Talk:Religion in Albania

70/30 Propaganda

Ploutarchos, why do you keep putting that 70% of Albanians are Muslims? That is completely wrong and unbased. Even the CIA source mentions that that information is just an estimate, because there is no official data on the matter. The truth is that the majority of Albanians in Albania are not affiliated with any religion, since that is how they were all raised during communism. Obviously the real latest official data dates from back in 1967 when we OFFICIALLY were proclaimed the first Atheist country in the world. So yeah, if you need to have official data, we being Atheists is the latest one. (read the second paragraph here: http://www.britannica.com/ebi/article-196152). The is absolutely no official data after that. Calling us Muslims just because you need to include us in a religious group is offensive. - David

Wasn't Cuba also atheist for a long time (I realize it definitely became officially secular in the 90s but I thought it was atheist before that) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.82.227.246 (talk) 03:52, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

All reliable sources say just under 70% of Albania is Muslim. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.132.133.60 (talk) 15:04, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Okay the CIA factbook gives an estimate on the religious affiliation of the Albanians(and states that it is an estimate). So where does this statement come from? "The majority of Albanians today are either Atheists or Agnostics". Isn't some proof required to back it up. The links provided do not give any proof. And 40% is not majority! What information did they use? Who did they survey? That would be like me visiting a Muslim area in Paris and coming up with a theory that all the French are Muslim? Does this make sense? No! If the people surrounding you are atheist, then say that, back up your evidence.

In addition to this what is meant by Albanian. Citizens of Albania? or the national group Albanian? (Honesty 23:22, 1 July 2007 (UTC))

i suggest you all look at the well respected European Values Survey of 2002 available online at http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/ this gives a survey figure that 87% of Albanians considered themselves to be a memember of a religion and of this 87% 66,9% were Muslim, 20.8% Orthodox, 10.1% Catholic. this survey set worship attedandance at 29.4% monthly. note though that most surveys over estimate actual attendance. 217.44.159.173 (talk) 12:37, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

you just cannot start of by saying that the majority are agnostics... many sites and books state that albania, along with bosnia and turkey are moslem countries... i think that this article needs some fixing.. and albanianism?? what is it?? please define.. do you know what agnostics even means??? it means that people do not at all practice religion at all... albania might be a country where religion is less pronounced ... that doesn't mean that it is agnostic.... this article defenitely needs to be fixed by a albania specialist. eg someone who lives there. Canadian (talk) 03:28, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Take it easy, you're not the first to understand you've been lied to about Albania being a Muslim country. Misinformation has been going on for whole decades. Non-Albanians find it difficult to believe at first, and can't get used to the fact that religion was undesired for us, and as soon as we got independent we purged them. Come to terms with it. You as non-Albanians can't go on forever naming and tagging us according to your preconceptions. You can't call me or the guy next to me a Catholic or a Muslim because someone of my and his grand-grandfathers may have been such. Religion is not a genetic trait. Face reality. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.24.249.202 (talk) 10:48, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

I live in Albania, religion in Albania is not important and I tell you that in Albania there's never been an official statistic or study to show thhe percentage of the religions in the country, but I'm sure that the truth is that Islam in Albania is less than 50% and that a lot of people have 2 religions such as me.(I was born half Orthodox and half Muslim but I identify myself as an atheist because I'm indifferent if there exists something.)But for one thing I'm sure and the article is right more than 50% of the people are Atheists or Agnostics, personally I don't know anyone who believes in God and especially the young people. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.24.250.130 (talk) 16:08, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Merger Proposal

The Religion in Albania page needs to be filled out quite a bit, to be sure. Furthermore, as has been mentioned on the Talk:Islam in Albania page, the article is more about religion in general than about Islam. --Rschmertz 04:34, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree, this article should be merged with "religion in Albania" --Noah30 18:46, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

No, Islam in Albania is part of the series of Islam by country. It can't be merged with Religion in Albania. 24.166.181.95 17:30, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Whoops, I reverted before noticing your comment, so please disregard my change summary. Still, you should not delete these proposals so hastily. I recognize your point, but the existence of a series does not override all other concerns, IMHO. --Rschmertz 21:05, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Indeed this article is very weak. I will try soon to work on this article, and use my work on my website TheAlbanians.com

I do not have enough time right now but when i have some fre time I will come back to revise this page.Albanians do not have one official religion. - VasilGjika

Christianity

Article says:

Christianity was imposed in urban centers in the region of Albania during Roman rule by the middle of the 1st century AD.

That's just plain impossible. Christianity was a minority religion in the period c. 50 CE, with no official recognition. There is no way it was "imposed in urban centers" in the middle of the 1st century. About three centuries later (don't know exact figure), the claim would be true though. Going to remove the reference to 1st century. --SJK (talk) 10:31, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Antiquity

Most of churches where albanians live , are build on the Ruins of more older churches or Castles , so they date from 100 A.D.when cristianity spread to Illyrians from Saint Pal . Following the many rage conquerors and bloody wars , some of the Albanian churches and other cultural and defence buildings (called in Albanian-"Kulla") ... were destroyed . Still Albanians arrived to save some of them , and today they are a big cultural value . But, some of these buildings today are used for political manipulation , for example Monastery of Deqan , which the serb entitie pretends to claim , without dignity , and use for political manners, but the truth that everyone knows is that , the Monastery of Decan was build time ago , before the slavic "big raid" in Balkan Peninsula , in the centuries 7 - 8 A.D, Monastery of Deqan was build by Albanians , and still there are proofs of Albanian prezence(paintings in the monastery with men wearing the white albanian hat called plisi), which the Serbs keep in top secret , where rare people can visit it , because of the Serbs pretend that it's a matter of Security , and highly guarded by KFOR troops , which is not neccessary , cause in Kosova the situation is clear and freedom is for all . —Preceding unsigned comment added by ValdrinMaliqi (talk • contribs) 18:40, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Childish

Could you stop this childish situation reverting edits of each other. This is talk page, and everybody has the right to speak.balkanian (talk) 18:10, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

NPOV

I see that some the numbers are not being presented correctly, therefore this article does not present dhe religous reality in Albania. I hope someone can contribute to make this article neutral.

What is this? 70% Atheism? Is that a joke? Islam is the domintating religion in Albania and the man who has wrote this shitt on wikipedia needs to be shott down. Islam in Albania are about making 60-70% of the population. I live in Albania and the man who wrote this must be the dumbest one I have seen. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Albaneren (talk • contribs) 15:19, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

I live in Albania too, and it's not true that 70% of the population is Islamic because Albania has no official statistics on the religious issue and in Albania there are a lot of people that are half christians and half Islamics( me too). And Atheism is not a religion it's about you, do you believe in god or not... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.24.250.130 (talk) 16:01, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

I live in Albania too and i strongly believe that religion in Albania is only culturally inportant (e.g holydays, traditions, etc). I agree with the figure 70% atheists. Religion does not play an important role in Albanian life or at least i never experienced it. When you ask many people if they believe in God or not, very often thay will reply that thay do not trust religious institutions but they are positive about the existence of a supernatural being or force. The rest, including me, will give a plain answer that God does not exist. ```` —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.78.69.234 (talk) 22:13, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

"Propaganda and Misinformation"

This whole section is very POV, there is one citation that is taken out of context. "Perpetuating misinformation"? I'm going to rename the section "misconceptions" and try to make it more NPOV. Thoughts? Αεκος (talk) 20:42, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Unreliable

This article seems extremly unreliable, and i mean the difference between 25% religious and 95% religious. The important thing is the self reported religious affiliation of the albanian people, isn't this data available from a recent official census or some recent polling from a credible institution at least ?

Last official data are those of 90% atheists. Some go further, they take the last official data of 2 centuries ago when 101% of Albanians were religious... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.91.115.229 (talk) 14:44, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Data

79.9% Muyslim is not correct because it is talking only for muslim, and do not have the datas about ather religions. And you can not put and the top that information, but say that there are 4 religions, and mos of albanians do not practice any religions. So, http://www.scribd.com/doc/15738681/Feja-ne-Shqiperi1,

if you see, 10% practice islam, but not 79.9%. --Albopedian (talk) 16:50, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

I moved the statistic further down and wrote a new lead paragraph introducing the major religions in the country and mentioning that many are nonreligious. --Local hero ^talk 16:55, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank you! I think that it's better put the mos neutral statistics, and, in the middle of 10% and 79% to put 38% (of the sources that i linked) and catholics 13% (according to the albanian catholic church). 700.000 are orthodox (see Albanian Orthodox Church, so 22%, and the other are atheists or without religion. It's better than spreading disinformation. Thank you!--Albopedian (talk) 17:04, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

The source of information for Albania for the Pew Research Center study is UNICEF's 2005 MICS3 survey (zipped PDF). One of the tables in that study says that 79.9 % of heads of households are Muslim and the remaining 20.1 % are Orthodox/Catholic/Other. Svick (talk) 17:31, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

I did some more research and the CIA factbook gives "Muslim 70%, Albanian Orthodox 20%, Roman Catholic 10%", with a note that this is only an estimate. Operation World gives: Christian – 1,291,452 adherents (41.48 %); Muslim – 1,207,701 adherents (38.79 %); non-Religious/other – 608,365 adherents (19.54 %) and also says "Over 50% of the population is culturally Muslim, but superstition and folk Islam are strong." Maybe this is where the confusion comes from – cultural vs. actual Muslims. Svick (talk) 17:55, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Religious superstition, and It's not possible that 50% of the population is "culturaly muslim", because they had 45 years of state atheism. http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2009/127295.htm This is for the first "citation needed". If anyone visits Albania, his people and state do not know what is religion. How you see, it's impossible that 100% of population (according to CIA) to be religious. It's not funny. This data cames from pre-WWII time, and after there is the state atheism.

This is for the citation needed about religious harmony: http://www.un.org/ga/64/generaldebate/pdf/AL_en.pdf --Albopedian (talk) 20:46, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

We also can not call Muslim person that never have seen e mosque in their life (like me). Actual muslims, if the 60-75% of population do not practice any religion, maybe 10%-15% practice islam, and other maybe are christians. And in ALbania there are a lot of people that have parents of different religions, but doi not practice anyone, so, of wich group is he part? There are a confusion, confusiong and disinformating people about religion in Albania. So, i think that's better to put the data of Operation World, and ad that Albania is a secular country with a non practising majority. --Albopedian (talk) 20:55, 7 November 2009 (UTC)