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can we have a simple summary table without all the sects ? also, IMO, thepie charts don't work - to many colors and to many variable but a simple table, say Christian jewhish moslem etc for the top 10 would be really nice thanks
also, please please less color coding !! if you have to use all these colors, a really bad idea, at least make sure they are consistent thru the entire article !! thanks
Someone please edit this document.
Jehovah Witnesses do not believe Jesus is the son of God. They do not believe he is devine and therefore cannot satisfy basic tenants of any denomination of Christianity. Actually, they believe you are blasphemous in even saying that. How can someone who thinks the basics of Christianity to be evil, be a Christian? That makes no sense. Muslims believe Jesus existed, only as a prophet. No one considers Islam a form of Christianity, why would you then consider JW, which has the exact same belief?
Mormons, also are not Christians. They believe that humans have the potential to become a God, just as they believe our current God used to be a human at some time in His past. They believe in Jesus as a prophet; however, they are works based. Mormans still live judged by the Mosaic law. They are basically Judaism, with a new age cult flare.
Many cults have proceeded from the Christian religion. All have a similarity. They all steal the divinity and saving grace from Jesus Christ. This is by no accident. A Jesus that has no saving power does not fulfill the prophecy of the old commandment and this is not Christianity.
The bible dictates what a Christian is. You must believe that God has come to earth as he promised in the old testament. He was nailed to a cross, died and rose again to life, defeating sin. Christians must believe that faith in Christ saves, not adherence to the Mosaic law.
There are many theological differences between Christian groups like Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist to name a few, but the basics must remain. Even if you want to go as far as saying Modern Catholics are Christian (which they aren't, because they do not meet the faith only and Christ only test), Mormans and JW definitely, in no way are close to being Christian. Actually, a Christian would be rejected at one of these institutions, just as much as they would be in an Islam or Judaism temple.
If we are going to be classifying people as religious groups, there must be a basis for what those classifications are. What better for Christianity than scripture itself? You classify race based off skin color, nationality based off of nation, what then religion but based off their Gods word, doctrines, or dogmas?
Mormons and JW would argue that their heretical books are also scripture. One could argue this, but they are not scripture of Christ the King and saviour of the world. They are scripture, but not Christian scripture. We are currently debating Christianity as a definition. There is no argument that these books not only go against what the disciples wrote about in the gospels but also against the red text of Jesus himself. Mormons argue that their prophet had a vision of God who gave them new doctrines, so do muslims. They are scriptures analogous to the Qur'an. They are amendments after the fact that steal Christ's saving grace.
If you have a tortilla with meat in it, you have a taco. If you cover it in sauce and bake it, you now have something totally different, an enchilada. Even more greater is the difference here. Sure they share some of the same ingredients, like the old and new testament, but the changes they made, created something completely new. In this analogy, Mexican food is the religion demographic. Tortillas, and meat are the old and new testament.
Simply adding a man name Jesus to your backstory does not mean your religion is a denomination of Christianity.
Would a Spanish romance novel with a lead character named Jesus be considered Christian scripture just because it has a man named Jesus in it? No! That is obsurd! What makes Jesus special are the characteristics promised to us in the old testament and conveyed in the new. Any other Jesus is not the Jesus in Christianity.
Religions do not follow the post modern way of thinking. Religion is not subject to what ever you want it to be based on your own feelings or traditions. Religion is dictated by God and is unwavering. True religion does not move or flex to someone else's feelings.
Do we doubt what Hinduism is? No debate. Hinduism is listed with one option on this page. Likewise, so is Buddhism. Islam the same. If an atheist started believing in God, could he remain "atheist"? 76.142.113.221 ( talk) 20:10, 31 December 2022 (UTC)
I had added the following collage of different images to add to the lead depicting different religions in the US:
It was removed and replaced with an image of Washington National Cathedral (which was subsequently removed).
Does anyone have any objections on if a image like this was re-added? We can discuss the specific images added to the collage, but do people feel as if the general idea is good? Bluealbion ( talk) 02:30, 31 March 2023 (UTC)
I removed the pie charts from the "infobox slot", and KlayCax restored them. Epidrome also removed them and was again reverted.
There are a few reasons I don't think the pie charts are helpful:
Walt Yoder ( talk) 19:04, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
This section is really low quality and I'm not sure it can really be improved without turning half of the article into a meta discussion about the complexity of religious belief, self identification, and data collection.
The first part is a set of general issues with all non-political polling but the information is presented as a set of pretty vague bullet points. Ignoring the first one which is factually incorrect (polls are generally quite good at predicting election outcomes), the other bullet points are virtually meaningless to anyone who isn't fairly well-read on polling and/or religious demographics. Is it considered good editing practice on Wikipedia to insert a generic warning about issues with polling data in any article that uses polling data?
I don't get what useful point is made by the second part. The paper used as a reference is largely an attempt to argue that the "none" category of answers in religious surveys includes a substantial number of people whose beliefs about religion, spirituality and/or supernatural phenomena could be argued as being closer to having some religious belief than having no religious belief. I don't want to get into a big discussion about the quality of the paper itself (although I am willing to - I think it isn't high enough to be used as the sole source for a claim in a Wikipedia article) but it is a fairly recent paper which has not been cited by other papers at all, so I don't see why it should be taken as a reliable source that reflects academic consensus or debate. Reading it (along with a good portion of the accessible references) makes it quite clear that the authors are extremely vigilant in noting every possible flaw with methodology in studies that they don't like, while citing uncritically studies that agree with them.
The third part is ok in content but I think having an entire sub-heading section with one sentence and one source that effectively says "assume the independent polling data contained in this article is inaccurate" is a bad editorial decision. It's especially bad because this section comes before any of the survey data is presented, which I think conveys the message that this caveat about polling methodology is of greater value to a typical reader interested in Religion in the United States than decades of survey data. And while the general content of this part is ok, I think that, on top of being moved to another section, the bulk of this should be a brief overview of idiosyncratic relationships with religion. The existence of these belief systems and the fairly diverse range of belief systems in the USA is a much more relevant topic to cover in this article than methodological issues with polling/surveys or the opaqueness of the "none" answer. Tasqing ( talk) 13:49, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
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Change "Secularity in the United States is paradoxical in that secular people reject and affirm religious elements in their own lives." to "Secular people in the United States, such as atheist and agnostics, have a distinctive belief system that can be traced for at least hundreds of years. They sometimes create religion-like institutions and communities, create rituals, and debate aspects of their shared beliefs. For these reasons, they are surprisingly religion-like despite often being opposed to religion."
This page cites my book (I'm Joseph Blankholm). It doesn't cite its argument correctly, however. In these suggested changes I give a more accurate summary of the book and its argument. Inscrutablescrivener ( talk) 16:50, 8 June 2023 (UTC)
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RuckusJones ( talk) 17:48, 11 August 2023 (UTC)Add a hyperlink to Nondenominational Christianity in the pie chart where it says "Just Christian" since most of these people go to an evangelical or a mega church that does not adhere to any particular denomination
I don't see Hindyism on the chart of % of US population 2600:1700:38D0:56D0:7DDE:D975:BAD6:67C ( talk) 01:57, 29 August 2023 (UTC)
Almost all other available data (including data used in other Wikipedia pages) shows Catholics outnumber Protestants in California, Nevada, New Mexico, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. The number of Mormons in Utah and Idaho also seems highly underestimated.
The Pew Research poll displayed deeply misleads readers and should be be scraped all together or replaced with more accurate poling numbers.
Thank you for reading my suggestion, I hope it is listened too. 100.33.82.60 ( talk) 04:50, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
Patrick Johnstone’s study to cite conversions is extremely misleading as I’ve never personally seen it being cited by any critical scholars or have seen its trends being documented by independent news or research papers. The methodology is as solid as medieval hagiography with it simply citing a completely unknown “christian convert” who is anonymous (because, of course) and making extreme generalizations towards entire populations from the numbers of converts given from one supposed church. 169.148.43.82 ( talk) 18:28, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
In the lede of the article, it is written: "The United States is widely regarded as being the final "death nail" (sic)
in the secularization hypothesis — the idea that modernity inevitably causes secularization —" sourced to Voas & Chavez (2016), "Is the United States a Counterexample to the Secularization Thesis?" The article
abstract quite clearly states the exact opposite of what is written in the lead (the authors contend this is empirically false due to a decades-long decline in religiosity in the US). You can gain access to the complete article by logging into the Wikipedia Library and clicking
here. I would suggest removing this distortion from the lede. --
SashiRolls
🌿 ·
🍥 18:38, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
If you wish to start a new section about other matters now that that the distorted source has been fixed, feel free.-- SashiRolls 🌿 · 🍥 21:11, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
...is not on the North American continent and Native Hawaiians are not and never have been considered Native American (because... we're not!). かなか ( talk) 03:25, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
Who wrote that? shows that the following was added to the lead today.
The United States was the first country in recorded history to not have a state religion.
Given the Zhou dynasty and the Mongol Empire, this seems a pretty dubious claim or at least one in need of so much qualification that it does not belong in the lead. -- SashiRolls 🌿 · 🍥 22:18, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
The article claims that Unitarian Universalists have a shared creed. The article says, "The shared creed includes beliefs in inherent dignity, a common search for truth, respect for beliefs of others, compassion, and social action." That is fairly accurate except for the word "creed." The Wikipedia article on "creed" says a creed is "also known as a confession of faith, a symbol, or a statement of faith..." While Unitarian Universalists have a statement of principals, they are clear that it is not a confession of faith that requires theological agreement. 2603:7080:6941:9A00:80AE:E16C:1A8F:A624 ( talk) 17:22, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
“The constitution was made by a religious people for a religious people.” - John Adams (roughly what was said) and the rights we are guaranteed, are based on our God (Christian) given rights. 72.250.158.89 ( talk) 03:07, 18 October 2023 (UTC)
In the past month there appears to have been some drastic changes to the lede of this article. This is how the last paragraph of the lede read as recently as September 18:
There have been variant explanations for this rapid secularization, including the loss trust and belief in numerous institutions such as the labor market, the economy, government and politics, marriage, the media, along with churches among younger cohorts,[25] September 11 attacks,[26] the rise of the religious right in the 1980s,[27] and sexual abuse scandals, particularly those within the Southern Baptist Convention[28] and Catholic Church.[29] During the late 20th century, the United States was an outlier among other highly developed countries, having a high level of religiosity and wealth, although this has lessened significantly since.[14][26][15] 21-29% of Americans describe themselves as not being affiliated with a religion,[8][30][11] a spectrum ranging from forms of spirituality that deviate from organized religious structures to materialistic forms of hard atheism.[31][32][33][34][35] Secular people in the United States, such as atheist and agnostics, have a distinctive belief system that can be traced for at least hundreds of years. They sometimes create religion-like institutions and communities, create rituals, and debate aspects of their shared beliefs. For these reasons, they are surprisingly religion-like despite often being opposed to religion.[36]
Now, this paragraph, and many of the sources that were included therein, has been replaced with a paragraph that expresses skepticism that the US is becoming less religious:
The religiosity of the country has grown greatly over time;[12] it was far more irreligious at the American Founding than in the present day.[21] Throughout its history, religious involvement among American citizens has gradually grown since 1776 from 17% of the US population to 62% in 2000.[21] According to religious studies professors at Baylor University, perceptions of religious decline are a popular misconception.[22] They state that surveys showing so suffer from methodological deficiencies, that Americans are becoming more religious, religion is thriving, and that Atheists and Agnostics make up a small and stable percentage of the population.[23][24][25] However, Americans have increasingly identified themselves as "nones" — a substantial majority of which believe in a God — for reasons debated among sociologists.[26][25][27][28][29]
This is a pretty drastic change in tone for which I can't seem to find any discussion or consensus building on the talk page prior to the change.
Skepticism is all well and good, but to have it subsume the entirety of the lede is to give it undue weight, especially when the basis for that skepticism seems entirely based on one group of religious studies professors at Baylor University. How can you mention the skepticism without mentioning arguments in favor of, or providing sources for, the supposed "popular misconception" that it's purporting to refute? The only justification for this that I can find on the talk page is one user discrediting it because the "idea is mainly predominantly among the press," but Wikipedia policy states that news organizations can be considered reliable sources.
In short, it seems like some person(s) have decided to take ownership of this article over the past month and drastically change the lede in order to support their preferred narrative. The last paragraph of the lede, as currently written, does not appear to strike a neutral point of view. Instead, it places an emphasis on the skepticism over the supposed "popular misconception" by not only downplaying the latter but completely removing it and any related sources that are not a refutation. TempDog123 ( talk) 21:35, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
As I mentioned in an edit summary, the practice of regrouping statistics in ways not reported in a source is unacceptable. The opening graph of the source cited shows that 46% of Americans consider religion very important to their lives. If we cite the source, we should remain faithful to its presentation, not reinterpret the numbers by adding together those who consider it very important to those who report it has a fair-to-middlin importance... My restoration of the presentation given in the article itself rather than a recalculation was quietly reverted in this edit with no edit summary.
It is also worth observing that in this
rewriting of the lede, a Deseret News article was added reporting the results of an online survey conducted on behalf of Skylight, "an initiative of the Radiance foundation". The article states: Skylight’s mission is to use technology to help young people embrace God-centered spiritual habits. Like the Deseret News, it’s part of Deseret Management Corporation.
I do not believe this is a sufficiently impartial source to be used in the article. I also believe that targeted online surveys are generally to be taken with a couple pillars of salt. Other thoughts?
Note: this second paragraph is copied from
Talk:United States where it was also added.--
SashiRolls
🌿 ·
🍥 06:42, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
According to the lede of the en.wp article on Televangelism, "Televangelism began as a uniquely American phenomenon, resulting from a largely deregulated media where access to television networks and cable TV is open to virtually anyone who can afford it". If this is true a section of this page should summarize that entry. -- SashiRolls 🌿 · 🍥 17:53, 28 October 2023 (UTC)
Just commenting on the Gallup source that was added in this edit [6]. The Gallup source is not about general religion, but about specific Christian entities. Even the "Americans' Belief in Five Spiritual Entities, by Demographic Subgroup" section only shows Protestants, Catholics, and None. Where are the rest? No Jews, Muslims, Hindus, etc. Also the source says "Gallup periodically measures Americans’ belief in God with different question wordings, producing slightly different results." If such is the case, which numbers are right? Indeed, Gallup admits they certainly do get very different numbers on the question of God alone, depending on how it is asked, as seen here [7], so which one is the right one? The source also says "In the current poll, about half of Americans, 51%, believe in all five spiritual entities, while 11% do not believe in any of them."
The nones are an incoherent group and we should be careful in making claims about them. The best sources for them are WP:secondary sources like academic researchers who look at multiple studies to come up with more comprehensive numbers. We should be careful with primary sources like raw survey data. In the Gallup source, numbers for the people who do not affiliate with a religion are different than for the numbers of people who seldom or never attend religious services - so both numbers on the 5 entities differ - which means that none's and those who never attend services are not the same people. Which one is the right number?
Clearer sources are needed to make claims on the heterogeneous groups like the "nones". Academic secondary sources help in ironing out such discrepancies from surveys, so those are preferred. Ramos1990 ( talk) 02:01, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
Just compare the intro section to the respective articles on other countries. It is clearly whoever wrote this doesn't like the idea of the USA undergoing secularization, the text fights the idea at every line, and even when it concedes the idea of nones growing, it still claims the they are much more religious and therefone not "none" at all. This intro was clearly written by a conservative christian who doesn't like the idea of the USA becoming more secular. 2804:388:A035:5C20:5B1B:5B72:8841:DE00 ( talk) 15:29, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
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Please change Mormonism to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
There is no Mormon Church, he was a great man, but we are the church of Jesus Christ 24.149.24.16 ( talk) 17:01, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
{{
Edit semi-protected}}
template. This is probably related to the push by the LDS church to distance itself from the "Mormon" label, as mentioned in
Name of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints#Informal and abbreviated names.
Liu1126 (
talk) 18:56, 17 April 2024 (UTC)This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Religion in the United States article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
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can we have a simple summary table without all the sects ? also, IMO, thepie charts don't work - to many colors and to many variable but a simple table, say Christian jewhish moslem etc for the top 10 would be really nice thanks
also, please please less color coding !! if you have to use all these colors, a really bad idea, at least make sure they are consistent thru the entire article !! thanks
Someone please edit this document.
Jehovah Witnesses do not believe Jesus is the son of God. They do not believe he is devine and therefore cannot satisfy basic tenants of any denomination of Christianity. Actually, they believe you are blasphemous in even saying that. How can someone who thinks the basics of Christianity to be evil, be a Christian? That makes no sense. Muslims believe Jesus existed, only as a prophet. No one considers Islam a form of Christianity, why would you then consider JW, which has the exact same belief?
Mormons, also are not Christians. They believe that humans have the potential to become a God, just as they believe our current God used to be a human at some time in His past. They believe in Jesus as a prophet; however, they are works based. Mormans still live judged by the Mosaic law. They are basically Judaism, with a new age cult flare.
Many cults have proceeded from the Christian religion. All have a similarity. They all steal the divinity and saving grace from Jesus Christ. This is by no accident. A Jesus that has no saving power does not fulfill the prophecy of the old commandment and this is not Christianity.
The bible dictates what a Christian is. You must believe that God has come to earth as he promised in the old testament. He was nailed to a cross, died and rose again to life, defeating sin. Christians must believe that faith in Christ saves, not adherence to the Mosaic law.
There are many theological differences between Christian groups like Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist to name a few, but the basics must remain. Even if you want to go as far as saying Modern Catholics are Christian (which they aren't, because they do not meet the faith only and Christ only test), Mormans and JW definitely, in no way are close to being Christian. Actually, a Christian would be rejected at one of these institutions, just as much as they would be in an Islam or Judaism temple.
If we are going to be classifying people as religious groups, there must be a basis for what those classifications are. What better for Christianity than scripture itself? You classify race based off skin color, nationality based off of nation, what then religion but based off their Gods word, doctrines, or dogmas?
Mormons and JW would argue that their heretical books are also scripture. One could argue this, but they are not scripture of Christ the King and saviour of the world. They are scripture, but not Christian scripture. We are currently debating Christianity as a definition. There is no argument that these books not only go against what the disciples wrote about in the gospels but also against the red text of Jesus himself. Mormons argue that their prophet had a vision of God who gave them new doctrines, so do muslims. They are scriptures analogous to the Qur'an. They are amendments after the fact that steal Christ's saving grace.
If you have a tortilla with meat in it, you have a taco. If you cover it in sauce and bake it, you now have something totally different, an enchilada. Even more greater is the difference here. Sure they share some of the same ingredients, like the old and new testament, but the changes they made, created something completely new. In this analogy, Mexican food is the religion demographic. Tortillas, and meat are the old and new testament.
Simply adding a man name Jesus to your backstory does not mean your religion is a denomination of Christianity.
Would a Spanish romance novel with a lead character named Jesus be considered Christian scripture just because it has a man named Jesus in it? No! That is obsurd! What makes Jesus special are the characteristics promised to us in the old testament and conveyed in the new. Any other Jesus is not the Jesus in Christianity.
Religions do not follow the post modern way of thinking. Religion is not subject to what ever you want it to be based on your own feelings or traditions. Religion is dictated by God and is unwavering. True religion does not move or flex to someone else's feelings.
Do we doubt what Hinduism is? No debate. Hinduism is listed with one option on this page. Likewise, so is Buddhism. Islam the same. If an atheist started believing in God, could he remain "atheist"? 76.142.113.221 ( talk) 20:10, 31 December 2022 (UTC)
I had added the following collage of different images to add to the lead depicting different religions in the US:
It was removed and replaced with an image of Washington National Cathedral (which was subsequently removed).
Does anyone have any objections on if a image like this was re-added? We can discuss the specific images added to the collage, but do people feel as if the general idea is good? Bluealbion ( talk) 02:30, 31 March 2023 (UTC)
I removed the pie charts from the "infobox slot", and KlayCax restored them. Epidrome also removed them and was again reverted.
There are a few reasons I don't think the pie charts are helpful:
Walt Yoder ( talk) 19:04, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
This section is really low quality and I'm not sure it can really be improved without turning half of the article into a meta discussion about the complexity of religious belief, self identification, and data collection.
The first part is a set of general issues with all non-political polling but the information is presented as a set of pretty vague bullet points. Ignoring the first one which is factually incorrect (polls are generally quite good at predicting election outcomes), the other bullet points are virtually meaningless to anyone who isn't fairly well-read on polling and/or religious demographics. Is it considered good editing practice on Wikipedia to insert a generic warning about issues with polling data in any article that uses polling data?
I don't get what useful point is made by the second part. The paper used as a reference is largely an attempt to argue that the "none" category of answers in religious surveys includes a substantial number of people whose beliefs about religion, spirituality and/or supernatural phenomena could be argued as being closer to having some religious belief than having no religious belief. I don't want to get into a big discussion about the quality of the paper itself (although I am willing to - I think it isn't high enough to be used as the sole source for a claim in a Wikipedia article) but it is a fairly recent paper which has not been cited by other papers at all, so I don't see why it should be taken as a reliable source that reflects academic consensus or debate. Reading it (along with a good portion of the accessible references) makes it quite clear that the authors are extremely vigilant in noting every possible flaw with methodology in studies that they don't like, while citing uncritically studies that agree with them.
The third part is ok in content but I think having an entire sub-heading section with one sentence and one source that effectively says "assume the independent polling data contained in this article is inaccurate" is a bad editorial decision. It's especially bad because this section comes before any of the survey data is presented, which I think conveys the message that this caveat about polling methodology is of greater value to a typical reader interested in Religion in the United States than decades of survey data. And while the general content of this part is ok, I think that, on top of being moved to another section, the bulk of this should be a brief overview of idiosyncratic relationships with religion. The existence of these belief systems and the fairly diverse range of belief systems in the USA is a much more relevant topic to cover in this article than methodological issues with polling/surveys or the opaqueness of the "none" answer. Tasqing ( talk) 13:49, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
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Change "Secularity in the United States is paradoxical in that secular people reject and affirm religious elements in their own lives." to "Secular people in the United States, such as atheist and agnostics, have a distinctive belief system that can be traced for at least hundreds of years. They sometimes create religion-like institutions and communities, create rituals, and debate aspects of their shared beliefs. For these reasons, they are surprisingly religion-like despite often being opposed to religion."
This page cites my book (I'm Joseph Blankholm). It doesn't cite its argument correctly, however. In these suggested changes I give a more accurate summary of the book and its argument. Inscrutablescrivener ( talk) 16:50, 8 June 2023 (UTC)
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RuckusJones ( talk) 17:48, 11 August 2023 (UTC)Add a hyperlink to Nondenominational Christianity in the pie chart where it says "Just Christian" since most of these people go to an evangelical or a mega church that does not adhere to any particular denomination
I don't see Hindyism on the chart of % of US population 2600:1700:38D0:56D0:7DDE:D975:BAD6:67C ( talk) 01:57, 29 August 2023 (UTC)
Almost all other available data (including data used in other Wikipedia pages) shows Catholics outnumber Protestants in California, Nevada, New Mexico, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. The number of Mormons in Utah and Idaho also seems highly underestimated.
The Pew Research poll displayed deeply misleads readers and should be be scraped all together or replaced with more accurate poling numbers.
Thank you for reading my suggestion, I hope it is listened too. 100.33.82.60 ( talk) 04:50, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
Patrick Johnstone’s study to cite conversions is extremely misleading as I’ve never personally seen it being cited by any critical scholars or have seen its trends being documented by independent news or research papers. The methodology is as solid as medieval hagiography with it simply citing a completely unknown “christian convert” who is anonymous (because, of course) and making extreme generalizations towards entire populations from the numbers of converts given from one supposed church. 169.148.43.82 ( talk) 18:28, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
In the lede of the article, it is written: "The United States is widely regarded as being the final "death nail" (sic)
in the secularization hypothesis — the idea that modernity inevitably causes secularization —" sourced to Voas & Chavez (2016), "Is the United States a Counterexample to the Secularization Thesis?" The article
abstract quite clearly states the exact opposite of what is written in the lead (the authors contend this is empirically false due to a decades-long decline in religiosity in the US). You can gain access to the complete article by logging into the Wikipedia Library and clicking
here. I would suggest removing this distortion from the lede. --
SashiRolls
🌿 ·
🍥 18:38, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
If you wish to start a new section about other matters now that that the distorted source has been fixed, feel free.-- SashiRolls 🌿 · 🍥 21:11, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
...is not on the North American continent and Native Hawaiians are not and never have been considered Native American (because... we're not!). かなか ( talk) 03:25, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
Who wrote that? shows that the following was added to the lead today.
The United States was the first country in recorded history to not have a state religion.
Given the Zhou dynasty and the Mongol Empire, this seems a pretty dubious claim or at least one in need of so much qualification that it does not belong in the lead. -- SashiRolls 🌿 · 🍥 22:18, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
The article claims that Unitarian Universalists have a shared creed. The article says, "The shared creed includes beliefs in inherent dignity, a common search for truth, respect for beliefs of others, compassion, and social action." That is fairly accurate except for the word "creed." The Wikipedia article on "creed" says a creed is "also known as a confession of faith, a symbol, or a statement of faith..." While Unitarian Universalists have a statement of principals, they are clear that it is not a confession of faith that requires theological agreement. 2603:7080:6941:9A00:80AE:E16C:1A8F:A624 ( talk) 17:22, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
“The constitution was made by a religious people for a religious people.” - John Adams (roughly what was said) and the rights we are guaranteed, are based on our God (Christian) given rights. 72.250.158.89 ( talk) 03:07, 18 October 2023 (UTC)
In the past month there appears to have been some drastic changes to the lede of this article. This is how the last paragraph of the lede read as recently as September 18:
There have been variant explanations for this rapid secularization, including the loss trust and belief in numerous institutions such as the labor market, the economy, government and politics, marriage, the media, along with churches among younger cohorts,[25] September 11 attacks,[26] the rise of the religious right in the 1980s,[27] and sexual abuse scandals, particularly those within the Southern Baptist Convention[28] and Catholic Church.[29] During the late 20th century, the United States was an outlier among other highly developed countries, having a high level of religiosity and wealth, although this has lessened significantly since.[14][26][15] 21-29% of Americans describe themselves as not being affiliated with a religion,[8][30][11] a spectrum ranging from forms of spirituality that deviate from organized religious structures to materialistic forms of hard atheism.[31][32][33][34][35] Secular people in the United States, such as atheist and agnostics, have a distinctive belief system that can be traced for at least hundreds of years. They sometimes create religion-like institutions and communities, create rituals, and debate aspects of their shared beliefs. For these reasons, they are surprisingly religion-like despite often being opposed to religion.[36]
Now, this paragraph, and many of the sources that were included therein, has been replaced with a paragraph that expresses skepticism that the US is becoming less religious:
The religiosity of the country has grown greatly over time;[12] it was far more irreligious at the American Founding than in the present day.[21] Throughout its history, religious involvement among American citizens has gradually grown since 1776 from 17% of the US population to 62% in 2000.[21] According to religious studies professors at Baylor University, perceptions of religious decline are a popular misconception.[22] They state that surveys showing so suffer from methodological deficiencies, that Americans are becoming more religious, religion is thriving, and that Atheists and Agnostics make up a small and stable percentage of the population.[23][24][25] However, Americans have increasingly identified themselves as "nones" — a substantial majority of which believe in a God — for reasons debated among sociologists.[26][25][27][28][29]
This is a pretty drastic change in tone for which I can't seem to find any discussion or consensus building on the talk page prior to the change.
Skepticism is all well and good, but to have it subsume the entirety of the lede is to give it undue weight, especially when the basis for that skepticism seems entirely based on one group of religious studies professors at Baylor University. How can you mention the skepticism without mentioning arguments in favor of, or providing sources for, the supposed "popular misconception" that it's purporting to refute? The only justification for this that I can find on the talk page is one user discrediting it because the "idea is mainly predominantly among the press," but Wikipedia policy states that news organizations can be considered reliable sources.
In short, it seems like some person(s) have decided to take ownership of this article over the past month and drastically change the lede in order to support their preferred narrative. The last paragraph of the lede, as currently written, does not appear to strike a neutral point of view. Instead, it places an emphasis on the skepticism over the supposed "popular misconception" by not only downplaying the latter but completely removing it and any related sources that are not a refutation. TempDog123 ( talk) 21:35, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
As I mentioned in an edit summary, the practice of regrouping statistics in ways not reported in a source is unacceptable. The opening graph of the source cited shows that 46% of Americans consider religion very important to their lives. If we cite the source, we should remain faithful to its presentation, not reinterpret the numbers by adding together those who consider it very important to those who report it has a fair-to-middlin importance... My restoration of the presentation given in the article itself rather than a recalculation was quietly reverted in this edit with no edit summary.
It is also worth observing that in this
rewriting of the lede, a Deseret News article was added reporting the results of an online survey conducted on behalf of Skylight, "an initiative of the Radiance foundation". The article states: Skylight’s mission is to use technology to help young people embrace God-centered spiritual habits. Like the Deseret News, it’s part of Deseret Management Corporation.
I do not believe this is a sufficiently impartial source to be used in the article. I also believe that targeted online surveys are generally to be taken with a couple pillars of salt. Other thoughts?
Note: this second paragraph is copied from
Talk:United States where it was also added.--
SashiRolls
🌿 ·
🍥 06:42, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
According to the lede of the en.wp article on Televangelism, "Televangelism began as a uniquely American phenomenon, resulting from a largely deregulated media where access to television networks and cable TV is open to virtually anyone who can afford it". If this is true a section of this page should summarize that entry. -- SashiRolls 🌿 · 🍥 17:53, 28 October 2023 (UTC)
Just commenting on the Gallup source that was added in this edit [6]. The Gallup source is not about general religion, but about specific Christian entities. Even the "Americans' Belief in Five Spiritual Entities, by Demographic Subgroup" section only shows Protestants, Catholics, and None. Where are the rest? No Jews, Muslims, Hindus, etc. Also the source says "Gallup periodically measures Americans’ belief in God with different question wordings, producing slightly different results." If such is the case, which numbers are right? Indeed, Gallup admits they certainly do get very different numbers on the question of God alone, depending on how it is asked, as seen here [7], so which one is the right one? The source also says "In the current poll, about half of Americans, 51%, believe in all five spiritual entities, while 11% do not believe in any of them."
The nones are an incoherent group and we should be careful in making claims about them. The best sources for them are WP:secondary sources like academic researchers who look at multiple studies to come up with more comprehensive numbers. We should be careful with primary sources like raw survey data. In the Gallup source, numbers for the people who do not affiliate with a religion are different than for the numbers of people who seldom or never attend religious services - so both numbers on the 5 entities differ - which means that none's and those who never attend services are not the same people. Which one is the right number?
Clearer sources are needed to make claims on the heterogeneous groups like the "nones". Academic secondary sources help in ironing out such discrepancies from surveys, so those are preferred. Ramos1990 ( talk) 02:01, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
Just compare the intro section to the respective articles on other countries. It is clearly whoever wrote this doesn't like the idea of the USA undergoing secularization, the text fights the idea at every line, and even when it concedes the idea of nones growing, it still claims the they are much more religious and therefone not "none" at all. This intro was clearly written by a conservative christian who doesn't like the idea of the USA becoming more secular. 2804:388:A035:5C20:5B1B:5B72:8841:DE00 ( talk) 15:29, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
This
edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
Please change Mormonism to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
There is no Mormon Church, he was a great man, but we are the church of Jesus Christ 24.149.24.16 ( talk) 17:01, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
{{
Edit semi-protected}}
template. This is probably related to the push by the LDS church to distance itself from the "Mormon" label, as mentioned in
Name of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints#Informal and abbreviated names.
Liu1126 (
talk) 18:56, 17 April 2024 (UTC)