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Dreams

I like the idea of adding a section on dreams, so I will not at this time revert the recently added paragraph, but as it stands it is much too informal and POV, and needs a rewrite. The Wiki manual of style says, "no contractions", BTW. Rick Norwood 13:16, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree very much. Dreams that people have had has had a strong effect on the history of many religions, but the current statement is POV and does not cite any references. It needs to be updated/revised/changed. -- Jeff3000 14:53, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

I can provide a "dream." It's http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Developing_A_Universal_Religion But, what do I/we do with it? David H 13:53, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that's what we want. We want a section that provides references about how dreams have affected the current religions. -- Jeff3000 13:59, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

OK. Thanks.David H 14:17, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Press source

Today The Age, a newspaper in Melbourne Australia used the list of religions by number of followers in an article on relgion. It is online here at the moment, but I don't know how long it will stay up for though. Also, if anyone can make the press source template work better, please go ahead. --Apyule 10:47, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

--203.164.225.106 08:02, 19 April 2006 (UTC)==World's Oldest== Did we ever clarify the world's oldest religion? I see the picture there at the top stating that "Hinduism" might be, but I think that requires some rewording.

There are religions older than Hinduism, but religions still in practice is a different story. Still, wouldn't Judism be even older? That is, 4,000 years old (far older than the Siva Temple from 1,100 years ago)? Colonel Marksman 17:43, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

The point is highly debatable (one might note for example that there are temples in India that far predate most scholarly dating of Solomon's Temple or even the Exodus). Scholarly opinion also place the completion of the Pentateuch and the completion of the Rg Veda (the oldest of the Vedas) at around the same time (give or take 300 years). On the other hand, there is debatable archeological evidence that points to Vedic religion deriving from earlier practices (circa 4th millenium BCE), which places it somewhere around the traditional dating of the creation of the world (according to the Jewish calendar). In general, I dislike attempts to find the "oldest still extent religion" for many reasons. First of all, the gap between what is even remotely verifiable and what is claimed by many religious traditions is enormous (e.g. attempts to date the Tirthankara Rsubha or Avram). Secondly, the focus on "still extent" tends to ignore the massive (verifiable) changes that most (if not all) religions have undergone since their founding (e.g. worship centered in Jerusalem / the temple cult / the Rabbinic schools or the rise in prominence of Siva and Visnu, displacing the apparent earlier prominence of e.g. Agni and Indra). In short, I don't think that there is really any way to determine the oldest religion that is still practiced (or, for that matter, the oldest religion). Ig0774 18:34, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

• Have a point there. There are perhaps millions of religions that claim it began right then and there with their god(s) creating them from the beginning of the creation of Man.
• However, you yourself might not care, but I would think that noting the world's oldest religion would be information that could be noted in the article (it IS an article on religion). Around 1446 B.C. sounds pretty favorable amongst scholars as the Exodus (ref. http://www.1260-1290-days-bible-prophecy.org/1446BC-exodus-1260000-tsunami.htm, http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/The_Exodus, http://www.google.com/search?q=Exodus+B.C.&hl=en&lr=&start=10&sa=N, etc..). To me, 1446 B.C., and even 40 years after that is still a pretty dang long time ago!
• Now, I'm not going to put that into the article without settling the issue first that we can establish at LEAST that (so-and-so religion has/says this, and so-and-so religion has/says this, just a single, short paragraph). Colonel Marksman 00:17, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Going by large numbers of female figurenes from more than 10,000 years ago, the world's oldest (male) religion is worship of the female breast, which is alive and well today at Hooters. Rick Norwood 18:49, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

You're probably on to something there Rick...

To Col.: Its not so much that I don't "care" about the world's oldest religion (it is, I think, an interesting question). The problem is that the scholarship surrounding this question is increadiably speculative, really denying the possibility of a verifiable claim that religion X is the world's oldest religion (and this is largely because some religions claim to have started a very long time ago). If you looked over the Exodus page, you might have noticed something of this problem with the numerous competing theories for dating the Exodus it covers. Basically, the date arrived at depends on what particular evidence you use. I have no problem with saying religion X says this or that about its creation, as long as it cites reliable sources, but, you have to realize that some religions, e.g. Jainism, believe that they are eternal (and even if one pins down Jaina traditions to more exact "dates", there are still figures like 8,400,000 years ago). I similarly have no problem about saying that scholar Q say that religion X started so long ago, but I do have to question whether this really adds anything valuable to the page. For the most part, however, I am inclined to think that any dating of particular religions belongs to the article(s) on those particular religions and not on an article about religion in general. Ig0774 19:45, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

• The oldest religion? That's easy. "Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Christianity is the oldest religion because God has been around from the start. This religion is the only way to go. If you believe that some other religions have been around for longer than Christianity, that is impossible. How can another religion have been around earlier than Adam and Eve walking with God and talking to him everyday. When you think about it, Christianity has to be the oldest religion around. Also check out the below website. It rocks! Planetshakers

• • That assumes that the Bible is literally correct; also that "Adam and Eve walking around with God" constitutes the Christian religion. Since Christianity requires an acceptance of the saving death and resurrection of Christ, which hadn't happened at the time of Adam and Eve, it's doubtful that one could reasonably make such a claim.

• The Bible is a belief of the catholic faith. It beholds different events of the catholics for example "adam and eve" which counting on the religion you truly believe in you may or may not believe in this which is fine it is your choice!!!!1=] 72.209.71.249 06:44, 10 December 2006 (UTC)ME:)

Hinduism in the US

While the plain numbers of the ARIS study do show that the number of Hindus in the US did grow to three times its size, I think that calling Hinduism "the fastest growing religion in the USA" is deceptive. First of all, the number of Hindus, according to the study, is quite small (0.3% of the total population). Drawing conclusions from such a statistically insignificant number can be misleading at best (as is drawing conclusions just from the numbers in the survey themselves). Secondly, ARIS themselves attribute the growth in Hinduism primarily to immigration[1]. After all, at least in the US, virtually no branch of Hinduism, except ISKCON, can be considered a prostelytizing religion. Finally, one might note that a better indicator of the growth of a religion is conversions. Drawing on ARIS' research[2] Baptists (which includes a wide array of congregations) is numerically the quickest growing group, with Evangelical/Born Again picking up the largest statistical gains in terms of conversions. Hinduism apparently is too insignificant to be counted on the chart (notice, for example, there are more self-identified Seventh Day Adventists than Hindus). As a result of all this, I think that the current wording in the demographics section is, at best, deceptive.

NB: ARIS is the group which provided the statistics used on both adherents.com and gita-society.com Ig0774 22:03, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

According to ARIS... Hinduism is .4%, Buddhism and Islam are .5% of total population. So Hinduism numbers are definately not negligible or insignificant numbers when compared with other major religions (excluding Christianity). Among major religions Christianity's growth rate is 5%, Hinduism's 237%, Buddism's 170% and Islam's 109% in United States. How can this be neglected? Conversions, Immigration and High birth rate are 3 main reasons for growth of religion in a particular country. Ofcourse, Immigration is the main reason in case of Islam and Hinduism and also we can't exclude ISKCON and strong visible Yoga influences on American Society. You are connecting conversions with prostelytizing which is a wrong approach. Converions can happen even without prostelytizing in Eastern approach. Immigration, Conversions or High birth rate....fact is Islam is fastest growing religion and in a similar way Hinduism is fastest growing religion in United States.

Also, If you compare 1990 and 2001 data of NSRI and ARIS....Hinduism's growth is from .2% to .4%, Islam continue to be at .5% and Buddhism grows from .4% to .5%. This high rate of growth (237%) in Hinduism can't be neglected and again this is not insignificant. - Holy Ganga 09:47, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

But that is just the point: Hinduism is insignificant in the USA. Making the growth of Hinudism in the USA important enough to be noted in the main text about religion (as opposed to a text about either religion in the US or Hinduism in general) implies that this is somehow significant on a worldwide scale. This is not an encyclopedia for Americans alone. The growth of Hinduism in the US is insignificant when you look at the numbers worldwide, and even more so because it is mainly caused by immigration and thus has no implication whatsoever on the growth of Hinduism worldwide. Fram 12:13, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

That very section is discussing religious habbits in various parts of world. Why just America? 1) Because no where else Hindu immigration has increased to such an extent as in America. Infact, Indian Immigrants (more than 82% Hindus) have become third largest asian community and fastest growing community in America.[3]. 2) Because no where else in west ISKCON and Yoga etc. Eastern thoughts have influenced society more than America. 3) Hinduism is growing in many countries but fastest in America, therefore from Eastern religion's prespective also it should be mentioned because Wikipedia is not only for America as you said. - Holy Ganga 16:41, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

It actually would be nice to see that sentence removed from the article only on the grounds that it is relevant only to the US and thus seems to perpetuate the idea that the English Wikipedia is overly concerned with the US and the UK. I don't quite understand why this should be "mentioned" "from Eastern religions prespective" (if such a thing exists). I did not mean to portray prostelytizing as the only means of religious growth. I was only trying to emphasize the fact that the growth in Hindu population in the US seems mainly due to immigration. Counting yoga practioners (at least in North America) as "Hindu" is misleading at best. This is not to deny that there is a great deal of yoga practiced or that some of it has a spiritual dimension, but by and large, yoga is presented in North America as an exercise technique, not a gateway to liberation (one might compare this to the reception of karate in the West, though its not a perfect analogy). But at any rate, this is not a worry as the ARIS study measures religious self-identification and, presumably, most people who practice yoga as an exercise technique would not identify themselves as Hindu. The point about the statistical insignificance is not to claim that Hinduism is not significant (in other senses) in the US, but, with an estimate of 0.4% (sorry, I read the wrong row), we need to tread cautiously about relying on the precise numbers — especially given that the margin of error is ±0.5% (there were about 50,000 people interviewed by ARIS, so 0.4% represents about 200 respondents who identified as Hindu). One might also point out that according to ARIS' actual data, the fastest growing religion in the US is, in fact Wicca which over the 11 years grew ~1675% [4] (or about five times the rate of growth in Hinduism). Of course, the number of self-identified Wiccans is ludicrously small (0.06% of the population or about 30 respondents), though there are reasons to be suspicious that this is indicative of the real growth rate. Ig0774 20:01, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

What is going on here is a well known example of the misuse of statistics. Student A's grade has gone from a 70 to a 90, while student B's grade has gone from a 10 to a 20. Yes, student B's grade has undergone the greatest improvement measured as a percent, but this is not remarkable, because it is easy to increase a very low grade and difficult to increase a high grade. This is, by the way, what is going on the the US in the No Child Left Behind program. It financially rewards schools based on their "improvement", so if a wretched school becomes even slightly less wretched, it is rewarded, while an excellent school is punished if it cannot go from 99% success to 100% success, because it did not "improve". Rick Norwood 20:44, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

• Simple question: Why not just mention growth rate of all religions in the States? Colonel Marksman 00:22, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Is this really important enough to include in an article on world religion? Rick Norwood 14:45, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Short summary of my last two comments: nope. Ig0774 19:46, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Caption

Could someone clarify the relation between the painting Fishers of Men featured in the intro and the topic, by writing a better caption? CG 12:31, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Hindusim, Sikhism, Jainism and Buddhism

I fail to understand when Sikhism, Jainism and Buddhism are part of Hinduism or evolved from hinduism; similar to protestians, angelic, etc from christianity.. why when ranking the followers or hindusim... different sects have to be shown different from hinduism...

is it just, when british colonial rule came to asian countries and for their own understanding took buddhism and jainism etc as different religion?—Preceding unsigned comment added by 150.237.47.4 (talk • contribs) 15 April 2006

Pls note that Buddhism is NOT a part of Hinduism. Buddhism has no gods and it is a philosophy, a pathway to freedom. Buddha was a human who showed others the pathway to Nibbana. Buddhists also believe in Re-birth and Karma. Buddhists strongly believe in that saying "What goes around comes around" and the philosophy is evolved through the concept of Karma and how to escape the sufferings of the world.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.165.168.23 (talk • contribs) 03:48, 16 April 2006

It would be entirely wrong to conceive of Sikhism, Jainism, or Buddhism as a part of Hinduism. The picture is somewhat more difficult than that. All four of these religions share some common ideas (or at least common terms, often understood slightly differently). The relationship between them is hardly like the changes after the Reformation (though one can track similar movements within Sikhism, Jainism, Hinduism, and Buddhism sometimes inspired by one or another of the other religions). Jainism and Buddhism, the two surviving Shramana schools, can be differentiated from Hinduism quite early in their history (circa 800 BCE for Jainism circa 500 BCE for Buddhism — these dates roughly correspond to the Tirthankara Parsva and Gautama Buddha). Sikhism is traditionally traced to Guru Nanak in the 15th century CE (that is, around the time of the Muslim-ruled Mughal Empire — Islam having a significant impact on the formation of Sikhism). In fact, the blanket term "Hinduism" itself is problematic as it covers over the vast differences that often lie between various Hindu beliefs (though the majority of Hindus at present follow some form of Smartism, not all do). Etymologically speaking, "Hindu" comes from the Sanskrit word sindhus, refering to the Sindus river. The term "Hindu", however, first came into use among the Persians, not the inhabitants of the Sindus River valley (hence, it is considered a "foreign" word). Thus, "Hinduism" is composed of a massive array of sects and cults (which, historically speaking, far outstrips the diversity of Christian churches). The long and the short of it is that these really are separate traditions, incomparable to the differences between Protestants, Catholics, Anglicans, Eastern Orthodox, etc. Ig0774 05:26, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Juche

Almost the entire population of North Korea is listed as an adherant of Juche, which is also refered to as "Kimilsungism." I'm not sure that this makes any more sense than listing Maoism as one of the world's largest religions because China is still officially Maoist. Juche isn't really a religion, it's more like a loose collection of poorly thought out political ideas used by the government of North Korea to excuse their behavior. Even if it was a religion, I would seriously doubt that the great majority of North Koreans could be said to believe in it in a religious sense. Obviously, very few people outside North Korea are Kimilsungists, so few that I would think that they would be statistically irrelivant. Bottom line is that I don't think Juche is a religion, and I don't think that 19 million people believe in it. --Descendall 23:07, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Juche is included here because the list on this page is pretty much ripped off of adherents.com. His explanation for its inclusion is here. Basically, he claims that Juche is more "religious" (whatever that means) than Maoism, and makes the implicit claim that its a religion of nationality (sort of like Hinduism or Judaism) rather than essentially of belief. Juche seems to present itself as a philosophy, not a religion, and its inclusion seems to be on the basis of one author (Thomas Belke). On the other hand, I am pretty indifferent to whether or not it "qualifies" as a religion, and would lead that up to the consensus of other editors of this page. Ig0774 01:01, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

That page admits that he's just using the population of North Korea. That's a terrible way to define who is a believer in Juche. Hardly anyone actually belives it; even it's arcitect, Hwang Jang-yop, doesn't believe it. He defected to South Korea and is now an anti-North Korean activist. The only real reason it seems to have been included on adherents.com is because it has "more adherents than Judaism, Sikhism, Jainism or Zoroastrianism," meaning that "it has so many adherents" (bold in original). But this is faulty logic; I'm sure way more people claim to be adherents of democracy than of Zoroastrianism, but we don't include democracy on the list. --Descendall 06:27, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm not defending its inclusion on the list, just explaining why it seems to be there. If it irritates you that much, get rid of it. No one seems interested in defending it as a religion. Ig0774 00:37, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

I know that you weren't defending it. I simply wanted to present my argument before I unilaterially deleted it. --Descendall 16:57, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

There are many better sources of data than adherents.com, The World Almanac for example. Rick Norwood 13:30, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Latin Word

In the article, it lists "Res + Legere" as a latin root. It is my understanding that Lego, Legere meants "To Write," rather than "To gather." It could mean that "writing" is "gathering words", I know translations can differ. I would just like a source for this, or at least some clarification. GofG _|^|_| Contribs 23:37, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

See Lewis & Short, one of the standard authoritative Latin dictionaries. -- MatthewDBA 17:00, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Religion Size Rankings

The world's population is approximately 6.5Bn. If you look at present day adherents and add some of the upper values, however, you get 7Bn!

2.1+1.3+1.1+.9+.7+.4+.3+.1+.023+.019+.015+.014+.012+.007+.007 = 7Bn.

What gives?

I believe that rounding up, being more common than rounding down, caused this admittedly strange sum. As stated below the list, exact numbers are impossible. I don't think it should be changed; the approximations seem accurate, and rounding to the next decimal over would be cluttering an already large article. GofG _|^|_| Contribs 23:22, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Another factor in this may be that many religions (especially Christianity) do not count adherents correctly. The Roman Catholic Church, the largest denomination of Christianity, counts "Christian" as anyone who was baptized and did not officially renounce his/hers Christianity. As a result, a person could be counted a Roman Catholic Christian and also a Satanist. I've added a new edit section (see below) on this matter. MickeyK 21:52, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Why don't the religious size rankings match those from adherents.com which is claimed to be the source for this information? The numbers on the Wiki are inflated relative to the numbers from that source. Wiki values are: Christianity up 40M, Islam up 200M, Hinduism up 102M. Also the source has 22 religions and the wiki 23. --02:14, 27 April 2006 (UTC)61.30.32.169

I am surprised by the number (2.6 million) previouly listed for Zoroastrianism. It is far too high. I haven't seen such a large number in any published source and even the wikipedia page on Zoroastrianism contradicts it. Rohan1 02:11, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

The Wikipedia article on Zoroastrianism does not contradict the 2&1/2 million estimate, but rather states the trend in very recent years, which is for encyclopedias to report a far higher number than previously. Offhand I don't know what accounts for the revision..Kenosis 03:03, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

"Faith" and "Belief System"?

From the introduction:

It is sometimes used interchangeably with "faith" or "belief system."

What is the intent of saying it's sometimes used interchangeably as a belief system? It seems wrong to me that religion can be used for any belief system (e.g., humanism). Whilst some people may use it as such, that does not mean such a definition is notable or correct. Later the article says "Unlike other belief systems, which may be passed on orally, religious belief tends to be codified." stating (correctly, in my opinion) that religious belief is different to non-religious belief systems

Whilst I'm here, I'm not sure what it means by comparison to faith. It's true that one of the definitions of "faith" is "religious belief" or "religion", but it's not true that "religion" is used for any of the other meanings of faith. What is this trying to say? Mdwh 02:58, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

There are any number of possible things that may be said in reponse to this. Certainly "belief" and "faith" have been important, historically, in defining what constitutes "religion" as opposed to whatever else it may be in vogue to define it against (this, of course, has its roots in Hegel, or, more accurately, Friedrich Jacobi, at the very latest). Whether or not "religion" is truly interchangable with "belief system" is probably controversial — needless to say, however, that there are those who would describe "humanism" as a religion (Nietzsche springs readily to mind) — and, of course, what "humanism" itself is remains an open question.

That sort of thing said, this sentence itself seems, to me, to be intended to point to the importance of "faith" and "belief" in defining what constitutes "religion" rather than to say that "religion" is found wherever there is "faith" and "belief" (in the philosophical terminology I am more familiar with, "faith" and "belief" are a necessary but insufficient cause for "religion"). In colloquial English, it is not uncommon to use "belief" or "faith" as homonyms of "religion", as in "she was a follower of the Christian faith" or "he believes in Islam". I think it is in this latter sense that the article claims that "religion" is interchangable with "belief system" or "faith".

All that said, I, for one, am not particularly attached to this particular sentence and if you think it is really likely to be misread, then, by all means, feel free to delete it. But, if that is your decision, bear in mind that "religion" is not the same beast as "organized religion". Ig0774 08:21, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

New section on Oldest religion and weasel words

The new section has no references and uses tons of weasel words. Wikipedia guidelines state that weasel words should not be used; see Wikipedia:Avoid_weasel_words. Specifically "Weasel words don't really give a neutral point of view; they just spread hearsay, or couch personal opinion in vague, indirect syntax. It is better to put a name and a face on an opinion than to assign an opinion to an anonymous source." Thus the author of that section must give names and sources for those "some historians" statements. The weasel tag is used to give the author a chance to fix the problem, and if after some time it isn't fixed, the content can be removed. -- Jeff3000 00:07, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I see your point. I've added a date, and if nothing is forthcoming in a few days I'll delete the section as uncited. Tom Harrison ^Talk 00:40, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

A degree of caution is in order about [possibly parochial] assertions of an oldest surviving religion. Central and South American, as well as indigenous African religions have similar claims to make as well, perhaps along with others of which we may not be aware. I have tentatively adjusted the apparently good-faith and well-considered content of the article to accommodate this additional possiblity too..Kenosis 04:01, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm still not to happy with this section. I don't know if it adds anything to the article, but cause controversy. I would support removing it. -- Jeff3000 04:10, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm not happy with any of the article. It has nothing to do with putting principle into actual practice, at least thus far...Kenosis 04:15, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

True, there should be a section on that, but for many religion is just a belief that unfortunately is not put into practice. But what about removing the section? -- Jeff3000 04:18, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

I have no complaint with the section as far as the article goes. There is a synchronistic aspect in there somewhere; or maybe it has more to do with the "Silk Road" of the day. Anyway, take care for now...Kenosis 04:20, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

You meant "syncretic", perhaps? Certainly there's something between the Vedic religion and Zoroastrianism, but that probably has more to do with the spread of Indo-Eurpoean peoples than anything else. The Silk Road was likely active at the time, but I think that has more to do with the spread of artistic motifs (which would certainly have found their way into religious iconography) than religious ideas as such. I don't know whether lines can be drawn from Judaism to much of anything else outside the Levant. TCC (talk) (contribs) 04:40, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

I did indeed mean synchronistic in the sense Jung used it. If it's merely a matter of the Silk Road, such debate about "etherial" immanence of spirit/consciousness (call it whatever one chooses) tends to be fairly quickly settled, though it would not fully explain some amazing coincidences of timing among cultures that had never met (such as indigenous Central Americans). One is then left with the occasional revelation and the like to one true faith or another, or a completely Deistic picture. Appreciate seeing your thoughts about it. ..Kenosis 12:51, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Religion and Class

There should be an article on Religion and Class - will start the stub. Jackiespeel 18:06, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Images (part 2)

I tried to make the images in this article flow a little better with the text (there's already a discussion above) by moving the image that had the caption with the "Hinduism is possibly the oldest religion" to that section, but I'm still not fully happy with the results. It causes the religion and science picture (which I think is a really good image) to start a little later. Suggestions anyone... -- Jeff3000 04:12, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Questionable section removed and placed here until proper sourcing and POV slants can be resolved properly

I have removed this section and placed it here. First off, it is not proper to remove several citations from credible sources and replace them with a website that holds a view consistent with HolyGanga's preference. If there is a disagreement about the content, it should properly be brought onto this talk page. This is fairly standard...Kenosis 11:59, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

==Oldest surviving religions==

Hinduism is considered to be pre-dated 3000 BC by modern scholars. The earliest evidence for elements of the Hindu faith also dates back as far as 3000 BC. [5]

Judaism is dated through the earliest patriarchal references in Genesis to the time of Abraham (2000-1800 BCE) A typical dating of the first writings in Judaism is around 1250-1150 BCE, later collected into the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Torah, around the 5th Century BCE. Zoroastrianism is dated from around 1200 BC.[6]

Two of the numerous well established citations for the 1200BCE date for Rg Veda which were arbitrarily replaced with a controversial new theory are as follows:

^ Matthews, Warren, World Religions 3rd Ed., (1999) p.110.

^ Knipe, David M., Hinduism (1991) xi

The newer propositions Holy Ganga is referring to, I imagine may be those that hold among other things that the relatively recent archeological finds of such items as a stamp depicting a yogic posture, and a bath of some kind, are indeed religious, rather than, for example, just a way of sitting without a chair, or just a bath with decorations of the day. There is to date no compelling evidence of a religious connection, and thus far these are mere speculations of the type based upon archeological finds that have been found on every continent worldwide of late. Also interesting is the new proposition that the Aryan influence (theorized by some to be through Persia rather than from Europe or the Baltic directly) was a gradual peacible assimilation rather than through invasion and forcible domination in the Indus River Valley. But none of these are conclusive; what is agreed is an approximate date for the Rg Veda...Kenosis 12:41, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

I can also accuse you that you want to add your preference by going directly against latest archeological advancements. Full information is always better than misguided, outdated or incomplete information and BBC site is presenting both old and latest views of modern scholars. BBC has added that information on History of Hinduism section and just because of your personal preferences, you are completely trying to ignore them by hook or crook. - Holy Ganga ^talk 14:29, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

The BBC link clearly supports the (rather bland and unremarkable) statement that Hinudism is among the world's oldest existing religions. Tom Harrison ^Talk 14:44, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

How does it do that? There is no mention of the word oldest or derivatives of, and it doesn't compare it to the dates of other religions. It is a logical fallacy to assume that given a date of X that seems old that there are no religions before that. I don't doubt that Hinduism is probably the oldest religion, but the page doesn't state it. I will be reverting in an hour or so if a reason why the page is an appropriate citation. -- Jeff3000 14:54, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

The citation now says "Modern scholars now believe it to be pre-dated 3000 BCE" and that is from the BBC article and that is ok, but "modern scholars" uses weasel words (Wikipedia doesn't recommend the use of weasel words, see WP:AWW), and the BBC article is a secondary source. I think it best to find the original primary sources that state that, and use those to remove the ambiguity and the weasel words. -- Jeff3000 14:58, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Furthermore after reading the BBC article again, I don't think the BBC is stating which date is correct, they just state the two POV and state that it is controversial. Given Kenosis comment's I can see there is no consensus on the date here on Wikipedia either. So until we either have consensus, I think both dates and POV should appear. The caption is not the best place to argue these things, so I will be removing the date from there. -- Jeff3000 15:01, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

It's possible the names primary source and secondary source have caused some confusion. For Wikipedia, secondary sources are preferred. Tom Harrison ^Talk 15:04, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Dear Jeff, Nobody is claiming here that Hinduism is the oldest religion. BBC has presented a modern scholars view which says it is pre-dated 3000 BCE. Even if you don't accept latest advancements of Modern scholars and want to believe outdated things, still Hinduism will remain among oldest existing religions and this link fits with that claim. I prefer BBC link because it presents both old and Modern scholar views. Full information is always better than misguided, outdated or incomplete information. I think that section was deleted in haste.- Holy Ganga ^talk 15:06, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

As Tom noted I think I used primary and secondary sources incorrectly. What I meant is that instead of using the "some scholars" say this and "others" say that from the BBC article which is noting them, we should find those scholars and reference them directly. Second, the "modern scholars" that Holy Ganga is noting from the BBC article is controversial as noted by the BBC article "There is ongoing controversy over which version of Hindu history is the correct one." and thus both POV have to be noted, and the BBC article doesn't state that all modern scholars believe this but some, note the term various scholars. The best solution is to find those scholars and note the different points of view. -- Jeff3000 15:11, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, there is a controversy and thats why to present both views i selected this site. You should note that in support of Modern scholars view of 3000 BCE, site directly uses archeological evidences...

The earliest evidence for elements of the Hindu faith dates back as far as 3000 BCE.

Archaeological excavations in the Punjab and Indus valleys (right) have revealed the existence of urban cultures at Harappa, the prehistoric capital of the Punjab (located in modern Pakistan); and Mohenjo-daro on the banks of the River Indus.

The excavations have revealed signs of early rituals and worship.

• In Mohenjodaro, for example, a large bath has been found, with side rooms and statues which could be evidence of early purification rites.
• Elsewhere, phallic symbols and a large number statues of goddesses have been discovered which could suggest the practice of early fertility rites. - Holy Ganga ^talk 15:26, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't mind using the site, but the citation has to be used fairly. BBC gives two points of view, so it's unfair to quote 3000BCE and not the other from the article, given that the BBC states the date is controversial. In regards to other proofs, note Kenosis's objections. Once again the problem would be solved if we could find the scholars that state one thing and the others that state other things. From WP:AWW: "It is better to put a name and a face on an opinion than to assign an opinion to an anonymous source." Regardless as Tom noted the best place to have this noted is in the History of Hinduism. -- Jeff3000 15:37, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Ofcourse, you can't discuss this controvery here. I never said traditional view shouldn't be mentioned. That was the main reason i selected this site to present Modern Scholar views also. - Holy Ganga ^talk 15:56, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

"Hinduism is among the world's oldest existing religions. Dates for the origin of Hinduism range from 3000-1000 BCE.[1] Shown here is a 1100-year-old Siva temple in Indonesia." That looks pretty good to me. I do not object, I guess, to exploration of the origins of the major religions, but some of the details we are discussing might go better in History of Hinduism. Tom Harrison ^Talk 15:22, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Archeological finds of the type that brought Hinduism into its current controversy about origins are being found worldwide, not just on the subcontinent of Southern Asia. Two things are happening as a result: (1) many of the holy books are being given newer dates than originally supposed; and (2) a number of finds on every continent has set into motion many controversies about aspects of faiths that predate the writings. I don't have time to list the ones I know of or do further research of it right now.

What I vehemently object to is the removal of two solid, standard citiations (among numerous ones that are available) and replacing them with a link which immediately and clearly states that there is a controversy about it, and to neglect to mention the controversy, picking only the oldest date argued. To lean on the older pre-history speculations is not solid scholarship, but rather an attempt to put a predermined conclusion into the article on the part of the editor who made those changes a bit earlier.

The date range 3000-1000BCE accurately reflects the range of current argument about when "Hinduism" began...Kenosis 15:46, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Your refs. were only providing old traditional views of 1200 BCE and hence that information was incomplete, outdated (wrt to modern scholar views). You even rejected BBC claim for your personal preference of traditional dates. It's nice to see that now you are comfortable with that site and it's views. - Holy Ganga ^talk 16:02, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

This recounting of the events relating to the article's history is not quite factually correct. The text I provided already made reference to the archeological finds and an earlier date for the tradition, but didn't specify because there is a politically charged controversy about it. The history of the Religion article indicates that you then chose to remove the standard citations and replace it with the link to the BBC which plainly mentions the controversy, but with text supporting the earlier date as the definitive one. In either event, this discussion obviously does not any longer belong in this article. Many indigenous African and Asian religions hold equivalent claims. Next thing you know, proponents of a pre-Abraham form of Judaism will be arguing here too. Similarly, Sumerian predecessors of Zoroaster will perhaps feel the need to make their claim as well. Best we leave it alone here and explain such arguments about origins of particular religions in their respective articles...Kenosis 16:22, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

How many religious Jews?

There may be 14 million Jewish people, but they do not all follow the Jewish religion, which is the only proper subject for this page. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.67.108.121 (talk • contribs) .

From [7] it seems there are 10.4 million. There is also an article about religious and non-religious Jews in America here -- Jeff3000 16:07, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Evolutionary Theology

At which point is a religion condisidered to be distinct from it's predessor? What sepparates one religion from another? Is there an exact distinguishing factor (standard in linguistic or biological classification) or more like any set of varying factors (standard in ethnic/musical classification)? For instance, Christianity and its parent faith of Judaism are considered to be completely and distinct religions, of course. It's not the God Jews and Christians worship that set them apart, though the way they relate to God is very different. Perhaps it's just the fact that most of both faiths have claimed to belong to different religions for several centuries? Many works, including this article, define religion in there own way but few focus on what exactly destinguishes one from another.--J. Daily 04:38, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

There are different views of this. I think a religion is considered to be distinct from it's predecessor when it claims that it has a newer revelation and abrogrates the laws of the previous revelation. I think Christianity fits that description. On the other hand Islam states that Islam has always existed and that all peoples of the Book (Judaism, and Christianity among others) are really Islam just corrupted, and that Muhammad has just set religion back on the same track. The Baha'i Faith sees things as an amalgom of the two. Religion is seen as one progressive plan from God, and each religion is from God, but each messenger reveals new teachings and abrogates the previous religion's laws to help humanity progress; in this scheme, again it's the changing of laws that distinguish the different religions, but they are still under the same God. -- Jeff3000 05:01, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

These thoughtful comments, in sum, indicate why we so quickly removed the controversial section on "Oldest surviving religion(s)". I appreciate seeing these insights here....Kenosis 05:54, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Section removed and placed here for further discussion

It is not the place of this article to get involved in contests about the lineage and precise beginnings of religions. Therefore this new section is being placed here for further consideration and discussion as deemed appropriate by the various editors, ,,,Kenosis 00:05, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

===Oldest living religion===

Main article: Major world religions

Hinduism is generally considered to be the oldest living religion. Modern Indology traces the roots of Hinduism to around 1500–1300 BC based on literary datng of the Rig Veda, one of the world's oldest living religious texts. Some claim Judaism to be the oldest living religion, claiming their religion was started by Abraham around 1800 BC, according to the Bible. However, most beleive that Judaism was started around 1250 BC by Moses, when he received the Torah on Mount Sinai, and even this has been called into question, as it is a religious belief and has no proof. Zoroastrianism is also a very old religion. It is believed to have been founded around 1000 BC by the writing of the Gathas, though some believe the Gathas were written even earlier, around 1500–1250 BC, though most doubt this date and affirm the former. ... 00:05, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Misleading Numbers

Just a small gripe... I think the numbers of the religious adherents of the world religions is very deceptive. Number 1 is Christianity with 2.1 billion adherents and number 22 is Scientology with half a million adherents. Many people don't grasp numbers well... so I think it would be better to have a seperate chart for the other religions. 1 billion is exponentially larger than 500,000 on a scale that most people are incapable of grasping conceptually. Individuals who view the chart may be lead into thinking extremly small religions (as compared to the global population) are more popular in society then they actually are.

numbers

are these numbers actually right? I find it hard to believe some of it.

See adherents.com. Some of them might be inflated somewhat, but it can be very difficult to get an accurate count of religious believers. Since they vary greatly in their degree of observance, it becomes a question of where the line between membership and non-membership is drawn. To a degree, you have to use the religions' own definitions of membership as well, which might yield a number that's surprising in either direction. TCC (talk) (contribs) 22:21, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Religion and State

In Democratic and Republic countries, Religion should be separated from Individual. Any support to religion means at the cost of those who do not believe in Religion. India is a Democratic and Republic country where political parties Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are deeply involved in Religion and Caste based system. vkvora 05:38, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Religion the myth stories. Removed from primary and secondary education around the world.

Myth, Mythology, Religion and Mythology, Philosophy of Religion

vkvora 04:50, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Please stop spamming the talk page with this stuff. If you have a point to make with regard to article content, then make it. This is not a forum for promoting your personal causes. TCC (talk) (contribs) 18:57, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

From Religion. Religion is commonly defined as a group of beliefs concerning the myth of the supernatural, sacred, or divine, and the moral codes, practices, values, institutions, and rituals associated with such belief. It is sometimes used interchangeably with "faith" or "belief system" In the course of the development of religion, it has taken many forms in various cultures and individuals.

From Myth, in popular use, is something that is widely believed but false.

vkvora 19:51, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Your point appears to be that you are an atheist and want everyone to know it. That has nothing to do with article content, discussion over which is the purpose of this talk page. This is not your personal sounding board or a general discussion forum. We are writing an encyclopedia here. TCC (talk) (contribs) 20:05, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I think he might have been referring to the fact that the word myth is included in the intro, and that the popular use of the word is used to refer to something that is false, which would imply that religions are false also. However, the myth article also states "Use of the term by scholars does not imply that the narrative is either true or false." jaco♫plane 20:08, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

We measure the accuracy with false precision

vkvora 05:37, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Vkvorka, that isn't even a sentence... please don't edit if you can't write clean English, that is basic wiki courtesy. Anyway, concerning the use of the word myth at the very beginning of the article, I gave up telling my students to use a wiki for just this sort of thing... humanities articles in a wiki are hopeless amalgams of fact and personal axe-grinding. I can tell you, as someone in the academy, that even atheist scholars of religion wouldn't use the word myth at the very beginning of their definition in the way you have used it. I've never heard it used this way at an AAR meeting. To be sure, I have heard many papers given on myth and religion - but always with the idea that religion is larger than myth, or, put another way, myth is a part of religion, a very important part, but not the other way around. Speaking in terms of both religious phenomenology and religious experience, there is more than myth creation going on. But I'm not going to remove the word myth, prominently placed at the very top of this article, because it will just be re-inserted. THIS is why professionals in the humanities rarely edit a wiki (or remain to see an article through to a solid NPOV form- the journal Nature's judgement that Wikipedia was as accurate as Britannica was only for science/nature articles for a reason), and this is what will keep potentially good articles from being all they can be. Please stop the POV mess; the plea will fall on deaf ears, but there it is for what it's worth. This is not a scholarly definition of religion. Myth certainly is a part of it, but to reduce it all to myth is a mistake not even my undergraduate students make, whether or not they believe in anything. It certainly does not belong in an encyclopaedia. I'll fix it this time. That said, someone else is going to have to change it, because I've muddied myself for the last time with wiki POV mess. I've learned my lesson. Good luck, those of you with more stomach for it than I have. Morgaledth 22:40, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

To be fair, [[User:Vkvora2001|vkvora] didn't add that word; he's just expanding on it. TCC (talk) (contribs) 20:17, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Christianity Numbers

Some denominations of Christianity, including the Roman Catholic Church, count "Christian" as anyone who has been baptized and did not officially renounce his/her Christianity. As a result, many people who were baptized as babies but grow up to be non-Christian are still counted as Christian. (This is according to Canon law.) Also, some of the people who are counted as "Christian" are from the 1800's!. This is due to a lack of proper updating system. While each religion may count its adherents diffirently, shouldn't this be mentioned below the "Present Day Adherents" section? MickeyK 21:59, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Wouldn't counting adherents from the 1800's be consistent with the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead and of life everlasting? ;-) May as well keep including them while waiting for the Kingdom come. ... Kenosis 05:43, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Where are you getting the information that deceased people are being included in current census figures? Who's doing this? TCC (talk) (contribs) 08:16, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

No one knowingly counts dead people as current members, even catholic (Roman, Anglican, Orthodox) groups who pray for the dead, or Christian sects such as Mormons, who also have elaborate rituals concerning deceased members (there is a reason they are the geneological sine qua non in the States). If you can show that someone does (with some type of attribution), you should write an article on it, someone is bound to publish it. As it is, this is just false and should be stopped. There is no doubt that membership rolls need updating, from the local church to the local mosque to the local coven. But it will not change the overall numbers by the amount you seem to imply. Please, give us some reference, or occupy yourself constructively on another article. Morgaledth 22:57, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I am working on obtaining information that deceased persons are included in Christianity membership counts (probably not on purpose; most likely due to not updating the member rolls). However, the main point of my discussion is that due to Catholic canon, anyone who has been baptized are counted as Christians (Unless they officially renounced their Christianity to a senior cleric). Surely this will result in a misleading count. Many people that I know have been baptized at an early age, yet have never touched a Bible in their lives. I am sure this sort of scenario occurs extremely frequently, as Christian parents in the 70's and 80's had their children baptized, who grow up in the modern, more secular world. MickeyK 14:47, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I really doubt the statistics used on this page (adherents.com) include people who are deceased, regardless of if some Christian denominations do include them. Also regarding your second comment regarding participation, all religious numbers include some people who are not active in their religion. For a discussion on this topic see this adherent.com page. -- Jeff3000 15:34, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I apologize for my snide remark above. I was baptized Roman Catholic and haven't participated for nearly 40 years, yet continue to be counted. I am by no means unique in that regard. ... Kenosis 19:08, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

The site www.adherents.com admits that these numbers are towards the high end of estimates. I accept that all religious numbers include some people who are not active in their religion, but shouldn't those two facts be included within the article? MickeyK 18:59, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Mass edits placed here for consideration

I have removed these major edits to the section on "Definition of Religion" for further consideration and discussion as to the validity and usefulness of their content... Kenosis 06:33, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

William Alston has suggested that the presence of a number of the following characteristics would make a set of practices a religion: 1) Belief in supernatural beings (gods), 2) a distinction between sacred and profane objects, 3) ritual acts focused on sacred objects, 4) a moral code believed to be sanctioned by the gods, (5) characteristically religious feelings, 5) prayer and other forms of communication with gods, 6) a world view, or a general picture of the world as a whole and the place of the individual therein, 7) a more or less total organization of one's life based on the world view 8), a social group bound together by the above (Alston 1967, pp. 141–142). ... 06:33, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

While the above indicates a set of beliefs and practices, Asian religious traditions, on the other hand, generally emphasize an inner state of realization instead of a merely instrumental rite or doctrine. ... 06:33, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Alstons polythetical approach has been enhanced and modified by Benson Saler (Saler 1990) utilizing Wittgensteinian Family Resemblance Theory and Roschian Prototype Theory. ... 06:33, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Now, the analytical category 'religion' may be conceptualized by a certain set of aspects (attributes, characteristics etc.) which in themselves does not constitute the category, but rather when they relate to each other in certain patterns. In this way one religion Buddhism, may resemble Hinduism, but be more or totally different from say Raëlism. In any case, however different, they may all be religions. In other words: Religions resemble each other likes members of a family. There is not one essential attribute, but rather "distinct patterns". Recently this promising approach has been modified by cognitivist scholar of religion Ilkka Pyysiainen. ... 06:33, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

These approaches are those ideally employed by the Scientific Study of Religion today, and they naturally deconstruct rhetorical instrumentality and biased perspectives. In this way scholars of religion pay little heed to elite Moslem theologians claiming that all Moslems believe only in one god and the precepts of the Quran exclusively, to elite Buddhist theologians claiming that there are no gods in Buddhism or to members of Share International saying their organization is not a religious one. Just because these have more access to media, does not mean that Indonesian farmers does not sacrifice to ancestor spirit-gods, that Bodhisattvas have not every attribute a god needs to have - analytically - to be a god or that Share International, believing in ancient Masters of wisdom in the Himalayas, meditation and adorcism does not constitute a religious movement. A "insider" defines 'religion' recognizing the impenetrability of its ultimate integrity. Such perspectives, however, are of little use to either scholars or "outsiders" whether they are religious or not. ... 06:33, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

06:33, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm glad you took them out, I don't know if they really fit. I think the current section has enough information and is of the right length. -- Jeff3000 15:00, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

OK, I wrote some of this stuff, and I see why and how it does not really fit - sorry for that - but some of what's left is really archaic stuff and does not tell very much about the definition of religion or how it is dealt with in the scientific study of religion... Sorry again. Most of the source material is from Benson Saler's 'Conceptualizing Religion...', which I put in the sources at the bottom of the article. --Yanemiro 17:59, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps, ideally, there should be an stand-alone article on the definition of religion and related problems? --Yanemiro 18:01, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I took religous studies as my minor in university, and while I didn't get as far as I'd like in it I observed a few things. In particular, the "Science of Religion" approach to Rel. Std. is incredibly dry. While the analytical categories you mention are useful, they entirely work from the outside of a religion, as if one could externally analyse and understand it without an internal persepective. While I agree it is useful to analyse externally, you cannot understand Muharram or Flagellants without understanding the personal identification of the practitioner with the sainted figure with whom they are empathizing. An external, rational analysis must needs find such behaviour insane, because it rarely is equipped to take into account the internal motivations of such actions.

Often such methodologies take the neutral mode of scientific inquiry as if it meant antagonistic skepticism. It was very disheartening. Post-modern deconstructionism has inherent limits that render it unable to adequately explain some social phenomena. In my experience, it sometimes leads to faux-rational, self-satisfied, smugly superior and elitist critique of a subject, rather than honest intellectual inquiry. This is especially true with respect to definition of terms and identity. Granted the orientalists of the 1800s had their own issues. :) They sort of went to town on the whole "immerse yourself in the object of your study" thing. But if we were to add such definitions of religion (based on scientific study of religion tools); if we were to apply definitions to groups other than their self-definition; if we were to re-define terms used within a religion in describing its aspects, then such must be done in such a way ss to preserve NPOV rigorously, and in such a way as to bound and contextualize both the internal and external definitions or characterizations. Only there can we both deconstruct and be respectful.

That, in essence, is my problem with the scientific study approaches - they tend to not be respectful, and some advocates thereof are quite self-righteous about not being required to be respectful. Personally, I feel quite strongly (POV) that respect is important. I think that encyclopedically we can mention such scientific definitions, but carefully and respectfully and neutrally. Anyway, sorry for the minor rant. It's only been pent up for about 16 years. :) Cheers. --Christian Edward Gruber 03:18, 1 June 2006 (UTC) P.S. Hey Jeff3000... I'm not stalking you. :-p

Christian; thanks for your thoughts, they bring a necessary and valuable focus to this discussion. I do, however, have some objections. You say the scientific approach is "incredibly dry", but I think it _needs_ to be dry. Religion is a progressive part of the human condition/human activity that needs to be understood on a trans-cultural and trans-temporal basis. You cannot understand Islam from a Shinto perspective, or Hinduism from a Christian perspective (which most of the Orientalists did). If that would be the case, Allah would be a kami and Visnu would be a god (which in both cases are wrong). Therefore a relevant approach to religion needs to transcend the conceptual constraints of each religion, while also informing on insider concepts or perspectives. Truth-claims however, or self-reflection, are of little interest to an outsider ....

Infact: understanding, rather thanbeleiving in things, tend tobe dry rather than exciting. In fact, things tend to become dry when you take on a very respectful perspective. Take Predicate logic; thats dry. Most users of Wikipedia are not Baha'i, they stand outside it, as they stand outside shintoism, islam and so forth. And the users of Wikipedia, dont want to have their knowledge about Shintoism, or religion in general to be coloured by Baha'i ideas. Therefore religions should be described and analysed in neutral, secular terms. Science (knowledge) may be more disheartening than Religion (faith), but that is the nature of science.

"In my experience, it sometimes leads to faux-rational, self-satisfied, smugly superior and elitist critique of a subject, rather than honest intellectual inquiry". You seem to pefer a culture-relativistic, insider approach to the study of religion, and I totally agree - but such perspectives have proven to have little value in analyzing religion as a transcultural, transtemporal phenomenon, exclusively. The Scientific Study of Religion is often called the Comparative Study of Religion, which kind of illustrates the out-side (etic) perspective that is normally utilized. Of course, such a perspective is not welcomed or natural / logical to any insider (emic) of religion.

The thing is: emic insider scholars / student of religion have proven to be more condemming and more biased than secular comparative scholars. Baha'i (and Mormon) scholars are good examples. There have been many Bahaist studies of religions (for example native ones, e.g. Bribri), but they have proven to be extremely biased and prejudgemental, as the minor Baha'i faith "logically" transcends all prior attempts to understand or approach the ultimate God or Universe.

My day to day work (as a master in the scientific study of religion) relates to religious insiders of all kinds (I am a specialist in Bahaism, Mormonism, Shintoism). My thesis deals with the highly controversial Yasukuni-jinja. My impression is that all religions (through discourse) seek to transcend any out-sider vocabulary to stand out as the unique and untouchable example. That's one (their) way of doing it, but in a secular and pluralist society (which I quite strongly believe WikiPedia reflects), no one counter-intuitive faith should dominate. There are other wiki-projects meant for the promotion of value-strong systems of interest.

Conclusively I would like to quote scholar of religion Bruce Lincoln's theses (taken from Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 8.3 (1996): 225-227.) (http://people.uncw.edu/bergh/par103/L03RThesesOnMethod.htm):

"5. Reverence is a religious, and not a scholarly virtue. When good manners and good conscience cannot be reconciled, the demands of the latter ought to prevail."

"13. When one permits those whom one studies to define the terms in which they will be understood, suspends one's interest in thetemporal and contingent, or fails to distinguish between "truths", "truth-claims", and "regimes of truth", one has ceased to function as historian or scholar. In that moment, a variety of roles are available: some perfectly respectable (amanuensis, collector, friend and advocate), and some less appealing (cheerleader, voyeur, retailer of import goods). None, however, should be confused with scholarship."

Wikipedia - and especally this article! -, I think, should be oriented towards secular and not religious truth-claims.

--Yanemiro 12:38, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Dear Yanemiro. Thanks for your response. While I understand where you are coming from, I would suggest that the "secular and pluralist" society represented is, in itself, a religious bias. Actually that's not true. I would distinguish secular from pluralist. A pluralist society reflects and represents a multitude of beliefs. A secular society reflects no belief (though it may make room for the private presence of belief). France would, in some ways, be reflective of a secular society, but not a pluralist society. French government tolerates, but does not support and embrace a plurality of the belief of its citizenry. Canada, though nominally an Anglican Christian state with protection for Catholic belief is, in practice a pluralistic socity far from secular.

The reason I make this distinction is to note that the citations you provide, and the perspective from which you analyze is a religous perspective. You assume that all religions are equally valid expressions of human religiosity, which is fine, but you necessarily eliminate the validity of truth-claims from the analysis. Because of this, you eliminate the basis for belief, in a lot of cases. Or rather you posit (assert) that the basis for belief is socio-cultural, or systemic/psychological in nature. These stem from the a-priori of the approach you describe. Further, in support of my contention that your secular approach is, in itself, a religious perspective, you offered us a truth-claim from Bruce Lincoln as "conclusive". I disagree with his statement #5 on its face, and did so when I was an agnostic before I discovered and accepted the Baha'i religion. Reverence is an entirely scholarly virtue. Many scientists throughout the 20th century had, as their core motivation, a sense of reverence for the world, for (in their view) God's creation, and profoundly pushed the boundaries of physics, biology, chemistry and so forth, always with a sense of reverence. Reverence did not, however, make them blind. Reverence need not alter one's perception of data, but it can provide one with a deeper appreciation of what one learns from data. My mother, a molecular-geneticist, is for me a prime example. Science, to her, is an inquiry into God's creation and it is immensely beautiful and reverent.

Lastly, I agree with you that no one religious view should take precedence in describing other religions, but the views of scholars who have a contrary set of a-priori cannot take precedence over the views of "believing" scholars for precisely the same reason. They should not, on the other hand, be squelched either. If you think Baha'is are necessarily chauvenistic and exclusivist in your academic analysis of the implications of their beliefs in progressive revelation, for instance, that would be something that could be referenced in a wiki-oriented sentence like "Some scholars find the progressive revlation concept to be one that tends to encourage a minimization of others' beliefs as less valid, seemingly in contradiction to the view that Baha'is must accept other faiths as true and valid - (ref: some study)" If some published scholar said it and it had currency among academia, include it. However, just because a scholar said it about the Baha'is, it does not adequately explain why Baha'is would both believe that other religions are true/valid and why Baha'u'llah's views on religion should be preferred. Not unless you cop-out and say that they are hypocrites, or that the don't sufficiently self-analyze. You can believe that, but I know of several Baha'is (hello!) who do a heck of a lot of analysis and self-analysis who would disagree with that oversimplification of the implications of progressive revelations. (That last sentence sure sounded like Al Sharpton... :)

Anyway, Y, my point is merely that secularism is another religious perspective. My own study of Taoism was informed by my faith, but in learning about Taoism I uncovered plenty of new understandings about my own, and I studied all of them from the perspective of that practice, to "put myself in their shoes". I understand Muharram today because I can empathize with Shi'ih belief in Ali's righteusness and Husayn's "terrible betrayal" at the hands of Yazid. I also understand Sunni views of the same event and why they would feel differently. I understand the sublimity of holy communion, even though to a Baha'i friend of mine with a Zoroastrian background, the whole thing was some sort of crazy blood ritual. Upon explaining the ritual from the Christian perspective, and giving her some background and empathy, she began to understand it, even though she differed in her own belief after receiving the clearer understanding. In short, I do not believe it ever requires irreverence to study a religion, and I think the comparison of good manners and good conscience is largely a false dichotomy. I hope you do contribute the values of psychology and sociology to religious analysis in these articles. Just be aware of the natural bias and don't accidentally and arrogantly assume that your perspective has more validity in the exchange than a believers. This is something those involved with inter-faith activity have to learn, often through great difficulty and trial-and-error. Not validating or invalidating truth-claims is fine, but don't cross the line to assuming they are all false, which asserting certain psychological motivations does implicitly. Cheers and respect. -- Christian Edward Gruber 13:09, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Dear Christian. You are right, there is an important distinction between secular and pluralist. Further, you make a pretty strong case for the inclusion of emic perspectives (I really like your tone and your style of argumentation), but I - of course - still disagree. I will not comment on it all, but rather sum up my arguments (because this boils down to faith/religion versus knowledge/science in the end)...

(1) I think only a secular society / authority may grant / stimulate a relatively pluralist environment. - Religious communities, forexample (as a specialist I would say 'especially') the Baha'i, are restrictive and seek to transform knowledge on a non-empirical, or transempirical basis (in the Bahaist case their influence on native groups in especially South America (e.g. the Bribri) and the Zoroastrians. This is not wrong, but in a world where most things - even for example terrorrism - seem to have a quite empirical discernable point-of-origin, a focus on empirical evidence is crucial, because in enables us to promote humanist values, toleration and non-prejudice, something e.g. Bahaists are not known to practice in the long run.

(2) Secularism is another religious perspective. Embedded in Christian values and thought. I am agnostic myself, but I agree. Science still originated in this setting, and should stay there. It grew from conflicts with religious authority, and this, I think, should be its ultimate nature. We agree that no one religious view should take precedence in describing other religions. But what is "precedence over"? Media-coverage? Right to dominate Wikipedia? Secular/agnostic scholarship, is secular/agnostic scholarship. Do adherents to religions have a right to enter the universities and claim the right to be heard or to write books. We have some bahaists that regularly enter the Institute at my University, they do a minor and so forth, but tend to stop because they feel the 'dryness' of it all suffocating. Well, this is the nature of science. If transformed, it is not science any more.

Secular scholarship, or pluralist scholarship, have - as you said - an agnostic bias. And this is good. None of my professors and me myself would never rule out God, but we deal with the cognitive and systemtic expressions of religion. We say: if god speaks to man, he does it through mans cognitive faculties, and if man changes the world at the command of god, man does it through social organization. Scholars do not rule out God, but seek to know as much as possible about the context of God adherence and the consequences of such.

(3) I do not believe that my perspective has more validity than believers perspectives. But when it comes to cognitive and social/organizational knowledge about religion, scholarship is much less biased than religious knowledge about religion. Because it is interested in emperically discernable effects, it is less influenced by the normative positions we find "within" religions. Both perspectives, however, are complementary (and therefore a true scientific project allows both a voice), but - my final argument - for Wikipedia, I think a relatively neutral scholarship is the ideal and what is wanted by the masses.

(4) This discussion started with that I wrote some things about the ANALYTICAL definition of religion, the one utilized by scholarship. I believe the Religion article do have some stuff on emic perspectives. As much as I respect you arguments and your case (you have taught me some good lessons, Chris); I say we move on to discussing the matter at hand; namely "the validity and usefulness" of having a stand alone article (as I suggested) on different ways of defining religion, with both emic and etic points-of-references.

Thanks for your dedication so far, Chris =) And thanks for your patience relating to my crappy English ;) --Yanemiro 10:34, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Wow, Yanemiro, quite a lot to digest and discuss. I agree with much of what you say and disagree with much of your conclusions and assertions. Other things I don't know enough about to have formulated an opinion. You're right, however, this is not the right forum for what is evolving into a very interesting discussion.

I would particularly be interested in understanding more of your specialist experience with the Baha'i faith (especially your assertions that Baha'is will necessarily be less tolerant over time, etc.), but would like to do that off-line. I am getting quite interested in this discussion, but other Wikipedians may not be, so let's leave it off, even though there are some tough claims left unanswered here. Please also bear in mind that claims to scholastic authority will not carry very far with me - any more than claims to scriptural authority would go with you. We'll have to meet on the neutral ground of clear-minded analysis and examination of real cases, I suspect, in order to get anywhere. But I encourage you to e-mail me (my wiki-home describes my e-mail with some anti-spamming obfuscation which you should be able to decode). Anyway, I agree, we can get back to the main discussion, and maybe make a new topic to restart that discusion, so people don't have to wade through our stuff... and your english is fine. :) --Christian Edward Gruber 14:41, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Religion, myth, real and imaginery or imagined

I have seen the article on religion, myth but there is no article on imaginery or imagined.

The word myth from first para of religion is removed to adjust the real part of the religion.

vkvora 13:43, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Previously it was :

Religion is commonly defined as a group of beliefs concerning the myth of the supernatural, sacred, or divine, and the moral codes, practices, values, institutions, and rituals associated with such belief. It is sometimes used interchangeably with "faith" or "belief system" The words "belief system" may not necessarily refer to a religion, though a religion may be referred to as "belief system." In the course of the development of religion, it has taken many forms in various cultures and individuals.

Now changed.

vkvora 02:17, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Religious conversion in international law

The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights defines religious conversion as a human right: "Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, ...." (Article 18).

Based on the declaration the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) drafted the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a legally binding treaty. It states that "Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right shall include freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice, ..." (Article 18.1). "No one shall be subject to coercion which would impair his freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice." (Article 18.2).

The UNCHR issued a General Comment on this Article in 1993: "The Committee observes that the freedom to 'have or to adopt' a religion or belief necessarily entails the freedom to choose a religion or belief, including the right to replace one's current religion or belief with another or to adopt atheistic views [...] Article 18.2 bars coercion that would impair the right to have or adopt a religion or belief, including the use of threat of physical force or penal sanctions to compel believers or non-believers to adhere to their religious beliefs and congregations, to recant their religion or belief or to convert." (CCPR/C/21/Rev.1/Add.4, General Comment No. 22.; emphasis added)

vkvora 04:49, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Hinduism

Being only the 4th largest religion, yet 4 pictures of Hinduism, and no pics of Christianity. Something wrong here? Chaldean 15:06, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

First pic (Fishers of Men) is of Christianity. Jerusalem is of Christianity (and others). Medieval painting of man with halo is Christian. So 2 pure Christian pictures, and one about the three monotheistic religions. No problem! Fram 15:13, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually Hinduism is 3rd largest religion (excluding atheist ideologies). From another angle i would say there is only one picture of Hinduism (last one related to Hindu philosphy) . Other three pictures are actually pictures of an Oldest existing religion, most visiting religious shrine in the world and Largest religious gathering of humanity. It's logical that in an article on religion...pictures giving information about this Oldest, Most and Largest will definately get a place. As Fram has already explained, Christianity definately has more than one picture in this article. So, No problem! - Holy Ganga ^talk 15:28, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I suggest switching one of the Hinduism pictures with a Buddhist picture. -- Jeff3000 00:08, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

This discussion reveals a poverty among Wikipedia contributors. Of what relevance is having many or fewer pictures related to each religion. Whether a picture is included, should depend on how relevant it is to elucidating the article.Shyamss 01:36, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Criticism

The article Religion contains nothing about criticism and hence it is incomplete. Experts on Religion article are requested to add some information about criticism.

vkvora 04:03, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

That's fine, but don't put an empty section on the article. Requests for additions are done on the talk pages, just as you did above. -- Jeff3000 04:10, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

It's completely sacrilegiousthat no criticism is given at all. Hundreds of millions of people died in wars with a religious roots. Failure to mention that is inhumane.

As I said, there's an entire articles on Criticism of religion, and also Religious violence which are linked to under "See also". If you want to link to them more prominently, knock yourself out. But really, get some perspective. On the scale of what's really inhumane, the content of this article is negligible -- even if (or especially if) hundreds of millions really have been killed because of religion. (They haven't.) TCC (talk) (contribs) 20:26, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

See Criticism of Religion. The topic has an entire article to itself, which is linked from here via the {{Religion topics}} at the bottom. TCC (talk) (contribs) 04:39, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

some suggestions about the basic definition

I am sure it is striking to any reader that religion defined as a system of belief is not a normal usage. For example, it does not distinguish religion even from science. However it is probably the right starting point.

My first suggestion is that we must realise that in modern western society religion is basically understood as any system of belief which can not be supported by rational argument based upon evidence. This might sounds simple, but I think this is how the word mostly gets used. The basic understanding we westerners have is that science and religion are two contrasting types of explanation. Other cultures did not have such an understanding, meaning that pagans, for example, did not see any obvious conflict between researching how the planets move, and being pious. The crucial difference is the development of a unquestionable traditions, which are formally unquestionable and not just relatively unquestionable like any tradition (and even scientists).

The other modern meaning is secondary: we refer to communities after the beliefs they share.

Then we need to explain to ourselves how this connects to the other meanings, which are non modern, non western.

1. I'd say that most broadly, religion is a system of beliefs relating man not only to the universe, but also to whatever is said to lies behind the universe.

2. But it must be understood that "laws of nature" (as in modern science) won't do. All religions seem to include accounts of how what lies behind the universe has strong implications for how man should live. In other words, it asserts that there are human-like intentions behind the things we see.

--Andrew Lancaster 13:49, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

I disagree completely that religion is a system of belief that cannot be supported by rational argument based upon evidence. People can follow religious practice and see the effects on their lives and the lives of the people around them, thus confirming their beliefs. Secondly, in the Islamic sense, there are at least two methods of going by to show the truth of the religion; they are the proof based on establishment proof based on verses. Sure you might not agree with these proofs, but that doesn't mean that for all people there is no rational argument involved in believing in religion. -- Jeff3000 13:56, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Just to repeat, I distinguish, and the article should distinguish, two common usages of the term religion. I do think that most people, including religious people, in western countries, tend to use the word in a special way, which you disagree with. But I also accept, and the article should point out, that there is another meaning. Please consider what I wrote another time. Thanks. --Andrew Lancaster 21:59, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Small point, but really before the enlightenment, religion and science in the west (or western europe and clients) were largely connected, with most sciences being practiced by the literate class, which was largely (though not always exclusively) the priesthood. So the whole "west has a different concept" thing is really that post-enlightenment secular society has a different concept. In that connection, while religion as separate from science may not have been entirely clear before, religion all the way back to pre-enlightenment times, back to Zoroastrianism clearly shares some features. Those features are what are described on this page. --Christian Edward Gruber 22:37, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

I think you are only disputing the time when science and religion came into conflict in the west? You might be right. I guess I was considering the roots of the problem. As I guess you know, the problem is sometimes called "Athens versus Jerusalem" and it appears that these cities were grappling with the problem from an early date, and that their alternative answers define the later split between science and religion. I have heard it said that the "west" drawn into this debate is a "Greater West" which included the Arab world from an early date also.--Andrew Lancaster 11:06, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

New intro

The new intro by Andrew is

Religion is a human phenomenon that defies easy definition. Like a scientific school or a traditional community a religion is a "belief system". In other words it is defined by a group of beliefs which are shared by members of a particular community who are in turn bound together by this shared belief.

To contrast religion to other belief systems, the type of subject matter of religions must be considered:-

(a) Religions always involve beliefs about Objects which are not directly observable: the supernatural, sacred, or divine. In modern western societies, the term "religion" is sometimes used interchangeably with "faith". Indeed, the term religion is often used to mean any belief which can not be justified on the basis of directly observable evidence. This is to some extent unsatisfactory partly because it arguably no longer covers all religions, and partly because some would argue that even modern science believes in unobservable “laws of nature”.

(b) More specifically, religions involve an understanding about how people should live, which (in contrast to an ethical theory in philosophy) is linked to the above-mentioned shared understanding of the divine which can not be observed in everyday life. This normally involves an assertion that there are divine beings who are interested in what humans do, and are able to affect them. Religions therefore typically specify sacred duties, such as rites and rituals.

By extension, "religion" often also refers to the community which shares the belief system under discussion. And occasionally, the word "religion" is used in the more restricted sense of "organized religion" — that is, an organization of people supporting the exercise of some religion, often taking the form of a legal entity (see religion-supporting organization).

There are multiple problems with this intro, and I will revert to the old version until the problems are fixed.

1. It is much too detailed for a lead.
2. It is POV that the understanding of the divine cannot be observed in everyday life. Not all religions are so. The intro has to be generic enough to fit all religions.

You might be right, but I can't see how. Is there any religion which really only refers to direct observable phenonoma? Even science does not achieve this?--Andrew Lancaster 13:36, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

1. There is no citations for any of the assertions. While the old one does not have many citations either (has one), the status quo should stay for such a big change until citations can be found. -- Jeff3000 17:53, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Fair comment. It is probably nearly always possible to ask for better citations, but perhaps adding more detail in this introduction will conflict with the implications of point 1?--Andrew Lancaster 13:36, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps it is time to begin putting in citations for already consensused material. This article's introduction has been noteworthy and quite stable in introducing the topic to readers, particularly for a subject this broad. I believe I recall seeing several sources brought up in discussion in recent months. Perhaps we can begin to refer to them in footnotes? . ... Kenosis 18:28, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Religions are pseudoscientific

Religions are pseudoscience - they say they know how the world works and they say they have evidence, yet the evidence isn't falsifiable and there are no experiments that can verify their "information". If that's not a false science, then what is? 205.188.117.13 02:18, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

• Pseudoscience is a term applied to a body of knowledge, methodology, or practice that diverges from the usual standards required for scientific work, or which is unsupported by sufficient, substantial or verifiable scientific evidence and research. - opening paragraph of "Pseudoscience" article - certainly suits the mythologies and even theology of just about all of the religions out there. 205.188.117.13 02:20, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Your quotation only means that wikipedia's article about pseudoscience sucks. In a nutshell, one shall not confuse knowledge and belief. And certainly mythologies, fairy tales, science fiction, sentimental novels, dreams, sexist jokes, etc., etc. are not pseudoscence, although Yo Mama jokes are "unsupported by verifiable scientific evidence". (BTW, don;t you see that the quoted definition contains a logical fallacy: "pseudoscience is what is not science"? Exercise: find out the name of this logical fallacy (there is a game in wikipedia called "wikihunt") `'mikka (t) 16:07, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
• Your generalization without knowing all the basic understanding of all religions are what keeps religion from being pseudoscience. Indeed, while most are not scientific, some (eastern philosophical religion) do employ scientific method and some (eastern philosophical religion) do employ experiments and can be verified by modern science. Meditation, for example, is scientifically proven to have clear changes in brain waves. The scientists have not determined whether meditation results in calm-mind or whether calm-minded person is drawn to meditation. But those "religions", can be argued as a philosophical way of life, so it not necessarily the religion you had in mind. Monkey Brain 02:39, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Fear of god

I am utterly surprized that there is no "Fear of god" article, which is the very basic topic in religion. (There does exist "Fear of God" article, but this is an abomination.) `'mikka (t) 15:54, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Adhrents.com numbers...

They had only 4 million for Shinto. Are they accurate? The cia fact book states that 84% of Japanese population are profess to both Shinto and Buddhist. And last time I checked 4 million is not 84% of Japanese population. How accurate is Adherents.com? I do not know the accuracy of that site. Monkey Brain_(talk) 21:46, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

See [8] for an explanation of that number. TCC (talk) (contribs) 22:15, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Ah ok. Hadn't read that. However their estimates are not too favorable. They do seem to redifine the word adherents to fit the bill(about shinto) and that their judgement seems to interfere with the actual statistics(Note the "non-religious" definition on the pie chart). Monkey Brain_(talk) 22:31, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Not really. They base their information on self-identification when they can. Their point is that most Europeans identify themselves as Christian even if they're not observant. The same is not true for Japanese and Shintoism. TCC (talk) (contribs) 06:19, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Seperation?

Is it time to seperate the religions by their nature? Theistic and Nontheistic? I have encountered many people who have beliefs that religions are all same; theistic by nature. Should it now be noted? I know it would be a pretty big step by categorization religions as either Theistic or Nontheistic, but if this would help solve the confusion, then shouldn't it be categorized? Monkey Brain_(untalk) 03:19, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

On reflection, it's kind of surprising this hasn't been done yet. Theistic/nontheistic seems like a pretty basic division. TCC (talk) (contribs) 06:21, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Yet this would be a problematic distinction because traditions that are regularly classified as nontheistic (e.g. Buddhism) frequently involve deities in common practice. If such a distinction is made I would suggest some qualifications. If Buddhism, for instance, is expressedly nontheistic in its textual cannon, and/or in what is termed its "philosophy" then it needs to be compared on those grounds, and not simply as a religion. Otherwise readers will be left with the false assumption that all or most Buddhists, to continue with the same example, do not worship or even believe in the existence of deities or other extra-human beings.PelleSmith 21:35, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

2.1 Billion???

According to this article there are 2.1 billion "professed adherents" of christianity. This is absurd. How was this figure arrived at? I see that it comes from 'adherents.com' which is hardly likely to be an objective source! Looking back at the talk page I can see that this is questioned very frequently. Please put in some elements of doubt over these figures. As it stands the article looks ridiculous. Poujeaux 14:46, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Adherents.com is a reliable source, with extensive information about methodology. It is used accross Wikipedia. -- Jeff3000 14:50, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Adherents.com is not a reliable source:

• As the article admits, the numbers don't even add up!
• The main source seems to be something called the 'World Christian Encyclopedia'!
• That obviously biased source claims 1.9 billion. The 2.1 billion is a 'projection'.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Poujeaux (talk • contribs)

Adherents.com has one of the most comprehensive databases of statistitics on religious adherents. They don't gather any statistics themselves, but rather collect them from other sources. They state: "We present data from both primary research sources such as government census reports, statistical sampling surveys and organizational reporting, as well as citations from secondary literature which mention adherent statistics. Adherents.com is an Internet initiative and is not affiliated with any religious, political, educational, or commercial organization." -- Jeff3000 13:12, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Adherents.com recognizes that different sources may provide slightly different or even contradictory information. and Adherent statistics are usually not precisely comparable. In other words they recognize that they do get their info from biased sources, in which they do list the source that they are getting the info from. Out of all the sources, I would say 1.9 billion is an appropriate number. This number coincides with almanacs and other non-biased sources. Somerset219 21:46, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Just because a database is voluminous does not make it valid or verifiable. Let's just take one example: France. adherents.com claims that there are 45,624,000 adherents to "Christianity" in France (using the highest of their several figures for the category). Contrast this with the Norris (Harvard) & Inglehart (U of Michigan) analysis of the Eurobarometer survey data that indicates that fewer than 10% of the French population "participates" in religious activity (see Figure 2 of http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1070-3535.2005.00406.x?cookieSet=1). In the same analysis, only 56% of those polled in France expressed a "belief in God" (Table 1). The CIA World Factbook reports the population of France at 60,876,136 as of July 2006 (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/fr.html). From the arithmetic, Christian "adherence" in France would fall in a range of 6,087,613 (low est.) to 34,090,636 (high est.). Note further that these estimated figures are from surveys of general religious sentiment or activity, not affiliation with any particular religious denomination. Therefore they should probably be discounted further by roughly 25%, being the percentage of non-Christians in France using adherents.com's own numbers: (61M - 46M)/61M. And for a true NPOV estimate, there would need to be some research into whether within the roughly 34M who expressed a belief in God there was a positive bias within a non-Christian cohort (e.g. the second largest community per the CIA reference noted above, Muslims).

Now, none of this is to assert any particular number as correct for the number of "Christians" in France. But, it is to show that other reliable sources either directly give or estimate numbers for one archetypal Christian country which would be roughly 50-85% lower than adherents.com's figure. Apply the same scrutiny to the larger supposedly "Christian" countries like Germany, UK, USA, Brazil, Mexico and so on and the aggregate total would likely drop below 1 Billion "Christian" "adherents" worldwide. (Using the CIA's own raw data, for what they are worth, the total is less than 1.8 Billion.) Ubarfay 04:08, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Image moved here

I've removed the image of the Tirupati temple and am placing it here for future reference. It was getting crowded in that part of the article, and the map image of the Pew Research Center study of demographics is far more relevant to that section on "demographic trends" than any photo. As well, before I removed it, four of the ten pictures (excepting the multi-faith symbols at beginning) were drawn from Hinduism. Now it's three of ten, which seems a reasonable representation for this article. ... Kenosis 16:29, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

[[Image:Tirumala svtemple.jpg|thumb|250px|right| The [[Tirupati]] Hindu temple is the most visited religious shrine in the world and the second richest religious shrine after the [[Vatican City|Vatican]].<ref name=Tirupati>[http://www.rediff.com/money/2005/apr/27tirupati.htm "Tirupati temple"]</ref>]] ... 16:29, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Extra etymological discussion by Robert Graves

Here is the somewhat bloated blockquote discussion from The White Goddess, submitted yesterday by anon IP, in case there is useful material to be gleaned from it. ... Kenosis 16:46, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

"The dictionaries give its etymology as 'doubtfull'. Cicero connected it with relegere, 'to read duly' - hence 'to pore upon, or study' divine lore. Some four-and-a-half centuries later, Saint Augustine derived it from religare, 'to bind back' and supposed that it implied a pious obligation to obey divine law; and this is the sense in which religion has been understood ever since. Augustine's guess, like Cicero's (though Cicero came nearer the truth), did not take into account the length of the first syllable of religio in Lucretius's early De Rerum Natura, or the alternative spelling relligio. Relligio can be formed only from the phrase rem legere, 'to choose, or pick, the right thing', and religion for the primitive Greeks and Romans was not obedience to laws but a means of protecting the tribe against evil by active counter-measures of good. It was in the hands of a magically minded priesthood, whose duty was to suggest what action would please the gods on peculiarly auspicious or inauspicious occasions. When, for example, a bottomless chasm suddenly opened in the Roman Forum, they read it as a sign that the gods demanded a sacrifice of Rome's best, one Mettus Curtius felt called upon to save the situation by choosing the right thing, and leaped into the chasm on horseback, fully armed. On another occasion, a woodpecker appeared in the Forum where the City Praetor, Aelius Tubero, was dispensing justice, perched on his head and allowed him to take it in his hand. Since the woodpecker was sacred to Mars, its unnatural tameness alarmed the augurs, who pronounced that, if it were released, disaster would overcome Rome; if killed, the Praetor would die for his act of sacrilege. Aelius Tubero patriotically wrung its neck, and afterwards came to a violent end. These unhistorical anecdotes seem to have been invented by the College of Augurs as examples of how signs should be read and how Romans should act in response to them."

Robert Graves: The White Goddess (p477)

... 16:46, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Request for Comment

Which version of the intro is better?

• Kenosis version (which Kenosis claims has been "consensused")
• Xosa version (which is made by an editor who would never try to use "consensused" in a sentence)

1. I like the Xosa version because it's better. Saying that "Religion is a human phenomenon that defies easy definition" doesn't tell me anything. An encyclopedia primarily conveys what we do know, not what we don't. Check any reference in Britannica for an example. Giving a non-definition may avoid controversy, but so would leaving the article blank. A first line that actually conveys some sort of information is definitely better. Always improving, going with the better edit, is the Wiki way. --Xosa 03:58, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, very quickly at the moment, I don't know for sure what's "better". But longstanding editors of this article arrived at basically the current version (now dubbed the "Kenosis version") in order to introduce the subject fairly in light of the many questions that surround the idea of "religion", and the range of folks that lay claim to the term. The idea of "faith", also standard, may in my opinion have a place in the intro. But that is not what was previously consensused. I'm willing to talk further about this later, but for now, good regards to all participating editors. ... Kenosis 04:08, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

If you can't even support the edit that you made, I feel confident that mine is preferable out of the two. The Wiki way is to be bold and change the article to what we believe is most useful while also taking into consideration the views of others. That is exactly what I did. You reverted it without using any of my contribution and apparently without even believing in the edit you made. I responded by requesting the help of others to solve the dispute. It seemed to work out well, but I attribute that only to my keeping a cool head after you reverted my contribution. You may find that others aren't quite as gracious. --Xosa 04:16, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

• Comment I dislike an opening sentence that's as wishy-washy as the "Kenosis version", which I'm pretty sure Kenosis didn't write so it's not an entirely fair label. However, if the "Xosa version" is to be used I think we need a few cites, for the claim that religion is always faith-based if nothing else. "Faith" has connotations in Christianity it lacks in most other religions, and for many it's easy to over-emphasize its importance. Between wishy-washy and inaccurate, the former is the lesser sin. TCC (talk) (contribs) 04:18, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Do you personally disagree with the assertion that religion is based largely on faith? --Xosa 04:23, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

This is certainly interesting enough for me to stay with it a bit longer for the moment. We have one editor whose previous edit was to Conan the Barbarian and another whose previous edit was to God the Father. So let's talk about this a bit further (it's late night here), and see what the various other current and longer-term participating editors have to say. ... Kenosis 04:26, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

All I ask is that the editor believe in and support the edit he makes. If there is a dispute, it should be more than just a mental exercise. It should reflect ones actual feelings on the subject. --Xosa 04:33, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

The Wikipedia gold standard is actually verifiability. Feelings don't enter into it at all. TCC (talk) (contribs) 04:52, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

To answer Xosa: That depends on how you define "faith". In the Christian sense, no, obviously not. If one means mere "belief", then yes, but such a definition could also include a number of systems that are purely philosophical in intent. Either way, this is a positive statement, novel and potentially controversial, and should be cited. TCC (talk) (contribs) 04:27, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Kenosis is very true that the current lead has gone through many revisions, and has had consensus. That said I think both versions have their good points. I've combined the versions into this new Jeff3000 version

Religion is a system of social coherence commonly understood as a group of beliefs or attitudes concerning an object (real or imagined), person (real or imagined), or system of thought considered to be supernatural, sacred, divine or highest truth, and the moral codes, practices, values, institutions, and rituals associated with such belief or system of thought. It is sometimes used interchangeably with "faith" or "belief system", but is more socially defined than that of personal convictions.

The development of religion has taken many forms in various cultures. "Organized religion" generally refers to an organization of people supporting the exercise of some religion with a prescribed set of beliefs, often taking the form of a legal entity (see religion-supporting organization). Other religions believe in personal revelation and responsibility.

What do you think? -- Jeff3000 04:30, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Support, if we're taking a vote. It comes close to saying what I was about to say, but for an edit conflict. TCC (talk) (contribs) 04:38, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Also in regards to Xosa's statement regarding if religion is largely based on faith. While it may be true for some people, I do not think it is generally true. True study and practice of religious teachings one can understand the purpose, and at that point it becomes much more than faith. Regardless it is a controversial topic, and making such an assertion should be left out of the lead. -- Jeff3000 04:33, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

How about saying, "belief or faith?" --Xosa 04:36, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Why are you so insistent on the word "faith"? What do you mean by it?

But I don't think this is useful. Belief is a component of faith, so "belief" is the more generally applicable term. TCC (talk) (contribs) 04:38, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I think use of the word "faith" is highly relevant in describing religion in more than just an "interchangeable" connotation. If you feel that faith isn't always present, the conjunction "or" removes it as a requirement. --Xosa 04:45, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

The current intro uses "or". -- Jeff3000 04:47, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

However, Jeff: I think you underestimate what is meant by faith. Study and practice deepen faith, they don't render it obsolete. TCC (talk) (contribs) 04:39, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I think people start with doubt, and then through study and practice one can obtain faith, but I think the final stage, which is done through more study and practice is to reach certitude. -- Jeff3000 04:42, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Faith is more than mere belief. There's also an element of trust, which never goes away no matter how deep the mystical certitude. In Orthodoxy, it's said that even the demons believe, and tremble -- but you'd scarcely credit them with any faith. TCC (talk) (contribs) 04:52, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Agree with you there. I think we're mostly on the same page. -- Jeff3000 04:54, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

It's an interesting question: Why not stick with "faith" as a primary criterion right in the intro?. Jeff3000, though, has seen many more of these discussions than I have. 'Night for now... Kenosis 04:46, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm off to bed as well. -- Jeff3000 05:05, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Thought I'd chime in to say that I really like the version currently up- the Jeff3000 version. It's a definite improvement on both the other two proposed versions. --Alecmconroy 12:03, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Organized religion

"'Organized religion' generally refers to an organization of people supporting the exercise of some religion with a prescribed set of beliefs, often taking the form of a legal entity (see religion-supporting organization)."

Isn't the "prescribed" requirement the only difference between an organized religion and any other? It's my understanding that any type of religion can be a legal entity, not just one organized with a top-down hierarchy. --Xosa 04:58, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't believe so. Usually there is also some sort of organization; meetings, administration, etc (it doesn't necessarily have to be top-down). As for your second question/assertion, the statement in the text of the article is not stating anything about if unorganized religion can or cannot be a legal entity, but stating that most often organized religion takes the form of a legal entity. -- Jeff3000 05:02, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Revert again

Xosa, please stop changing the intro. You asked for comments, both here and the RFC page, and so far everyone but you is happy with the current intro (an amalgam of your intro and the original intro). -- Jeff3000 03:18, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Religion and Terrorist Activities in Israel, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.

Terrorist activites are supported by Religious Leaders.

Is there any relation between religion and Terrorist activites?

vkvora 16:48, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

In a way. People who advocate violence will often interpret their religion in such a way as to either justify or condone it, whether that interpretation is accepted outside their violent circle or not. Religion as such is rarely a cause of violence, although it frequently serves as just one more way into which some divide the world along the lines of "us/not us". It might as well be nationality, language, or skin color. TCC (talk) (contribs) 22:59, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, vkvora, of course there is a relation. See the wikipedia articles on religious terrorism, religious violence, religious wars and criticism of religion. Terrorists are often religious extremists who abuse religion to justify killing those who don't share their belief. Religion is more divisive than the other things mentioned by TCC, because it encourages the 'we are god's chosen people' viewpoint. We could put something on this in the main article but it would be immediately deleted by someone - see your earlier attempt to include some criticism of religion.Poujeaux 12:39, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

No. More often than not, being "God's chosen people" requires that you not kill. That this is frequently ignored, and that adherents to such religions find ways to rationalize their killing anyway -- even to the point of twisting their religions teachings to the point where killing appears to be condoned even when it explicitly says the opposite -- is more a condemnation of man than his religions. TCC (talk) (contribs) 20:48, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

"And he that blasphemeth the name of the LORD, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him" - Leviticus 24:16 Poujeaux 13:54, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

In the bible there is a story of a person about to be stonned by a community, and Jesus stops the stonning by saying, "If you are a sin free person, you can throw the first stone". Leviticus 24:10-23 States that any man who murders or curses the lords name is to expect death by stones to be thrown by the community. Which is it? Is it sometimes ok to go against the ten commandments and kill another human being? Does a man murdering another man justify that if this man has killed, it is ok for the people to murder the murderer? 12:02 pm. 29th April, 2007

ABCs of Faith

We have many interesting articles about Religion and Faith on the web site

href="http://www.abcsoffaith.com/html/home.html"ABCsofFaith

Would you consider linking to it.... ````EDwin

In the bible there is a story of a person about to be stonned by a community, and Jesus stops the stonning by saying, "If you are a sin free person, you can throw the first stone". Leviticus 24:10-23 States that any man who murders or curses the lords name is to expect death by stones to be thrown by the community. Which is it? Is it sometimes ok to go against the ten commandments and kill another human being? Does a man murdering another man justify that if this man has killed, it is ok for the people to murder the murderer?

Fastest-growing religion?

I just removed the reference to "due to high birth rates", which was based on a citation to non-notable "futurist John Gary" who hasn't published, hasn't cited his sources, and who can't seem to be found. (see http://www.religioustolerance.org/growth_isl_chr.htm ) . Moreover, a reasonable citation is needed for the claim that Islam is the fastest growing religion, so I added a "citation-needed" to that claim. The religioustolerance.org webpage cites only a claim by Al Islam that the growth rate was 6.4% in 1994-1995 at a webpage that can no longer be found, not exactly an objective and credible source. ... Kenosis 15:18, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Good idea to remove reference (which I put in!). Have linked to Fastest Growing Religion instead, and said it is "claimed to be" (which is definitely true). Hope this is OK Mike Young 18:50, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

We should not be stating claims, but facts. Claims is a weasel word, and is not precise (Weasel words are not recommended in Wikipedia). Finally, Wikipedia articles cannot be used as sources for other Wikipedia articles, see WP:V. I'll put it back to the original statement until a citation can be found. -- Jeff3000 18:56, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

OK I've found the source for Islam (see Fastest Growing Religion). Christianity seems of have the fastest growing absolute numbers (but Islam is close) and Wicca the fastest growing in terms of percentage rise. Islam may be able to claim to be be "the fastest growing major religion in terms of percentage change per year", provided that the growth of non-religious is not counted. But that's a bit of a mouthful to put in. What do you think? Mike Young 09:40, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Given this good reference [9] from (David A. Barrett, World Christian Encyclopedia, 2001, p 4) I would note in the text that Christianity has the fastest grown by numbers and Islam has the fastest growth by percentage (actually Zorastrianism seems like the fastest growing religion by percentage, but I think we can ignore the smaller religions for the sake of this statement). -- Jeff3000 19:31, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Have changed it... Wonder how long that will last ;) Mike Young 19:47, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

If "smaller religions" are still "religions" and one of them has a faster growth rate by percentage than Islam then the statement about Islam is simply false. It is even more problematic because the estimated number of Zoroastrians, who belong to a religion which may have such a higher growth rate (see above), is clearly displayed on the page. The statement about Islam either needs to be qualified in a way that makes it true (e.g. by saying that within a certain group of religions it has the highest rate) or it should be dropped.PelleSmith 20:54, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

The distinction between types of growth is also problematic. If something is growing faster or fastest then what is measured is a growth rate and growth rates are, as far as I know, always measured by percentage increase. Having a higher annual number of new adherents does not mean faster growth, it simply means gaining more adherents annually. The terminology should be changed, though I think it makes sense to distinguish between the raw amount of adherents gained annually and the percentage growth (the growth rate) annually, especially since people may not realize that what a growth rate is.PelleSmith 21:09, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Go ahead and make the changes. Also see this article at adherents.com. -- Jeff3000 21:31, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I only changed the word "fastest" to "greatest" in terms of absolute numbers. This clarifies the "rate" issue. Thank you for the adherents.com article but I believe it is unfortunately misleading in its use of the term growth rate. See for instance the wikipedia entry on population growth, which summarizes the growth rate measure used in demographics. I will not make other edits because I cannot verify the statstics used in this article. I will suggest again, however, that if someone is comfortable with these stastics, like the original or recent authors/editors of this section and those stastics show that there are religions with faster growth rates than Islam then they should qualify the statement about Islam in a way that makes said statement cohere with the stastics used--if even by simply adding something like "Within the world's four largest religions ... " for instance. My appologies for refusing to make those kinds of edits, but it is an ethical matter given my uneasiness with the stastics themself.PelleSmith 23:22, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Practitioners of yoga as excercise are not Hindu.

To claim that they are is erroneous and false. A link to a page about the Vedic roots of yoga does not even back it up either. Go ask someone at the gym who takes a yoga class every week if he/she is Hindu, and/or converesely ask a majority of Hindus the same question. No scholarly sources either, would ever consider conflating the two. Please do not simply add the information back. If you doubtfully have a shcolarly source, provide it here first so that other editors can discuss the matter with you.PelleSmith 13:17, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Link suggestion

Is this link acceptable for this article (link-owner, apologize):

Philosophy and religion: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/pvosta/pcrhum.htm Pvosta 08:34, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Semiprotection

The template at the top of the page says that the page is semiprotected, but it isn't (and, according to the logs, never has been). So... ~ Ghelæ ^talk_contribs 15:34, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

The first paragraph

The first paragraph seems to have gotten out of control and no longer makes sense:

Religion is a system of social coherence based on a common group of beliefs or attitudes concerning an object, person, unseen being, or system of thought considered to be supernatural, sacred, divine or highest truth, and the moral codes, practices, values, institutions, and rituals associated with such belief or system of thought. It is sometimes used interchangeably with "faith" or "belief system"[1], but is more socially defined than that of personal convictions.

Somebody please fix it. For example look at the last sentence which has the form "A is sometimes equated to B, but is actually different from C", and what is a system of social coherance? Does this say the same thing?

Religions are communally shared systems of beliefsconcerning the moral codes, practices, values, institutions, and rituals associated with the community itself. They are also normally understood to be more than just a "faith" or "belief system" because they including belief about the supernatural, sacred, divine or highest truth.

Andrew Lancaster 13:00, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Hinduism, Revival and Demographic Trends

The section I just deleted needs to be seriously edited before being put back. If Hinduism, as a religion, is having a "revival" then noting so is completely appropriate if citations are given, not to mention a much better contextualization. Where are temples being built? How many? Are people converting to Hinduism? What I deleted was absurdly vague. In fact it would be prudent to reference all the so called trends mentioned in this section. However, the influence of Hinduism on Western culture does NOT BELONG in this section. It has nothing to do with trends in demographics, or adhrence to Hinduism at all. While I find the influence of Eastern religious concepts, including those of Hinduism, fascinating I fail to see mentioning them as relavent to this section.

The footnote given, was also not relevant. It does not come from an academic source, and it doesn't provide support for anything written in the section. It most definately needs to go.PelleSmith 19:47, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree. People borrowing beliefs from Hinduism != Hinduism. I know a lot of people into the whole karma and reincarnation thing, but they aren't Hinduists. I've never seen anyone actually convert to it, either. Of course, this is all my own personal experience, and hardly indicative of percentages and trends. Still, it seems highly unlikely to me, and I've seen no mention of this sort of phenomenon, anywhere. --Karafias ^{Talk • Contributions} 19:57, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

A general comment as well: This section has nothing to do with whose religion is bigger or better than anyone else's. Like the rest of the entry and Wikipedia in general it is meant to be informative. As such people expect the sections to give them the appropriate information. Please keep that in mind when editing.PelleSmith 19:51, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

That section talks about trends (not conversions) and if trends of Islam like "Islam has grown in significance and in popular awareness even in countries where it is still a minority religion" and "Increased Christian missionaries in middle eastern countries" then why similar trends which talks about spread of Hindu basics and increased number of Hindu gurus and organizations in western can't get place? Bias!? - Holy Ganga ^talk 19:34, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Good point, lets fix those too! Just give me one second.PelleSmith 19:37, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Editors Please Note and Review

I deleted several other statements, as per Holy Ganga's point, because they in fact had nothing to do with trends in adherence. Some simply pointed out geographic distrubutions, but not in terms of a trend, and others were about trends in "significance" and not adherence. This issue of "significance" is dubious, needs to be substantiated with references, and most certainly is not the same as adherence.PelleSmith 19:47, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

I hope the additions of 1900-2000, based on an already used reference and a second occurance of the same, are useful.--Smkolins 15:38, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Starvation and self-strangulation part of mysticism?

Rather, physical disciplines such as yoga, starvation, self-strangulation, whirling (in the case of the Sufi dervishes), or the use of Psychoactive drugs such as LSD, lead to higher states of consciousness that logic can never hope to grasp.

I had a good laugh reading this. While mystics can use non-traditional rituals to find the greater meaning in life, harming oneself through starvation or self-strangulation is not a standard practice, except for the extreme individual. The mystics I know are very health conscious eating the best food and practicing breathing techniques that oxygenate the blood. We do not list sticking your hand in a box of poisonous snakes as a standard practice of Christians even though there is a sect that ascribes to this practice. I recommend replacing "starvation" with "fasting" and removing "self-strangulation". Meditation and contemplation are also disciplines used to reach higher states. --SummerLights 01:43, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

That was a fast change. Are we sure that "fasting" encapsulates the specifics of what the original use of "starvation" was getting at? Fasting is a very ambigious term which can signify a great range of consumption limitations. It also has quite varied religious conotations. For instance would the ascetic fasting of mystics be like the fasting during Ramadan (and I mean particularly "as practiced")? Maybe the change is appropriate but I just want to be sure. Is there a more specific term, or maybe adjective to use with "fasting", in this case?PelleSmith 02:26, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

I didn't notice your comment until now, so sorry for my late response. The reason why I acted quickly was that the Starvation article, after a quick read, is more about the type of starvation happening in Africa, and not the self-imposed starvation, that can occur during fasting. I agree that fasting has different components to it, and if a better term can be found it should be used, but I do think starvation as it was linked previously, was not the correct term. Regards, -- Jeff3000 14:40, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you, and I hadn't noticed the link. How about "stringent fasting" with the same link to the fasting article? Of course "mystic" is itself a very ambigious category applied to varied types of people historically and culturally. But I think part of the idea is that as an ascetic the mystic would practice more severe forms of behavior than the average adherent. Anyway I'll make the change.PelleSmith 17:13, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Statistical breakdown

<<...Unitarian Universalism 800,000 Rastafari movement 600,000 Christianity encompasses many different denominations but the statistics in the source for this document consider them all together for the purposes of analysis. >> No it does not! See Unitarian and Rastafarianism! All the Unitarians and Rastafarians I ever met all regarded themselves as Christians. I will change this to <<Christianity encompasses many different denominations but the statistics in the source for this document consider most of them all together for the purposes of analysis.>>

Marx's Quote (Opium of the People)

I have replaced the mistranslated "opiate of the masses" quote with the correct "opium of the people" quote. Indeed, even the source material linked to from this article translates the line from the german correctly. 'Masses' wrongly implies that Marx was talking soley of the working and lower classes, whereas his actual wording implies no such thing. More discussion on this is available at Opium of the People. --68.35.221.241 02:12, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Functionalist nature of the article

I would like to point that article does seem to reproduce the bsics tentants of Functionalist viewpoint on religion and to that end I would like see some differenting opinions. I feel that the new edition of this article should include the views of Marx and Freud as a minimum. Thank you

It is always good to read an article in its entirety before commenting on what it lacks. Marx is mentioned in the "religion as a social construction" section. Freud could be added, but I'm assuming its not in the article because the Freudian reading of the origins and function of religion are held by virtually no one at this point in time. As for the functionalist undertones I partially agree, however the intro is mildly functionalist in a very Protestant vain. This may be a sign of our times, but if you ask me it is the strong emphasis on "belief system"/"faith" instead of other aspects of religion that is more problematic than the mild functionalist undertones. Take for example the seemingly innocent assumption that "the moral codes, practices, values, institutions, and rituals" are simply "associated with such belief or system of thought". In other words they are secondary. A true functionalist (from Durkheim on) would make the "moral codes, practices, values, institutions, and rituals" primary. Food for thought. On that note, if you have constructive ideas about how to improve the article by all means suggest them here, but make sure you read the entry carefully first.PelleSmith 13:03, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Lead change

Stevertigo has changed the lead which had been decided by consensus a couple times above. I like the old version, and wanted to get thoughts before I change it back. -- Jeff3000 14:02, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Inclusion of Satanism as a religion

Weather it is Anton LaVey's Atheistic religion or a matter of reverse Christianity, or even the accusations of the Inquisition, Satanism/Demonology has a long history in almost all religions and deserves mention in this article. A note on Atheism that is commonly over looked; Athiesm is a belief, no more or less valid than any other belief.Rev. Michael S. Margolin 05:15, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

There is a group in Iraq that worship Satan-They are not from the European Satanic mind set and seem to be closer to Islam or Judaism in essence. They are mentioned in a big budget BBC TV series by a British historian about five great civilisations including-as I remember (It is a while since I saw them) Iraq, Europe,Pre Columbian America, China and India. The Iraq portion was filmed shortly after the first US/Iraq war --Roton89 04:32, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism on the Article page: "Petroism"

As a new contributor to Wikipedia, I am unclear on the protocols for dealing with what appears to be a case of vandalism. Note the reference to "Petroism" on the table of adherents to religions in the middle of the article. Ubarfay 04:16, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Request for Comment: Demographics

I have flagged the POV aspects of this section in the article itself as well as on this discussion page (see "2.1 Billion???" above). I believe the list of concerns below are adequate to warrant a rewrite of the section:

1) the section is framed by the concept "adherence", which is nowhere defined -- in normal usage, this term indicates more than just nominal membership in some category (e.g. those who abide by the laws of their countries may be deemed adherents to those laws; habitual criminals who merely live in the countries but do not abide by the laws would not be so considered) -- and there are other sources quoted in the article that use more verifiable statistics (e.g. frequency of participation in religious activities or survey responses to fundamental questions like belief in God)

2) the section is derived from a single source, adherents.com, whose NPOV and verifiability are contested -- more specifically this single source defers to the authority of a single person, David Barrett, as the source for most of its data on Christianity, and Barrett is identified as an "Evangelical Christian" (see http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html#Christianity)

3) even accepting the single source as (quasi-)authoritative, it is internally inconsistent -- specifically, it quotes multiple sources for a given religion in a given country, but does not clearly identify which is used for the global roll-up (e.g., it quotes seven different numbers for "Catholic" in Brazil, ranging from 105,000,000 to 143,556,992 (see http://www.adherents.com/adhloc/Wh_41.html#88))

4) the section states "a person can be an adherent of more than one religion", without citing a source for this assertion, which is contrary to the tenets of the two largest religions, Christianity and Islam

Other opinions? --Ubarfay 10:32, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Another methodological issue:

5) it seems that the adherents.com figures include children -- e.g. they reference a US study which extrapolates a total population figure from a survey given to adults only (http://www.adherents.com/rel_USA.html#religions) -- and it is not universally accepted that children should be counted as "adherents" to any particular belief system --Ubarfay 18:21, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Further analysis of the data at adherents.com: The total of 2.1 Billion adherents to Christianity cannot be derived from this site's own published country-by-country detail (http://www.adherents.com/adhloc/indexWhere.html). Summing both the lowest and highest numbers for "Christianity" (or its major sub-denominations when there is no roll-up for Christianity listed) given for each country listed that is also named in the CIA World Factbook yields the following range of estimates:

Low end of the range = 1,472,946,142

High end of the range = 1,922,627,498

The 2.1 Billion figure is merely a repetition of the total asserted by The World Christian Encyclopedia

A change in the adherence category of >600 Million individuals would likely alter the rankings of the categories listed. --Ubarfay 04:00, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Your concerns are very well founded, but in the end it would be very difficult to have an informative and stable demographics section if we accounted for them without great care. I don't particularly trust any of these stastics. If a better way of presenting demographics data, and a better way of sourcing it, is availble it would be of great service to the entry if you or anyone else could produce it. Might I suggest, however, if a total rewrite is going to happen that you do so off of the entry and then present it here so we can discuss it. Does that work? For instance, I removed the tidbits about a range in Christianity, and a range in the "nones" because they are Original Research--see WP:OR. If you want me to explain how/why I will be glad to. But the OR in this case causes particular problems in the new range estimate you produced for religious "nones". For starters why are the missing numbers, after adjusting ONLY the Christianity figure, necessarily non-religious?PelleSmith 13:02, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree completely that none of the statistics are particularly trustworthy. There's no original research here, I simply presented adherents.com's own ranges, rather than the rollup they quoted from a separate source whose objectivity is prima facie questionable. Rev. Barrett may be a thorough and scrupulous statistician, but given the importance of this particular table I would think the NPOV standard would require a second source that is either aligned with one of the other major religions, or that at least has the appearance of greater neutrality like a government or inter-government agency.

To answer your final point: The Christianity figure of 2.1 Billion is the one that is the most suspect, given the POV of its source and the other methodological issues raised above. (I note now that the Islam page claims 1.4 Billion adherents, the Hinduism page claims 1 Billion, the Chinese folk religion page claims 850 Million and the Buddhism page claims 230 - 500 Million. Fair enough. Would you be satisfied with listing high/low ranges for all (or at least the Big Five) religions? That said, the "nones" are simply from the arithmetic -- they are those not claimed by any of the religions, therefore, from the definition "non-religious". Did I miss your point? What methodology would you propose for allocating them to the other religions? --Ubarfay 17:44, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

The whole thing is a mess, but by what standards do we chose these ranges? I think chosing Adherents.com as a source was done to simplify the process and to forget about the fact that no accurate population estimates really exist. That said I'm not sure what the answer is. Maybe someone needs to go dig into some academic literature on this and see if it helps.

In regards to the OR problem, have you read over WP:OR? You have added up the country by country estimates presented on Adherents.com and then presented the sum as a viable low range estimate. On what grounds can we do that? Are they themselves calculated using similar methodologies? Are all individuals accounted for in this calculation? Are all nations even? What is the margin for error? I would ask those questions, but even they are besides the point in regards to WP:OR because you have done this calculation on your own, based upon information presented on another site. You can't source the claim because Adherents.com does not present such an estimate itself. However this OR, done in order to get the low range Christianity estimate, isn't half as problematic as the second step in which you calculated a high range for religous "nones" (the secular/atheist/agnostic group). Lets say, for the sake of argument, there is a lower number of Christians in the world. Simply knowing that tells us absolutely nothing verifiable about the number of non-religious people in the world. You can't just add to the none column when you subtract from the Christianity column. Those extra people could fit anywhere. This is, of course assuming that world population figures are even correct. Anyway, again, all of this is besides the point because the calculation itself is clearly OR.PelleSmith 19:06, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Here is the relevant OR language as I see it. "It introduces an analysis or synthesis of established facts, ideas, opinions, or arguments in a way that builds a particular case favored by the editor, without attributing that analysis or synthesis to a reputable source;"PelleSmith 19:10, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I have read WP:OR, and do not find anything in the list of seven criteria that would exclude the attempts I have made to remove what appears to me (and others before, from previous sections of this Discussion page) pro-Christian bias from this important section of this important article.

Starting with your final point: How does the Excel "SUM()" function "introduce an analysis or synthesis [...] without attributing that analysis or synthesis to a reputable source"? I guess at a stretch you could question the reputability of Microsoft, but this verges on the absurd. If a source lists detailed information (from which detail it partly derives its credibility ... in the present case, for "thoroughness") but then does not tally its own data, rather substitutes another party's tally which is more favorable to the case it's trying to build, that's considered less POV on Wikipedia than doing the tally for them as a matter of simple arithmetic??? What sort of fact-checking process is this?

To your earlier concerns. Separate what you call the second step from the central issue of establishing NPOV estimates for the major religions. Do you not accept that showing ranges is less biased than using a single number? If we're going to use a single number, should we not give each religion the same courtesy that we're giving Christianity and let one of their experts put forward their number? Do you not agree that at a minimum we'd have to accept the high end numbers from the other articles I listed in my previous response? Why is it only Christianity that gets to use its high end estimate? (And if there is a reputable estimate for Christianity higher than 2.1 Billion, I would appreciate someone forwarding it.)

I agree completely, by the way, that the whole thing is a mess. Simply punting and letting adherents.com, which parrots Rev. Barrett's figures, be the sole source of this important data seems to me like a total abdication of the encyclopedist's responsibility not to present opinion as fact. Which is why this RfC is calling for a complete re-write of the section. At a minimum take the grossly POV current version offline until some sort of collective editing and/or appeal process can run its course. The alternative is tantamount to saying "It's such a hard and messy problem, let's just keep it simple and let a Christian Evangelical Professor of Missionmetrics be our source of fact/truth." Surely that's not what you're suggesting, given your rigorous and largely valid critique of my contributions to this article. I am asking that you (and the others who care about the validity of this article) direct that same rigor to the section as currently written. --Ubarfay 19:58, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I think using adherents.com is just fine. It has a repository of many different statistics, and cleary delineates the difficulties in obtaining accurate statistics, the different enumeration mentods, and that the numbers may not be an indicator of activity in a religion. In the end the interested reader can always find the sources that adherents.com used (which there are many) and I think that is the most important thing. -- Jeff3000 03:22, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Note that adherents.com uses a boatload of different sources. From adherents.com "We have used books which range from scholarly anthropological studies to children's books. Most of the material is from objective, academic, or sympathetic sources. It should be noted, however, that we have included some citations from opposing sources." [10]. Also, adherent.com is clear that the definition of adherent may vary. [11] In my mind adherents.com is the best repisotory of religious statistics, it states its sources, and any biases and difficulties that arise. It's very open. -- Jeff3000 03:27, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Okay, so adherents.com uses a boatload of different sources. Why are we only using their pass-through of the World Christian Encyclopedia? They may be the best "repisotory" of religious statistics, but they also seem to be a shill for the Evangelical Christian POV. The key statistic here is the high end range estimate for Christianity, which is not corroborated by any source other than a Professor of Missiometrics. Their own notes (see http://adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html#Islam) give a high range for Islam, which they omit from their ultimate tally quoted in our article: "Contemporary figures for Islam are usually between 900 million and 1.4 billion, ..." while on the very same page they admit "These numbers [for the summary table quoted in the section of the article at issue] tend toward the high end of reasonable worldwide estimates...." It is transparent POV to use a number not "toward", but at (nay, above), the "high end" of the "reasonable worldwide estimates" for Christianity, but something other than the high end number for the other religions. This is bunkum of the first order. --Ubarfay 11:43, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

What a mess. For those following this thread, take a gander at the take from our Francophone confreres on the topic at http://fr.wiki.x.io/wiki/Religion. The table they present is:

• Christianity: 1.868 billion
• Non-believers: 1.8 - 2.8 billion
• Islam: 1.4 billion
• Hinduism: 900 million

and so on ... pity the poor 11 year olds in Montreal struggling with their homework. --Ubarfay 13:15, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Request for comment: Demographics (continued)

[continuation of Talk:Religion#Request_for_comment:_Demographics]

Per User:PelleSmith's suggestion in the previous exchange, I would like to propose the following NPOV framework for this section of the article: Rather than relying on any single source as "best we could find" (and therefore providing it with a Wikipedia endorsement of sorts), I think a tabular approach (where the rows are the geographies and the columns represent the various reputable and verifiable perspectives on religiosity) would hit the right balance between offering too little and too much information. To avoid WP:OR concerns around arithmetic addition/summation as a form of analysis, we could leave the tallying of total counts and percentages, as well as graphical visualizations of the data as an exercise for the reader. There are several sources that seem to be accepted as reputable and verifiable, but which unfortunately use different methodologies and consequently reach very very different conclusions about the religiosity profile of the world's population.

Specifically, we could seed the table with the current adherents.com (or, more precisely, World Christian Encyclopedia) data, so as to allow for a certain amount of stability in the article, then lock the table and require any new columns to be submitted to some form of peer review. (Assuming that the Wikipedia process allows for an approach like this, from observing that various other contentious articles are locked in part or in whole.)

Opinions? --Ubarfay 03:47, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

The WP:RS guideline states:

Wikipedia articles should point to all major scholarly interpretations of a topic. [...] In articles on religions and religious practices, religious scholars (recognized authorities on the religion) are considered reliable sources for the religion's practices and beliefs, and traditional religious and academic views of religious practices should generally both be cited and attributed as such when they differ. [Emphasis added]

On this basis, I propose that the data and interpretations of the World Values Survey with respect to self-identified religious denomination affiliation be incorporated into this section of the article. --Ubarfay 12:17, 30 December 2006 (UTC) [reformatted Ubarfay 02:03, 31 December 2006 (UTC)]

Once again I disagree that adherents.com is biased in any way. Dave Barett and the World Christian Encyclopaedia are world-class, and are accepted by Encyclopaedia Britannica. Leading people to adherents.com also allows users to find all the sources of statistics, and a discussion of how statistics are obtained. I believe it is the best sources -- Jeff3000 15:46, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

With due respect, that's not responsive to any of the specific issues I've raised. Yes we can stipulate that you accept Rev. Barrett and the other reputable secondary and tertiary sources that quote him. We can further stipulate -- my personal opinion aside -- that I accept him and them as reliable secondary and tertiary sources according to the spirit and letter of the WP:RS guideline. What I am questioning is the use of any sole source for this section, based on the language in WP:RS quoted above. Do we have deadlock here? Do you not accept my interpretation of the guideline as it applies to this section of the article? Please clarify your position on this point. --Ubarfay 02:03, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

In my mind adherents.com by publishing and using many different sources fulfills the guideline. -- Jeff3000 03:21, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, that's just sophistry. The WP:RS guideline isn't about how many sources sit behind an external source. It's about how many sources we cite here. For the data at issue, adherents.com is a tertiary source for the WCE as a secondary source for Barrett, for all the reasons I've documented above. I'll put up an alternative academic perspective, per the WP:RS guideline, and we can let the community and appeals processes take it from there if you wish to violate the guideline by attempting to prevent the inclusion of such an alternative perspective. I'll do you the courtesy of letting you select from among the non-Barrett/WCE sources cited on adherents.com if you'd prefer to do it that way, in deference to your seniority as an editor of this important page. --Ubarfay 07:56, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Adherents.com says that the 2001 World Christian Encyclopedia (WCE) reports 2.1 billion Christians in 2000. One reason why this figure probably seems high is that it is higher than the actual figure reported in the 2001 WCE, where table 1-1 lists 1,999,563,838 Christians as of mid-2000. In short, adherents.com does not quote the 2001 WCE accurately. While adherents.com is a convenient resource, it would probably be better to gather data from the 2001 WCE directly or to gather data from the updated online World Christian Database (WCD). The WCD is subscription based but recent WCD religious composition figures are avaiable at: http://www.thearda.com/Archive/CrossNational.asp. Goodhack 21:43, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Diane de Poitiers

• May I ask why the symbol of Diane de Poitiers is included in the image at the top of the page? Unless I'm missing something here, I wasn't aware that she started a religion... -- Chabuk ^{[ T • C ]} 06:01, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

I was just about to ask the same thing. Majolo 22:14, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I didn't get it either until I followed the link on the image, which links further to Triple_Goddess. It would probably be less confusing for the legend to say "Triple Goddess" rather than "Diane de Poitiers". --Ubarfay 00:54, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Dab link

The whole point of dab lines are when people are searching for alternate definitions. When one term has much more appeal than others, instead of creating a disambiguation page, with links to multiple different pages, one instead creates a dab reference at the top. People searching for Religion, the movements, of course will just skip over the dab reference, but if someone is searching for the Religion the album, they will be able to be forwarded to the correct article. This is how Wikipedia works; if not there would be no easy way to find the album, or in general any search term that is is identical to another search term that is more popular. For example, London goes to the capital of the United Kingdom, but one could be searching for any other number of cities in the world. Please read, WP:DAB for more information. Specifically:

"disambiguation links — at the top of an article, a note that links the reader to articles with similar titles or concepts that the reader may seek instead of the current article." -- Jeff3000 04:54, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Adherents.com numbers should be replaced with accurate 2001 World Christian Encyclopedia data or recent World Christian Database data

There is a lot of debate about the adherents.com figures for world religions. As has been noted, they rely on the World Christian Encyclopedia (WCE) but do not necessarily quote the WCE accurately. Adherents.com says that the 2001 World Christian Encyclopedia (WCE) reports 2.1 billion Christians in 2000 whereas the actual figure reported in the 2001 WCE (table 1-1) is 1,999,563,838 Christians as of mid-2000. The relevant table seems to be replicated here: http://www.bible.ca/global-religion-statistics-world-christian-encyclopedia.htm. While adherents.com is a convenient resource, it would probably be better to gather data from the 2001 WCE directly or to gather data from the updated online World Christian Database (WCD). The WCD is subscription based but recent WCD religious composition figures are avaiable at: http://www.thearda.com/Archive/CrossNational.asp. While the reliability of the WCE/WCD has been questioned for various reasons, the reality is that there is no serious contender for reliable worldwide religious composition data. WCE reliability is certainly not increased by quoting its figures from a secondary source, especially when, in this case, the secondary source has incorrectly relayed data. Goodhack 22:02, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree strongly with the gist of this comment, and wholeheartedly endorse the use of "closer to the source" data. But I disagree that there are no serious contenders for reliable worldwide religious composition data. I also continue to be surprised that the transparent POV of sources with the word Christian in their name has not been cause for greater concern among the editorial community of this article. That personal opinion notwithstanding, my recommendation would be that the Demographics section of the article contain only a sample of reliable analyses, without endorsing any particular one, and then link to Major_religious_groups where the topic be given a more thorough treatment, with other perspectives afforded the same space as that given to Rev. Barrett and the secondary (tertiary?) sources that quote him. --Ubarfay 23:20, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

What other source would you recommend Ubarfay? Above you mention the World Values Survey. This is a useful resource but it has two signficant limitations. First, it does not cover all countries in the world like the WCE does. Second, it produces a lot of unreliable estimates. Take the United States for example, where every year there are probably several major social surveys asking a national sample about their religious affiliation. I challenge you to find one major U.S. social survey such as the General Social Survey, the American Religious Identification Survey, the National Election Surveys, or the various Pew surveys on religion and public life that produce compositional estimates anywhere close to the WVS estimates for the U.S. There is a lot of consistency between these other sources about the % Catholic, mainline Protestant, evanglical Protestant, and Black Protestant but WVS estimates differ significantly. Goodhack 02:41, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Excellent points. I mentioned the WVS because as I scan the Googleplex, it seems to be one of the primary data sources for scholarly research into the topic of religiosity/secularism. And, yes, it does not purport to be as comprehensive as the global numbers collected by Rev. Barrett's army of missionaries from all points of the compass. Not clear to me whether that's a strength or weakness where validity and reliability are concerned. The table that I had included briefly (temporarily removed pending its planned publication in a peer-reviewed journal) compared the WCE, WVS, Pew, the US State Dept and the US CIA. Those seemed to me like a fine start, if perhaps a tad US-centric.

Barrett may have biases and he does seem to get some data from on-the-ground missionaries in various countries but he relies on many other sources as well including national censuses, scholarly estimates, UN data, etc. Goodhack 14:28, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I didn't say he's not a reliable source. Just one with an obvious POV. --Ubarfay 17:36, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

As to the ranges of estimates available for any given country, quite so! See my example re France above. Or, note the CIA entry on Argentina:

Religion nominally Roman Catholic 92% (less than 20% practicing), Protestant 2%, Jewish 2%, other 4%

Um ... okay, then, which is it for Catholic: 92% or <20%? On a population of 40-ish million, that's a swing of 28 million or so. And on and on. (Let's not even get into China yet.) I think it would be great to publish country by country estimates from all major reliable sources. Any references that you can pass along to the GSS, ARIS, NES data? Are the differences between these and the WVS based on differences in data collection or content of the surveys? The whole thrust of my critique of sole-sourcing the Demographics section of the article to Rev. Barrett (and using his high end estimate only for Christianity) is that it does not seem to me to uphold the WP:RS guideline concerning presenting multiple perspectives when there is difference of opinion. There is clearly such difference of opinion among the experts in the matter at hand, at least as far as the relative sizings (and thus the all-important stack rankings) of the Muslim, Christian and Non-religious cohorts are concerned. All constructive suggestions welcome. --Ubarfay 09:24, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

You can analyze GSS data here: http://sda.berkeley.edu/archive.htm. Barry Kosmin has published a couple of books with data from ARIS (2000) and a similar 1990 survey. ANES data is here: http://www.electionstudies.org/. Pew data is available here: http://people-press.org/dataarchive/. Offhand, I am not sure why the WVS U.S. data differs so much from these other respected surveys. To the extent it is reliable, the WVS is only useful for estimating the religious populations of the countries it surveys (though it samples from an increasingly large portion of the world's population). Goodhack 14:28, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the links. Ok, let's just zero in on the difference between the GSS and WVS figures for the USA. The GSS says 85.5% of the US population "has a preference" for either "Protestant" or "Catholic". (Fwiw, ANES, which also uses "preference" says 80%.) The WVS says that 50.1% "belong to [the] denomination[s]" "Orthodox", "Protestant" or "Catholic". Pretty big difference -- a swing of about 100 million. (And let's not forget that this is still counting minors.) But assuming that both survey data collection methodologies were rigorous, the difference can be explained by the wording. Strikes me that "belong to" is closer to a notion of "adherence" than is "preference". I think if we follow the WP:RS guideline here, we should show both numbers. Picking one and only one to put up for the homework crowd is majorly POV. --Ubarfay 17:36, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I would personally love to see multiple estimates for all religious populations along with a discussion of the relative merits of each estimate, including the method by which it was produced. You have picked up on imporant differences between the GSS and the WVS for the U.S. My point is that there are many social surveys like the GSS that consistently produce similar estimates of U.S. religious adherance and the WVS is an aberration from all these surveys. Yes, membership is a more strict criterion than what may simply be a nominal sense of religious belonging tapped into by the GSS. But in the U.S., there are a lot of people who claim Catholic, Baptist, and many other identities though they don't formally belong to any church. Some of these people attend services all the time and some never attend. These matters could all be discussed in an entry on the religious composition of the U.S. However, at the world level, the WVS doesn't even include all the necessary countries to use it to derive world population estimates. For better or worse, at least with Christians, the WCE does attempt to subcategorize and quantify nominal and committed adherents. Goodhack 21:53, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Sure, there are a cluster of surveys that use various vague and similar concepts like "affiliation", "preference" and "adherence" and these all tend to reflect the same general Christianate heritage of the USA. But other surveys that use, as you say, "a more strict criterion" like stated membership, frequency of participation, or belief in God, paint a very different profile. I have no objection to presenting profiles based on, as you say, "nominal sense of religious [something-or-other]". (That Princeton paper, btw, shows that the WCD claims roughly 30 million more Christians in the US and Canada alone than does the Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches (2005).) My objection is to presenting only such profiles, which, as I believe I have documented adequately, overstate both aggregate religiosity and Christianity specifically. At the world level the issue really boils down to China and Latin America. In the case of China, the pro-religion POV is that there are 700-ish million religious Chinese, while the official PRC statistics -- granted, with an obvious communist/atheist POV -- give a figure <100 million. Is it really appropriate for Wikipedia, given the WS:RS guideline, to pick a side in that dispute? In the case of Latin America, it's all in the difference between official/registered and "practicing" Catholicism (e.g. the example of Argentina I gave in the previous post). So even if we accepted the Barrett estimates for countries not covered by other reliable sources, there's somewhere between a half and an entire Billion persons at issue between reliable sources. (Still counting minors, of course.) Seems to me that we ought to present these differing views. --Ubarfay 00:10, 10 January 2007 (UTC)