Talk:Religion in Norway

message: I had been under the impression that the Christianization of the Norse was largely by the blade. Is this idea pure fancy on my part? Vivacissamamente 15:53, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Christianization of the Norse 

message: I was wondering about if, and then how, the Norwegian state directly funds registered religious organization. In Iceland, the government pays each registered religious organization a certain sum of money for each registered member above the age of 16, is there a similar arrangement in Norway? --Bjarki 21:35, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: From the top of my head: The State Church gets a particular sum of money from the State budget. Let's say 4 million NOK, for 4 million members(which are not a real numbers of course). Then, this would mean that any other religious organisation would be given the same amount per member. That is, 1 NOK per member. --Strappado 15:21, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Church tax? 

message: There is a bit of debate about whether Humanism should be given its own line in the new bar chart.  I say yes because other than being called a life stance rather than a religion it is treated like a religion in Norway including state support according to membership numbers.  In addition its official numbers are greater than that of Catholicism which has its own bar (the smaller Christian groups were merged into one bar as were the smaller non-Christian religions). --Erp (talk) 05:05, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Humanism is not a religion. You lack WP:CON and lack a WP:RS for the claim that is is "treated" otherwise in Norway. I am sure that Norway gives state support for many things. That doesn't make the other things a religion. Humanism is still listed in the table and need not be in the bar chart too.  tahc chat 15:49, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Norway gives support for religious communities and life stance communities in exactly the same fashion, by the number of registered adherents; no other type of group gets this.  Humanism in Norway does confirmations (one of the big ceremonies in a young Norwegian's life) as well as legal marriage (like religions but not like other organizations) and burial rituals.   The official Norwegian statistics treats life stance communities and religious communities in the same way except for name difference (it also talks of Islamic, Buddhist, etc communities); you can't be a member of both a life stance and a religion (see http://www.ssb.no/trosamf_en/).  You will note that the Norwegian government's web page treats them as similar, http://www.norway.org/aboutnorway/society/people/general/ "The largest religious and life-stance communities outside the Church of Norway are the Humanist Movement, represented by the Norwegian Humanist Association (63 000), Islam (60 000), the Pentecostal Movement (45 000), the Roman Catholic Church (40 000 or more), the Evangelical-Lutheran free church (20 000), Methodists (13 000) and several lesser free churches" (their stats are a bit out of date).  Perhaps we should change the article title to "Religion and Life Stances in Norway" to reflect how Norway treats this?  I won't revert to avoid an edit war unless some more people comment; however, I am changing the word 'irreligion' as that has a negative connotation in English. --Erp (talk) 05:34, 2 August 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I'll support the inclusion of "Humanism" bar ONLY if the article gets renamed from "Religion in Norway" to "Religious and life stances in Norway" (with "Religion in Norway" and "Life stances in Norway" redirecting to it). Also, I support the renaming. 178.223.223.170 (talk) 13:56, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Do you also wish to change the Religion in the United States article to "Religions and Ways of Life in the US" given that several Christian denominations claim that Christianity (or at least their variant) is not a religion but a way of life (admittedly I don't think they take their argument to the point of foregoing the tax benefits of being a religion)?   How would you classify Unitarian Universalism which has no requirement to believe anything supernatural (also no requirement that you can't)  or Judaism which in Israel includes many atheists or Ethical Culture which is for tax purposes in the US a religion  but also completely humanist?  The definition of Religion is tricky but you'll note that Norwegian Humanism fits the definition in the article. But I'll await the discussion in the dispute page. --Erp (talk) 04:16, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

text: Given that the article title makes it part of a group of articles, I've put a note on the discussion pages of the Wikiprojects for Norway and Religion.   Certainly the latter should be involved in any name change.  --Erp (talk) 15:21, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Great!!! And I though you'd be stubborn about article renaming. Btw, DRN discussion is closed. And I also have to note that WikiProject Religion seems inactive for more than a month. As for WikiProject Norway, we'll hopefully get some response in the next 15 days. 77.46.175.85 (talk) 16:24, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: If anyone has access to J. Gordon Melton's multi-volume Religions of the World, which has separate articles on each country, that would be extremely useful. Honestly, if it includes Humanism and such in its articles on individual countries, then we would be more than justified in doing so ourselves. If it doesn't, that would be a solid indicator as well. I can I hope get ahold of the volume myself in the next several days, and will let those here know what it says. Of course, if someone doesn't want to wait that long and can access the book itself, they are more than free to do so. John Carter (talk) 18:23, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: This is the book mentioned. I don't have that of the internet speed, but I could see that it, on page 1365, states that Norwegian Humanists are the second largest philosophical/religious association in the Norway. However, because of my internet, the page crushes, so I really can't see much more. Assistance, please. 77.46.175.85 (talk) 20:38, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Well it has an entire article on Humanism and one on the Norwegian Humanist Organization and does cover the split between Religious Humanism which is humanism with ritual and the Council for Secular Humanism.  Also articles on the International Federation of Secular Humanistic Jews. Unfortunately the article on Norway is not available in the preview. I also looked at some Religious Studies programs. Stanford has a class: "Belief (in a post-Christian Age): ...The post-Chritain (or post-modern) age has given rise to new forms of faith, ranging from secular humanism and cultural atheism to rediscovery of the transcendent in the cosmos and quantum mechanics. However, unlike the era of "Christendom," belief is no longer necessarily hinged to faith."  Or Harvard has "Unitarian and Universalist Thought in the Twentieth Century: ...with special attention to the influence of the social gospel, religious humanism, process thought, and liberation theology."  Religious Studies programs at least in the US certainly seems to study humanism.  --Erp (talk) 01:32, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

text: I also have to note that the Humanism "posits that human beings are capable of being ethical and moral without religion or God", again implicating that Humanism isn't a religion (in the traditional definition at least). It seems that we still can't be clear on this one (there are a lots of conflicting informations). Hopefully someone as  will help (finding the whole/physical Religions of the World, for example). 178.223.213.132 (talk) 16:57, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Bump!!! 178.223.203.20 (talk) 23:57, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  Well, a lot of people considering themselves buddhists don't consider themselves religious, and also some new age groups don't consider their life stances religious, everything considered I think that since the aim of the article is to explain to people outside the country what people in Norway believe in it would probably be more helpful to a) include humanism and b) change the name of the article in the first place because not doing so will give people the wrong idea about people here actually believing in religions when at least according to one poll claim they don't in a little more then 50% of the cases. Luredreier (talk) 20:05, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bar box and Humanism 

message: : The information about the religion is taken from a wrong source. The official source is this: http://www.ssb.no/en/befolkning/artikler-og-publikasjoner/_attachment/91796?_ts=13c6ca485b8 92.107.15.149 (talk) 18:06, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Many thanks.  I've also found stats at Statistics Norway for 2011 and 2012; however, I couldn't find info for those years for the Norwegian Humanist Association but only a lump sum for all life stance communities (http://www.ssb.no/en/kultur-og-fritid/statistikker/trosamf/aar/2012-12-04)  (84481 for 2011 and 84722 for 2012) in previous years about 1,000 people were in other life stances.  I also need to calculate the Other Christian numbers (and the Orthodox are now numerous enough that they should be broken out of Other Christian). So I can do a chart now for 2010 or an incomplete one for 2012.  BTW as of Jan 2012 about 12.57% of the population is unaffiliated with any religion or life stance, about 1.7% are Norwegian Humanist Association, 2.05% are Catholic (the Catholic numbers are expanding rapidly, it was 1.38% in 2010), and 2.25% Muslim.  77.18% are Church of Norway.  Note all these numbers are official affiliations so increase in numbers could just mean the various groups are being more effective in getting immigrants and converts to officially register.  I suspect the Norwegian Humanists may be about the only group that removes children when they reach age 15 unless the child officially opts in. --Erp (talk) 02:29, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Religion 

message: I've done some changes, first got all the stats for 2013 including the Church of Norway. Second I split out the Church of Norway from the other Lutheran denominations since as the State Church it has an unique relationship with the government that no other denomination or life stance has so it is important to know what proportion of the population belongs.  I also lumped any Christian denomination with less than 10,000 members into other Christian (there are about 9 other Christian denominations before the Statistics people start lumping them in as other Christians).  I also removed the bar graph since it doesn't add any information that isn't already in the table and causes problems if the browser page is narrow.   We could instead do a historical graph.   BTW the article Mormonism in Norway claims about 4,000 members which, if accurate, should mean it shows up in the statistics as a distinct group (they cutoff seems to about 2500 for Christian groups).  Anyone know the story? --Erp (talk) 04:43, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stats 2013 

message: The repeated addition of an oversized picture of a mosque outside of the Islam section appears to give WP:UNDUE weight to Islam in this article. "Giving due weight and avoiding giving undue weight means that articles should not give minority views or aspects as much of, or as detailed, a description as more widely held views or widely supported aspects." Islam is definitely a minority religion in Norway and there is already a picture of a mosque in the corresponding section. 
The existence of wikipedia articles with inappropriate or policy violating images does not justify the addition of inappropriate (number, size, positioning) images in this article.
Septate (talk) please do not reinsert this picture without WP:CONSENSUS. Thanks  JimRenge (talk) 12:16, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: The image was here for a long time. Its you who needs concensus.Septate (talk) 06:07, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Oversized picture of a mosque outside of the Islam section 

message: I don't have time right now to incorporate into the article but http://folk.uio.no/leirvik/tekster/YME5.pdf seems to contain a lot of useful info about Muslims (and religion in general) in Norway in 2013.  --Erp (talk) 04:27, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sources on Islam 

message: I have two concerns about the new pie chart.  One is that it is drawing data (the stats for Church of Norway, stats for non-affiliated, stats for other religions and life stances) that though they are from the same source may not be the same time frame (I will note it does not state where the CoN or non-affiliated data is coming from).  The other concern is the merging of the Church of Norway into the general Christian slice.  I would separate that slice into Church of Norway, Roman Catholic, and other Christian.  I'm going to re-check data and also re-check the table later in the article. --Erp (talk) 05:23, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Erp, I agree with your comment: the data is not in the source given, it lacks a time frame and appears to be synthesis. The table in the article is sourced correctly and presents the data in detail. I see no need for the additional pie chart. JimRenge (talk) 09:54, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  pie chart 

message: The 2014 numbers are now out; however, the Catholic bishop of Oslo has been charged with fraud in regards to the Catholic membership numbers (for 2014: 140,109) and in particular adding up to 65,000 people without their consent over the last few years (according to Newsweek the diocese has admitted to scouring the phone books and adding people with Polish names to the membership list).   This does of course add to the explanations on how the number of Catholics more than doubled since 2010 (when it was 66,972).   But it does leave us in a bind on how and when to report the numbers that we now know are likely bogus.  We can footnote, we can wait for the bureau to put in corrected numbers. Thoughts?  --Erp (talk) 23:50, 3 July 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the info and your edit. I think we should wait for the publication of corrected numbers. The reference to the fraud charge seems sufficient.  JimRenge (talk) 09:59, 4 July 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: The charges were dropped in 2016.  Is there still a reason for the note to remain? Evangeliman (talk) 21:28, 7 April 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fraud Charges and 2014 numbers 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Norway provides official data on religion demography each year. Here is the archive of data from 2000 onwards, including those for the Church of Norway. We could add a Template:Line chart (already present in other articles, including religion in the Netherlands, religion in Switzerland and religion in Iceland). It would be an interesting addition to show the trend of religions in Norway throughout the decades.--Wddan (talk) 17:04, 11 March 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Good idea, go ahead! --— Erik Jr. 17:38, 11 March 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Line chart?