Religion and Non-Religion

Religion and Non-Religion is Section I Part B of the SoR II exam: 10 multiple-choice questions and one 5-mark short answer (15 of 100 marks). It is only in SoR II.

• The religious dimension in human history: animism, polytheism and monotheism; what religion contributes to the individual, to social cohesion and to social change; the global distribution of the five major traditions.
• New religious expression: why new forms of religion arise and why people turn to them (personal fulfilment, ethical guidance, the relationship with society), and the influence of materialism, scientific progress, ecological awareness and disillusionment with traditional practice.
• Non-religious worldviews: agnosticism, atheism and humanism (rational and scientific).
• Comparison: one religious and one non-religious worldview compared on the transcendent, the human person and social responsibility.

Describe every worldview, religious or not, the way its own members would. This topic is about understanding, not deciding who is right.

These are scholars' classifications, and adherents sometimes reject them (for example, many Hindus reject the label 'polytheist', seeing the many deities as forms of one ultimate reality).

Two words help in comparisons. Transcendent means the divine is beyond the world and human experience; immanent means the divine is present within the world. Many traditions hold both: Islam teaches that Allah is beyond all comparison yet 'closer than the jugular vein' (Qur'an 50:16).

Careful with Christianity: Christians understand the Trinity as one God in three persons, not three gods. Buddhism is usually described as non-theistic: Buddhists honour the Buddha but do not regard him as a creator God.

The syllabus groups religion's contributions into three:

• To the individual: answers to ultimate questions (meaning, purpose, suffering, death), identity, moral guidance, comfort and belonging.
• To social cohesion: shared beliefs, values and rituals hold groups together. Festivals, weekly worship and rites of passage give a community a common identity. The sociologist Émile Durkheim saw this as a central function of religion.
• To social change: religious teachings about justice and dignity can be used to criticise society. Examples: Christian campaigners against the slave trade; Martin Luther King Jr, a Baptist minister, and the US civil rights movement; Buddhist monks' protests in Myanmar in 2007.

The two social functions are connected: the same shared values and networks that make a religious community cohesive allow it to organise for change.

Always give a source and a year. The Pew Research Center's 2025 report gives estimates for 2020:

Key trends from 2010 to 2020:

• Muslims grew fastest (about 347 million more), mainly because Muslim populations are young with higher birth rates.
• Christians grew in number but fell 1.8 percentage points as a share of the world, mainly because many people in Europe, the Americas and Australia stopped identifying as Christian.
• Buddhists were the only major group to fall in number.

Worked example

_Describe the global distribution of Hinduism and Judaism. (4 marks)_

A strong answer gives size, share and location for each, and a contrast. Hinduism is the third-largest tradition, with about 1.2 billion adherents in 2020 (Pew), roughly 15% of the world, but it is extremely concentrated: about 95% of Hindus live in India, with communities in Nepal and a diaspora in places such as the UK, Mauritius, Fiji and Australia. Judaism is far smaller, about 14.8 million people (0.2%), and almost all Jews live in Israel or North America, with smaller communities in Europe, Latin America and Australia. Both are concentrated, but Hinduism is concentrated in its land of origin, while most Jews live either in Israel or in a diaspora shaped by migration.

A new religious movement (NRM) is a relatively recent religious group, especially since the mid-20th century (some scholars include 19th-century groups), outside the established forms of the major traditions. New religious expression also includes individual, 'spiritual but not religious' spirituality and New Age practices.

Examples, described as their members understand them:

• ISKCON (the Hare Krishna movement), founded in New York in 1966 by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, drawing on the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition of devotion to Krishna.
• The Church of Scientology, founded in the 1950s by L. Ron Hubbard, which offers 'auditing' for spiritual improvement.
• Wicca and contemporary Paganism, nature-based spiritualities that celebrate the seasonal festivals of the Wheel of the Year.
• Falun Gong, which combines qigong exercises with the moral principles of truthfulness, compassion and forbearance.
• New Age spirituality, an eclectic mix of meditation, healing, astrology and other practices focused on personal growth.

Why people turn to them

• Personal fulfilment: a search for meaning and spiritual experience that work and consumption do not provide.
• Ethical guidance: clear values and a supportive community in a fast-changing society.
• Relationship with society: some movements offer an alternative to mainstream culture; others help members live more fully within it.

What influences them

• Materialism: some people find a consumer lifestyle unfulfilling and look for spiritual meaning.
• Scientific progress: it weakened traditional religious authority for some, while some movements present their teachings in scientific language.
• Ecological awareness: concern for the earth draws people to spiritualities that treat nature as sacred.
• Disillusionment with traditional practice: institutions can seem formal, irrelevant or damaged by scandal, so people look for something more personal.

• Agnosticism: whether God exists is unknown, and perhaps unknowable. The term was coined by Thomas Huxley in 1869. It is a position about knowledge.
• Atheism: there is no god or gods. It is a position about belief, and on its own it says nothing about ethics.
• Humanism: a positive worldview holding that people can live ethical, meaningful lives without belief in the supernatural, using reason, evidence and compassion. This life is the only one, so people should make it good for everyone. Humanists International's Amsterdam Declaration (2002) sets out these values.
• Rational humanism stresses human reason as the basis of knowledge and ethics.
• Scientific humanism treats science and evidence as the surest guide to understanding the world and improving human life.

A quick test: 'There is no God' (atheist). 'No one can know whether there is a God' (agnostic). 'We can be good without God, through reason and compassion' (humanist). A person can be both atheist and humanist.

The syllabus asks for three points of comparison. Here is Christianity and humanism as a model; you can use any religious tradition you have studied.

A comparison must state similarities (both value human dignity and care for others) and differences (the source of dignity, life after death, the reason for ethical action) explicitly, rather than describing each side separately.

• Treating agnosticism as a weak form of atheism; it is about knowledge, not belief.
• Giving global statistics without a source or year.
• Calling every minority religion 'new'. NRMs are defined by recent origin.
• Describing a new religious movement with loaded words ('cult', 'brainwashed'). Use neutral, descriptive language.
• In comparisons, writing two separate essays.

• The verbs matter. 'Outline' wants brief main features; 'explain' wants how and why; 'compare' wants similarities and differences; 'analyse' wants the parts and how they relate.
• For the 5-mark short answer, aim for a focused half-page with specific evidence: a date, a statistic, a named movement or thinker.
• In MCQs about scenarios, match the evidence in the scenario to the concept. If a person believes in a 'higher power' but belongs to no group, they are not an atheist.

• Australia post-1945: secularism and the rise of 'no religion' in the census; New Age religions.
• Depth studies: use the religious worldview you know best for the comparison.
• Religion and Peace: religion's contribution to social change includes peace movements.