Talk:Religion in Belgium

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Why haven't any sources been cited for this article?

Why didn't you sign your post? But some sources seem to have been cited, though no inline citation for the 2004 percentages of religious demography, which conflict with other texts on Wikipedia. I'm not so sure either way but if someone could do something with that then I'd be happy! (Sbutler (talk) 18:12, 19 April 2008 (UTC))
 * His edit was from 2006, when I and others had not yet seen this thing. As far I can see the figures you are alluding to are the two mentioned at the start of "The Status of Recognized Denominations". The figure for Islam is more or less confirmed by the Evangelical link I added, but the Roman Catholic attendance is probably based on the yearly figures given by the Roman Catholic bishops. Two problems there: I do not know which year is meant exactly (it could be 2003 or 2004, but I cannot find the figures) and the sharp discrepancy between 8% and 4 % - there could be two reasons for this: a) in the past there has been a complaint by both secular organisations and by evangelicals that the count is usually made on a "good" week-end (the figure incorporates both Saturday and Sunday attendance) and may include non-Roman Catholics who attend a marriage, birth or funeral service or a service with chanting by a famous choir (no, I am not kidding) b) some parishes in inner towns, where a lot of Muslims live, may base their percentage of attendance not on the total population living in the parish but rather on the smaller total number of Belgian nationals living there, which means 8% of all Belgians may correspond to 4% of all inhabitants, in some parishes. I think it may actually be easier to get more recent attendance figures than to explain what actually happened in 2004. We must also be careful to compare like with like: as a result of the ethnic muslim phenomenon, the attendance rate of Roman Catholics and Muslims (but also of Jews, I think) will be comparable. The "established protestant" and orthodox attendance rate is probably a bit higher, while the evangelical one is probably much higher still: you do not become a protestant after being raised a Roman Catholic for many years to stay away from your hall or chapel. The 4% the evangelicals quote for themselves (even though they admit it is NOT an attendance rate) is probably exaggerated. 2%, with half of those attending, looks more credible to me.--Paul Pieniezny (talk) 12:10, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks Paul. I'll do some more digging. (Sbutler (talk) 13:22, 22 April 2008 (UTC))
 * By the way, the 4% is mentioned here: "De protestantse kerk is vanuit de historie is België zeer klein. De laatste 30 jaar is deze amper gegroeid. De groei die er was vond veelal plaats in evangelische/charismatische gemeenten. Zij zijn niet zichtbaar in de cijfers van figuur 1 maar maken zo’n 4% van de bevolking uit. Pinkstergemeenten groeien het hardst met 8% per jaar. De verhouding tussen de protestantse en de evangelische/charismatische kerken is vrij moeizaam. Het feit dat de Pinkster gemeentes als sekten worden gezien doet de situatie geen goed. De laatste jaren lijkt er wat meer wederzijds respect te ontstaan." Translated: 'The Protestant church in Belgium has always been small, due to history. The church has hardly grown during the last 30 years. The growth that was there happened mostly in the evangelical and charismatic congregations. They are not visible in the figures of graphic 1 but form about 4% of the population. Pentecostal congregations grow fastest, at an 8% yearly rate. The relationship between protestant and evangelical/charismatic churches is rtaher tedious. It is not helped by the fact that Pentecostal congregations are seen as sects. There has been growing mutual respect in recent years.' Funny, how they avoid the term "protestant" for these new congregations (even more funny, if you realizee that they now get subsidies because Belgian law now files them under "protestant"). The statistic and graphic they produced have 1.49 for "other" (I suppose meaning "other Christian") and 7.32 for "Niet verbonden" which probably means "Christian, but not linked to an established denomination". 1.49 looks rather high for what you may expect it to be: a combination of Anglican and Orthodox (though both have been steadily growing in recent years because of immigration from Central Africa and Eastern Europe) and in 2001 probably included some protestants outside the established protestant group but not linked to the evangelicals either, like Korean protestants, Kimbanguists, and little groups like Iranian (!) and Brazilian protestants ... These now belong to CACPE. The "niet-verbonden" group obviously includes a number of groups that are still out: Yehova's Witnesses and Mormons, but also and probably mainly a lot of people who were baptized Roman Catholics, have left the church, continue claiming to be Christians, but refuse to have anything to do with any church. Of course they are NOT in CACPE. Subtracting 1.5 for the evangelicals (that is based on my 2% figure, remember, some of them were alreasdy included under "other" and 1% for Witnesses and Mormons, we have about 5% Christians outside any Christian church. If you add those to the 58% that said they felt Roman Catholic, you get 63%, which you must compare to the 75% who declared themeselves "nominal Roman Catholics" in 1987. That is less than one percent loss on a yearly basis, and does not look so disastrous for the RC or unbelievable to statisticians as a decline from 75% to 58%. The same confusing phenomenon may hold for the Muslim side of the graphic: the 28% non-believers in 2001 probably included some ethic muslims already. But on that side people were not asked "do you feel a muslim but would never go to one of the existing mosques?" (Come to think of it, that question may actually induce Baha'i to answer "yes" ... ) I am rather interested in the new figures for protestants and especially for muslims, since the controversy on headscarves may have resulted in awakening dormant muslims. Immigration of muslims has almost halted, but there is clearly a strong natural increase through higher birth rates, as most of the muslim population is very young. --Paul Pieniezny (talk) 15:51, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Overhaul
I think a few areas need to be improved but my French is poor and my Flemish is non-existent. In particular Any suggestions? --Erp (talk) 03:22, 21 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Protestantism - It is noted as being officially recognized but what exactly is recognized? Is it the United Protestant Church in Belgium?  Or are there several churches recognized within this category?
 * Orthodoxy - the same. Seems to be primarily Greek Orthodox.  Is this correct?
 * The organisations laïques/vrijzinnige levensbeschouwelijke organisaties. There seems to be an overarching Centre D'Action Laique which claims 28 regional groups (and which details a founding in the L'Innovation Department Store fire which killed 323 and injured many more when many of the bereaved being non-religious failed to find comfort from the religious services held.http://www.laicite.be/lalaicite/histoire  However is it the only group?
 * What is the current status of Buddhism? The bit about applying dates to 2005 or so.
 * What summary should be incorporated from History of the Jews in Belgium?

Muslim population by city
The figure of 25.5% is from http://www.npdata.be/BuG/100/ that is in no way a reliable primary source. For example here is an english translation of their list of blog entries (it appears to be a blog) https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=da&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.npdata.be From that list it can easily be concluded that they are not impartial in their point of view. Anyway this is beside the point. I assert that they are not a NPOV reliable primary source. I'm starting by marking this as an unreliable source, hopefully I'll be able to do more later. duncan.lithgow (talk) 22:35, 28 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Good call, . All I've been able to establish about the source is that the content comes from a certain Jan Hertogen who claims to be a sociologist. I can't find anything about him that would suggest that he has any form of academic credentials, much less an RS. This article is in a bit of a mess and needs copyediting. Any content not reliably sourced needs to be eliminated. That may end up taking it back to a stub, but it's better than presenting readers with misleading, POV content. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 03:47, 29 December 2015 (UTC)
 * There's an interesting commentary on these numbers here: http://islamineurope.blogspot.dk/2010/04/brussels-muslim-majority-in-20-years.html but I can't anything relevant from Olivier Servais. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DuLithgow (talk • contribs) 23:35, 1 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I'd say that this is Olivier Servais, but the writer of the article is Esther. Esther is an anonymous blogger of no known credentials other than having a Google blogger account and is by no stretch of the imagination a reliable source. Again, all of this is pure original research. Worse yet, it is probably ties in with WP:FRINGE bigotry/paranoia that has no place in Wikipedia. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 03:02, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Absolutely agree. I just thought Esther's commentary was interesting to read. I'm very tempted to just remove the 25.5% reference. But it so commonly cited both here and outside wikipedia that it may be worth keeping and noting as unreliable and contextually relevant. What do you think?duncan.lithgow (talk) 21:59, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
 * NPdata is a reliable source, please check your sources before making bold unfounded statements about it.
 * Jan Hertogen is what he claims to be check the KU leuven website although thye like to erase his profile because he doesn´t agree with their catholic conservative POV.
 * Also KNACK refers to him as socioloog, onderzoeker and journalist, and although i cannot find the relevant document, if my memory serves me right he worked also for VUB and ULB (university of Brussels) 2A02:A03F:8328:E700:98A8:4FD2:5958:A46 (talk) 15:30, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
 * The figures for Islam in Belgium after 2015 are simply ridiculous. 7% of Belgiumś  population his of Turkish origin and about 21.5% Morrocan. over 90% of those people have been raised in an culturally Islamic family. this cannot result in 2% muslims in Belgium . 2A02:A03F:8328:E700:98A8:4FD2:5958:A46 (talk) 15:36, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Estimate year
and, I think it might be wise to look for a clearer source than this for the percentage estimates. It's not clear what year the Christian figures in it are from, unless I'm missing something, and the source cited in the footnote there is a broken URL. Cordless Larry (talk) 20:47, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
 * To be honest, I'm finding the pie chart and other information gleaned from Eurobarometer problematic. It's fine as a supplementary source, but it is not WP:RS and contradicts information further into the article. Personally, I think the pie chart and the assured language in the lead should be scrapped until better/more sources (per WP:SCHOLARSHIP) are found. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 21:12, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
 * It's probably going to be necessary to cite a range of estimates. Out of interest, what makes you say that the Eurobarometer is not a reliable source? Cordless Larry (talk) 21:15, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Eurobarometer is a cover-all public opinion polling system. The process is not transparent, and it should not be used without intext attribution just for starters. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 21:22, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
 * OK - understood. I agree that if it's used it should be attributed as a survey in the text. Cordless Larry (talk) 21:26, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Cheers. Any thoughts on the elimination of the pie chart until better sources are found? I say this bearing in mind that it's been established that most readers quickly look at the lead, the/an infobox (if it exists), and (erhem) prominent graphs/maps at the beginning of an article rather than read the article in its entirety. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 21:37, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I'd support its removal while the range of possible sources is scoped out. Cordless Larry (talk) 21:43, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
 * The introduction probably isn't the place for a pie chart in any case. Cordless Larry (talk) 21:45, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I think it is ok to remove the pie chart until better sources are found. Yes, "The introduction probably isn't the place for a pie chart in any case." Most "Religion in country X" articles have already been decorated with pie charts in the lead. These are a popular targets for pov-pushing editors. JimRenge (talk) 23:03, 2 April 2017 (UTC)  suppl.  JimRenge (talk) 07:41, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Agree remove until and unless a single reliable source. I note that http://www.thearda.com/internationalData/Countries/Country_22_2.asp has some sources With the King Baudouin Foundation report 2007 looking on the surface to be the best available. --Erp (talk) 03:59, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Agree remove until and unless a single reliable source.--Jobas (talk) 17:57, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
 * There's a huge disparity amongst sources. I note that The World Factbook puts Roman Catholics at 75%, but provides no sources or dates for wherever they gleaned their estimates... --Iryna Harpy (talk) 20:10, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I noted also that Pew puts Christians at 64.1% a very similar to the Eurobarometer, the pew estimates for Belgium to account for the religious groups was based on 2008 European Values Survey and 2010 Annuario Pontificio and 2010 World Religion Database.--Jobas (talk) 20:23, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

Many thanks!!!
I am an aware atheist. I am not agnostic or generically non-religious. The data are correct! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:587:4109:E000:3091:9F84:5653:DE5E (talk) 05:00, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

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2016 Ipsos sources
I want to explain to User:Wddan why Ipsos source isn't reliable.

Well, first of all, I firstly introduced that source in the article "Religion in Turkey" since it was the only sample-based source for Turkey I found. This doesn't means that it must be considered the major source for all other countries, since other countries already had their sources, you simply didn't like those.

I'll explain the inconsistencies in the 2016 Ipsos Multi-country surveys:

The number of Muslims is inexplicably underestimated, so putting the Ipsos source close to other old sources trying to make a chronological order merely confuses those who read the article.

The reader, in fact, should have a clear and unambiguous article, and use a source with strange results would only diminish the reliability of the article.

It is to be said that the source also overestimates the proportion of non-affiliated people who, by comparing them with countries that have made censuses recently, are increased by many percentage points.

For example:


 * Poland : from 2.4% to 20%


 * Canada : from 23.9 to 43%


 * Brazil : from 8.04% to 25%


 * Australia : from 30.1% to 47%


 * Mexico : from 4.7% to 21%

So I am going to restore the previous data in all articles you used Ipsos data.

FrankCesco26 (talk) 13:37, 15 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Ipsos is the latest data we have for countries like France, Belgium et al. and it is as reliable as Eurobarometer. I never used Ipsos data to replace census data for the countries you listed above, and, besides, the fact that Ipsos "overestimates the proportion of non-affiliated people" is your own opinion. That the "number of Muslims is inexplicably underestimated" is your own opinion too. Muslims in other sources are generally estimated based on the % of people who have Islamic background. This does not mean that they have maintained Islamic faith after having immigrated into Europe.
 * Your argument that Ipsos is not as reliable as a census does not apply to this article, since Belgium has no census data about religion. Meanwhile, the same revert-warring is being ignited in Religion in Sweden and Religion in France, other countries that have no census of religion and therefore there's no good reason to consider Ipsos data unreliable. Moreover, other users reviewed and (I assume) approved the recent versions of these articles, including, , , , . So there's no consensus for the reversals.--Wddan (talk) 17:21, 15 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Census comparitions are made to show that the source you like overestimate the number of non-believers. It's not an opinion, it's an objective consideration based off a dimostration comparing a reliable source and survey source. Since it's a multi-nation survey, and the trend is not specific for only determinate countries, but for every country, I can assume that the survey overestimate the number of non-believers.
 * Also, you cited the of the 'islamic background' people the actual muslim people are only 2%, according to you.
 * Well, since I don't make considerations without a source, here (http://www.lemonde.fr/religions/article/2016/09/18/une-enquete-de-l-ifop-offre-un-portrait-nouveau-des-musulmans-de-france_4999468_1653130.html) it's a source (dating 2016, so not an 'old' source) that shows that out of a sample 15,459, (and not, I think, less than 1,000) 1.029 people (6,6%) are from an islamic background and 879 are actually Muslims, or 5.6%, wich is far away from 2% imposed by you, wich is an underestimate.
 * Also, you can't pretend that people support you if they said nothing, apart Nederlandse Leeuw, this is not consensous, it's supposed consensous.FrankCesco26 (talk) 20:03, 15 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I agree with Wddan. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 18:00, 15 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Since I was mentioned, I want to point out that editing a change does not automatically mean agreement (here it was rather lack of time). Ipsos data seem to be a valid source, but I dislike the complete removal of other sources and the exclusive relying on this data only. --Nillurcheier (talk) 20:48, 15 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I agree with {u|Nillurcheier} for the source fact.
 * I also found in this page (https://www.ipsosglobaltrends.com/about/) that the source clearly say that the findings aren't rapresentative of the total population, but only of the working age population; in particular it says "the results should be viewed as representative of a more urban, affluent and ‘connected’ population." and so they shouldn't be used as main source of the country. In fact, in the page it say that the sample include only urban people from 16 to 64 and thus, the sample is not rapresentative of the entire countries' population.
 * So, I'll restore the old data, wich is the most reliable one.FrankCesco26 (talk) 12:44, 16 September 2017 (UTC)
 * The official page does not say that, indeed. It says "In established markets with a higher level of internet penetration (more than 60% online), the results can be taken as representative of the general working age population. However, in emerging markets where internet penetration is lower, the results should be viewed as representative of a more urban, affluent and ‘connected’ population." In other words, in developed countries the survey represents the general working-age population, while in developing countries it represents the urban popolation. France and Belgium are among the first ones.--Wddan (talk) 15:28, 16 September 2017 (UTC)
 * It's the opposite, instead. He clearly say (quote) "the results can be taken as representative of the general working age population", wich is NOT the total population. Also he clearly say that (quote) "The 2017 Global Trends survey is an Ipsos survey conducted with 18,180 adults aged 16-64", wich excludes an huge part of the country's population, bigger into the developed countries. I also want to point out that this part (quote) "However, in emerging markets where internet penetration is lower, the results should be viewed as representative of a more urban, affluent and ‘connected’ population." says that the results for countries like Sweden, Belgium and France should be viewed as the representation of the working age population, since it cuts of the over-64 population, THEN, unless you find that the sample represent the total country population, you can't revert my changes without any objective reason. Also, you should stop blaming me of WP:IDONTLIKETHAT, if I gave you multiple and objective considerations. Let's see what other users think.FrankCesco26 (talk) 17:24, 16 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Agreed, if the survey is not representative of at least the entire adult population then it can't be used as the primary info about religious association for a country (unless there is no other info that is even remotely current and it should be stated up front what the stats do represent). I note that countries like Sweden 20% of the population is over 65 so cutting out that group could have significant effect.   --Erp (talk) 01:24, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
 * It is easy to add a note to the pie charts saying that the population over 65 years old is excluded. This is just a pretext that FrankCesco26 is using in order to completely delete the Ipsos data, and a load of improvements that I made to the articles. By the way, he also omitted the following line from the survey's website: "The results are weighted to ensure that the sample’s composition reflects that of the adult population according to the most recent country census data, and to provide results intended to approximate the sample universe." To me, this is clear.--Wddan (talk) 08:28, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
 * And the sample universe is working age internet connected adults. Given that Sweden and Belgium have a large proportion of their population over that age (Belgium has 18% and Sweden 20%) that is a large proportion of the population to ignore.  Add in that in the case of Sweden the percentage of Muslims from the Ipsos data seems low, one remembers that Sweden has a large number of refugees most of whom are Muslim and many of whom are less likely to be well connected to the internet (or interested in answering surveys whose questions are probably not in a language they are comfortable with).  You could use the data in text later in the section of demographics to indicate the makeup of a subsection of the population.  --Erp (talk) 14:54, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
 * It isn't just a pretext, the over-65 population is an important part of population that shouldn't be removed. Using the source you want as main source is useless, since it doesn't represent the total population. Also, you just saw that there is no consensous.FrankCesco26 (talk) 05:25, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
 * The ipsos 2017 publication should not be used for pie charts in "Religion in country X" articles. Substitution of more reliable sources/data with ipsos 2017 data is not acceptable. People from 16 to 64 are not representative of the entire population and their data for Muslims in Belgium is not plausible. JimRenge (talk) 07:07, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
 * We have about the same ideas and I think it's clear that there isn't consensous in using the Ipsos Global Trends as main source.FrankCesco26 (talk) 11:58, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

I found a 2016 ORELA/IPSOS/Le Soir/RTBF survey that describes the religion of francophone Belgians, here ( www.o-re-la.org/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=1476:un-sondage-orela/ipsos/le-soir/rtbf-les-belges-francophones-et-la-religion&Itemid=85&lang=fr ) I used it some times ago in the "Brussels", "Wallonia" , and "French Community of Belgium" and I think we should integrate it in the article. I also think that if we find a Flanders survey on religion done in recent years (2015-2017) we can merge the two sources and use it as main source.FrankCesco26 (talk) 17:39, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Given that Frank has been banned for two weeks for edit warring we can't really complete the discussion; note being banned for edit warring does not mean he was wrong. I note Wddan made the changes he wanted in Religion in Belgium and Religion in Sweden articles (and presumably others).  He did add the caveat on "working-age"  I have added "internet connected".  I will note that both Belgium and Sweden have large numbers of recent poor refugees and we don't know how this would change the overall percentages.  --Erp (talk) 04:44, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I think that Ipsos data represent a good picture of the population, especially of small developed countries. It is obvious, though, that they largely exclude recent immigrants. The working-age internet connected population represents the average of the whole population, standing between the more Catholic, less Islamic/other religion, and less atheist over-64 population and the more atheist, more Islamic/other religion, and less Catholic young population. This is evident in how Ipsos 2016 data for religion in France match the Montaigne-IFOP 2016 data. Evidence for this may also be found in the latest CSA data, here, where you may see that the overall data for 2013 match the data taken from the 35-49 age range in the same year.--Wddan (talk) 11:06, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

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Eurobarometer 2018
I have tried to find this eurobarometer: Eurobarometer 90.4: Attitudes of Europeans towards Biodiversity, Awareness and Perceptions of EU customs, and Perceptions of Antisemitism. European Commission. Retrieved 9 August 2019 – via GESIS. to fix the dead link. I have only found this page that seems to be about this poll. I have gone through all the zip files to find a question about religion. I have not found one, even though this document says there should be. The other citation added for the same data is to eurobarometer 91.4 which does have a religion question for 2019. So I will use that data. 2A02:1810:BCA9:3A00:788A:601C:9B88:69B (talk) 10:26, 20 May 2023 (UTC)


 * I have found the study, it was under Perceptions of Antisemitism, while I was apperently only looking at the Biodiversity part. I will readd the EB 2018. 2A02:1810:BCA9:3A00:788A:601C:9B88:69B (talk) 16:48, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Images
There is a very long vertical display of images that causes the table in section "Chronological statistics" to be pushed even further down the page, leaving an extraordinarily long vertical white space to be shown. Perhaps put these images in a gallery, or put them somewhere else... like in the section to which that religion is being discussed. ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 03:00, 20 November 2023 (UTC)