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Persecution of atheists was merged into this article: See old talk-page here
This article should mention the controversies about the pledge of allegiance and the national motto In God We Trust in the United States.
Shouldn't it be Discrimination AGAINST atheists - instead of "of"? Otherwise it could mean how well atheists discriminate, or even how to discriminate (tell apart) atheists from others-- JimWae 19:20, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
By all means, change the title. I created this page in a hurry because of a decision made in the Persecution of atheists article that didn't follow through due to neglect. I support the Discrimination against atheists idea. In fact, I'm changing it right now. Starghost ( talk | contribs) 21:23, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
The title doesn't ring right in the context of the subject matter. I would expect, given the current title the article, for it to be about atheists' ability to make fine distinctions between choices. "Atheists are very discriminating when it comes to furniture selection." It may technically be idiomatically correct but I think we need to be a bit more discriminating. I suggest "Discrimination toward atheists".-- Fuhghettaboutit 19:31, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
The fact that the Swedish law of royal succesion legaly discriminate atheists is true, but it's in the same time two-edgeed - all non-protestants are excluded from the Swedish Throne. The law wasn't inforced to ban athesist from the swedish throne but other christians than protestants i.e catholics. The most famous example is probably Queen Kristina Vasa, who was forced to abdicate before she could be recieved in the Roman Catholic Church.
'In the 1988 U.S. presidential campaign, Republican presidential candidate George H. W. Bush reportedly said, "I don't know that atheists should be regarded as citizens, nor should they be regarded as patriotic. This is one nation under God." [2]'
Is there any further documentation for the Bush quote cited above (and in this article)? The only citation I can find anywhere is at robsherman.com, where he states: "The entire Chicago political press corps was there, along with members of the White House press corps and national news reporters, but no reporter thought that this anti-atheist bigotry was sufficiently newsworthy to do anything with it, other than me." This claim seems highly suspicious to me, considering that such an outrageous statement would seem certain to be documented elsewhere. If robsherman.com is the only source, I would suggest that this citation should be removed for insufficient documentation. -- Atanamis 16:13, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
This was posted at http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/intro.html at one time. The material is apparently no longer there but may provide some places to look:
“ | The following exchange took place at the Chicago airport between Robert I. Sherman of American Atheist Press and George H.W. Bush, on August 27 1987. Sherman is a fully accredited reporter, and was present by invitation as a member of the press corps. The Republican presidential nominee was there to announce federal disaster relief for Illinois. The discussion turned to the presidential primary:
RS: "What will you do to win the votes of Americans who are atheists?" GB: "I guess I'm pretty weak in the atheist community. Faith in God is important to me." RS: "Surely you recognize the equal citizenship and patriotism of Americans who are atheists?" GB: "No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God." RS: "Do you support as a sound constitutional principle the separation of state and church?" GB: "Yes, I support the separation of church and state. I'm just not very high on atheists." UPI reported on May 8, 1989, that various atheist organizations were still angry over the remarks. The exchange appeared in the Boulder Daily Camera on Monday February 27, 1989. It can also be found in "Free Inquiry" magazine, Fall 1988 issue, Volume 8, Number 4, page 16. On October 29, 1988, Mr. Sherman had a confrontation with Ed Murnane, co-chairman of the Bush-Quayle '88 Illinois campaign. This concerned a lawsuit Mr. Sherman had filed to stop the Community Consolidated School District 21 (Chicago, Illinois) from forcing his first-grade atheist son to pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States as "one nation under God" (Bush's phrase). The following conversation took place: RS: "American Atheists filed the Pledge of Allegiance lawsuit yesterday. Does the Bush campaign have an official response to this filing?" EM: "It's bullshit." RS: "What is bullshit?" EM: "Everything that American Atheists does, Rob, is bullshit." RS: "Thank you for telling me what the official position of the Bush campaign is on this issue." EM: "You're welcome." After Bush's election, American Atheists wrote to Bush asking him to retract his statement. On February 21st 1989, C. Boyden Gray, Counsel to the President, replied on White House stationery that Bush substantively stood by his original statement, and wrote: "As you are aware, the President is a religious man who neither supports atheism nor believes that atheism should be unnecessarily encouraged or supported by the government. |
” |
I also found this source through this entry at wikiquote.-- Fuhghettaboutit 18:48, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
It should be noted that there are two slightly different versions of this quote, with "nor should they be regarded as patriots" vs. "nor should they be regarded as patriotic". The former is the more commonly quoted version (as by Fuhghettaboutit above) and it seems to be the original version of the quote (I found it on Usenet as far back as Jan. 1989), however the latter is the version posted on the Rob Sherman site and he is the reporter who originally reported it. So, should we use the "patriots" or the "patriotic" version of this quote? We are currently using the latter. -- HiEv 18:15, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
I can give you a literary reference, just gives the same story, but lends more credibility to the quote : Robert I. Sherman Free Inquiry 8: 4, Fall 1988, 16. One objection to this source though- Sherman didn't use a tape recorder. He could just be fibbing, but one hopes 'journalistic integrity" still meant something back in the 80's. Microphotographer
http://www.robsherman.com/advocacy/060401a.htm
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_H._W._Bush
[*]For all practical purposes, that is only a single source, as the wikiquote article only gives Rob Sherman as a source.
Ricree101
08:37, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
-- Ernstk ( talk) 15:04, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
These links say how you can order a printed version of the original article(s):
/ Benzocaine 17:24, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
I suggest "Discrimination against atheists" and "Persecution of atheists" be merged into one article. I recognize the difference between Persecution and Discrimination however, being that these articles compliment eachother I think a merge would be beneficial. Also, both articles are very short and are not very informative on their own. Just a thought, I do not mind completing the merge if it is approved by the community.
Discrimination and persecution are separate topics and do not belong together. For example, when women in the US were not allowed to vote, they were discriminated against, but not persecuted. -- OinkOink 06:19, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
I am planning on adding a section about Germany, specifically concerning §166 StGB, a federal law prohibiting blashphemy that is "apt to cause a disturbance of the peace". Under this law, theatre-plays have been censored, and every outspoken atheist can theoretically be punished where his actions or words can (excuse the formulation) make religious nuts angry enough to get violent. Furthermore, the Federal Republic of Germany violates the constitutionally guaranteed neutrality by financing religious education, which is mandatory in Bavaria and other states unless the parents or the children themselves when they are older than 14 officially request not to have to visit religous education, in which case they have to take a course in ethics. Atheism is further discriminated in Bavaria since you can choose an advanced course in religious education for your "Abitur" (the final exams of the "Gymnasium", which -when passed- allow you to visit a university), but not in Ethics, which is only available as a basic course. Also, the church has the right to appoint and relieve of duty professors for theology at PUBLIC universities. Also, the state collects church-tax from every member of the church, and you have to officially leave the church to be exempted from paying this tax since with baptism you automatically become a member of the church. In some states you even have to pay a fee to be exempted from paying this tax. Several parties and organisations (even the largest parties nowadays, the CDU/CSU) in actions and words discriminate atheists. There are further discriminations against atheists in Germany, which I will not list now. However, I would be grateful for assistance in collecting information and structuring an addition. 84.56.110.103 15:24, 9 April 2007 (UTC)MikeB
Wow, that's amazing. I never knew Germany was like that. how reprehensible. Anyway, I'd love to help, but as a stupid American I wouldnt have the first clue as to where to look for citations for german federal law. let me know how I can help otherwise though. VanTucky 17:05, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
The part about the Boy Scouts of America not allowing atheists is either out of date or completely incorrect. A large portion of my troop is atheist, including several adults. I suggest it be removed or corrected. Crimsonn Draycko 13:29, 13 April 2007 (UTC) Crimsonn Draycko
I think that section 3 should be deleted entirely. I have seen no reasons that justify discrimination against atheists other than those that come out of mere ignorance. For example, Anti-Christian discrimination doesn't have any kind of justification section. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 59.167.87.177 ( talk) 11:15, August 23, 2007 (UTC)
We had 3x citation required for quite bland statements but then I had read the Anti-Christian_discrimination article and felt that fitted too (in fact the Anti-Christian_discrimination article opening sentences would fit for any discrimination against beliefs as it is a generic list of claims. As the Anti-Christian_discrimination article didn't have citation needed tags it was thus easier to work with that as a new foundation. Ttiotsw 07:07, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
I have reorganised the countries but added no new text. Insert new countries alphabetically. Please expand. If you plan to work on a new country entry and don't want to duplicate your efforts then please add the country name to this section and sign your name. Once the country is added by you then ideally please remove your name (or anyone else should strike out your entry from here) OK ?;
I put the word "some" in the sentence formerly "Atheists claim that this violates secularism and therefore is discriminating against atheism" in the Sweden section, because it's fairly obvious not all atheists would hold the same viewpoint on that issue. Just thought I'd actually edit Wiki for once, xD 199.126.134.144 04:37, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
An atheist or an agnostic can be President in the USA ? According to their legislation, the President needs to do a religious oath with is hand on the Bible. For some reason, despite 14 % of atheists and agnostics, there´s just a single atheist in the american Congress, and also a lot of religious fakes in american politics. Not even the american Catholic Church seems nowdays very worried with that. Mistico ( talk) 01:53, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
Isn't the article currently appallingly lame? The examples of discrimination are the religious test to be a Swedish monarch, some inoperative religious tests fossilized in US state constitutions, and the American Boy Scouts' ban on atheists. Only the last is even worth mentioning, but it is still not very significant. The real problem here is that the article only deals with the comtemporary US and Sweden, where there is no noteworthy discrimination against atheists. A substantial article on discrimination against atheists will have to look around the world and into history. There's a lot of material around, but currently this article just sounds like whining by people who really want to feel persecuted. -- OinkOink 06:19, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
Sorry I sounded that way; I'm definitely not trying to start a flamewar, but I lack diplomatic skills. I do feel this article is quite substandard and parochial. With all the countries in the world to look at for examples of discrimination against atheists, this article picks only the USA and Sweden. To anybody who thinks for a few minutes about the position of atheists in places like Pakistan or Indonesia, this sounds pretty trivial. "But they won't let me be king of Sweden! Discrimination!" -- OinkOink 16:05, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
Good idea. I've added the tag. -- OinkOink 21:34, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
Surely the fact that there is *any* discrimination in Sweden or the USA on something so trivial as religion is enough to warrant an article in the first place? Henners91 14:29, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
I've added a stubby Victorian England section, with a mention of Charles Bradlaugh's problems in Parliament. The main Charles Bradlaugh article has more information. Obviously, there is much more to do here. The religious tests in education are an important topic. Victorian England was a watershed as the first truly modern society, and it was also a watershed in the status of atheists. I hope historically sophisticated wikipedians will see fit to expand this section. -- OinkOink 00:54, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for your correction. -- OinkOink 15:12, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm not complaining, but it seems odd to have a Victorian example on a page otherwise filled with present day examples. Need I remind you that the British head of state is STILL legally required to be Church of England? GMPinkElephant —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.67.175.208 ( talk) 17:15, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm confused over something in this section. I read somewhere in the main "discrimination against atheist" article, where someone mentioned discriminating against them as "religious intolerance"? How can it be a religion and atheism at the same time? Isn't Atheism an ABSENCE of religion? KellyLeighC ( talk) 12:54, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes, this is a matter of definition here. If you define religious persecution as persecution due to religious reasons correctly, persecution of atheists is covered by that, same for discrimination. If you were an Atheists in, say early 17th century England and said that out loudly, you definitely would get trouble! But this needs to be worked into the article. Zara1709 ( talk) 18:29, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
I don't mean to sound abrasive, bit I agree with OinkOink above on the 'lameness' of at lest this section of the article. For discrimination, it lists a 'disapproval' rating in the U.S., a (too) long description of a quote by a former president, and the funding of the BSA. The remaining section describes a long list of how atheism has been PROTECTED in America. The only discrimination in this section are the listed state constitutions, and three of those six have been overturned (protecting atheism). It also gives a list of supreme court decisions that have further protected atheism. Is there any place in the United States to find true discrimination against atheist? You know, laws fobidding atheism, denying them government support, laws that socially separate them. Remember the old 'separate but equal' laws? THAT was true discrimination. To state that the BSA discriminates would be correct for this article. Giving tax money to the BSA may be wrong, but it is a stretch to call it discrimination. So what discrimination is there; three state constitutions (valid) and the BSA along with the Pledge of Allegiance (lame) Angncon ( talk) 07:30, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
Though this may be more fitting for discussion on separation of church and state in the U.S., it had important implications for atheists in the United States. Bush's Faith-Based Initiative, though it failed to pass through Congress, allowed all departments under the executive branch to give finances to religious organizations, most notably taking money away from secular, science-based drug rehab centers to give to Christian rehab centers. Being churches, these centers discriminate in employment and the whole situation is iffy in constitutionality, nevermind the fact that the money has been given solely to Christian organizations, with the exception of one "inter-faith" organization, despite the fact that many others have applied. Anyways, I'm not an expert on the subject but believe it might be relevant for this page if anyone wants to take up the task of inclusion. FluxFuser ( talk) 02:14, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
The deletion of the major Atheist group from MySpace might also deserve recognition on this page. See: < http://www.secularstudents.org/node/1933> FluxFuser ( talk) 06:43, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
The use of the phrase "On June 26, a Republican-dominated group of 100-150 congressmen stood outside the capital and recited the pledge - showing how much they disagreed with the decision." seems biased to me in that it suggests that the only possible goal of signaling is to show how one feels. A better version might be "and recited the pledge in opposition to the decision." I'd edit it myself but I don't edit much and I'd rather build a consensus. ChrisMR. 128.227.206.27 ( talk) 15:08, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
The following news article may fit in which the theme of this wikipedia article. Provided for your consideration:
--User:Ceyockey ( talk to me) 14:00, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
George HW Bush's quote has now been deleted from the article but I don't see why - it's a pretty serious issue in the context of discrimination against atheists. It's not as if Rob Sherman was some nobody throwing around unsubstantiated allegations. He was the (invited) representative of American Atheist journal at the press corps covering GHW Bush and reported those comments in his capacity as journalist. It's pretty significant that neither Bush nor any of his spokespeople have ever denied the comments attributed to him, particularly when he was asked on several occasions by American Atheists to do so. The comments were also included in a campaign by American Atheists to Congress to end discrimination against atheists, so they were given a fair amount of publicity. Again, there was no response from Bush. Wikischolar1983 ( talk) 14:34, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
In the USA anyone who makes a contribution to a religious organization (church, synagogue, mosque, etc) is entitled to a tax deduction. Is an equivalent deduction applicable for an organized atheistic, antireligious, or irreligious organization? If not, that is discrimination. Too Old ( talk) 13:48, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Currently there's a small section on Victorian Britain shoved under International Examples, I'm not entirely convinced that the 1800s are 'international'. Should we split this into historical attitudes to atheism and current ones? There must be shedloads to talk about. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Billsmith453 ( talk • contribs) 09:16, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
The Egypt section is nice, but hardly complete, but is inappropriately titled. The massive, and lethal discrimination against atheists (e.g. a muslim cannot be punished for killing an atheist, is part of the Egyptian legal system), and is not at all unique to Egypt, but practiced in large parts of the middle east (in principle it is applied everywhere except israel and lebanon, in practice it is applied like this in at least lybia, egypt, saudi arabia, all gulf countries, and iran).
Also Egypt does not discriminate against christian converts (although these often get "special attention"), but against all muslims who (even claim to) leave islam.
The discrimination is about killing, but not limited there : inheritance law, children, property rights, taxes ... all these sections of the egyptian law are discriminatory against both atheists and members of other religions.
It should be mentioned that the killing of atheists merely for being atheists is an accepted part of islamic law, and that the origin of these rules lies there. By contrast, neither thoraic law nor canon law specify death penalties for atheists. Perhaps the parts of the quran that mention these acts could be pointed out ? 83.182.205.60 ( talk) 18:59, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
I´m from Portugal, but I have this idea from what I have read. I ask to any american wikipedian to prove here if the atheists and agnostics aren´t obliged to a religious oath if they were elected for the Presidency or in the courthouses, were as we all know, they have to do a religious oath, "so help me God". 81.193.189.248 ( talk) 21:27, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
The US constitution does not require a candidate to say "so help me God," in the Oath of office of the President of the United States but it's unlikely that any politician who did not say it would hold office long due to the widespread social disapproval. According to that same article though, other federal positions do require one to say "so help me god." I think that would make an interesting debate in the supreme court as it seems to conflict with the no religious test clause. AzureFury ( talk) 18:25, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for explaining that and showing that article. Many people from other countries, like me, believed the religious oath was compulsive for the Presidency. You still didn´t showed if atheists or agnostics don´t need to do the religious oath at trials. There is a "religious" political mentality in the USA that explains why it would be very difficult for a politician to assume himself of herself as an atheist or an agnostic. That explains, according with this site [8] why most americans would rather vote for a gay (55 %) then for an atheist (36 %) for President, and there´s a single atheist or agnostic in the american Congress - I´m pretty sure there are many others "in the closet", and not even a single Governor claims to be an atheist or agnostic. That means something in a country were there is about 14 % of atheists and agnostics, and as we can see by Wikipedia there are plenty writers, scientists, intelectuals, celebrities, like everyhwere who are non religious. As everybody knows there´s also a lot of religious fakes in american politics, like those who claim to be Catholic and bless partial-birth abortion, that is a form of infanticide, like John Kerry. Nevertheless, I´m sure that it would have been almost impossible to be elected if he assumed himself as an atheist, wich many people believe he is, as many others. USA really discriminate non religious people due to the religious oaths. 81.193.220.86 ( talk) 17:26, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
You're preachin' to the choir. Atheists are pretty much the only minority that it is still socially acceptable to discriminate against. AzureFury ( talk) 14:52, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
You do not have to swear to God in a U.S. court of law; they will allow an affirmation instead. However, in a practical sense, if this distinction is noticed, widespread prejudice against atheists may affect the efficacy of such testimony, so a lawyer might avoid putting someone with that objection on the stand. Marlon Brando once famously took the stand and was read the standard oath, to which he responded, "No, I do not," and began to digress on his disbelief in God, which prompted the judge to cut him off and tell him "We have another oath you can use". Technically though such an "oath" would not be an oath but an affirmation.
As for oaths of offices, many of the currently proscribed oaths do expressly contain a appeal to God, for senators, congresspeople, and even federal judges. As for the President, the Oath of office of the President of the United States is expressly stated in the Constitution, but it does not expressly include "So help me God", nor does it dictate the use of a Bible, but many of the presidents themselves have done these. (Some presidents swore in on two Bibles. I've no idea what that's meant to indicate.) Certainly this has become more true since the rise of Christian triumphalism following WWII and the Red Scare.
After the federal level, the oaths of offices of individual states are up to the states themselves. Many of the egregious states -- blatantly violating the Constitution which dictates that no test of religion may be required to take an office in the U.S. -- are listed in this article. HTH. - Keith D. Tyler ¶ 20:27, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for explaining that. It´s really fascinating to think that in Portugal, were I came from, the religious oath was abolished in 1910, after the proclamation of the republic, and was never reinstated, not even during the fascist regimen, the "New State" (1933-1974). During that time, the oath for the Presidency or at the courthouses didn´t have any reference to God, nor the single party 1933 Constitution. There was an oath for public office were the people had to swear that they weren´t communists, but it was like that : "I swear by my honour that I´m not a communist." We can see that all around Europe there are plenty non religious politicians, even in the far-right. 213.13.242.234 ( talk) 16:19, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
I have created So help me God to document when this phrase has been, or is still, in use in various countries. John Vandenberg ( chat) 11:41, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
The article states that Sweden is "one of the most secularized countries in the world". It then goes on to explain how religion is affiliated with the government and is incorporated into law. By what standard is secularized? -- 142.68.161.244 ( talk) 03:53, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
I think the US discrimination section is incomplete. I think this sentence should be removed:
American courts have regularly, if controversially, interpreted the constitutional requirement for separation of church and state as protecting the freedoms of non-believers, as well as prohibiting the establishment of any state religion.
The section on "under God" in the pledge of allegiance seems to contradict this. Additionally, I think we should mention what has been said in the talk page, specifically the requirement for Affirmation to testify in court. Additionally, that senators, congressmen, and judges are required to believe in God should be mentioned. Oh also, the fact that there are no openly non-religious congressmen. I'll do this tomorrow most likely if no one has any complaints. AzureFury ( talk) 18:59, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
I added a new section detailing who has to swear to god and who does not. Additionally, I slightly reworded the top paragraph so I could fit in a mention of the only openly Atheist US Congressman. Right now the section really needs citation, lolz. AzureFury ( talk) 17:31, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
There are at least more two famous american contemporary politicians who are non religious. Henry Kissinger is an assumed agnostic, and Jessie Ventura, like it appears in the article about him is an atheist. Interesting that Kissinger never could run for President, since he was born in Germany, and that Ventura was elected Governor of Minnesota by a third party, the Reform Party. 82.154.80.140 ( talk) 21:30, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
"Congressmen" ;). Also, as has been said, many people here suspect there are "closet" Atheists in American politics. Showing how hard it is to be elected while being openly Atheist was my point. AzureFury ( talk) 00:24, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
To show how it seems illogical the almost total absence of assumed atheists and agnostics from American politics, as can be seen from the Congress, it will be interesting if someone showed how many atheists and agnostics there are in the French Congress. I'm quite sure there are plenty, probably even the majority. 81.193.214.48 ( talk) 16:07, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
Though I firmly believe that Atheists are discriminated against in Iran, I find the new section has a number of problems. The first is that it is without any citations. The second is that the first sentence basically says "Atheists are discriminated against" but then never gives any solid examples.
It mentions Atheists can be executed, but this is slightly misleading. Apostasy is a matter of debate, including what the punishment is, and whether or not you have to reject Islam, as in, whether or not someone born an Atheist is subject to being tried for Apostasy. In addition, this is a criticism of Islam, and indeed it is covered at Criticisms of Islam#Apostasy in Islamic law. Before we re-add this to the section (right now I've kept it in the source code in comments) we need to find a way to relate it to Iran specifically. Or perhaps we could re-organize the article to include the Middle-East as a region, with subsections for each country?
The last paragraph says poets and artists were executed, but doesn't even say if any of them were Atheist. Atheists are so rare in the developing world that it's quite possible that they were Christian or Sunni or some other religion that Shiites hate. AzureFury ( talk | contribs) 21:43, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
I'm thinking of re-organizing the article. Right now it's organized by country. I was thinking of making this a subsection of "by country." And then adding a section "by religion." There we can include the scripture and the discrimination not specific to a country. Thoughts? AzureFury ( talk | contribs) 17:45, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
I fail to see how does PA constitution discriminates against atheists. The statement "No person who acknowledges the being of a God and a future state of rewards and punishments shall, on account of his religious sentiments, be disqualified to hold any office or place of trust or profit under this Commonwealth" does not punish or disqualifies atheists, it only reinforces the fact that people with certain beliefs will not be disqualified, while staying silent on other people. The kind of logic used to claim that this is discriminatory would lead to weird conclusions like that Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 really discriminates against able-bodied people because it says that people with disabilities will not be discriminated against, but stays silent on the rights of able bodied people.-- Hq3473 ( talk) 19:16, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
Though I don't think it's necessary, I added sources calling the law discrimination, including one from "religioustolerance.org". I hope this is satisfactory. AzureFury ( talk | contribs) 20:45, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
(Undent)Added more sources, now with people claiming practice in law. Do you still dispute it belongs here? AzureFury ( talk | contribs) 18:57, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
(undent)You could not be more wrong. The first source added specifically says that the discriminatory provisions remain in the present so you can't chalk that up to being the old PA constitution. This is from the second:
In the constitutions of at least eight states, there still exist
16 provisions that deny atheists the right to hold public office and/
or testify in a court of law
Followed in the next paragraph by
Pennsylvania State Constitution: Article 1, Section 4 (“No person who
acknowledges the being of a God and a future state of rewards and punishments shall, on account of his religious sentiments, be disqualified
to hold any office or place of trust or profit under this Commonwealth.”);
That is in the current constitution. Since the possible discriminatory nature of the PA constitution is not stated as fact in the article, I need only show that some reliable sources consider it so. I have done that. AzureFury ( talk | contribs) 20:07, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
Present PA constitution reads:
Would it be worth including in an article on racial discrimination (w/o the "alleged" qualifier) if it read:
-- JimWae ( talk) 22:09, 10 September 2008 (UTC) or on religious discrimination, it it read:
Might I suggest that Hq3473 submit a request for discussion? The section seems to have been fine until he started raising issues, and despite AzureFury providing cites, Hq3473 still insists that the article is deficient. If Hq3473 wants a genuine resolution, he should use the correct tools for getting a resolution. TechBear ( talk) 16:21, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
How can discrimination against atheists be a form of religious intolerance when atheists don't even believe in religion?
Ожиданиесчастья ( talk) 02:37, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
The religious discriminate against the non-religious. Hence "religious intolerance" or "the intolerance of the religious." AzureFury ( talk | contribs) 04:10, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
Some of the Bible verses that are currently included have nothing to do with atheism. These three all have to do with internal church relations - heresy, if you will, rather than unbelief. Each case deals with people who are ostensibly Christians but who are teaching or behaving in a way that the writer believes is harmful to the church.
This one is dealing with a form of proto-gnosticism that did not accept the incarnation. Note the argument, that by denying that "Jesus is the Christ" they also deny "the Father and the Son." Early Gnostics denied that the man Jesus was divine, but wanted to accept both God and the divine Logos (the Son).
This one is also dealing with an internal church matter - whether or not a Christian can eat meat. The argument that's being made is that if a Christian thinks it may be wrong to eat meat, then they are violating their conscience if they go ahead and eat it.
It's important to take the time to look at the context of the verses we include here. Otherwise we'll include a lot of stuff that simply doesn't belong, which will damage the credibility of the article with anyone who's familiar with the Bible. EastTN ( talk) 21:24, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
Alright Hq3473, enough with the deletions. Just because something is not obviously discrimination does not warrant deleting it. People will come here to learn about these things. If you look at the talk page, you'll see that it's widely believed that the president is required to say "under god". It is exactly the purpose of an encyclopedia to inform, and in this case we're informing them that this is not the case. If you're trying to push a pro-theist agenda, deleting statements that say "this is NOT discrimination" is not helping your argument. AzureFury ( talk | contribs) 17:35, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
(undent)I've rewritten the passage a little bit to emphasize that it is a refutation of a popularly held belief and that the mention here is not an accusation of discrimination. AzureFury ( talk | contribs) 05:18, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
So: I don't care what fucking problem the US-American public has with atheism. I don't understand this whole atheism issue. There are good arguments for atheism (How could a good God allow the evil in the world?) and against it (How can you live in the evil world if you don't believe in a good God?), but as incredible as this sounds, in my opinion
Albert Camus has actually solved this question in
The Rebel (book). If you read
Augustine of Hippo as a philosopher he also has an interesting view.
I am only dealing with this issue, because I've cleaned up some of the mess that other editors created a various religious persecution articles, and the Rob Sherman controversy was one case of content that clearly was misplaced. Other editors became rather uncivil towards me about this, forcing me to spend so much time on this issue that I am not going easy on it any more. The argument about "Self-published sites" here is blatant attempt of Wikilawyering. You are just seeking an guideline that fits because you just want to remove something. If you would just spent one minute with editoral judgement you would realized that our reliable sources are those newspapers that reported about the issue. And anyway, wp:rs is not a blunt hammer against anything that is not listed there: "Sources should directly support the information as it is presented in an article and should be appropriate to the claims made." The authors of reliable sources "are generally regarded as trustworthy or authoritative in relation to the subject at hand." I think we can consider Rob Sherman as trustworthy as a reliable source for the point THAT HE CLAIMS that Bush said that. We are not at all considering him a reliable source for the point that he actually said it! Zara1709 ( talk) 12:21, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
The article claims that Pete Stark has been the only openly atheist member of Congress in the history of the US. However, to my knowledge Pete Stark has never claimed to be an atheist, merely a nontheist. There is no citation given for claim that he is an atheist, should this be removed until one can be provided? 129.97.254.230 ( talk) 20:32, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, but this seems to be just a question of language. If he claims not to believe in God that would make him an atheist. 85.242.237.223 ( talk) 15:15, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
I was thinking of moving the page to something like "Discrimination against non-theists" since that's really what it is. People interchange atheist with agnostic and everything inbetween pretty regularly, but we shouldn't. Really, laws that require a person to claim belief in god when they really don't are discriminatory against all non-believers. AzureFury ( talk | contribs) 18:16, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
We need a citation for the Iran section. I've added a citation tag for now, but I'm fully expecting an Iranian editor to come along and delete it. At this point, he would be justified in doing so. I've been hunting for this sort of thing on Google...but I haven't found it. If someone knows more than I do, please add a reference. AzureFury ( talk | contribs) 02:20, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
Persecution by Christians redirects to Christian debate on persecution and toleration, and there is obviously an article on Islamic terrorism. I don't see why a similar article regarding atheists would be objectionable if sufficient sources and examples were found. — Jomasecu [ T• C 03:14, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
According to WP:Original research:
Wikipedia articles should rely mainly on published reliable secondary sources and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources. All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, rather than original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors.
Our policy: Wikipedia articles usually rely on material from secondary sources. Articles may include analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims so long as they have been published by a reliable source.
Our policy: Primary sources that have been published by a reliable source (for example, by a university press or mainstream newspaper) may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation. Without a secondary source, a primary source may be used only to make descriptive claims, the accuracy of which is easily verifiable by any reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge. For example, an article about a novel may cite passages from the novel to describe the plot, but any interpretation of those passages needs a secondary source.
If you can find a secondary source, for example, where someone states that these verses allow the killing or discrimination against atheists, then we may use these verses, that is why I didn't take them out. However, until you show a secondary source that attribute to these verses what you are, you are breaking WP:Original research. -- Enzuru 02:49, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
First off, neither of our opinions matter, because that is original research. You must prove these verses mean what you are saying they mean to scripture, not me to disprove what you feel is apparent. I disproved many of these verses before, and I will paste it here, not for this debate, but simply for you to read. Once again, you will need sources showing that these verses are interpreted as you mean. -- Enzuru 03:21, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
1. Oh you who believe! Murder those of the disbelievers and let them find harshness in you. (Q.9:123)
2. I will instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers: smite above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off. (Q.8:12)
3. Whoso desires another religion than Islam, it shall not be accepted of him. (Q.3:85)
4. Slay the idolaters wherever you find them. (Q.9:5)
5. Kill them wherever you find them, and drive them out from wherever they drove you out. (Q.2:191)
6. Fight them on until there is no more dissension and religion becomes that of Allâh. (Q.9:193)
7. Fight them, and Allâh will punish them by your hands, cover them with shame. (Q.9:14)
8. Make no excuses: you have rejected Faith after you had accepted it. If we pardon some of you, we will punish others amongst you, for that they are in sin. (Q.9:66)
9. You who believe! Verily, the Mushrikûn (unbelievers) are Najasun (impure). So let them not come near Al-Masjid-al-Harâm (the grand mosque at Mecca) after this year. (Q.9:28)
10. Fight those who do not believe in Allâh and the last day... and fight People of the Book, who do not accept the religion of truth (Islam) until they pay tribute by hand, being inferior. (Q.9:29)</nowiki>
These excerpts are taken from the Koran itself; I don't see how this leaves much 'wiggle room' for tolerance in modern Islam unless followers have decided to ignore sections of their holy text, and Jihad would seem inevitable to me. Mjackso6 ( talk) 01:05, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
Instead of just citing from scriptures, we should delete those sections and use secondary sources themselves. I actually thought a section like this already existed but I realized just now it didn't (I thought this was a separate section dealing with the scripture of those faiths). Why don't we rebuild the section citing Jewish rabbnical opinions on how atheists should be treated (historically as well as contemporarily), Christian opinions (particulary Catholic and Protestant), and Muslim opinions, citing both mainstream historical scholarship as well as recent persecution of atheists by Muslim communities? This way, we can deal both with what the religions preach, and what is practiced by the followers. Scripture as we both agreed is vague and sometimes not easy to decipher. -- Enzuru 07:20, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
Just because it's tradition doesn't make it right. You're talking to an atheist here. The last argument you want to make to me is "most people believe this, therefore that's how we should approach it." I live in the most pious Christian nation in the western world and have chosen to reject my faith. The opinion of the masses doesn't have a lot of weight with me. If I understand you correctly, you would be willing to say that we could ignore the literal meaning of a passage just because most people do. That would not be original research, but it wouldn't be any better. AzureFury ( talk | contribs) 07:05, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
OK, there are at least a couple of countries -- Denmark and Britain -- whose monarchs are restricted by law to be a member of the state religion. In what way does this constitute discrimination against atheists? It's discrimination against every other religious or irreligious perspective that exists; I'd imagine atheism is a downright trivial issue as far as these laws are concerned. It seems odd to include these. -- jpgordon ∇∆∇∆ 22:23, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
We need reliable sources explicitly citing these items as examples of "discrimination against atheists." Otherwise we are committing original research in violation of policy, no matter how much we may like our conclusions. A baby turkey citation needed 05:52, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
Simply no. If you want a source go to dictionary.com and look up "discrimination." AzureFury ( talk | contribs) 07:12, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
(undent) The reference to the UK monarch should be removed. Verbal chat 11:26, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
The discussion about the appropriateness of quotes in the article seems to have been distracted as users began to discuss whether or not they think that the quotes do indeed show discrimination, but our personal conclusions have no bearing on whether or not the material is right for the article.
AzureFury's attempt to associate passages from primary sources to "discrimination against atheists," essentially suggesting that they are examples of Quranic "discrimination against atheists" is original research ( WP:PRIMARY). Interpreting primary sources is what experts are supposed to do, not Wikipedians. If reliable sources associates these passages explicitly to "discrimination against atheists," we can use those sources, and if there is still value in a the passages we may keep them as well. Until then, they must be excised from this article.
For starters, love them or hate them, answering-islam.org, Jihad Watch, and other polemic websites do not even approach being reliable sources. A baby turkey citation needed 05:53, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
On a topic like this, every aspect of the article needs to be based on secondary sources. The entire section Discrimination_against_atheists#Scripture is making suggestions that these passages have caused discrimination, but this is not very well founded by citations to scholarly views. (there are some in the Koran section) As has been said elsewhere on this talk page, we need to add sources that discuss these passages and how they relate to discrimination, oppression and apostasy. Simply tossing a verse at a reader is wrong, as there are mountains of scholarly views about every single verse in the Bible and the Koran, so there is no need to just provide verses and require that the reader figure out how relevant it is. These passages do not discriminate; people do. Scholarly opinion is needed to link the two and demonstrate how much effect these passages have had on people who have discriminated. Anyone with half a brain knows that these passages are pretty poignant examples of what has motivated people, but these sections have been tagged as {{ OR}} because we need to alert readers (and editors) that we havent yet added information to put these passages in context using secondary sources. Also, it is worth keeping in mind that the concept of discrimination was not a concern when these passages were written-- i.e. they were not written for the purpose of discrimination; the underlying motive was very different - nation building and ethnic cleansing are more apt descriptions for the motivations behind these passages. Above you say that "murdering people is discrimination". That statement is inaccurate if "discrimination" is not the intended motive. We dont call war an act of discrimination, because even though they overlap, they are fundamentally very different beasts. Jews who didn't believe in the one God were put to death or expelled from the country. OTOH, the U.S. state constitutions were written in a time when discrimination was a concept people understood, those affected where citizens of the country and numerous enough that the lawmakers realised the result of the laws they were writing, but the states still thought it was a good thing to exclude them from certain offices :- that is discrimination as we know it. One of the reasons why dont permit original research, or we aggressively tag it, is that it is easy to come to misleading conclusions by making a few unqualified statements like "murdering people is discrimination" in a sequence ends up with some very bizarre results. If a scholar does that, their papers get rejected and we never get an opportunity to cite them. The peer-review process ensures that what we cite is well reasoned. John Vandenberg ( chat) 13:29, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
The original research appears to jump in after "there exist laws that could be considered discriminatory towards atheists." A good portion of the items do not involve reliable sources explicitly associating "discrimination against atheists." The source called "Lag" I cannot check, but I also suspect it is a primary source or otherwise does not actually make the interpretative jump.
I'm going to go after this, but at quick glance it seems that the case about the Swedish Humanist Association could possibly be forged into an appropriate passage. Are there any general comments or defenses? A baby turkey citation needed 07:14, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
In the article I used as a reference for the BSA case, [10] two other cases are mentioned:
“ | Gray, Tennesse: Carletta Sims joined a financial firm in June 2001. Shortly afterward, two Baptist coworkers took offense upon learning that Sims was an atheist. Management granted the coworkers' request to be assigned workspaces further from Sims. When Sims complained about a picture of Jesus left on her computer, management discharged her. Sims filed suit, seeking $250,000; U.S. District Judge Thomas Hull ruled that "religious discrimination (or preferential treatment of Christians) can be inferred." In January 2004, the major bank that had since acquired the firm settled with Sims for an undisclosed amount. | ” |
“ | Caro, Michigan: In December 2001, Anonka--an open atheist who maintains a museum of Christian religious atrocities--appeared before the Tuscola County Board of Commissioners to challenge a nativity scene placed on public land. Commissioners responded angrily, saying she had no right to be present and proceeding to ridicule her. Anonka and her family suffered repeated harassment including annoyance calls, threatening calls and letters, and vandalism. In February 2004, the county settled in U.S. District Court, agreeing to pay an undisclosed sum and to issue a "public expression of regret." | ” |
John Vandenberg ( chat) 12:22, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
This article, besides the original research problems, fundamentally comes across as more of a brochure for atheism than a balanced and encyclopedic article. I'm not saying that the topic isn't encyclopedic, or that the current one is blatantly pushing a view (or else I would have tagged the whole thing NPOV), but that it just reads more like a rant with a scattershot of examples than an objective presentation point by point with an actual flow and logic to it. And I say that as an atheist myself, by the way. We are not here to convince (and the lead is especially direct in stating claims without any sources and which a number of people would disagree), we are here to describe. DreamGuy ( talk) 14:50, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
Please demonstrate your good faith here by discussing major changes, especially deletions before you implement them. AzureFury ( talk | contribs) 20:51, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
"Under siege" -- you've got to be kidding me, AzureFury. People are just trying to get this article to meet Wikipedia standards. You do not WP:OWN this article, despite your clear indications that you think you do. DreamGuy ( talk) 21:44, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
We have a bit of an edit war going on regarding whether Oath vs Affirmation is relevant; no secondary sources have been provided. I've searched for secondary sources relating to "Discrimination oath affirmation" and found nothing, and also searched the web. Why is Oath vs Affirmation relevant? Has it ever been relevant in the U.S.? Is there any example of it being relevant to discrimination in the U.S. It might be relevant in other countries, for examples this might be of interest if someone can track down which wording they are debating and the current status of it. John Vandenberg ( chat) 00:46, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
Americans really do have a tendency for political correctness ! You should compare more often USA with other countries. The question of the oath vs. affirmation issue is that there is a double standard for all citizens, if they believe or not in God. If USA were a more true secular state, like most countries in Europe, there would be a secular, non religious, oath for every citizen. I think this makes the case and why this issue is also relevant. There is also a tendency to see that the oath is more valuable then the affirmation because of the reference to God, which seems to indicates even more distrust of non-theistic people. 213.13.244.166 ( talk) 14:39, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
Previously uninvolved RFC comment. So the entire dispute is over whether the English Monarch's religious requirement is discrimination against atheists? Why not discrimination against Jews or Hindus? I agree with removal. If this issue is resolved, please deactivate the tag. Cool Hand Luke 17:12, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
I understand that a big chunk of this dispute is whether or not my interpretation of policy is valid, and whether or not it would contradict a wider community consensus. Therefore, I am going to list here articles that do the exact same thing as has been done in this article: list an example of discrimination that is not called discrimination in the source. This list is by no means comprehensive; it took less than 15 minutes to create, with most of that time spent writing this section. AzureFury ( talk | contribs) 02:38, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
I see that the deleting editors are no longer participating in the discussion. Good. I'll just delete the original research tags and continue trying to improve the article. AzureFury ( talk | contribs) 07:43, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
First, let me say that the article needs sources that specifically mention discrimination against atheism. It doesn't matter what is done in other articles, that has nothing to do with consensus although it might simply show that there are a number of other bad articles.
Secondly, I'm an atheist.
It should be easy to find good sources. Most countries have various relevant associations, eg in the UK there is, among others, the British Humanist Assocation.
Here's a source: [14] which mentions discrimination in the Scouts against atheists. dougweller ( talk) 19:22, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
Since I have irrefutably demonstrated that trivial examples of discrimination may be included without a secondary source according to WP:OR, the only option left to the deleting editors is to cite specific examples and provide a convincing argument that they do not satisfy the definition of discrimination. I should not have had to explain this, but in doing so I have demonstrated my good faith in the face of unapologetically stubborn opposition. I listened to your comments about the UK example. I deleted it. Rather than gut the article, why don't we try to improve it one example at a time? AzureFury ( talk | contribs) 20:09, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
Why was removed the reference that in all the USA History, Pete Stark is currently the first and only non theistic congressmen ? I am sorry but people should realise that this article is open to all points of view, and the idea that in many countries of Europe there are like 40-60 % of non theistic congressmen and in the USA there´s only one seems relevant. Maybe not indicates openly "discrimination" but how the religious mentality in the USA makes very difficult to have more openly atheist and agnostic congressmen and politicians in general. Remember there are 10 % of non religious people in the USA. That is more then mormons, for example. 213.13.244.166 ( talk) 14:46, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
I says let's start at the top and work our way through each example. Here is two from the top.
Something needs to be interjected here... it is one thing for we (wikipedia editors) to debate here on the talk page whether a given law or constitution discriminates against Atheists, it is another thing entirely to state that it does so in the article. In order to include such a statement in the article, we have to cite a reliable source that states that it is discrimination. So, for example, if we are going to say that the Egyptian ID card is discriminatory we need to cite a reliable source that says (or at least claims) that the Egyptian ID card is discriminatory. It does not matter whether we think it is discrimiation (or even whether we "are possitive" that it is). The threshold for inclusion is Verifiability, not "Truth". For each law etc. listed, we need a reliable source to say "this is discrimination". Blueboar ( talk) 00:32, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
As mentioned in the edit comments where I removed this, the fact that just one person with no known notability or expertise uses the term Atheophobia in no way proves anyone else in the world does. The sites being linked to, frankly, do not even count as reliable sources in general (a personal website and a website anyone is allowed to edit, no expertise needed), so I wouldn't even be safe in assuming someone with that name ever really used the term. Who are they, anyway, and why does the editor who keeps putting that back think anyone cares what that person thinks? DreamGuy ( talk) 02:06, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
OK... Following WP:BOLD I have done some initial pruning, and have cut those paragraphs and sections that I think were clearly and completely violating WP:NOR. The fact that I did not remove something does not mean there are no OR issues, only that I was not completely and clearly sure of the extent of the OR. Blueboar ( talk) 22:08, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
Discrimination against atheists is a negative categorical bias against atheists. Really? Bias isn't itself discrimination; one can be biased and yet refuse to be discriminatory. n nations where freedom of belief is biased towards established religions, the issue becomes persecution of atheists. What does this sentence mean ("the issue becomes")? The Out Campaign, Brights movement, and Humanist Association of Canada are efforts to counter the feelings of discrimination and raise a positive public awareness about atheism and naturalism. The association is an effort? "Feelings of discrimination" are what is being countered (as opposed to discrimination itself)?
I bet we can do a lot better in this opening paragraph. -- jpgordon ∇∆∇∆ 05:20, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
I encountered this article in the aftermath of some cleanup at the old historical persecution by Christians article. The core of the material on the Rob Sherman controversy was included there, and certainly misplaced. I like to keep all the acceptable content when cleaning up articles, so I moved the material to Separation of church and state in the United States, but there I only got a unnecessary and ugly debate about it. So I finally moved the material here, although I was not quite satisfied with this.
Then I noticed that part about the fee for leaving the church in Germany. I managed to find some more sources, and I think that I could easily find some more. But apparently the editor who removed the material once also follows the strategy of revert first, discuss later. With my previous experiences on this I am wondering: Should I actually wait until 3rr is broken to report this as edit warring? Merry Christmas!
Well, let's take a closer look at the issue. This is supposed to be about reliable sources, but is it, really? I mean, it would be rather weird to demand sources for the fact that Germany has a church tax, or the fact that a fee is required when formally leaving the church to avoid paying that tax. All you'd have to do to verify that is to call you local town hall. But you'd have to wait I few days, because, as I already mentioned, today is Christmas. But probably you might still reach someone who deals with church tax issues there if you call before midday, so if this is the issue, you'd better get to it. But obviously the problem of reliable sources can only be meant to apply to the question whether this would constitute discrimination of atheists or not. Ok, then consider this: Isn't it possible that, although the majority of people in Germany haven't heard of this problem, and many would probably say that it is not discrimination, a significant minority of atheists in Germany considers this to be discriminating? Now, since we are all familiar with WP:NPOV, if this is a significant minority viewpoint, than we would violate the policy of a Neutral point of view if we wouldn't mention it. Since I can name that German atheist group as an adherent of of this view, I don't think we would need to discuss whether this is indeed a significant minority view.
So we need to include the atheist view somewhere, but where? The notion that an article like this would constitute original synthesis deserves some attention. I would even say that this articles like this are POVforks. We need to discuss the situation of atheists in the United States in the article Freedom of religion in the United States, the situation of atheists in Germany in the article Freedom of religion in Germany, etc. Actually I would go so far to suggest to deal with most "Persecution of" / " Discrimination of" articles this way and to abandon the idea of a 'religious persecution' template.
However, in that case we would get a different kind of problem. Obviously this application of wp:NPOV would force Christians an Atheists to discuss their issues at Freedom of religion in the United States, Hindus, Muslims and Christian to discuss their issues at Freedom of religion in India, etc. And obviously in these discussion someone would point to the another aspect of wp:NPOV that is contrary to what I've just written: "Articles that compare views should not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views, and will generally not include tiny-minority views at all. (...) Minority views can receive attention on pages specifically devoted to them—Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia."
I think that on this issue the policy of NPOV would tend more to keeping this article than to splitting it up. If this is not clear to some editors, I can explain this in more detail. But I personally would be in favour of splitting, and I think that this is a problem that we need to discuss. Zara1709 ( talk) 06:34, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
Ok,I found some sources. We've got a decision by Federal Constitutional Court of Germany, so this topic should surely be relevant. But balancing this is going to be rather difficult. The highest German court says that it is not discrimination, but the atheist group still says it is. Now, the atheist's view is significant, so it has to be mentioned; but of course it must not be given undue weight. More than one or two sentences on their viewpoint would be difficult to justify. But before we would get into the details of a discussion on this, first we should clarify whether it would be better to move that section to Freedom of religion in Germany or not. If there aren't any comments, I'll simply move it a few days. Zara1709 ( talk) 07:59, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
This is the dispute as I understand it.
The deleting editors claim "you need secondary sources to claim that something is discrimination."
The response was, " WP:OR allows for primary sources to be used if the material is trivially verifiable by an educated reasonable person. These examples are trivial examples of discrimination."
The deleting editors responded with, "that is not how the policy is interpretted."
This was countered with Talk:Discrimination_against_atheists#Other_articles_that_list_discrimination_without_.22discrimination.22_in_the_source which showed that the consistent application of policy allows for discrimination to be listed sourced by a primary source, which does not include any intepretation of discrimination.
The deleting editors responded with, "there are many bad articles."
The reason that is not an acceptable response is that the original question was whose interpretation of policy is correct which can only be answered by this side's interpretation of policy is correct. In otherwords, whoever shows that the community favors their interpretation will be more faithfully abiding by policy. The deleting editors are asking for an unprecedented level of citation, more so than is present than in any article. I am AzureFury, and hopefully by signing this I'll show that I never tried to evade the block. 67.183.198.99 ( talk) 06:21, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 |
Persecution of atheists was merged into this article: See old talk-page here
This article should mention the controversies about the pledge of allegiance and the national motto In God We Trust in the United States.
Shouldn't it be Discrimination AGAINST atheists - instead of "of"? Otherwise it could mean how well atheists discriminate, or even how to discriminate (tell apart) atheists from others-- JimWae 19:20, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
By all means, change the title. I created this page in a hurry because of a decision made in the Persecution of atheists article that didn't follow through due to neglect. I support the Discrimination against atheists idea. In fact, I'm changing it right now. Starghost ( talk | contribs) 21:23, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
The title doesn't ring right in the context of the subject matter. I would expect, given the current title the article, for it to be about atheists' ability to make fine distinctions between choices. "Atheists are very discriminating when it comes to furniture selection." It may technically be idiomatically correct but I think we need to be a bit more discriminating. I suggest "Discrimination toward atheists".-- Fuhghettaboutit 19:31, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
The fact that the Swedish law of royal succesion legaly discriminate atheists is true, but it's in the same time two-edgeed - all non-protestants are excluded from the Swedish Throne. The law wasn't inforced to ban athesist from the swedish throne but other christians than protestants i.e catholics. The most famous example is probably Queen Kristina Vasa, who was forced to abdicate before she could be recieved in the Roman Catholic Church.
'In the 1988 U.S. presidential campaign, Republican presidential candidate George H. W. Bush reportedly said, "I don't know that atheists should be regarded as citizens, nor should they be regarded as patriotic. This is one nation under God." [2]'
Is there any further documentation for the Bush quote cited above (and in this article)? The only citation I can find anywhere is at robsherman.com, where he states: "The entire Chicago political press corps was there, along with members of the White House press corps and national news reporters, but no reporter thought that this anti-atheist bigotry was sufficiently newsworthy to do anything with it, other than me." This claim seems highly suspicious to me, considering that such an outrageous statement would seem certain to be documented elsewhere. If robsherman.com is the only source, I would suggest that this citation should be removed for insufficient documentation. -- Atanamis 16:13, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
This was posted at http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/intro.html at one time. The material is apparently no longer there but may provide some places to look:
“ | The following exchange took place at the Chicago airport between Robert I. Sherman of American Atheist Press and George H.W. Bush, on August 27 1987. Sherman is a fully accredited reporter, and was present by invitation as a member of the press corps. The Republican presidential nominee was there to announce federal disaster relief for Illinois. The discussion turned to the presidential primary:
RS: "What will you do to win the votes of Americans who are atheists?" GB: "I guess I'm pretty weak in the atheist community. Faith in God is important to me." RS: "Surely you recognize the equal citizenship and patriotism of Americans who are atheists?" GB: "No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God." RS: "Do you support as a sound constitutional principle the separation of state and church?" GB: "Yes, I support the separation of church and state. I'm just not very high on atheists." UPI reported on May 8, 1989, that various atheist organizations were still angry over the remarks. The exchange appeared in the Boulder Daily Camera on Monday February 27, 1989. It can also be found in "Free Inquiry" magazine, Fall 1988 issue, Volume 8, Number 4, page 16. On October 29, 1988, Mr. Sherman had a confrontation with Ed Murnane, co-chairman of the Bush-Quayle '88 Illinois campaign. This concerned a lawsuit Mr. Sherman had filed to stop the Community Consolidated School District 21 (Chicago, Illinois) from forcing his first-grade atheist son to pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States as "one nation under God" (Bush's phrase). The following conversation took place: RS: "American Atheists filed the Pledge of Allegiance lawsuit yesterday. Does the Bush campaign have an official response to this filing?" EM: "It's bullshit." RS: "What is bullshit?" EM: "Everything that American Atheists does, Rob, is bullshit." RS: "Thank you for telling me what the official position of the Bush campaign is on this issue." EM: "You're welcome." After Bush's election, American Atheists wrote to Bush asking him to retract his statement. On February 21st 1989, C. Boyden Gray, Counsel to the President, replied on White House stationery that Bush substantively stood by his original statement, and wrote: "As you are aware, the President is a religious man who neither supports atheism nor believes that atheism should be unnecessarily encouraged or supported by the government. |
” |
I also found this source through this entry at wikiquote.-- Fuhghettaboutit 18:48, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
It should be noted that there are two slightly different versions of this quote, with "nor should they be regarded as patriots" vs. "nor should they be regarded as patriotic". The former is the more commonly quoted version (as by Fuhghettaboutit above) and it seems to be the original version of the quote (I found it on Usenet as far back as Jan. 1989), however the latter is the version posted on the Rob Sherman site and he is the reporter who originally reported it. So, should we use the "patriots" or the "patriotic" version of this quote? We are currently using the latter. -- HiEv 18:15, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
I can give you a literary reference, just gives the same story, but lends more credibility to the quote : Robert I. Sherman Free Inquiry 8: 4, Fall 1988, 16. One objection to this source though- Sherman didn't use a tape recorder. He could just be fibbing, but one hopes 'journalistic integrity" still meant something back in the 80's. Microphotographer
http://www.robsherman.com/advocacy/060401a.htm
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_H._W._Bush
[*]For all practical purposes, that is only a single source, as the wikiquote article only gives Rob Sherman as a source.
Ricree101
08:37, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
-- Ernstk ( talk) 15:04, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
These links say how you can order a printed version of the original article(s):
/ Benzocaine 17:24, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
I suggest "Discrimination against atheists" and "Persecution of atheists" be merged into one article. I recognize the difference between Persecution and Discrimination however, being that these articles compliment eachother I think a merge would be beneficial. Also, both articles are very short and are not very informative on their own. Just a thought, I do not mind completing the merge if it is approved by the community.
Discrimination and persecution are separate topics and do not belong together. For example, when women in the US were not allowed to vote, they were discriminated against, but not persecuted. -- OinkOink 06:19, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
I am planning on adding a section about Germany, specifically concerning §166 StGB, a federal law prohibiting blashphemy that is "apt to cause a disturbance of the peace". Under this law, theatre-plays have been censored, and every outspoken atheist can theoretically be punished where his actions or words can (excuse the formulation) make religious nuts angry enough to get violent. Furthermore, the Federal Republic of Germany violates the constitutionally guaranteed neutrality by financing religious education, which is mandatory in Bavaria and other states unless the parents or the children themselves when they are older than 14 officially request not to have to visit religous education, in which case they have to take a course in ethics. Atheism is further discriminated in Bavaria since you can choose an advanced course in religious education for your "Abitur" (the final exams of the "Gymnasium", which -when passed- allow you to visit a university), but not in Ethics, which is only available as a basic course. Also, the church has the right to appoint and relieve of duty professors for theology at PUBLIC universities. Also, the state collects church-tax from every member of the church, and you have to officially leave the church to be exempted from paying this tax since with baptism you automatically become a member of the church. In some states you even have to pay a fee to be exempted from paying this tax. Several parties and organisations (even the largest parties nowadays, the CDU/CSU) in actions and words discriminate atheists. There are further discriminations against atheists in Germany, which I will not list now. However, I would be grateful for assistance in collecting information and structuring an addition. 84.56.110.103 15:24, 9 April 2007 (UTC)MikeB
Wow, that's amazing. I never knew Germany was like that. how reprehensible. Anyway, I'd love to help, but as a stupid American I wouldnt have the first clue as to where to look for citations for german federal law. let me know how I can help otherwise though. VanTucky 17:05, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
The part about the Boy Scouts of America not allowing atheists is either out of date or completely incorrect. A large portion of my troop is atheist, including several adults. I suggest it be removed or corrected. Crimsonn Draycko 13:29, 13 April 2007 (UTC) Crimsonn Draycko
I think that section 3 should be deleted entirely. I have seen no reasons that justify discrimination against atheists other than those that come out of mere ignorance. For example, Anti-Christian discrimination doesn't have any kind of justification section. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 59.167.87.177 ( talk) 11:15, August 23, 2007 (UTC)
We had 3x citation required for quite bland statements but then I had read the Anti-Christian_discrimination article and felt that fitted too (in fact the Anti-Christian_discrimination article opening sentences would fit for any discrimination against beliefs as it is a generic list of claims. As the Anti-Christian_discrimination article didn't have citation needed tags it was thus easier to work with that as a new foundation. Ttiotsw 07:07, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
I have reorganised the countries but added no new text. Insert new countries alphabetically. Please expand. If you plan to work on a new country entry and don't want to duplicate your efforts then please add the country name to this section and sign your name. Once the country is added by you then ideally please remove your name (or anyone else should strike out your entry from here) OK ?;
I put the word "some" in the sentence formerly "Atheists claim that this violates secularism and therefore is discriminating against atheism" in the Sweden section, because it's fairly obvious not all atheists would hold the same viewpoint on that issue. Just thought I'd actually edit Wiki for once, xD 199.126.134.144 04:37, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
An atheist or an agnostic can be President in the USA ? According to their legislation, the President needs to do a religious oath with is hand on the Bible. For some reason, despite 14 % of atheists and agnostics, there´s just a single atheist in the american Congress, and also a lot of religious fakes in american politics. Not even the american Catholic Church seems nowdays very worried with that. Mistico ( talk) 01:53, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
Isn't the article currently appallingly lame? The examples of discrimination are the religious test to be a Swedish monarch, some inoperative religious tests fossilized in US state constitutions, and the American Boy Scouts' ban on atheists. Only the last is even worth mentioning, but it is still not very significant. The real problem here is that the article only deals with the comtemporary US and Sweden, where there is no noteworthy discrimination against atheists. A substantial article on discrimination against atheists will have to look around the world and into history. There's a lot of material around, but currently this article just sounds like whining by people who really want to feel persecuted. -- OinkOink 06:19, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
Sorry I sounded that way; I'm definitely not trying to start a flamewar, but I lack diplomatic skills. I do feel this article is quite substandard and parochial. With all the countries in the world to look at for examples of discrimination against atheists, this article picks only the USA and Sweden. To anybody who thinks for a few minutes about the position of atheists in places like Pakistan or Indonesia, this sounds pretty trivial. "But they won't let me be king of Sweden! Discrimination!" -- OinkOink 16:05, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
Good idea. I've added the tag. -- OinkOink 21:34, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
Surely the fact that there is *any* discrimination in Sweden or the USA on something so trivial as religion is enough to warrant an article in the first place? Henners91 14:29, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
I've added a stubby Victorian England section, with a mention of Charles Bradlaugh's problems in Parliament. The main Charles Bradlaugh article has more information. Obviously, there is much more to do here. The religious tests in education are an important topic. Victorian England was a watershed as the first truly modern society, and it was also a watershed in the status of atheists. I hope historically sophisticated wikipedians will see fit to expand this section. -- OinkOink 00:54, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for your correction. -- OinkOink 15:12, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm not complaining, but it seems odd to have a Victorian example on a page otherwise filled with present day examples. Need I remind you that the British head of state is STILL legally required to be Church of England? GMPinkElephant —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.67.175.208 ( talk) 17:15, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm confused over something in this section. I read somewhere in the main "discrimination against atheist" article, where someone mentioned discriminating against them as "religious intolerance"? How can it be a religion and atheism at the same time? Isn't Atheism an ABSENCE of religion? KellyLeighC ( talk) 12:54, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes, this is a matter of definition here. If you define religious persecution as persecution due to religious reasons correctly, persecution of atheists is covered by that, same for discrimination. If you were an Atheists in, say early 17th century England and said that out loudly, you definitely would get trouble! But this needs to be worked into the article. Zara1709 ( talk) 18:29, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
I don't mean to sound abrasive, bit I agree with OinkOink above on the 'lameness' of at lest this section of the article. For discrimination, it lists a 'disapproval' rating in the U.S., a (too) long description of a quote by a former president, and the funding of the BSA. The remaining section describes a long list of how atheism has been PROTECTED in America. The only discrimination in this section are the listed state constitutions, and three of those six have been overturned (protecting atheism). It also gives a list of supreme court decisions that have further protected atheism. Is there any place in the United States to find true discrimination against atheist? You know, laws fobidding atheism, denying them government support, laws that socially separate them. Remember the old 'separate but equal' laws? THAT was true discrimination. To state that the BSA discriminates would be correct for this article. Giving tax money to the BSA may be wrong, but it is a stretch to call it discrimination. So what discrimination is there; three state constitutions (valid) and the BSA along with the Pledge of Allegiance (lame) Angncon ( talk) 07:30, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
Though this may be more fitting for discussion on separation of church and state in the U.S., it had important implications for atheists in the United States. Bush's Faith-Based Initiative, though it failed to pass through Congress, allowed all departments under the executive branch to give finances to religious organizations, most notably taking money away from secular, science-based drug rehab centers to give to Christian rehab centers. Being churches, these centers discriminate in employment and the whole situation is iffy in constitutionality, nevermind the fact that the money has been given solely to Christian organizations, with the exception of one "inter-faith" organization, despite the fact that many others have applied. Anyways, I'm not an expert on the subject but believe it might be relevant for this page if anyone wants to take up the task of inclusion. FluxFuser ( talk) 02:14, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
The deletion of the major Atheist group from MySpace might also deserve recognition on this page. See: < http://www.secularstudents.org/node/1933> FluxFuser ( talk) 06:43, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
The use of the phrase "On June 26, a Republican-dominated group of 100-150 congressmen stood outside the capital and recited the pledge - showing how much they disagreed with the decision." seems biased to me in that it suggests that the only possible goal of signaling is to show how one feels. A better version might be "and recited the pledge in opposition to the decision." I'd edit it myself but I don't edit much and I'd rather build a consensus. ChrisMR. 128.227.206.27 ( talk) 15:08, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
The following news article may fit in which the theme of this wikipedia article. Provided for your consideration:
--User:Ceyockey ( talk to me) 14:00, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
George HW Bush's quote has now been deleted from the article but I don't see why - it's a pretty serious issue in the context of discrimination against atheists. It's not as if Rob Sherman was some nobody throwing around unsubstantiated allegations. He was the (invited) representative of American Atheist journal at the press corps covering GHW Bush and reported those comments in his capacity as journalist. It's pretty significant that neither Bush nor any of his spokespeople have ever denied the comments attributed to him, particularly when he was asked on several occasions by American Atheists to do so. The comments were also included in a campaign by American Atheists to Congress to end discrimination against atheists, so they were given a fair amount of publicity. Again, there was no response from Bush. Wikischolar1983 ( talk) 14:34, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
In the USA anyone who makes a contribution to a religious organization (church, synagogue, mosque, etc) is entitled to a tax deduction. Is an equivalent deduction applicable for an organized atheistic, antireligious, or irreligious organization? If not, that is discrimination. Too Old ( talk) 13:48, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Currently there's a small section on Victorian Britain shoved under International Examples, I'm not entirely convinced that the 1800s are 'international'. Should we split this into historical attitudes to atheism and current ones? There must be shedloads to talk about. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Billsmith453 ( talk • contribs) 09:16, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
The Egypt section is nice, but hardly complete, but is inappropriately titled. The massive, and lethal discrimination against atheists (e.g. a muslim cannot be punished for killing an atheist, is part of the Egyptian legal system), and is not at all unique to Egypt, but practiced in large parts of the middle east (in principle it is applied everywhere except israel and lebanon, in practice it is applied like this in at least lybia, egypt, saudi arabia, all gulf countries, and iran).
Also Egypt does not discriminate against christian converts (although these often get "special attention"), but against all muslims who (even claim to) leave islam.
The discrimination is about killing, but not limited there : inheritance law, children, property rights, taxes ... all these sections of the egyptian law are discriminatory against both atheists and members of other religions.
It should be mentioned that the killing of atheists merely for being atheists is an accepted part of islamic law, and that the origin of these rules lies there. By contrast, neither thoraic law nor canon law specify death penalties for atheists. Perhaps the parts of the quran that mention these acts could be pointed out ? 83.182.205.60 ( talk) 18:59, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
I´m from Portugal, but I have this idea from what I have read. I ask to any american wikipedian to prove here if the atheists and agnostics aren´t obliged to a religious oath if they were elected for the Presidency or in the courthouses, were as we all know, they have to do a religious oath, "so help me God". 81.193.189.248 ( talk) 21:27, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
The US constitution does not require a candidate to say "so help me God," in the Oath of office of the President of the United States but it's unlikely that any politician who did not say it would hold office long due to the widespread social disapproval. According to that same article though, other federal positions do require one to say "so help me god." I think that would make an interesting debate in the supreme court as it seems to conflict with the no religious test clause. AzureFury ( talk) 18:25, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for explaining that and showing that article. Many people from other countries, like me, believed the religious oath was compulsive for the Presidency. You still didn´t showed if atheists or agnostics don´t need to do the religious oath at trials. There is a "religious" political mentality in the USA that explains why it would be very difficult for a politician to assume himself of herself as an atheist or an agnostic. That explains, according with this site [8] why most americans would rather vote for a gay (55 %) then for an atheist (36 %) for President, and there´s a single atheist or agnostic in the american Congress - I´m pretty sure there are many others "in the closet", and not even a single Governor claims to be an atheist or agnostic. That means something in a country were there is about 14 % of atheists and agnostics, and as we can see by Wikipedia there are plenty writers, scientists, intelectuals, celebrities, like everyhwere who are non religious. As everybody knows there´s also a lot of religious fakes in american politics, like those who claim to be Catholic and bless partial-birth abortion, that is a form of infanticide, like John Kerry. Nevertheless, I´m sure that it would have been almost impossible to be elected if he assumed himself as an atheist, wich many people believe he is, as many others. USA really discriminate non religious people due to the religious oaths. 81.193.220.86 ( talk) 17:26, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
You're preachin' to the choir. Atheists are pretty much the only minority that it is still socially acceptable to discriminate against. AzureFury ( talk) 14:52, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
You do not have to swear to God in a U.S. court of law; they will allow an affirmation instead. However, in a practical sense, if this distinction is noticed, widespread prejudice against atheists may affect the efficacy of such testimony, so a lawyer might avoid putting someone with that objection on the stand. Marlon Brando once famously took the stand and was read the standard oath, to which he responded, "No, I do not," and began to digress on his disbelief in God, which prompted the judge to cut him off and tell him "We have another oath you can use". Technically though such an "oath" would not be an oath but an affirmation.
As for oaths of offices, many of the currently proscribed oaths do expressly contain a appeal to God, for senators, congresspeople, and even federal judges. As for the President, the Oath of office of the President of the United States is expressly stated in the Constitution, but it does not expressly include "So help me God", nor does it dictate the use of a Bible, but many of the presidents themselves have done these. (Some presidents swore in on two Bibles. I've no idea what that's meant to indicate.) Certainly this has become more true since the rise of Christian triumphalism following WWII and the Red Scare.
After the federal level, the oaths of offices of individual states are up to the states themselves. Many of the egregious states -- blatantly violating the Constitution which dictates that no test of religion may be required to take an office in the U.S. -- are listed in this article. HTH. - Keith D. Tyler ¶ 20:27, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for explaining that. It´s really fascinating to think that in Portugal, were I came from, the religious oath was abolished in 1910, after the proclamation of the republic, and was never reinstated, not even during the fascist regimen, the "New State" (1933-1974). During that time, the oath for the Presidency or at the courthouses didn´t have any reference to God, nor the single party 1933 Constitution. There was an oath for public office were the people had to swear that they weren´t communists, but it was like that : "I swear by my honour that I´m not a communist." We can see that all around Europe there are plenty non religious politicians, even in the far-right. 213.13.242.234 ( talk) 16:19, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
I have created So help me God to document when this phrase has been, or is still, in use in various countries. John Vandenberg ( chat) 11:41, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
The article states that Sweden is "one of the most secularized countries in the world". It then goes on to explain how religion is affiliated with the government and is incorporated into law. By what standard is secularized? -- 142.68.161.244 ( talk) 03:53, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
I think the US discrimination section is incomplete. I think this sentence should be removed:
American courts have regularly, if controversially, interpreted the constitutional requirement for separation of church and state as protecting the freedoms of non-believers, as well as prohibiting the establishment of any state religion.
The section on "under God" in the pledge of allegiance seems to contradict this. Additionally, I think we should mention what has been said in the talk page, specifically the requirement for Affirmation to testify in court. Additionally, that senators, congressmen, and judges are required to believe in God should be mentioned. Oh also, the fact that there are no openly non-religious congressmen. I'll do this tomorrow most likely if no one has any complaints. AzureFury ( talk) 18:59, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
I added a new section detailing who has to swear to god and who does not. Additionally, I slightly reworded the top paragraph so I could fit in a mention of the only openly Atheist US Congressman. Right now the section really needs citation, lolz. AzureFury ( talk) 17:31, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
There are at least more two famous american contemporary politicians who are non religious. Henry Kissinger is an assumed agnostic, and Jessie Ventura, like it appears in the article about him is an atheist. Interesting that Kissinger never could run for President, since he was born in Germany, and that Ventura was elected Governor of Minnesota by a third party, the Reform Party. 82.154.80.140 ( talk) 21:30, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
"Congressmen" ;). Also, as has been said, many people here suspect there are "closet" Atheists in American politics. Showing how hard it is to be elected while being openly Atheist was my point. AzureFury ( talk) 00:24, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
To show how it seems illogical the almost total absence of assumed atheists and agnostics from American politics, as can be seen from the Congress, it will be interesting if someone showed how many atheists and agnostics there are in the French Congress. I'm quite sure there are plenty, probably even the majority. 81.193.214.48 ( talk) 16:07, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
Though I firmly believe that Atheists are discriminated against in Iran, I find the new section has a number of problems. The first is that it is without any citations. The second is that the first sentence basically says "Atheists are discriminated against" but then never gives any solid examples.
It mentions Atheists can be executed, but this is slightly misleading. Apostasy is a matter of debate, including what the punishment is, and whether or not you have to reject Islam, as in, whether or not someone born an Atheist is subject to being tried for Apostasy. In addition, this is a criticism of Islam, and indeed it is covered at Criticisms of Islam#Apostasy in Islamic law. Before we re-add this to the section (right now I've kept it in the source code in comments) we need to find a way to relate it to Iran specifically. Or perhaps we could re-organize the article to include the Middle-East as a region, with subsections for each country?
The last paragraph says poets and artists were executed, but doesn't even say if any of them were Atheist. Atheists are so rare in the developing world that it's quite possible that they were Christian or Sunni or some other religion that Shiites hate. AzureFury ( talk | contribs) 21:43, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
I'm thinking of re-organizing the article. Right now it's organized by country. I was thinking of making this a subsection of "by country." And then adding a section "by religion." There we can include the scripture and the discrimination not specific to a country. Thoughts? AzureFury ( talk | contribs) 17:45, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
I fail to see how does PA constitution discriminates against atheists. The statement "No person who acknowledges the being of a God and a future state of rewards and punishments shall, on account of his religious sentiments, be disqualified to hold any office or place of trust or profit under this Commonwealth" does not punish or disqualifies atheists, it only reinforces the fact that people with certain beliefs will not be disqualified, while staying silent on other people. The kind of logic used to claim that this is discriminatory would lead to weird conclusions like that Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 really discriminates against able-bodied people because it says that people with disabilities will not be discriminated against, but stays silent on the rights of able bodied people.-- Hq3473 ( talk) 19:16, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
Though I don't think it's necessary, I added sources calling the law discrimination, including one from "religioustolerance.org". I hope this is satisfactory. AzureFury ( talk | contribs) 20:45, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
(Undent)Added more sources, now with people claiming practice in law. Do you still dispute it belongs here? AzureFury ( talk | contribs) 18:57, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
(undent)You could not be more wrong. The first source added specifically says that the discriminatory provisions remain in the present so you can't chalk that up to being the old PA constitution. This is from the second:
In the constitutions of at least eight states, there still exist
16 provisions that deny atheists the right to hold public office and/
or testify in a court of law
Followed in the next paragraph by
Pennsylvania State Constitution: Article 1, Section 4 (“No person who
acknowledges the being of a God and a future state of rewards and punishments shall, on account of his religious sentiments, be disqualified
to hold any office or place of trust or profit under this Commonwealth.”);
That is in the current constitution. Since the possible discriminatory nature of the PA constitution is not stated as fact in the article, I need only show that some reliable sources consider it so. I have done that. AzureFury ( talk | contribs) 20:07, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
Present PA constitution reads:
Would it be worth including in an article on racial discrimination (w/o the "alleged" qualifier) if it read:
-- JimWae ( talk) 22:09, 10 September 2008 (UTC) or on religious discrimination, it it read:
Might I suggest that Hq3473 submit a request for discussion? The section seems to have been fine until he started raising issues, and despite AzureFury providing cites, Hq3473 still insists that the article is deficient. If Hq3473 wants a genuine resolution, he should use the correct tools for getting a resolution. TechBear ( talk) 16:21, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
How can discrimination against atheists be a form of religious intolerance when atheists don't even believe in religion?
Ожиданиесчастья ( talk) 02:37, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
The religious discriminate against the non-religious. Hence "religious intolerance" or "the intolerance of the religious." AzureFury ( talk | contribs) 04:10, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
Some of the Bible verses that are currently included have nothing to do with atheism. These three all have to do with internal church relations - heresy, if you will, rather than unbelief. Each case deals with people who are ostensibly Christians but who are teaching or behaving in a way that the writer believes is harmful to the church.
This one is dealing with a form of proto-gnosticism that did not accept the incarnation. Note the argument, that by denying that "Jesus is the Christ" they also deny "the Father and the Son." Early Gnostics denied that the man Jesus was divine, but wanted to accept both God and the divine Logos (the Son).
This one is also dealing with an internal church matter - whether or not a Christian can eat meat. The argument that's being made is that if a Christian thinks it may be wrong to eat meat, then they are violating their conscience if they go ahead and eat it.
It's important to take the time to look at the context of the verses we include here. Otherwise we'll include a lot of stuff that simply doesn't belong, which will damage the credibility of the article with anyone who's familiar with the Bible. EastTN ( talk) 21:24, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
Alright Hq3473, enough with the deletions. Just because something is not obviously discrimination does not warrant deleting it. People will come here to learn about these things. If you look at the talk page, you'll see that it's widely believed that the president is required to say "under god". It is exactly the purpose of an encyclopedia to inform, and in this case we're informing them that this is not the case. If you're trying to push a pro-theist agenda, deleting statements that say "this is NOT discrimination" is not helping your argument. AzureFury ( talk | contribs) 17:35, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
(undent)I've rewritten the passage a little bit to emphasize that it is a refutation of a popularly held belief and that the mention here is not an accusation of discrimination. AzureFury ( talk | contribs) 05:18, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
So: I don't care what fucking problem the US-American public has with atheism. I don't understand this whole atheism issue. There are good arguments for atheism (How could a good God allow the evil in the world?) and against it (How can you live in the evil world if you don't believe in a good God?), but as incredible as this sounds, in my opinion
Albert Camus has actually solved this question in
The Rebel (book). If you read
Augustine of Hippo as a philosopher he also has an interesting view.
I am only dealing with this issue, because I've cleaned up some of the mess that other editors created a various religious persecution articles, and the Rob Sherman controversy was one case of content that clearly was misplaced. Other editors became rather uncivil towards me about this, forcing me to spend so much time on this issue that I am not going easy on it any more. The argument about "Self-published sites" here is blatant attempt of Wikilawyering. You are just seeking an guideline that fits because you just want to remove something. If you would just spent one minute with editoral judgement you would realized that our reliable sources are those newspapers that reported about the issue. And anyway, wp:rs is not a blunt hammer against anything that is not listed there: "Sources should directly support the information as it is presented in an article and should be appropriate to the claims made." The authors of reliable sources "are generally regarded as trustworthy or authoritative in relation to the subject at hand." I think we can consider Rob Sherman as trustworthy as a reliable source for the point THAT HE CLAIMS that Bush said that. We are not at all considering him a reliable source for the point that he actually said it! Zara1709 ( talk) 12:21, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
The article claims that Pete Stark has been the only openly atheist member of Congress in the history of the US. However, to my knowledge Pete Stark has never claimed to be an atheist, merely a nontheist. There is no citation given for claim that he is an atheist, should this be removed until one can be provided? 129.97.254.230 ( talk) 20:32, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, but this seems to be just a question of language. If he claims not to believe in God that would make him an atheist. 85.242.237.223 ( talk) 15:15, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
I was thinking of moving the page to something like "Discrimination against non-theists" since that's really what it is. People interchange atheist with agnostic and everything inbetween pretty regularly, but we shouldn't. Really, laws that require a person to claim belief in god when they really don't are discriminatory against all non-believers. AzureFury ( talk | contribs) 18:16, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
We need a citation for the Iran section. I've added a citation tag for now, but I'm fully expecting an Iranian editor to come along and delete it. At this point, he would be justified in doing so. I've been hunting for this sort of thing on Google...but I haven't found it. If someone knows more than I do, please add a reference. AzureFury ( talk | contribs) 02:20, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
Persecution by Christians redirects to Christian debate on persecution and toleration, and there is obviously an article on Islamic terrorism. I don't see why a similar article regarding atheists would be objectionable if sufficient sources and examples were found. — Jomasecu [ T• C 03:14, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
According to WP:Original research:
Wikipedia articles should rely mainly on published reliable secondary sources and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources. All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, rather than original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors.
Our policy: Wikipedia articles usually rely on material from secondary sources. Articles may include analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims so long as they have been published by a reliable source.
Our policy: Primary sources that have been published by a reliable source (for example, by a university press or mainstream newspaper) may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation. Without a secondary source, a primary source may be used only to make descriptive claims, the accuracy of which is easily verifiable by any reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge. For example, an article about a novel may cite passages from the novel to describe the plot, but any interpretation of those passages needs a secondary source.
If you can find a secondary source, for example, where someone states that these verses allow the killing or discrimination against atheists, then we may use these verses, that is why I didn't take them out. However, until you show a secondary source that attribute to these verses what you are, you are breaking WP:Original research. -- Enzuru 02:49, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
First off, neither of our opinions matter, because that is original research. You must prove these verses mean what you are saying they mean to scripture, not me to disprove what you feel is apparent. I disproved many of these verses before, and I will paste it here, not for this debate, but simply for you to read. Once again, you will need sources showing that these verses are interpreted as you mean. -- Enzuru 03:21, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
1. Oh you who believe! Murder those of the disbelievers and let them find harshness in you. (Q.9:123)
2. I will instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers: smite above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off. (Q.8:12)
3. Whoso desires another religion than Islam, it shall not be accepted of him. (Q.3:85)
4. Slay the idolaters wherever you find them. (Q.9:5)
5. Kill them wherever you find them, and drive them out from wherever they drove you out. (Q.2:191)
6. Fight them on until there is no more dissension and religion becomes that of Allâh. (Q.9:193)
7. Fight them, and Allâh will punish them by your hands, cover them with shame. (Q.9:14)
8. Make no excuses: you have rejected Faith after you had accepted it. If we pardon some of you, we will punish others amongst you, for that they are in sin. (Q.9:66)
9. You who believe! Verily, the Mushrikûn (unbelievers) are Najasun (impure). So let them not come near Al-Masjid-al-Harâm (the grand mosque at Mecca) after this year. (Q.9:28)
10. Fight those who do not believe in Allâh and the last day... and fight People of the Book, who do not accept the religion of truth (Islam) until they pay tribute by hand, being inferior. (Q.9:29)</nowiki>
These excerpts are taken from the Koran itself; I don't see how this leaves much 'wiggle room' for tolerance in modern Islam unless followers have decided to ignore sections of their holy text, and Jihad would seem inevitable to me. Mjackso6 ( talk) 01:05, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
Instead of just citing from scriptures, we should delete those sections and use secondary sources themselves. I actually thought a section like this already existed but I realized just now it didn't (I thought this was a separate section dealing with the scripture of those faiths). Why don't we rebuild the section citing Jewish rabbnical opinions on how atheists should be treated (historically as well as contemporarily), Christian opinions (particulary Catholic and Protestant), and Muslim opinions, citing both mainstream historical scholarship as well as recent persecution of atheists by Muslim communities? This way, we can deal both with what the religions preach, and what is practiced by the followers. Scripture as we both agreed is vague and sometimes not easy to decipher. -- Enzuru 07:20, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
Just because it's tradition doesn't make it right. You're talking to an atheist here. The last argument you want to make to me is "most people believe this, therefore that's how we should approach it." I live in the most pious Christian nation in the western world and have chosen to reject my faith. The opinion of the masses doesn't have a lot of weight with me. If I understand you correctly, you would be willing to say that we could ignore the literal meaning of a passage just because most people do. That would not be original research, but it wouldn't be any better. AzureFury ( talk | contribs) 07:05, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
OK, there are at least a couple of countries -- Denmark and Britain -- whose monarchs are restricted by law to be a member of the state religion. In what way does this constitute discrimination against atheists? It's discrimination against every other religious or irreligious perspective that exists; I'd imagine atheism is a downright trivial issue as far as these laws are concerned. It seems odd to include these. -- jpgordon ∇∆∇∆ 22:23, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
We need reliable sources explicitly citing these items as examples of "discrimination against atheists." Otherwise we are committing original research in violation of policy, no matter how much we may like our conclusions. A baby turkey citation needed 05:52, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
Simply no. If you want a source go to dictionary.com and look up "discrimination." AzureFury ( talk | contribs) 07:12, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
(undent) The reference to the UK monarch should be removed. Verbal chat 11:26, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
The discussion about the appropriateness of quotes in the article seems to have been distracted as users began to discuss whether or not they think that the quotes do indeed show discrimination, but our personal conclusions have no bearing on whether or not the material is right for the article.
AzureFury's attempt to associate passages from primary sources to "discrimination against atheists," essentially suggesting that they are examples of Quranic "discrimination against atheists" is original research ( WP:PRIMARY). Interpreting primary sources is what experts are supposed to do, not Wikipedians. If reliable sources associates these passages explicitly to "discrimination against atheists," we can use those sources, and if there is still value in a the passages we may keep them as well. Until then, they must be excised from this article.
For starters, love them or hate them, answering-islam.org, Jihad Watch, and other polemic websites do not even approach being reliable sources. A baby turkey citation needed 05:53, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
On a topic like this, every aspect of the article needs to be based on secondary sources. The entire section Discrimination_against_atheists#Scripture is making suggestions that these passages have caused discrimination, but this is not very well founded by citations to scholarly views. (there are some in the Koran section) As has been said elsewhere on this talk page, we need to add sources that discuss these passages and how they relate to discrimination, oppression and apostasy. Simply tossing a verse at a reader is wrong, as there are mountains of scholarly views about every single verse in the Bible and the Koran, so there is no need to just provide verses and require that the reader figure out how relevant it is. These passages do not discriminate; people do. Scholarly opinion is needed to link the two and demonstrate how much effect these passages have had on people who have discriminated. Anyone with half a brain knows that these passages are pretty poignant examples of what has motivated people, but these sections have been tagged as {{ OR}} because we need to alert readers (and editors) that we havent yet added information to put these passages in context using secondary sources. Also, it is worth keeping in mind that the concept of discrimination was not a concern when these passages were written-- i.e. they were not written for the purpose of discrimination; the underlying motive was very different - nation building and ethnic cleansing are more apt descriptions for the motivations behind these passages. Above you say that "murdering people is discrimination". That statement is inaccurate if "discrimination" is not the intended motive. We dont call war an act of discrimination, because even though they overlap, they are fundamentally very different beasts. Jews who didn't believe in the one God were put to death or expelled from the country. OTOH, the U.S. state constitutions were written in a time when discrimination was a concept people understood, those affected where citizens of the country and numerous enough that the lawmakers realised the result of the laws they were writing, but the states still thought it was a good thing to exclude them from certain offices :- that is discrimination as we know it. One of the reasons why dont permit original research, or we aggressively tag it, is that it is easy to come to misleading conclusions by making a few unqualified statements like "murdering people is discrimination" in a sequence ends up with some very bizarre results. If a scholar does that, their papers get rejected and we never get an opportunity to cite them. The peer-review process ensures that what we cite is well reasoned. John Vandenberg ( chat) 13:29, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
The original research appears to jump in after "there exist laws that could be considered discriminatory towards atheists." A good portion of the items do not involve reliable sources explicitly associating "discrimination against atheists." The source called "Lag" I cannot check, but I also suspect it is a primary source or otherwise does not actually make the interpretative jump.
I'm going to go after this, but at quick glance it seems that the case about the Swedish Humanist Association could possibly be forged into an appropriate passage. Are there any general comments or defenses? A baby turkey citation needed 07:14, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
In the article I used as a reference for the BSA case, [10] two other cases are mentioned:
“ | Gray, Tennesse: Carletta Sims joined a financial firm in June 2001. Shortly afterward, two Baptist coworkers took offense upon learning that Sims was an atheist. Management granted the coworkers' request to be assigned workspaces further from Sims. When Sims complained about a picture of Jesus left on her computer, management discharged her. Sims filed suit, seeking $250,000; U.S. District Judge Thomas Hull ruled that "religious discrimination (or preferential treatment of Christians) can be inferred." In January 2004, the major bank that had since acquired the firm settled with Sims for an undisclosed amount. | ” |
“ | Caro, Michigan: In December 2001, Anonka--an open atheist who maintains a museum of Christian religious atrocities--appeared before the Tuscola County Board of Commissioners to challenge a nativity scene placed on public land. Commissioners responded angrily, saying she had no right to be present and proceeding to ridicule her. Anonka and her family suffered repeated harassment including annoyance calls, threatening calls and letters, and vandalism. In February 2004, the county settled in U.S. District Court, agreeing to pay an undisclosed sum and to issue a "public expression of regret." | ” |
John Vandenberg ( chat) 12:22, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
This article, besides the original research problems, fundamentally comes across as more of a brochure for atheism than a balanced and encyclopedic article. I'm not saying that the topic isn't encyclopedic, or that the current one is blatantly pushing a view (or else I would have tagged the whole thing NPOV), but that it just reads more like a rant with a scattershot of examples than an objective presentation point by point with an actual flow and logic to it. And I say that as an atheist myself, by the way. We are not here to convince (and the lead is especially direct in stating claims without any sources and which a number of people would disagree), we are here to describe. DreamGuy ( talk) 14:50, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
Please demonstrate your good faith here by discussing major changes, especially deletions before you implement them. AzureFury ( talk | contribs) 20:51, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
"Under siege" -- you've got to be kidding me, AzureFury. People are just trying to get this article to meet Wikipedia standards. You do not WP:OWN this article, despite your clear indications that you think you do. DreamGuy ( talk) 21:44, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
We have a bit of an edit war going on regarding whether Oath vs Affirmation is relevant; no secondary sources have been provided. I've searched for secondary sources relating to "Discrimination oath affirmation" and found nothing, and also searched the web. Why is Oath vs Affirmation relevant? Has it ever been relevant in the U.S.? Is there any example of it being relevant to discrimination in the U.S. It might be relevant in other countries, for examples this might be of interest if someone can track down which wording they are debating and the current status of it. John Vandenberg ( chat) 00:46, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
Americans really do have a tendency for political correctness ! You should compare more often USA with other countries. The question of the oath vs. affirmation issue is that there is a double standard for all citizens, if they believe or not in God. If USA were a more true secular state, like most countries in Europe, there would be a secular, non religious, oath for every citizen. I think this makes the case and why this issue is also relevant. There is also a tendency to see that the oath is more valuable then the affirmation because of the reference to God, which seems to indicates even more distrust of non-theistic people. 213.13.244.166 ( talk) 14:39, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
Previously uninvolved RFC comment. So the entire dispute is over whether the English Monarch's religious requirement is discrimination against atheists? Why not discrimination against Jews or Hindus? I agree with removal. If this issue is resolved, please deactivate the tag. Cool Hand Luke 17:12, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
I understand that a big chunk of this dispute is whether or not my interpretation of policy is valid, and whether or not it would contradict a wider community consensus. Therefore, I am going to list here articles that do the exact same thing as has been done in this article: list an example of discrimination that is not called discrimination in the source. This list is by no means comprehensive; it took less than 15 minutes to create, with most of that time spent writing this section. AzureFury ( talk | contribs) 02:38, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
I see that the deleting editors are no longer participating in the discussion. Good. I'll just delete the original research tags and continue trying to improve the article. AzureFury ( talk | contribs) 07:43, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
First, let me say that the article needs sources that specifically mention discrimination against atheism. It doesn't matter what is done in other articles, that has nothing to do with consensus although it might simply show that there are a number of other bad articles.
Secondly, I'm an atheist.
It should be easy to find good sources. Most countries have various relevant associations, eg in the UK there is, among others, the British Humanist Assocation.
Here's a source: [14] which mentions discrimination in the Scouts against atheists. dougweller ( talk) 19:22, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
Since I have irrefutably demonstrated that trivial examples of discrimination may be included without a secondary source according to WP:OR, the only option left to the deleting editors is to cite specific examples and provide a convincing argument that they do not satisfy the definition of discrimination. I should not have had to explain this, but in doing so I have demonstrated my good faith in the face of unapologetically stubborn opposition. I listened to your comments about the UK example. I deleted it. Rather than gut the article, why don't we try to improve it one example at a time? AzureFury ( talk | contribs) 20:09, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
Why was removed the reference that in all the USA History, Pete Stark is currently the first and only non theistic congressmen ? I am sorry but people should realise that this article is open to all points of view, and the idea that in many countries of Europe there are like 40-60 % of non theistic congressmen and in the USA there´s only one seems relevant. Maybe not indicates openly "discrimination" but how the religious mentality in the USA makes very difficult to have more openly atheist and agnostic congressmen and politicians in general. Remember there are 10 % of non religious people in the USA. That is more then mormons, for example. 213.13.244.166 ( talk) 14:46, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
I says let's start at the top and work our way through each example. Here is two from the top.
Something needs to be interjected here... it is one thing for we (wikipedia editors) to debate here on the talk page whether a given law or constitution discriminates against Atheists, it is another thing entirely to state that it does so in the article. In order to include such a statement in the article, we have to cite a reliable source that states that it is discrimination. So, for example, if we are going to say that the Egyptian ID card is discriminatory we need to cite a reliable source that says (or at least claims) that the Egyptian ID card is discriminatory. It does not matter whether we think it is discrimiation (or even whether we "are possitive" that it is). The threshold for inclusion is Verifiability, not "Truth". For each law etc. listed, we need a reliable source to say "this is discrimination". Blueboar ( talk) 00:32, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
As mentioned in the edit comments where I removed this, the fact that just one person with no known notability or expertise uses the term Atheophobia in no way proves anyone else in the world does. The sites being linked to, frankly, do not even count as reliable sources in general (a personal website and a website anyone is allowed to edit, no expertise needed), so I wouldn't even be safe in assuming someone with that name ever really used the term. Who are they, anyway, and why does the editor who keeps putting that back think anyone cares what that person thinks? DreamGuy ( talk) 02:06, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
OK... Following WP:BOLD I have done some initial pruning, and have cut those paragraphs and sections that I think were clearly and completely violating WP:NOR. The fact that I did not remove something does not mean there are no OR issues, only that I was not completely and clearly sure of the extent of the OR. Blueboar ( talk) 22:08, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
Discrimination against atheists is a negative categorical bias against atheists. Really? Bias isn't itself discrimination; one can be biased and yet refuse to be discriminatory. n nations where freedom of belief is biased towards established religions, the issue becomes persecution of atheists. What does this sentence mean ("the issue becomes")? The Out Campaign, Brights movement, and Humanist Association of Canada are efforts to counter the feelings of discrimination and raise a positive public awareness about atheism and naturalism. The association is an effort? "Feelings of discrimination" are what is being countered (as opposed to discrimination itself)?
I bet we can do a lot better in this opening paragraph. -- jpgordon ∇∆∇∆ 05:20, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
I encountered this article in the aftermath of some cleanup at the old historical persecution by Christians article. The core of the material on the Rob Sherman controversy was included there, and certainly misplaced. I like to keep all the acceptable content when cleaning up articles, so I moved the material to Separation of church and state in the United States, but there I only got a unnecessary and ugly debate about it. So I finally moved the material here, although I was not quite satisfied with this.
Then I noticed that part about the fee for leaving the church in Germany. I managed to find some more sources, and I think that I could easily find some more. But apparently the editor who removed the material once also follows the strategy of revert first, discuss later. With my previous experiences on this I am wondering: Should I actually wait until 3rr is broken to report this as edit warring? Merry Christmas!
Well, let's take a closer look at the issue. This is supposed to be about reliable sources, but is it, really? I mean, it would be rather weird to demand sources for the fact that Germany has a church tax, or the fact that a fee is required when formally leaving the church to avoid paying that tax. All you'd have to do to verify that is to call you local town hall. But you'd have to wait I few days, because, as I already mentioned, today is Christmas. But probably you might still reach someone who deals with church tax issues there if you call before midday, so if this is the issue, you'd better get to it. But obviously the problem of reliable sources can only be meant to apply to the question whether this would constitute discrimination of atheists or not. Ok, then consider this: Isn't it possible that, although the majority of people in Germany haven't heard of this problem, and many would probably say that it is not discrimination, a significant minority of atheists in Germany considers this to be discriminating? Now, since we are all familiar with WP:NPOV, if this is a significant minority viewpoint, than we would violate the policy of a Neutral point of view if we wouldn't mention it. Since I can name that German atheist group as an adherent of of this view, I don't think we would need to discuss whether this is indeed a significant minority view.
So we need to include the atheist view somewhere, but where? The notion that an article like this would constitute original synthesis deserves some attention. I would even say that this articles like this are POVforks. We need to discuss the situation of atheists in the United States in the article Freedom of religion in the United States, the situation of atheists in Germany in the article Freedom of religion in Germany, etc. Actually I would go so far to suggest to deal with most "Persecution of" / " Discrimination of" articles this way and to abandon the idea of a 'religious persecution' template.
However, in that case we would get a different kind of problem. Obviously this application of wp:NPOV would force Christians an Atheists to discuss their issues at Freedom of religion in the United States, Hindus, Muslims and Christian to discuss their issues at Freedom of religion in India, etc. And obviously in these discussion someone would point to the another aspect of wp:NPOV that is contrary to what I've just written: "Articles that compare views should not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views, and will generally not include tiny-minority views at all. (...) Minority views can receive attention on pages specifically devoted to them—Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia."
I think that on this issue the policy of NPOV would tend more to keeping this article than to splitting it up. If this is not clear to some editors, I can explain this in more detail. But I personally would be in favour of splitting, and I think that this is a problem that we need to discuss. Zara1709 ( talk) 06:34, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
Ok,I found some sources. We've got a decision by Federal Constitutional Court of Germany, so this topic should surely be relevant. But balancing this is going to be rather difficult. The highest German court says that it is not discrimination, but the atheist group still says it is. Now, the atheist's view is significant, so it has to be mentioned; but of course it must not be given undue weight. More than one or two sentences on their viewpoint would be difficult to justify. But before we would get into the details of a discussion on this, first we should clarify whether it would be better to move that section to Freedom of religion in Germany or not. If there aren't any comments, I'll simply move it a few days. Zara1709 ( talk) 07:59, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
This is the dispute as I understand it.
The deleting editors claim "you need secondary sources to claim that something is discrimination."
The response was, " WP:OR allows for primary sources to be used if the material is trivially verifiable by an educated reasonable person. These examples are trivial examples of discrimination."
The deleting editors responded with, "that is not how the policy is interpretted."
This was countered with Talk:Discrimination_against_atheists#Other_articles_that_list_discrimination_without_.22discrimination.22_in_the_source which showed that the consistent application of policy allows for discrimination to be listed sourced by a primary source, which does not include any intepretation of discrimination.
The deleting editors responded with, "there are many bad articles."
The reason that is not an acceptable response is that the original question was whose interpretation of policy is correct which can only be answered by this side's interpretation of policy is correct. In otherwords, whoever shows that the community favors their interpretation will be more faithfully abiding by policy. The deleting editors are asking for an unprecedented level of citation, more so than is present than in any article. I am AzureFury, and hopefully by signing this I'll show that I never tried to evade the block. 67.183.198.99 ( talk) 06:21, 25 December 2008 (UTC)