Talk:Demographics of atheism

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State atheism needs a reassessment of its Importance level, as it has little to do with atheism and is instead an article about anti-theist/anti-religious actions of governments.
False choice into False dilemma: discuss whether you are for or against this merge here
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Secular movement defines it as a being restricted to America in the 21st century.

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—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Beland (talk • contribs) 17:50, 1 August 2006 (UTC).[reply]

Changed 10% to 9%

I will change the Atheism in North America statistic from 10% to 9 % since the article that was cited says:

"In most of the countries covered, well over 80% said they believed in God or a higher power. In Nigeria the figure was 100% and in the US 91%, with the UK scoring lowest at 67%." http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/wtwtgod/3518375.stm selfworm 08:33, 15 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"God or a higher power". Atheism is about belief in God (well, lack of it), and the article states those "who don't believe in a god" - if you download the pdf of the survey, you can see that the figure includes 5% who answered "I do not believe in God but I do believe in a higher power". So in fact 86% believe in God, and the figures for those who don't sum to 10% (the remaining 4% is made up of "None of these", "Don't know" and rounding error). Mdwh 23:10, 15 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Vital shortfall

Every article needs a lead. This does not have one. See WP:LEAD for more information. Seegoon 00:31, 22 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

new survey - December 20 2006

I think we should add the following survey: http://www.harrisinteractive.com/news/allnewsbydate.asp?NewsID=1131 should we simply copy the first table, or rewrite it? --Toitoine 00:05, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What is this ?

^ Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved on July 6, 2007.
^ CIA World Factbook, Mexico. Retrieved on July 6, 2007.

Last time I looked this Date is not right Because it is not happened yet July 6, 2007. So one should fix this, I just wanted to let some one know —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Grosscha (talk • contribs) 21:21, 8 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]

This article is too Western

Only Western countries (with the exception of Latin American countries) are currently discussed: Europe, Israel, North America and Oceania are all discussed in detail. So, what about Latin-America? Asia, the most populous continent only gets only three sentences? What about Africa? Sijo Ripa 14:32, 11 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

then add more sentences, sijo.Some thing 22:53, 15 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Under God

I believe "Under God" was added to distinguish the US as a religious nation, in opposition to the official atheism of the Soviet Union... if someone is sure of this, please edit. I do not believe the 1950s were a period of significant religious resurgence.

I'm fairly sure this is true as well. I'll edit it in.--Vinny 04:06, 26 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

China

Why does this page fail to mention China?

Don't think there's too much info on China.. while it is officially atheist the actual numbers vary. Someone more knowledgeable should edit in more things about Asia though.--Vinny 04:06, 26 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Newdow Case has no place here

Isn't this article mainly about demographics? What business does the Newdow case even have here?--Vinny 04:06, 26 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Atheism Declining

"It is difficult to determine whether atheism is in decline or not. What is certain is that in the some areas of the world(such as Europe) atheism and Secularization seems to be on the rise, but on a global scale atheism seems to declining, because of the high birth rates in religious societies"

This passage is misleading. It reads as though there are fewer atheists than previously, when in fact there are more, but these are a smaller percent of the population. I'm not great at articulating myself, but I hope that make sense. -- Lord Terminus 23:10, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No it is not. What that passage is trying to say is that the percentage of atheists seems to declining. It is not saying that the atheist numbers are shrinking, it is indeed growing. It says that religious communities tend to have higher birth rates, making atheism's percentages smaller. That is fact, not some attack on atheism or secularization. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Trilobite12 (talk • contribs) 17:28, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't want to get into a needless edit war over this, so I won't automatically revert your re-adding this statement. But two things: 1. Even if you have a concrete source, you attribute the statement to it in the text, you don't present its word as "What is certain". 2. The source you added doesn't support the statement in any way. It's just an estimate about the number of members of different religions across different parts of the world- it doesn't even have any comparison of the number of atheists in the past vs. the present, how could you possibly draw such a conclusion from it? --AceMyth 00:59, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

After seeing this alarming (to me) statistic, I decided to go to the source in an effort to find a better way of expressing it. However, as far as I can tell the source didn't support the claim in the first place! If we were to find a source to support this (without resorting to synthesis), a better way of saying it is "While the absolute number of atheists is increasing, the percentage of atheists in the world is decreasing as the number of non-atheists is increasing faster." A reason for that increase (high birth rates) should only be given if the source gives it. Ben Hocking ^{(talk|contribs)} 16:27, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Trilobite gets my point

His response to the deleation of my pararagraph, was what I was trying to say. I will make the paragraph seem more rational though. 66.222.30.24 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.222.30.24 (talk) 00:07, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You have failed to address any of the concerns raised by the editors here yet rushed to re-instate your paragraph, without even bothering to rephrase it. I still assume good faith here but that is far from being constructive. Information on Wikipedia must be verifiable and repeatedly re-adding a statement like this to the article, lacking any source that supports it, is a violation of policy- whether this user or other "gets your point" or not. --AceMyth 06:27, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]