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)

[edit] Buddhism in Europe?

Not a note on the Republic of Kalmykia in the Russian Federation, Europe's only Buddhist nation? I'll add a small section later. -- Walshicus 14:19, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Portugal

84% Catholic in 2001 Census [2] and less then 19% weekly attendance according to the Church. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 89.26.188.44 (talk • contribs) 18:19, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Germany

I'm not sure if Germany should be rated that low in term of how many of its people believe in God. I know that religion has been on decline, especially in the former East Germany, for several decades, but still, the World Values Survey may have proved different, but the Eurobarometer and several other surveys have proved that the population of Germany overall is still more religious than, for example, the population of France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and some other countries. According to the 2005 Eurobarometer poll, 47% of Germans believe in God, compared to 37% of the British and 34% of the French and the Dutch, and around 22% of them believe in some sort of spirit or life force. The results of a Reader's Digest German edition survey say that 67% of Germans believe in God, compared to 64% of the British, 61% of the French and less than 60% of the Dutch. I'm not saying that the line where it says that only 49.5% of Germans (less than in France or the UK) believe in God should be edited, since it was done by a thorough WVS research, but I'm still doubtful that Germans are this irreligious. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 83.131.255.244 (talk • contribs) 02:01, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] References

My editing is such that a sentence is sourced by the reference(-s) directly behind it. Please follow the same pattern. I assume that sentences without a references directly behind them are unsourced and hence suspect. Thanks in advance. Andries 02:57, 15 July 2007 (UTC) Professional homepage of the editor of the book that I used See Hans Knippenberg. Andries 03:01, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Islam subsection

Muslims ruled Spain (not just Andalusia) and some of Southern France for nearly 750 years. Is this not considered a part of European "tradition"? Indeed the Islamic influence is still very prevalent in many regions of Spain, particularly Andalusia as mentioned. Perhaps a slight wording change is in order?

Didn't the Muslims rule Sicily too for a while? But anyway, did the ordinary population of these places ever become Muslim? —Angr 10:23, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Though Muslims did conquer far into Europe in the 8th century, they didn't "rule Spain and some of Southern France for nearly 750 years." They quickly lost most of their more northern territories--Barcelona, for instance, was reconquered by the Franks less than a century after it had fallen to the Moors. Saragossa was in Moorish hands for about 400 years. Only Andalusia was under Moorish control for anything approaching 750 years.

65.213.77.129 (talk) 21:34, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Christianity in Europe

I see there is an Islam in Europe article but not a Christianity in Europe article. This is an article on Religion in Europe not Christianity in Europe. I shall make some sort of a start on Christianity in Europe. Please any one else contribute. thanks. Vexorg 01:47, 2 November 2007 (UTC)