Talk:Irreligion in the United States

Apparent inconsistency Chaves
Chaves 2017 states, without further substantiation, that 80% is BOTH religious AND spiritual. He then goes on to state that only 54% are at least moderately religious. Is the difference here the slightly religious category? If so, at the very least he is then inconsistent in the use of considering somebody in the religious category without explicitly stating he is. The GSS 2018 indicates that now 46% are lightly or not religious. (relpersn) Jmv2009 (talk) 14:16, 15 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Chaves is an experienced sociologist of religion so his words carry much more weight than just one primary source. He knows which surveys and studies are more reliable and is familiar with the literature on the variables. His analysis is not really up here for discussion since he is has clearly written on the matter and is an authority on the field. Probably he takes into account anyone who ticks the "slightly religious" and "slightly spiritual" field as part of the religious and spiritual identification for the 80% because they certainly did not select not religious option. From the GSS 2018, only 21.5% of the population does not consider themselves religious. However, this question alone is not a marker for irreligiosity or religiosity automatically because people who go to a house of worship or believe in God do not self identify as religious as well (Certainly within Christians circles, Christianity it is not always viewed as a religion. And certainly "religion" is a modern invention than a concept found in the Bible or the Quran orin the those ancient and medieval worlds). Most "Nones" still believe in God so merely looking at self-affiliation alone is not a marker for religiosity or irreligiosity either. It is more complex than just "one question determines the degree of religiosity or irreligiosity in a society". Ramos1990 (talk) 01:39, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

@Ramos1990 So why focus on his statistics which confound the variable religiousness and spirituality together? He also mentions on page 38 that "only" 54% were at least moderately religious. That's a much clearer number to use.


 * It is already explained above. Chaves takes all the categories of slightly religious up to very religious. That amounts to 80%. Even the current data verifies this. The same goes for the spiritual part from slightly to very spiritual. Both variables are at least around 80% or above . So I will restore per source.Ramos1990 (talk) 20:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

But why ignore the 54% he also mentions?Jmv2009 (talk) 21:06, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
 * It is already included in the 80%. Its the whole range. That is why he clearly states "The vast majority of people — approximately 80 percent — describe themselves as both spiritual and religious." "Moderately religious" is not the only category, there is "very religious", "slightly religious", and "not religious" etc. The first 3 are what he takes as being religious. The clearest one about not being religious is clearly the "not religious" category. He is the expert and it makes sense.Ramos1990 (talk) 21:16, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Incredibly outdated
The CIA estimated that the USA was 22.8% atheist/agnostic, but your page is giving incredibly false information fo

Religions - The World Factbook. https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/religions/

This revealed that 69% of all Democrats were atheist/agnostic in 2014.

NW, 1615 L. St, et al. “Religious Landscape Study.” Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project, https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/

You have very outdated information on all sites, and this is not a surprise given that those with faith still outnumber us, but we without faith demand truths and facts, not made up nonsense.

"In the United States, between 6% and 15% of citizens demonstrated nonreligious attitudes and naturalistic worldviews, namely atheists or agnostics.[2][3][4][5] The number of self-identified atheists and agnostics was around 4% each, while many persons formally affiliated with a religion are likewise non-believing.[6][7][8]"

And you're citing articles which cite old articles and you're still citing those old articles, and this is straight up fraud, especially in conspiracy to defraud the United States of equal representation, because for how many are irreligious in this country, we have not one atheist in our congres.

Pew Research has been getting better about their bias, but it still exists. Despite this, they are still stating that in 2021, the number of Atheists in the US were at 21%.

Mitchell, Travis. “Faith on the Hill.” Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project, 4 Jan. 2021, https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/01/04/faith-on-the-hill-2021/.

On Google, this nonsense appeared. I have flagged that to them, with this link provided:

Google Question, Answered Fraudently:

What percent of the population is atheist agnostic?

"Irreligion in the United States - Wikipedia In the United States, between 6% and 15% of citizens demonstrated nonreligious attitudes and naturalistic worldviews, namely atheists or agnostics. The number of self-identified atheists and agnostics was around 4% each, while many persons formally affiliated with a religion are likewise non-believing."

“Non-Religious Voters Wield Clout, Tilt Heavily Democratic.” AP News, 3 Dec. 2022, https://apnews.com/article/abortion-pennsylvania-reproductive-rights-e5eb366a76995619a2c9bae200f414e6.

The atheist voting block surpassed all other grousp in 2016, and has been rising steadily fast as more atheists are becoming more poitical.

Ingraham, Christopher. “The Non-Religious Are Now the Country’s Largest Religious Voting Bloc.” Washington Post, 24 Nov. 2021. www.washingtonpost.com, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/07/14/the-non-religious-are-now-the-countrys-largest-religious-voting-bloc/.

And we can see that they are becomming more politically active from this research.

"In 2016, an atheist engaged in 1.45 activities compared to 1.4 for an agnostic. Christians were slightly lower at 1.28. But, by 2018 the landscape had changed. Both Protestants and Catholics saw a tremendous decline down to .90 or .95 actions. For agnostics, there was no statistically significant change. But for atheists, there was a noticeable uptick to 1.58. The gap between Christians and atheists is huge now, with atheists about ten percent more politically engaged in 2018."

“Atheists Are the Most Politically Active Group in the United States.” Religion in Public, 13 Apr. 2020, https://religioninpublic.blog/2020/04/13/atheists-are-the-most-politically-active-group-in-the-united-states/.

They have tried to split non-believers into many different denominations in order to make it look like we're small in number, but agnostic, atheist, unsure, nonthing, no opinion, Irreligious, Antitheist, and all others, are all atheists. The term atheist is literally: “a person who does not believe in the existence of a god or any gods," and if you do not have a firm belief, or you question that a god exists, then that person is not affiliated with religion. If I told you that I was unsure that you exist, and after having just met you, you'd have doubts about my own perception of reality; whearas those with religion see others that do not believe in a magical sky fairy to be insane, and brain damaged. I do not think this is nice, just because they can't answer their questions with legitimate evidence.

This was citing a paper from 30 years ago:

The number of atheists and agnostics found in common surveys tends to be quite low since, for instance, according to the 2019 Pew Research Center survey they were 3.1% and 4% respectively[7] and according to the 2014 General Social Survey they were 4% and 5% respectively.[28]

Get it together and CHECK YOUR SOURCES. READ THEM. COMPREHEND THEM. DO NOT JUST ACCEPT THEM BECAUSE THEY EXIST.

The archived link of this shall be shared. 107.115.207.35 (talk) 05:11, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
 * This is WP:NOTFORUM. All sources are provided and they create a history of irreligion in the united states. What you are proposing is WP:SYN and WP:OR. Both of which violate wikipedia policy.


 * You mentioned that "They have tried to split non-believers into many different denominations in order to make it look like we're small in number, but agnostic, atheist, unsure, nonthing, no opinion, Irreligious, Antitheist, and all others, are all atheists." and yet no source agrees with this. All surveys allow people to self identify as they wish and this demographic rarely selects atheism and the majority actually believe in God. For example, is by a researcher and he clearly states: "The center of the Venn diagram indicates that just 15.3 percent of the population that are nones on one dimension are nones on all dimensions. That amounts to just about 6 percent of the general public who don’t belong to a religious tradition and don’t attend church and hold to an atheist or agnostic worldview."}} The number of self-identified atheists and agnostics was around 4% each, while many persons formally affiliated with a religion are likewise non-believing."&#32;Ramos1990 (talk) 06:06, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I will give it to you that I should not have mentioned a memory of a Pew Research pole which omitted all data from the largest amount of those who were unaffiliated. I read that over 5 years ago. I have doubts I would find it. I can find similar data skewing though. Atheists, Agnostics, and Nones. None of those believe in a god, making them all atheists. We are not an organized religion.
 * https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/08/21/among-religious-nones-atheists-and-agnostics-know-the-most-about-religion/
 * I do recall it being "3%" of the population did not believe in a deity, as they did excluded the other data to inflate their own.
 * If one does not investigate the claims of others, very obvious details fall through the cracks, such as how the Catholics claim to have. Here are the facts: the Catholics claim  that: between 17% to 22% of  the  USA is Roman Catholic. And according to their statistics here, they claim 24% of Catholics attend church weekly. Which would mean they would be over capacity for every session, and yet, we have major churches in metropolitan areas that can barely fill one worship session.
 * Lehti, Andrew. Fact Checking the Number of Roman Catholics in the World. 2022. DOI.org (Datacite), https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.21742.08002.
 * yOUR WIKIPEDIA PAGES SAY THIS:
 * Nationwide Catholic membership increased between 2000 and 2017, but the number of churches declined by nearly 11% and by 2019, the number of Catholics decreased by 2 million people, dropping from 23% of the population to 21%. Which is false. It is true that all churches have been declining, and many new churches have been built, but the reason for this is consolidation as multiple churches keep merging as their congregations dwindle. My mother was Lutheran until her church closed down. There wasn't enough people in a 45 mile radius to sustain it. The whole area has about 100,000 people within that 45 mile radius and then nothing for miles beyond that in every direction. And so her next choice was Baptist. The cults are definitely diminishing.
 * "in 2018, millennials expressed a lot less certainty. Only 44 percent had no doubts about the existence of God. Even more doubtful were members of Generation Z — just one-third claimed certain belief in God."
 * For instance: 158 million votes were cast according to the State Election Offices. Joe Biden took 72% of voters with no religious affiliation, while Republican Donald Trump took 25%. However, in every 'study' they are claiming among all U.S. adults, that only 12% to 29% are nones. We can do some very simple mathematics with very simple concepts of number and set theory along with the central limit theorem, the basis of all surveys and how small random sample sizes can be accurate. This one may be the most simple equation in all of history: ((25 + 72) / 2)
 * 213,799,485 total registered voters. 81,283,501 voted for Biden, and 74,223,975 voted for Trump. ((81283501 * 0.72) + (74223975 * 0.25)) =
 * (58524120.72 + 18555993.75) / 155507476 (subtract other party voters) = result * 100 = 49.56% of voters were nones in 2020. Their percentage values will have a larger margin of error: ((25 + 72) / 2) = 48.5; if we account for the other parties, we arrive at 48.62%. In 2020, there were 168.31 million people registered to vote in the United States. The reason it feels like there are more religious persons in the US is because they're the ones on TV, in Congress, while nones make up significantly less of any conventional industry. There are those that will just pretend to be affiliated, because they know backlash from saying they aren't.
 * Offices, State Elections. OFFICIAL 2020 PRESIDENTIAL GENERAL ELECTION RESULTS. Public Election Compilation, 2020, 3 Nov. 2020, p. 12, https://www.fec.gov/resources/cms-content/documents/2020presgeresults.pdf.
 * “Why Democrats Are Less Religious Than Republicans.” Religion Unplugged, 31 Jan. 2023, https://religionunplugged.com/news/2023/1/23/analysis-data-shows-democrats-increasingly-becoming-the-party-of-non-religious-voters.
 * Visé, Daniel de. “Does God Exist? Only Half of Americans Say a Definite Yes.” The Hill, 22 May 2023, https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/4012827-does-god-exist-only-half-of-americans-say-a-definite-yes/.
 * Cites: GSS General Social Survey | NORC. https://gss.norc.org/ . Accessed 28 Aug. 2023.
 * Non-Religious Voters Wield Clout, Tilt Heavily Democratic - CBS Pittsburgh. 4 Dec. 2022, https://www.cbsnews.com/pittsburgh/news/non-religious-voters-wield-clout-tilt-heavily-democratic/.
 * Federal Elections 2020, ( https://www.fec.gov/documents/4227/federalelections2020.pdf ) (PDF). Federal Election Commission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Election_Commission, Federal Election Commission 107.115.207.35 (talk) 06:45, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Not sure what your point is with all of this. It seems like WP:NOTFORUM, WP:SYN and WP:OR. All of this is not allowed in wikipedia. Please read these. You cannot introduce your own analysis on the topic here on wikipedia.&#32;Ramos1990 (talk) 07:45, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

Secularism in the United States.
This entire article needs to be rewritten with the idea in mind that the word "Irreligion" is often used as a pejorative against people who are secular, and do not identify as having a preferred religion. As a secular individual, I find the term "Irreligious" highly offensive. It implies a negative, or lack of something. Although I do not have any religious preferences, I have my own belief system, that is essentially Empirical, Existential, Utilitarian, Pantheistic, and Egalitarian. I believe that the Universe is akin to a god with no consciousness, and we are all a part of it and connected at the subatomic level. Everything objective is explainable by science, while things that are subjective are explainable by philosophy. The Universe is all one thing. This is shown through data about quantum entanglement, and the fact that Energy is never lost, it only changes. It's all the same energy, even though all the particles have their own properties, at the basest level everything is energy, and it's all essentially the same energy just in a multitude of different states. I have Faith. My faith is that science can explain anything that is objective, and philosophy can explain that which is subjective. I have Faith in people, and in the principles of both science and morality. I have Faith in ideas such as compassion, empathy, logic, and love. So, when you call me "Irreligious", you are Implying that I lack something that religious people do not, and that is not true. I am simply secular, and I wish to be represented as "Secular" and not "Irreligious". Fantredath (talk) 06:01, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Latest polls
The article should reflect latest polls according to which "nones" comprise 28% of the population, up from 16% in polls from 2007. Chernorizets (talk) 08:18, 29 January 2024 (UTC)