Living without God in a religious country

Polish nonbelievers as a cultural minority

Bibliographic Data

ID18989295
AuthorsRadosław Tyrała (0000-0002-8057-7226, AGH University of Krakow, corresponding author)
Year2018
Volume65
Issue1
Pages131-144
Publication date2018-03-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial Compass (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0037-7686 • E-ISSN: 1461-7404
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0037768617747497
OpenAlexW2790943377
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited19

This article focuses on the community of Polish nonbelievers; according to different surveys, they constitute approximately 8% of the overall population. In this research-grounded opinion they should be treated as a minority, not only strictly numerically but also culturally, with all the consequences of this fact. This research conducted on the members of this group showed there are some important levels of such consequences. The first is the level of identity. The vast majority of my respondents were raised Catholic and therefore one may call them converts to non-religiousness. The second is the level of (non)religious consciousness. Less than one fifth of my respondents clearly expressed certain forms of religious belief, such as faith in an impersonal form of deity or in an afterlife. The third is the level of subjectively perceived discrimination. Polish nonbelievers rarely meet with direct expressions of prejudice against them during face-to-face encounters. However, they feel a strong social pressure to cultivate some elements of the ritual dimension of religiosity. At the end the author considers to what extent their minority status has a relative character

Aesthetics · Afterlife · Character (mathematics) · Consciousness · Epistemology · Face (sociological concept) · Faith · Identity (music) · Personhood · Population · Prejudice (legal term) · Religiosity · Social science · Sociology · Catholicism, Bioethics, Media, Education · Central European Literary Studies · Philosophy · Psychology · Religion and Society Interactions · Social Psychology

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