An Introduction to Atheism, Agnosticism, & Non-Religious Worldviews

Abstract

Research in psychology of religion and spirituality has roots stretching back into the19th century, however only recently has it begun researching atheists and other nonreligious individuals. While informative, these investigations have yet to build or identify psychologically meaningful constructs from nonreligion that are not contaminated by, or situated within, a system of theistic propositions. Explorations that focus on purely negative identities (e.g., not a theist) may fail to capture much of what is psychologically interesting and informative about this demographic. Atheism is interesting juxtaposed against the background of world-wide belief, but nonreligious worldviews are multidimensional, complex, and worthy of investigation in their own right. Building on that fact, this special issue challenged scholars to explore nonreligious worldviews as full-fledged constructs and to develop measurement instruments which capture different facets of nonreligious experience. Before introducing a collection of 9 articles that responded to this challenge in unique ways, we reflect on the estimated prevalence of atheist and nonreligious individuals, discuss misconceptions associated with nonreligion, note how investigating secular worldviews is critical for the psychology of religion, and provide a brief overview of the diversity of nonreligion.

Non-Belief: An Islamic Perspective

“…In the psychology of religion, non-belief has only recently begun to attract attention (Coleman, Hood, & Streib, 2018). Moreover, the majority of research in this field is, in general, conducted with Christian samples and in the West.…”

Selfishness and consumer ethics: Does (non)religiosity matter?

“…Second, most studies on consumers' ethics have not explored the impact of non‐religiosity/atheism on consumers' ethical beliefs. More studies exploring differences between religious beliefs are needed, especially empirical studies on religious and non‐religious consumers (Arli & Pekerti, 2017; Coleman III et al, 2018). Third, this study responds to the debate on the differences between religious and non‐religious consumers on their ethical beliefs.…”