Talk:Demographics of atheism

Map request

�The preceding unsigned comment was added by Beland (talk � contribs) 17:50, 1 August 2006 (UTC).

Changed 10% to 9%

I will change the Atheism in North America statistic from 10% to 9 % since the article that was cited says:

"In most of the countries covered, well over 80% said they believed in God or a higher power. In Nigeria the figure was 100% and in the US 91%, with the UK scoring lowest at 67%." http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/wtwtgod/3518375.stm selfworm 08:33, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

"God or a higher power". Atheism is about belief in God (well, lack of it), and the article states those "who don't believe in a god" - if you download the pdf of the survey, you can see that the figure includes 5% who answered "I do not believe in God but I do believe in a higher power". So in fact 86% believe in God, and the figures for those who don't sum to 10% (the remaining 4% is made up of "None of these", "Don't know" and rounding error). Mdwh 23:10, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Vital shortfall

Every article needs a lead. This does not have one. See WP:LEAD for more information. Seegoon 00:31, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

new survey - December 20 2006

I think we should add the following survey: http://www.harrisinteractive.com/news/allnewsbydate.asp?NewsID=1131 should we simply copy the first table, or rewrite it? --Toitoine 00:05, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

What is this ?

1. ^ Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved on July 6, 2007.
2. ^ CIA World Factbook, Mexico. Retrieved on July 6, 2007.

Last time I looked this Date is not right Because it is not happened yet July 6, 2007. So one should fix this, I just wanted to let some one know �The preceding unsigned comment was added by Grosscha (talk � contribs) 21:21, 8 April 2007 (UTC).

This article is too Western

Only Western countries (with the exception of Latin American countries) are currently discussed: Europe, Israel, North America and Oceania are all discussed in detail. So, what about Latin-America? Asia, the most populous continent only gets only three sentences? What about Africa? Sijo Ripa 14:32, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

then add more sentences, sijo.Some thing 22:53, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Under God

I believe "Under God" was added to distinguish the US as a religious nation, in opposition to the official atheism of the Soviet Union... if someone is sure of this, please edit. I do not believe the 1950s were a period of significant religious resurgence.

I'm fairly sure this is true as well. I'll edit it in.--Vinny 04:06, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

China

Why does this page fail to mention China?

Don't think there's too much info on China.. while it is officially atheist the actual numbers vary. Someone more knowledgeable should edit in more things about Asia though.--Vinny 04:06, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Newdow Case has no place here

Isn't this article mainly about demographics? What business does the Newdow case even have here?--Vinny 04:06, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Agree. Demographics is all about the nuber of a certain population, not about the constitution in the concerned country, not about legal cases about the pledge etc. I removed a pretty large chunk of text on all of this. If anyone disagrees, please revert and state why it's relevant [i]here[/i]. (I believe the american constitution and the pledge have their own articles, right?) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Swooch (talk • contribs) 09:18, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree with the deletion. The information about the US should instead be more like a description of the results shown in that 1991 survey (any newer surveys done, this seem somewhat out of date now?), explaining the percentage of believers, and perhaps the variation in the various states. --Saddhiyama (talk) 09:29, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Atheism Declining

"It is difficult to determine whether atheism is in decline or not. What is certain is that in the some areas of the world(such as Europe) atheism and Secularization seems to be on the rise, but on a global scale atheism seems to declining, because of the high birth rates in religious societies"

This passage is misleading. It reads as though there are fewer atheists than previously, when in fact there are more, but these are a smaller percent of the population. I'm not great at articulating myself, but I hope that make sense. -- Lord Terminus 23:10, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

No it is not. What that passage is trying to say is that the percentage of atheists seems to declining. It is not saying that the atheist numbers are shrinking, it is indeed growing. It says that religious communities tend to have higher birth rates, making atheism's percentages smaller. That is fact, not some attack on atheism or secularization. �Preceding unsigned comment added by Trilobite12 (talk � contribs) 17:28, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't want to get into a needless edit war over this, so I won't automatically revert your re-adding this statement. But two things: 1. Even if you have a concrete source, you attribute the statement to it in the text, you don't present its word as "What is certain". 2. The source you added doesn't support the statement in any way. It's just an estimate about the number of members of different religions across different parts of the world- it doesn't even have any comparison of the number of atheists in the past vs. the present, how could you possibly draw such a conclusion from it? --AceMyth 00:59, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

After seeing this alarming (to me) statistic, I decided to go to the source in an effort to find a better way of expressing it. However, as far as I can tell the source didn't support the claim in the first place! If we were to find a source to support this (without resorting to synthesis), a better way of saying it is "While the absolute number of atheists is increasing, the percentage of atheists in the world is decreasing as the number of non-atheists is increasing faster." A reason for that increase (high birth rates) should only be given if the source gives it. Ben Hocking ^{(talk|contribs)} 16:27, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Trilobite gets my point

His response to the deleation of my pararagraph, was what I was trying to say. I will make the paragraph seem more rational though. 66.222.30.24 �Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.222.30.24 (talk) 00:07, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

You have failed to address any of the concerns raised by the editors here yet rushed to re-instate your paragraph, without even bothering to rephrase it. I still assume good faith here but that is far from being constructive. Information on Wikipedia must be verifiable and repeatedly re-adding a statement like this to the article, lacking any source that supports it, is a violation of policy- whether this user or other "gets your point" or not.

Again, I will not instantly revert your edit. I despise revert-fests and they do not help the cause of building an encyclopedia. But I strongly advise you to find an appropriate source for this claim if you want to keep it in the article. It should be no problem if the claim has any truth to it. If you'll insist to keep re-adding it without a source, fine then, but take note that as far as I know Wikipedia has its ways to resolve policy violations that go beyond editors like me trying to discuss them away in talk pages. --AceMyth 06:27, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree completely with AceMyth here. What you say might be true, and if true is interesting and relevant to the article, but your source does not support it. If a supporting source is not found in a reasonable amount of time, one of us will have to delete this again. Ben Hocking ^{(talk|contribs)} 12:22, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

If you look at the adherents site, you will find several quotes and statistics that support this. ( I would say more, but I have very little time)

In supporting 66.222.30.24, I would like to point out that if you look several surveys support this statement. If you look on encyclopedia brittanica(sorry about spelling), one survey published in 1995 says that worldwide atheism was around 3.8%, while another 2005 survey by brittanica says that it was around 2.5%.(many other surveys say this). This seems to suggest that atheisms percentage is decreasing, not the real numbers. Atheism is indeed growing —Preceding unsigned comment added by Trilobite12 (talk • contribs) 22:11, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

We're not really doubting you (at least I'm not). It's just that we're not allowed to do synthesis of several sources. Nor is it acceptable to hypothesize as to the cause of the change. We need a single source that says the percentage is declining while the numbers are increasing. I'll try to look for such a source, as well. Ben Hocking ^{(talk|contribs)} 23:15, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

World map available

This might be of interest for the article: Image:Atheists Agnostics Zuckerman en.svg --Phrood (talk) 15:53, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Gender Differences?

Are there differences in gender? I seem to recall reading somewhere that there are more male atheists but I have not found any evidence or survey that seems to address that question. If there is no difference I think that is also and interesting bit of information and should be included in the article. I would edit the text but I have no data supporting either position. Thoughts? Annon 12:28, 1 July 2008

I edited in with a source~~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.187.199.192 (talk) 21:07, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

"Legal protection" in the US?

The section on North America includes this sentence;

Atheists are ostensibly legally protected from discrimination in the United States.

Having read the article on Discrimination against atheists, I think this statement is false, or at the very least in complete. There are several states whose constitutions still include laws banning atheists from government positions. I don't see that this sentence adds much to the paragraph except confusion and inaccuracy, so if no one has any complaints, I intend to remove it. AzureFury (talk) 17:11, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I editted the paragraph to be more accurate and neutral. AzureFury (talk) 18:06, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Those laws are not enforceable, as the federal constitution trumps the state constitution. While they create a social stigma against atheists, they are still legally protected. MantisEars (talk) 18:43, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Does the federal constitution overtly say non-believers can hold government positions? AzureFury (talk) 22:25, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes. No religious test clause MantisEars (talk)

Wow. *Adds that to atheist debate ammo* Thanks ^^. Oh well, I still think "ostensible" legal protection is debatable. My edit doesn't say we aren't protected...though now that I think of it, that's kind of important and should be included. I would've liked to know about that the first read through this article... AzureFury (talk) 20:47, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Demographic trends through history

It would be cool to see trends from when they could be measured until now. Badly put, but you know what I mean. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.212.2.86 (talk) 23:40, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

"In God we trust"

My revision changed the folowing sentence:

"...Regarding this, atheists point out that the phrase "under God" was not originally in the Pledge of Allegiance, but added in 1953 during the Cold War to counter the USSR's official atheist state. Two years later, the phrase “in God we trust” was added to US paper currency."

To:

"...Two years later, the phrase “in God we trust” was adopted as the official national motto. (It is a common misconception that this is when the phrase first started appearing on currency; in fact, it first appeared on a U.S. coin in 1864.)"

1. Congressional Record, 1956, p. 13917 2. History of 'In God We Trust' —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jomasecu (talk • contribs) 18:41, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

It has been undone twice now, the first time for a lack of references. I did it again with references from the linked article and it was undone because "Neither the word "god" nor the word "motto" were in the source." However, the two references do contain both words and and support the revision. The first is a pdf and contains an image of text, so is not searchable with Ctrl+F, which is how he probably came to that conclusion, but it does say:

"At the present time the United States has no noational motto. The committee deems it most appropriate that "In God we trust" be so designated as our national motto.

The phrase "In God we trust" has recieved official recognition for many years. It was authorized to be placed on certain coins by the act of March 3, 1865 (13 Stat. 518)..."

The second reference also supports the revision. Technically, the phrase was added to paper currency in 1957 (two years later than the current version of this article claims), but it has been on coins long before, and I find the phrase "was added to paper currency" to be misleading in this regard.

Not going to redo my revision, because I don't want to start an "edit war" or whatever, but I suggest that it be done, with the further correction of changing it to "Three years later..." or "In 1956..." (when it was adopted as a motto). Jomasecu (talk) 18:35, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I'll take another look in a few hours (at work ATM). I didn't search it with ctrl F but with the built in text searching that works for me in all other PDFs. If I can find the quotes you've listed, I'll undo my undo. AzureFury (talk | contribs) 19:32, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I read both sources. The first says that the committee recommends "in God we trust" as the national motto but does not actually state that they are adopting it as the national motto. The second source says that "in God we trust" should be put on coins, but does not mention it as the national motto, unless I overlooked something. Does this call for a rewrite? AzureFury (talk | contribs) 09:40, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure how to resolve this, but it's clear that this article contradicts In God We Trust, in at least that this article says it was added to paper currency in 1955, and the other in 1957. Jomasecu (talk) 00:37, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I see what you're looking at now. I've made the necessary correction. Good eyes. AzureFury (talk | contribs) 11:44, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Gender

The article should also include demographic information regarding gender and atheism. 216.239.234.196 (talk) 16:57, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Canada's Atheism Demographics

I think it needs to be made CRYSTAL CLEAR in the article that Canada, contrary to popular opinion, is NOT as atheistic as Europe and, in fact, Canada shares pretty much same religiousity rates as the USA (about 76% of Americans believe in a God, compared with about 73% of Canadians - source is the wikipedia pages for US and Canada). In Europe, it is not uncommon for 40, 50, or 60% of a population to be confirmed atheists. Because Canada and Europe share similar liberal, socialistic political policies, it is therefore often assumed that Canada also shares Europe's atheism rates. This is not the case, and should be explicitly made clear in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sopm (talk • contribs) 04:18, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

New survey 2009

American Religious Identification Survey 2008

Interactive map for the survey

Change over time

At the moment, this article reads a lot like an assorted collection of statistics which doesn't give a good impression of how the demographics have changed over time. It would be really good to see this included. Is the proportion of atheists growing or falling over time? What about in individual countries?

Also, once in the article it is mentioned that younger people are more likely to be atheist than older people. Is this a static thing, i.e. is it normally the case that older people are more religious, or is it indicitave of a general trend and that, as today's infidel youth grows up, the population as a whole will become more atheistic?

The article is good as it stands but I feel it could be really improved with more information on the above, with graphs as appropriate.Paul.rogers.1964 (talk) 11:38, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Crime and Wealth

Can we please have some more statistics? Faro0485 (talk) 11:04, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Statistics for Oceania

There were some uncited statistics in the Oceania section prior to my removing them today. One suggested a reasonably high rate of church attendance (10.4%) and was attributed to "NCLS" which, according to http://ncls.org.au, performs "research focused on connecting churches and their communities". There was no citation in this case; even given access to a description of their survey methods, it would be difficult to argue their study is not biased. There were further statistics attributed to a "Christian Research Association", but these were also uncited and would suffer a similar bias issue.

Charles Brooking (talk) 23:38, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

What about Africa?

Are there any atheists in Africa? Well in the article Nigeria is said to have zero percent atheists, so is it true, that generally speaking there are hardly any atheitsts among africans and african americans? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.196.247.50 (talk) 03:10, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I think there's a general trend that atheism as we know it in the west usually only exists in developed countries. We can then expect that in under-developed countries like in Africa that atheists and the non-religious would be extremely few in number, if any exist at all. Regarding African-Americans, I should point out that there are significant historical and cultural differences between this demographic group and African-Africans. That said, I believe the stereotype in the United States is that African-Americans tend to be religious/Christian. So of the 10-15% of Americans that consider themselves "non-religious" I would expect that a disproportionately small number of them (fewer than 12% of that 10-15%) are African-American. I don't have any statistics to back that up. Might be a fun project for you if you're looking to contribute :) AzureFury (talk | contribs) 03:33, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

What about South America?

A quick review of the religious demomgraphics at each country mainpage, and at the specific related subarticles (listed on the featured template at Religion in South America), show:

Argentina:

• 11,3% "indifferent towards religion" (incluiding agnostic and atheists), following recent national official statistics

Bolivia:

• 12% Not religious (from som unlinked "study of Gallup 2007-2008, and recent data from various NGO's during 2008-2009")

Brazil:

• 7,4% (Non-Religious, agnostics and atheists), following the 2000 census data

Chile:

• 8,3% Atheist or Agnostic (following 2002 census data)

Colombia:

• 1,9% non-religious (following an unlinked 2001 poll by leading newspaper El Tiempo)

Ecuador: n/d

Paraguay:

• 1,14% Non-religious (by 2002 census data)

Peru:

• 1,4% Non-religious (by 1993 census data)

Uruguay:

• 23,2% "believing in God but without religion"
• 17,2% Atheist or Agnostic

(following 2006 State-sponsored National Survey on Religion)

Venezuela: n/d

---

Despite the heterogeneous sources considered for each case or having a global regional survey, do you consider this information worth featuring this article?

Salut, --IANVS (talk) 10:50, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Sure, we could use the Europe section as a model, though we probably can't use a table as in that section. Perhaps a bulleted list? AzureFury (talk | contribs) 11:33, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

As long as it goes well within the article, it's fine for me. Salut, --IANVS (talk) 11:41, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Sort Eurobarometer Poll By Atheism

Wouldn't it be better to sort the Eurobarometer Poll 2005 data by percent of atheists instead of by percent of theists? It makes sense considering this is the "demographics of atheism" page. It would make it easier for readers to organize the data that they're probably looking for on this page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.171.222.46 (talk) 02:02, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Because of the ambiguity in terms of the defintion of "atheist" we may not have data about the percent of atheists. It is much more likely to get a negative statement of theism than it is to get a positive statement of atheism. Anyway, we only repeat what the sources say, and that is what they say. AzureFury (talk | contribs) 11:52, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Maps

On the demographic maps, there is no way to tell the difference between water bodies and places below 10% because they are both white. The water cannot be made blue, though, because that is also a color on the maps for places around 70%. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.171.222.46 (talk) 02:30, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

United Kingdom

I am surprised to read that the UK is more religious and less atheist than France (in my experience a very Catholic country even with the official separation of church and state). Could it have something to do with many british citizens using Church of England as the default choice? For example, see:

• This consultation paper on the 2011 census (page 4) by the National Secular Society: "Other 'cultural Christians' will tick the 'Christian' box, because Christian or CofE is regarded in practice as the default option on forms for admission to hospital or when joining the armed forces", and the concern that "Slight differences in question wording [on the census form] can produce large differences in the proportion of people who say they are Christians or have no religion".
• This consultation paper from the Office of National Statistics.
• This source: "It is kind of the default setting if you aren’t raised Catholic or Muslim or decide you are vehemently atheist or agnostic".

I ceertainly think it is worth mentioning this "effect" in the article. Astronaut (talk) 14:55, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Dead Source

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001659292

Source 23 as of 4/4/10 does not link to an article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.67.56.110 (talk) 14:56, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

 Done Fixed and updated. AzureFury (talk | contribs) 17:25, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Prison population

I just removed the comparision between atheist populations in prisons and atheist populations outside prisons, and here's why: a big part of this article focuses on the ambiguity of identifying a person's religion, and a lot of places do not distinguish between atheist, agnostic, and non-religious. One of the sources claims that atheists make up about .4% (less than one percent) of the US population, not counting agnostics and non-religious, while atheists in prisons make up about .2% of the population. Consider the math here, the section said atheists in prisons were less than 1 percent, while the non-prision population was around 6-9%? That's more than 6 times difference, as opposed to the source's 2 times difference. I do believe that there are disproportionately fewer atheists in prisons, but with the sources we have, we can't make this comparision yet. AzureFury (talk | contribs) 09:02, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm going to add it again. I understand your issue, but it is from a misreading of poorly labeled tables. The .4% number is referring to the percent of atheists in the prison population, not the percent of atheists in the total population. You can see this makes much more sense (compared with .2%). Separately, one source lists actual numbers of atheists in the U.S. "free" population, so a reference is appropriate. Also, within this wikipedia article there are references to atheist headcounts between 6 and 9 percent.72.187.99.79 (talk) 19:54, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

From the North America section: "Of which, 1.6% explicitly describe themselves as atheist or agnostic, double the previous 2001 ARIS survey figure." This source explicitly contradicts your edit, both the number you've added, and the claims you've made. It says that atheists are .4% of the US population and .2% of the prison population. Note that the other sources do not distinguish between atheist/agnostic/non-religious. AzureFury (talk | contribs) 21:24, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Though my sources seem to point towards a large discrepancy between atheist non-prison and atheist prison population, there is no good clean, well-backed source that I can find. So, I just deleted the section. When I created the section I thought it was a more clear-cut issue, but only had a minute to post references. With more time I see it is a muddled mess. Though, if we delete everything that is a muddled mess, a lot more of this article would have to go. You're welcome to revamp and restore this section.

POV in "difficult to quantify"

The ambiguity in the words "atheist" and "agnostic", specifically that they are sometimes viewed as equivalent and sometimes mutually exclusive and sometimes subgroups, makes the demographics of atheism difficulty to quantify.[1][2][3] Further, this is a demographic group that is hesitant to be identified, and this entire article is specifically about identifying them. If you consider non-western religions, such as Confucianism, things become even more complicated. It is inaccurate to omit the difficulties in quantifying the non-religious and non-spiritual and claim that they are the same difficulties inherent in all demography, because that's simply not true. AzureFury (talk | contribs) 21:34, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

"Greater" and "lesser" scientists?

I'm assuming "greater" and "lesser" scientists have to do with number of citations? If anyones certain, could you add a clarifying sentance? Swooch (talk) 09:00, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Prejudice

I just retitled the "Discrimination" section to "Prejudice" since it only described attitudes and not acts of discrimination. However, why is the section in the entry in the first place? The entry is about demographics of atheism not attitudes towards atheists. Nothing in the section links it to the entry. Please help me out here because I'm tempted to delete it. Thanks.Griswaldo (talk) 14:09, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Westernism and Pro Atheism

There is a lot of interpretation of conflicting studies and polls and most of these clarifications seem to have a pro-atheist slant. There is also little information or references related to countries in the souther hemisphere or far east. This is a very west focused entry.

Great or Lesser

I second an earlier post regarding the "greater or lesser" scientists and their demographics. This is not at all defined in the article.