User:Rwenonah/Religious majority bias

Many articles on Wikipedia are written on the subject of religion. Inevitably, some of these articles are better covered than others, as there tend to be more editors on articles focused on more popular religions and fewer editors on articles focused on less popular ones. However, there is a more worrying and unnerving side to this contrast. Major religious articles tend to be written carefully, so as not to offend believers, and with high attention to neutrality. Words like "myth" are anathema to these articles - and rightly so. Articles about obscure, unimportant, or old religions are written in the opposite way - "myth" and "mythology" are commonly used ; in extreme cases, these articles are treated as "myths" rather than religions. This is the ultimate manifestation of systemic bias, and will be discussed on this page.

Proof and Believers
Religions, by definition, are impossible to prove. They are opinions, and can neither be proven to be false or true. But by treating some religions as myths, and others as credible, we are in effect treating some religions as possibly true and others as definitely false. The sole reason we are doing this is because some religions have larger numbers of believers and others have smaller numbers. However - and this is they key to this problem - believers do not give a religion more or less truth, only more or less popularity. The numbers of people who believe in a religion does not change it from a "myth" to a "religion". Thus, Fon creation myth cannot be treated differently from Genesis creation narrative, regardless of respective popularity. To do so is the most extreme and oldest form of argumentum ad populum. The fact that one article has more information than the other, although it may result in the same thing, is unavoidable. If I may quote another editor, "because when all is said and done, "your religion's texts are mythology" is still a propaganda POV, and the oldest one in the book". A religion with hundreds of millions of adherents, its own TV channels, forests' worth of literature, and a billion-dollar organization in charge cannot be treated differently from a religion with twelve adherents who live in the depths of the Amazon jungle and speak no known language. After all, what is the fundamental different that makes one mythology worth a sentence in an anthropology journal and the other a creed to live by that should be taught in schools?

But wait! What if sources treat one as myth and the other as religion. Doesn't that make one false and the other true? No. Academics have no more ability to decide on the fundamental truth or untruth of belief systems than anyone else. If a source calls a religion "the only true religion", that doesn't mean the source is correct, since proving such a thing is impossible. The same thing applies here.

Neutrality
The policy of NPOV requires that we write wikipedia in a way that does not take sides. However, by treating one religions as a religion and another as a mythology, we are taking the side of the larger religion. This is a sin and will condemn you to being devoured by the great Hamster in the Sky. However, saying that a religion has very few believers, or that its ideas are disputed is not taking sides, but is representing the genuine views of others. To say that "these people believe xxx religion is a myth" is NPOV. To say that "The mythology of this group dates back to ...." is bias. To say "The beliefs of this group may date back to..." is neutral, as is saying "anthropologists believe the hamster was in fact a TV satellite".