Talk:Demographics of atheism/Archive 1

Archive 1

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)

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)

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)

"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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.218.127.241 (talk) 22:54, 20 January 2011 (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)

Wikipedia makes no mention of the addition of "under god" as reactionary/oppositional to atheism, CCCP, or Communism in particular. Pledge_of_Allegiance#Addition_of_the_words_.22under_God.22 -- aerotheque (talk) 07:36, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Notice that the above discussion is almost 4 years old. I would call it stale. --Saddhiyama (talk) 10:09, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

The numbers for Estonia don't add up

The percentages for Estonia in the first table add up to 96, not 100.--193.44.77.5 (talk) 13:31, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

• There is a column that was in the original report that is not included in the table. It lists the percentage of people who replied "Don't know". The missing 4% of Estonia is included in this column. Inomyabcs (talk) 03:52, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Ambiguity in regards to definition

The introduction mentions a disparity in interpretations of the word without clearly mentioning that it has one technical definition and that the disparity is in colloquial interpretations. It is passively written and creates ambiguity in such a manner that it can be read to mean that the definition is open to a few evenly debated alternatives, which while non-confrontational to those with passionate views, it is inconsistent with the OED listing for the word. I feel that common misconceptions involving the use of the word Atheism and the word Agnosticism are a key problem in statistical gathering, and if we, as the WIKI community, can make any attempt to remove to ambiguity, we should. To clarify, most colloquial errors are in the unspoken association of a concept of Gnosticism. A deceleration of atheism, to most, is paramount to a deceleration of Gnostic Atheism. This strongly pairs with the discrepancy inherent to Agnosticism, where it is often miss-used as an umbrella term for Agnostic Theists who holds some vague and undefined theist belief structure. In reality Gnosticism and Agnosticism define how open-minded or confident in the absolute truth of their respective beliefs. The idea that you somehow have a line spectrum from atheist to theist with agnostic somewhere in the middle closer to atheist is a very wide spread fallacy. Again with a strong relation to the discrepancy in polling reports from study to study.--98.222.56.230 (talk) 15:50, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Biased Information

I believe that this statement is extremely biased and it should be removed.

"The analyses of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Study 1) and the General Social Surveys (Study 2) show that adolescent and adult intelligence significantly increases adult liberalism, atheism, and men's (but not women's) value on sexual exclusivity."

It's basically saying that conservatives and religious people are idiots. Zenkai251 (talk) 19:16, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

It's nothing more and nothing less than a report of referenced research findings. It's not the statement that's biased, it's the findings of the study and that's what you get any time you get a positive result on anything... biased info. Also, I think you may be reading to much into it. --U5K0'sTalk_{Make WikiLove not WikiWar} 20:03, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

The results are clearly not accurate or reliable. The statement needs to be removed. Zenkai251 (talk) 20:15, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

The results are clearly not accurate or reliable. Do you have a reference for that? --U5K0'sTalk_{Make WikiLove not WikiWar} 20:29, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes. Common sense. Zenkai251 (talk) 20:59, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm afraid that won't be good enough. We can continue this discussion when a reliable source is found to challange the references you would like to remove. Till then I suggest you take a look at Wikipedia:No original research or help with a different aspect of this or another article. --U5K0'sTalk_{Make WikiLove not WikiWar} 21:20, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

(e/C)Since the statement is no way near saying that "that conservatives and religious people are idiots", if I were you I would perhaps be a little less confident of that common sense of yours. --Saddhiyama (talk) 21:21, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Saddhiyama, are you blind or just foolish? Are all of you idiots? It's extrememly obvious that statement is wrong. Zenkai251 (talk) 21:28, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

I just looked at the "source" for that statement and it is not a reliable source. I will remove said statement. End of discussion. Zenkai251 (talk) 21:32, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Please don't force me to have this article protected. You have made no substintive point, produced no reference for your charge that the statement in question is wrong and now you have erroneously apealed to a disambiguation page as if it were a describing a policy. Kindly have a drink of water and take a nap. --U5K0'sTalk_{Make WikiLove not WikiWar} 21:37, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't think it's an irrelevant finding, but to have it at the beginning of a section is not good style. The sentence that begins with "Overall,..." clearly belongs at the beginning. I have moved the contentious passage to the end of the section without changes. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 21:50, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Seems resonable--U5K0'sTalk_{Make WikiLove not WikiWar} 21:54, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Including a full sentence quote from an article abstract is seriously poor form. We should not be using article abstracts as references at all in fact. Has no one looked at the actual paper? I will try to get it, but we should not be adding information like this in the first place. Also, why is there a second reference to the direct quote from the article abstract? That makes no sense. I'm going to remove it. If it belongs somewhere else someone might want to figure out where it goes.Griswaldo (talk) 23:32, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

So true; that's why I couldn't chime in on the actual dispute since everything is offline. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 23:58, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

This is me just being curious, but - what's wrong with using an abstract as a source? --U5K0'sTalk_{Make WikiLove not WikiWar} 14:05, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Everything is wrong with it. It's like using a publishers summary blurb from the back cover of a book as a source. An abstract is meant to summarize the article so that you know enough about what's in it to figure out if you want to read the entire thing, and that is all. What happens on Wikipedia, unfortunately, is that people Google ideas they want to include, often because it supports some POV they have, and then when they find snippet previews on Google books, or the abstract that sits outside the paywall of an academic publisher's website, they use them without actually knowing what the source says in entirety. We can't use sources unless we have actually read them.Griswaldo (talk) 15:53, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

In response to Griswaldo, I have checked out the link given. It brings you to the actual webpage for the Social Psychology Quarterly magazine, however, unless you have a subscription, all you can read is abstracts. This does however lend credence to the references authenticity (and in my view fitness for use) because it is not some outside publisher giving the abstract, it is the magazine itself. Vyselink (talk) 04:13, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps you are unaware of the fact that the abstract is being quoted directly in the article, which suggests that the person who added it does not have access to the actual source. The source may be fit to use, but it should not be used by anyone unless someone has actually verified its contents by reading it. And abstracts are usually written by the authors themselves, but that doesn't make a lick of difference. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 04:43, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm not with you on this Griswaldo, the authors themselves are a reliable souce on what they say. I guess we could mention it's an abstract? Dougweller (talk) 06:28, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Discrimination

The discrimination section is misleading, it implies that Atheists are the victim when it's been my experience that they go off on Religious people at the first sign that they may be. Discrimination happens everywhere and against everyone. We shouldn't try to make it sound as if Atheists are a victim any less than Religious people are a victim of Atheist discrimination. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.24.242.242 (talk) 12:41, 20 February 2012 (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)

"In God is our trust" was "coined" first in the civil war, and is apart of our national anthem. It has nothing to do with the Soviet Union, or belittleing Atheists. When it was introduced virtually the entire US population was of one Christan denomination or another. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.24.242.242 (talk) 12:48, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Ouch. That comment is worth an F in history. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 20:26, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

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)

The following paper contains lots of data relevant to this article, Beliefs about God across Time and Countries, was written by Tom W.Smith and published by the University of Chicago April 2012: http://www.norc.org/PDFs/Beliefs_about_God_Report.pdf includes data on belief in God across age groups by country — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stevfan (talk • contribs) 13:49, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

update on Canada's Atheism Demographics

In September 2011 Ipsos Reid, commissioned by the religious show Context with Lorna Dueck, polled 1129 Canadians. Only 53% of Canadians believe in God. The combined atheist/agnostic/unsure response rate was 47%, the highest ever reported. 1 in 3 Catholics and nearly 1 in 4 who attend Church service weekly do not believe in God. 47% agree that religion does more harm than good. 29% of Canadians believe in heaven and 19% believe in hell. 71% don’t think that religious people are necessarily better citizens. 64% think religion raises more questions than answers. 51% do not think “religious practice is an important factor in the moral lives of Canadians.” Source: http://canadianatheist.com/2011/09/19/nearly-half-of-canadians-dont-believe-in-god/ also covered by the National Post here http://life.nationalpost.com/2011/09/15/religion-raises-more-questions-than-answers-for-canadians-poll/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stevfan (talk • contribs) 13:42, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Great trove of survey data here on ranges of Canadian religiosity including belief in god (67% overall believe, 33% do not), broken down by age, sex, income, province. 1522 Canadians were surveyed over the week of March 26th,2012 with a margin of error of 2.9% points 19 times out of 20. http://www.acs-aec.ca/pdf/polls/In%20God%20Canadians%20Trust%20II.pdf — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stevfan (talk • contribs) 20:55, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Atheism vs. "No Religion"

This article seems to confuse the two, perhaps deliberately in an attempt to inflate the number of atheists. They are not the same thing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.251.197.159 (talk) 23:26, 10 July 2012 (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)

The British Social Attitudes survey 2010 is available, so the SVG graph can be updated with the extra year. Page 175 of the report has the relevant data. Anyone good at making pretty graphs?--78.149.142.148 (talk) 00:11, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Eurobarometer Poll

I don't believe the Eurostat poll to be accurate since the answers that are given don't represent people's beliefs. What is a "spirit of life force"? These polls should be divided into more categories like Atheist, Agnostic Atheist, Agnostic, Agnostic Theist, Theist. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.65.239.228 (talk) 11:33, 29 November 2012 (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)

Super old post to reply to, but here goes. Are you saying we need a source on how humans come into the world? If both the number of atheists and the number of believers increase, we are not talking conversions. It must be that people are born. (Even thought they technically are born atheists.) Swooch (talk) 13:56, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

This article has several issues. As with all demographics time is very important, as is the question being asked. Demographic are inherently difficult to evaluate. Census is by far the best means, many of these countries that have huge claims to increased percentages of Christian or Muslims, are just now getting Census, as government documents, people are not always going to answer truthfully out of fear. Other sources including church reporting, again true evaluations cannot be truly accepted. When I worked for the US National Guard writing the software for people to apply, Atheist, Non-Religious, and like was not available. This means that recruiters randomly pick some religion when entering it into the computer since there is no code except for 1000 christian religions and a few non-christian ones. When you utilize bad sources of information, the statistics you quote become highly questionable. As such People really need to be very explicit on their sources so they can be analyzed and responded to. Atheism is mostly a first world movement. In some areas such as Russia Atheism is going to decline not from an actual decline, but from people becoming braver about reporting their religious beliefs. All demographics should be based with location in mind to present meaningful data, from the region we can compare it to the social backdrop to get an idea why the numbers change. In other words it is just just a flat data point that should be evaluated in data. Ideas spread and Atheism is not an idea, it is a lack of an idea, with several ideas that present atheism as a viable answer. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.55.51.54 (talk) 17:00, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Turkey

In the opening sentence it says that only 23% of Turks are religious. But in the table for Europe it says that 99% of Turks ARE religious, and only 1% are not. Which one is correct? --178.77.13.156 (talk) 15:23, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Factual accuracy tag

It's not just the latest edit that's wrong, there's a whole section on Geographic distribution that is at best out of date. Dougweller (talk) 17:27, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Decline in Atheism

Jimjilin's claim that Todd Johnson is a trustworthy source of demographics information is false. Todd Johnson has a "phd" from WCIU, which according to their webpage are "affiliated with the Frontier Mission Fellowship whose vision is to see the presence of a community of faith within every people group on earth, where Jesus transforms lives and societies." - Given their unsubstantiated demographics claims, they appear to be very biased on the matter of atheism, and apparently willing to spread misinformation to further their agenda. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.184.146.96 (talk) 15:44, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

I agree that it is not a reliable source for anything but the opinions of Mr. Johnson. And the opinions of Mr. Johnson is WP:FRINGE and completely irrelevant in this article. So good call on the deletion (it wasn't "vandalism" though, as your edit summary claimed). --Saddhiyama (talk) 15:55, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

So your opinion is that simply because he is a Christian, he must be untrustworthy and on the fringe? That's an extremely intolerant position! Johnson uses data from "various United Nations sources and the World Christian Encyclopedia". Jimjilin (talk) 18:03, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

WP:NOTCRYSTALBALL There's no need to put a single person's "crystal ball" prediction. If there's a consensus on trends then yes. Also "atheists will drop precipitously" is strange wording Bhny (talk) 18:33, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

An odd criticism. Single individuals are quoted elsewhere in the article (Galen, Zuckerman)and throughout Wikipedia. I see no reason for you to delete the findings of the International Bulletin of Missionary Research.Jimjilin (talk) 18:43, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

From the "Guidelines" of the International Bulletin of Missionary Research (emphasis mine): "The IBMR is a professional academic journal devoted to a sympathetic yet objective analysis and critique of the Christian world mission". They may throw about plenty of catchwords in order to pose as one, but it obviously does not qualify as a WP:RS for this as according to Wikipedia policy. --Saddhiyama (talk) 19:30, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

LOL You don't like "objective analysis"?! More from the IBMR guidelines: To be accepted articles should be presented with academic objectivity, rigor, and care. This means that in addition to the quality of the text itself, an article should include appropriately supportive endnotes (separate bibliographies are rarely included). Articles of a general, popular, and/or exhortatory character are not accepted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jimjilin (talk • contribs) 16:34, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

International Bulletin of Missionary Research is NOT WP:RS. (Their guidelines "advancing an appreciation of the contributions of Christian mission to the world and its peoples. Articles that do not relate significantly to mission will not be accepted."). They do not present a WP:NPOV, and have zero WP:Verifiability. Jensgb (talk) 17:12, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Wow you forgot to include the first part of the sentence: The journal wishes to be forthright about the failures and limitations of Christian mission, while at the same time advancing an appreciation of the contributions of Christian mission to the world and its peoples. Jimjilin (talk) 17:17, 22 March 2013 (UTC)There's nothing the matter with sympathy and appreciation. This is an academic journal devoted to objective analysis. A great source! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jimjilin (talk • contribs) 17:18, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Despite all the academic buzzwords they use in their presentation, "sympathetic" is the keyword in connection with Wikipedia policy, something which also becomes very clear if you browse a random selection of their articles. If you want to contest this consensus you are welcome to make a post to the Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard about it. For now we will have to reject your addition. --Saddhiyama (talk) 21:01, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

I have responded to all criticism, even when said criticism lacked merit. Those that want to cover up the facts seem to think that Christian scholars and organizations must be biased, must be wrong, must be on the fringe - no matter how objective and careful their scholarship. Why should someone sympathetic to Christianity, that is to say all Christians, be excluded? If someone said all atheist scholars are biased, wrong, on the fringe, and must be excluded should we object? One of the people quoted in the article, Frank Galen, is an atheist. Should his scholarship be rejected because of his position regarding the existence of God? Wikipedia includes facts drawn from pro-atheist sources. I noticed in the article Atheism sources include Internet Infidels and Secular Web Library. Should we object to these sources just because they are pro-atheist? Bias against scholars who happen to be Christian is a violation of Wikipedia policy. Since I haven't read any objection to the facts I've posted from The World Christian/Religions Database (an organization which as I point out in a footnote has been praised by an objective source) I will add the quote about atheist numbers.Jimjilin (talk) 16:41, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

I see someone has already reverted your addition. But anyway the references weren't good. An anti-atheist blog and a link to a paper that was just an evaluation of the WC Database without the statistics you quoted. Bhny (talk) 17:29, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Jimjjilin has threatened to report 3 editors for edit-warring. Oh, the irony. Dougweller (talk) 17:58, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Bhny, the website is Christian not anti-atheist. Do you think all information, however objective and well-researched, should be excluded because it comes from Christians? Should all information from atheists be excluded? Jimjilin (talk) 11:46, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

See the comment above by Saddhiyama . Dbrodbeck (talk) 11:52, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Let's see. TheWeek[4] a year ago says "Only between 1.5 and 4 percent of Americans admit to so-called "hard atheism," the conviction that no higher power exists. But a much larger share of the American public (19 percent) spurns organized religion in favor of a nondefined skepticism about faith." The Win-Gallup poll[www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2012/08/10/survey-says-atheism-is-on-the-rise-worldwide-and-in-america/] also has American numbers up, and "atheists are now 13% of the world population, an increase of 9% since 2005". Also see the Economist on the same poll.[5]. Here's another poll[6] about the increase in the number of atheists in America. In England and Wales[7] "The number of people declaring themselves to be atheists rose by more than six million to 14.1 million meanwhile."

But hey, let's just ignore all this and have Wikipedia say "According to the Encyclopedia Britannica in mid-2010 the world atheist population was 137,564,000 or 2.0% of the world population. The average annual % change from 2000 to 2010 globally was −0.17". After all, 13% isn't that much different from 2% is it? Dougweller (talk) 17:24, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

The claims made by Encyclopedia Britannica about the number of atheists are not backed up by *any* referenced sources, and seem as if they were pulled out of a hat. The world-wide Gallup poll [8], on the other hand seems to have sufficient numbers of respondents in the different countries, to be statistically valid. Jensgb (talk) 21:49, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

The deficiencies of the Gallup survey are discussed here: http://churchintoronto.blogspot.com/2012/08/global-atheism-on-rise-really.html If different organizations come up with different numbers is that any reason to deny conflicting opinion to Wikipedia users?! Different sources define atheism differently and come up with different figures. Covering up information without cause violates Wikipedia policy.Jimjilin (talk) 18:22, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Eurobarometer Poll 2010

See http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_341_en.pdf — Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.142.0.13 (talk) 17:43, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Multiply blocked vandal/disruptor and the requested lede

Put significant effort into addressing the missing lede tag so please watch for vandalism by the 92.250 ip, look at their talk page and history, only here for this one disruption. 76.180.168.166 (talk) 16:17, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Article appears to be under attack by this individual, its edits intercalated with my sorts into alpha of the subsections so figuring out how to revert just its edits. Also looking to see what's required to permanently block as this not a new problem. Lycurgus (talk) 17:01, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

I think I got them all but some I couldn't revert possibly because of my edits mixed in, dunno. Anyway notified people that have blocked the disruptor/vandal before. He's just deleted blocks of text or reversing meanings, other clumsy kinds of stuff. Others will need to address, I addressed the lede thing and sorted the sections. Lycurgus (talk) 17:24, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

The ip was blocked for a year, think got all his edits now, finished subsection sort/breakout. 76.180.168.166 (talk) 17:51, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

For anybody that made a constructive edit to the lede, please reapply it, I just reverted it back to before I started working on the sort. Lycurgus (talk) 18:03, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

FWIW that ip lists as being from Malta so the POV will be apparent from the article stats on Malta. 76.180.168.166 (talk) 19:01, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Poor Opening

I don't think the first sentence in this article should start the way it is: instead of talking about East Asia it should actually talk about the demographics of atheism, just like this section starts and as it used to be in the past up until not long ago. Does anyone agree or can help change it? Thanks, Shalom11111 (talk) 16:50, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

It was as you think it should be in my original composition of it but others reworked it, and I don't have a problem with it as is now. 76.180.168.166 (talk) 05:14, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi I see what you're saying. Well, I just don't think it would be proper to begin the article this way, it's as if the article on malaria started with the statement "People from East Asia have the highest chances of getting this disease(malaria)". So I'm just making a minor change now, as long as no resistance appears. Shalom11111 (talk) 22:43, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Nor with your addtions. Accept the analogy. 76.180.168.166 (talk) 17:28, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

The first paragraph has to be about the topic. The topic isn't "Difficulties of measuring the demographics of atheism". This has been argued before in talk. Any topic could begin "Difficulties of writing about this topic"- it's not a good intro. Sorry I had to revert. Bhny (talk) 18:30, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Regarding your analogy with malaria- An article "Demographics of malaria" would begin with something like "People from [certain countries] have the highest rates of malaria" (random example [9]) Bhny (talk) 19:34, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your response and the link provided on malaria, you explained your point clearly. I believe you can agree with me that 99% of wikipedia articles start with their titles, right? So how about if we just make the first sentence "The Demographics of atheism vary between countries around the world, and are affected by many factors." [and then: In East Asia, atheists...] or something like that? That'd fit the best wouldn't it.. Shalom11111 (talk) 14:58, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Here's a well written page on demographics- Demographics_of_the_United_States. It just launches straight into the information. Your suggested opening doesn't contain any information. Everything varies around the world and is affected by things. Bhny (talk) 15:53, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Sorry I only see this now, and thanks for another helpful example. But it proves my point in a way, because that article doesn't start by saying: "California is the most populated state in the U.S.", but rather by giving a more broad and relevant start to the article about the entire population. Therefore this article should start similarly, I think "Atheists comprise of %2 (or whatever it's believe to be) of the world's population" is very proper. What's your opinion? Shalom11111 (talk) 15:28, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that sounds good. Bhny (talk) 15:33, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Finally, good, here it is! Shalom11111 (talk) 16:16, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

I know a certain kind of blithering acceptance of sources over truth prevails here but I have to point out the arithmetic fact that if, as the lede says, most people in East Asia, meaning 50% or more of the people in the two Chinas, the Koreas, Japan, and Vietnam are then that is 800 million people or more not 2% of the planetary population or roughly 140 million, a more than 5-fold discrepancy which is much greater when the non-East Asian non-believers are included. In fact the percentage who don't believe in god, gods or the like in East Asia (but not (a mostly ritual belief in) ancestors's spirits) is much higher than 50% so that the real planetary figure is at least in the low teens, grossly different from 2%. OK I guess even if blatantly false stuff can fly if sourced. Reminds me of straight people who think the percentage of gays is like a fraction of a percent (and of course zero in one country). 76.180.168.166 (talk) 03:50, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

I added non-religious to the first sentence which helps a bit. I have no idea how "non-religious" is different from atheist but the sources seem to think so Bhny (talk) 05:21, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Non-religious means just that, doesn't imply a lack of however amorphous belief. Atheists' for example are never "spiritual but not religious". So it's an inclusive term that includes atheists and people who are at the other end of its' spectrum who have essentially the same beliefs as the religious. 76.180.168.166 (talk) 17:33, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Some definitions

In first sentence of the article we read the following: Atheists comprised an estimated 2.01%, and non-religious a further 9.66% of the world population. Ok, now the question to the article's very respectable authors: where is the difference between atheist and non-religious human? Please define. Thanks. 46.71.203.2 (talk) 19:44, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

This part of the article- Demographics_of_atheism#Geographic_distribution goes into some detail on that question. The reason to have them both is that many "non-religious" don't believe in a god, so meet a definition of atheist Bhny (talk) 20:07, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

I read it, but I still do not see any difference between this 2 difinitions: atheist and non-religioun human both are people who do not belive to any god. So why their number written separately? 46.71.203.2 (talk) 20:52, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

non-religious can be 1 atheist, 2 agnostic, or 3 believe in a god but are not religious Bhny (talk) 21:15, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Think of it this way. Let's say you love Chevrolet cars. Your neighbor on one side, on the other hand, has a Toyota and loves it just as much as you love your Chevy. Your neighbor on the other side doesn't have a car and doesn't care to discuss the matter. Does he not believe in Toyota or Chevy, or does he just not give a damn about any of it? Beeblebrox (talk) 21:19, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Guys, if you think that atheist is someone who fights with you (for exmaple) because of your religion, you are wrong. An atheist is just someone who dont belive to any gods, and he can or can not fight with you or even discuss with you about it. Why do you think that atheist is always in war with religion? And finally , the difinition of atheism from wiki article: atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities. Position, but not war for that position :) Thats it! 46.71.203.2 (talk) 21:30, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Nobody is talking about fighting, I have no idea what you are talking about there. Please read what everyone else has written here, it is pretty clear. Dbrodbeck (talk) 23:32, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Ok I ll try ask you this way: the scientificall definition of athesism is the follow: atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities. This is by itself means someone who is without any religion. Now, please, give me the scientificall definition of the non-religious man (in the meaning of this article). No one gave it during this discussion. How someone can count non-religious men if we do not even exactly undersatnd what thats mean? Thanks. 46.71.203.2 (talk) 23:44, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

'Scientificall' is not a word. A religion need not be theistic, though I think most are. Dbrodbeck (talk) 23:58, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Ok, leave that sentence without any change, although many people will be confused when read it (like me the very first time), because it is still very unclear the difference between atheists and non-religious people. And still unclear how they been count. 46.71.203.2 (talk) 00:08, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Tell me, did you even bother to look through some of this article? If there's something you're still struggling to understand after all the nice responses provided to you here, then I'm sure you'll find answers about the differences between atheists and non-religious people if you click on these links and read a bit. This is a discussion page specifically about the demographics of atheism, and so irrelevant questions written in broken English aren't very welcome here. Shalom11111 (talk) 08:12, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

My question is not irrelevant. Yes I have looked at the article non-religious. Citation from that article: Irreligion (adjective form: nonreligious or irreligious) is the absence of religion, an indifference towards religion, a rejection of religion, or hostility towards religion. When characterized as the rejection of religious belief, it includes atheism, religious dissidence and secular humanism.

Even in mentioned article definition non-religion (Irreligion) icludes atheism (read the article). Unfortunately, you can not understand this very simple things with your best English. 46.70.21.246 (talk) 12:16, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

'When characterized as' is a qualifier. It does not mean that it is always so. I think this is a question of English ability on your part (please do not take offence at this, as none is intended, If I was reading a foreign language I imagine I too would have difficulty). Dbrodbeck (talk) 12:40, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

• Let me try this again, it's really not that complicated. An atheist is someone who affirms that they do not believe in a god or gods and do not ascribe to any religion. A non-religious person is a person who doesn't even go there. If there is a person you know who doesn't go to any religious services but has also never commented publicly on why that is, do you just assume they are an atheist, or do they maybe have their own beliefs which they prefer to keep to themselves? And that's the point. Just because someone has not publicly identified themselves with a religion we can't just make the assumption that they are an atheist, but it is safe to say they are a non-religious person.

Althought I promised to not write here anymore, but I do it again (I hope this is the last time). In the last paragraph a User (I dont know his name, he didn't sign) explain me difference between atheism and non-religious people! Thansk a lot !! But this led me to another question: Don't you mix up non-religious people with weak atheists?? Look at the this section in Atheism article here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism#Implicit_vs._explicit . When I wrote this question at very start, I knew that many peoples make same mistake: they just mix up weak and strong (or Implict and explict) atheists? Yes, there are 2 kinds of atheists: Implict and explict (or weak and strong). But they are both atheists. Both !! I am glad that in the Atheism article there is even diagram about it (look at there). Moreover, there is an article about it: Implicit and explicit atheism. But, of course, no one even will think about this confusing words at very first part of this article. Anyway, I dont expect any reply. I just write to explain my "stupid" viewpoint, which is ,as always, not important for genius people who write articles here. Good luck. 46.70.21.246 (talk) 20:37, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Anonymous Russian/Armenian, this is not a forum and your language and the thought behind it do in fact indicate a less than intellectual individual. I am the essential composer of the current lede and this is not the place to determine a definition of atheism. As I've stated in threads above, non-religious includes a spectrum from essentially atheist to people whose beliefs are essentially the same as those of various religions. Can you work with concepts and an English language venue like this? There are both Russian and Armenian wikipediæ. There are many paths to the rejection of absurd made-up belief systems and most people never get beyond the rejection of institutionalized forms of superstition. 76.180.168.166 (talk) 16:03, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Just to be clear. Look at WP:OWN, the previous respondent in no ways owns the lead on the article. However, he does make a good point that your point is better if discussed in the Talk:Atheism page. Also, please don't be discouraged by the personal attack WP:PA. It's not WP policy and good editors do not engage in that practice.War(talk) 17:19, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

¿Que? This Means War!!! 76.180.168.166 (talk) 22:04, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Oh, and War, that whole locking your talk page thing, you might might wanna rethink the life course that led to that if it's not too late, I don't remember seeing a locked user's talk page in 8 years here. Lycurgus (talk) 01:42, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

IP 76.180.... If you can not understand what was writen before, thats mean you are dumbass, and it's nobody's fault except yours. And never again discuss other people's intelectual level. Such a rude person like you has no right to do it.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.76.1.22 (talk) 05:21, 17 September 2013

Such disgraceful language and immature bickering, I must say; perhaps this matter should be taken to ANI. — |J~Pæst|  21:47, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Atheism in South Korea Split

I think Atheism in South Korea should be merged into Irreligion in South Korea.Dwanyewest (talk) 20:09, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

FYI I moved the template from the top of the article to the section -- I presume this is what you intended. --— Rhododendrites ^talk |  21:11, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

What about Africa

I think there should articles regarding Africa and atheism any thoughts. Dwanyewest (talk) 20:14, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

Certainly. ...And there are. Or do you mean atheism apart from irreligion? There is Irreligion in Africa (in addition to those for individual countries). There was a main template linking to it that it looks like you [accidentally perhaps] removed. I added it back. That page needs a great deal of work to be sure. --— Rhododendrites ^talk |  21:16, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

US graph

File:Bsa-religion-question.svg is nice, but only for the UK. Could someone create a similar image for US based on [10]? I am not good at graphs. Also, would anyone happen to have date for graphs for other countries, or the world? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:47, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Scientists, maybe a new section?

These edits seem pretty POV, with the only apparent purpose to get rid of the study that gives higher number of atheist scientists and choose data from the other one that frames scientists in the most religious way possible. Rather than revert, though, I want to ask if either version really belongs in the lead? Does anybody have additional data that would support the creation of a section on, say, profession or some other demographic other than geography? The little section on income could be folded into it, perhaps. --Rhododendrites (talk) 17:37, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

The editor mistook statistics for American scientists as being for all scientists also there was another strange edit, anyway I reverted. Perhaps the editor will come here to discuss. Bhny (talk) 21:31, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, my original lede made clear with the best support (i.e. a relevant article from Nature and others) that the only demographic in the West where atheists are a majority is scientists, and that among top scientists in the healthy 90%s. It's a really important and highly relevant fact which belongs in the lede, but I don't want to push it as I've already had a strong part in the article and it needs to be a community thing.

It's well enough known though, so campaigning to have it here isn't so important.Lycurgus (talk) 22:00, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

This is important however, so if there are others who will support me against the pushback that will doubtless come, I'll restore my original text. Lycurgus (talk) 18:10, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

God vs. god

While reading this article, I noticed the mixed case in the spelling of god. I was wondering if it was proper to spell god with or without a capitalized "g" so a quick search lead me to this article: http://atheism.about.com/od/doesgodexist/a/capitalization.htm about the topic. While skimming through the article, I noticed that some do not seem to match up with the explanations provided in the about.com article. What do you think about the issue and what should be done about it? --AJ00200 (talk) 14:32, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Personally, I'd go for "a god" with lower case if there's an article or plural, and "God" - uppercase if there's no article. "God" is :used as the name of the Judeo-Christian god, and many people will use the name to refer to a more abstract concept of a deity, so I think :it reasonable to treat it as a name in this case. If it's a god, then we're talking about a description rather than a formal name. The :general trend in the article already seems to make this distinction but there are a few exceptions.Luckykaa (talk) 17:39, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Atheism and Non-religion - confusion?

I have not really paid too much attention to this article before, but I am noticing that there is some confusion between atheism and non-religion. These are not the same thing nor are they interchangeable. For instance, the % of self described atheists is pretty small even in the Nones/No religion category in the US and other regions. So I think that by adding info on people with no religion, it does not really help in the demographics of atheism - which is what this article is about. There is an article with demographics for Irreligion that may be more appropriate for info on nonreligiosity.

This article is pretty messy and will need lots of clean up to keep focus just on atheists, atheism, and % of belief and disbelief in God in some studies, instead of the rest of the nonreligious which include agnostics and theists who are not religious. There are many gaps and WP:COATRACK probably would be a common issue here. I know that for some places there is only data on nonreligiosity and none on atheism per se, so perhaps those can stay. I will probably start cleaning up more eventually since demographics on decrease of religion or increase of religion or increase in secularity or decrease in secularity are not automatically increases or decreases for atheism. The US is a case in point. Despite recent increases in "Nones" demographic, atheism has not increased significantly. The focus should be maintained on atheism, atheists, and lack of belief in God since this is just a demographics page. Just a thought. --Mayan1990 (talk) 03:39, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Can you quote specific problematic sentences from the article? The first sentence clearly delineates. Many who self-categorize as non-religious do not believe in a god, therefore by definition they are atheist (whether they call themselves that or not); and I think it is obvious that atheism and non-religiousness are related and overlap. Where is this article on demographics of irreligion? I don't think there is one. Would you be happier if this article was renamed Demographics of atheism and irreligion?Bhny (talk) 04:27, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Appreciate your input very much, Bhny. The article on Irreligion is pretty much only demographics. Click on the wikilink. In any case, nonreligious and atheism are not the same nor are they automatically interchangeable. For instance, the very first sentence in the article makes the important distinction I made between atheism and non religion: "Atheists comprised an estimated 2.01%, and non-religious a further 9.66% of the world population, according to The World Factbook in 2010." Those who are not religious are not automatically atheists since in the US for instance, the "Nones/No Religion" demographic is about 20% of the US population, but the "atheists" demographic is only 2-6% of the US population.

Out of the "Nones/No religion" demographic globally, the numbers vary on belief in God. For instance, in France 30% of the "Nones/No Religion" believe in God while in the US 68% of the "Nones/No Religion" believe in God [11]. A systematic break down of the "None/No Religion" for the US is found here [12]. Also even with people how do not believe in God, very few 24% will self identify as atheists[13]. This adds to the complexity. Since this article is about atheism only, this article probably should only have information on atheism only since to include the nonreligious (includes agnostics, and non religious theists, spiritualists, etc) probably would give fluctuating numbers and would not be a good consistent measure on number of atheists around the globe. For sure there are direct numbers of people who believe in God and those that do not, so I would say that it would be a good idea to keep this article focused on these two to either get the numbers of atheists directly or indirectly by belief in God. Discourse on level of religiosity is not really relevant ot this articles since "religiosity" is interpreted in various ways across culture whereas belief in God or lack of belief in God is pretty straight forward demographically. Stuff on nonreligiosity can be inserted in the "Irreligion" article as that would include all the nonreligious stuff. What do you think? --Mayan1990 (talk) 05:12, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

I'll also add that the sentence

'[assessemnt of atheism] is beset with a number of problems ... these will then be accounted, somewhat inaccurately, to rising "atheism"'

was changed to

'[assessemnt of atheism] is beset with a number of problems ... these will then be accounted, accurately (due to a proper definition of atheism being in reference to literal translation, simply one without theism), to rising "atheism"'

I tried to make this more neutral but my edit was reverted.

Ultiumately the sentence makes no sense. "Accurate" accounting is hardly a problem. The article explicitly identifies the non-religious as separate from atheism, and according to one of the linked references, only 24% of non-religious identify as atheists. It is quite clear that this is not in any sense "accurate" according to the understanding of atheism used by at least 76% on non believers.Luckykaa (talk) 12:16, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

non-religious should not be relevant

I don't understand why non-religious people are assumed to be atheist. Non religious people can be deists pantheists/panenetheists, people who believe in some kind of divine energy or even people who believe in aliens. It is misleading to assume that non religious people reject a belief in God as atheism requires. Message posted by 70.30.24.203 at 15:54 on 26 January 2015; manually signed by Bilorv.

If you look at Atheism, it defines atheism as "the rejection of belief in the existence of deities". Depending on what you were taught in religious education, what your friends describe themselves as, what you've always been told the word means etc., your opinion on what the word does/should mean may be quite different to other people's. Personally, I've never thought divine energy or other religious concepts come into the equation — I use "atheist" to mean "someone who would not describe themselves as a theist" (and would say that a deist is a type of theist, as is anyone who doesn't align with a mainstream religion yet still believes in a deity; agnostics are also {negative implict} atheists).

However, neither your opinion nor mine matter much; Wikipedia is based on what reliable sources say. Irreligion and atheism go hand in hand, which explains any amalgamation you may find in this article. Personally, I think a move to (or at least redirect from) Demographics of irreligion might be warranted, especially if the title of the article is your issue with it. — Bilorv_(talk)^(c)(e) 18:58, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Religious pushing their POV

From my original lede, composed upon request by placed tags, there has been a steady erosion to the point where now the lede expresses the opinion that the rejection of false belief is on the decline and the ancient superstitions are ascendent. This is true to some extent in the eastern europe and the former communist states but it is nowhere near the true state of affairs overall and the pushing of this viewpoint is wholly inappropriate here. Please restrict your proselytizing to articles where it is relevant. This article is about ATHEISM not RELIGION!. Lycurgus (talk) 17:38, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

After my original redact, there was a contention I think from believers, but looks like it's settled out in an acceptable way that can be stable until the underlying world state progresses some. Pleasantly surprised at the improvement, and not pushing the point about specifics (e.g. situation with Scientists, in particular top scientists). Lycurgus (talk) 08:15, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Turkey?

Why there is no information about Turkey on the list? Ostique (talk) 22:33, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

A new survey in the USA

Have you seen the results of those surveys - [14], [15]? A new Pew poll finds that the Christian population in America has dropped by 8% in just the past seven years! M.Karelin (talk) 15:12, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

I replied in another article, so I will just copy and paste here: This is not unusual since the number of the unaffiliated has gone up since 1990 at the cost of white mainline protestants. ARIS data show that the unaffiliated were 8 % in 1990 , 14% in 2001, 15 % in 2008 [16]. Pew data converges with ARIS in the 2007 Religious landscape study. In 2012 the unaffiliated went to almost 20% [17] and now in the new study they are 22.8% [18]. The new study does mention that out of the total US population only 3.1% are atheists and 4% are agnostics. The amount for those who are atheist still very low considering that in 1990 atheists were much less than .5% of the total population and agnostics made up barely .7%. From the 2012 Pew study we know that 68% of the "No religion" demographic believe in God and hold to many traditional religious beliefs without identifying as Christian. So they are quite complex. This new report is a good update. I will add this into the article eventually.

Still it should not be too unusual since historical sociological research has indicted that in 1776, at the time of the American Revolution, about 17% of US population was "churched" or religious. By 2005 the amount of religious people or churched people was up to 60% (Stark and Finke. 2005. "The Churching of America, 1776-2005: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy"). Pew also has done a projection to 2050 which indicates that globally the unaffiliated will be in a decline due to numerous factors such as low reproduction rates (the secular are known for not reproducing as is the case of declining European populations) [19]. This one would be good to add also. Mayan1990 (talk) 11:08, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

@Ramos1990: Thanks a lot!! I hope you will update both articles as soon as you can :)) . M.Karelin (talk) 18:16, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

I will update this today. Thank you very much for the updated Pew Study. It helps quite a lot. Mayan1990 (talk) 21:36, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

Recent redact for US §

Inasmuch as the Pew change is on the order of 50% or better for self-described atheists, and that is very significant change, it would be more appropriate to emphasize that but I have stuck to neutral/objective standard. Lycurgus (talk) 09:34, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Space and time

The article gives a decent enough run down on atheism/irreligiosity by region but there is nothing on its growth world-wide. Jimp 10:42, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

There is but it's under believer pressure to twist the facts, same as with the number of eminent scientists, but it's not the full throated but rather the semi pushed back thing. If you look at the history of the lede this will be clearer. In addition to this blatant distortion there's the official one that credits mass populations as believers. In fact belief is in a collapse that is now fairly precipitous so this will likely be addressed in a time frame that matters but not by me (I did the initial lede a year or two ago upon tag request). Lycurgus (talk) 02:11, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

Very fresh research - U.S. Public Becoming Less Religious

Dear friends, have you seen this very fresh research - [20] U.S. Public Becoming Less Religious, especially young people !!!! I think the new figures must be reflected in the article. What you think? M.Karelin (talk) 05:27, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

With respect to the Pew Report and demographics of atheism, here is what the new report says on those who have no religious affiliation. "Pew Research Center surveys consistently show that not all religious “nones” are nonbelievers. In fact, the majority of Americans without a religious affiliation say they believe in God. As a group, however, the “nones” are far less religiously observant than Americans who identify with a specific faith." Also "Fully one-third of religiously unaffiliated adults now say they do not believe in God, up 11 points since 2007." The majority of the people who do not identify with a religion do have a beleif in God still. But this is not universal since according to the Gallup's research which has even more data collected than Pew reported last year "The percentage answering “no religion” was 21 percent in 2014, 20 percent in 2012, just 14 percent as recently as 2000, and only 8 percent in 1990." & "In 2014, 3 percent of Americans did not believe in God and 5 percent expressed an agnostic view; the comparable percentages were 2 percent and 4 percent in 1991. More people believed in a “higher power” in 2014 (13%) than in 1991 (7%)." [21] Mayan1990 (talk) 21:01, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

Right, the holding of absurd beliefs, a great and pervasive phenomena, and moreover over the bulk of the Earth and it's most advanced nations, is what the Marxists call a fundamental contradiction and it is a less tenable one than that existing between the mode of production and the mode of exchange. Consequently, the extreme sensitivity of the matter, the late date and inevitable advance of reason in the cultural region of the Earth where science originated and has had it's greatest impact, have their combined and opposing effects. Only in a continuous and gradual way on something that ultimately is going to be an either-or. Right now it is not that and what you have is the core numbers of hard atheists are not substantially different outside of special populations but there is large scale weakening in advance of the fundamental change that must ultimately and sooner rather than later come. However this article is about the demographics of those that are already on the other side of that cultural transition, generally when their overall culture already has made it. Thus even in the mentioned younger US demographics, you do not have substantially different numbers of firm atheists but just a rejection of religion. So for that reason, this info is not a candidate for a change in the current text, at least not in late 2015. It's finally a relatively rapidly developing situation though so ... . "Less religious" has a long expanse of "spiritual but not religious", agnostic, and other things between it and clear atheism, which is what this article is about, why there is a separate space of articles on atheism and irreligion. Lycurgus (talk) 08:52, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

hardly dead, but shading for sure Lycurgus (talk) 17:40, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

GALLUPS NEW RELIIGON POLL IS OUT

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/06/belief-in-god-poll_n_872059.html 86% believe in God 12% believe in a universal spirit I guess that leaves 2% for agnostic, atheist or unanswered. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dunnbrian9 (talk • contribs) 08:27, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

See also 2015 update. Peteruetz (talk) 03:54, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

The Washington Post's most fresh figures -- update 2015

The Washington Post newspaper recently published most fresh figures about religion and irreligion in the USA. According to that researches, the number of atheists in the US has increased dramatically. And the number of people who regularly attend churches decreased dramatically, instead, the number of muslims in the US increased a bit. I think the figures in this article must be changed accrodingly. 217.76.1.22 (talk) 09:11, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Which might have been possible had you linked the article 198.255.198.157 (talk) 09:59, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

There is another update to the aforementioned update, published in April 2015 in the Washington Post, based on new Gallup data. Maybe someone can create new maps based on that? Thanks! Peteruetz (talk) 03:53, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

Info is already integrated in the article including the slight decline of atheism from the 2015 Gallup International poll compared to their 2012 poll.Huitzilopochtli (talk) 08:03, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

External links modified

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UFO loving atheists and "I have a soul" atheists

a- means non-, theist means god believer. Atheism doesn't represent an all inclusive sense. The Antimetaphysicals don't believe in any dualistic myth, including UFO if data aren't provided and accepted globally. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:587:410A:DA00:9104:1D07:CEED:8574 (talk) 23:01, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Dishonesty

People are notoriously dishonest when answering poll questions and many will give the answer they think is expected of them, even if wrong. All across Europe, churches are running at nearly empty, and even if they were full to standing room only, could not accommodate all of the people who claim to use them. Many who now say they believe in christianity, believe in it as they would a superstition. They do not go to church, read the bible, pray, behave in a way expected of them, etc.(124.121.72.116 (talk) 12:49, 22 January 2017 (UTC))

New editor - CindyRoleder please discuss

@CindyRoleder:, it seems you are new to wikipedia. I have already left a note on your talk page on how to discuss changes with other editors to reach some sort of consensus. Some of your recent edits [[22]] do not look helpful and seem to not represent what the sources as a whole state. Please discuss your ideas here, like all other editors do, before making further edits to this article since you have been reverted by me and another editor because you do not provide edit summaries and the edits do not look helpful. Otherwise, I will have to take your noncomplince with admin and they may block you from editing for some time. Hope this helps.Huitzilopochtli1990 (talk) 20:48, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

@CindyRoleder:. I see you are moving things around in the article and removing things too [23]. Please discuss your edits here. They do not look helpful since you are removing and moving sourced material without any explanations. Also you are putting WP:UNDUE on one particular source (WIN/Gallup) and diminishing all the rest of the studies without a source or reason. Keeping in mind that reviews of global studies on atheism and non-religion note major methodological issues with WIN/Gallup such as overinflation of numbers when other studies consistently reach lower numbers using the exact same wording for decades with even bigger samples per country. I have removed the problematic overall statement (which relies too much on WIN/Gallup) and have distributed all the slavaged studies in the article so that they are not lost (only removed one by the CIA since it looked redundant since another citation from the CIA was already there). The estimates by Zucekrman, Keysar, and ahderents.com are good enough for the lead since they are the most reliable since they are all summaries of many global studies on atheism. Hoe this helps. Huitzilopochtli1990 (talk) 09:56, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Seems page is protected for a bit.Huitzilopochtli1990 (talk) 09:58, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Psychology in an article about demographics?

Why is there a section, "Personality profiles" about the psychology of atheism in an article on the demographics of atheism? — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 03:39, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Good question. It has been there for a long time but I think that it was placed there to provide qualitative data or texture on the demographics. Considering that demographical data usually comes from sociological studies which include both quantitative and qualitative data, it is a common practice for these studies to include psychological considerations in the qualitative section to provide details on the populations being studied. For instance, its one thing to just say how many atheists there are, but it also seems relevant to talk about their levels of happiness or levels of open/closed mindedness. Especially since atheists are often characterized in various ways from being tolerant to being fundamentalist.Huitzilopochtli1990 (talk) 06:41, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

My impression is that while psychology/psychographics are relevant to demography and often used together, they're pretty distinct. E.g. our article on demography uses the definition "Demography encompasses the study of the size, structure, and distribution of these populations, and spatial or temporal changes in them in response to birth, migration, ageing, and death" which doesn't seem like it would include personalities and psychological processes. Most definitions of psychographics contrast it with demographics while at the same time making clear that they're relevant, methodologically.

I'm trying to think of what other existing article it would make sense to include in, but only come up with the main article or, for some of the content in particular, something like criticism of atheism or religiosity and intelligence (though again, that's just looking at some of the specific claims rather than the concept in general). There's also psychology of religion, which likewise isn't quite right (and it would be hard to do without characterizing atheism as a religion). It may be that there's an opportunity for something like psychology of atheism, but I suspect it would be very hard to write. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 15:03, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

I suppose that one could treat personality traits and distribution of populations as distinct, but in the demography article it also mentions "Formal demography limits its object of study to the measurement of population processes, while the broader field of social demography or population studies also analyses the relationships between economic, social, cultural, and biological processes influencing a population." I have not heard of the term "psychographic", but it seems that it is a "newer" term that tries to fuse something that is normal in sociological research already. I think that there aren't many articles where these personality profiles would fit on their own. It certainly would not make sense to make a "psychology of atheism" article if there aren't many focused studies on the matter, considering that the topic has not received much attention. Maybe that article could be started, but it will be quite limited. Only a few sources on psychological dimensions of atheists are out there and they either are sociological or they mixed with sociology such as "Atheists: A Groundbreaking Study of America's Nonbelievers" by Bruce E. Hunsberger and Bob Altemeyer. Phil Zuckerman is a common source on demographics in the literature and he certainly emphasizes data on attitudes and individual traits in nearly all of the studies on atheism. For instance, [24]. This seems to be the norm in studies about demographics of atheism in general since these populations have moral dimensions and social dimensions that interact with culture. Also such studies on atheists do try to explain any correlations they find in order to give context.

I think that the section was added to this article to give some texture to what atheists are like because other articles do not really give the space to show how diverse they really are. If theists, a very wide term, are very diverse then so would atheists since it is also a very wide term. What other page allows for the diversity to be displayed besides this one? What do you think?Huitzilopochtli1990 (talk) 18:44, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

The political Dawkinsism

Political activism isn't the most analytical way to conduct philosophical thinking. Political activists use other methods to yield better results. If a political activist acts as a mere philosopher and not as a public manipulator then (s)he fails. Richard Dawkins has invested all his existence in the terms atheist/atheism. In his texts he claims that the terms atheist/atheism are exact synonyms of the terms ametaphysicalist/ametaphysicalism. Ametaphysicalism is the metaphysics and the metalogic of science. Ametaphysics isn't a movement against the fundamental principles of the cosmomechanics, instead is a movement against erroneous and exoscientific metaphysics. Antimetaphysics demolishes the barrier between phenomenology and ontology. It is true that almost all great atheists were also ametaphysicalists; but that doesn't always reflect the 100% of atheist commoners. Some boisterous people promote the atheism/atheist trademarks, but trademarking makes one a salesperson, not an analytical thinker! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2a02:2149:8761:6000:9121:ba33:dae3:9b52 (talk) 10:26, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Do you have sources indicating the usage of the terms you are introducing? It looks like original research (which violates Wikipedia policy) if you do not have sources. Plus how do the terms relate to demographics of atheism? No one uses the term "Ametaphysicalism" in sociological research.Huitzilopochtli1990 (talk) 22:57, 25 October 2017 (UTC)