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Talk:Religion in Germany

Untitled (2011)
The article should explain that the opinion of the mainstream churchs about cults and new religious movements is influential in Germany. Otherwise it sounds like just an opinion of one religous group about another religious group which should be removed because irrelevant here. Andries (talk) 06:11, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

To quote from an article: "Those who are concerned about the limitations of religious freedom in Germany should, therefore, consider not only the structure of the legal and political system; it is also necessary to pay attention to the cultural dimensions of society, and to the attitudes and moods that affect social action and the working of the institutions." (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0SOR/is_3_64/ai_109568884/pg_4/?tag=mantle_skin;content). The mainstream churches' opinions are politically influential for the religious history of the country. To really explain this one may start with the Thirty Years' War. Or learn about the rights of the mainline churches as statutory organizations, e. g. to give religious education at state schools. Just one example, German kids have to prepare presentations about Sekten for religion or ethics class and attending these classes is mandatory. --Rafflesiapricei (talk) 19:20, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons
I don't know how religious science views them, but public opinion and mainline churches classify those groups as Sekten rather than as Christians in Germany. For example [Netzwerk Sektenausstieg e.V. - Dokumentation und Forum über Zeugen Jehovas, Mormonen und andere Sekten] --Rafflesiapricei (talk) 13:18, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Hmm... that particular page doesn't mention Mormons and JWs at all, but this page from the same group categorizes the organizations they cover into "Zeugen Jehovas", "Mormonen", "Sekten", and "Neuapostolische Kirche", suggesting they do not consider JW, Mormons, and NAC to be Sekten strictu sensu. Angr (talk) 18:33, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
 * The page lists "Zeugen Jehovas", "Mormonen" and "Neuapostolische Kirche", as specific examples of Sekten and does most of its work providing critical information especially about these groups . If you have a page on apples, pears and fruit, it doesn't say that apples and pears are not fruit.
 * The "theological" definition of Sekte "A religious body, especially one that has separated from a larger denomination" seems to correspond to sect. The "common" definition referring to "groups or organizations using subtle methods of mind control to make people dependent of them" seems to correspond to cult. Sekte means both. "Zeugen Jehovas", "Mormonen" and "Neuapostolische Kirche" are Sekten in the theological definition and are publicly agreed to be Sekten in the common definition too. Listing only Hare Krishnas and Ananda Marga as examples of  Sekten implies that groups that refer to themselves as Christian cannot be labelled as Sekte. Especially with Jehovah's Witnesses this is not the case.--Rafflesiapricei (talk) 12:46, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
 * There are cultural differences in addition to linguistic ones. In the United States (and maybe other English-speaking countries as well), I don't think most people would seriously consider the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormons cults (as opposed to, say, the Branch Davidians and the Peoples Temple, both of which are nominally Christian but definitely considered cults), but in Germany the JWs and the Mormons are not as well known and not as widespread and may therefore be regarded with more skepticism than in the U.S. (If you consider Mormons Christians, then the LDS Church is the 4th largest Christian denomination in the U.S.; if you don't consider them Christians, then they're the largest non-Christian religion in the U.S., there being more Mormons than Jews there.) The Scientologists are also widely considered a cult in Germany (and they don't fit the "separated from a larger denomination" part of the theological definition of Sekte), while views on them vary more greatly in the U.S. So from the point of view of the English speakers likely to be reading this article, it may be jarring to see JWs and Mormons called cults, even if that seems quite natural to Germans. (And yes, if someone listed "Apples, pears, and fruit" on a page, I would think they were suggesting that apples and pears aren't fruit. They should say "Apples, pears, and other fruit".) Angr (talk) 18:11, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
 * The term "Sekte" (with a massive negative connotation) has been uses for virtually every group not having more than a billion members worldwide – sometimes even for Buddhists or orthodox Christs. Social expectation in the 1990s was not to care about religion, while practicing catholics or protestants were seen as "people stuck in the past"; practicing another religion was just something strange. Over the last about 10 years, these things have changed a lot – there's no more talk about "Sekten" and about every religious belief is accepted, as long as the members only make rules for them self. With one exception: Scientology is still seen as "the evil itself", but is also far often a topic in media. --TheK (talk) 06:38, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Map of Christian denominations 2008
I don't think this map is very accurate because the lines between catholicism and protestantism don't follow the borders of modern German states. For example, the state of Baden-Württemberg is roughly half predominantly catholic and half predominantly EKD protestant. I think this one is more accurate:http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Europe_religion_map_en.png -- 77.184.40.192 (talk) 10:56, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
 * The 1895 map further down the page does a better job of showing exactly where Catholicism and Protestantism are most prevalent. I think it's still pretty accurate within the boundaries of modern Germany, but it doesn't reflect the numbers of irreligious people. Angr (talk) 12:44, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
 * There is now a new map with data from 2011 which also shows the non-religious areas: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Konfessionen_Deutschland_Zensus_2011.png 217.186.193.89 (talk) 22:32, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
 * This map: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Europe_religion_map_en.png is not accurate, it was made by someone. It is pretty good, since it shows the areas of a religious group's concentration. The 1895 map can't be used. A lot has happened since 1895, including the Flight and expulsion of Germans, secularization of East Germany, etc.Ernio48 (talk) 19:39, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

Religious Statistics
There were several estimates used on this page to detail the religious denominations in Germany, many of the sources contradicted eachother. I have updated the figures with data from the 2011 census. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sdg198 (talk • contribs) 09:56, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia does not give piriority to a single source and using estimates from different sources makes article more informative. This is the uniqueness of wikipedia. I have informed User:Iryna Harpy and she will take the notice.Septate (talk) 15:05, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I support the edits made by Sdg198. The official 2011 census appears to be more reliable than IPSOS MORI or REMID. JimRenge (talk) 18:51, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
 * The problem is that previously the various citations used in the same paragraph were contradictory. One source says 4 million Muslims for example, the next one says 4.3, the next one says less than 2.1 million. I also think that estimates from statistical agencies are less accurate than the official census. Sdg198 (talk) 19:19, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
 * It is entirely dependent on context. Each article and appropriate sources should be treated according to factors impacting on the quality and veracity of the article. In this instance, are you disputing the German census as a reliable source? If so, why? 2011 is relatively recent, so I would prefer to rely on it as being the tertiary text. Unlike articles such as Religion in Russia (where it has been argued realistically that the census had omitted ethnic groups and regions) or Religion in Ukraine (where there has been no census since 2001 and the 2008 census keeps getting bumped up and is currently predicted to be set for 2016), I don't see a legitimate reason for supplementing or, in this case, replacing a valid, reliable recent source which gleaned its statistical information from all inhabitants of the country rather than sample group data or any methodologies which have come up with such disparate figures. How would you propose to handle the percentages for other religious groups or the irreligious? If the total number is above or below accounting for 100% of the population, how would you adjust the figures? --Iryna Harpy (talk) 00:45, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

 * Different methodologies (such as the exact phrasing of the question) are inherently going to give different answers, so some diversity among polls and census is expected. Also there is a tendency in a census for religious affiliation to generally be overestimated by the head of the household, Second Quantization (talk) 20:52, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Agreed, Second Quantization. Statistical analysis is subject to being problematic but, as census statistics appear to be preferred for articles in Wikipedia for demographic information, at least there is assurance of some form of consistency in slightly bolstered estimates per nation-state. I've noticed that independent polls don't qualify 'random' selection groups (were those selected gleaned from a lunch time cross section in a working class area; rural or urban groups; the shopping centre in middle to upper income areas during working hours), or examples of the questionnaires (leading; confusing; presumptuous). Unless there are identifiable oversights in the census questionnaire itself, or regions being overlooked, I'd deem it WP:UNDUE to introduce additional sources unless it's attributed WP:INTEXT and serves a necessary function such as pointing out extremely large variations in estimates. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 01:08, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Church tax figures
Are there any sources for the church tax figures? This would surely provide a good estimate of adherence within some church groups, and wouldnt supplement other census figures Second Quantization (talk) 20:54, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Every state has it's own "Kirchensteuergesetz". In most law's every Körperschaft des öffentlichen Rechts can collect the church tax, but not every church collect them (e.g. freechurches) --Nandus (talk) 11:26, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Church statistics
Septate, could we agree on the fact that REMID and the official church data should be kept are high quality primary sources? Some others of your change seemed ok, please add them again. BR Ulrich Nillurcheier (talk) 17:37, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Pie chart
Nillurcheier, I believe we can cite only one reference for the pie chart, either REMID or FOWID. JimRenge (talk) 17:50, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Since there is an ongoing discussion on which data to use, some information should be given on this topic. FOWID is a small clearly atheistic oriented group. They don't do original research and their data are not in line with official church data. REMID is a university institute, regularly checking and publishing data for over 100 religious groups in Germany. Hence, REMID data should be used in cases of doubt. But for the 2 large churches, the solution is easy. They publish their yearly membership data, which are of course the highest achievable data quality. For Islam, there are large differences, but 5% is the most plausible and most often cited figure. In a first step, I will source and add the official church data. BR Ulrich Nillurcheier (talk) 08:56, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I do think some form of decision needs to be made. Having both charts in place is actually quite distracting. If it's truly understood that both REMID and FOWID need to be represented, could it not be done as a single bar graph for a comparative representation. I don't think two pie charts serve as useful visual cues for readers. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 00:49, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Both REMID and FOWID use the same sources for the major churches but in this case the data for FOWID are outdated (2014). I would suggest we keep the REMID pie chart and put the FOWID in text. Vargmali (talk) 01:11, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, having checked into the sources, I'd also suggest that REMID is probably a more neutral source. Any variance in stats can go into the body of the article where it is deemed to be WP:DUE. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 00:24, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Nillurcheier, REMID is not a university institute, it is a "eingetragener Verein" (registered association).
 * I agree with Iryna Harpy, REMID appears to be a more neutral source. However, I have some questions about the REMID pie chart: Are the percentages in the pie chart published by REMID in this way? This link does not report percentages and does not mention the "no religion" group. REMID sells graphics with an "overview Germany 2013" but I do not have access to these graphics and can not verify the numbers. Why are the EKD and Roman Catholic church cited together with REMID in the pie chart; is this a synthesis of sources? What year is the pie chart referring to?  JimRenge (talk) 01:02, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Hmm, I realise that I didn't do my homework on REMID properly. The only charts I can access pertain to Spirituality or Global stats. The three refs being used for the pie chart do actually amount to WP:SYNTH rather than WP:CALC. In comparison, the FOWID pdf addresses the entire subject of this article, therefore - even assuming we can obtain verifiable stats taken at unknown points in time from separate articles from REMID - would it be edifying or a breach of WP:NOR. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 21:37, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

 * FOWID does not produce the numbers by themselves but they use many sources that from what I have gathered are mostly neutral or even the churches themselves. Vargmali (talk) 14:10, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Firstly, JimRenge, you are right on REMID, being an Eingetragener Verein, not a university institute, though they reside in a well known university town. Sorry for that. Secondly, REMID is offering basic data for free, however selling their overview diagrams, including pie charts. Data in the wiki pie chart using percentages have to be calculated with the help of proper population data. I hope, doing this basic math is not original research, since these are the most reliable data I know. BR Ulrich Nillurcheier (talk) 16:46, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I've struggled with the REMID data more than once, when I've suspected vandalism. The site might carry impeccable data, but the cited web page doesn't show any figures at all and it isn't obvious which figures have been assembled from the various sub-pages and by what population figure they've been divided to produce the pie chart. Perhaps the REMID figures and the overall population figure should be tabulated in the article, with absolute values and specific citations for those absolute values, as well as the the calculated percentages. Otherwise the basis for the pie chart isn't transparent, goes beyond WP:CALC, and exposes us to vandalism. I am also rather uncomfortable with using data provided by the various religious organisations. Do they all use the same methodology and are all of them free from any desire to present the most optimistic figures? I would rather we were using census data. NebY (talk) 17:39, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Essentially, it's been my experience that census figures are preferred unless it's known (via RS) that there are problems with the data (i.e., Religion in Russia), or where there hasn't been a census for well over a decade (i.e., Religion in Ukraine where the last census was held in 2001). While variations in data can certainly be addressed within the body of the article, I have to agree with NebY that it does make articles far more prone to vandalism, and makes it a lot more difficult for other editors to verify stats. Are we actually dealing with profound variations in estimates, or is it really the equivalent of to a case of nuance and not that important to turn it into a headache. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 00:20, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
 * The 2011 census is problematic because it reports only membership in EKD and the catholic church (Körperschaften öffentlichen Rechts). Before the start of the census, Klaus Pötzsch, speaker of the Statistisches Bundesamt stated : "The consequence of this [questionnaire] is that the group of atheists (but also of other religions) is not detectable in the census results. The results of the census will be that we get information about large religious organizations (explicitly mentioned in the questionnaire) but know nothing about the spread of other religions and of atheism."  JimRenge (talk) 01:17, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I hadn't realised the 2011 census had that problem. Thank you. That's startling and worth describing in the Religion in Germany section. Meanwhile, that seems to bring me back to wanting to see a table of referenced absolute values with the percentages shown in the pie chart. NebY (talk) 08:58, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Hmm, that does come as a surprise. Much as I'd be interested to know whether this is a reflection of growth of reactionary tendencies in EU governments, it's off topic for this talk page. But, yes, that makes it all the more important for the sourcing to be clear. There's a bright line between where CALC ends and SYNTH begins. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 22:59, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
 * The Religion in Germany section clearly states: Evangelical Church in Germany: 24,328,100 or 30.3% of the German population. So if REMID is more accurate, why do we have FOWID chart on top of the page?Ernio48 (talk) 20:04, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

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Christian and Irreligious manipulation of correct data
Most statisticians are Christians and non-believers in Germany. Their data are usually correct. The treat Christian denominations as separate values, but merge the 1. religiously indifferent, 2. atheists, 3. agnostics, 4. other non-believers under one label, the label non-religious. This is pure manipulation because agnostics and atheist separately occupy a larger percentage than the 5.2% of Muslims (not all Sunnis and Shia are friendly to each other neither accept that merge). Many (but of course not all) antimetaphysical atheists are ideologically as distant to agnostics (which are open to the possibility of antimetaphysics or other inherently non logical and analyzable cosmic mechanism) as to other metaphysicalists. This is Wikipedia and not a German statistical office. Correct data if manipulated lead to wrong conclusions, and in the case of Germany to deaths, because they don't try to understand the citizen but to simplify and manipulate him/her because they believe "simple is better". "Not to care" isn't better and it doesn't seem functional either with so many deaths.

Please notice that Atheists and Christians claim they are different, but statistically are covariants. Most neo-atheists (of no Communist background) mainly are of Protestant and secondarily of other Christian denominations, even if we examine it proportionally. This "correct but manipulated" selection of the religious components, unwittingly acts as another brickwall (and not as many separate bricks) against Muslims. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:587:4102:3800:281D:B91:C29E:E51D (talk) 04:38, 24 July 2016 (UTC)
 * please sign your comment. Do you have any other or more detailed data, if yes, please share! --Nillurcheier (talk) 08:43, 24 July 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm a bit concerned that the pie chart is mingling data given it lists three sources; however, if it is using tax registration info, we have no way of differentiating among the people who aren't registered for any church. If we use survey info, a lot depends on how the questions are asked.  Both surveys and registration info should be in the article (but at most only one pie chart) Erp (talk) 15:19, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

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Outdated statistics in the list
Most of the statistics contained in the lists of Christian churches are about two decades old (Adherents.com is a database which is mostly not updated, and the sources of the website itself are not immediately verifiable). So, this version which had the major Christian groups with the data from the EKD 2016 report was better.--62.211.21.90 (talk) 22:10, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

Religion by state
In addition to Politbarometer, I think there are also the yearly-updated church membership data for each state.--Wddan (talk) 18:28, 24 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I am not sure about that, Politbarometer is more precise.--FrankCesco26 (talk) 11:46, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Many changes including Politbarometer
I reverted to last consensus version, not saying that all changes in detail are wrong. However major changes should be discussed first on this page. The German situation differs from the rest of the world (excl. Austria) that there are precise membership data of the major religious bodies, which can be reported directly. In addition there are many sources of census, survey and other data. Here are some, I know including a priority proposal from my side: Prio 1: Prio 2: Prio 3:
 * Church membership data Roman- catholic and EKD
 * membership collecting data organizations like REMID and FOWID
 * Census data: 2011 census and historically 1987, 1970 and older
 * Survey like PEW, Eurobarometers and Politbarometer

I strongly suggest to use prio 1 data where available and add prio 2 and 3 to fill the gaps. It might also be ok to list survey data in an extra table somewhere in a statistics chapter. BR Ulrich --Nillurcheier (talk) 07:35, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I agree with Nillurcheier. The solution is basically the same that I proposed here.--Wddan (talk) 08:31, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I think that the Statistics section is ok as it is now. It shouldn't look like a list but more a contextualized section.
 * Regarding the Politbarometer survey, it shouldn't be compared as a Pew or EB because its sample is thirty times larger (having a sample of 30,599) and has two weights that make the survey incredibly reliable. This means that it's correct to give it bigger visibility rather than other surveys. I also think that it's a good survey for 2016 and should be togheter with the church data in the lede becouse they are two different types of sources.
 * Regarding the other surveys, I know that Eurobarometer uses only one weight and has around 1.000 people of sample so it's worth citing but I am not sure that Pew Research Center in its last research regarding religion in Western Europe used a weight, becouse it showed a Catholic share of 44%.--FrankCesco26 (talk) 11:44, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
 * if this survey is of such excelling quality, how do you explain the heavy deviation of 34 vs. 27 % eg. for protestants? No this data is poor and more a kind of side result since politbarometer is known (as the name says) for its political questions, not for religious ones. --Nillurcheier (talk) 12:14, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
 * That's simple, most people who leave the church do so in order to avoid paying these taxes, since religious communities are corporations under public law with the power to levy compulsory taxes on their members. The tax rate is eight percent of income tax in Bavaria and nine percent in other states; the tax is collected by the state and in other cases data on church members' income is shared. See this publication:.
 * I know that Politbarometer is focused on politics, but the religious question is reliable. --FrankCesco26 (talk) 12:18, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

 * Stick to the reinstated WP:CON version. There has been far too much mixing and mismatching of sources over a number of these "Religion in X" articles. It results in WP:SYNTH, and is a breach of WP:NOR. These are broad scope articles, WP:NOTNEWS. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 19:30, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

Statistical Dawkinsism (make it look big, even if it's shallow)
The atheists and the non religious are separate groups. If you merge different opinions you can create a fake mega-opinion. The atheist doesn't believe in god. The non religious (if it was presented as a separate entry, not as it is) either doesn't care, or hasn't thought about it. Of course I know that now you've merged all non religious people without respect. I can merge Christians and Muslims as Unatheists. Distorted statistics generates pseudo-megagroups which serve political purposes and do not respect the people. Some politicians support the unaware mild atheism for social cohesion and try to hide the conscious atheism.

Eastern Germany
The study in 2012 cited was unable to find a single person under 28 in Eastern Germany who believes in God. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.71.210.138 (talk) 21:44, 26 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Good. So where does it say that Germany is the least religious country in the world? What does your argument have to do with edit warring content to create WP:SYNTH suiting your personal point of view. We use reliable sources precisely to avoid having users like you trying to write about their own opinions. Find a reliable source stating that Germany is the least religious country in the world, and bring it to the table. Evidently, you haven't seen enough census responses from other countries. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 00:57, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

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Christianity fragmented into denominations, conscious atheists merged with irreligious
A Roman Catholic is way closer metaphysically to a Protestant than a conscious atheist to an irreligious (not to care, or not to follow a religion).

Atheism and Irreligion are different forms of Nontheism.

You gerrymander the data, simply to present that atheists fight against divided Christians.

You don't care about the Germans and their opinion.

Usually Richard Dawkins merges all nontheists to present a bigger number, while usually interpreting them as atheists - thus merging hyponyms as a hypernym, but titling them under his favorite hyponym. Even Richard Dawkins doesn't do that all the time. In big texts he's analytical and avoids mergers.

You might claim that I'm a Heretical Hebrew (=Christian) who believes that ancient Israelites knew better neuroscience than us, but no. I am not a moron (=an egotistical being not aware of the absolute nature of death).

Merging nontheists in order to present a bigger number (as atheists statisticians love to gerrymander) harms the nontheistic spectrum.

Nontheism is based on analytical thought, not in mergers.

Also we must treat the same way the orders of hyponymy (same leveled tiers of hyponymification).

You have the excuse for not being analytical, if a group is under 2%. Here you've no excuse!

You analyzed theists, and the subgroup of Christians, but you've merged all nontheists.

The subgroup of Christians is two tiers down (theism or religion > Christianity > Christian Denominations) more fragmented than the hypergroup of nontheists, so what is presented is pure political filth.

Read ways to present statistical data

_____

You might claim that: "I've copied an old survey others conducted".

These others aren't blind.

Leave it there so they will correct their political gerrymanderism.

Surveys do get updated.

Also you dubbed the survey Statistical Data of Religion/Theism which is a subgroup of Worldview/Metaphysics.

You've used the excuse others commit the same mistake.

You kiddo have to know that in maths and statistics, you must batch and fragment logically correctly, and what the masses do is irrelevant.

I maths if we erroneously group and fragment, we are wrong. Being perceived as cute by the masses is absolutely irrelevant! Be the first one to be correct, and even die for it! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:2149:8490:3400:608A:BDA2:6DF7:A815 (talk) 09:39, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

 * Feel free to split groups, if you can provide reliable data. --Nillurcheier (talk) 10:40, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

 * I think that the only way to solve this problem is to put in the first place in the pie chart the Christian denominations, only if summed up they make a larger share than the irreligious people. FrankCesco26 (talk) 20:08, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

Line chart?
If someone can find and collect the official data published from 1990 onwards (surely those for the 2000s can be found in archived versions of the article) we could add a Template:Line chart (already present in other articles, including religion in the Netherlands, religion in Switzerland and religion in Iceland). It would be an interesting addition to show the trends of religions in Germany throughout the decades.--Wddan (talk) 16:53, 11 March 2018 (UTC)
 * As you know, German history had some breaks. starting in 1990 after reunification is ok. data are easily available. --Nillurcheier (talk) 17:53, 11 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Okay, the line chart has been added by FrankCesco26. However, for the 1990s onwards I think that the line should be made with the yearly church membership statistics rather than the 2011 census. This would show a less sharp declivity after 1939, and would reach 2016. Here are some data from 1990 to 2016. what do you think?--Wddan (talk) 17:23, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I think, it is ok to add this membership data of the 2 large churches as documented by themselves. But it should be made clear, this data is not about adherency nor believe but only officil church membership statistics. --Nillurcheier (talk) 15:08, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Have you any idea on where to find reliable data for Islam from 1990 onwards? I think it should have its own line.--Wddan (talk) 16:10, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
 * The church membership data and the census one are unrelated, as the church membership is based on the registers of the main churches. Most people officially leave the church in order to avoid the payment of the taxes. This means that the official church data does not obviously correspond to actual religious affiliation but I'd say it's more like the italian 8xmille.
 * Regarding the line chart, it must include only censuses and from what I've found there have been censuses in Western Germany in 1950 1960 1970 and 1987 that include religious affiliation, but I'm not sure about the ones in Eastern Germany, if they were not conducted it would be impossible to have an aggregated data of full Germany that is compatible with the previous censuses.
 * EDIT: I've found this aricle by fowid that shows a detailed table about the religions in the censuses: https://fowid.de/meldung/deutschland-konfessionen Please note that the figures for 2011 showed by the article are actually the register based data for 2011, that differs from the census data used in the article. FrankCesco26 (talk) 18:40, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
 * After a lot of work, I've menaged to update the table and the line chart. I couldn't use the data from the 1970 and the 1987 Western Germany's censuses since there weren't any census regarding the religion in the later censuses. Nillurcheier, since your mother tongue is German, can you find data that can be used for Eastern Germany in 1970-1987? Thank you FrankCesco26 (talk) 20:03, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
 * The 2011 datum for Orthodox Christians is missing from the total of "other religions" in the table and line chart.--Wddan (talk) 13:50, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I happened to find a very recent article regarding Christianity in East Germany: https://fowid.de/meldung/deutschland-4-entkirchlichte-osten. It says that there were no census questions regarding religious affiliation in the GDR. Hence there are no official data available. --Nillurcheier (talk) 15:38, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I've found this publication ( https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1045&context=younghistorians ) citing 1986 data at page 17 in the chart, but I can't see the original source as there are restricted permissions to see it. FrankCesco26 (talk) 18:10, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
 * The source is The chart itself is on page 407 and cites as its source the "World Value Survey".  I note it states it is "retrospective data" and the paper states "10. The 1999-2001 WVS includes the question: 'Apart from weddings, funerals and christenings, about how often did you attend religious services when you were twelve years old?' By matching respondent's age to the answer to this question and drawing the reasonable inference that 12-year-old children usually attend religious services accompanied by their parents, retrospective religious attendance on five-year intervals can be calculated. Because Germans are long-lived and there are enough respondents in each five-year cohort, one can estimate religious participation since the mid 1920s. For discussion of this technique, see Iannaccone (2002). While social-desirability effects have apparently upwardly biased reported church attendance in the U.S. surveys, it is not at all clear that the same effect would be present in Germany (page 419)"
 * Hope this helps.--Erp (talk) 01:46, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you, I guess this is not a data we can use in the table, but I think that the official church membership has data for 1990 or early. FrankCesco26 (talk) 12:51, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Judaism
I am concerned by the glaring omission of Nazism in this section. I have now edited the section for the second time and hope that we can work to make sure this remains in the article.

Marclubitz1 (talk) 14:03, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

May 2018 - religion by state
The table of religion by state should be remade with the 2011 census data or (better) the latest church data, rather than the 2016 Politbarometer, which counted just the adult population entitled to vote.--Wddan (talk) 14:26, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Ok then, replace Politbarometer data with the 2011 detailed census data from the Zensus website. FrankCesco26 (talk) 17:55, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Both data are crap. Much better data are available, see German Wikipedia Mitgliederentwicklung.... --Nillurcheier (talk) 07:27, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
 * The source of the data there is the official church membership, that may differ from the actual religious affiliation that is better found with the self-identification methods of the census, and other surveys. People tend to officially leave the church to avoid the overpayment of 9% of the total tax to fund religious associations, as it is written in the publication by Jens Petersen "Kirchensteuer kompakt: Strukturierte Darstellung mit Berechnungsbeispielen.".FrankCesco26 (talk) 12:02, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
 * The difference between the church membership and the latest census is minimal, 26% in 2016 instead of 30% in 2011 for Protestants and 28% in 2016 instead of 30% in 2011 for Catholics, so the church membership is accurate to represent believers, also given the ongoing decline of the two religions. Also, true believers should be earnest in giving the tithe to their church, so the theory that people who believe leave the church to avoid the tithe is not cogent.--Wddan (talk) 15:43, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
 * 5% of difference between the two sources is very relevant and may compromise the quality of the data. The ideas of the true believers is a your assumption without any sort of source. I suggest using the 2011 Census data which is just right in representing the main christian denominations and who doesn't belong to a religion, the other religions are slightly underrepresented since there wasn't a specific field for each minor religion in the census and many people belonging to the affected religions decided to opt out to answer. Nevertheless, the Census data remains the most reliable data.FrankCesco26 (talk) 17:47, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
 * It is reasonable to think that religious people are earnest in giving the due tax to the church. Why should a believer not support his church? Anyway, the 5% difference perfectly reflects the five-years difference between 2011 and 2016, given that both the churches decline approximately 1% each year.--Wddan (talk) 19:16, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
 * The difference does not fit the gap, and even comparing the 2011 census with the registered data there is a deep gap, with the Evangelicals going down 1.6% from 30.8% to 29.2% and the Catholics going down 1.2% from 31.2% to 30.0%. This is a fact, the auto-identification surveys and the census all show the same data. I've checked the 2016 German Social Survey, the 2015 International Social Survey, the 2016 Politbarometer, the 2015 Eurobarometer and every survey show the proportion of Catholics and Protestants to be over 30%, are they all wrong? FrankCesco26 (talk) 20:37, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
 * A difference of 1.6% or 1.2% is what you call "a deep gap"?--Wddan (talk) 01:16, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Indeed it is, that is a change of several hundreds of thousand people.FrankCesco26 (talk) 11:29, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

Is there the need to specify the sample and the questions of a survey in the text body of the article?
Based on WP:NOTSTATSBOOK and WP:NOTMANUAL, I think that it is excessive and unencyclopedic to specify, in the main text body of the article, the consistency of the sample of any survey and the questions which were asked to the sampled people (see this case). I am not saying that these are not important things, but the main text body should show just the outcomes of the survey, and the methodology should be explained (if the explanation has some relevance) in the reference or in a footnote.--Wddan (talk) 16:08, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I think that a clear explanation of the survey methodology must be given in the text right under the data, and must not be hidden in references of footnotes since it gives crucial information about the wording of the question, that is one of the main factors that affect the differences between the censuses and the other surveys. The sample size also is very important, since surveys with a more robust sample are usually more reliable than surveys with a smaller sample in which a few different answers can drastically affect the final data, even with the best weights. I would also add information on what kind of weight has been used, but I think that is too excessive. FrankCesco26 (talk) 17:54, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
 * It is utterly irrelevant to the scope of an encyclopedia, which is neither a manual of statistics nor of statistical methodology. It can be shown in a footnote, but not in the main article. Readers are interested in the outcome, not in knowing that the people were asked "Are you religious?" and then "What is your religion?", since it is WP:BLUESKY.--Wddan (talk) 18:40, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
 * , what do you think about this?--Wddan (talk) 18:41, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
 * The methodology must not be hidden in the footnotes or in the references, the reader must not be misinformed about the data he reads and has to be aware that there are wide differences between the data of the survey and the data from the census or other surveys due to the wording, that is the main factor that significantly change the data. I personally think that in a survey list section the methology perfectly fits and must be always reported. You seem not to understand how actually surveys work. FrankCesco26 (talk) 20:43, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Those surveys are mostly sampled on sections of the adult population. Indeed, they also hugely underestimate Islam, which is around 5%.--Wddan (talk) 21:06, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
 * It's really stupid to report the questions of the survey; it's not encyclopedic content, also considering that most of those minor surveys are already given more emphasis than they deserve. This is turning the articles into lists of statistics, against the policies of WP:NOTSTATSBOOK and WP:NOTMANUAL. I am fully convinced of this. But let's see how other editors have to say about this:, , .--Wddan (talk) 00:46, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
 * This is how that type of technical information should be presented in the article. The readers are interested in the outcomes of the surveys, possibly reliable ones published by reliable institutions, not in reading a manual on how to carry out a survey.--Wddan (talk) 01:05, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Your question is a minor detail and we are running into the risk of getting lost in endless discussions about close to irrelevant issues. Actually I dislike the aboundance of statistics, which have never been relevant in German society, news or research. Germany is one of few countries reporting membership data of religious bodies. Adding census results is fine, but any data beyond this hardly contributes further information or insight to the article. It is rather irritating or confusing for readers if e.g. a sideresult of an election poll is presented as relevant religious statistics. Let us reduce data to few but relevant sets. BR Ulrich --Nillurcheier (talk) 09:22, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Censuses' table refashioning
I just refashioned the table of the data from censuses in the same style of those found in other articles of the same series. Compared to the old version, however, I have left out the data from the 1939 census of Nazi Germany, since the latter covered a larger expanse of land and many non-German populations compared to the foregoing and following German states (10 million more people compared to the census of the Weimar Republic in the same year). I would like to know if this was the right thing to do, especially from users with deep knowledge of German history.--Wddan (talk) 19:25, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

16 May 2018 - false accusations by FrankCesco26
This claim against me is false: "along the unexplained edits you made, you remove things you don't like" [sic].

The content was removed by FrankCesco26 himself in the previous edit.

The edit is also not consistent with FrankCesco26's behaviour in other articles, in which he has insisted for the removal of pie charts representing minor surveys (religion in France, religion in the United Kingdom: "or we add a chart for every survey or remove them all. we can't add charts for every survey we find in the internet" [sic]).

There is a glaring, recurring non-neutral pattern in this editing behaviour.--Wddan (talk) 12:01, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

rename page with a hypernym: Metaphysical Worldviews in Germany
The fact you mimicked a popular mistake, doesn't constitute it correct taxonomically/set-theoretically/ordonymically === Mathematical mistakes/set theory mistakes are not subjected to prevalent mistake establishment practice. Mathematical mistakes/set theory mistakes do occur and are corrected when perceived.
 * Even if some forms of atheism where religions, not all atheists belong to unions neither a single atheistic union exists, so we cannot guarantee that all atheists are religious (even if we have the statistically rare and politically motivated opinion that some forms of atheism are religions - some atheists are not philosophical and analytical about their atheism so they cannot be religious, some theists are not philosophical and analytical about their theism, but statistically most of them belong to religions as the term religion is described by the majority).

Not all others are necessarily atheists or theists, so even if we accept to define unprofessionally (because it is not standardized) atheism as a religion, we cannot guarantee that all others are atheists and theists. What is the point to title a "metaphysical worldview" survey with the noun "Religions" when as a statistician you don't want to push towards one possible subgroup/hyponym, instead you want to record facts about a generic hypernym with all its spectrum of possible outcomes?
 * 1) You've made a mistake and you aren't aware of it.
 * 2) You've made a mistake and you are aware of it, but you believe statistics is less important than popular simplifications.
 * 3) You are politically motivated.

Metaphysics is a hypernym, read its Wikipedia article
Metaphysics and worldviews aren't necessarily supernatural.

one might claim that:

 * 1) "none" of "other" still aren't necessarily "metaphysical worldviews"
 * Answer: "metaphysical worldview nones and others" are grouped under a more generic title
 * Ascribing somethings so unspecified as "none" and "other" under a hyponym and not a hypernym,
 * forces towards narrower interpretations of the data.
 * Interpretations about the data are NOT the data!!!
 * 1) we really care about the hyponym "religions", not about the hypernym "metaphysical worldviews"
 * Answer:
 * a. that is not correct, we care about all relative data
 * b. in statistics our urges don't define the titles, we usually select generic titles because we want merely to describe facts and not to push towards narrower interpretations
 * in statistics it's easier to find answers than to neutrally describe an overall situation

Some considerations regarding the official church statistics
It should be noted that the main data used in the article, the official church membership data of the catholic church and the evangelical church, may be an underestimation of the actual number of believers of such churches due to the church tax which corresponds to the 8% (in baden wuerttenberg) and 9% (in all the other laender) and is deducted from the wage of members. (information: https://liveworkgermany.com/2017/11/what-is-german-church-tax-and-how-do-i-avoid-paying-it/)

According to a survey based on 56.953 persons who left the churches in 2018, 44.2% did so in order to avoid paying the additional tax, while 34.4% were dissatisfied with the church instutions/officials while only the 16.4% did so because it didn't believed in God anymore. Source (https://www.kirchenaustritt.de/umfrageergebnis).

This is why most recent surveys show completely different data when compared to the official church data, and ususally show higher proportions of catholics and protestants. The actual percentage of the catholics and the protestants is at ~30% each, while the proportion of irreligious people is at ~30-34% according to four recent sources I posted in the table I added in recent changes to the page.

The next 2021 Census will not include a question on the religious affiliation as opposed to the last census, but even comparing the 2011 census data with the 2011 church membership data there is a downward bias:

 * 24,869,380 (31.2%) self-identified Catholics vs 24,066,604 registered catholics (who pay the church tax) (30.0% -802,766 members of difference)

 * 24,552,110 (30.8%) self-identified Evangelical Church members vs 23,369,341 registered evangelical church members (who pay the church tax as well) (29.1%, -1,182,769 members of difference)

Sources (self-identified religion in the 2011 census: https://ergebnisse.zensus2011.de/?locale=en#dynTable:statUnit=PERSON;absRel=ANZAHL;ags=00;agsAxis=X;yAxis=RELIGION_AUSF)

(church count for 2011: https://ergebnisse.zensus2011.de/?locale=en#dynTable:statUnit=PERSON;absRel=ANZAHL;ags=00;agsAxis=X;yAxis=RELIGION_KURZ)

Therefore the article should be cautious whether to use official church figures or not because they may be severally underrepresenting the actual number of catholics and lutherans in the country. I would suggest using the REMID and FOWID for the estimates of minority religions and some statistically reliable source for the percentage of Catholics and Protestants such as the German General Social Survey (which has recently released data for the yeat 2018) or specify that the actual church count may be an underestimation and the percentage of not religious people in the stats and the pie chart are actually "people who are not officially affiliated to any religious institution".

, as a frequent contributor to this page and other religious demography pages, how can this page be improved to fix this problem regarding the underrepresentation of catholcs and protestants in official church data? Do you have any fix proposal?

Of course anyone else who can provide an unbiased opinion is welcome to the discussion. FrankCesco26 (talk) 22:10, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
 * The sheer amount of data in this article continues to be confusing. The church tax figures are hard data that comes out annually; however, they don't include people who belong to religions that choose not to be or cannot be part of the church tax structure.  It also includes people who choose to pay up though they no longer believe (e.g., they work for a Catholic school or hospital and would lose their job if they cease to be Catholic). It also does not includes people who just don't want to pay but consider themselves Catholic, etc.   Unaffiliated with a church tax receiving religious organization is probably the best way of describing those who opt out.   The census gives good data but only every 10 years and up to 2011 (and 2021 will apparently not include a religion question) and may over count (culturally Catholic, etc).   Then there are the surveys of varying quality.  We should probably have a small section or an extended footnote(s) describing the sources and stating the perceived benefits and drawbacks of each (according to other good sources). --Erp (talk) 02:22, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

 * There are some good points here. I made a comment at Talk:Religion in Berlin, that might be relevant. Although there are very reliable sources for the number of registered, church-tax-paying people, portraying those who are not as being "irreligious" or "atheist", as opposed to "unaffiliated" or "unregistered" is misleading. Newspaper articles containing such portrayals are not uncommon, but I think they should be treated with a good deal of skepticism in terms of being accepted as a reliable source for such information. A clear description of the situation regarding church tax is important in order to provide context for any statistics about believers or non-believers... --IamNotU (talk) 03:07, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

 * I think that the whole demographic section should be revisited to be made more clear, and church data should not be used as the main source of the article since they may be underreporting the actual membership. All the percentages should be in extended Demographic section including with considerations on the number of registered members, 2011 census data and survey data. I think that the estimates by REMID and FOWID are correct for minor religions and in my opinion may be used with data from surveys to provide a correct religious landscape. The article should include three sections under the section "Demographics" which provide three different sets of data. I am not sure whether keeping multiple percentages in the lede (e.g. "Christianity is the largest religion in Germany, comprising an estimated 56.2% to 63.2% of the country's population in 2018 based on different sources" or "The two churches together comprised 53.2% to 59.5% of the population in 2018, of whom 27.7% to 29.1% belonged to the Catholic Church and 25.5% to 30.4% to the Evangelical Church.") or keeping the data out of the introduction leaving it for the Demographic section (leaving the lede something like "Christianity is the largest religion in Germany, since the conversion of the Germanic tribes after the 4th century. Other minority religions in Germany include Islam, whose followers have full or partial foreign background, Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism and many other minor religions. A significant part of the population is not affiliated to any church, and many are atheist, agnostic or simply irreligious. The two largest Christian churches of the country are the Roman Catholic Church and the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), a Protestant confederation of United Protestant (Lutheran and Reformed) churches."). Tell me what are your opinions about it. FrankCesco26 (talk) 11:19, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Any source will have biases and the church tax info is, after the census, among the most authoritative (people are making a monetary commitment though it does not cover several religious groups). For the lede I would probably use approximations such as about 60% are Christian with about half of those being Catholic, half belonging to the Evangelical Church of Germany (Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland, abbreviated EKD), and the rest to several small Christian denominations; between 5 and 6% are Muslim and almost all of the rest are unaffiliated.  Also the statement that Christianity has been the largest religion in Germany since the conversion of the the Germanic tribes after the 4th century is misleading; a large chunk of present day Germany was not converted until the time of Charlemagne in the 8th/9th century.  The Demographics section could begin with "Information in Germany on religious affiliation comes from the various censuses, from the annual Church tax records (though this omits religions not supported by this tax), religious organizations' self-reporting of membership numbers, and surveys" then discuss the 2011 European Union census info, followed by other info.  BTW the Pew Forum did a survey on church tax payers and religious belief and practices (https://www.pewforum.org/2019/04/30/in-western-european-countries-with-church-taxes-support-for-the-tradition-remains-strong/)  --Erp (talk) 16:14, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I have made some of the changes we discussed it here, feel free to contribute as well with changes in the article. I think that the whole survey section has to be made clearer and the article still lacks the explanation on the underrepresentation problem in the church membership figures. - FrankCesco26 (talk) 21:01, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Actually, the article fully lacks any explanation on the overrepresentation of christians (the 53 % Members of the large churches includes many Karteileichen ). However, German official statistics do use these figures and without a reputable - preferaby peer reviewed - acadamic research I see no reason why these figures not should be used. The now reported 60% is obviously too high . — Preceding unsigned comment added by 143.179.117.143 (talk) 07:04, 28 August 2019 (UTC)
 * The current lede is misleading and makes several unsourced statements.It states: Nowadays about 60% of the population is Christian with about half of those being Roman Catholic, stronger in the southern and the western part of the country, half belonging to the Evangelical Church of Germany (Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland, abbreviated EKD) predominant in the northern regions,
 * no source is provided that 60% is Christian. No source is provided that about half of the 60% is belonging to the EKD (actually this was 25,46% at yearend 2018 as per the EKD and very likely is less than 25% by now ), no source is provided that the EKD is predominant in the northern region. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 143.179.117.143 (talk) 07:26, 28 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Actually, there is a very detailed explanation on why the German church counts underestimate the actual number of beleivers before, with a lot of sources based on auto-identification of the respondents such as the official German census of 2011 which states that 64.2% of the Germans are Christians, and many other recent surveys (such as the Eurobarometer (a survey carried out by the EU), or the German General Social Survey, or the ISSP) that state that the Christian population of Germany is comprised between 63.2% and 66.1%. Just read. Using Census data, the catholics are almost half of the Christian population (31.2/64.2*100 = 48.6%) and the Evangelical Church members make up most of the other half (30.8/64.2*100 = 48%), while the remaining part is made up by members of other protestant denominations and other christians, such as the orthodox. - FrankCesco26 (talk) 10:58, 28 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm seeing some mixing of terminology here. Being a "believer" is not the same as being a "member" of a church. The membership figures from the churches themselves are accurate, there is no underrepresentation of their membership. If one is a member of a congregation and pays the church tax, then one is a member of the church. If not, then not so much - though one could say that another sense of the word is that membership begins with baptism and is lifelong unless communion is formally ended. The terms need to be clear - an "adherent" may or may not be the same thing as a "member" - particularly if there is data available that can distinguish between them, they should not just be mixed together under a less-specific "affiliation".
 * People may feel themselves spiritually, or culturally, to be Catholics, Protestants, or whatever. That can, to some extent, be estimated by surveys, though the question is inherently vague. There is a wide spectrum between "adherent" or "believer", and "irrelegious" or "atheist". Many people would say they're Christians, but don't actually believe in a living God or Jesus, and don't engage in any kind of spiritual practice. It's inaccurate to try to represent this as though it is a binary. We can say things like "about 60% of Germans surveyed self-identify as Christians", but we can't say "60% of Germans are Christians" without qualification. Hard numbers on church membership are available from the churches; soft estimates about vague affiliations of the rest are available elsewhere - they shouldn't be lumped together. --IamNotU (talk) 11:38, 28 August 2019 (UTC)
 * There are a lot of fine distinctions.  Official membership as shown by church tax; official membership as shown by the religion's books (note that not all religions participate in the church tax and so that can't be used to calculate their membership and their own books may diverge considerably from reality [e.g., the Latter Day Saints tend to overcount by a lot] others undercount [Jehovah's Witnesses]); participation in ritual (numbers who attend church and similar); public self-identification (this may differ according to the questions asked and any advantage/disadvantage for answering in a particular way).  For the lede use approximations and perhaps a footnote pointing people to the demographic section for details or to a couple of sources.  To use one figure with three significant numbers there would be giving undue weight either to an older statistic (e.g., the 2011 census) or to a statistic that has other problems (e.g., the church tax which does not include Muslims).  Note that in most of the sources especially the more reliable we can appropriately round the figures to agree with the statement so it is attributable and not unpermitted synthesis.   I would move the last paragraph in the lede (on belief or lack thereof) to the demographics section and replace it with a paragraph about the legal situation (i.e., state support through the church tax and instruction in the schools, freedom of religion, unofficial/registration/PLC status, that states within Germany have a great deal of leeway on religious matters) though an entire section on the legal situation is warranted --Erp (talk) 16:08, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

Repeated changes to the population figure
Please stop changing the figure in the second paragraph. It's been bouncing around between 56% and 67% for the past month, and we can't have that!

My suggestion is that the phrase "identifies as Christian" is too vague and overly simplistic. "Responded to a census question" or "are registered members of a church", etc., are more concrete. Also, if there are two strong sources that differ significantly, it's not allowed to pick a number halfway in-between. That's WP:SYNTHESIS.

Please discuss and agree on which sources will be cited, and on a more precise description of what the sources say. It may be ok to say, for example, "estimates range from X to Y", or "according to Reliable Authority X, it's Z", but a number that is reached by haggling amongst Wikipedia editors is not acceptable. Thanks... --IamNotU (talk) 18:33, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

 * Thanks for starting a threat on this topic. Indeed, Germany is one of the few countries where we have "registered membership" data. Census, surveys and other polls may deviate from this data due to different reasons: Church members claiming to be nonbelievers. Nonbelievers calling themself christians. Minors, not being asked in surveys and more. Hence this church data are the best numbers we might get, I agree, they could be marked as "official membership data". This appies for the 2 large denominations. For all other religious groups, Germany has surveys and guesses as all other countries. They lead to more or less deviating data.
 * Current data, as far as I know them. RK: 27.7. EKD: 25.5, orthodox 1.9-2.2, other Christians 1.1-2.2, Muslim: 2-6, other religions: 0.9, rest: 35.5-41.

I don't think that we can come closer to reality. --Nillurcheier (talk) 13:59, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

 * Right now it includes the claim "54% identify as Christians". That doesn't seen to be supported by the references given, which talk about church membership. PeterTrompeter (talk) 06:50, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

 * Or perhaps sb lime Nillurcheier can point me to a place in the references that supports said claim? PeterTrompeter (talk) 06:54, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

 * I don't see any problem.

Source 1=3 FOWID saays: 51% membership of EKD and catholic church, 54% christians Source 4 globalreligious futures says 66% christians. However this is a very poor glassballing source, which should be removed Source 5 EKD19 says: 55% Christians

If your issue is the word "identify themselves" we had to go into Eurobarometer, which covers this nicely. Nillurcheier (talk) 09:08, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Chart
From the article [see chart on the right]:

That chart isn't supported by the source. The source has: That gives: Even when adding 3,5 muslims + 0,8 alevites to 4,3 muslimoids, it's far from 5. --15:53, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
 * 51% catholic and protestant Christians
 * 3,5 muslims
 * 40,7 no religion
 * 4,8 others
 * 3 other Christians
 * 0,8 alevites
 * 0,2 buddhists
 * 0,1 jews
 * 0,1 hindi
 * 0,1 yezides
 * 0,4 others
 * 54% Christians/Christianity
 * 51 catholics & protestants
 * 3 others
 * 40,7 no religion
 * 3,5 muslims/islam

 * Please look carefully at the chart. there is a second source that says Muslimes 6.3-6.7% now, what should we do. neglegt this high quality source, add a second chart or make an average of 6.7 and 3.5, what i did. Nillurcheier (talk) 16:00, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

You analyzed the religions in the main chart, but erroneously you claim that people who are open to the violation of physics = agnostics, are physicalists
The different irreligious beliefs: atheist, agnostic, metaphysically indifferent shouldn't be merged if you don't merge the theisms.

Richard Dawkins wants to present that religions are the enemy, and different nontheistic opinions should politically unite against supernaturalism.

Neil deGrasse Tyson erroneously claims that etymology is tautological/ identical to definition, and that agnosticism means I don't know, but I am not open to violations of physical laws. Neil deGrasse Tyson's definition of agnosticism is an oratorical trick. Mean agnosticism is openness to the violation of reason and to science, including Neil deGrasse Tyson's field of study. Not all nontheists have the exact same opinion.

Many Germans are disrespectful towards metaphysical worldviews. They falsely claim that the army uses the Iron Cross which is the map of Prussia and not the symbol of Jesus. The Iron Cross isn't a secular symbol. The map of Prussia had a different shape.

Church tax data
This page used to contain church tax data per year for the various denominations, especially Catholics and Protestants, many years ago. Now they seem gone. What is the reason? 80.116.143.110 (talk) 13:51, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

Non-religious should be mentioned first
It is lying by omission to exclude non-religious from the first line, since they are a far greater number than eiher Christian group. Something like 'Nearly all Germans are either non-religious or Christian (Catholic or Protestant), according to recent polling.' 178.139.171.177 (talk) 07:02, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

 * As long as christianity is bigger than irreligion, it seems fine to mention christianity first. The first paragraph then is a chronological history. The recent statistics follow later in the lead, I would advocate to leave it that way to avoid recentism. Keep also in mind that most people look at the graph with the current distribution first anyway. 2A02:1810:BC3A:D800:2C98:387B:A549:4647 (talk) 12:43, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Religion in Germany


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Mihovljan

Mihovljan is the name of two villages in northern Croatia:

 * Mihovljan, Krapina-Zagorje County, located approximately 10 kilometres from Krapina
 * Mihovljan, Međimurje County, a suburb of Čakovec

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Mihovljan


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Syphon Filter

Syphon Filter is a third-person shooter video game series developed by Bend Studio (formerly Eidetic) and published by Sony Computer Entertainment (previously 989 Studios), for the PlayStation, PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable. In the series, Syphon Filter is the name given to a mysterious biological weapon.

Syphon Filter (1999)
The plot centers on special agents, Gabriel Logan and Lian Xing, who are tasked by the United States government to apprehend Erich Rhoemer, an international terrorist.

Syphon Filter 2 (2000)
The plot picks up immediately after where the previous Syphon Filter ended. Gabe sets out to cure the virus, whilst being targeted as a "terrorist" by the United States government.

Syphon Filter 3 (2001)
Gabe and his team are suspected of treason. Summoned to prove their innocence, the team recounts the incidents that led to this moment. In the background, Gabe moves to rid the world of Syphon Filter once and for all.

Syphon Filter: The Omega Strain (2004)
Gabe, now commander of a government agency, leads global investigation of viral outbreaks in order to stop a deadlier strain of the titular virus from emerging. Unlike previous games, the main protagonist is I.P.C.A. recruit Cobra, while Gabe and Lian Xing appear as supporting NPCs. In multiplayer, a maximum of three more characters may join Cobra, these are Python, Dragon and Viper.

Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror (2006)
Following a mixed reception of The Omega Strain, Dark Mirror is a return to the series' roots. Gabe investigates a terrorist incident in an Alaskan oil refinery, only to discover a big conspiracy around the titular Dark Mirror. This is the first Syphon Filer title developed for PlayStation Portable. The PlayStation 2 port removed multiplayer and mature content, but restored the roll ability.

Syphon Filter: Logan's Shadow (2007)
Serving as a direct sequel to Dark Mirror, Gabe receives a mission to retrieve stolen military equipment from Somali pirates, while discovering that his partner, Lian Xing, could be a double agent.

The PS2-port released in 2010.

title: Syphon Filter


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User talk:Whoever blocks me has no life!

I've just come home from living my life and can see this luser needs to be blocked Jackliddle 23:40, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * Probable vandalbot. Blocked indefinitely. --Slowking Man 23:42, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)

Why did you blank 2X4 by Guadalcanal Diary? You don't wanna get yourself banned when you do it again, do you? -- Mike Garcia | talk 00:05, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)


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Stein, Aargau

Stein is a municipality in the district of Rheinfelden in the canton of Aargau, Switzerland.

The town lies across the Rhine River from Bad Säckingen in the German state of Baden-Württemberg. Two bridges link the two city, one vehicular (Fridolinsbrücke) and the other, the Holzbrücke pedestrian bridge.

The Stein-Säckingen railway station is located in Stein.

Geography
Stein has an area,, of 2.81 km2. Of this area, 0.8 km2 or 28.5% is used for agricultural purposes, while 0.62 km2 or 22.1% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 1.1 km2 or 39.1% is settled (buildings or roads), 0.29 km2 or 10.3% is either rivers or lakes.

Of the built up area, industrial buildings comprise approximately 8.9% of the total area; housing and buildings account for 13.9% transportation infrastructure, 13.5%, parks, with green belts and sports fields making up 2.1%. Out of the forested land, 19.9% of the total land area is heavily forested and 2.1% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 19.9% is used for growing crops and 7.1% is pastures, while 1.4% is used for orchards or vine crops. All the water in the municipality is in rivers and streams.

Coat of arms
The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Gules a Fiddle Argent bendwise with neck downwards.

Demographics
Stein has a population of. , 33.6% of whom are foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1997–2007) the population has changed at a rate of 18.7%. Most of the population speaks German (86.6%), with Italian being second most common ( 3.6%) and Albanian being third ( 3.0%).

The age distribution,, in Stein is; 248 children or 8.8% of the population are between 0 and 9 years old and 317 teenagers or 11.2% are between 10 and 19. Of the adult population, 407 people or 14.4% of the population are between 20 and 29 years old. 404 people or 14.3% are between 30 and 39, 513 people or 18.2% are between 40 and 49, and 400 people or 14.2% are between 50 and 59. The senior population distribution is 264 people or 9.3% of the population are between 60 and 69 years old, 168 people or 5.9% are between 70 and 79, there are 94 people or 3.3% who are between 80 and 89, and there are 10 people or 0.4% who are 90 and older.

the average number of residents per living room was 0.58, approximately the same as the cantonal average of 0.57 per room. In this case, a room is defined as space of a housing unit of at least 4 m2 as normal bedrooms, dining rooms, living rooms, kitchens and habitable cellars and attics. About 38.7% of the total households were owner occupied, or in other words did not pay rent (though they may have a mortgage or a rent-to-own agreement).

, there were 104 homes with 1 or 2 persons in the household, 657 homes with 3 or 4 persons in the household, and 255 homes with 5 or more persons in the household. , there were 1,037 private households (homes and apartments) in the municipality, and an average of 2.3 persons per household. there were 330 single family homes (or 26.7% of the total) out of a total of 1,235 homes and apartments. There were a total of 7 empty apartments for a 0.6% vacancy rate. , the construction rate of new housing units was 17.6 new units per 1000 residents.

In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the SVP which received 34.45% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SP (17.79%), the FDP (17.11%) and the CVP (16.91%). In the federal election, a total of 600 votes were cast, with a voter turnout of 37.8%.

The historical population is given in the following table:

Heritage sites of national significance
The Säckingerbrücke (wooden bridge) at Schaffhauserstrasse is listed as a Swiss heritage site of national significance.

Economy
, Stein's unemployment rate was 3.77%. , there were 11 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 5 businesses involved in this sector. 1,611 people are employed in the secondary sector which features 22 businesses. 597 people are employed in the tertiary sector, with 89 businesses in this sector.

there were 1,251 workers who lived in the municipality. Of these, 855 or about 68.3% of the residents worked outside Stein while 1,446 people commuted into the municipality for work. There were a total of 1,842 jobs (of at least 6 hours per week) in the municipality. Of the working population, 18.6% used public transportation to get to work, and 46.2% used a private car.

Religion
From the, 1,100 or 45.6% were Roman Catholic, while 688 or 28.5% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church. Of the rest of the population, there were around 30 individuals (or about 1.24% of the population) who belonged to the Christian Catholic faith.

Education
The entire Swiss population is generally well-educated. In Stein about 65.4% of the population (between age 25–64) have completed either non-mandatory upper secondary education or additional higher education (either university or a Fachhochschule). Of the school age population, there are 200 students attending primary school, there are 81 students attending secondary school in the municipality.

title: Stein, Aargau


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Spotted cleaner shrimp

The spotted cleaner shrimp (Periclimenes yucatanicus), is a kind of cleaner shrimp common to the Caribbean Sea. These shrimp live among the tentacles of several species of sea anemones. They sway their body and wave their antennae in order to attract fish from which they eat dead tissue, algae and parasites.

Description
The spotted cleaner shrimp grows to a length of about 2.5 cm. It has a transparent body patterned with brown and white saddle shaped markings. The chelae and legs are boldly striped in red, purple and white. There are two pairs of long white antennae banded in black.

Distribution
The spotted cleaner shrimp is found at depths down to about 24 m in the Caribbean Sea, southern Florida, the Bahamas and as far south as Colombia.

Life cycle
Breeding takes place in the summer and females have been seen brooding eggs under their abdomens in the months of July and August. After hatching, the larvae pass through several planktonic larval stages before settling on the seabed and undergoing metamorphosis into the adult form.

Ecology
The spotted cleaner shrimp lives in close association with a sea anemone, either Condylactis gigantea, Lebrunia danae, Bartholomea lucida or Bartholomea annulata. It lives among the tentacles and up to six individual shrimps have been seen on one sea anemone. It swishes its antennae around in the water to attract the attention of passing reef fish. When they pose motionless beside the anemone, it emerges from the tentacles and removes and feeds on external parasites and flakes of loose skin from the fish. It even enters the mouths of fishes and cleans behind their gill covers apparently with no likelihood that it will get eaten. It has also been found associated with the sea anemone Rhodactis sanctithomae in the US Virgin Islands, a species of anemone not previously recognised as a symbiont species. Also in the Virgin Islands, it has been seen on the tentacles of the jellyfish Cassiopea.

title: Spotted cleaner shrimp


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Saint Emeric of Hungary

Emeric (Szent Imre herceg), also Emericus, Emerick, Emery, Emory, and venerated as Saint Emeric (c. 1007 – 2 September 1031) was the son of King Stephen I of Hungary and Giselle of Bavaria.

Family
Emeric is assumed to be the second son of Stephen I. Named after his maternal uncle Henry II, he was the only one of Stephen's sons who reached adulthood.

Education
Emeric was educated in a strict and ascetic spirit by the Benedictine monk from Venice, Gerard, from the age of 15 to 23. He was intended to be the next monarch of Hungary, and his father wrote his Admonitions to prepare him for this task. His father tried to make Emeric co-heir still in his lifetime.

He married in the year 1022. The identity of his wife is disputed. Some say it was Irene Monomachina, a relative of Byzantine emperor Constantine IX Monomachos, or a female member of the Argyros family to which Byzantine emperor Romanos III Argyros belonged. Other say it was Patricissa of Croatia, the daughter of Krešimir III of Croatia. Another possible person may have been Adelaide/Rixa of Poland or one of her unnamed sisters.

Death and sainthood
The succession plans of Emeric's father could never be fulfilled: on 2 September 1031, at age 24, Emeric was killed by a boar while hunting. It is assumed that this happened in Hegyközszentimre (presently Sântimreu, Romania). He was buried in the Székesfehérvár Basilica. Several wondrous healings and conversions happened at his grave, so on 5 November 1083 King Ladislaus I unearthed Emeric's bones in a large ceremony, and Emeric was canonised for his pious life and purity along with his father and Bishop Gerard of Csanád by Pope Gregory VII.

Emeric is most often pictured in knight's armour with crown and lily. It is believed by some Hungarians that Amerigo Vespucci, the Italian explorer and the namesake of the Americas, was named after the saint, but no proof of this etymology exists.

title: Saint Emeric of Hungary


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WPGU

WPGU (107.1 FM) is a fully commercial, student-run college radio station on the campus of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in Champaign, Illinois. It broadcasts an alternative rock radio format and other programming throughout Champaign-Urbana and surrounding communities. It is owned independently from the university by the Illini Media Company.

WPGU has an effective radiated power (ERP) of 3,000 watts. The transmitter is atop the Tower at Third apartment complex on South 3rd Street in Champaign.

Early years
WPGU is named for the "Parade Ground Units", where the station was originally located on the university campus. The units were Quonset huts, used to house soldiers returning from World War II, while getting training at the university.

When the Parade Ground Units were demolished in the early 1960s to make room for regular dormitories, WPGU moved into the basement of Weston Hall. It remained there until 1995, when the station moved off-campus to 52 E. Green Street in Champaign, a few blocks from where its tower is currently located. In 2006, WPGU along with the other Illini Media outlets (Daily Illini newspaper, Technograph engineering journal, Illio yearbook) moved to a new building at 512 E. Green Street, Champaign. In 2018, the WPGU station moved to the basement of the campus YMCA building at 1001 S. Wright Street, Champaign, and is currently there.

Carrier current and FM
WPGU began as an experimental radio station by engineering students at the University of Illinois. It was not broadcast over the air, but sent its signal via carrier AM into the dorms and other campus buildings. If a radio was plugged into an electrical outlet, WPGU showed up on 640 AM. After an initial technical problem, WPGU signed on for three hours on December 7, 1953. It played an hour of jazz, an hour of classical music and an hour of news. In 1964, WPGU joined the Illini Publishing Company (forerunner of the Illini Media Company) and procured a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) construction permit for a new FM station. FM broadcasting began on April 17, 1967.

WPGU started broadcasting in FM stereo, with student disc jockey Ted LeBlang at the controls, on April 16, 1972. The first song heard in stereo was "We Can Be Together (Unedited Version)" by Jefferson Airplane from their Volunteers album. In 1973, the station began broadcasting 24 hours a day.

Carrier AM broadcasts were continued by WDBS, a training station for budding WPGU on air personalities. When cable came to Champaign–Urbana, the company agreed to broadcast WDBS on FM 101 for dorm radios that had a special cable hookup. FM cablecasts began on October 8, 1982, and continued until 1992.

Shows and Slogans
WPGU has had many slogans through the years. It was "Full Service Radio" in the early 1960s, "Progressive Rock" and "The Sound of the Seventies" in the 1970s, "Rockin' for you!", "Champaign-Urbana's home of Rock 'N' Roll!", and "The Rock of the '80's" in the 1980s. The on-air personalities prided themselves in playing progressive rock, often left to their own devices to play anything from heavy metal to punk rock in the same day.

WPGU was once known, during the heyday of the alternative/grunge music genre in the 1990s, as "Champaign-Urbana's Modern Rock, 107.1, The Planet". It has since reverted to simply "WPGU". It has had various yearly slogans including: "Whether You Insist on the Twist or Strings are Your Things, WPGU for You" (1963), "The Radio Station" (1974), "No Pinhead Radio" (1988), "Twenty Five Years and Still Rockin" (1992), "Either You're Rock or You're Pop!" (1993), "No Rules Radio" (2004), "Your True Alternative" (2007), and "Champaign's Alternative" (2011).

Expansion to the web
In late 2007, WPGU joined with weekly entertainment magazine, the buzz, to create the217.com, a fusion of local and national music and entertainment news targeted at the Champaign-Urbana area. Both entities' websites were merged into one larger site containing articles, a searchable index containing every artist WPGU plays, a local events calendar, and a business directory.

In 2011, WPGU split with the217.com and moved its online presence to WPGU.com, where DJ blogs, music news, podcasts, and other content is available. WPGU's hourly playlists are archived and available in real time, and the radio station is also streamed live online.

Alumni
1960s: 1970s: 1980s: Dave Stern, Minutia Men Podcast, Eckhartz Press
 * Tom Merritt - TV and podcast personality, working at CNET, TechTV, and TWiT.tv.
 * Charlie Meyerson — radio, newspaper and internet reporter in Chicago.
 * Roger Ebert
 * Lane Venardos CBS News Executive Producer Evening News, Special Events
 * Jim Hattendorf ABC Chicago & Los Angeles News Executive
 * Arnold Klinsky General Manager, WHEC Buffalo NY
 * Ken Keller, News Director Quad Cities IL & Professor Southern Illinois University
 * Rick Sallinger, Peabody Award Winning Reporter Denver, CNN London, NBC5 Chicago
 * Joe Paszczyk, NBC5 Chicago
 * Bob Epstein, NBC Executive Producer Nightly News, Special Events
 * Mitch Locin, Chicago Tribune
 * Danice Kern, Executive NBC5 & CBS2 Chicago

title: WPGU


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Marshall Law (TV series)

Marshall Law is an Australian television series, which aired on the Seven Network in 2002, starring Lisa McCune and Alison Whyte as lawyers and sisters.

History
The show was originally conceived as a legal drama mixed with Ally McBeal-style romantic comedy, and was one of four new prime-time series in 2002, as the beginning of an attempt to revive the Australian television industry. The concept combined with the cast of industry heavyweights initially seemed like a package that could not fail.

Although ratings were good the first week, figures quickly slumped and the series, which first aired in August, finished airing in November, cancelled after only 17 episodes. Subsequently, repeat screenings were reedited to remove the Ally McBeal style CGI effects.

Synopsis
Set in Melbourne, Marshall Law tells the story of two sisters – Ros and Verity Marshall (played by Lisa McCune, popular after her seven-year run on Blue Heelers; and Alison Whyte, well known for her role on Frontline) – working at the Magistrate's Court. Ros is a Junior Prosecutor who is more interested in partying, and is having to prove her worth at the bench; while the more-experienced and overachieving Verity is now working as a barrister.

Both sisters soon find themselves in for surprises. Ros realises just how out of her depth she may be, begging the help of legal aid solicitor Mikey O'Dea (Nick Farnell), and mentor Esther Hersch, QC (Anne Phelan of Something in the Air).

Meanwhile, Verity, working with her handsome but inept assistant Scott (Nathaniel Kiwi) faces her biggest challenge going up against one of the city's most eminent counsels, Dylan Boyd (William McInnes from SeaChange and Blue Heelers) – her ex-husband.

Verity and Ros, despite leading very different lifestyles, find themselves being forced to work together in this competitive world, particularly with the likes of Judge Don Foster (Greg Stone), Ros's boss Frank Dellabosca (Frank Gallacher), and the ambitious lawyer Prue Staley (Jane Hall). Verity McIntyre appeared as Julie Larson.

Original pilot
The original Marshall Law pilot was a different affair. Titled Leather and Silk, with more emphasis on drama, Bevan Lee, co-creator with Alison Nisselle, described the pilot as being too serious. Executive Producer John Holmes acknowledged that emphasis on the workings of the law "... didn't hold a lot of excitement or interest, except for some die-hard people who love the law and are really interested in it".

Most major characters other than Lisa McCune's were cast differently, and many smaller roles were removed. Holmes explained : "There were too many people in it. You didn't get a chance to get any traction with any of the characters. There were so many incidental characters, when you watched it, you weren't quite sure who to focus on. Now there's much more concentration on Verity, Ros and Dylan. The show is much more about them and their lives and how they deal with each other, with the background of the legal profession, rather than it being about the legal profession with these characters in it."

Industry A-Lister Kerry Armstrong originally played Verity, who was initially a magistrate rather than a barrister. In early 2002, Channel Seven announced that Armstrong would not be continuing with the series, claiming that she wasn't right for the part and "refused to play the role differently". Months later Armstrong agreed with the rumours that the producers thought she was too old for the part of McCune's sister. She would later join the cast of another of 2002's new shows, MDA, which fared much better.

Alyson Whyte had played Jane Hall's role of Prue Staley before moving over to take on the role of Verity.

Lani Tupu played Verity's ex-husband in the pilot instead of William McInnes. Deidre Rubenstein played the role that would become Anne Phelan's, and Bud Tingwell was the DPP before Frank Gallacher.

Cast

 * Lisa McCune as Ros Marshall
 * Alison Whyte aa Verity Marshall
 * Nick Farnell aa Mikey O'Dea
 * Anne Phelan as Esther Hersch, QC
 * Nathaniel Kiwi as Scott
 * William McInnes aa Dylan Boyd
 * Greg Stone as Judge Don Foster
 * Frank Gallacher as Frank Dellabosca
 * Jane Hall as Prue Stanley
 * Verity McIntyre as Julie Larson
 * Annie Jones as Sandra

Ratings
Whilst the program came off the back of a strong lead in All Saints – it also faced tough competition in its Tuesday 9.30PM slot; Rove Live and another Australian drama, Nine's Stingers. It debuted well in its first week (airing Tuesday and Wednesday) but plummeted dramatically in week 2 and never recovered.

title: Marshall Law (TV series)


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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Brian dobbs

 This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record. The result of the debate was delete. – ABCD 02:20, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Brian dobbs
Non-notable vanity nonsense, delete. Rx StrangeLove 23:45, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * delete. no-brainer.  Avocado 00:18, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete or userfy --Asriel86 00:49, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete, not notable, obvious vanity. Megan1967 01:17, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete, not notable Dsmdgold 01:30, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)

 * This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion, or the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.


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User:Lonsdale123

willy

title: User:Lonsdale123


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Serra de Água

Serra de Água (Portuguese meaning literally mountain range of water) is a civil parish in the municipality of Ribeira Brava on the Portuguese island of Madeira. The population in 2011 was 1,049, in an area of 24.16 km2.

History
Serra de Água's name is derived from the historical construction of a watermill used for sawmilling, that was named serra de água, and later became applied to the entire parish. Wood was the first of livelihood and income for the early settlers to Madeira, and due to the abundance of vegetation in Serra de Água the sawmills, commercial exportation of wood was very profitable.

The parish was created on 28 December 1676 (but never became a functioning ecclesiastical parish until 1680), from a portion of the municipality of Ponta do Sol.

Administratively, it was an annex of Ribeira Brava after 18 October 1881. Later, it functioned as part of Ponta do Sol, after the creation of Ponta do Sol (in 1835), returning to the redefined municipality of Ribeira Brava in 1914, as an autonomous civil parish.

In 1953, the parish was the first site of a central hydroelectric station on the island.

Geography
The parish is situated in the southwest part of the island, encircled by dense vegetation and high mountains, including specifically the Picoda Cruz, Pico do Cedro and Pico Grande. The lands are irrigated by numerous ravines, such as the Ribeira da Fajã das Éguas, Ribeira do Poço and Ribeira da Serra de Água (which are affluentes of the Ribeira da Ribeira Brava, the main waterway in the municipality).

Serra de Água is situated 8 km from the municipal seat of Ribeira Brava, connected by a regional road. It is bordered on the west by Tabua, São Vicente to the northwest and northeast; Ponta Delgada in the northeast; Curral das Freiras and Campanário to the east, while Ribeira Brava is to the south.

Economy
Encircled by tall mountains, the parish is located in a valley and supported by diverse ravines, making agriculture difficult to sustain. Saw-milling was one of the first industries to establish itself, owing to the availability of wood and forest.

Yet, agriculture is the predominant economic activity in the civil parish, a function that has persisted on a subsistence basis since the settlement of Madeira. Around 60% of the population is involved in cultivation, with 80% of these lands taken by small parcels, usually for self-consumption.

Secondary industries are primarily hotelery and civil construction, which occupy a considerable portion of work placements.

title: Serra de Água


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Arsen Kotsoyev

Arsen Kotsoyev (Коцойты Арсен; January 15, 1872 - February 4, 1944) was one of the founders of Ossetic prose, who had a large influence on the formation of the modern Ossetic language and its functional styles. He participated in all of the first Ossetic periodicals, and was one of the most notable Ossetian publicists.

There are streets named after Kotsoyev in Vladikavkaz and Beslan. His writings are mainstays of school courses on Ossetian literature.

Life
Kotsoyev was born to a poor family in the Ossetian countryside (the village of Gizel, close to Vladikavkaz) in Terek Oblast. At the age of nine he was enrolled in the local school. There he found a large collection of books, which enriched his education. After school he studied at the Ardon Orthodox Seminary, but a sudden illness made him leave the seminary. He returned to Gizel and began writing short essays for newspapers of the North Caucasus. He also worked as a teacher at the local school.

In 1902 he took part in the uprising at Gizel, leading to his expulsion from the region. He chose to go to South Ossetia, where he continued to work as a teacher, and wrote short stories and essays.

In 1910 he began publishing a magazine called "Æфсир" (Æfsir, ear [of wheat]) based in Tiflis (today's Tbilisi, Georgia). Only 14 issues were published, but it had an immense impact on Ossetian literature and journalism. Many famous works of Ossetian literature were first published in it.

In 1912 Kotsoyev moved to Saint Petersburg, where he worked in many places, including Vladimir Lenin's famous newspaper Pravda. Despite his rural origins, he knew Russian well enough to proofread Russian newspapers.

After the October Revolution, Kotsoyev's fame grew. He worked for various newspapers and magazines, and in education and related fields. He died in Vladikavkaz and was buried in the yard of the Literature Museum.

Work
Most of Kotsoyev's short stories are tragic, including stories about the severe traditions of the highlanders, such as "blood revenge" (vendetta), irad (bride money), and superstitions. He often wrote about traditional highland natives transplanted to a new, Europe-oriented world, and their fates.

Kotsoyev translated many works into Ossetic, including several stories by Pushkin.

title: Arsen Kotsoyev


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Kvarner Gulf

The Kvarner Gulf (Kvarnerski zaljev), sometimes also Kvarner Bay, is a bay in the northern Adriatic Sea, located between the Istrian peninsula and the northern Croatian Littoral mainland. The bay is a part of Croatia's internal waters.

The largest islands within the Kvarner are Cres, Krk, Pag, Rab and Lošinj. A portion of the Kvarner Bay, located between Cres, Krk, Rab and Pag is also called Kvarnerić (literally "little Kvarner"; Golfo del Quarnerolo or Carnerolo), and the portion east of Krk and Rab is called Senj Channel (after the mainland town of Senj).

The bay is notable for its depth (more than 100 meters), which allows for the city of Rijeka at its northernmost point to have a sea port that can accommodate Capesize ships.

The bay is also home to many beaches and tourist locations because of its beautiful waters and warm climate.

title: Kvarner Gulf


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Chvojenec

Chvojenec is a municipality and village in Pardubice District in the Pardubice Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 700 inhabitants.

Geography
Chvojenec is located about 13 km northeast of Pardubice and 12 km southeast of Hradec Králové. It lies on the border between the East Elbe Table and Orlice Table. The highest point is at 305 m above sea level.

History
The first written mention of Chvojenec is from 1336, when it was a part of Chvojno estate. A small fortress stood here until the 16th century. Chvojenec was known for the production of pitch.

During the 18th century Chvojenec, together with Rokytno and Býšť, was the centre of a persecuted religious sect of Deists called blouznivci.

Transport
The I/35 road from Hradec Králové to Olomouc runs through the municipality.

Sights
Chvojenec is poor in monuments. The only protected cultural monument are terrain remains of the former water fortress, now an archaeological site.

title: Chvojenec


text:
User talk:Wiki4u

Welcome to the Wikipedia
I noticed you were new, and wanted to share some links I thought useful:

 * Tutorial
 * Help desk
 * Foundation issues
 * Policy Library

For more information click  here . You can sign your name by typing 4 tildes, like this: ~.

Sam Spade Apply now, exciting opportunities available at Spade & Archer! 23:49, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thank U very much
I hope i'll enjoy this new world...thank u very much.

A request to u
Due to the continous vandlism of User:Truth aspirant-- the article Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman has become a ‘business-propaganda-feature’ rather an ‘encyclopedic article.’ Just see history of the article [[Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman  and Talk:Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman page--You are requested to take intrest in this serious editorial issue and make things straight in this global phenomena (Wikipedia). Thanx. Wiki4u IIII

General advice
copied to Truth Aspirant

Thanks for your note. I'm not sure if this will help, but here are some general comments on the situation. There seem to be two issues of dispute here, both with a grain of truth.

1) I agree with Wiki4u that the current article has a promotional tone - much of its content repeats descriptions from the Jang Group website. I think it does need work to make it more neutral.

2) I think Truth Aspirant is correct in objecting to the critical material posted by Wiki4u. Personally I have no way to tell if its true or not. But from a Wikipedia viewpoint it's fair to question it purely because it's presented with no evidence.

The usual advice for getting out of this kind of situation is that everyone agrees to stick by Wikipedia guidelines: in this case, show civility, and cite sources. This war of insults will rapidly get both of you blocked - that's not a threat, just an observation (I'm not an admin). Guidelines are very specific about no personal attacks and no legal threats.

I can't help much more: Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman is not well documented in Western media, and this really needs handling by editors with knowledge of Urdu news sources. Tearlach 12:29, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

title: User talk:Wiki4u