Talk:Irreligion in Germany

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Map update[edit]

There is a more recent and more detailed map of irreligion in Germany. Could this be added here? https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Konfessionslos_Zensus_2011.png — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:C1A0:4304:400:8897:AA0B:BFB2:F435 (talk) 12:55, 2 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Careful. konfessionslos, doesn't mean atheist, agnostic or irreligious. To the contrary many free Christians will subscribe to the konfessionslos label. All that it means is that you're not member of any of the state-churches. --41.151.18.26 (talk) 18:27, 18 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Whitewashing the Stasi[edit]

This article like most of those on irreligion in ex-Communist countries has a very rosy view of State Atheism in the GDR. Churches were allowed to exist, but in order to get anywhere in East German society you had to be openly atheist. The GDR's security apparatus also spent much of its time monitoring and infiltrating religious organisations for subversion. Many religious people were sent to labour camps and atheist propaganda was relentless. This still affects East Germay today. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.76.153.195 (talk) 19:33, 15 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Different classifications of religion[edit]

There are serious problems with this article. As it stands, the reader would need to be warned with numerous tags, such as "citation needed" and "failed verification", but the problems are not easy to fix, short of stubifying the article. Some recent edits may have aggravated the problem. I think some of the problems come from a conflation of different aspects of "religion" that results in sources being misinterpreted and used to support statements related to different aspects of religion. In particular, there is a significant difference in Germany between non-membership of a recognized (public-law) church (which is what the Office of Statistics gives) and non-belief (which may be what survey respondents give). It affects other articles and needs more discussion in order to avoid misinterpretation of sources. I suspect the official (census) statistics are worthless for this topic, since atheists, Buddhists, Anglicans, and tax-optimizing Lutherans are all lumped together. --Boson (talk) 18:12, 2 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Non-religious majority in Hamburg[edit]

We still have no source for "there is a non-religious majority in Hamburg". Maps are no substitute for a reliable source. If there are no reliable sources, the maps should also be removed.

The second map is OK but does not support the claim; the legend gives the relevant colour as "Konfessionslose und Mitglieder anderer Konfessionen", which means people without a religious denomination and members of other denominations [i.e other than Catholics and Protestants]. So (see above) it includes Buddhists, Muslims, Jews, and a variety of others. Since it appears to be based on census data, it will include a number of Christians, including Anglicans, as well, no doubt, as other Christians who have officially ceased to be members of those denominations which choose to levy state-collected taxes (9% of income tax) (sometimes done after one's youngest child has been confirmed).

The first map explicitly states that it is based on the 2011 census, but it has an incorrect legend. The text supplied on Commons (more or less) correctly explains what the colours really mean:

  • "Dominierende Religionszugehörigkeit auf Landkreisebene nach Ergebnissen des Zensus 2011 in Deutschland. Violett: evangelisch, gelb: katholisch, blau: andere (konfessionslos, sonstige Religionen oder keine Angabe). Dunkel: absolute Mehrheit (> 50 %), hell: relative Mehrheit (33,3 - 50 %)"

Rough translation:

  • "Dominant religious affiliation at district level according to the results of the 2011 census in Germany. Mauve: Protestant, yellow: (Roman) Catholic, blue: other (no denomination, other religions or none given). Dark: absolute majority (> 50 %), light: relative majority (33.3 - 50 %)"

--Boson (talk) 20:25, 2 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Nillurcheier: This edit restored the text "though there is a non-religious majority in Hamburg" and provided as a source EKD statistics at https://www.ekd.de/archiv/download/kirchenmitglieder_2015.pdf

The edit summary included the text "very easy to source".

The nearest I could find was a line on Hamburg that gave the following figures for members of the (main) Catholic and Protestant churches

  • Protestants 27%
  • Catholics 10.7%
  • Total 37.7%

This leaves 12.3% unaccounted for. I assume this includes not only the irreligious but also those of non-Christian faiths (Islamic, Jewish, Hindu, etc.) as well as Christian denominations not included in the statistics (e.g Anglicans). I suspect it also includes a number of people who would regard themselves as Protestants, though not affiliated with the EKD. I will, therefore, change the text to reflect what the source appears to me to support, something like

  • "... though a majority of the population in Hamburg are not registered members of the main Catholic and Protestant churches"

--Boson (talk) 10:47, 4 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

A separate problem is that, rather than being based on peoples professed beliefs or professed membership of a religious community, the report is based on official figures (as the report states: "kirchliches Meldewesen"), which (correct me if I am wrong) record membership of particular churches in their capacity as corporations under public law (Körperschaften des öffentlichen Rechts). If this is the case, the 12.3% includes not only other religions and other Christian denominations but also a number of people who identify as Christians but have left the church organization to which they used to belong for tax reasons. --Boson (talk) 10:47, 4 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]


@Boson: I agree that with this source only membership in the 2 large churches is sourced. Hence it is ok to reformulate the text accordingly. However there are other sources and plausibility checks like the census data for minor groups and a 8% source for Muslims (http://www.abendblatt.de/hamburg/article106509661/50-000-Muslime-in-Hamburg-gehen-regelmaessig-in-Moscheen.html) that make a 50+x for unaffiliated quite likely. Anyhow for the lemma it is to detailed and should not be investigated further BR --Nillurcheier (talk) 11:05, 4 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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Source concerns[edit]

Although this article appears to be well referenced, if you follow the links, most of them go to newspaper articles which all refer to the same study by the University of Chicago and repeat the same figures. When you pull up the study you realise that the claim "East Germany is perhaps the least religious region in the world" is journalistic hyperbole, since the study only looked at 30 of the world's 200-odd countries. Moreover I could find no information on sample size, randomicity and all the other factors needed for a reputable study. Unless these issues can be rectified (and that may be possible), the article should be more cautiously written.

In addition, some of the text supposedly taken from sources, does not actually reflect them. For example "Atheism is embraced by young and old, though even more so by younger Germans" is not what the article actually says; it only refers to God being "embraced", etc. Also, the figures in the table refer to a document about members of the German Evangelical Church only and take no account of members of other churches, denominations or religions. The figures don't match anyway. So unless an authoritative source can be found for the figures, the table should be removed.

In short the article needs a critical review and rewrite to bring it up to encyclopaedic standards. Bermicourt (talk) 18:58, 29 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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