Talk:Fastest growing religion

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In the section on Wicca, surely there should be a decimal point somewhere in the 143%? (Though from the figures given, an annual increase more like 5% seems more correct. -- 6:05, 19 November 2006) User:Manwiththemasterplan

I changed the word "fastest" to "greatest" in the following sentence:

"In the USA the greatest growth in terms of absolute numbers is in those identifying as non-religious (increasing by 15,150,000 between 1990 and 2001), followed by Christians (increasing by 7,805,000), Buddhists (increasing by 681,000) and Muslims (increasing by 577,000) [2]. (A confounding factor in this survey is that the over 18 population as a whole increased from 175 million to 207 million).

This expresses the fact that the growth presented is in terms of absolute numbers (which can be greater or lesser) and not a rate of growth (which can be faster or slower).PelleSmith 23:01, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I am suspicious of the "World Christian Encyclopedia" used for much of this article. Is this a reliable source, or has data been made up? Mike Young 14:54, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

There is also the fact that it is named the World Christian Encyclopedia. Considering this label, it is possible that the encyclopedia is somewhat biased.--64.219.79.63 00:00, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Should be something about outside the United States. Also, Scientology regularly claims to be the "Fastest-growing religion" (but only by counting almost all persons it's ever had any significant contact with as "members" -- by the number of current active adherents, it seems to be slightly declining.). AnonMoos 13:17, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

We have a mixture of statistics, the US ones are the most reliable, which is why they feature. Scientology's claim is very implausible. It used to be in the article, but was removed. Active membership has not grown (and has probably shrunk) in the last few years. Mike Young 15:54, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
It's implausible, but it's a claim... AnonMoos 16:00, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
More of an urban legend. I am afraid it is a bit of a judgement call as to if a claim should make it to the Wikipedia page. Some of the claims are good (eg the US Aris survey). Some much less so (eg some of the Islam claims). Mike Young 21:14, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

This article contradicts itself. It claims that all religions grow and that non-religious group grows at the rate of 10% - much faster that the rate of population growth. If the non-religious group grows so fast it means that some religions are in decline. Towelhead 09:26, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

No, the population grew from 175 million to 207 million (by 18%) between one survey and the other. Any religon that increased, but by less than 18% could claim it was growing even though it was losing market share. Mike Young 21:14, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Is this really an article?

Strange question to ask, but just having read this I can't shake the feeling that this is not really an actual article in the proper sense of the word. It seems more like an essay or a synthesis of loosely connected information, and because of this "looseness" it comes across as if its just jumping from one idea to the next. The main problem I can foresee is that there is no way to improve this, any article under the title of "Fastest growing religion", unless it is an actual comprehensive study/thesis, is going to be a haphazard collection of facts as this one currently stands. Was there any use or need for splitting this out of the main religion article? I am motivated to PROD this, but I'd like to hear comments first. Zunaid©Please rate me at Editor Review! 14:51, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

  • Looks like a good AFD candidate to me. NawlinWiki 14:52, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

The topic has some inherent noteworthiness, since "fastest-growing religion" is a claim which has prominently been made about several religions, including, Islam, Mormonism, and Scientology. However, this article currently seems to be mostly a collection of semi-randomly chosen statistical snippets, which taken together do not seem to throw much light on the subject... AnonMoos 17:10, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

I think there as an important point that there are many claims, of varying veracity often vociferously held. There is no universally accepted "Fastest Growing religion" but only a few claims various dubiousness. When you look at the data to back these claims, as you can see it is often not there. I think this is an important point to be made (see the link to adherants.com).
"The data isn't much good, but for what is worth, here are the claims" is an important message. I hope that has been made.
Perhaps delete some of the wilder claims, but keep the article please. The Aris stuff is good, but only valid for the US Mike Young 21:26, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't really want to discuss this at length, but here goes..."The data isn't much good, but for what is worth, here are the claims". Hmmmm....I disagree with you that it's an important message. On the one hand, what real value/knowledge does this impart to the reader? On the other (and more pertinently) WP:V (which is NON-NEGOTIABLE) and WP:RS mandate that any claim likely to be challenged MUST be verified by a reliable reference. WHICH MEANS:

  1. Only the fact that a claim is being made can be reported ("websites are considered reliable sources of their own statements")
  2. The claims themselves will not and cannot be verifiable as we all seem to agree, since the sources are often not neutral, the census methodology is not consistent and different interpretations of results are presented.
  3. This will permanently leave the article as a "wishy-washy" collection of statements and claims.

I think AfD would be suitable to determine this amongst a wider range of editors. Zunaid©Please rate me at Editor Review! 11:39, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

What you have said makes some sense, and I see what you mean.

Thinking about it what this article is really about is Claims to be the Fastest Growing Religion and perhaps it should be renamed as this. An article on "Religion with largest number of adherents" would be superfluous as it is uncontroversially Christianity, and so we could delete that, but what counts as the "fastest growing religion" is not quite the same, and it is the controversal nature of the claims that makes this an article. There is more to discuss, e.g. what do we mean by fastest growing? How truthful are the claims? This is a genuine controversial subject that people are interested in, so the claims could do with an article on them. I agree what we don’t want to do is say “It’s Islam” or “it’s Foulon Gong” (unless, of course some definitive data turns up).

I think there is room on Wikepedia to talk about the controversy as to the claims to be the fastest growing religion. A good analogy would be the 7/11 conspiracy theories or the moon landing hoaxes. Wikepedia has a site to discuss the Claim that there was a 7/11 conspiracy and that the moon landing was a fake. Could we not use this page to look at the frequently made claims that one religion or the other is the fastest growing religion? The article is definitely better than what you get by just putting “fastest growing religion” into Google.

This should remove the problems of putting in dubious claims, and the "globalise" marker.

If you think this is the way to go I will do the changes

Mike Young 18:33, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Mostly agree -- changing the title to "Claimed fastest growing religions" would focus the article on the claims, instead of on the statistical analysis (which will remain inadequate without some thoroughgoing and detailed number-crunching, which seems unlikely to be carried out by the contributors to this article, and would probably be original research anyway...). AnonMoos 02:07, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Don't use "claims" unless their is no other word that will suffice. WP:WTA. However I still feel such an article would be a messy collection of claims, but perhaps I'll be proven wrong? Zunaid©Please rate me at Editor Review! 15:22, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Actually, that policy page seems to be almost entirely devoted to deprecating the use of "claim" as a verb. The subject may inherently have some degree of "messiness", but nevertheless it's still an indisputable fact that a number of advocates, apologists, missionaries or what-you-will have made loud claims about being the "fastest-growing religion" with respect to several religious groupings... AnonMoos 19:28, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I have written a new page, Claims to be the fastest growing religion. Suggest we redirect to this. OK? Mike Young 20:56, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree, that one should redirect here, with the content replacing what is currently in this article. This is the more likely search term and the "better sounding" title. The other title sounds like the second half of a sentence ;) but purely in terms of acuracy both titles are fine. The lead-in paragraph describes the situation very well. However, that Australian bit has to go. If we get into a per-country situation it will become VERY messy. Per continent might be fine. I still feel the itch to AfD it though, this article can and will never be star quality. Zunaid©Please rate me at Editor Review! 09:49, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
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