Talk:Religion in the United States

message: 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)
replies: text: I think this image is too bulky for the page. It is quite distracting from the text of the article. Some of it looks foreign-ish too. A more focused image may be more appropriate, if any is to be added at all. Ramos1990 (talk) 05:41, 2 April 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I think this is a very vibrant image that would make the first sentence of the lead seem true. :)  --  SashiRolls  🌿  ·     🍥 17:36, 28 October 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Leading image 

message: I removed the pie charts from the "infobox slot", and  restored them.   also removed them and was again reverted.
There are a few reasons I don't think the pie charts are helpful:
# In my opinion, they look ugly. The colors are distracting and arbitrary.
# There is no distinction between "mainline" and "evangelical" groups in the specific survey used, and the "Just Christian" category is extremely vague.
# The information in the chart is already described in the text of the lead section.
Walt Yoder (talk) 19:04, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with what you said. 2 editors removed the pie charts already. I think that if there is a pie chart, it should only be one. Too many charts is distracting and of course many times editors manipulate them - so they are not stable. Ramos1990 (talk) 01:45, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Pie charts can be useful but there use should be restricted to cases where the source is reliable, the information is highly relevant,  and the pie chart will contribute to readers' comprehension (there should be at most one pie chart in the lead).  I note in the case of the WSJ/NORC poll that the sampling error is high and that the main aim of the poll was elsewhere than religion. Erp (talk) 16:15, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

text: I strongly agree with this. As with virtually all other religion articles, there should be a single pie chart to express the United States' religion statistics. It should preferably be from a reputable source like Pew Research, because their categories are clear and consistent, in contrast to the "Generic Christian" category that has already been mentioned as vague. I definitely don't think that the single WSJ poll should be the source for the single pie chart on this page(as it currently is). Harshalrach (talk) 05:15, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

text: I agree with your assesment. The the lead of this article is a mess and KlayCax keeps reverting any changes that make it a little more readable. Regards Epidrome (talk) 08:05, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with all of you. Erp's observation that the NORC poll is not a focused survey on religion is on point. I also note that the source says "cumulative response rate of 4.3 percent" which means very few people even responded to it. Polls catered to newspapers like WSJ, the Economist, or polls focusing on politics like "Cooperative Election Study" are not the best sources for religion especially since the are not weighted for religion. Pew or Gallup is more appropriate since they have long track record on religion reporting, if any chart is to be shown. Ramos1990 (talk) 16:42, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

text: Shall Pew or Gallup, and ARDA and PRRI be considered valued alongside others too? Though ARDA only for reported membership statistics and churchgoers by attendance? - TheLionHasSeen (talk) 16:50, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: User:TheLionHasSeen, I do know that sociologists of religion tend to use all of the ones you mentioned but they perform a more detailed analysis using a mix of these databases and even others like congregation or church membership datasets, because alone these polls tend to not agree with each other because of numerous problems emerging from self-reporting surveys (very low response rates, lower accuracy, lower sample sizes etc). Significant discrepancies are found over the same variables in self-reporting survey - for instance the number of Nones or what "nones" even mean to respondents. ARDA is a good super database of multiple datasets collected and can be very handy. Ramos1990 (talk) 21:45, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

text: I would say the Pew Religious Landscape Studies of 2007 and 2014 are the largest and most in depth.  ARDA is a collection of data sources so each would have to be evaluated on its own merits (and some of ARDA's sources strain credibility).  Gallup has a long base line though doesn't go into as much depth.  Another point on pie charts is there shouldn't be too many items in it (and the colors have to be distinct enough). For instance if we require a limit of 1% or greater and use the Pew RLS 2014 survey results we get 11 items (this includes collapsing Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu into other Non-Christian Faiths, Judaism is 1.9% and also collapsing Orthodox Christian and Jehovah's Witnesses into Other Christian). Erp (talk) 22:12, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pie Charts in lead 

message: 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)
replies: text: Came here to make the same point. Many of the bullet points seem tenuously related at best, and some are outright false. As noted, it seems pretty straightforwardly false that polling "consistently" fails to predict election results. There exists a margin of error, and there have been some high-profile examples of polling "misses," but polls do have quite strong predictive power. Additionally, political polls attempt to model turnout and capture "likely" voters, which introduces complexity and potential for error that is not a problem for simple opinion and demographic polling. It just doesn't seem necessary to have so large a section just to warn that polls may not be perfectly accurate, so I fully cosign Tasqing's comment above. Specific, relevant, notable critiques might be worth keeping, but a broad suggestion that polling in general is unreliable is silly and irrelevant, and should not be kept in this article. DustyConditions (talk) 06:58, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inaccuracies of independent polling section 

message: 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)
replies: text: Done. Ramos1990 (talk) 02:27, 9 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semi-protected edit request on 8 June 2023 

message: RuckusJones (talk) 17:48, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Not necessarily since they could also be cultural christian and go nowhere (especially since 30% of the respondents say they never attend religious services).   This btw is why I think the Pew survey is a better choice since it goes into more detail (even if it is also almost a decade older). Erp (talk) 02:15, 12 August 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semi-protected edit request on 11 August 2023 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Why is Hinduism missing? 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Using Patrick Johnstone’s “study” 

message: ...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)
thread_title:  Hawaii... 

message: Who wrote that? shows that the following was added to the lead today.
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)
thread_title:  no state religion 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Unitarian Universalism 

message: “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)
thread_title:  Laws created from Christian Bible. 

message: 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)
replies: text: Yes, there is a problem.  Thank you for taking the time to add your analysis. I've gone ahead and tagged three of the problems in the first two sentences of the entry.  See the next section, too, for some specifics. --  SashiRolls  🌿  ·     🍥 10:57, 28 October 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Changes to lede in the past month 

message: 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:   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? 
.--  SashiRolls  🌿  ·     🍥 06:42, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Someone has replaced the Radiance Foundation survey now.  (Thank you.) Unfortunately, I can only see the title page of the .pdf added to replace it, but that may be a technical issue on my side. --  SashiRolls  🌿  ·     🍥 16:53, 28 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I split the gallup numbers since that is the way was before such changes. Ramos1990 (talk) 17:10, 28 October 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recalculating statistics and the Radiance Foundation (third footnote of the lede) 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Televangelism 

message: Just commenting on the Gallup source that was added in this edit . 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 , 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)
thread_title:  Recent edit - source 

message: 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)
replies: text: Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the  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)
thread_title:  Semi-protected edit request on 17 April 2024 

message: There's some ambiguous language and, depending on how it's interpreted, potentially misleading. In one of the sections on income it reads:
"though the overall percentage of Catholics in high income brackets is far lower than the percentage of any Mainline Protestant group in high income brackets, and the percentage of Catholics in high income brackets is comparable to the percentage of Americans in general in high income brackets."
What does "of any Mainline Protestant group" mean? Individual churches, or mainline Protestants as a whole?
Also, when Pew breaks down religious stats, it sometimes differentiates race or ethnicity which sadly affects the way these groups are ranked. For example, there's a higher percentage of white Catholics earning >$100k than white mainline Protestants, although Asian mainline Protestants rank higher than white Catholics. Hispanic Catholics, on the other hand, are at the bottom, which may have something to do with why Catholics appear to be at the population average when grouped together.. In terms of advanced educations, white mainline Protestants and white Catholics are about even (see previous link for income/education data). Jonathan f1 (talk) 23:57, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Should race be a factor when discussing income/education? 

message: ===Historical trends===
*Sources: Based on Pew Center Research, especially editions 2007-2014 and 2019, CID-Gallup Center since 1948, Public Religion Research Institute, Christianity Today 1900-1950:Religious Trends in the United States,  (link Book) 1900–1950 Survey: Religious Trends in the United States The Database of Religious History,DRH  (The Database of Religious History) and Historical information sources.The U.S. Is Retreating from Religion  Scientific AmericanFast Facts about American Religion  Hartford Institute for Religion Research
===Change in religious identification, 1950–2020===
Percentage of Americans by religious identification (1950 – 2020)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 JohnAdams1800 (talk) 22:54, 19 May 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: I like the idea of moving graphs to the talk page for archival in case graphs in the form they're in ever come back. Otherwise, if an alternative is created, they could be converted manually or maybe automatically. Dialmayo 18:08, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  I removed this paragraph because graphs don't work, and added it here for archival reasons. 

message: Percentage of Americans by religious identification (1950 – 2020)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 JohnAdams1800 (talk) 22:54, 19 May 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: I like the idea of moving graphs to the talk page for archival in case graphs in the form they're in ever come back. Otherwise, if an alternative is created, they could be converted manually or maybe automatically. Dialmayo 18:08, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
thread_title: Change in religious identification, 1950–2020