14 DAY TRIAL // For many years, religion-oriented discussions in Europe have been oriented on debates between various cults, or between cults and atheists. However, all of them largely ignored the silent majority of people, who are neither religious, nor declared atheists.
Non-religion, in its most visible and renowned form, is identified with rationalist atheism. This is a set of idea that calls for people to explain the world in a rational manner, that excludes the existence, presence or involvement of any sort of god.
But experts are drawing attention to the fact that not all people who are non-religious are atheists. Some of them may be agnostics, non-religious secularists, or simply people who are indifferent to religion.
Putting all of them in a single melting pot could lead to disastrous consequences in terms of social policies meant to promote cooperation between religious and non-religious groups. Interestingly, over the past few years, many researchers have taken an interest in defining this silent majority of people.
According to official statistics, there are countries in which the percentage of non-religious people is as high as 70 percent. This is the case in countries that have traditionally secular societies, such as for example Norway, Denmark and Sweden.
As an interesting note, these are also some of the best countries in the world to live in, constantly exceeding nations such as the United State, the United Kingdom, France or Japan in terms of overall quality of life.
In order to understand European cultures and diversity, officials need to understand the nature of non-religious groups, and their respective views on things. Even in staunch Catholic countries such as Poland, Italy and Portugal, non-religiosity rates reach 11, 30 and 46 percent, respectively.
“Understood this way, the number of non-religious people extends into the hundreds of millions in Europe alone,” researchers at the University of Cambridge, in the United Kingdom, explain.
“Yet in spite of this, non-religion had attracted little serious study by social scientists before the turn of this century, and it remains of marginal interest in many quarters,” they add.
“This is partly because non-religion has been another casualty of the dominating Enlightenment view of modernity – which sees modernization as involving the steady rationalization of peoples and thought, causing, in turn, religion to decline,” the experts argue.
The team also says that comparing religion and non-religion head-on can give both sides of the argument a series of valid points that may justify their position firmly. The most common thing people say is that religion is something, and non-religion is nothing.
This is “related to the idea that religion is strange and problematic whereas non-religion is normal and benign. On the other hand, the same stance can also lead to the view that religion is diverse, rich, communitarian, meaningful and therefore positive; while non-religion lacks the same capacity to enrich human life,” the experts say.
“Thus, by separating the two on this basis, we give both sides a legitimate cause for grievance and impair attempts to facilitate more positive relationships between them,” the Cambridge team concludes.