Antireligion
opposition to religion; used to describe opposition to organized religion, or to describe a broader opposition to any form of belief in the supernatural or the divine; distinct from atheism
Antireligion is opposition to religion or traditional religious beliefs and practices. It involves opposition to organized religion, religious practices or religious institutions. The term antireligion has also been used to describe opposition to specific forms of supernatural worship or practice, whether organized or not.
Antireligion is distinct from deity-specific positions such as atheism (the lack of belief in deities) and antitheism (an opposition to belief in deities); although "antireligionists" may also be atheists or antitheists. Unlike antitheism, antireligion is also against those religions that do not have deities, such as some sects of Buddhism and Jainism.
History
Some Catholics have accused the Reformation of Martin Luther as having inspired anti-religiosity. Early anti religious tendencies were expressed by skeptics such as Christopher Marlowe. Significant antireligion was advanced during the Age of Enlightenment, as early as the 17th century. Baron d'Holbach's book Christianity Unveiled, published in 1766, attacked not only Christianity but religion in general as an impediment to the moral advancement of humanity. According to historian Michael Burleigh, antireligion found its first mass expression of barbarity in revolutionary France as "organised ...
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Antireligion” is opposition to religion; used to describe opposition to organized religion, or to describe a broader opposition to any form of belief in the supernatural or the divine; distinct from atheism. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Antireligion, opposition and religion, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “opposition to religion; used to describe opposition to organized religion, or to describe a broader opposition to any form of belief in the supernatural or the divine; distinct from atheism” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q565005. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1766.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Antireligion” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.