Entry
Entries A-Z
Subject index
Atheism
Atheism is a belief system based on the idea that a god or gods do not exist. These individuals are not simply nonbelievers, but rather individuals whose worldviews either do not agree with established religions or who do not want to be labeled alongside others with these differing beliefs, though they still may believe some of the same tenets of morality. Similar to other nonreligious labels, such as agnostic, secular, and humanist, individuals who identify as atheists are a relatively diverse group of individuals and, in terms of population, are growing more quickly than other religious or spiritual identity groups. Identifying as an atheist may be fraught with prejudice and discrimination from one’s peers, community, and one’s own family. While the number of individuals identifying as atheist is growing rapidly around the world, particularly among younger people, lack of religious belief is not often treated as an important area of multiculturalism and has been historically neglected by researchers. Atheism is important to the field of counseling, and counselors need to be aware of the issues facing clients who identify as atheists. This entry includes geographical trends and recent changes, discrimination and oppression, and counseling issues when working with atheist individuals.
Recent Changes
Across the world, recent reports have shown that atheism is the fastest growing religious or spiritual identity group, especially among younger people. In addition, some older adults choose to leave their religions, a process known as deconversion. Some have cited their religion’s dogmatic rules regarding other aspects of multiculturalism as a reason for doing so, including behaviors and beliefs they see as discrimination against or denigration of LGBTQ individuals, women, or nonbelievers. For some particular religions (e.g., Scientology, Catholicism), allegations of abuse have been cited as frequent reasons for leaving the church. Other factors, such as economic security, have been correlated with individuals adopting a nonreligious identity. For developing countries with little economic security, this hypothesis may help to explain the smaller numbers of identified atheists. Some recent research has also suggested that atheists tend to have a higher IQ than devoutly religious individuals. While this connection is still unclear, some have speculated that high IQ is correlated with nonconformity (such as in religious belief) and analytical reasoning.
In the United States, individuals who identify as atheist are more likely to live in larger cities, particularly in densely populated states in the northeast and northwest. In addition, cities with large colleges and universities tend to have larger atheist and nonreligious populations, which seems to reflect the tendency of atheists to skew younger and possess a higher level of education than religious individuals overall. Individuals from the Bible Belt in the Southeastern United States and Texas tend to have more conservative religious, political, and social views and therefore tend not to be as welcoming to individuals who do not identify with a majority-approved religious group. Globally, Western European countries tend to have larger populations of individuals who do not identify as religious. Among Scandinavian countries, the number of nonreligious individuals actually outnumber individuals who identify with a particular religion.
...
- Loading...
Get a 30 day FREE TRIAL
-
Watch videos from a variety of sources bringing classroom topics to life -
Read modern, diverse business cases
-
Explore hundreds of books and reference titles
Read next
More like this
Sage Recommends
We found other relevant content for you on other Sage platforms.
Have you created a personal profile? Login or create a profile so that you can save clips, playlists and searches