Secularity Terminology

...atheists, agnostics, skeptics, freethinkers, scientific, rationalists, irreligious, nonreligious, nonbelievers, secularists, secular humanists, humanists, brights, apostates, unchurched, non-churched, nontheists, naturalists, disbelievers, unbelievers, empiricists, monists, objectivists, materialists, infidels, heathens, this-worlders, non-transcendentalists, nontheists, non-spiritual, non-supernatural, anti-religious, religious defectors, religious drop-outs, religious nones, religious nots, religious non-affiliatation, religious doubt, religious disaffiliation, religious switching, deconversion, unconversion...

These are some of the terms people use when talking about secularity and those who do not endorse a religious or spiritual worldview.

When it comes to research on secularity, social scientists have not yet agreed on what terms and definitions are best. The Center for Atheist Research seeks to be clear and accurate in its use of terminology. To accomplish this, the Center will draw upon the most recent guidelines from scholars of secularity.

Kosmin and Keysar (2007) suggest that:

Secularism involves organizations and legal constructs that reflect the institutional expressions of the secular in a nation’s political realm and public life.

Secularity involves individuals’ personal behavior and identification with secular ideas and traditions as a mode of consciousness.

The Center is primarily interested with individuals who substantially or affirmatively:

(1) eschew theistic, transcendent, or supernatural worldviews

(2) consider such matters unknown, unknowable, or meaningless, and

(3) do not identify with “traditions” or affiliate with institutions that embrace such worldviews.

Unbelief and unbelievers reflect the first two of these criteria, while irreligion and irreligious reflect all three (Pasquale, 2007).

Irreligion is defined “as substantial or affirmative absence or rejection of religious ideas, institutions, and associated behavior (where religion is defined substantively with reference to matters theistic or theological, transcendental, or supernatural;” Pasquale, 2007).

Those who are substantially or affirmatively irreligious (i.e., “those who are secular, nonreligious, or irreligious, and who shy away from the holy, divine, sacred, spiritual, or transcendental”; Pasquale, 2005) were labeled nots by Pasquale (specifically in contrast to nones -- a larger category of those who profess no specific religious identity, some of whom are privately irreligious or naturalistic in orientation but some of whom are not). Pasquale also suggested that using the term this-wordly or this-worlders may more “fairly represent the defining characteristic(s) of the target population of interest without the negative cast of nots or the ambiguity of nonreligious or irreligious" (2006).

After careful consideration of the available terminology, the Center has adopted the term secularists, as this is perhaps more readily recognized and understood by the average person.

The Center defines secularists as those who have a naturalistic worldview. A naturalistic worldview is a philosophy of life that does not involve a belief in God, higher powers, or anything supernatural. They are affirmatively irreligious unbelievers, as qualified by the three criteria listed above.

However, when it is said that secularists do not "affiliate with institutions that embrace such worldviews," it is meant that secularists do not identify with the label of that institution (e.g., "I'm a Catholic"). Secularists may enjoy religious music or artwork for its aesthetic qualities and even attend religious ceremonies for reasons other than religious/spiritual interest (e.g., to build a social network or out of familial obligation).

Regarding the Center's use of the term atheist: At its most basic level, the word “a-theist” denotes a person who is without a belief in god or gods. It does not necessarily mean someone who believes in the explicit nonexistence of god or gods, although some atheists – identified by G.F. Smith’s (1980) taxonomy as “strong” or “explicit” atheists – may espouse that view. The American Religious Identification Survey (Kosmin & Keysar; 2009), a recent, nationally representative telephone survey of more than 50,000 respondents, estimated the number of American adults who are without a belief in a god or gods at 2.3% (compared with 31%-44% in Britain; see Zuckerman, 2006).

The Center hopes this explanation has made the reasoning for our choice of terms clearer. Please return to the Center home page, where you can select from among the Center's current studies.

References

Kosmin, B. A. & Keysar, A. (Eds.). (2007). Secularism & secularity: Contemporary international perspectives. Hartford, CT: Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society.

Kosmin, B., & Keysar, G. (2009). American Religious Identification Survey 2008: Summary report. Hartford, CT: Trinity College.

Pasquale, F. L. (2006) “Neglecting the ‘nots’ in the Northwest: Irreligion as a facet of the study of religion.” Paper presented at annual meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, Portland, OR, October 21.

Pasquale, F. (2007). Unbelief and irreligion, empirical study and neglect of. In T. Flynn (Ed.), The new encyclopedia of unbelief (pp. 760-766). Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.

Smith, G. H. (1980). Atheism: The case against God (1st ed., p. 355). Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. Retrieved January 23, 2007.

Zuckerman, P. (2006). Atheism: Contemporary numbers and patterns. In M. Martin (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Atheism. (pp. 47-68). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.