File talk:Worldwide percentage of Adherents by Religion.png

reference? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.66.26.117 (talk • contribs) 08:15, 8 July 2007

It appears to me that the remarks on the image page sufficiently answer that question. –Wookipedian 05:31, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

This image is rather difficult to read. The colours are all fairly similar and they disappear into one another at this scale. I think a better idea would be to split this image into two, with the nine largest groups in one pie, and then the rest grouped as "other", and then have a second image that breaks the "Other" down separately. Serendi^podous 10:42, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I highly doubt that only 2.35% of the worldwide population is atheist, if we stick to the census of different countries. In fact, 50% of the population of China (which represents about 20% of the world population) is atheist. According to the National Geographic issue of December 2007 in Spanish, atheists represent 14 per cent of the world's population. I right this to justify the changes that I will make after I have completed this statement. Thank y'all, Francopedorro (talk) 23:53, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

"Atheist" is a very fluid term, which doesn't really have a fixed meaning, and that meaning changes depending on who says it. Some define an atheist as not believing in God(s), in which case all agnostics are also atheists. Others define "atheist" as believing no God(s) exist(s), a category that would include Scientologists and several branches of New Age philosophy as well as biological determinists or antitheists. Buddhists and practitioners of Chinese folk religions do not need to believe in gods, so how much of China could be defined as strictly atheist is an open question I think. The percentage of atheists in the world would vary wildly depending on what criteria are used to define the concept. Serendi^podous 22:17, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

different sources will obvious have different results on studies like these. the way questions are asked and the way each study defines terms can create discrepancies in the numbers. However, the question is, what are Chinese Universists? no where on wikipedia are they explained. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.104.2.251 (talk) 07:43, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

In any case, Atheism by any definition I know would fall under the category non-religious, so those better be combined. Otherwise Atheism should be defined. I suspect it means Antitheism in the context of this graph. Ahnfelt (talk) 08:16, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Also I would question why it is that in the list of religions on the side (which are mostly in %ge order), Atheism is put at the bottom with the 'non-religion'... i presume an atheist would consider their belief to be just as valid as any other, so shouldnt be thrown in the 'no religion' category Captain Prog (talk) 02:45, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Not really. Atheism is exactly what it says - a+thesis. Atheism isn't in any way a religion, and obviously the number of atheists in the world is much, much greater than 2.35%. Atheism should be removed from a list like this - atheism is not "just a small subset of nontheists". As said before, there are many religious atheists. Ran4 (talk) 10:27, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Chinese Universism?

What is Chinese Universism? I can't find anything about it on Wikipedia, and since it is apparently the fourth largest religion in the world, I would think that it would be considered 'notable'. Gorman (talk) 01:52, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I believe you're looking for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_folk_religion --Chippay (talk) 22:49, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Hey, where's the "8 million Scientologists"?

LOL --69.181.183.86 (talk) 05:17, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

As there's only 8 million, I think that lands them pretty heftily in "other". Gorman (talk) 08:13, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

They are possibly a part of the "Neoreligionists" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.247.41.100 (talk) 20:04, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

How sad

i find the small number of atheists and unreligious people a shockingly small amount, it makes me sad to think there are so many stupid and ignorant people living in the disillusionment that there is a god. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.6.10.75 (talk) 21:32, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Thank you Mr Dawkins. Your input is appreciated and completely fucking irrelevant to the image or the article whence it came. Well done. Gorman (talk) 08:20, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Commenct : Agreed that there are a lot of people with a major delusion but, actually there are an estimated 1,330,000,000 billion atheists in the world, a major increase from 14% atheists 10 years ago, there are now 19% atheists. Looks like people are starting to come to there senses.

How is atheism and non-religious not the same?

Why are atheists and non-religious two different groups? How do those two groups not contain exactly the same membership? Are the creators of this map somehow considering atheism a religion? How is that even possible? Really weird!--SirDugforth (talk) 01:41, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Atheism is the devout belief that there is no god. The fact that they are without evidence in their beliefs makes it a religion just like the rest (that also have no proof). Most people do not realize the huge difference between an atheist and agnostic and seem to get them mixed. I am guessing that the non-religious are people who don't care about (their) spirituality or religion. Atheist generally care deeply in their strong belief of no god.

Atheists are a subset of non-religious, those who declare specifically to not believe in gods. Some people simply don't believe in any particular religion but they still have their own "custom" beliefs in supernatural matters, while not doubting the existence of gods, or, more commonly, a single god more or less like in a watered-down Christianity without whatever the person does't completely buy. Atheists in the other hand doubt the existence of gods, or believe that none exists. That's not necessarely, probably not even commonly, a "devout belief" anyway, not anymore than the disbelief or belief in nonexistence/invalidity of, say, astrology, faeries or Zeus is to those that doubt these things. Agnostics are not "hugely different" from atheists, in fact, there's a huge overlap. Agnosticism is the "belief" that there's no way to know for sure one way or the other about an issue, or more specifically, about the existence and caprices of gods. You can perfectly admit that it's ultimately impossible to settle the issue in a scientific manner, but still not see any legitimate reason to believe in gods, or, conversely, you can admit it and still believe in some god or gods merely by faith. The is perhaps a good part of what the "non-religious" as well, but some may think they can be sure of their "custom" beliefs, and are therefore not agnostics. --Extremophile (talk) 04:57, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Raw numbers

Are the raw numbers for the chart available? Or only the percentage Rune X2 (talk) 14:31, 29 December 2008 (UTC)