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Secular Religious Education? Brief Reflections Based on a Brazilian Case Guilherme Borges is a postdoctoral researcher at the Brazilian Center for Analysis and Planning and at the Nonreligion in a Complex Future project, based at the University of Ottawa. Drawing on these dual affiliations, he conducts comparative analyses of the presence of religious education in public schools in Brazil and Canada. He holds a PhD…Read more Secular Religious Education? Brief Reflections Based on a Brazilian Case

17.01.2026 17:26 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Nonbelieving Clergy Alexandr Zamușinski is a scholar of religion specializing in secularism, nonreligion, and religious change. He holds a PhD from the University of California, Riverside and is currently Instructor at the Defense Language Institute, Monterey, CA. Email: alexandr.zamusinski@dliflc.edu / ORCID https://orcid.org/0009-0006-7807-8811 Keywords: The Clergy Project, nonbelieving clergy, nonreligion, secularism, behaving without believing When we think about people…Read more Nonbelieving Clergy

13.11.2025 22:56 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Euthanasia and the Right to Die as a Nonreligious Project? The Belgian Case Entangled with Global Dynamics Niels De Nutte is affiliated with the history department and the Secular Studies Association Brussels research group at Vrije Universiteit Brussel as a guest professor and postdoctoral researcher. He serves as an associate director to the International Society for Historians on Atheism, Secularism and Humanism and editor to the Secular Studies journal (Brill). Niels’s research interests include…Read more Euthanasia and the Right to Die as a Nonreligious Project? The Belgian Case Entangled with Global Dynamics

26.08.2025 21:36 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Beyond Smudge and Creator: Recognizing Indigenous Nonbelievers in Canada Jonathan Simmons is a sociologist specializing in nonreligion, atheism, and religious change. He holds a PhD from the University of Alberta and is currently on staff at the University of Alberta. Email: jssimmon@ualberta.ca Keywords: Indigenous nonreligion, atheism, secularism, Canada, spirituality A common, often unexamined, assumption clouds discussions about Indigenous peoples in Canada: the conflation of…Read more Beyond Smudge and Creator: Recognizing Indigenous Nonbelievers in Canada

16.06.2025 19:42 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

PhD position in nonreligion Three full-time four-year paid PhD positions are available at the School of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Tartu. The positions are fully funded and successful candidates will be hired as Junior Research Fellows for the duration of their PhD studies. There are no predetermined research areas or focuses, the candidate has to propose one’s…Read more PhD position in nonreligion

04.05.2025 18:58 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

NSRN Annual Lecture 2025 You are cordially invited to the NSRN Annual Lecture 2025, which will be given by Anna Strhan and Rachael Shillitoe. The title of the lecture is Growing Up Godless: Childhood and the Formation of Non-Religion. How are children’s non-belief and non-religion formed in everyday life? While previous studies have shown that what happens during childhood…Read more NSRN Annual Lecture 2025

10.04.2025 14:49 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 1

New Book: Families and Religion (2025) Families and Religion: Dynamics of Transmission across Generations Edited by Christel Gärtner, Linda Henning, Olaf Müller. This comparative study examines the transmission of religion in families in Germany, Italy, Hungary, Finland and Canada. The authors rely on the widely shared argument that religious change can primarily be understood as an intergenerational process. Based on a…Read more New Book: Families and Religion (2025)

29.03.2025 22:45 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

NSRN 2025 conference CfP – Extended Nonreligion and Secularity Research Network Conference 8-10 September 2025 Institute of Ethnology and Social Anthropology at the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia Extended deadline for session and paper proposals: 31 March 2025 Scholarly discussions on nonreligion often begin by noting that nonreligion and its related phenomena are primarily studied within Western,…Read more NSRN 2025 conference CfP – Extended

28.03.2025 20:48 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

NSRN 2025 conference CfP – Extended Nonreligion and Secularity Research Network Conference 8-10 September 2025 Institute of Ethnology and Social Anthropology at the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia Extended deadline for session and paper proposals: 31 March 2025 Scholarly discussions on nonreligion often begin by noting that nonreligion and its related phenomena are primarily studied within Western,…Read more NSRN 2025 conference CfP – Extended

16.03.2025 20:48 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Nonreligious Recollections of Religious Educations in Flanders, Greece, and Norway Sofia Nikitaki, KU Leuven Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies Keywords: nonreligion, religious education, cross-cultural research, qualitative research, Belgium, Greece, Norway While literature regarding the inclusion of nonreligious worldviews into religious education (RE) curricula is growing, the experiences of nonreligious individuals regarding RE are not often the topic of discussion. This contribution shortly presents how…Read more Nonreligious Recollections of Religious Educations in Flanders, Greece, and Norway

16.03.2025 16:19 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Call for Papers Nonreligion and Secularity Research Network Conference 8-10 September 2025 Institute of Ethnology and Social Anthropology at the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia Scholarly discussions on nonreligion often begin by noting that nonreligion and its related phenomena are primarily studied within Western, particularly Anglophone contexts, with recent efforts to expand global perspectives.…Read more Call for Papers

10.02.2025 15:34 👍 5 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 1

Atheist Spirituality: Reflections on André Compte-Sponville’s L’Esprit de l’athéisme: Introduction à une spiritualité sans Dieu Ehsan Sheikholharam, Kennesaw State University Keywords: atheist spirituality, laïcité, pluralist ethics, post-Christian Europe It’s not surprising to hear that someone identifies as Jewish, while not believing in a transcendental God. Likewise, it’s not unlikely to hear that some Muslims don’t observe daily prayers or believe in the Day of Judgement. The categories “cultural Muslim” or…Read more Atheist Spirituality: Reflections on André Compte-Sponville’s L’Esprit de l’athéisme: Introduction à une spiritualité sans Dieu

19.11.2024 15:59 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

‘Christianity Showed Its Face’: The Role of Power in the Process of Christian Exiting and Formation as a Religious None Tess Starman, Howard University Keywords: secularization, politicized religion, deconstruction, deconversion U.S. Christianity has seen a sharp decline in affiliation over the last 20 years. Scholars have often associated this decline with the growing secularization of society and other forces including industrialization, rationalization, and urbanization.i] However, one alternative explanation for religious decline is the concept of…[Read more ‘Christianity Showed Its Face’: The Role of Power in the Process of Christian Exiting and Formation as a Religious None

29.10.2024 18:00 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

The Soul in a Secular World: Investigating a Discrepancy in Beliefs Dani Gaudette, The University of Tampa Keywords: soul belief, afterlife, Norway, Finland, nonreligion, secularism Developing countries are experiencing secularization, leading to a noticeable decline in religious beliefs. Since this change is still underway, its long-term impacts on people’s beliefs around the world are unclear. Without religious traditions offering guidance, we may ask: What do the…Read more The Soul in a Secular World: Investigating a Discrepancy in Beliefs

30.09.2024 18:10 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Podcast – The Anthropology of Nonreligion Mascha Schulz, The Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology Keywords: podcast, nonreligion, anthropology, lived nonreligion A podcast video with Mascha Schulz on the Anthropology of Nonreligion has recently been published by the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle, Germany. In this episode of the series Talk On!, Christoph Brumann talks to Mascha Schulz…Read more Podcast – The Anthropology of Nonreligion

10.09.2024 15:44 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

Beyond the Sacred-versus-Secular Dichotomy: Humanist Wedding Ceremonies in Contemporary Poland Agata Rejowska, Jagiellonian University Keywords: humanism, marriage, weddings, Poland, sacred, secular Humanist marriage ceremonies are an emerging form of civic rituality in Poland, and their popularity is on the rise. The first official humanist marriage ceremony was conducted in 2007 by the Polish Rationalist Association. As advocates of this type of rituality argued, this is…Read more Beyond the Sacred-versus-Secular Dichotomy: Humanist Wedding Ceremonies in Contemporary Poland

19.06.2024 15:14 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

Religion and Prosociality? The Volunteerism of Canadian Atheists David Speed, University of New Brunswick Keywords: volunteering, civic engagement, atheism, nonreligion, comparative religion, Canada If I may don my Hat of Mild Hyperbole for a moment: one of the discussed virtues of religion is that it is steeped in prosociality. Give a gal or fella a religious text, and lo and behold they are…Read more Religion and Prosociality? The Volunteerism of Canadian Atheists

22.05.2024 17:21 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Event Report: 2024 NSRN Lecture In this post, Chris Miller reports on the NSRN’s 2024 Annual Virtual Lecture, presented by Dr. Donovan Schaefer and moderated by NSRN President Dr. Atko Remmel on May 8, 2024. Chris summarizes Schaefer’s lecture, highlighting his argument of how disenchantment has been misunderstood, and how scholars can move forward in their work with a renewed…Read more Event Report: 2024 NSRN Lecture

17.05.2024 17:56 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Nonreligious Afterlife? Death Cafés and Emerging Understandings of Death Chris Miller, University of Ottawa Keywords: death and dying, nonreligion, Death Café, afterlife Religion has traditionally been a major influence on how people and societies make sense of death. Questions such as why people die, what happens after we die, and what rituals should we perform to mark someone’s death were typically answered by religious…Read more Nonreligious Afterlife? Death Cafés and Emerging Understandings of Death

16.04.2024 16:14 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

NSRN 2024 Annual Lecture The NSRN 2024 Annual Lecture will be taking place virtually on May 8, 2024. Dr. Donovan Schaefer (University of Pennsylvania) will be sharing his presentation, titled “The Re-Disenchantment of the World: Thinking, Feeling, and Secularity” while NSRN President Atko Remmel will moderate a Q & A period following the presentation. Please see the poster below…Read more NSRN 2024 Annual Lecture

15.04.2024 14:18 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Anti-Atheism as a New Focus for the Study of Nonreligion Petra Klug, University of Bremen Keywords: anti-atheism, relational approaches, discrimination of atheists, United States, blasphemy, apostasy In recent years, the study of nonreligion has experienced significant growth. Following the novel works of scholars such as Colin Campbell, Lois Lee, and Johannes Quack, much research in this field has explored how the nonreligious relate to religion.…Read more Anti-Atheism as a New Focus for the Study of Nonreligion

25.03.2024 20:27 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

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