Facebook statistics

[Doc.]

I have been noticing that many apparently non-religious people did not state their religious beliefs or non-beliefs in "Religious views" in their profile on facebook, but have filled everything else (except for political views, the majority kept that one empty). So I took a pen and wrote down what did my 120 or so facebook-friends write as their religious views, here are the statistics:

(note: people who had their whole profile empty have not been included.)

66.7% wrote nothing.

16.7% wrote that they were Christians.

8.3% had "atheistic" messages, for example:

screw mafia churches

umm dunno, in case there is, I believe in everything. (atheist speaking here)

Empiricist, religions are based on superstition.

oh come on...

religion is outdated and dangerous

only four people actually have "Atheist"

furthermore, 2.5% were "Agnostic" and one person had "Pagan". While some of those 66.7% are "agnostic(passive) Christians", majority are atheists. So why, in your opinion, is it that they leave R.V.s empty? Are they afraid of stigma, or do they not care at all? Also, It's curious that Atheists dominate on youtube, maybe people are not afraid to state their thoughts there, because none of their friends will see it? If everybody was honest and educated about the terminology Christians would no longer be a suppressing majority, at least in social network. It's just sad that because of their activity, these uneducated and insecure people leave the impression that they have they represent a majority when they do not.

p.s. under uneducated and insecure people I meant fundamentalists, not Christians in general.[/size]

 

[lrkun]

What's your source for this? Anyway, in my facebook I also put that I'm a christian to circumvent zealots. Hehe

 

[Inferno]

I would indeed agree that they are
1) Afraid of stigma, surprisingly even if they live in Europe. (99% of my friends are in Europe)
2) Pissed off with the attitude of 2-3 Atheists, so they don't like the whole thing.

A brilliant example is a friend of mine who writes that she is Christian in her R.V, but then goes on to say that (spelling mistakes included)

Even though i feel like i am losing my faith in Christianity, i still hate the smug attitudes of most atheists. that not believing in God is something only for smart people.

That was 4 years ago and I'm pretty sure that she's an Atheist now, but she won't associate with Atheists because of the above. I've never talked to her about religion and I think she's wrong, most Atheists are quite the opposite. But this is an image we portray because of the actions of two or three idiotic individuals. PY Myer's article NO RELATION sums it up quite nicely.

 

[Daealis]

Out of 239 friends:
69.7% Left religious views empty
10.5% Put down atheist
13.0% Were christians of several denominations
And in the remaining 6.8% were divided between two muslims, four agnostics, six pagans(of which one specified shamanism and one wiccan) and two pastafarians(presumably atheists really, but can't be sure ).

There is propably around three atheists and four to six christians that I was sure of, but had no religious view visible, but I put them down on their appropriate categories for the sake of getting atleast a bit more accurate presentation of the statistics. As an example a good friend of mine had the Church of Optimus Prime in, but I know him to be atheist as well, so I put him there. The atheists counted but not showing their views are all the sort to ridicule religious stupidity openly and not afraid of confrontation, they just chose not to show their views. Overall there was 20 who said it straight that they were atheists and the rest of the 25 were with some message clearly indicating this.

The christians I counted as being such even without their views showing are the sort who you'd find converting people on the street or similar kind of "hardcore"commitment to their religion, so they certainly shouldn't be ashamed or afraid. But then again most of them propably feel religion is a personal matter.

I'm propably the only really loud outspoken atheist in my friend list and whenever some religious news article gets out, my friends are always sharing with me their disgust of said religious zealotry. Maybe that was why my ex and a friend of her who share a very uptight and conservative views of christianity and all the last century mindset it entails, have blocked me from commenting on their pages. I know this had to have occurred propably this year, maybe my current very anti-religious theme of posts has been too much for them. And like your everyday creatard, rather than deal with the issue, they've gone and blocked me. Oh well.


Ps. Another half hour spent by divising useless statistics, that are somehow intriguing to do. There must be something wrong with us.

/edit: I aldo noticed that at least one person I still considered as a friend has removed me from her list since I've become an "militant atheist". One of those kind of friends that at some point I was interacting on a nearly daily basis, but now apparently she has deemed it unfit.

 

[Krazyskooter]

I can tell you mine without having to check through the 500 people on my list. 4 Atheists, 496 christians.

 

[australopithecus]

Out of mine most haven't answered, a few are some type of Christian and there's a couple of Sikhs. 3 are expressly atheist and the rest those that are left are non-committal.

 

[Laurens]

I can tell you mine without having to check through the 500 people on my list. 4 Atheists, 496 christians.

You know 500 people?

 

[RichardMNixon]

My mother was raised to think "atheist" was a bad word, so I don't bother. I list humanist and secularist, which are more important to me than atheism anyway.

 

[Prolescum]

Faecebook mere liek...

 

[nasher168]

46 friends (cleared out loads recently because I don't know them)
16 did not state views and I don't know from face to face conversations
18 say atheist
4 say "?" "I believe in something but I'm not sure what that is" "not sure" or "Jedi"
5 say christian
1 is a buddhist

In five cases, they did not say on facebook, but I already know from face to face conversation.

EDIT:
hmm, I must have missed two people. :|

 

[borrofburi]

Stigma for me, my family would be unhappy; better to let them guess at the truth than to confirm it. Maybe later I'll have the confrontation, but not now.

 

[FaithlessThinker]

Out of 369 friends on my Facebook, only 84 friends explicitly stated their religious affiliation. Here's the break-up of these 84:

I ignored religious views like spiritual, not religious, one god, higher power, all religions lead to one god, etc. Most of my friends did not state any religious views. A few had strange ones like Manchester United and Rock n Roll.

One of the muslims included in the stats above actually put "islam" as their political view, rather than religious. I don't know if I should be worried.

 

[Yfelsung]

Only 2 confirmed Christians out of my 77 friends.

Only 1 that had atheism

Most had unique answers or nothing. Of the unique answers, most were atheistic or generally anti-religious.

I have mine listed as nihilist and my political as misanthrope, but I consider both the be sort of religious and political stances.

 

[MRaverz]

Are you guys actually going through every profile and noting these down or is there an easier way to do it?

 

[FaithlessThinker]

Are you guys actually going through every profile and noting these down or is there an easier way to do it?

Unfortunately, I went through every profile, mindlessly middle-clicking every name in the friends list, clicking the info tab, then closing the page like a robot.

I tried to find an easier way but couldn't. I actually found an app called "Export Friends to CSV" but it didn't work properly and didn't give a choice of exporting the religious views.

If anyone has an easier way, please share with us!

I have mine listed as nihilist and my political as misanthrope, but I consider both the be sort of religious and political stances.

Oh I forgot to mention, my religious view is Pastafarian. All hail the great FSM!

 

[Doc.]

I think I'm going to add Jedi and some more to mine, or maybe not, not sure yet.

and yeah we actually went through every profile, it was fun.

 

[Krazyskooter]

I can tell you mine without having to check through the 500 people on my list. 4 Atheists, 496 christians.

You know 500 people?

I know most of them It's part of owning a business in a small city.