Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Category:Atheists

The following discussion comes from Categories for deletion, where it is currently listed as unresolved. It may be reviewed again in the future in the light of evolving standards and guidelines for categorization.

Category:Atheists
Many of the same reasons why individuals should not be classified by race or sexual preference also applies to religion (or lack thereof). Would anyone honestly answer, if asked what they are reading, that "it's an article about an atheist"? That neither says why the individual has an article, nor anything significant about them. "Atheist thinkers" may be a different story&mdash;those who have actively written on the topic of atheism and its justifications. But "atheists" is really no more a valid category than Category:People who believe in reincarnation or Category:People whose favorite movie is Star Wars. Describe it in the article, make annotated lists, but categories are inappropriate. Postdlf 05:44, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * I think the category is OK, but it shouldn't be applied to everyone who 'happens to be an atheist' or is thought to have been an atheist at some time. Leave that for the List of atheists. If the category is restricted to people who are primarily (and only?) identified as being an atheist or influencial in atheism, then it would be OK - if that implies a change of category name then I'd go along with that. There is an additional problem in that it can often be difficult to draw a distinction between Atheist and Agnostic. -- Solipsist 11:26, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * Your comment is a little unclear, because what it seems like what you are saying is that the category is not OK, because currently it is just a grouping of people who happen to be atheists. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like you are aiming more towards my suggestion of having a category for "Atheist thinkers"&mdash;people have actively advocated for/written about atheism.  It is very different to categorize people by what they do rather than what they believe.  Postdlf 22:11, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * I mean I don't object to the category per se, just the way it is being used. -- Solipsist 22:18, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * Right, but how else can we narrow how it is used without replacing it? I have three suggestions:

1. Replace it with one category: Category:Atheist thinkers and activists
 * I think I favor this one&mdash;I don't know if I'd classify Madalyn Murray O'Hair as an atheist "thinker", nor was Bertrand Russell an "activist" per se, to my knowledge, but in many cases, the roles may be difficult to separate.


 * It should be thinkers or activists to my mind. Noisy 16:40, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

2. Replace it with two categories: Category:Atheist thinkers and Category:Atheist activists.

3. Replace it with one category: Category:Atheist thinkers
 * My second favorite, because "thinker" may be broad enough to include those who were more atheist activists trying remove the importance of religion from government and society.


 * If kept, Category:Atheists will just be a dumping ground for every one lacking a belief in


 * Meta comment: I propose moving this discussion to /unresolved. There's a lot of overlap with the debate over GLB people, and we should probably come up with a uniform policy that covers all of these controversial people-related categorizations. -- Beland 07:12, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)