Talk:Religion in the United States/Archive 4

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Semi-protected edit request on 11 August 2023

RuckusJones (talk) 17:48, 11 August 2023 (UTC)Add a hyperlink to Nondenominational Christianity in the pie chart where it says "Just Christian" since most of these people go to an evangelical or a mega church that does not adhere to any particular denomination

Not necessarily since they could also be cultural christian and go nowhere (especially since 30% of the respondents say they never attend religious services). This btw is why I think the Pew survey is a better choice since it goes into more detail (even if it is also almost a decade older). Erp (talk) 02:15, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

Why is Hinduism missing?

I don't see Hindyism on the chart of % of US population 2600:1700:38D0:56D0:7DDE:D975:BAD6:67C (talk) 01:57, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

The 2014 Pew Research polls are grossly inaccurate and should be removed

Almost all other available data (including data used in other Wikipedia pages) shows Catholics outnumber Protestants in California, Nevada, New Mexico, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. The number of Mormons in Utah and Idaho also seems highly underestimated.

The Pew Research poll displayed deeply misleads readers and should be be scraped all together or replaced with more accurate poling numbers.

Thank you for reading my suggestion, I hope it is listened too. 100.33.82.60 (talk) 04:50, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for expressing your concern. However, do you have any sources saying what you are saying? We do not go by opinions here because we all have them and we are not experts on the issues. As far as I have seen, Pew is extensively used by academics as a valuable source on religion demographics. it also conducts some of the biggest studies on religion. Ramos1990 (talk) 06:25, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

To give just two examples.

If you go to the religious demographics section of California’s very Wikipedia page it will list Catholics at 34% and Protestants at 27 (contradicting the Pew Research poll).

Well the page for Connecticut also sites the same questionable Pew Poll, however according to other reputable pollsters like Gallup Connecticut is the 4th most Catholic state in the entire country at 46% (that’s an over 10% discrepancy between Gallup and Pew’s estimate of Connecticut’s Catholic population)

The same basic story is true for all the states I mentioned. 100.33.82.60 (talk) 14:38, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

I’m not denying Pew is an overall good pollster, however even the best pollsters come out with duds from time to time, and in this case pretty much all other available data on religion the United States says Pew is wrong. 100.33.82.60 (talk) 14:46, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

Each survey actually produces very different numbers because they ask questions differently, provide different choices, and the samples vary. For example, here is Gallup [1] routinely getting different rates on the same topic. There is no right or wrong survey. All you can say is that Pew says X and Gallup says y. Ramos1990 (talk) 16:42, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

“Do you believe in God” is a very complex question where you can get a lot of varying answers from the agnostic or irreligious crowd, “what is your religion” is a very simple question, there’s no way for people to misidentify their own religion (or lack there of).

The Pew poll shown in the article is simply out of step with pretty much all other polls of religion in the United States, in its current placement in the article it routinely misinform readers with blatantly inaccurate information.

Wikipedia as good stuarts of public education should not provide such questionable data, or at least put a heavy asterisk on the Pew poll, and provide readers alternative data. 100.33.82.60 (talk) 17:08, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

Actually even affilaition is complex. It is not so simple even with affiliation. [2]. - "First, even though the number of individuals identifying with a religion on surveys appears to have decreased over the last few decades, accurately documenting these trends is challenging since many liminal individuals (perhaps 20% of the population) change their religious affiliations and identities across time (Lim et al. 2010; Hout 2017). Recent research suggests that about 42-44% of U.S. adults have switched their religious affiliation from one religion to another, or from being religious to not religious or vice versa (Heimlich 2009; Smith 2015). The percentage is 28-34% when those who switch from one Protestant group to another are excluded. While it is possible to interpret these findings as a decline in religious commitment, it can also be argued that some people care about religion and are willing to shop around to get the best “product” for their needs (Sherkat and Wilson 1995; Stark and Finke 2000; Stark 2008). Switching may actually be a healthy practice in religious marketplaces, not necessarily a sign of decline."

The numbers of affiliation vary by survey, for example with the unaffiliated - Gallup (21%) and Pew (29%) too. You would think that people would "know" if they even affiliate with a religion or not :) None of them is the final word and it is hard to tell which ones are right. Here is an article explaining continuous discrepancies between two other surveys [3] to get more context as to why different surveys do not get the same numbers. All surveys are problematic and they often fail at even predicting political election results. It means they are not good at capturing people beliefs and affiliations and behavior. See Wuthnow, Robert (2015). "8. Taking Stock". Inventing American Religion: Polls Surveys, and the Tenuous Quest for a Nation's Faith. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780190258900. Ramos1990 (talk) 17:28, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

But the example you cited is Protestants becoming different types of Protestants, it’s far rarer for Catholics to become Protestant or visa versa, and that’s the heart of what we’re talking about with the Pew poll, it’s the Catholic v. Protestant numbers that are not correct. 100.33.82.60 (talk) 17:34, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

Well, it should be much easier to capture protestant or catholic vs unaffiliated, but that is clearly not easy. For protestant vs catholic stuff, I think that it is too narrow for these surveys to determine. What we generally do on wikipedia is, if you find a source that says X and you find a source that says Y, you can add both to wikipedia to provide alternative views. Do you have a source on Catholics and Protestant's that differ from Pew? Keep in mind that "protestant" is a category - not a religious identity. I have never met a person that says I am a protestant. Ramos1990 (talk) 17:41, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

I 100% agree that Protestant is a pretty broad umbrella term more then anything, but it’s still important to get this stuff right.

The Association of Religion Data Archive (ARDA) has some pretty solid data (neatly mapped out here by MCI Maps) I would highly recommend adding it to the Wiki page.

https://mcimaps.com/reformation-day-christianity-in-america/ 100.33.82.60 (talk) 18:16, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

ARDA is already in the article and has its own section. Feel free to update that section. The cite you linked is a blog, so that is not a reliable source. But ARDA is a reliable source. Use ARDA if you want to. Ramos1990 (talk) 18:24, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

I would edit it myself but the article is locked? It would be kind of you to add the just Protestant v. Catholic results of ARDA’s data

I linked the blog because it did a much clearer job at showing their data, but here’s a link from their official website.

https://www.thearda.com/data-archive?fid=RCMSST10 100.33.82.60 (talk) 18:35, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

You can make an account on wikipedia and after more than 10 edits and after 4 days you can make the edit as you see fit. See [4]. The reason for this is that there has been too much vandalism on this page. So it is now protected. Anyways, you can also edit other pages with an account. It seems you are more passionate on this so it is best for you to perform the edits. Ramos1990 (talk) 19:10, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

How do you go about making Wikipedia maps? 100.33.82.60 (talk) 19:34, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

It seems that the maps are made by users and uploaded to wikipedia as jpg or other type of file type. Click the "View Source" tab on the article to see the code for the map on the ARDA section of this article. There are other maps in this article and you can browse how they were coded and also please look at WP:MAPS for more details on making maps and requesting help with that. I have never done a map so this is what I have read. Ramos1990 (talk) 20:57, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

ARDA itself is not a source but a collection of sources which might or might not be reliable. The actual source here is the "U.S. Religion Census - Religious Congregations and Membership Study, 2010 (State File)" conducted by Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies and is created by asking religious groups how many congregations and "adherents" they have. It is not a survey of individuals. Note that this could mean overcounting of those individuals who consider themselves affiliated by those denominations who consider once in you are in for life (barring rare circumstances) such as LDS and the Catholic church. It could also mean undercounting of individuals who consider themselves affiliated by those organizations who may have some hoops to join and/or continue membership. I note the results are unbelievably precise (such as 4,877,067 for Black Protestants) given they claim to have adjusted numbers for "Black Protestants" since they know their survey undercounted. https://www.thearda.com/us-religion/sources-for-religious-congregations-membership-data#Q7 What are the error bars? Erp (talk) 07:14, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

• Should stick with census data. The sample size is ridiculously low. Although some small sample supplementary sources may be added, the large data set of population figure and demographics from the last official census is the principal definitive source.Moxy- 15:27, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

  I don't think the U.S. Census asks about religious affiliation even on the supplemental questions. I know the standard form that everyone gets has not for decades. Indyguy (talk) 16:27, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

  Correct. US Census has not asked about directly since 1976 as it was banned from asking questions on membership over church and state issues [5]. All we have are imperfect polls. Ramos1990 (talk) 18:56, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

Using Patrick Johnstone’s “study”

Patrick Johnstone’s study to cite conversions is extremely misleading as I’ve never personally seen it being cited by any critical scholars or have seen its trends being documented by independent news or research papers. The methodology is as solid as medieval hagiography with it simply citing a completely unknown “christian convert” who is anonymous (because, of course) and making extreme generalizations towards entire populations from the numbers of converts given from one supposed church. 169.148.43.82 (talk) 18:28, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

Hawaii...

...is not on the North American continent and Native Hawaiians are not and never have been considered Native American (because... we're not!). かなか (talk) 03:25, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

Distorted source

In the lede of the article, it is written: "The United States is widely regarded as being the final "death nail" (sic) in the secularization hypothesis — the idea that modernity inevitably causes secularization —" sourced to Voas & Chavez (2016), "Is the United States a Counterexample to the Secularization Thesis?" The article abstract quite clearly states the exact opposite of what is written in the lead (the authors contend this is empirically false due to a decades-long decline in religiosity in the US). You can gain access to the complete article by logging into the Wikipedia Library and clicking here. I would suggest removing this distortion from the lede. -- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 18:38, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

@KlayCax:, who wrote that? shows that you added this change a few days ago in this edit. Could you fix this, please? -- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 18:57, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

I think that the intent of that sentence was to mention how the US was known as an exception to the secularization thesis. But I will remove it since it seems to distract form the next point, that the US has become more religious than at the time of its founding. Secularization thesis has and is still being debated by scholars since secularization is not universally agreed upon to be a decline in religion per se. I don't think such controversial theories belong in the lead as it clutters. The lead is supposed to just summarize the article. Ramos1990 (talk) 23:47, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure I think it's a good idea to delete peer-reviewed articles showing a decline in religiosity among the younger cohort. I notice that in general there is a tendency to downplay the empirical data in the lede.-- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 05:34, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

I will add the peer reviewed study which states the same by the same authors so as to not depend on a op-ed piece only. Other sources in the lead like source 22-25 have quotes on how decline in religiosity is not a universal decline of religion. Mostly affiliation is declining, not beliefs or practices per se - as most "nones" are "somes". Mark Chaves paper that was removed was from March 2016. Chaves updated his review of American religion in 2017:

"The vast majority of people — approximately 80 percent — describe themselves as both spiritual and religious. Still, a small but growing minority of Americans describe themselves as spiritual but not religious, as figure 3.4 shows. In 1998, 9 percent of Americans described themselves as at least moderately spiritual but not more than slightly religious. That number rose to 16 percent in the 2010s." (Chaves, Mark (2017). American Religion: Contemporary Trends. Princeton, NJ; London: Princeton University Press. pp. 38–39. ISBN 9780691177564.)

Lisa Pearce and Claire Gilliland in "Religion in America". University of California Press. 2020 take a nuanced approach to this and note the same:

"Scholars sometimes refer to people who report no religious affiliation as the religious "Nones" (Not to be confused with religious N-U-N-S!), but we will refer to them as the "religiously unaffiliated." We use that term to be as precise as possible because having no institutional affiliation does not necessarily mean a person has no religious beliefs or practices." (p.7)

Its a bit complicated. Ramos1990 (talk) 05:45, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

It's not that complicated, really. In the source you deleted Chaves talks about diffuse spirituality which does not have the same social networking/bonds/binding upon which organized religion (churching/monastic life/etc.) is based. (cf. etymology). It sounds like the proselytizers of the new "someistic"/"noneistic" faith may be confusing personal spirituality with religion (which is social). -- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 08:24, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

There's no consensus among sociologists that theistic beliefs or religious behavior is declining. The idea is mainly predominately among the press and public: not in the academic literature. Notable sociologists such as Byron R. Johnson and Ryan Burge dispute the idea that American religiosity is declining. And, yes. The article is entitled "religion in the United States". But other country's articles mention theism, et al. as well. The article's looking at a topic bigger than the word "religion" implies. Not sure if there's a better way to label these sorts of articles, though. KlayCax (talk) 23:58, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

If you wish to start a new section about other matters now that that the distorted source has been fixed, feel free.-- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 21:11, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

no state religion

Who wrote that? shows that the following was added to the lead today.

The United States was the first country in recorded history to not have a state religion.

Given the Zhou dynasty and the Mongol Empire, this seems a pretty dubious claim or at least one in need of so much qualification that it does not belong in the lead. -- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 22:18, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Unitarian Universalism

The article claims that Unitarian Universalists have a shared creed. The article says, "The shared creed includes beliefs in inherent dignity, a common search for truth, respect for beliefs of others, compassion, and social action." That is fairly accurate except for the word "creed." The Wikipedia article on "creed" says a creed is "also known as a confession of faith, a symbol, or a statement of faith..." While Unitarian Universalists have a statement of principals, they are clear that it is not a confession of faith that requires theological agreement. 2603:7080:6941:9A00:80AE:E16C:1A8F:A624 (talk) 17:22, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Laws created from Christian Bible.

“The constitution was made by a religious people for a religious people.” - John Adams (roughly what was said) and the rights we are guaranteed, are based on our God (Christian) given rights. 72.250.158.89 (talk) 03:07, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

Changes to lede in the past month

In the past month there appears to have been some drastic changes to the lede of this article. This is how the last paragraph of the lede read as recently as September 18:

There have been variant explanations for this rapid secularization, including the loss trust and belief in numerous institutions such as the labor market, the economy, government and politics, marriage, the media, along with churches among younger cohorts,[25] September 11 attacks,[26] the rise of the religious right in the 1980s,[27] and sexual abuse scandals, particularly those within the Southern Baptist Convention[28] and Catholic Church.[29] During the late 20th century, the United States was an outlier among other highly developed countries, having a high level of religiosity and wealth, although this has lessened significantly since.[14][26][15] 21-29% of Americans describe themselves as not being affiliated with a religion,[8][30][11] a spectrum ranging from forms of spirituality that deviate from organized religious structures to materialistic forms of hard atheism.[31][32][33][34][35] Secular people in the United States, such as atheist and agnostics, have a distinctive belief system that can be traced for at least hundreds of years. They sometimes create religion-like institutions and communities, create rituals, and debate aspects of their shared beliefs. For these reasons, they are surprisingly religion-like despite often being opposed to religion.[36]

Now, this paragraph, and many of the sources that were included therein, has been replaced with a paragraph that expresses skepticism that the US is becoming less religious:

The religiosity of the country has grown greatly over time;[12] it was far more irreligious at the American Founding than in the present day.[21] Throughout its history, religious involvement among American citizens has gradually grown since 1776 from 17% of the US population to 62% in 2000.[21] According to religious studies professors at Baylor University, perceptions of religious decline are a popular misconception.[22] They state that surveys showing so suffer from methodological deficiencies, that Americans are becoming more religious, religion is thriving, and that Atheists and Agnostics make up a small and stable percentage of the population.[23][24][25] However, Americans have increasingly identified themselves as "nones" — a substantial majority of which believe in a God — for reasons debated among sociologists.[26][25][27][28][29]

This is a pretty drastic change in tone for which I can't seem to find any discussion or consensus building on the talk page prior to the change.

Skepticism is all well and good, but to have it subsume the entirety of the lede is to give it undue weight, especially when the basis for that skepticism seems entirely based on one group of religious studies professors at Baylor University. How can you mention the skepticism without mentioning arguments in favor of, or providing sources for, the supposed "popular misconception" that it's purporting to refute? The only justification for this that I can find on the talk page is one user discrediting it because the "idea is mainly predominantly among the press," but Wikipedia policy states that news organizations can be considered reliable sources.

In short, it seems like some person(s) have decided to take ownership of this article over the past month and drastically change the lede in order to support their preferred narrative. The last paragraph of the lede, as currently written, does not appear to strike a neutral point of view. Instead, it places an emphasis on the skepticism over the supposed "popular misconception" by not only downplaying the latter but completely removing it and any related sources that are not a refutation.TempDog123 (talk) 21:35, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

Yes, there is a problem. Thank you for taking the time to add your analysis. I've gone ahead and tagged three of the problems in the first two sentences of the entry. See the next section, too, for some specifics. -- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 10:57, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

Recalculating statistics and the Radiance Foundation (third footnote of the lede)

As I mentioned in an edit summary, the practice of regrouping statistics in ways not reported in a source is unacceptable. The opening graph of the source cited shows that 46% of Americans consider religion very important to their lives. If we cite the source, we should remain faithful to its presentation, not reinterpret the numbers by adding together those who consider it very important to those who report it has a fair-to-middlin importance... My restoration of the presentation given in the article itself rather than a recalculation was quietly reverted in this edit with no edit summary.

It is also worth observing that in this rewriting of the lede, a Deseret News article was added reporting the results of an online survey conducted on behalf of Skylight, "an initiative of the Radiance foundation". The article states: Skylight’s mission is to use technology to help young people embrace God-centered spiritual habits. Like the Deseret News, it’s part of Deseret Management Corporation. I do not believe this is a sufficiently impartial source to be used in the article. I also believe that targeted online surveys are generally to be taken with a couple pillars of salt. Other thoughts? Note: this second paragraph is copied from Talk:United States where it was also added.-- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 06:42, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Someone has replaced the Radiance Foundation survey now. (Thank you.) Unfortunately, I can only see the title page of the .pdf added to replace it, but that may be a technical issue on my side. -- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 16:53, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

I split the gallup numbers since that is the way was before such changes. Ramos1990 (talk) 17:10, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

Leading image

I had added the following collage of different images to add to the lead depicting different religions in the US:

Clockwise: Native American man performing the Fancy dance, Window from the Catholic Cathedral of San Juan Bautista,Buddist temple Byodo-In in O’ahu, prayer for Rosh Hashanah led by a jewish army chaplain, celebration of the hindu festival of Holi, Mosque in Buffalo

It was removed and replaced with an image of Washington National Cathedral (which was subsequently removed).

Does anyone have any objections on if a image like this was re-added? We can discuss the specific images added to the collage, but do people feel as if the general idea is good? Bluealbion (talk) 02:30, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

I think this image is too bulky for the page. It is quite distracting from the text of the article. Some of it looks foreign-ish too. A more focused image may be more appropriate, if any is to be added at all. Ramos1990 (talk) 05:41, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

I think this is a very vibrant image that would make the first sentence of the lead seem true. :) -- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 17:36, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

Televangelism

According to the lede of the en.wp article on Televangelism, "Televangelism began as a uniquely American phenomenon, resulting from a largely deregulated media where access to television networks and cable TV is open to virtually anyone who can afford it". If this is true a section of this page should summarize that entry. -- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 17:53, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

Recent edit - source

Just commenting on the Gallup source that was added in this edit [6]. The Gallup source is not about general religion, but about specific Christian entities. Even the "Americans' Belief in Five Spiritual Entities, by Demographic Subgroup" section only shows Protestants, Catholics, and None. Where are the rest? No Jews, Muslims, Hindus, etc. Also the source says "Gallup periodically measures Americans’ belief in God with different question wordings, producing slightly different results." If such is the case, which numbers are right? Indeed, Gallup admits they certainly do get very different numbers on the question of God alone, depending on how it is asked, as seen here [7], so which one is the right one? The source also says "In the current poll, about half of Americans, 51%, believe in all five spiritual entities, while 11% do not believe in any of them."

The nones are an incoherent group and we should be careful in making claims about them. The best sources for them are WP:secondary sources like academic researchers who look at multiple studies to come up with more comprehensive numbers. We should be careful with primary sources like raw survey data. In the Gallup source, numbers for the people who do not affiliate with a religion are different than for the numbers of people who seldom or never attend religious services - so both numbers on the 5 entities differ - which means that none's and those who never attend services are not the same people. Which one is the right number?

Clearer sources are needed to make claims on the heterogeneous groups like the "nones". Academic secondary sources help in ironing out such discrepancies from surveys, so those are preferred. Ramos1990 (talk) 02:01, 1 November 2023 (UTC)