This page groups religions by whether they are open to anyone who wishes to join or reserved for a closely defined community. Wikipedia notes that while some religions claim to be universal, "others are intended to be practiced only by a closely defined or localized group." Browsing this way separates missionary faiths that actively seek converts from traditions that restrict who may take part.
Facts
Overview
What Defines This GroupingConsidered life-stances that answer the questions religion answers - what there is, how to live, what to do about death - without a god, and which can therefore be compared with religions on the same terms. Some are organised; others are positions rather than institutions. 2 Status
Standing as a Comparative CategoryA standard object of study: non-religion is now researched by the same methods and in the same departments as religion, and the field distinguishes atheism, agnosticism, humanism and indifference rather than treating them as one thing. 3 Learn More
Secular and Nontheistic Worldviews
This group gathers secular and nontheistic worldviews: considered life-stances that answer the questions religions address (meaning, ethics, the human situation) without appeal to gods or the supernatural. They appear in the atlas because they occupy the same ground as religion in human life.
The browser will find worldviews such as secular humanism, atheism and related stances. The atlas treats each as a coherent position with its own history and reasoning, not merely as the absence of belief.
Closed Practice Status
Sources
1. Divinity Atlas Directory Taxonomy, First Edition Category Tree
2. The Oxford Handbook of Atheism
Stephen Bullivant and Michael Ruse (eds.), Oxford University Press, 2013
3. Recognizing the Non-religious: Reimagining the Secular
Lois Lee, Oxford University Press, 2015
Divinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptions
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