Cotter, Christopher (2015) Without God yet not without nuance:a qualitative study of atheism and on-religion among Scottish university students. In: Atheist identities. Boundaries of Religious Freedom: Regulating Religion in Diverse Societies . Springer, pp. 171-193. ISBN 9783319096018
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
This chapter proposes an analytic typology for the study of atheism, based on questionnaire and interview data from Scottish subjects, which allows for more a more nuanced understanding of non-religion than the prevalent model of characterising atheists simply as those who are not theists. The chapter was motivated by a concern to show “variety in the category ‘non-religious’, whilst demonstrating the inadequacy of attempts to do this in terms of dimensions of ‘religiosity’.” In other words, the author explores the use of ideal types that are grounded in the narratives and self-descriptions of non-religious individuals, and which are not limited to a simple negation of religion. The significance of this is to avoid considering religiosity to be the normative base from which non-religiosity is always compared, and to further the in-depth and qualitative understanding of non-religious people in their own right.