Nonreligion in a Complex Future
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nonreligioncf.bsky.social
Nonreligion in a Complex Future
@nonreligioncf.bsky.social
270 followers 260 following 78 posts
International social science research project exploring the rise of nonreligion. Based at the University of Ottawa. Directed by Lori G. Beaman. Funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

https://nonreligionproject.ca/
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nonreligioncf.bsky.social
We're excited to announce the publication of Unearthing Lifestances: What Community Gardens Tell Us About Nonreligion (co-edited by Lori Beaman, Ryan Cragun, and Douglas Ezzy), the first in our open-access book series with De Gruyter.

Read here for free: www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi...
A cover of the book, Unearthing Lifestances, and a description that says: Drawing on interviews from community gardeners in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, England, Finland, Norway, Northern Ireland, and the United States, this book explores themes of community-building, ritual, ethics, and relationships with humans, non-humans, and the natural world, arguing for their conceptualization as ‘lifestances’
November 12, 2025 at 7:11 PM
nonreligioncf.bsky.social
This is still time to register for our latest Meet the Author webinar featuring Ben Laws. In this webinar, Dr. Laws will present his new book, Asylum and Nonreligion: Emotions, Evidence-making and Credibility (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024)

Nov. 12, 11am ET

Register: uottawa-ca.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
November 10, 2025 at 8:55 PM
nonreligioncf.bsky.social
Register now for our latest Meet the Author webinar featuring Ben Laws. In this webinar, Dr. Laws will present his new book, Asylum and Nonreligion: Emotions, Evidence-making and Credibility (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024).

November 12
11am ET

Register here: uottawa-ca.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
November 3, 2025 at 2:22 PM
nonreligioncf.bsky.social
Happening this Wednesday!

Register for the latest webinar in our series, Nonreligion, Past and Present: Interdisciplinary Conversations, a collaboration with @ishash.bsky.social. This webinar will focus on science and nonreligion.

Oct 29, 1pm ET

Register here: uottawa-ca.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
Nonreligion, Past and Present: Interdisciplinary Conversations Science and Nonreligion Renny Thomas (Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Bhopal), Stephen Weldon (University of Oklahoma), Bernard Lightman (York University, Toronto), and Lauren Strumos (University of Alberta).
October 27, 2025 at 3:46 PM
nonreligioncf.bsky.social
Read the latest article from NCF researchers, Iriana Sartor and Giovanna Paccillo, which explores the lifestances of community gardeners in Brazil and Argentina.

Read here:
periodicos.sbu.unicamp.br/ojs/index.ph...
New Publication alert “Trabajar la tierra, el ‘cultivo’ de sí y del ambiente: la construcción de una ética no religiosa en huertas comunitarias en Brasil y Argentina” [“Working the Soil, ‘Cultivating’ the Self and the Environment: The Construction of a Nonreligious Ethic in Community Gardens in Brazil and Argentina”] Ciencias Sociales y Religión (2025) Iriana Sartor Universidad Nacional de Córdoba / CONICET- Argentina Giovanna Paccillo Universidade Estadual de Campinas - Brasil
October 17, 2025 at 3:19 PM
nonreligioncf.bsky.social
Register now for the latest webinar in our series, Nonreligion, Past and Present: Interdisciplinary Conversations, a collaboration with @ishash.bsky.social. This webinar will focus on the relationship between science and the natural world.

Oct 29, 1pm ET

Register uottawa-ca.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
Nonreligion, Past and Present: Interdisciplinary Conversations Science and Nonreligion Renny Thomas (Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Bhopal), Stephen Weldon (University of Oklahoma), Bernard Lightman (York University, Toronto), and Lauren Strumos (University of Alberta).
October 8, 2025 at 5:16 PM
nonreligioncf.bsky.social
Happening next week:

A webinar from the @socialrepair.bsky.social project, co-led by Lori Beaman.

"Understanding Global Racisms: Beyond Euro-American Centricity," Tariq Modood

October 1, 2025
9am ET

Zoom link: us06web.zoom.us/j/8174893023...
Access code: 546157
Understanding Global Racisms: Beyond Euro-American centricity Prof Tariq Modood Tariq Modood is Professor of Sociology, Politics and Public Policy, the founding director of the Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship at the University of Bristol and the co-founder of the international journal, Ethnicities. He served on the Commission on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain, the National Equality Panel, and the Commission on Religion and Belief in British Public Life. His latest books include Essays on Secularism and Multiculturalism (2019), Multiculturalism: A Civic Idea (2nd ed; 2013); and as Special Issues co-editor with Thomas Sealy, Beyond Euro-Americancentric Forms of Racism and Anti-racism (Political Quarterly, 2022) and Global Comparative Analysis of the Governance of Religious Diversity (Religion, State and Society, 2022). His latest book, with Thomas Sealy, is The New Governance of Religious Diversity (2024). Prof Modood will be speaking on how the concept of racialisation, developed in Britain and the Global North, may be useful for understanding some forms of prejudice, exclusion and domination in the Global South. DISCUSSANT Morgane Reina Morgane Reina has a PhD in Sociology from the University of Brasília (2021). She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Social Sciences (Multidisciplinary) from the Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po – 2013) and a Master’s degree in Political Sociology from the Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po – 2015). DATE: Wednesday, 1 October 2025 TIME: 15:00 - South Africa 9:00 - Canada (Ottawa) 10:00 - Brazil (São Paulo) 14:00 - United Kingdom
September 25, 2025 at 3:58 PM
nonreligioncf.bsky.social
Abstract We examine the strengths and weaknesses of different “absence measures” scholars use to classify individuals as religious or nonreligious. Drawing on a novel dataset with data from eight countries (Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Finland, Norway, the UK, and the USA), we analyze how many people would be considered nonreligious based on four common measures: religious affiliation, religious service attendance, belief in a monotheistic god, and self-reported religiosity. We find that different measures lead to substantially different estimates of the number of nonreligious people in a country. The single measure that identifies the highest percentage of nonreligious people is never attending religious services, while the measure that identified the lowest percentage was those who report they are not at all religious. We also show that self-reported religiosity is a stronger predictor of attitudes toward religion than the other measures. Our findings suggest that scholars need to consider carefully the implications of using different measures of nonreligion, as this decision can have a meaningful impact on research findings.
September 23, 2025 at 3:25 PM
nonreligioncf.bsky.social
Read the latest article from NCF team members Ryan Cragun, Hugo Rabbia, Sivert Skålvoll Urstad, and Peter Beyer. In this article, the authors draw on research from the NCF's Social and Cultural Values Survey to re-think how to best measure nonreligion.

secularismandnonreligion.org/articles/10....
New Publication Alert “Measuring Nonreligion as Absence: Testing Various Approaches” Secularism and Nonreligion (2025) Ryan T. Cragun NCF Co-Investigator, University of Tampa Hugo H. Rabbia NCF Contributor, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba Sivert Skålvoll Urstad NCF Contributor, University of Agder Peter Beyer NCF Co-Investigator, University of Ottawa
September 23, 2025 at 3:25 PM
nonreligioncf.bsky.social
There is still time to register for our upcoming Meet the Author webinar with Sarah Kathleen Johnson discussing her recent book, Occasional Religious Practice: Valuing a Very Ordinary Religious Experience

Wednesday, September 17
12 pm ET

Register here: uottawa-ca.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
September 15, 2025 at 12:25 PM
nonreligioncf.bsky.social
September 11, 2025 at 12:51 PM
nonreligioncf.bsky.social
Some pics from NCF team members' presentations during the recent Nonreligion and Secularity Research Network conference earlier this week!

@thensrn.bsky.social
September 11, 2025 at 12:51 PM
nonreligioncf.bsky.social
Register now for our upcoming Meet the Author webinar featuring Sarah Kathleen Johnson. In this webinar, Dr. Johnson will discuss her recent book, Occasional Religious Practice: Valuing a Very Ordinary Religious Experience (2025).

September 17
12pm ET

Register: uottawa-ca.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
August 28, 2025 at 3:24 PM
nonreligioncf.bsky.social
Abstract Drawing on data from Norway and Finland, we explore three questions in this paper. First, do nonreligious individuals in these two countries report believing in a soul? Second, do those same individuals report believing in an afterlife? And third, what factors predict believing in a soul? We find that 65.2% of unaffiliated individuals in Norway and 58.3% of unaffiliated individuals in Finland report believing in a soul, but much smaller percentages – 24.7% and 24.1%, respectively – report believing in an afterlife. We find that religiosity and spirituality do not predict belief in a soul, but that believing in an afterlife, reincarnation, and universal energy do. This leads us to believe that many of the nonreligious individuals who report believing in a soul in these two countries likely do not believe in a supernatural soul but rather use the word “soul” in a naturalistic sense to describe one’s personality or individual identity.
July 3, 2025 at 1:26 PM
nonreligioncf.bsky.social
Read the newest article from NCF team members Dana Gaudette, Ryan T. Cragun, and Sivert Skålvoll Urstad, "A Disparity in Soul and Afterlife Beliefs: Exploring Cultural Perspectives and Predictors in Nordic Countries," Nordic Journal of Religion and Society

www.scup.com/eprint/6JU5E...
July 3, 2025 at 1:26 PM
nonreligioncf.bsky.social
Register now for @nathgalexander.bsky.social's upcoming webinar with The Freethinker, "Atheism and Vegetarianism in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: A Match Made in Heaven?" on July 8 at 2pm ET.

More details here: freethinker.co.uk/2025/05/free...

@thefreethinkermag.bsky.social
June 26, 2025 at 2:59 PM
nonreligioncf.bsky.social
Read the latest article from the NCF's education team:

“Changes in religious education in response to growing diversity: a comparison of Brazil, Canada and England” British Journal of Sociology of Education

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
New Publication Alert Solange Lefebvre, Paula Montero, Linda Woodhead, Guilherme Borges, Annegret Marten, and Karel J. Leyva, “Changes in religious education in response to growing diversity: a comparison of Brazil, Canada and England” British Journal of Sociology of Education
June 12, 2025 at 4:02 PM
nonreligioncf.bsky.social
Find out what we've been up to this past year in our annual report for 2024-25!

nonreligionproject.ca/wp-content/u...
June 10, 2025 at 7:00 PM
nonreligioncf.bsky.social
Congratulations to NCF team member Lauren Strumos, who successfully defended her PhD thesis, "Exploring Notions of Environmental and Ecological Justice Among Settler Protesters Opposed to the Trans Mountain Expansion Project," yesterday. Well done, Dr. Strumos!
June 4, 2025 at 2:20 PM
nonreligioncf.bsky.social
Register now for @thensrn.bsky.social's annual virtual lecture, Growing Up Godless: Childhood and the Formation of Non-Religion, featuring @annastrhan.bsky.social and Rachael Shillitoe

May 22, 12:30pm ET

Register here: ut-ee.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
May 20, 2025 at 3:31 PM
nonreligioncf.bsky.social
Register now our upcoming hybrid seminar, "Nonreligion in Brazil and Beyond: Emerging Approaches and Future Directions," featuring Olívia Barbosa, Guilherme Borges, and Renata Nagamine.

Date: May 14, 2025
Time: 1:00pm-2:30pm ET

Virtual registration: uottawa-ca.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
May 12, 2025 at 2:05 PM
nonreligioncf.bsky.social
Register now for our upcoming hybrid seminar, "Nonreligion in Brazil and Beyond: Emerging Approaches and Future Directions," featuring Olívia Barbosa, Guilherme Borges, and Renata Nagamine.

Date: May 14, 2025
Time: 1:00pm-2:30pm ET

Virtual registration here: uottawa-ca.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
April 24, 2025 at 1:47 PM
nonreligioncf.bsky.social
Happening tomorrow (April 24) at 10am ET: Ryan Cragun will present “Religion/Spirituality are not necessary for enchantment” as part of the "Varieties of re-enchantment: nature and spirituality in contemporary societies" webinar series

More details here: www.uab.cat/web/agenda/a...
April 23, 2025 at 3:12 PM
nonreligioncf.bsky.social
We would like to welcome Edmundo Maza (University of Ottawa) as the new NCF student caucus leader. He is taking over from Guadalupe Allione Riba (National University of Córdoba). Thank you, Guada, for your contribution to the vibrant student culture of the NCF.
April 16, 2025 at 4:05 PM
nonreligioncf.bsky.social
Register now for our upcoming webinar where @gregsmithpolls.bsky.social (Pew Research) will discuss findings from the Pew Religious Landscape Study 2023-2024, with comments by Kati Tervo-Niemelä, Peter Beyer, and Ryan Cragun

Date: Apr. 22
Time: 11 am ET

Register uottawa-ca.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
Nonreligion and the Pew Religious Landscape Study In this webinar, Gregory A. Smith (Pew Research Center) will discuss findings from the Pew Religious Landscape Study 2023-2024, followed by commentary from Kati Tervo-Niemelä (University of Eastern Finland), Peter Beyer (University of Ottawa), and Ryan Cragun (University of Tampa). Date: April 22, 2025 Time: 11:00 am ET
April 10, 2025 at 2:29 PM