Non+Religion Research Brief

This podcast episode, based on Robert A. Thomson Jr., Sharan Kaur Mehta, and Elaine Howard Ecklund’s 2020 article "‘Doing Gender’ and ‘Doing Religion’ in Science," examines how the social field of science shapes religious attitudes differently for men and women across the United States, United Kingdom, Italy, and India. Drawing on survey data from over 6,500 biologists and physicists, th...

This academic article explores the social and psychological processes through which men disaffiliate from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The researchers utilize narrative interviews with twenty former members to analyze how the faith’s gendered expectations—such as missions, priesthood advancement, and the role of the sole breadwinner—shape the male life course. While many partic...

Extensive literature in the social and medical sciences link religiosity to positive health outcomes. Conversely it is often assumed that secularity carries negative consequences for health; however, recent research outlining different types of secular individuals complicates this assumption. Using a national sample of American adults, we compare physical and mental health outcomes for atheists, a...

This study by David Speed challenges the belief-as-benefit effect (BABE), which traditionally suggests that religious individuals experience better health than the nonreligious. By analyzing a large Canadian dataset, the researcher compared health indicators such as stress, life satisfaction, and mental well-being across various groups, including atheists, agnostics, and theists. The results demon...

Jacqui Frost, Penny Edgell, and Mahala Miller's 2025 article, "Varieties of Nonreligious Experience: Expanding Understandings of Nonreligious Wellbeing," challenges the assumption that religious decline inevitably leads to diminished health and happiness by examining the diverse internal and social experiences of nonreligious Americans. Utilizing data from a 2020 national survey, the researchers f...

The provided research investigates how shared social traits, a concept the authors call attribute affinity, can mitigate native hostility toward immigrants in the United States. While many scholars focus on economic or cultural threats as the primary drivers of anti-immigrant sentiment, this study highlights the independent power of in-group attraction. Through multiple experiments, the authors de...

This academic study investigates the correlation between religious belief and personal happiness among the elderly population in Vietnam. Using data from a 2011 national survey, the researchers discovered that Buddhists and Caodaists generally report lower levels of life satisfaction compared to non-religious individuals. This surprising negative association is contrasted with Christianity, which...

This study examines how college students conceptualize and support their scientific and supernatural beliefs. While participants expressed much higher confidence in scientific facts, they rarely justified these ideas with empirical evidence, instead relying on deference to authority and social consensus. The findings reveal that students often view scientific claims as infallible and fixed, a pers...

Religion and Family in a Changing Society by Penny Edgell investigates the evolving intersection of faith and household structures in modern America. Drawing on data from four communities in upstate New York, the author explores how religious institutions have adapted to the shift from the traditional "male-breadwinner" model to dual-earner , single-parent , and blended families . The te...

This qualitative study investigates the healthcare experiences and mental well-being of atheists, deists, and agnostics living in Türkiye , a predominantly Muslim society. The researchers conducted interviews with 17 participants to understand how their non-religious identities influence their interactions with medical professionals and their trust in the health system. Findings reveal that many i...

In this 2026 article from the Journal of Contemporary Religion, Elaine Schnabel investigates how individuals who leave the church help define modern Christian identity through their personal stories. By interviewing 45 former members, the researcher identifies two major narrative turning points: encountering diverse moral views outside the church and experiencing physical or sexual development tha...

Breskaya and Pereira Arena’s 2024 article, "Religious Nones and Spirituality: A Comparison between Italian and Uruguayan Youth," utilizes survey data from over 2,000 university students to challenge the oversimplification of "Nones" as a homogeneous group, revealing how their identities are deeply influenced by their national cultural contexts . The study finds that while Nones in both countries a...

This article explores Thomas Luckmann’s influential perspective on secularization, framing it not as a simple decline in faith but as a modern myth of origin. The author explains that this "myth" serves as a narrative for society to define itself as modern by contrasting its current state with a religious past. While some critics use empirical data to argue that religion is objectively v...

This academic article explores the social and political status of atheism in Malaysia, a nation where national identity is deeply intertwined with Islamic and theistic principles. The authors characterize Malaysia as a post-plural society, arguing that while religious diversity is celebrated, it is organized under a framework that necessitates a belief in God and prioritizes Malay-Muslim identity....

This research explores why American Christians frequently harbor a deep-seated distrust toward atheists. Across four distinct studies, the authors identify a dual-pathway model consisting of internal and external factors that fuel this prejudice. Christians often view atheists as lacking an internal moral compass, specifically the "individualizing" foundations that prioritize compassion and the pr...

This research paper investigates the nature and diversity of secular worldviews by analyzing the beliefs of nearly 1,000 nonreligious individuals across 10 different countries. Rather than treating nonbelief as a mere absence of faith, the study uses an open-ended, data-driven approach to identify what these individuals actually value. The findings reveal that secular perspectives often center on...

In this article, scholars Galen Watts and Sarah Wilkins-Laflamme propose a significant revision to the secularization paradigm by introducing the concept of a secular sacred canopy. While traditional theories suggest that modernization simply erodes religious authority, the authors argue that advanced secular societies have actually developed their own cohesive cultural system rooted in scientific...

This research study investigates the psychological and social experiences of individuals in the United States who were raised in the Islamic faith but have since transitioned to a nonbelieving worldview. The authors identify a misalignment of personal values—particularly regarding gender equality and LGBTQ+ rights—as a primary catalyst for leaving the religion, alongside a burgeoning intellectual...

Appropriating the “Soul”: Evolving Understandings in Canada and the United States Gaudette, Cragun, and Beaman’s 2025 article, "Appropriating the 'Soul': Evolving Understandings in Canada and the United States," investigates the significant "belief gap" in North America, where belief in a soul (75–84%) far outpaces belief in an afterlife (48–57%). Utilizing survey data from over 2,000 participants...

This essay by Florian Zappe explores the evolution of secular ethics through the lens of the three Humanist Manifestos published between 1933 and 2003. Zappe argues that these documents function as strategic activist interventions designed to shift moral authority from divine origins to human agency. By examining them as a specific literary genre , he demonstrates how each text responded to unique...

This research article by Matthew Conrad and Conrad Hackett examines how methodological shifts in surveys and censuses can falsely inflate the reported growth of religiously unaffiliated populations. While secularization is a global trend, the authors argue that changes in question wording , such as using non-presumptive language or two-step "filter" questions, make comparisons with older...

This research article by Alexandr Zamușinski examines The Clergy Project (TCP), an international support network designed for religious leaders who no longer believe in the supernatural. The study challenges common misconceptions—such as those voiced by critics like Albert Mohler Jr.—that the organization is a militant, anti-religious front. Instead, the author uses grounded theory and interviews...

This article, "Invisible secularity: American theism beyond belief," argues that traditional social indicators like church attendance and religious affiliation actually mask a more profound decline in personal religiosity in the United States. Utilizing data from the Baylor Religion Survey (2005–2021) and the General Social Survey (1972–2022), Voas demonstrates that even among Americans who contin...

This research article by Jonathan Simmons explores the overlooked experiences of Indigenous atheists in Canada, a group often ignored due to the stereotype that Indigenous identity is inherently spiritual. Through interviews with eighteen participants, the study examines how these individuals navigate anti-atheist stigma and the pressure to conform to both Christian and traditional spiritual norms...

This deep-dive podcast explores the "Exvangelical" movement through the lens of Bethany Gull's research, focusing on how former white evangelical Christians in the U.S. utilize specific culturally available narratives to reconstruct their identities after leaving their faith. The discussion unpacks three primary narrative "threads": emergence/redemption , which focuses on "coming out" and making a...