concealment behavior among nonreligious Americans. Our first study showed that Southern nonreligious individuals reported higher levels of stigma consciousness and self-reported concealment of nonreligious identity, which in turn predicted lower likelihood of self-identifying as “atheist” in public settings than in private settings. Our second study successfully manipulated feelings of social identity threat by showing that atheists who read an article about negative stereotypes of their group subsequently exhibited higher concealment scores than did atheists who read one of two control articles. Implications for how nonreligious individuals negotiate social identity threat and future directions for nonreligion research are discussed.

“God’s Not My Type”

Abstract The recent report by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life is intended to “offer a new and complementary lens with which to glean new insights into religion and public life”. The technique of cluster analysis was used on measures of religious and spiritual beliefs, yielding seven groups, two consisting primarily of nonreligious or secular individuals. There are “breadth-versus-depth” tradeoffs involved in this approach. A belief-based typology is an improvement upon a grouping that uses religious denomination, which undercounts secular individuals. But the theoretical implications of this typology for understanding secular individuals necessitate scrutiny, including how the use of meaning in life as a marker of well-being may be misleading in the case of the nonreligious.

Teleology and the intentions of supernatural agents.

Teleological beliefs about the natural world often exist implicitly, and there is a positive relationship between teleological endorsement and belief in supernatural agents. In the current study, participants judged a series of scientifically unwarranted teleological explanations of biological organisms and natural non-living objects, under speeded or un-speeded instructions. After controlling for belief in the existence of supernatural agents, rates of implicit (speeded) and explicit (un-speeded) teleological endorsement were moderated by the belief that supernatural agents intentionally interact with the world. Amongst non-religious individuals, rates of implicit endorsement were significantly higher than explicit endorsement, whereas for highly religious individuals the difference was non-significant. This interaction was driven predominantly by explanations of natural non-living objects. These results are consistent with an intention-based theory of teleology, and help to reconcile the finding of a positive relationship between teleological endorsement and belief in supernatural agents, with the those of an enduring teleological bias.

Diverging Perceptions of Personal Moral Values and the Values of One's Religious Group

AbstractA popular notion in many religions is that less pious individuals are also less moral. We sought to test the self‐described moral values of religious and nonreligious individuals under the framework of Moral Foundations Theory. In Study 1, we found that atheists differ from Christians in some moral domains. We also found evidence that Christians’ self‐ratings are consistently lower than what they perceive to be the moral values of other Christians. This finding contradicts previous findings that suggest that Christians may inflate their positive characteristics relative to their peers in other domains. In Studies 2 and 3, we tested several alternative explanations for this finding. Preliminary evidence suggests that Christians rate their moral values lower in comparison to Christian exemplars such as religious leaders, and not from a sense of humility. In contrast, atheists may not have exemplars for such a comparison.

The separation of economy and sentiment: a comparison of how individuals perceive hostile worlds

ABSTRACT Analyses of the relationship between economy and sentiment tend to focus on connection rather than separation. Scholars recognize that individuals sometimes identify moral conflicts between economy and sentiment, but primarily focus their research on the boundary or relational work performed to mitigate or disappear the conflict. Instead, I analyze how individuals talk about the relationship between economy and sentiment as separate or hostile, comparing two theoretically distinct groups: non-religious individuals and practicing evangelicals. The comparison allows me to analyze patterns of discourse and boundary-making based on access to institutionalized culture. I find that both groups articulate perceptions of hostile worlds by: (1) maintaining the taboo against talking about money, (2) recommending neutral separation, and (3) demarcating areas of life as too sacred for money. Through comparison, I find that non-religious respondents describe a less permeable vertical boundary line, whereby economy and sentiment are separated into separate spheres, as if side-by-side, while evangelicals describe a more permeable horizontal boundary line, where separation is maintained through the use of consistent hierarchical discourses that assert the moral importance of sentiment over economy. My findings underscore how unequal access to cultural schema differentially shape how individuals connect economy and sentiment, if at all.

The Faith and Vision of Non-religious Individuals: A Human-Oriented View—A Post-Modern Version of Atheism

The Faith and Vision of Non-religious Individuals: A Human-Oriented View—A Post-Modern Version of Atheism

Non-Religious Identities and Life Satisfaction: Questioning the Universality of a Linear Link between Religiosity and Well-Being

Previous research has frequently found a positive relation between religiosity compared to non-religiosity and psychological well-being. Recent studies have demonstrated differences between types of non-religious individuals and the relevance of a fit between individual (non-)religiosity and characteristics of the country a person is living in. This study combined the previous (partially) competing lines of research for the first time and examined the connection between self-identifying as specifically atheist, non-religious without further distinction, weakly religious, or highly religious and life satisfaction. World Values Survey data of 24 countries worldwide that vary in their social norms of religiosity and societal levels of development were used for a quantitative intercultural comparison (N = 33,879). In contrast to most previous research, a multilevel regression analysis showed no differences between highly religious, indistinct non-religious, and atheist individuals’ level of life satisfaction when the fit between individual (non-)religiosity and country characteristics was included. Weakly religious individuals though were significantly less satisfied with life than highly religious individuals. Thus, our results indicate that only in religious societies, identifying as non-religious/atheist is related to lower life satisfaction. When controlling for the context, a curvilinear relation between (non-)religiosity and life satisfaction emerged. Additionally, atheists differed in their sensitivity towards the social norm of religiosity from indistinct non-religious individuals—their well-being varied dependent on living in a country with many other secular individuals or not. These results demonstrate differences between subgroups of (non-)religious individuals and they call into question a general benefit of religiosity for subjective well-being independent of societal context.

Religiosity Predicts Evidentiary Standards

Research shows that religious and nonreligious individuals have different standards of evidence for religious and scientific claims. Here, in a preregistered replication and extension of McPhetres and Zuckerman, participants read about an effect attributed to either a scientific or religious cause, then assessed how much evidence, in the form of successful replications, would be needed to confirm or to reject the causal claim. As previously observed, religious individuals exhibited a bias for believing religious claims relative to scientific claims, while nonreligious individuals were consistent in their standards of evidence across domains. In a novel extension examining standards of evidence with respect to failures of replication, we found that religious individuals were consistent across domains, whereas nonreligious individuals indicated a lower threshold for rejecting religious claims relative to scientific claims. These findings indicate asymmetries in the evaluation of claims based on the presence versus absence of supportive evidence.

Religiosity Predicts Evidentiary Standards

Research shows that religious and nonreligious individuals have different standards of evidence for religious and scientific claims. Here, in a preregistered replication and extension of McPhetres ...

Certainty, Uncertainty, or Indifference? Examining Variation in the Identity Narratives of Nonreligious Americans

Much research in social science concludes that uncertainty surrounding individual beliefs and identities is negative and anxiety-inducing, and that people are continuously searching for certainty. In the context of rising rates of religious disaffiliation in the United States, and the rise of social and political organizations created to promote nonreligious beliefs and values, the nonreligious offer a strategic case to explore the meaning and lived experience of certainty and uncertainty surrounding belief and identity formation. Drawing on an analysis of identity narratives from 50 nonreligious Americans, I find that uncertainty is just as often experienced as positive and motivating as it is isolating or anxiety-inducing, and although certainty-filled beliefs and identities are available for the nonreligious, they are just as often rejected for more uncertain ones. I reveal how some nonreligious individuals fluctuate between different orientations toward certainty and uncertainty regarding their nonreligion, whereas others exhibit more trait-like orientations to certainty and uncertainty. These findings have important implications for understanding how orientations to certainty and uncertainty shape identity and belief development in the modern world.

Questions You Should Never Ask an Atheist: Towards Better Measures of Nonreligion and Secularity

As interest in the nonreligious has grown, attention has turned to how to measure both the growth of and variation within the nonreligious. This interest has also revealed that prior measures of religiosity are often problematic. In this research note, I detail some of these problems. For instance, some measures fail to contrast nonreligiosity with religiosity. Other measures are double-barreled or one-and-a-half barreled, making them impossible for nonreligious individuals to answer. Finally, I note that how questions are worded can result in very different estimates of how many nonreligious people and atheists there are in a population.

Is Nothing Sacred? Religion, Sex, and Reproductive Strategies

Religion has often been conceptualized as a collection of beliefs, practices, and proscriptions that lift people’s thoughts and behaviors out of the metaphorical gutter of sex and selfishness toward lives full of meaning, contemplation, and community service. But religious beliefs and behaviors may serve selfish, sexual motivations in ways that are not always obvious or consciously intended. We review two lines of research illustrating nonobvious links between the mundane and the religious. First, contrary to long-held assumptions that religious upbringing causes sexually restrictive attitudes and behaviors, several large data sets now suggest a reverse causal arrow—people’s preferred mating strategies determining their attraction toward, or repulsion from, religion. Second, other recent findings suggest that distrust of nonreligious individuals is almost completely erased by knowledge that they are following a restricted monogamous lifestyle. Thus, reproductive strategies often underlie apparently sacred concerns. We close with a consideration of ways in which reproductive interests might underlie a broad range of benefits associated with religious affiliation.

The Effect of Becoming Disabled on the Subjective Well-Being of Religious and Nonreligious People.

Positive associations between religiosity and subjective well-being (SWB) have been found in a multitude of studies. However, there has been little effort in documenting the role that religion plays in helping people during the onset of adverse circumstances in their lives. This study investigates the effect of religion on the SWB of the disabled. We utilized secondary data from the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging from 2006 to 2016 with a sample size of 36,484. Starting with nondisabled participants, we applied a difference-in-differences approach to a fixed-effects model and compared the magnitude of the decrease in SWB resulting from disability between religious individuals and their nonreligious counterparts. The empirical results show that following a religion increased SWB by 0.94 (p < 0.01) and the onset of a disability reduced SWB by 3.57 (p < 0.01) out of 100. Furthermore, there is a significant gap in happiness levels between religious and nonreligious individuals when they are diagnosed with a disability. Becoming disabled reduces SWB for nonreligious people more than that for religious people by 2.62 (p < 0.01). This study confirms that following a religion helps people cope with adverse circumstances such as the onset of a disability.

Religious socialization of non-religious university students

ABSTRACTStudies of non-religion and youth raise questions regarding the conceptual usefulness of religious socialization. If religious socialization is studied only as the extent to which intergenerational transmission of religiosity occurs, the religious socialization of those who identify as non-religious falls out of the scope of research. This article explores the religious socialization of a group of university students from Sweden, Finland, Poland, and Israel who identify as non-religious. Interviews with these young adults allow us to explore the (religious) socialization of non-religious individuals in different contexts. The findings point to how the influence of socialization agents turned some of the students onto a path towards non-religion. Others, in turn, are characterized by family backgrounds where religion has not played any significant part. Our findings indicate that religious socialization, broadly construed, can be a useful perspective for understanding varying paths towards non-religiosity.