Non-religion as Religion-Related Discourse: An Empirical Invitation

摘要: The twenty-first century has seen a marked rise in individuals across the (Western) world choosing not to identify with a ‘religion’ when prompted in various contexts, and a related rise in academic studies of what it might mean to be other than religious, which map and theorize the beliefs, identifications, values, practices, and social contexts of seemingly non-religious populations. Much of this work has a great deal to offer yet falls foul of the charge that it essentializes the differences between two constructed categories – religion and non-religion – and simultaneously reproduces and perpetuates problems associated with the category ‘religion’, and substantiates a category – ‘none’ – created for multiple choice surveys. This chapter begins by introducing the ‘critical religion’ perspective before turning this on contemporary non-religion research. In doing so, it champions a discursive approach as a way forward for the …