A visibilidade e a invisibilidade das pessoas «sem religião» na sociedade portuguesa

In recent years, there has been a considerable increase in people ‘of no religion’ in Portugal. In quantitative terms, those ‘of no religion’ constitute the second largest group within the Portuguese population, and this increase confirms a general trend observable in the rest of Europe. Nevertheless, there has been a certain hesitancy in academic circles to describe this group in qualitative terms. Furthermore, behind this designation ‘of no religion’ is hidden an enormous variety of worldviews or social attitudes that can only be explained in systematic terms with some difficulties. In this article, I seek to present a numerical framework for this group, a terminological classification of people ‘of no religion’ and a first attempt to broach the question in qualitative terms. Given that this is a relatively recent phenomenon, hovering between something visible quantitatively but invisible qualitatively, this attempt may, however, prove to be just provisional.