Agnosticism, Atheism, and People Without Religion in Colombia

Definitions

Atheist will be understood as those who do not believe in a God or gods, “because they are sure of its non-existence.” By agnostics, we refer to those individuals who “do not believe in God because they consider its existence cannot be proved.” Lastly, it will be understood that a person without religion is someone who, although they can accept “the existence of a god [or deity], they are not members of a community of believers,” (Marzal 2012: 7–8), nor do they identify with any religious confession. Unlike atheist or agnostics, people without religion can “believe” in a deity “without belonging” to a community of faith (Davie 1994).

Introduction

An inheritance from Spanish colonization, the nation of Colombian founded its identity and social cohesion around Catholicism. The political constitution of 1886, which was valid until 1991, reinforced this relation not only by declaring that Catholicism constituted “the religion of the Colombian people” but also by ensuring the...