Sin afiliación, o Desafiliado/a, es un término utilizado para referirse a personas que no están incluidas en una religión determinada.[1][2]
De acuerdo al Pew Research Center, ese grupo incluye ateos, agnósticos y personas que describen su religión como "ninguna en particular".[2] En cualquier caso, no todos los individuos "no afiliados" son necesariamente irreligiosos.[3]
El estudio norteamericano La fe en cambio continuo: Cambios en la afiliación religiosa en los EE.UU. (“Faith in Flux: Changes in Religious Affiliation in the U.S.”) encontró que más de un 16% de la población norteamericana se encontraba en esta categoría,[4] mientras un estudio del año 2000 basado en respuestas libres acercaba este porcentaje al 37%.[5]
Por otra parte, de acuerdo al estudio publicado en The American Journal of Psychiatry, entre pacientes con depresión, "las personas consideradas en esta categoría reflejaban una mayor probabilidad de intentos de suicidio que aquellos con filiación religiosa".[6] También los pacientes no afiliados y con depresión tenían menos objeciones morales ante el suicidio que los creyentes.[6]
Tom Flynn; Richard Dawkins. «The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief». Prometheus Books. Consultado el 13 de noviembre de 2010. «With respect to understanding the irreligious, however, the relevance of data on apostates depends upon the orientation they have adopted by the time they are studied (such as unaffiliated religious belief, no stated religious ...»
«Unaffiliated». Pew Research Center. Consultado el 21 de abril de 2011. «Pew Forum publications—including public opinion polls, demographic reports, research studies, event transcripts and interviews—about people who are unaffiliated with any particular religion. This group includes atheists, agnostics and people who describe their religion as “nothing in particular.”».
«Religion in the Contemporary South: Changes, Continuities, and Contexts». University of Tennessee Press. Consultado el 2 de diciembre de 2010. «Unaffiliated persons are not necessarily hostile to religion or even irreligious. Yet, as the proportion of unaffiliated persons grows, it will be increasingly difficult to assume that there is a religious base, such as Reed's orthodox Protestant consensus, supporting southern culture.» Robert Marus. «Study: Ranks of religiously unaffiliated remain open to faith». Associated Baptist Press. Consultado el 13 de noviembre de 2010. «The “Faith in Flux: Changes in Religious Affiliation in the U.S.” study involved in-depth interviews with more than 2,800 people who had responded to the earlier “U.S. Religious Landscape Survey," which found that more than 16 percent of all Americans were not affiliated with any particular religious group.»
Michael Martin. «Religious Affiliation and Suicide Attempt». American Psychiatric Association. Consultado el 21 de abril de 2011. «Religious affiliation is associated with less suicidal behavior in depressed inpatients. After other factors were controlled, it was found that greater moral objections to suicide and lower aggression level in religiously affiliated subjects may function as protective factors against suicide attempts.»
