Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×

Online ordering will be unavailable from 17:00 GMT on Friday, April 25 until 17:00 GMT on Sunday, April 27 due to maintenance. We apologise for the inconvenience.

Hostname: page-component-669899f699-8p65j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-25T12:35:37.742Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
Series:   Elements in Global Philosophy of Religion

Semi-Secular Worldviews and the Belief in Something Beyond

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 March 2025

Carl-Johan Palmqvist  and
Francis Jonbäck
Carl-Johan Palmqvist
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Lund, Sweden
Francis Jonbäck
Affiliation:
Faculty of Theology, Uppsala University, Sweden

Summary

An increasingly large part of the population in the West identifies as religious Nones. Contrary to what might be assumed, most of them are not outright atheists. They reject traditional religion, but many pursue different forms of spirituality, and many entertain supernatural ideas. This Element concerns the worldview of these 'semi-secular' Nones. When asked about whether they believe in God, they usually provide answers like 'Perhaps not God per se, but I do believe in something'. Belief in 'somethin' is the ontological cornerstone of many Nones' worldviews. The authors reconstruct it as the view 'Somethingism'. They assess Somethingism by inquiring how well it stands up to the epistemic challenge of being true to the demands of reason. They also assess it by exploring how it manages the existential challenge of providing comfort and guidance in this life, and its ability to align us with any transcendent reality there might be.
Get access

Keywords

religious NonesworldviewsspiritualitySomethingismsecularity
Type
Element
Information
Series: Elements in Global Philosophy of Religion
Online ISBN: 9781009452199
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication: 24 April 2025

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Element purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

af Burén, Ann (2015) Living Simultaneity. Stockholm: Erlanders.Google Scholar
Alston, William (1996) ‘Belief, Acceptance and Religious Faith’. Pages 3–27 in Jordan, Jeff & Howard-Snyder, Daniel (eds.), Faith, Freedom, and Rationality. London: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers Inc.Google Scholar
Berglund, Bruce (2018) Castle and Cathedral in Modern Prague: Longing for the Sacred in a Skeptical Age. Budapest: Central European University Press.Google Scholar
Bostrom, Nick (2003) ‘Are We Living in a Computer Simulation?’ The Philosophical Quarterly 53(211): 243–255.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bramadat, Paul (2022) ‘Reverential Naturalism in Cascadia: From the Fancy to the Sublime’. Pages 23–40 in Bramadat, Paul, Killen, Patricia O’Connell, & Wilkins-Laflamme, Sarah (eds.), Religion at the Edge: Nature, Spirituality and Secularity in the Pacific Northeast. Vancouver: UBC Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bråten, Oddrun (2022) ‘Non-Binary Worldviews in Education’. British Journal of Religious Education 44(3): 325–333.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burton, Tara (2020) Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World. New York: Public Affairs.Google Scholar
Chaves, Mark (2010) ‘SSSR Presidential Address Rain Dances in the Dry Season: Overcoming the Religious Congruence Fallacy’. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 49(1): 1–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Collins, Robin (2009) ‘The Teleological Argument: An Exploration of the Fine-Tuning of the Universe’. Pages 202–281 in Craig, William Lane & Moreland, James P. (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology. Oxford: Blackwell-Wiley.Google Scholar
Cottingham, John (2014) Philosophy of Religion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Couwenberg, Servatius W. (2005) ‘Ietsisme is geloof van alle tijden’. Trouw, 18 January.Google Scholar
Davie, Grace (1994) Religion in Britain since 1945: Believing without Belonging. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Demerath, Jay (2000) ‘The Rise of “Cultural Religion” in European Christianity: Learning from Poland, Northern Ireland, and Sweden’. Social Compass 47(1): 127–139.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dole, Andrew (2013) ‘Is Sceptical Religion Adequate as a Religion?’ Religious Studies 49(2): 235–248.Google Scholar
Elliott, James (2017) ‘The Power of Humility in Sceptical Religion: Why Ietsism Is Preferable to J. L. Schellenberg’s Ultimism’. Religious Studies 53(1): 97–116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fine, Kit (2020) Vagueness: A Global Approach. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gan, Peter (2022) ‘Is There Something Worthwhile in Somethingism?’ European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 14(4): 171–193.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greene, Brian (2011) The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos. New York: Vintage.Google Scholar
Heelas, Paul, & Woodhead, Linda (2005) The Spiritual Revolution: Why Religion Is Giving Way to Spirituality. Malden: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
Holstein, E. J. N. (2020) Een zinvol leven: een filosofisch perspectief. Barendrecht: Reflectera.Google Scholar
Howard-Snyder, Daniel (2013) ‘Propositional Faith: What It Is and What It Is Not’. American Philosophical Quarterly 50(4): 357–372.Google Scholar
James, William (2010 (1897)) The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy, and Human Immortality. Milton Keynes: Digireads.com Publishing.Google Scholar
Jenkins, Jack (2019) ‘“Nones” Now as Big as Evangelicals, Catholics in the US’. Religion News Service, 21 March, https://religionnews.com/2019/03/21/nones-now-as-big-as-evangelicals-catholics-in-the-us/.Google Scholar
Jonbäck, Francis (2022) ‘Hopeism’. Studia Theologica – Nordic Journal of Theology 76(2):172–192.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jonbäck, Francis, & Palmqvist, Carl-Johan (2024) ‘Between Belief and Disbelief, between Religion and Secularity: Introducing Non-Doxasticism and Semi-Secularity in Worldview Education’. British Journal of Religious Education 46(2): 109–121.Google Scholar
Kahane, Guy (2011) ‘Should We Want God to Exist?’.’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 82(3): 674–696.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kitcher, Philip (2011) ‘Challenges for Secularism’. Pages 24–56 in Levine, George (ed.), The Joy of Secularism. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Leech, David (2020) ‘“New Agnosticism”, Imaginative Challenge, and Religious Experience’. Pages 107–139 in Fallon, Francis & Hyman, Gavin (eds.), Agnosticism: Explorations in Philosophy and Religious Thought. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lemos, Carlos, & Puga-Gonzalez, Ivan (2021) ‘Belief in God, Confidence in the Church and Secularization in Scandinavia’. Secularism and Nonreligion 10(5): 1–21.Google Scholar
Levi, Isaac (1967) Gambling with Truth: An Essay on Induction and the Aims of Science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Linville, Mark D. (2009) ‘The Moral Argument’. Pages 391–448 in Craig, William Lane & Moreland, James P. (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology. Oxford: Blackwell-Wiley.Google Scholar
Löwendahl, L. (2005). Religion utan organisation: om religiös rörlighet bland privatreligiösa. Östlings bokförlag Symposion.Google Scholar
Lougheed, Kirk (2020) The Axiological Status of Theism and Other Worldviews. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Manson, Neil A. 2003 ‘Introduction’ in Manson, Neil A (ed.) God and Design (1–23) London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Mercadante, Linda A. (2014) Belief without Borders: Inside the Minds of the Spiritual but not Religious. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Mercadante, Linda A. (2020) ‘Spiritual Struggles of Nones and “Spiritual But Not Religious” (SBNRs)’. Religions 11 (10): 513.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nagasawa, Yujin (2018) ‘The Problem of Evil for Atheists’. Pages 151–163 in Trakakis, Nick (ed.), The Problem of Evil – Eight Views in Dialogue. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Nagel, Thomas (2010) Secular Philosophy and the Religious Temperament. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Norris, Pippa, & Inglehart, Ronald (2011) Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide. 2nd ed. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oppy, Graham (2006) Arguing about Gods. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Oppy, Graham (2013) The Best Argument against God. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Palmqvist, Carl-Johan (2019) ‘The Proper Object of Non-Doxastic Religion: Why Traditional Religion Should Be Preferred Over Schellenberg’s Ultimism’. Religious Studies 55(4): 559–574.Google Scholar
Palmqvist, Carl-Johan (2021) ‘Forms of Belief-Less Religion: Why Non-Doxasticism Makes Fictionalism Redundant for the Pro-Religious Agnostic’. Religious Studies 57(1): 49–65.Google Scholar
Palmqvist, Carl-Johan (2022) ‘A Faith for the Future’. European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 14(1): 95–122.Google Scholar
Palmqvist, Carl-Johan (2023) ‘The Old Gods as a Live Possibility: On the Rational Feasibility of Non-Doxastic Paganism’. Religious Studies 59(4): 651–664.Google Scholar
Palmqvist, Carl-Johan, & Jonbäck, Francis (2023) ‘On the Rationality of Semi-Secular Simultaneity: A Non-Doxastic Interpretation of the Seemingly Inconsistent Worldviews of Some Swedish “Nones”’. Religious Studies 59(4): 589–602.Google Scholar
Pearce, Kenneth L. (2017) ‘Foundational Grounding and the Argument from Contingency’. In Kvanvig, Jonathan L (ed.), Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion 8: 245–268. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Penner, Myron (2015) ‘Personal Anti-Theism and the Meaningful Life Argument’. Faith and Philosophy 32(3): 325–337.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Research Center, Pew (2009) ‘Many Americans Mix Multiple Faiths’. 9 December. www.pewresearch.org/religion/2009/12/09/many-americans-mix-multiple-faiths/.Google Scholar
Pew Research Center (2013) ‘Canada’s Changing Religious Landscape’. 27 June. www.pewresearch.org/religion/2013/06/27/canadas-changing-religious-landscape/.Google Scholar
Research Center, Pew (2024) ‘Religious “Nones” in America: Who They Are and What They Believe’. 24 January. www.pewresearch.org/religion/2024/01/24/religious-nones-in-america-who-they-are-and-what-they-believe/#q2-why-are-nones-nonreligious.Google Scholar
Plantinga, Alvin (2011) Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion and Naturalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Pojman, Louis (1986) ‘Faith without Belief’. Faith and Philosophy 3(2): 157–176.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pruss, Alexander R. (2009) ‘The Liebnizian Cosmological Argument’. Pages 24–100 in William, L. Craig & Moreland, James P. (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology. Oxford: Blackwell-Wiley.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rowe, William (2006) ‘Friendly Atheism, Skeptical Theism and the Problem of Evil’. International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 59(2): 79–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schellenberg, John L. (2005) Prolegomena to a Philosophy of Religion. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Schellenberg, John L. (2009) The Will to Imagine. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Schellenberg, John L. (2013) Evolutionary Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Schellenberg, John L. (2019a) Progressive Atheism. London: Bloomsbury Academic.Google Scholar
Schellenberg, John L. (2019b) Religion after Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Siniscalchi, Glenn B. (2018) ‘Contemporary Trends in Atheistic Criticism of Thomistic Natural Theology’.’ Heythrop Journal 59(4): 689–706.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sober, Elliott (2003). ‘The Design Argument’ in Manson, Neil A (ed.) God and Design (25–53) London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Sober, Elliott (2019) The Design Argument. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sorenson, Roy (2022) ‘Vagueness’. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, accessed 1 December 2023, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/vagueness/.Google Scholar
Steinhart, Eric C. (2014) Your Digital Afterlives: Computational Theories of Life and Death London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Stenmark, Mikael (1995) Rationality in Science, Religion and Everyday Life. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Stenmark, Mikael (2022a) ‘Secular Worldviews: Scientific Naturalism and Secular Humanism’ European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 12(4):237–264.Google Scholar
Stenmark, Mikael (2022b) ‘Worldview Studies’. Religious Studies 58(3):564–582.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swinburne, Richard (2004 (1979)) The Existence of God. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taliaferro, Charles (2009) ‘The Project of Natural Theology’.’ Pages 1–23 in William, L. Craig & James, P. Moreland (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology. Oxford: Blackwell-Wiley.Google Scholar
Taves, Ann (2020) ‘From Religious Studies to Worldview Studies’. Religion 50(1):137–147.Google Scholar
Taylor, Charles (1989) Sources of the Self. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, Charles (1991) The Ethics of Authenticity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, Charles (2002) ‘Modern Social Imaginaries’. Public Culture 14(1): 91–124.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, Charles (2007) A Secular Age. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Thurfjell, David (2015) Det gudlösa folket. De postkristna svenskarna och religionen. Stockholm: Molin & Sorgenfrei.Google Scholar
Thurfjell, David (2020) Granskogsfolket. Stockholm: Norstedts.Google Scholar
Thurfjell, David, Rubow, Cecilie, Remmel, Atko, & Ohlsson, Henrik (2019) ‘The Relocation of Transcendence: Using Schutz to Conceptualize the Nature Experiences of Secular People’. Nature and Culture 14(2): 190–214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Voas, David (2009) ‘The Rise and Fall of Fuzzy Fidelity in Europe’. European Sociological Review 25(2): 155–168.Google Scholar
Wilkins-Laflamme, Sarah (2014). ‘Towards Religious Polarization? Time Effects on Religious Commitment in US, UK and Canadian Regions’. Sociology of Religion 75(2):284–308.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilkins-Laflamme, Sarah (2022) ‘Second to None: Nonaffiliation in the Pacific Northwest’. Page 100 in Bramadat, Paul, Killen, Patricia Oconnell, & Wilkins-Laflamme, Sarah (eds.), Religion on the Edge. Toronto: UBC Press.Google Scholar
Willander, Erika (2015), ‘Religiositet och sekularisering’. Pages 53–68 in Sociologiska perspektiv på religion i Sverige. Falkenberg: Gleerups.Google Scholar
Willander, Erika (2020) Unity, Division and the Religious Mainstream of Sweden. Cham: Palgrave.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zuckerman, Phill (2009) ‘Why Are Danes and Swedes so Irreligious?’. Nordic Journal of Religion and Society 22(1): 55–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save element to Kindle

To save this element to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Semi-Secular Worldviews and the Belief in Something Beyond
Available formats
×

Save element to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Semi-Secular Worldviews and the Belief in Something Beyond
Available formats
×

Save element to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Semi-Secular Worldviews and the Belief in Something Beyond
Available formats
×