Irreligion

Irreligion (adjective form: non-religious or irreligious) is the absence, indifference, or rejection of religion.

When characterized as the rejection of religious belief, it encompasses atheism, agnosticism, religious dissidence, and secular humanism. When characterized as the absence of religious belief, it may also include "spiritual but not religious", pandeism, ignosticism, nontheism, pantheism, panentheism, and freethought. When characterized as indifference to religion, it is known as apatheism.

Irreligion may include some forms of theism, depending on the religious context it is defined against; for example, in 18th-century Europe, the epitome of irreligion was deism. According to Pew Research Center projections, the nonreligious, though temporarily increasing, will ultimately decline significantly by 2050 because of lower reproductive rates and ageing.

Human rights

In 1993, the UN's human rights committee declared that article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights "protects theistic, non-theistic and atheistic beliefs, as well as the right not to profess any religion or belief." The committee further stated that "the freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief necessarily entails the freedom to choose a religion or belief, including the right to replace one's current religion or belief with another or to adopt atheistic views." Signatories to the convention are barred from "the use of threat of physical force or penal sanctions to compel believers or non-believers" to recant their beliefs or convert.