Religious Unbelief in Israel: A Replication Study Identifying and Characterizing Unbelievers Using Latent Class Analysis

Abstract

ABSTRACT With an ever-increasing global trend of secularization, understanding the nature of religious unbelief is of utmost importance. A recent study used Latent Class Analysis to identify three different groups of unbelievers in the highly secular context of Northern Europe. In the present commentary we report the outcomes of a replication study on religious unbelief in Israel. We identified two instead of three groups of unbelievers: analytic atheists and spiritual-but-not-religious participants. These groups differed in terms of their beliefs, attitudes, and certainty, as well as on a number of other socio-cognitive variables, including analytical thinking and ontological confusions. Compared to Northern Europe, unbelievers in Israel held more polarized attitudes toward religion, which might be related to the stronger public prevalence of religion in society in Israel. Our findings add to the growing literature on religious unbelief and highlight the relevance of a cross-cultural and data-driven approach for understanding unbelief.