Kontingenzerfahrungen im Survivalismus. Empirische Fallstudie zur Illustration einer religionssoziologischen Strategie für die Erforschung säkularer Weltanschauungen

This article addresses an urgent problem in current secularization research. While this body of research reveals what secular people do not believe in, it shows little about what they do believe in. Secularity is often understood negatively as the opposite of religion and is not defined substantially. To address this issue, the article focuses on experiences of contingency. The article presents a secular practice in which dealing with contingency plays a central role: contemporary survivalism. The main finding is that dealing with contingency does not necessarily mean coping with it. Instead, forms of striving for or blocking of contingency experiences are to be considered as well.