Talk:Religion in Europe

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[edit] Intro

"Religion in Europe spans the approximately 50,000 years of human settlement in the continent of Europe, from the earliest prehistoric spirituality to later pagan religions, such as the Ancient Greek, Roman and Nordic faiths, to the spread of the Abrahamic religions. Europe has a rich and diverse religious history, and its various faiths have been a major influence on European art, culture, philosophy and law. In modern times, the overwhelming majority (over 95%) of Europeans are Christian, of which nearly half are Catholic; the second-largest religion in Europe is Judaism, followed by Islam. Europe also has the largest number and proportion of irreligious, agnostic and atheistic people in the Western world, with a particularly high number of self-described non-religious people in Scandinavia."

Well, this introduction is liberally salted with nonsense. There's no way that Judaism is more prevalent than Islam for example - regardless of how you define Europe. And 'over 95%' Christian? No way. I'll fix when I've got a minute.--Nydas 17:27, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

The source of all of that data is the Catholic Encyclopedia, which was used because detailed statistics of religions in Europe are surprisingly sparse online. I welcome any attempts to find other, more reliable references. -Silence 17:54, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

That data's truly ancient...

There aren't many solid sources of information on religions in Europe for a number of reasons. The first is that 'Europe' is fairly ill-defined - it can mean just the EU, or include Turkey, or not include Russia. The second is that European countries all collect religious information differently, and some do not collect it at all. Then you've got the problem with Europeans that are nominally members of a religion, but seldom, if ever, engage in worship. And then there's the various national churches.

I suppose statistics could be cobbled together from various media reports and government studies (and even that would be better than century-old data), although it might count as original research. For a start, the BBC has some information on Muslims in Europe:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4385768.stm

Although even that is incomplete, ignoring Russia and several other countries. The CIA Factbook might have some stuff as well (alas it's down for me at the moment). Given the paucity of information, this article is probably going to have to take a relaxed approach to sourcing, and explain the reasons for the lack of info.--Nydas 19:10, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

"The first is that 'Europe' is fairly ill-defined - it can mean just the EU, or include Turkey, or not include Russia." - The "Religion in Europe" article, like "Religion in Africa", "Religion in Asia", etc., should be subdivided by continent (as traditionally defined), not by organization or politics. So the membership of the European Union, which is economic and political more than geographic, is not directly significant here, though it may be germaine to include a paragraph on the European Union (or other Europe-wide organizations) if they relate to religion in some significant way. Turkey and Russia should both be considered European countries, at least for the purposes of this page, for the same reason they're both in in Category:European countries, though one could make a case for covering Russia in both "Religion in Europe" and "Religion in Asia". I also strongly recommend consulting [1] (and the Europe article itself), a very useful image for these purposes.

"The second is that European countries all collect religious information differently, and some do not collect it at all." - I agree that that complicates matters—unless we simply report on that fact, and provide the best stats available (properly referenced) with the disclaimers that X or Y complicating factors prevents completely accurate data. That's why the solution to this problem is to get more references and add more data to the page; if we do so, we don't need to worry about questions of which stats to pick and choose from and which countries to consider European and non-European, as we can simply rely on our references for those decisions and not violate WP:NOR to try to have Wikipedia itself establish certain geographic or religious boundaries.

"Then you've got the problem with Europeans that are nominally members of a religion, but seldom, if ever, engage in worship." - Why is this a problem in Europe anymore than it's a problem in any other part of the world? Plenty of religions don't even require "worship" (Buddhism?), and if there are separate stats on religious practices/activeness vs. personal religious beliefs, that'd also be valuable and relevant to this page. The trick is to find references, and where they're lacking, to note such on the page.

"And then there's the various national churches." - I don't understand why this complicates or confuses matters either. A section on the religious affiliations of certain nations would certainly be relevant information to add, as distinct from any data on the religious beliefs of individual Europeans.

"I suppose statistics could be cobbled together from various media reports and government studies (and even that would be better than century-old data)," - I agree.

"although it might count as original research." - Why would it count as original research? It would only be original research if we drew new conclusions from existing research, or fabricated new statistics; if all we're doing is taking pre-existing stats and presenting them in a more organized, centralized way (which is pretty much what Wikipedia's all about: re-presenting information in a tidy little package), that's no more original research than writing new text on Wikipedia at all is. If there are holes in the data or some of it's older than others, we can simply note such in the text. Heck, if the Catholic stats are merely out-of-date, not all that inaccurate, we could even include those in the page (though probably not in the lead section), along with other historical statistics for religion in Europe.

"Given the paucity of information, this article is probably going to have to take a relaxed approach to sourcing," - That's odd, I feel we should do exactly the opposite. Because of the complicated, disputable, and often opaque nature of information on religious beliefs in Europe, it's all the more important to use citations heavily and to stick only to existing data. Or at least, we should aim to do so in the long run; right now, the article's little more than a stub, so expansion should be a high priority, though accuracy is obviously the top one. -Silence 19:56, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't agree that the Asian parts of Turkey and Russia should be considered part of Europe for the article, mainly because it will give a drastically misleading number of Muslims. There are about 35 million Muslims in geographic Europe - including all of Turkey and Russia will see that figure rise to about 100 million. I would argue that the lower figure is the most correct one. And you're probably right about the nature of the article. However, I would not consider the Catholic stats accurate in the least - they're from before the First World War. Historical value only.--Nydas 15:17, 11 April 2006 (UTC)