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Irreligion is the absence or rejection of religious beliefs or practices.It encompasses a wide range of viewpoints drawn from various philosophical and intellectual perspectives, including atheism, agnosticism, religious skepticism, rationalism, secularism, and non-religious spirituality.
Atheists are between 4% and 7% of American adults. [1]: 18 [2] Agnostics make up between 4 and 5% of the adult population. [1]: 18 [2] [6] [7] [8] A growing proportion of people appear to be reporting no religious affiliation on surveys. [9] The percentage of Americans without religious affiliation, often labeled as "Nones", is between 22 and 31%.
Writers disagree on how best to define and classify atheism, [8] contesting what supernatural entities are considered gods, whether atheism is a philosophical position or merely the absence of one, and whether it requires a conscious, explicit rejection; however, the norm is to define atheism in terms of an explicit stance against theism.
Richard Dawkins (born 1941), English biologist, one of the "Four Horsemen" of New Atheism. He wrote The God Delusion, criticizing belief in the divine, in 2006. [28] Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011), English-American author and journalist, one of the "Four Horsemen" of New Atheism. He wrote God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything in ...
Atheist as a label of practical godlessness was used at least as early as 1577. [14] The term atheism was derived from the French athéisme, [15] and appears in English about 1587. [16] An earlier work, from about 1534, used the term atheonism. [17] [18] Related words emerged later: deist in 1621, [19] theist in 1662, [20] deism in 1675, [21 ...
In Islam, atheists are categorized as kafir , a term that is also used to describe polytheists , and that translates roughly as "denier" or "concealer". Kafir carries connotations of blasphemy and disconnection from the Islamic community. In Arabic, "atheism" is generally translated ilhad , although this also means "heresy".
Although Jesus is still a central feature of Christian atheism, Hamilton said that to the Christian atheist, Jesus as a historical or supernatural figure is not the foundation of faith; instead, Jesus is a "place to be, a standpoint". [5]
Christian agnosticism is a theological position drawing influences from Christianity as well as agnosticism.Christian agnostics hold that it is difficult or impossible to be sure of anything beyond the basic tenets of the Christian faith.