Talk:Religion in the United States/Archive 3

Catholic, Protestant, or Christian
There appears to be a mistake in the first paragraph of this article. It says that 25% are Catholic and 51% are Christian. This wording implies that Catholics are not Christians. I believe the correct phrasing should be 25% Catholic and 51% protestants. JoAnnSmotherman (talk) 17:06, 29 July 2013 (UTC) JoAnn Smotherman


 * It comes from someone trying too slavishly to copy the ARIS wording about the "30 groupings" of non-Catholic Christians. Others might not group the denominations/etc. the same way, so it's sufficient to simply identify the Catholics as the largest subgroup, seeing as how nobody else is even close. Mangoe (talk) 20:30, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Misleading quote...
I find that this reference is a bit misleading on the article page.

I went to the original source and noticed that the original source really expressed that religion was the most important thing in people's lives in comparison to other aspects of life, like career, money, or family. The word "despite that" in the quotation makes it sound like prioritizing other things before religion would make a person more secular and less religious. I don't see the connection there at all. A person may value career and money, because a person needs to feed himself/herself. A person may value family, because the family functions like a support group. Finally, a person may value the importance of religion in his/her life but not to the point that he/she will give up his/her other values - like family, money, or career. For instance, sometimes religious groups may offer special ceremonies at certain moments in one's lifetime (baptisms, child dedications, confirmations, bar/bat mitzvahs, weddings, funerals, exorcisms, prayers, healing rituals, etc.), and sometimes people like to use the church as a social outlet. Honestly, I think a person is still religious if he/she still identifies with a religious tradition and upholds values, ethics, beliefs, and practices of that tradition and supports the religious community. I think the initial dependent clause is misleading the point of the survey. Sneazy (talk) 02:16, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
 * The adjective "only" is a giveaway. It is 9%. It is not "only" or "an incredible" or any other adjective. "Only" is out of place and WP:POV. Let the reader decide if this is bad or good or shocking or boring. We should not be trying to "lead" the reader with casually added adjectives even if copied from an otherwise WP:RS. We're not the media. We are an encyclopedia. Thanks. Student7 (talk) 17:38, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

It seems more source is required for this article, considering this is about religion in the United States so segmentation and citations must reflect levels of adherence from devout to disillusioned as with Orthodoxy to reformed. Attitude is a data segmentation which does not represent a WP:POV. Plenty of people go to traditional religious functions and perform religious ritual only out of deference to others. Kristina Johnson72.80.126.76 (talk) 05:36, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Missing Segment of Excommunication Unreported among Catholic and Orthodox faiths
72.80.126.76 (talk) 17:58, 1 September 2013 (UTC)The article does not mention non-adherence data which by de facto prescribed by the doctrine of faith excludes claims of “belonging to the faith”. As with the decision with regards to Catholic doctrine there cannot actually be a Divorced Catholic. The very act of divorce is unresolvable and un-atonable which provides no act of attrition to resolve excommunication, an act of contrition cannot meet the requirement to resolve the excommunication. Therefore all divorced Catholics claiming to be actual Catholics by “self-dispensation” must be considered and included as protestant “Disillusioned Catholics Protestant-not otherwise specified”.

I would correct this reporting error if I had available citations to reference I believe the number of Catholics whom are divorced is 28%.

Required acts of attrition are as follows:

Atonement by remarriage of original spouse

Atonement after spouse dies

Atonement at point of death (last rites)

Please note: an "act of Attrition" (diminishing in value or correcting the natural state of sin); is not to be confused with an "act of contrition" (which is making atonement for an already completed sin, to demonstrate remorse)

Kristina Johnson72.80.126.76 (talk) 17:58, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
 * This information is not correct. A divorced Catholic is not excommunicated.  If a Catholic remarries without an annulment they are not to receive the sacraments but they are not excommunicated.Marauder40 (talk) 22:24, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

This is not a forum for debate or argument, "not receiving sacrament" is excommunication; some may not understand the absolute definition of excommunication; "out of communication with Christ, through the holy roman church", or perhaps some might have a personal interpretation or difficulty accepting the fact that a divorced cannot get absolution from the confessional for any other minor sin, or perhaps some do not understand the term "de facto" which is not a formal notification from the church, the church will not throw a divorced catholic out or not talk to an excommunicated Catholic as would be with a Excommunicated Jehovah's witness. This is only a change in PR which tries to align itself with the modern world, no doctrine has been changed and only reflects an attitude change to not openly discuss doctrine.72.80.126.76 (talk) 06:14, 5 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Again a divorced Catholic is not excommunicated. One that doesn't remarry is able to receive all the sacraments (except marriage) without problem.  One that marries without an annulment is not to receive the sacraments but is still part of the Church.  They can still attend Mass and any other public events.  They are just not supposed to receive communion.  If they go to confession and vow to live together as brother/sister they can receive the sacraments.  Right now everything you have is WP:OR and without a valid WP:RS does not warrant being added to the article.  There is no such thing a "de facto" excommunication in the Catholic church.Marauder40 (talk) 12:25, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Again, this is not a forum for debate or argument, everything I have mentioned is not WP:OR, having a better understanding of the meaning of words does not have to be cited, making a semantic argument to a needed data segmentation is not a "neutral point of view"; obscuring the meaning of excommunication does not make it required to include a WP:RS Terms do not require citation necessarily; due to the reader’s lack of vocabulary. Canon Law or ecclesiastical law governing the Catholic Church, in itself and as you stated of what is denied a divorced catholic is citation enough. You are simple observing the nature of the modern Catholic Church for not fully enforcing its doctrine.

To make this clearer to you’ by de jure “prescribed by canon law” is not being strongly enforced for the de facto status of a divorced catholic. It is unlikely a divorced catholic will live as brother/sister so you are using a unique and strange circumstance to further an argument of semantics. When a divorced Catholic goes to mass, they are in a state of “de facto” excommunication receiving the blessing of the “unrepentant” which is the church’s privilege of “proselytization” or the non-faithful or unrepentant.

If you wish to contribute to this article’s discussion, please simply ask for citation or provide a citation to the exact meaning of excommunicated as prescribed by doctrine that is established by canon law, and not give personal opinions as to what you feel is practiced in a church which demonstrates "personal bias". Unfortunately, everything you challenge is from WP:OR, (personal opinion of practice) ignoring the significance of not receiving communion and having acts of contrition unavailable to a divorced catholic.

This obvious confusion by parishioners and how they would interoperate “practice” from “doctrine”, where practice seems to be in contradiction with canon law is a common mistake.

The request for the inclusion of “Disillusioned Catholic Protestant-not otherwise specified” is self-evident; because a disillusionment of marriage is automatically also, a disillusionment of the Catholic Church; the act is inseverable. Please do not respond further to this subject, which talk makes request for data to be included for a more accurate segmentation. Kristina Johnson72.80.126.76 (talk) 22:14, 5 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Please either suggest a specific change to the article or get off the Soapbox.Marauder40 (talk) 17:09, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Territories
I don't seem to find much information on territories like Puerto Rico, Guam, US Virgin Islands, etc. Is there a reason? Isaac Fermin 01:58, 28 October 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Supyloco (talk • contribs)

WOW REALLY?
You guys seem to think its ok to put the highest church states in red like that's a bad thing and the opposite green, looks like atheist Wikipedia seems to be biased, and that's not fair to the rest of us. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.19.167.228 (talk) 22:52, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm assuming the editors were looking for a range of colors that would contrast, where significant, and not contrast where similar. What would you suggest? Student7 (talk) 21:56, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
 * (I'm not the original poster, but someone who agrees that the color scheme may set people off, for the connotation reasons that the poster above noted. If the original poster disagrees with my suggestion, I welcome him to say so.) Varying intensities of the same color might work well, especially if it were a connotation-neutral color like brown or blue--or even something in greyscale.  There are enough different shades--and different-enough shades--of many different colors.  I think this would allow the map to show the distribution of American religion clearly and properly without evoking the "Alert! Alert! Danger! Danger! Religion!" meaning that the first poster seemed to take from the color scheme as it stands.  (That said, I should note that I highly, highly, highly doubt that "Alert! Alert! Danger! Danger! Religion!" was what the person who put the map up was trying to convey. But the first response does show that it's something that the color scheme can inadvertently communicate.)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.186.111.22 (talk) 21:41, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I have never seen a map that used red as a warning code. That's a traffic light code. In American TV usage red stands for Republican state (vs Democrats = blue), and indeed the map looks like an election map.  In British usage red = world map color scheme for British Empire. Rjensen (talk) 22:22, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
 * It started as a traffic code, yes, but you do have to admit that it's taken on other cultural meanings, at least in the United States. Think about, for instance, those stupid "terror alert levels" that DHS used to put out. Red was for "severe" alerts, orange for "high" alerts, etc., etc., until you got to green for "low" alerts.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.22.24.84 (talk) 13:03, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
 * (Tried to put this in, but somehow it didn't save). And, as for maps using red as a warning code, weather maps kind of do that.  If you see a blob of red moving toward you on the radar, you know you're going to be hit by a fairly large storm.  (Though, that said, considering that radar maps use the colors to indicate the intensity of the weather--red and orange where there is "more weather happening," green where there is less--that analogy is more of an argument to keep the map the way it is now.)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.22.24.84 (talk) 13:14, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
 * The green-to-red color scale is connotationally problematic; also it's not kind to red-green colorblindness. I also would suggest a change to a color intensity scale. Mangoe (talk) 15:04, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Which data to use?
Latest gallup data was reverted to older CIA-Handbook data by Andreas11213. Let us discuss here, how to proceed and which data should be used. Nillurcheier (talk) 14:33, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I've reverted back to before Andreas's editing. The CIA handbook data should only be used if nothing else more reliable is available (I have found it to be wrong in the past about religious stats which makes me wary).  The handbook does not cite sources which makes it hard to judge its reliability.--Erp (talk) 20:19, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The CIA Factbook is probably using the Landmark Survey as described by Pew given that the figures match.  The Survey since it was so large has useful detail especially for smaller denominations (e.g., sub divisions of Judaism or Buddhism) but it is 2007 so 7-8 years old.   The Gallup poll is more recent but doesn't go into fine detail (I'll note that the Gallup poll goes from 51% Protestant [2007] to 37% Protestant [2014] so things have changed).  I'm also against merging all the Christianities together into one item for the pie chart if the source is more specific. --Erp (talk) 03:09, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Gallup is a website that conducts opinion polling. The CIA is the federal intelligence agency of the United States Government. I think the CIA should be given more credibility, seeing as they specialize in gathering statistics like this. Gallup is more focused on conducting political opinion polls such as the approval/disapproval rating of the president, etc. They are not specialized in gathering statistics at the size of the US population, most of their polls only survey 1500-2000 respondents at most. I think that the CIA statistics should be used. I also oppose the merging of the Christian denominations. Andreas11213 (talk) 10:34, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The CIA does not do its own surveys but relies on others (and it does not always cite its sources which very well could be opinion polls done by others for some countries), in this case almost certainly the Landscape survey (whose numbers, btw, match reasonably well with the Gallup poll results for that year). If we go with the 2007 data, we cite the Landscape survey not the CIA.  BTW for its religion questions, Gallop aggregates its polls for the entire year (apparently religion is one of its standard questions) so the number asked in this case is far larger than 1500-2000.  Gallop isn't ideal but give a choice between a poll aggregate done over the last year and an in depth survey collected 7+ years ago I go with the poll aggregate for broad up front statements such as the pie chart and the in depth survey for fine details in the article itself (but noting the information is older).  I would also not merge the Christian denominations since it is useful information when the chunk is so large to know whether it is mainly Catholic, mainly Protestant (or some Protestant denomination like the state church in Iceland), or closer to half and half (just as in a majority Muslim country it would be useful to see Sunni/Shiite breakdown).   --Erp (talk) 02:56, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Black Protestants?
Really? What is the reason to segregate black and non-black protestants?
 * The black started setting up their own separate churches around 1800. With emancipation in the 1860s, the great majority of black Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterians, Disciples and others self-segregated by breaking away from the white churches. They never reunited. The Catholics, however, did not split. For a recent study see Love Henry Whelchel, Sherman's March and the Emergence of the Independent Black Church Movement: From Atlanta to the Sea to Emancipation (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) Rjensen (talk) 04:12, 21 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Due to historic segregation within Protestant churches (Blacks had to sit at the back and could not become leaders), Blacks formed their own churches and belonged to their own denominations (e.g., AME Zion, AME, National Baptist Convention, Church of God in Christ, ...) while Whites had their denominations (Methodist, Episcopal, American Baptist, Southern Baptist). And members of the traditionally Black churches often had and have very different political and social views than their White church counterparts.   The Catholic church was and is more integrated.  Things are slowly changing but still in many places in the US the most segregated hour of the week is Sunday morning.  In any case most scientific studies of US religion will separate  mainline churches, Black churches, and other Protestant churches.  --Erp (talk) 04:34, 21 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Nowdays it's more de facto segregation; self-segregation. It's easier to attend the church across the street than the one across the river. And cultural, like most church affiliations. I'm used to this. Why change it? Student7 (talk) 14:31, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Dubious
"Although some New England States continued to use tax money to fund local Congregational churches into the 1830s, the United States claims to have been the first nation to have no official state-endorsed religion." is an awful statement, and the cite doesn't back it up at all. "The United States claims..." is inappropriate; who is making this claim, the United States Department of State, the Library of Congress, who? The cite has some non-government associated authors claim it, which is a huge leap to "the United States claims". Secondly, how does the 1830s factor in? Is it relatively clear that in 1776, the US was the first not to have a federal religion? Can we name other nations without an official state-endorsed religion prior to 1830s? (Can we get that date more exact?) Revolutionary France? Napoleonic France seems to have basically endorsed Catholicism.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:24, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
 * the US federal government made the claim. President John Adams & a unimous Senate endorsed the Treaty of Tripoli in 1897 that stated: ""the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion." Rjensen (talk) 22:28, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
 * That is not the claim under question here. The claim is to be the first nation to have no official state-endorsed religion. I've rewritten the text on the page to match the cite more; there doesn't seem to be a good page on Wikipedia about the establishments of the churches in the various states.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:37, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Canadians!!??
A Abrahamic Christianity demographics phrase reads "Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches, from which members in the United States are combined with Canadian members". Emphasis mine. We shouldn't be combining Canadian population in a US article! Student7 (talk) 16:35, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Book on the influence of polling
Inventing American Religion: Polls, Surveys, and the Tenuous Quest for a Nation's Faith by Robert Wuthnow, 2015, Oxford University Press Jodi.a.schneider (talk) 14:10, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Pastafarianism
I know it is easy to view Pastafarianism as pure satire and a non-religion. However, as a Pastafarian, I (and many other Pastafarians) consider it a legitimate religion. In addition, there are many news stories proving that there are Pastafarians who consider it an actual religion (see the Flying Spaghetti Monster article, particularly Section 5 titled "Legal battles"). Therefor, I believe very strongly that it belongs in this article under Section 6 titled "Others". I would appreciate everyone's understanding in my decision to add it to the first paragraph of Others.

And before you try to argue, consider that Christianity was likely considered more of a "social movement" than a religion 2,000 years ago. I doubt Jesus himself considered that he was starting a new religion but instead probably considered himself to be expanding on existing Jewish teachins of the time; yet, here we are today considering Christianity as an honest-and-true religion. I don't go around telling Christians that they practice a "social movement" rather than a "religion", please don't say the same of my religion.

~Piki (talk) 18:20, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

To avoid any misunderstandings or arguements, I feel the need for a quick amendmant to what I said above:

I am not trying to take a stab at the Christians or the Christian faith, I am simply trying to make a point that many religions take on the guise of a "social movement" very early in their history.

Besides, I come from a Christian background and a Christian family, I therefor have no wish to pick a fight with the Christians. Pastafarian teachings include religious tolerance anyway.

~Piki (talk) 18:48, 18 December 2015 (UTC)


 * The Talk page is for improving the article.
 * It is not for giggling. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.26.0.228 (talk) 13:57, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Debating
Wanna discusd some basic matters about us and uk religion. Jason.bugab (talk) 14:27, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Undue in the Christianity section
While I don't doubt the veracity or reliability of sources. The Christianity section about Protestant education is undue in that no other group receives the same treatment. I have no issue with inclusion in the article, this is the wrong place and should be moved to a history section or something similar:
 * "Historians agree that members of mainline Protestant denominations have played leadership roles in many aspects of American life, including politics, business, science, the arts, and education. They founded most of the country's leading institutes of higher education.[17] Mainline Protestants such as Episcopalians and Presbyterians tend to be considerably wealthier[18] and better educated than most other religious groups in the United States.[19]


 * Some of the first colleges and universities in America, including Harvard,[20] Yale,[21] Princeton,[22] Columbia,[23] Dartmouth, Williams, Bowdoin, Middlebury, and Amherst, all were founded by mainline Protestant denominations, as were later Carleton, Duke,[24] Oberlin, Beloit, Pomona, Rollins and Colorado College."

Very undue where it is....There are also many Catholic, Jesuit and Mormon colleges in the US that are as old or older than some of the colleges listed, why pull out only Protestants? Lipsquid (talk) 18:27, 15 March 2016 (UTC)


 * If there is no negative feedback, I will move or remove the paragraph. Lipsquid (talk) 19:33, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Why pull out the Prot--because the paragrapoh is only about about the Mainline Prot groups and is accurate. We can drop the phrase "as were later Carleton, Duke,[24] Oberlin, Beloit, Pomona, Rollins and Colorado College." which is indeed misleading because it's a small fraction.  Rjensen (talk) 19:48, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep too, the paragrapoh is about the Mainline Protestant groups and supported by good sources.--Jobas (talk) 19:55, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Why just protestant colleges and why the comment about wealth? Actually Jewish people are both the best educated and wealthiest group in the US by religion.  Just because you found a source, doesn't mean that something is not WP:UNDUE Lipsquid (talk) 20:10, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
 * The mainline Protestant colleges listed, such as Harvard Yale Princeton etc. dominated the American educational structure at the time they were founded, and largely do so to the present day. Hundreds of later private colleges were modeled after them-- so they are very important. Rjensen (talk) 20:20, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I don't disagree, just question the section for the reasons stated above. Lipsquid (talk) 21:02, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

Religions of political figures: the section on the religions of political figures should be changed to note that Bernie Sanders was a major presidential candidate who is Jewish. The article notes that the only major Jewish candidate was Joe Lieberman - that is no longer true. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.192.241.29 (talk) 00:25, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Pie Graph Bias
The pie graph layout seems to be a bit Bias towards the Christian religions. I would expect that the list beneath the graph to be listed in order of highest to lowest percentage of belief. However, it lists the Christian based religions first from highest to lowest (Protestant, catholic, Mormon, other Christian). Then it proceeds to the other beliefs from highest to lowest. Then, lastly, it lists Unaffiliated near the bottom, even though it is the second highest percentage in the list. I think this very much downplays the roll of Unaffiliated religious beliefs in the US populous.

I'm probably just being picky here, but it does show some bias.


 * Pie graphs are often used to show like with like so one can compare larger groupings. In this case the chart allows one to have a visual comparison of Christian religions against others, Abrahamic religions against other, Indic religions against others).  If one wants a strict ordering a table is a better device.   --Erp (talk) 15:03, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

Unaffiliated people have equal rights!
Put the Unaffiliated upper in the list, in relation to their size. You might claim they don't follow a religion, but they have a stance on the SAME question, their opinion is EQUALLY important, and are oppressed as Amerindians and many others, by the nationalization of Christianity on our currency and at official ceremonies! Is it important to maintain magnitude order at listing? This is a question statistical psychologists asked, and the answer is definitely affirmative.

Atheist anti-agnostic view
I am an anti-agnostic atheist. I do ΝΟΤ want to get merged with agnostics against religion! I don't like the agnostic beliefs either about a. the anthropocentric lack of abilities to understand the Universe, either b. the antropocentric belief that logic might not work outside what we humans observe! (pure and permanent randomness on the fabric of even a different universe, would constitute that universe unstable, so it would never be that particular universe). We aren't supposed to comment, but note that! I don't like agnostics as I don't like theists! I don't like to be merged with others I disagree! Religion isn't my god, to merge with others and fight it! This article is very good!!!!!

proofreading/copyediting
My suggested edits refer to the sentences found in the subsection Major religious movements founded in the United States: Other - "Unitarian Universalist Association in 1961 from the consolidation of the American Unitarian Association and the Universalist Church of America. Historically Christian denominations the UUA is no longer Christian and is the largest Unitarian Universalist denomination in the world." 1.) to keep it in line with the other bullet points in the section it should be written "Unitarian Universalist Association - in 1961..." 2.) The last sentence ("Historically...world") is quite confusing as written. First it needs some punctuation. Second "Historically Christian Denominations" and "the UUA" don't jive in terms of singular vs plural. If I understand the original author's intent, it should be "Historically a Christian denomination, the UUA is no longer Christian and is the largest Unitarian Universalist denomination in the world." OR "While its predecessors were historically Christian denominations, the UUA is no longer Christian and is the largest..." Niccast (talk) 21:19, 11 June 2017 (UTC)niccast

presidential religious affiliations
In the Religion and Politics section - if you're going to 'single out' the catholic and mormon presidents, you probably ought to mention the 2 Quakers and 4 Unitarians too...

Unitarians: John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Millard Filmore, and William Howard Taft Quakers: Herbert Hoover and Richard Nixon. Niccast (talk) 21:42, 11 June 2017 (UTC)niccast

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
The Community of Christ is not affiliated or a part of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Therefore it should not be listed under the LDS church or a faction of it, nor counted in the LDS churches numbers. It was a break off of the church long ago. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.228.71.195 (talk) 16:39, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
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2017 Gallup update
https://news.gallup.com/poll/224642/2017-update-americans-religion.aspx?g_source=link_NEWSV9&g_medium=TOPIC&g_campaign=item_&g_content=2017%2520Update%2520on%2520Americans%2520and%2520Religion

Unaffiliated is a problematic term

 * hyponym: religion in the United States
 * or
 * hypernym: metaphysical worldviews in the United States

Metaphysics doesn't necessarily mean paranormal, supernatural or theistic.


 * 1) Religion is not the hypernym. It's not the only possible option. Titles must be wide and not pushing towards what the statistician prefers.
 * 2) Using the term "unaffiliated" produces a huge group of people, without common purpose and goals usually neither consciousness towards the term. Separate the atheists, the religiously indifferent and the agnostics.
 * 3) using the term "unaffiliated (towards religion)", is biased because so many non religious people, are subjected to (missing or negative) religious ideological categorization (negation [selected term by the statistician - neutral ways to express the same thing are possible] over something, it's still about that something, biased statistical pushing towards religion over other metaphysical wordviews) - not all possible ideological hypercategories are religious - their number is significant, so not respecting a huge chunk of the population is statistically biased
 * 4) pure laziness - just do what our predecessor statisticians did - Laziness is amathematical and handwaving.

Erroneous title; religion is not the highest-order hypernym of metaphysical worldview
If agnosticism and atheism/naturalism are religions, then change their articles.

== Erroneous term; atheism is a polemic term against theism; surveys are biased when they support warring. Naturalism is a better term (even if you claim that it's not entirely identical, it's close enough, and no human cohort even matches exactly a generic label; thus pick them wisely. Why don't you label religions antinaturalism or more gently anaturalism? ==

You might mistakenly claim that naturalists use the term atheism. That's not necessarily the case, because most of them don't belong to a union, and many naturalist unions use other terms. Usually the lay-person uses the popular term that conveys the meaning to be expressed. If you promote a polemic term, you are the one to blame, not the lay-person who usually doesn't write and contribute to the selection of philosophical and statistical labels.

Hypernymically erroneous categorization
Hypernymically erroneous categorization which is based on Richard Dawkins's view: merge all the nontheists and fragment all the theists (the presentation on the main chart is biased and polemic; we care about fighting theism, not about each individual worldview; also the page title is wrong, all opinions are theistic or theistic with a negation [nontheistic] - some correct unbiased titles could be: metaphysical worldviews or beliefs in America; belief is also wrong, because it's a wider hypernym which includes other values; metaphysics here used academically: hypernymously to ontology

hypernym 1: theisms
1. Christian 2. Muslim 3. so-and-so 4. so-and-so 5. so-and-so

hypernym 2: nontheisms
6. atheism (belief god doesn't exist) 7. agnosticism (belief we cannot prove the state of existence of god) 8. metaphysical indifference (here metaphysics doesn't mean supernaturalism, but range of philosophical questions wider than ontology)

hypernym 3: others
9. I don't want to say 10. Other (some people don't like our hypernyms, we don't have time to educate them or force them into a category; we usually allow some vague "other" which here is different that the "religious other/other religion" which has to be mentioned in a different category)

But the presentation shouldn't be based on hypernymic order. All humans are of equal value, thus we should list them based on population size. If two numbers are exactly the same, only then we write first the most traditional belief for that particular country (for example Christianity, Atheism, Islam is the order of older traditions in the US; we never use that order, except is some population sizes are exactly the same; if one group has one more adherent [a single person], we write that cohort first.

2017 Public Religion Research Institute survey
The latest survey about religion in the US was published in September 2017: Public Religion Research Institute's America’s Changing Religious Identity. The article should be updated according to the results, which include religion by age group, by race, by year, by region, and other interesting data. Also, most of the old data that the article currently contains should be eliminated.

According to PRRI-ACRI 2017, the religious population of the United States in 2017 is divided as follows:
 * 69% Christians
 * 2% Jews
 * 1% Muslims
 * 1% Buddhists
 * 1% Hindu
 * 1% other
 * 24% unaffiliated
 * 1% do not know

--31.27.178.163 (talk) 17:30, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

The article should be rewritten entirely
Could some registered user tag the article with this? The article at the current state is a hotchpotch of amassed old data, unsourced content, unreliable sources and bare urls. It needs a thorough cleanup.--31.27.178.163 (talk) 17:43, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

All Americans are equal in the eyes of the law, put all groups in order of populational magnitude

 * you can make an exception for the undeclared
 * only if two groups have exactly the same value, put the most historically important first, otherwise we should respect the most Americans we can, thus we maintain the populational magnitude (or popular magnitude of beliefs)
 * Wikipedia has a mistake. Religion is a hyponym of Metaphysics. The academic meaning of metaphysics is "fundamental worldview", not necessarily antiscientism (religion, magic, mythoplacy [mythoplacy [creation of fables] < μύθος/múthos/myth + πλάθω/plátho/mold with hands]). We should rename all Religions in (name of a country) as Metaphysical beliefs in (name of a country). If we know that they're religious beforehand, why do we have to ask them? If we genuinely ask someone about any possible opinion, we ask a hypernymic question!!!

The Americans vexillized the heavens (The Star-Spangled Banner / The US Flag). The deivexillous (India, UK, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Serbia etc.) nations vexillated misconceptions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:2149:8400:A00:20F2:597E:3E92:FDDC (talk) 01:20, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Territories table
I added a table with data from the U.S. territories as well as mentioning American Samoa as having the highest rate of religious affiliation in the country. I would prefer it if this were not reverted, with the reason being that territories belong to the United States just as the states and DC do.

In addition, there is no article specifically about religion in U.S. territories, and even if such an article were to be created, it would probably be redirected to this article anyway. LumaP15 (talk) 21:09, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

The pie's components aren't written in order of population

 * 1) religion is a hyponym of metaphysical worldviews
 * non-religious metaphysical worldviews do exist, you cannot push religion as the ultimate hypernym simply because you like it
 * 1) you don't respect the American non-theists, you don't put them in order according to their number
 * you claim that "religion is the ultimate hypernym of any metaphysical worldview including atheism"
 * that is wrong; colloquially some Christians claim that atheism is a religion, because they don't respect religion and give a wide definition. Distorting the definition of a noun doesn't cancel out the semantics people communicate. Academically atheism is a metaphysical worldview (metaphysics is a generic term, not all metaphysical theories are necessarily supernatural)
 * You claim: "We shouldn't respect the American non-theists, because we have to push "religion" as the ultimate hypernym of any "metaphysical worldview", thus we mention them last

If you don't want to respect some Americans, as a true patriot you have to. (I said patriot and not anarchist because the patriots are usually strict about the components of the US. The most important components of our Nation is our people. All should be respected. If they are no criminals, they deserve all the rights. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.84.215.21 (talk) 18:59, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 22 January 2019
This article makes two references to "Mormons". Recently, a style guide was released by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, emphasizing that the Church prefers the word "Mormons" not be used. The style guide says the following:

"When referring to Church members, the terms 'members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' or 'Latter-day Saints' are preferred. We ask that the term 'Mormons' not be used."

I would request that any references to "Mormons" in this page be changed to "Latter-day Saints". If you feel it is absolutely necessary, something could be added afterwards in parentheses like, "(sometimes referred to as 'Mormons')". Porter7678 (talk) 16:48, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
 * the press release is based on theology, not on the style sheets widely used by media and reference works around the world. It tells us the theology: The full name was given by revelation from God to Joseph Smith in 1838. I would suggest that few people besides its faithful members believe this. But this encyclopedia is for everyone regardless of their theology. Wiki readers might well take umbrage at the part of this guideline that states When a shortened reference is needed, the terms "the Church" or the "Church of Jesus Christ" are encouraged. Google Scholar tabulates usage in scholarly books and journals and lists 241,000 citations at https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=1%2C27&q=mormon&btnG=   while "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" gets only 28,500 cites.  Rjensen (talk) 17:54, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Note that people might be more amenable to the request if the "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" hadn't a few years ago embraced the term Mormons (e.g., advertising "Meet the Mormons").  On another note, how many of the numbers for Mormons in this article  refer not only to those  formally affiliated to the "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints"  but also those belonging to various splinter groups?     --Erp (talk) 05:02, 23 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Talk:Mormons might be a good place to make your case, or to make a case for specific terms to be used in specific situations. – Jonesey95 (talk) 06:17, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 27 February 2019
Hello. I would like to request an addition to religions founded inside of the united states. I would like to ask to have Pastafarianism (FSMism) to the list. It is a worldwide religion embraced by millions if not thousands. It was founded (well, the church was founded) in Oregon in 2005 by a man named Bobby Henderson. Huycks (talk) 03:14, 27 February 2019 (UTC)


 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Roadguy2 (talk) 03:41, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 6 March 2019
Change the line stating the Barna Data should contain an added ending although new research suggests that research from Barna is not as reliable as more established and unbiased sociological data researchers. Other data suggests that while many liberal protestant denominations are decreasing, more conservative evangelical non-denominational churches are holding steady or experiencing explosive growth spurts. (The Myth of the Dying Church, Glenn Stanton-Focus on the Family 2019) Rlawrence777 (talk) 23:02, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. DannyS712 (talk) 00:35, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

New Pew Polling
Lead needs to be updated https://www.pewforum.org/2019/10/17/in-u-s-decline-of-christianity-continues-at-rapid-pace/ Other sections look stale as well with decade old polling graphics. 2600:1700:1111:5940:29CA:9B13:278A:CFDF (talk) 01:58, 4 December 2019 (UTC)


 * This source strongly changes the pie chart and the body of the article. This needs immediate attention. 47.233.52.57 (talk) 09:51, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

Re "Anglican and Puritan"
"Anglican and Puritan" is misleading because it is redundant - Puritans WERE Anglicans.

There were (still are) two basic types of English Calvinist - the Puritan and the Separatist. Puritans remained in the Church of England, thus, remained Anglicans. Separatists left the Church of England.

Puritans were Anglicans who wished to purify the Church of England of allegedly "Roman Catholic" influences, to emphasise Calvinist theological traditions.

Most of the Separatists established churches that followed a congregational model of adminsitration and, thus, came to be called Congregationalists.

Other Separatists became English Baptists and other groups identified collectively as "Protestant Dissenters" or "Non-Comformists." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:645:C300:3950:75F4:16D8:7FD0:946A (talk) 07:24, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
 * "Puritans" were a breakaway sect and "Anglican" was the established main body. Historians differentiate the two. See See Ronald J. Vander Molen, "Anglican against puritan: Ideological origins during the Marian Exile." Church History 42.1 (1973): 45-57.  In New England there were major battles between the two groups. Rjensen (talk) 08:03, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Some proposed changes
Please change: "Islam is the third largest religion in number in the United States, after Christianity and Judaism," to "Islam is the fourth largest religion in number in the United States, after Christianity, Judaism, with Budddhism and Hinduism tied at 3rd,"

Explanation of issue: The article incorrectly states Islam is 3rd most populous religion and the articles has sources disproving that statement.

References supporting change: References already in the article.47.233.52.57 (talk) 09:47, 29 January 2020 (UTC)


 * . First, that would be fifth (and the wording would have to be tweaked for awkwardness). And second, which sources? –Deacon Vorbis (carbon &bull; videos) 14:38, 29 January 2020 (UTC)


 * It's reference 21 in the article. Cox, Daniel; Jones, Ribert P. (June 9, 2017). America's Changing Religious Identity. 2016 American Values Atlas. Public Religion Research Institute.
 * After reviewing that source; it has Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist tied at 1%. The newer source posted just above my talk page comment agrees with this 1% tie as of early 2019..
 * So, the change would need to be:
 * "Islam is tied at 1% with Islam and Hinduism as the third largest religions in number in the United States, after Christianity and Judaism,"
 * and the Pew source "In U.S., Decline of Christianity Continues at Rapid Pace An update on America's changing religious landscape" (OCTOBER 17, 2019) added as a corroborating source.
 * Please review that source as Christianity decline is sharper than (I) expected in just 5 years. The article will need a new pie chart. 47.233.52.57 (talk) 07:38, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Pew Religious Landscape (2014) has Islam at .9% and Hinduism and Buddhism at .7% each (rounding leads to 1% for each. I note the Pew 2019 survey is probably smaller numbers than the 2014 survey so rounds to the nearest percent. Note when dealing with rounding at 1% one of the religions could be considerably larger than the other two and still round to 1%.  Note 2014 in your source has 1% for each while the RLS survey has the .9/.7/.7   --Erp (talk) 22:22, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
 * So we are waiting on the next RLS in 2 years to precisely determine Hindu/Budhist/Islam rankings. But the non-Christian(other) has definitively moved from 2 to 3 % and the Christian demographics have moved so far as to force a new lead pie chart. Also, in that chart it shows other non-Abrahimic religions (including Hinduism and Buddism) as 2.5% but it's 3% excluding Hinduism and Buddhism. The green area of the pie chart has increased to ~5% 47.233.52.57 (talk) 12:29, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
 * At the moment we have insufficient data. The last large scale data set (the Pew RLS) had Islam then Buddhism and Hinduism tied. None of the more recent data (given rounding) contradicts this.  All three religions have a lot of young people so I would expect them to grow relative to Christianity but unclear relative to each other.  I did rephrase a bit.  Personally I would drop a lot of the charts in the article (people tend to go crazy with them, admittedly I just redid the Gallup trends chart)  --Erp (talk) 05:58, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the template. As shown above, the sources given are not sufficient to clearly differentiate rankings.  When filing or fulfilling edit requests, we are asked to ...please consider the following requirements (SUNS—Specific, Uncontroversial, Necessary, Sensible).  The issue of rankings needs more clarity than an edit request is intended to contain and this is better-served by a larger discussion here on this talk page.  If that does not reach a conclusion, then you may want to look into the requests for Comment process, which invites a larger cross-section of editors to offer their opinions.  I hope this helps.  Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 16:56, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

2017 Gallup
this survey in article was carried out by gallup in 2016, in 2017 gallup launched a new updated survey and this was the result, I think this article should be rewritten to fit this update made by gallup(The Sr Guy (talk) 19:53, 25 March 2020 (UTC))

The recent Pew Research Center (2019) poll should be included as initial pie chart
The editor The Sr Guy deleted the edit of Elperrofeliz345678 on 12:05, 21 July 2020‎ with his claim: "please don't change without consensus". I reverted the edit by The Sr Guy supporting Elperrofeliz345678 edit. Now he claims it was me who have not reached consensus, as you can see The Sr Guy is absolutely distorting the situation and doing disruptive editing. On 22:08, 27 July 2020 I explained why I reverted The Sr Guy's abusive behaviour with these words: "Undid revision 969851926 by The Sr Guy (talk) It´s you who changed the edition of Elperrofeliz345678. The consensus was already reached previous to your edition. It´s you who have to stop".

Anyway, the other reason, to let the results of the study: https://www.pewforum.org/2019/10/17/in-u-s-decline-of-christianity-continues-at-rapid-pace/, to be uploaded in the article is that it's the most recent and serious poll, confirming the tendency or trend of previous polls by the same Pew Research Center, and other polls, for USA. And as I said above, the behaviour of constantly reverting new editions by other editors which incorporate new and valuable data is to do disruptive editing: "Disruptive editing is a pattern of editing that may extend over a long time on many articles, and disrupts progress toward improving an article or building the encyclopedia. Disruptive editing is not vandalism, though vandalism is disruptive. Each case should be treated independently, taking into consideration whether the actions violate Wikipedia policies and guidelines. If an editor treats situations that are not clearly vandalism as such, that editor may harm the encyclopedia by alienating or driving away potential editors". --Carlos Eduardo Aramayo B. (talk) 22:48, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

Present in cohort size order

 * 1) Present in order of population size.
 * 2) For equal percentages present first the traditional belief (Christianity is more traditional than atheism and atheism more traditional than Islam in the US).
 * 3) Specific "others" have more rights than "vague others". If someone is specifically a "religious other" or a "nontheistic other who didn't like our system of classification"; these "specific others" have more rights in the order of presentation than the "vague others for which we know nothing about". On the other hand if we as statisticians were the cause of forcing many people to select "otherness" due to our biased classification; we should admit it, and then the vague others have the same rights with the specific identity others (non generic others, but others with specific tendencies).  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:587:4101:19B2:85B7:627A:123B:B4D8 (talk) 14:51, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Question on Protestant Branches
There should be a section on the different protestant branches and the adherents as a percent of the protestant population somewhere in the article. I know there isn't new data for the overall religious/irreligious chart that is used near the top of the page, but the Protestantism page has a good breakdown according to affiliation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.151.7.209 (talk) 17:20, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 21 February 2021
In section 9.1, under Jehovah’s Witnesses, the statement “They claim about 7.69 million active members worldwide” is incorrect. It should state “ They claim about 8.69 million active members worldwide.”

See reference: https://www.jw.org/en/jehovahs-witnesses/worldwide/

libreechange (talk) 03:07, 21 February 2021 (UTC) libreechange (talk) 03:07, 21 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: Please provide a reliable third party source. Melmann 19:54, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 28 March 2021
The formal name of "Mormonism" is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints".

References to "Mormonism" or "Mormon religion" are outdated.

See:

https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/style-guide#:~:text=The%20official%20name%20of%20the,of%20Latter%2Dday%20Saints.%22

for more information. THOWHIT333 (talk) 18:59, 28 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: from the Wikipedia article titled "Mormonism":
 * "[...] scholars and theologians within the Latter Day Saint movement, including (Joseph) Smith, have often used "Mormonism" to describe the unique teachings and doctrines of the movement."


 * The source you give is called a "primary source", and the source from the "Mormonism" article is a "secondary source", which is more acceptable in this encyclopedia. Thank you very much for your input!  P.I. Ellsworth   ed.  put'r there 05:10, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Dharmic or Indian religions?
An issue has arisen about whether a section heading should be Dharmic Religions or Indian Religions or something else. The main article on those religions is Indian Religions though there has been discussion on the Talk page about whether it should be Dharmic religions. On the other hand "Indian" in the US can refer to either "Native Americans" or to people from India so "Indian Religions" especially in an article about the US is ambiguous. I did do a search through some scholarly presses and "Dharmic religions" is used in many recent works (though "Indian religions" is also used and "Religions of India" and "South Asian religions"). There is a balance between using the common name and confusion. Note "Ambiguous ... names are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources". --Erp (talk) 05:47, 11 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Perhaps a good compromise would be "Indian (Dharmic) religions". Indyguy (talk) 15:16, 11 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Indic religions is also a viable option. The word Indic makes it clear it refers to India and its people. I think Dharmic religions is a bit iffy, as it is mostly used by non-academic fringe authors like David Frawley and Rajiv Malhotra, and has been criticized by academics as a form of Saffronization. Check out Indian_religions. Chariotrider555 (talk) 13:43, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I’m in agreement to use Indic religions. Thoughts?Manabimasu (talk) 18:27, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Manabimasu edit
, in this edit, you did two things: removed "Roman," and that's fine. But you also removed the unrelated Pew poll which is in the lead chart, and body follows lead, so your removal of the body content is inappropriate. It was also poorly phrased, so I corrected it in my reversion, and you have now restored that poor phrasing. soibangla (talk) 16:52, 5 July 2021 (UTC)
 * The reference name is “Pew2020”. It’s already defined in . You can edit the reference in the pie chart. Or just move the reference definition down and leave the reference anchor in the pie chart. It’s redundant to define the same name reference twice. Manabimasu (talk) 18:17, 5 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't see that addresses my concern. I have nothing more to say about this, maybe another editor will follow up with you. soibangla (talk) 18:25, 5 July 2021 (UTC)
 * H:RTAG may clear up on references for you.Manabimasu (talk) 18:31, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Territories data
This section concerns data in the U.S. territories table.

The source for the data is from the ARDA (Association of Religion Data Archives). These are the URLs to each territory's data:


 * https://thearda.com/internationalData/countries/Country_5_2.asp (American Samoa)
 * https://thearda.com/internationalData/compare2.asp?c=97&c=97 (Guam)
 * https://thearda.com/internationalData/countries/Country_169_2.asp (Northern Mariana Islands)
 * https://thearda.com/internationalData/countries/Country_182_2.asp (Puerto Rico)
 * https://thearda.com/internationalData/countries/Country_240_2.asp (U.S. Virgin Islands)

For some reason, some of the current 2015 data on these pages is different than it was in the past. American Samoa's 2015 "not religious" percentage used to be 0.9%, and now it is 0.88%. This change was probably for accuracy purposes. Some of the changes are significant: American's Samoa's non-Christian religious number used to be 11.7%, but now it is only 1.13% — 0.41% (East Asian Complex) plus 0.38% (Bahai) plus 0.34% (Buddhist) which equals 1.13%. Because of this, American Samoa's "all religions" column would be 88.5% instead of 99.1% (the non-Christian religious percentage (1.13%) plus the Christian percentage (87.37%)).

The CIA World Factbook has data which is different than the ARDA. For example, the CIA World Factbook says that American Samoa's religious percentage is 99.3% religious and 0.7% non-religious, similar to what the ARDA used to say about 2015 data (though, the CIA World Factbook's data for American Samoa is from 2010, about 11 years old). Some CIA World Factbook pages don't say what year the religious data is from (such as the U.S. Virgin Islands entry).

None of the data in any of the ARDA links above adds up to 100%. For example, for the U.S. Virgin Islands (the 5th link above), the numbers: 81.83% (Christian) plus 4.04% (Not religious) plus 0.63% (Bahai) plus 0.42% (Hindu) plus 0.32% (Jewish) plus 0.1% (Muslim) equals 87.34% — which means 12.66% is missing (100% minus 87.34% equals 12.66%). Because the URLs above do not say what these missing percentages are, they are unknown / not specified. The only link that acknowledges this unknown percentage is Guam's link.

A column indicating that there are missing percentages (percentages not accounted for) would indicate that the numbers do not add up to 100%. Puerto Rico's numbers (in the link above) are: 91.2% (Christian) plus 3.16% (Not religious) plus 0.09% (Hindu) plus 0.07% (Bahai) plus 0.07% (Jewish) plus 0.04% (New Age/Neo-Religionists) plus 0.03% (Muslim) plus 0.02% (East Asian Complex) plus 0.01% (Buddhist) — which only adds up to 94.69% — meaning that 5.31% is missing and not specified.

The table could remain as it is, but the new ARDA numbers, and a column listing the missing percentages, could be included. Also, the CIA World Factbook's data may be included, but they are more vague about their numbers than the ARDA. LumaP15 (talk) 02:04, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

2010 ARDA
How can Hindu have a higher percentage while having a smaller number? 179.208.111.37 (talk) 22:02, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

Isn't "Rastafarian" considered a slur by the Rastafari faith?
From our own honorable Wiki: However, "Rastafarianism" is considered offensive by most Rastafari, who, being critical of "isms" or "ians" (which they see as a typical part of "Babylon" culture), dislike being labelled as an "ism" or "ian" themselves.

If it's controversial, we should change it to "Rastafari". Especially since that's what the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rastafari calls it. 140.211.195.172 (talk) 18:28, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

I would also consider writing "Rastas" or "Rastafari practitioners" rather than "Rastafarians" because Rastafari practitioners avoid the "ism" ending. Lydiaham (talk) 17:53, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): WarrenforPrez. Peer reviewers: Butler n94, Ibreger, Reedkross.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 07:59, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Protestant Nation?
Who's writing this stuff? The US is not a "Christian" or "Protestant" nation; it's a secular republic and the article should reflect that reality instead of using highly misleading language that sounds as if the country's a theocracy. Guaranteed, the sources used to support this statement are either old or taken out of context. The Pew article, for example, does not call the US "a Protestant nation" but says that "Protestants no longer make up a majority of U.S. adults." The way the article should frame the religious history of the US is to make it clear that the US population was, historically, majority Protestant, but isn't anymore. That the "no religions" constitute the fastest rising demographic is also significant.

Even the first statement in the lead stating that the US has a "Protestant majority" is false. Nearly 60% of the US population identifies as something other than Protestant Christian, and there is no single religion that the majority of Americans adhere to. Protestantism isn't even a "religion" as the statement here claims, but rather a branch of Christianity that includes denominations as far afield from each other as Anglo-Catholicism and Pentecostalism. What some sources do say is that the US has a "Christian majority", and they say that by combining the 40% of Protestants with the 20% of Catholics.

Please rewrite the lead to reflect what the sources say more accurately.Jonathan f1 (talk) 05:53, 6 November 2021 (UTC)


 * I've reworded the first sentence and asked for additional citations per your comment here. ★Ama   TALK   CONTRIBS  13:54, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

religious education
what is the name of the big's religious 72.27.76.36 (talk) 23:02, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 17 November 2022
Change Presbyterian in the protestant denominations section to Presbyterian JonasJoestar (talk) 14:59, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
 * ✅ Actualcpscm (talk) 16:28, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Doubts about the pie chart from the Cooperative Election Study
I have a concern about the pie chart at the top of the page which claims to be from the Cooperative Election Study. It seems the numbers used in the pie chart come from the tweet referenced, but it is not clear how the author of that tweet came to his findings as the numbers from Pew and CES are vastly different and not similar to the ratios in the tweet. I have checked, and it's not simple averaging of the findings between the two. FThe source attached simply leads to the home page of the Cooperative Election Study but not the actual study. Upon actually finding the source listed, "2020 Cooperative Election Study", the only page which seems to talk about religion of the US population is on page 73 and those numbers are unweighted. Judging by the political choices of the respondents, Biden would have won the popular vote by 57% to Trump's 39% which obviously isn't true. The CES weighs population values as necessary to get proper political data. The ratios for religion present in the CES study are useless as they are not an accurate sample of the populace, nor are they meant to be. As a result, I believe the pie chart should be removed for a lack of clarity. As this article  is semi-protected, I thought mentioning this in the discussion board would get the problem removed before I get a confirmed account.

I believe Wikipedia should instead be using a pie chart based on recent data from either Gallup, Ipsos, or PRRI. Those institutions are all reputable and report similar rates of Christianity and unaffliation. The Gallup and PRRI polls are strikingly similar. Perhaps there can be a table collating the findings from the organizations mentioned and Pew. 2600:4040:578B:7300:F952:9EDF:4EDF:8B28 (talk) 00:46, 10 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Good catch. I've yanked the pie chart.  We obviously can't cite twitter and not raw data from the second source. Erp (talk) 01:26, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
 * @KlayCax I note that for the second source  is a full fledged website with no indication about where we should find the info.  One file does seem to be the  Schaffner, Brian; Ansolabehere, Stephen; Luks, Sam, 2021, "Cooperative Election Study Common Content, 2020", https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/E9N6PH, Harvard Dataverse, V4; CCES Guide 2020.pdf  However that seems to deal strictly with actual voters and not the entire population (and the figures on page 23 didn't match the chart). Or are you using a different source on that web site. Note if prepping a chart or table for publication, it is sometimes useful to use one's sandbox until all references are checked and it looks right then move to the appropriate entry. Erp (talk) 02:01, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
 * We should use secondary sources for wikipedia WP:Secondary as opposed to raw data from a primary source - as this does lead to misinterpretations and selection of data or distortion of data by any random editor (see WP:Primary). I saw some discrepancies too for example according to CES 2020 page 26 says Protestants are 41% and Nones are 31%, not 34% and 34% on the CES chart that was removed. I think the Pew is a better choice for the pie chart too. Pew has been tracking religion closely for a few decades now with extensive number of reports, whereas Cooperative Election Study is more focused on voters and does not generate reports on religion if any. Studies which show careful analysis of religious demographics are more useful for encyclopedic purposes. Also the Pew data and chart do align more also with General Social Survey (GSS)  as well. I would prefer GSS since they have done this since 1972 like Gallup, but Pew is good too with extensive break downs of demographics like the Unaffiliated.Ramos1990 (talk) 03:35, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Erp, I see the same Cooperative Election Study pie chart in the United Sates article too United_States.Ramos1990 (talk) 04:19, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

I Seriously Question Pew Research's Accuracy
For starters, their religion surveys don't tend to even include Scientologists.Speakfor (talk) 19:46, 22 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Looking at the Scientology article, there appear to be less than 50,000 adherents in the U.S., which is less the 1/10 percent of the population. In other words, is very likely the survey would not have any respondents who are Scientologists. Indyguy (talk) 20:02, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Where is the other Gallup and Pew numbers in the lead?
Where are the Pew numbers for 90% belief in higher power and the Gallup 21% for Nones ? The lead should be transparent and show how diverse the surveys are, not cherry picked.

The lead, currently, seems to just show 81% belief in God from Gallup and ignores latest Pew number which also asked that question (https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/04/25/key-findings-about-americans-belief-in-god/) and got 90%. The lead also just show 30% from Pew on Nones and ignores the latest Gallup results (https://news.gallup.com/poll/1690/religion.aspx) and got 21%. I know other surveys show (PRRI) Nones in the 20%s too. The point is that surveys get different numbers.

I cannot edit since page is protected. Please restore those numbers as a range between Pew and Gallup since it would balance the article a bit more because it makes no sense to use Gallup and ignore Pew or vise versa when they touch on the same points. All surveys are estimates and their methods do lead to different results. This should be reflected in the lead to ensure neutrality. Other references in the lead (Burge, Johnsosn, Drescher, Pew) already show nuance on the Nones since they all show that most Nones believe in God and good chunk participate in religion even without self-identifying with any religion. Thank you. 65.223.10.226 (talk) 17:20, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi. Yes Pew and Gallup do show diverse results like you mentioned. Their methodologies yield different results and that should be reflected in the lead instead to show WP:NPOV since the situation is complex. The analysis of actual scholars like Burge, Johnson, etc show the complexity between belief, belonging and behavior and that mere numbers on affiliation do not signify the whole story on religiosity in America. Ryan Burge looked at the Nones and after breaking everything down he says "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." and also observes "What I discovered was that while many people have walked away from a religious affiliation, they haven’t left all aspects of religion and spirituality behind. So, while growing numbers of Americans may not readily identify as Christian any longer, they still show up to a worship service a few times a year or maintain their belief in God. The reality is that many of the nones are really “somes.”".
 * The numbers between Pew and Gallup can be explained by the different wording and choices offered in their surveys. They capture diversity of religiosity. Pew is more open ended and Gallup is rigid in the direct question of belief in God (81% and 90%) in the sources you cited for example. Affiliation and belief are two separate variables - and they do not correlate 1:1. Pew and Gallup are good sources since they have long histories of tracking religion and are used by sociologists of religion. Other researchers such as Mark Chaves and Michael Hout echo Burge's observations. For instance, Hout (2017) says "The rise of the “nones” is probably the best-known trend in American religion over the past two decades. It is also the biggest. Other trends imply only slight religious decline since the 1980s. Strong religious commitment did not decline. It was weak initial attachment that gave rise to today’s non-affiliation. People who used to occasionally attend services no longer attend at all, but regular attenders persist. Most Americans believe in God and pray to that deity. The irony is that people disaffiliating from organized religion barely registered in the churches because the “nones” rarely attended services." . Even negative trends in church attendance are explained by demographics, not drop in belief, per Hout.
 * So there are diverse nuanced views among actual researchers. The article should reflect the diversity of results from reliable surveys (not just random ones who do not track religion extensively) - some get higher values and others get lower values. It is what it is. Also, sources should not be limited to the 2020s since much of the analysis and data come from 2000 and up. It takes time to do detailed analysis and publish findings. &#32;Ramos1990 (talk) 01:13, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Agree with both of you. The numbers for Pew and Gallup should be mentioned as a range since the reliable surveys do differ among themselves but they give you a good upper and lower limit on both belief in God and affiliation. Both Gallup and Pew ask these questions directly and separately and so they would not be linear necessarily. The quotes provided from researchers do show that America has a complex relationship with religion and the Nones are not uniformly irreligious. Only a minority actually is. The rest are "somes" when beliefs and behaviors are taken into account. This complexity should be reflected in the lead. And also sources can be from a few decades back (not just the 2020s - its only been 3 years) since analytical papers do take time to publish and assess previous years demography results.  Pew, Gallup, etc are sporadic with their reporting so as long as we have the latest version available from them from 2000s or 2010s, it should be ok. desmay (talk) 06:17, 18 February 2023 (UTC)


 * "The irony is that people disaffiliating from organized religion barely registered in the churches because the “nones” rarely attended services." Big deal. In my experience, disapproval of organized religion is often tied to opposition to the clergy, to their political activities, or to specific rituals. People may well continue to practice their religion in the privacy of their homes, or they may have idiosyncratic views of their favorite deity. Over 90% of the population in Greece (where I live) are self-declared Christians, but regular church attendance is increasingly rare. It is not an essential part of peoples' lives anymore. A decades-old-joke is that the Church is the last love for old women, since excessive religiosity is typically limited to elderly widows and spinsters. I still remember a sermon of our local bishop when my class was about to graduate: "Now that you are young and healthy, you feel no reason to believe. When you are old, sick, and your death approaches, you will find the need to believe". Dimadick (talk) 10:11, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

2023 March Wall Street Journal-NORC poll
Hi,. The claim that a majority of Americans don't consider themselves particularly religious comes from the Wall Street Journal article on the poll itself. The survey itself lumps together "slightly" (e.g. "Culturally Christian") and "not at all religious". KlayCax (talk) 01:29, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
 * The source does not say the "majority" or "particularly religious" . It only gives raw numbers. What you are doing is WP:SYN since you are generating an interpretation when the source makes no such interpretations. By looking at the numbers, the number of people who see themselves as religious in some way is 71% and only 29% do not. Even with the lumping it is only 47% Very/moderately religious NET vs 52% Not religious at all/slightly religious. Not a majority. You have to be careful with this.


 * On top of that the wall street journal is not an academic source like Mark Chaves who is a professional researcher who deals extensively with these sources. You keep on removing reliable academic secondary sources and use random newspaper polls primary sources. These academic secondary sources are the ones that can best interpret primary sources per WP:SECONDARY. Mark Chaves uses GSS data and says that most Americans are religious and spiritual.&#32;Ramos1990 (talk) 01:50, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes. Using primary sources and interpreting from that can be problematic. We should use academic sources by experts since they are more nuanced and careful than journalist sources which tend to be sensational and variable. Mark Chaves is the better source on this and especially since he looks at the same categories from NORC and concludes differently. Even from the 2023 Poll, clearly most Americans see themselves as categorically religious. Mark Chaves also notes "spirituality" which is another variable that is used in place of "religious". desmay (talk) 02:14, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Lead cleanup
Hi. I agree with the trimming done today on the lead by User:Epidrome. The lead should be a summary of the article body and should be short. It is not a place to put such detail (much of it using primary sources and relying on variable trends interpreted by non-experts). The lead should be stable too, not susceptible to so much change.&#32;Ramos1990 (talk) 12:29, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I have recently made some reductions to the lead as well, and will hopefully be able to comment in more detail this weekend. Walt Yoder (talk) 18:59, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I think the trim you did was pretty good. The lead right now is around 25,000 characters. That is a lot. I would like to hear more from you. I think you would agree that the lead should not be treated like a newspaper sensationalist dumping ground. It should be more stable with higher quality secondary and tertiary sources per Wikipedia policy.&#32;Ramos1990 (talk) 01:39, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

Article heading structure
Currently, there are sections titled "Christianity", "Other Abrahamic religions", "Dharmic religions", "East Asian religions", "No religion", and "Others", each of which contains sub-sections. I would like to change this to be "Christianity", "Other religions", and "Irreligion", with minimal changes to the current sub-sections. Comments? Walt Yoder (talk) 23:33, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
 * It does look very divided. I would say the sections should be more broad to "Abrahamic religions" and have Christianity, Judaism, and Islam be subsections. Then have a section of "Eastern and other religions" and have Daoism, Hinduism, etc be subsections. Finally a section of "No religious affiliation" (these a more neutral term since the majority of the Nones believe in a higher power and ). &#32;Ramos1990 (talk) 00:56, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't think it makes sense to group Christianity and Islam together in a discussion about religion in the United States. As far as "No religious affiliation" -- you make a good point that a discussion of "Spiritual but not religious" would fit better under "No religious affiliation" than "Irreligion". Walt Yoder (talk) 23:43, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
 * The three notable religions in the US are Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. Perhaps keep "Christianity", "Other Abrahamic religions", and consolidate to "Eastern and other religions" and "Spiritual but not religious". I think this would achieve what you are trying to do.&#32;Ramos1990 (talk) 03:54, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

LDS
I would like to add a section on the LDS Church to the article, presumably as a sub-section of "Christianity" (but possibly in a section on "Major religious movements founded in the United States"). I am not sure if that section would be specifically about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or about the Latter Day Saint movement. Thoughts?

There is currently a section titled "Great Awakenings and other Protestant descendants" which is one unsourced paragraph; I would remove that as part of this change, moving material on the Pentecostal movement to some section yet to be determined. Walt Yoder (talk) 23:56, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
 * It looks like it would fit as a subsection on "Christianity" as a subsection of its own - like the other denominations subsections. That section has history and Latter Day Saint movement would be more appropriate since it is about the historical movement.&#32;Ramos1990 (talk) 03:58, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 8 June 2023
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)
 * Done.&#32;Ramos1990 (talk) 02:27, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

Pie Charts in lead
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:
 * 1) In my opinion, they look ugly. The colors are distracting and arbitrary.
 * 2) There is no distinction between "mainline" and "evangelical" groups in the specific survey used, and the "Just Christian" category is extremely vague.
 * 3) The information in the chart is already described in the text of the lead section.

Walt Yoder (talk) 19:04, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
 * 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.&#32;Ramos1990 (talk) 01:45, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
 * 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)
 * 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)
 * 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)
 * 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.&#32;Ramos1990 (talk) 16:42, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
 * 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)
 * 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.&#32;Ramos1990 (talk) 21:45, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
 * 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)