Non-Religious Beliefs

What are non-religious beliefs? The easiest answer would be to say any beliefs that are held that have nothing to do with religion or a church's spiritual doctrines, but defining religion and faith is not that easy. Nature and the supernatural was a religious belief to the Druids, so I will define non-religious beliefs in my own examples of what I think are non-religious beliefs.

Non-Religious Beliefs

Many people, even those who describe themselves as non-political, have strong ideas of what is right and what is wrong. These social attitudes are nonreligious beliefs, but they are political beliefs.

Once you start to express an opinion on say, poverty, you are expressing political beliefs, whether your attitude is that the poor are lazy or that the poor do not get enough opportunity

If you abhor violence, you are expressing beliefs. Why you abhor violence could be based on your religious beliefs or your moral or social attitudes. Every point of view has believers and nonbelievers, religious and nonreligious

More people in the world describe themselves as believers in the existence of a deity or deities than non-believers, but even non-believers, atheists, have faith - they believe that God does not exist - atheism. The fact that you cannot prove a negative is another matter.

Both religious believers and nonbelievers have belief systems: one believes in the existence of a deity and the other believes in the absence of a deity or deities. The difference between belief in the existence or non-existence of God is not a total absence of belief. It is a non-faith.

Political beliefs are the most commonly held beliefs after religious beliefs. Some political beliefs are the result of logical arguments involving such tools as surveys and statistics and some are only the result of religious faith.

Freemasonry is a good example of a worldwide society where faith in a deity or deities is important but specific religious belief is not. In order to be accepted into Freemasonry a candidate has to say that he believes in a 'supreme being', but after that, religion is never discussed again.

The discussion of religion and politics is actively discouraged. Instead, Freemasonry is built upon non-religious beliefs like brotherly love, relief (charity) and truth, which in French is liberte, egalite et fraternite (liberty, equality and fraternity), which are moral non-religious beliefs.

Freemasonry is not the only society that has moral non-religious beliefs. For example, there are the Oddfellows, the Royal and Ancient Order of Buffaloes, the Foresters and many more. It can be argued that working people's associations like the trades unions have non-religious beliefs concerning equality and human rights.

There are huge international organisations built on non-religious principles such as the United Nations, the Red Cross, Oxfam and Shelter among many. There are also schools and charities which have been set up expressly without religious ideas so as not to alienate other nations.

Organisations based on non-religious beliefs are more trusted by the international community than those based on religion and the church, because some people distrust religious movements.