Lived Experiences of Non-believing Older Adults: Changing Landscapes of Belief

This book investigates the lived experiences of non-believing older adults, showing how their views and identities are deeply bound up in social relationships and social contexts over their lives.Championing the intrinsic value of research with older non-religious people, this work offers important empirical data to investigate what it means to be non-believing for these older adults, how they understand it, and what role it plays in their lives. Joanna Malone highlights how a clear break away from religion towards secularity has not always been experienced by older adults.Transitions are not linear but intermittent, changing, and transformative over a lifetime.This book sheds light on the important role social relationships play in shaping non-belief, challenging stereotypical ideas about the loss of religion with individualism. Moving beyond binary understandings of religion and non-religion, these findings explore a more nuanced understanding of what non-belief looks like, and how i