Talk:Religion in Germany

message: The article should explain that the opinion of the mainstream churchs about cults and new religious movements is influential in Germany. Otherwise it sounds like just an opinion of one religous group about another religious group which should be removed because irrelevant here. Andries (talk) 06:11, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled (2011)

message: I don't think this map is very accurate because the lines between catholicism and protestantism don't follow the borders of modern German states. For example, the state of Baden-Württemberg is roughly half predominantly catholic and half predominantly EKD protestant. I think this one is more accurate:http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Europe_religion_map_en.png -- 77.184.40.192 (talk) 10:56, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: The 1895 map further down the page does a better job of showing exactly where Catholicism and Protestantism are most prevalent. I think it's still pretty accurate within the boundaries of modern Germany, but it doesn't reflect the numbers of irreligious people. Angr (talk) 12:44, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: There is now a new map with data from 2011 which also shows the non-religious areas: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Konfessionen_Deutschland_Zensus_2011.png 217.186.193.89 (talk) 22:32, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: This map: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Europe_religion_map_en.png  is not accurate, it was made by someone. It is pretty good, since it shows the areas of a religious group's concentration. The 1895 map can't be used. A lot has happened since 1895, including the Flight and expulsion of Germans, secularization of East Germany, etc.Ernio48 (talk) 19:39, 4 September 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Map of Christian denominations 2008 

message: There were several estimates used on this page to detail the religious denominations in Germany, many of the sources contradicted eachother. I have updated the figures with data from the 2011 census.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sdg198 (talk • contribs) 09:56, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia does not give piriority to a single source and using estimates from different sources makes article more informative. This is the uniqueness of wikipedia. I have informed User:Iryna Harpy and she will take the notice.Septate (talk) 15:05, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I support the edits made by Sdg198. The official 2011 census appears to be more reliable than IPSOS MORI or  REMID. JimRenge (talk) 18:51, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

text: The problem is that previously the various citations used in the same paragraph were contradictory. One source says 4 million Muslims for example, the next one says 4.3, the next one says less than 2.1 million. I also think that estimates from statistical agencies are less accurate than the official census. Sdg198 (talk) 19:19, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
replies: text:  It is entirely dependent on context. Each article and appropriate sources should be treated according to factors impacting on the quality and veracity of the article. In this instance, are you disputing the German census as a reliable source? If so, why? 2011 is relatively recent, so I would prefer to rely on it as being the tertiary text. Unlike articles such as Religion in Russia (where it has been argued realistically that the census had omitted ethnic groups and regions) or Religion in Ukraine (where there has been no census since 2001 and the 2008 census keeps getting bumped up and is currently predicted to be set for 2016), I don't see a legitimate reason for supplementing or, in this case, replacing a valid, reliable recent source which gleaned its statistical information from all inhabitants of the country rather than sample group data or any methodologies which have come up with such disparate figures. How would you propose to handle the percentages for other religious groups or the irreligious? If the total number is above or below accounting for 100% of the population, how would you adjust the figures? --Iryna Harpy (talk) 00:45, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

text: Different methodologies (such as the exact phrasing of the question) are inherently going to give different answers, so some diversity among polls and census is expected. Also there is a tendency in a census for religious affiliation to generally be overestimated by the head of the household, Second Quantization (talk) 20:52, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed, Second Quantization. Statistical analysis is subject to being problematic but, as census statistics appear to be preferred for articles in Wikipedia for demographic information, at least there is assurance of some form of consistency in slightly bolstered estimates per nation-state. I've noticed that independent polls don't qualify 'random' selection groups (were those selected gleaned from a lunch time cross section in a working class area; rural or urban groups; the shopping centre in middle to upper income areas during working hours), or examples of the questionnaires (leading; confusing; presumptuous). Unless there are identifiable oversights in the census questionnaire itself, or regions being overlooked, I'd deem it WP:UNDUE to introduce additional sources unless it's attributed WP:INTEXT and serves a necessary function such as pointing out extremely large variations in estimates. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 01:08, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Religious Statistics 

message: Are there any sources for the church tax figures? This would surely provide a good estimate of adherence within some church groups, and wouldnt supplement other census figures Second Quantization (talk) 20:54, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Church tax figures 

message: Septate, could we agree on the fact that REMID and the official church data should be kept are high quality primary sources? Some others of your change seemed ok, please add them again. BR Ulrich Nillurcheier (talk) 17:37, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Church statistics 

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replies: text: Correct, but replaced with active link to the info. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 21:44, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Most statisticians are Christians and non-believers in Germany. Their data are usually correct. The treat Christian denominations as separate values, but merge the 1. religiously indifferent, 2. atheists, 3. agnostics, 4. other non-believers under one label, the label non-religious. This is pure manipulation because agnostics and atheist separately occupy a larger percentage than the 5.2% of Muslims (not all Sunnis and Shia are friendly to each other neither accept that merge). Many (but of course not all) antimetaphysical atheists are ideologically as distant to agnostics (which are open to the possibility of antimetaphysics or other inherently non logical and analyzable cosmic mechanism) as to other metaphysicalists. This is Wikipedia and not a German statistical office. Correct data if manipulated lead to wrong conclusions, and in the case of Germany to deaths, because they don't try to understand the citizen but to simplify and manipulate him/her because they believe "simple is better". "Not to care" isn't better and it doesn't seem functional either with so many deaths.
Please notice that Atheists and Christians claim they are different, but statistically are covariants. Most neo-atheists (of no Communist background) mainly are of Protestant and secondarily of other Christian denominations, even if we examine it proportionally. This "correct but manipulated" selection of the religious components, unwittingly acts as another brickwall (and not as many separate bricks) against Muslims. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:587:4102:3800:281D:B91:C29E:E51D (talk) 04:38, 24 July 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: please sign your comment. Do you have any other or more detailed data, if yes, please share! --Nillurcheier (talk) 08:43, 24 July 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm a bit concerned that the pie chart is mingling data given it lists three sources; however, if it is using tax registration info, we have no way of differentiating among the people who aren't registered for any church.  If we use survey info, a lot depends on how the questions are asked.  Both surveys and registration info should be in the article (but at most only one pie chart) Erp (talk) 15:19, 24 July 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Christian and Irreligious manipulation of correct data 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Most of the statistics contained in the lists of Christian churches are about two decades old (Adherents.com is a database which is mostly not updated, and the sources of the website itself are not immediately verifiable). So, this version which had the major Christian groups with the data from the EKD 2016 report was better.--62.211.21.90 (talk) 22:10, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Outdated statistics in the list 

message: In addition to Politbarometer, I think there are also the yearly-updated church membership data for each state.--Wddan (talk) 18:28, 24 October 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I am not sure about that, Politbarometer is more precise.--FrankCesco26 (talk) 11:46, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Religion by state 

message: The study in 2012 cited was unable to find a single person under 28 in Eastern Germany who believes in God.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.71.210.138 (talk) 21:44, 26 November 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Good. So where does it say that Germany is the least religious country in the world? What does your argument have to do with edit warring content to create WP:SYNTH suiting your personal point of view. We use reliable sources precisely to avoid having users like you trying to write about their own opinions. Find a reliable source stating that Germany is the least religious country in the world, and bring it to the table. Evidently, you haven't seen enough census responses from other countries. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 00:57, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Eastern Germany 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: A Roman Catholic is way closer metaphysically to a Protestant than a conscious atheist to an irreligious (not to care, or not to follow a religion).
Atheism and Irreligion are different forms of Nontheism.
You gerrymander the data, simply to present that atheists fight against divided Christians.
You don't care about the Germans and their opinion.
Usually Richard Dawkins merges all nontheists to present a bigger number, while usually interpreting them as atheists - thus merging hyponyms as a hypernym, but titling them under his favorite hyponym. Even Richard Dawkins doesn't do that all the time. In big texts he's analytical and avoids mergers.
You might claim that I'm a Heretical Hebrew (=Christian) who believes that ancient Israelites knew better neuroscience than us, but no. I am not a moron (=an egotistical being not aware of the absolute nature of death).
Merging nontheists in order to present a bigger number (as atheists statisticians love to gerrymander) harms the nontheistic spectrum.
Nontheism is based on analytical thought, not in mergers.
Also we must treat the same way the orders of hyponymy (same leveled tiers of hyponymification).
You have the excuse for not being analytical, if a group is under 2%. Here you've no excuse!
You analyzed theists, and the subgroup of Christians, but you've merged all nontheists.
The subgroup of Christians is two tiers down (theism or religion > Christianity > Christian Denominations) more fragmented than the hypergroup of nontheists, so what is presented is pure political filth.
Read ways to present statistical data
_____
You might claim that: "I've copied an old survey others conducted".
These others aren't blind.
Leave it there so they will correct their political gerrymanderism.
Surveys do get updated.
Also you dubbed the survey Statistical Data of Religion/Theism which is a subgroup of Worldview/Metaphysics.
You've used the excuse others commit the same mistake.
You kiddo have to know that in maths and statistics, you must batch and fragment logically correctly, and what the masses do is irrelevant.
I maths if we erroneously group and fragment, we are wrong. Being perceived as cute by the masses is absolutely irrelevant! Be the first one to be correct, and even die for it!  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:2149:8490:3400:608A:BDA2:6DF7:A815 (talk) 09:39, 2 February 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Feel free to split groups, if you can provide reliable data. --Nillurcheier (talk) 10:40, 2 February 2018 (UTC)
replies: text:  I think that the only way to solve this problem is to put in the first place in the pie chart the Christian denominations, only if summed up they make a larger share than the irreligious people. FrankCesco26 (talk) 20:08, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Christianity fragmented into denominations, conscious [[atheists]] merged with [[irreligious]] 

message: I am concerned by the glaring omission of Nazism in this section. I have now edited the section for the second time and hope that we can work to make sure this remains in the article. 
Marclubitz1 (talk) 14:03, 25 April 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Judaism 

message: The table of religion by state should be remade with the 2011 census data or (better) the latest church data, rather than the 2016 Politbarometer, which counted just the adult population entitled to vote.--Wddan (talk) 14:26, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok then, replace Politbarometer data with the 2011 detailed census data from the Zensus website. FrankCesco26 (talk) 17:55, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
replies: text:  Both data are crap. Much better data are available, see German Wikipedia Mitgliederentwicklung.... --Nillurcheier (talk) 07:27, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: The source of the data there is the official church membership, that may differ from the actual religious affiliation that is better found with the self-identification methods of the census, and other surveys. People tend to officially leave the church to avoid the overpayment of 9% of the total tax to fund religious associations, as it is written in the publication by Jens Petersen "Kirchensteuer kompakt: Strukturierte Darstellung mit Berechnungsbeispielen.".FrankCesco26 (talk) 12:02, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: The difference between the church membership and the latest census is minimal, 26% in 2016 instead of 30% in 2011 for Protestants and 28% in 2016 instead of 30% in 2011 for Catholics, so the church membership is accurate to represent believers, also given the ongoing decline of the two religions. Also, true believers should be earnest in giving the tithe to their church, so the theory that people who believe leave the church to avoid the tithe is not cogent.--Wddan (talk) 15:43, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: 5% of difference between the two sources is very relevant and may compromise the quality of the data. The ideas of the true believers is a your assumption without any sort of source. I suggest using the 2011 Census data which is just right in representing the main christian denominations and who doesn't belong to a religion, the other religions are slightly underrepresented since there wasn't a specific field for each minor religion in the census and many people belonging to the affected religions decided to opt out to answer. Nevertheless, the Census data remains the most reliable data.FrankCesco26 (talk) 17:47, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: It is reasonable to think that religious people are earnest in giving the due tax to the church. Why should a believer not support his church? Anyway, the 5% difference perfectly reflects the five-years difference between 2011 and 2016, given that both the churches decline approximately 1% each year.--Wddan (talk) 19:16, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: The difference does not fit the gap, and even comparing the 2011 census with the registered data there is a deep gap, with the Evangelicals going down 1.6% from 30.8% to 29.2% and the Catholics going down 1.2% from 31.2% to 30.0%. This is a fact, the auto-identification surveys and the census all show the same data. I've checked the 2016 German Social Survey, the 2015 International Social Survey, the 2016 Politbarometer, the 2015 Eurobarometer and every survey show the proportion of Catholics and Protestants to be over 30%, are they all wrong? FrankCesco26 (talk) 20:37, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: A difference of 1.6% or 1.2% is what you call "a deep gap"?--Wddan (talk) 01:16, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

text: Indeed it is, that is a change of several hundreds of thousand people.FrankCesco26 (talk) 11:29, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  May 2018 - religion by state 

message: Based on WP:NOTSTATSBOOK and WP:NOTMANUAL, I think that it is excessive and unencyclopedic to specify, in the main text body of the article, the consistency of the sample of any survey and the questions which were asked to the sampled people (see this case). I am not saying that these are not important things, but the main text body should show just the outcomes of the survey, and the methodology should be explained (if the explanation has some relevance) in the reference or in a footnote.--Wddan (talk) 16:08, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that a clear explanation of the survey methodology must be given in the text right under the data, and must not be hidden in references of footnotes since it gives crucial information about the wording of the question, that is one of the main factors that affect the differences between the censuses and the other surveys. The sample size also is very important, since surveys with a more robust sample are usually more reliable than surveys with a smaller sample in which a few different answers can drastically affect the final data, even with the best weights. I would also add information on what kind of weight has been used, but I think that is too excessive. FrankCesco26 (talk) 17:54, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: It is utterly irrelevant to the scope of an encyclopedia, which is neither a manual of statistics nor of statistical methodology. It can be shown in a footnote, but not in the main article. Readers are interested in the outcome, not in knowing that the people were asked "Are you religious?" and then "What is your religion?", since it is WP:BLUESKY.--Wddan (talk) 18:40, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

text: , what do you think about this?--Wddan (talk) 18:41, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: The methodology must not be hidden in the footnotes or in the references, the reader must not be misinformed about the data he reads and has to be aware that there are wide differences between the data of the survey and the data from the census or other surveys due to the wording, that is the main factor that significantly change the data. I personally think that in a survey list section the methology perfectly fits and must be always reported. You seem not to understand how actually surveys work. FrankCesco26 (talk) 20:43, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Those surveys are mostly sampled on sections of the adult population. Indeed, they also hugely underestimate Islam, which is around 5%.--Wddan (talk) 21:06, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

text: It's really stupid to report the questions of the survey; it's not encyclopedic content, also considering that most of those minor surveys are already given more emphasis than they deserve. This is turning the articles into lists of statistics, against the policies of WP:NOTSTATSBOOK and WP:NOTMANUAL. I am fully convinced of this. But let's see how other editors have to say about this: , , .--Wddan (talk) 00:46, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

text: This is how that type of technical information should be presented in the article. The readers are interested in the outcomes of the surveys, possibly reliable ones published by reliable institutions, not in reading a manual on how to carry out a survey.--Wddan (talk) 01:05, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Your question is a minor detail and we are running into the risk of getting lost in endless discussions about close to irrelevant issues. Actually I dislike the aboundance of statistics, which have never been relevant in German society, news or research. Germany is one of few countries reporting membership data of religious bodies. Adding census results is fine, but any data beyond this hardly contributes further information or insight to the article. It is rather irritating or confusing for readers if e.g. a sideresult of an election poll is presented as relevant religious statistics. Let us reduce data to few but relevant sets. BR Ulrich --Nillurcheier (talk) 09:22, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is there the need to specify the sample and the questions of a survey in the text body of the article? 

message: I just refashioned the table of the data from censuses in the same style of those found in other articles of the same series. Compared to the old version, however, I have left out the data from the 1939 census of Nazi Germany, since the latter covered a larger expanse of land and many non-German populations compared to the foregoing and following German states (10 million more people compared to the census of the Weimar Republic in the same year). I would like to know if this was the right thing to do, especially from users with deep knowledge of German history.--Wddan (talk) 19:25, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Censuses' table refashioning 

message: This claim against me is false: "along the unexplained edits you made, you remove things you don't like" [sic].
The content was removed by FrankCesco26 himself in the previous edit.
The edit is also not consistent with FrankCesco26's behaviour in other articles, in which he has insisted for the removal of pie charts representing minor surveys (religion in France, religion in the United Kingdom: "or we add a chart for every survey or remove them all. we can't add charts for every survey we find in the internet" [sic]).
There is a glaring, recurring non-neutral pattern in this editing behaviour.--Wddan (talk) 12:01, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  16 May 2018 - false accusations by FrankCesco26 

message: From the article [see chart on the right]:
That chart isn't supported by the source.
The source has:
* 51% catholic and protestant Christians
* 3,5 muslims
* 40,7 no religion
* 4,8 others
** 3 other Christians
** 0,8 alevites
** 0,2 buddhists
** 0,1 jews
** 0,1 hindi
** 0,1 yezides
** 0,4 others
That gives:
* 54% Christians/Christianity
** 51 catholics & protestants
** 3 others
* 40,7 no religion
* 3,5 muslims/islam
Even when adding 3,5 muslims + 0,8 alevites to 4,3 muslimoids, it's far from 5. --15:53, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Please look carefully at the chart. there is a second source that says Muslimes 6.3-6.7% now, what should we do. neglegt this high quality source, add a second chart or make an average of 6.7 and 3.5, what i did. Nillurcheier (talk) 16:00, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chart 

message: This page used to contain church tax data per year for the various denominations, especially Catholics and Protestants, many years ago. Now they seem gone. What is the reason? 80.116.143.110 (talk) 13:51, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Church tax data 

message: It is lying by omission to exclude non-religious from the first line, since they are a far greater number than eiher Christian group. Something like 'Nearly all Germans are either non-religious or Christian (Catholic or Protestant), according to recent polling.' 178.139.171.177 (talk) 07:02, 5 September 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: As long as christianity is bigger than irreligion, it seems fine to mention christianity first. The first paragraph then is a chronological history. The recent statistics follow later in the lead, I would advocate to leave it that way to avoid recentism. Keep also in mind that most people look at the graph with the current distribution first anyway. 2A02:1810:BC3A:D800:2C98:387B:A549:4647 (talk) 12:43, 20 October 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Non-religious should be mentioned first