Property talk:P140

Documentation

religion or worldview
religion of a person, organization or religious building, or associated with this subject

Description

Religion of a person or organization

Represents

religion (Q9174), religious identity (Q4392985), religious movement (Q1826286), doxastic attitude (Q5303685), religion or world view (Q71966963)

Data type

Item

Template parameter

en:Template:Infobox person, en:Template:Infobox religious biography, "Religion"

Domain

human (Q5), fictional entity (Q14897293), organization (Q43229), artificial geographic entity (Q27096235), group of humans (Q16334295), position (Q4164871), religious behaviour (Q2110808), rite (Q628455), aspect of history (Q17524420), work of art (Q838948), human whose existence is disputed (Q21070568), religious and cultural festive day (Q375011), scandal (Q192909), mythical entity (Q24334685), religious symbol (Q60469796), iconography (Q208145), prayer (Q40953), religious concept (Q23847174), artificial physical object (Q8205328), sacred architecture (Q47848), religious occupation (Q63187345), religious belief (Q2728698), deity (Q178885), ceremony (Q2627975), religious adherent (Q3071477), rite of passage (Q1131696), ritual (Q189819), literary genre (Q223393), religious object (Q12910132), inscription (Q1640824), confessional aspect (Q130261297), religious laws (Q76994618), ethnic group by residency (Q108788952) or religious philosophy (Q2054106)

Allowed values

Usage notes

use the most relevant/specific religious group or denomination

Example

Narendra Modi (Q1058) → Hinduism (Q9089)
Woodland Presbytarian Church (Q91162614) → Presbyterianism (Q178169)
Laozi (Q9333) → Taoism (Q9598)

Tracking: same

no label (Q42533271)

Tracking: usage

Category:Pages using Wikidata property P140 (Q22913724)

Archived creation discussion

Religion

Added --Napoleon.tan (talk) 15:31 February 17, 2013 (UTC)

Only if the person's religion is public information and important in his or her career. --Eric-92 (talk) 18:41, 18 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia only requires that it be supported by reliable sources. It doesn't add the 2nd criterion of it being "important in his or her career." As Wikidata is intended to supply data to Wikipedia, I don't see how we can have more restrictive criteria than they do? Shawn in Montreal (talk) 19:21, 23 February 2013 (UTC) [reply]

My mistake. I see that the guideline for usage of en:Template:Infobox person does say "If relevant," so what Eric has suggested could be seen as a more detailed restatement. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 20:07, 23 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! "career" was not the most proper word - I thought of saints and bishops, for instance. --Eric-92 (talk) 04:20, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support /Ch1902 (talk) 16:01, 17 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support Danrok (talk) 20:08, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Done here P140. Danrok (talk) 23:25, 23 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Please note that I have edited your suggested label a little, as explained at Property talk:P140. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 00:24, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Other domains than persons

Sorry, but I think adding "for monarchs, heads of state, etc" is too restrictive, giving a false impression that this is to be used for political figures, despite the "etc." Better to simply leave it at "relevant." Shawn in Montreal (talk) 00:07, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. Geagea (talk) 00:31, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, should be used for anyone, so long as the information is reliably sourced (esp. for living people as per always). Danrok (talk) 00:48, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well, sourced and relevant. I had at first objected to that 2nd criterion, but then saw that it was already in the guidelines for the EngWiki person infobox. I daresay that will be where arguments may occur. When is it "relevant"? But a label needs to be short and so cannot serve as an exhaustive list of "relevant" positions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 01:09, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think relevancy is dependent on the final application. What may be considered irrelevant on WP, may be highly relevant to other parties who use the data via the API. As far as WP goes, anything considered irrelevant can just be ignored by scripts or whatever. But, these things will be worked out in the end. Danrok (talk) 01:46, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. Infoboxes on Wikipedia do not limit us, either forcing us to have certain properties, or limiting us to having certain properties. I would support using this property whenever it is applicable (sourced, I mean), not limited to theologians and such. Espeso (talk) 04:36, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Okay with me. This is basically the criteria for inclusion in a People by foo religion wikipedia category. But then I wonder if we should then change the label? If I understand the consensus correctly, then should the label more accurately say something like religion of a person (use when there are reliable sources)? Shawn in Montreal (talk) 05:04, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. I hate to add wording like that when I know it's not going to be followed until globally mandated by policy (for example), and technically we can't even add the source yet... but "agreed in principle". To me, at this time it is sufficient to say "Wikipedia has it sourced", which puts me in a minority I expect. Fellow country-person to you, BTW, assuming your handle is a statement of fact. :-) I think we're pretty rare here. Espeso (talk) 05:20, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This property, like many others, will be one day massively filled by bot imports from Wikipedias (or shall remain used only on a few dozen items...). I am not sure to understand what "relevant" means there, good luck when you'll have to explain it to a bot :-). Sincerely, I think any restriction is illusory : either you don't create the property at all, or you should be ready to see it used very broadly. Touriste (talk) 10:01, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"good luck when you'll have to explain it to a bot": but the bot owner must be careful to defined guidelines...

Are there many infoboxes with religion on the English WP ? In the French one, I don't think so (except bishops or similar). --Eric-92 (talk) 04:03, 25 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

One question - what type of items should we be using here? Q106039 (Christian), or Q5043 (Christianity)? Andrew Gray (talk) 13:36, 26 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think it should be Q5043. Danrok (talk) 14:31, 26 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Atheism (Q7066)

Applicable pour l'athéisme ? / Applicable for atheism?

Français : si c'est applicable à l'athéisme, il faudrait le préciser dans la description.
English: if it is applicable for atheism, it should be explained in the description.
--Gloumouth1 (talk) 10:35, 26 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think atheism is a religion. Danrok (talk) 14:28, 26 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Do you think that we should use 2 different properties to code that someone is catholic or atheistic? I do not think so, and as a consequence, we should rename the property; something like religion or irreligion --Gloumouth1 (talk) 15:21, 26 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The label on the corresponding infobox is "religion", so for that reason I'd suggest that only religions should be included for now. Danrok (talk) 15:47, 26 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You mean the corresponding infobox on w:en, right? So, if a decision was taken on w:en, the same decision is taken automatically on wikidata? --Gloumouth1 (talk) 08:19, 27 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It's not a decision, just a simple pairing of data between here and the infoboxes. It's also labeled "religion" on Modèle:Infobox Politicien. Danrok (talk) 13:13, 27 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This is shown as an objective on this page: Phase 2 "to map and harmonize Wikidata properties to common infobox parameters." Danrok (talk) 13:17, 27 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

At least in Uk and Pl wikipedias similar property is used for atheism too. Because in most cases such property is same as "religion", other wikipedias just had to handle (ignore) value "Atheism" in their infoboxes --AS (talk) 08:05, 28 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Being myself an atheist, I would be shocked to see this opinion classified as a "religion". But my opinion is of little importance (though I don't think it is so far from the usual classifications - I have more than once browsed through general surveys of world religions omitting atheism, marxism, vegeterianism and other unrelated ways of life). The real answer is to be found in external documents : if you have a document asserting that X's religion is "atheism" (or gaullism, or schizophrenia or anything) you can use this item as a value of P140, as odd as it sounds. If you don't you should not. Touriste (talk) 08:23, 28 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Of course Wikipedia should not be a source for Wikidata : if an undeducated monkey working on Wikipedia made a random choice when filling an infobox, the opinion of this uneducated monkey should not be used as a basis for filling a distinct data bank. Touriste (talk) 08:25, 28 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Life stance? --AS (talk) 09:28, 28 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Not bad, it would be ok for me. But actually, the debate is not only about the property's name. Should we have in wikidata:

a specific property (for relegions only, this is the choice made on several wikipedia projects, and it seems to be the reason why some contributors think it is the best choice) and will force us to have one day another property for "irreligion".
a generic property (that could include more than religions, this is my position, and if this option would be chosen, yes, we could name the property life stance for example)

This is not a philosophical point of view, this is only a pragmatic point of view: if there is a strong dependency between 2 properties, there should be only one property, otherwise you introduce a way to code some inconsistencies. Let’s suppose we have another property about "irreligion". You allow to code <John Doe> religion <Catholic> AND <John Doe> irreligion <Atheist> which is not consistent. To have a generic property is a simple way to avoid it.

--Gloumouth1 (talk) 09:55, 28 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

But your example is not inconsistent : in some civilizations, a bit different from our good old individualist Western one, is catholic anybody who was bord a Catholic or even who was born from catholic parents. So you can be an atheist catholic, or an atheist muslim. Thinking religion as a personal experience is in some extent the result of a western cultural bias. Anyway, inconsistencies are not avoidable : a single source is sometimes inconsistent, the collection of all sources is very often inconsistent. Touriste (talk) 12:59, 28 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I get your point:

Some of us (you) give two meanings to this property:
1. religion you were given when you were born, in the cultural sense.
2. religion in which you believe, that you practice, ...
Others (me), gave only the second meaning to the property.

But ok, let's assume the property have the 2 meanings, so in this case, you're right, no inconsistency, and my argument is not valid anymore. I try something else to show that we should accept atheist as object to this property. When we have the qualifiers, we should be able to code something like John Doe was born Christian, in 1970, he lost his faith and became atheistic, and finally in 1980 he became Muslim.

"Heterogeneous" coding:
- <John Doe> religion <Christian> qualifier [date < 1970];
- <John Doe> irreligion <atheist> qualifier [1970 < date < 1980];
- <John Doe> religion <Muslim> qualifier [1980 < date];
"Homogeneous" coding:
- <John Doe> religion or irreligion <Christian> qualifier [date < 1970];
- <John Doe> religion or irreligion <atheist> qualifier [1970 < date < 1980];
- <John Doe> religion or irreligion <Muslim> qualifier [1980 < date]

The second one looks more natural to me. And it will be easier to process in order to present data. Same kind of argument if we want to display a table with all Nobel Prizes and their religion (or "irreligion") for example.

--Gloumouth1 (talk) 15:19, 28 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

For the sake of simplicity, there should be one property for religion faith and/or any philosophical stance towards religion in a broad sense. Atheism isn't a religion, but it should be mentioned as a lack of religion in the same way as a person with no nationality for whatever reason should have his/her nationality listed as "none". Same with agnosticism, ignosticism and so on. Seems more natural than having two separate entries: "existence or not of a religious belief" and "name of said religious belief". Sabbut (talk) 17:21, 2 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The sake of simplicity should never prevail over the sake of accuracy. If X has no religion, you can of course insert "none" as the value of Religion (what is the item for "none" by the way ?). But having no religion is not the same as being an atheist, which is a philosophical stance (and not obviously a "philosophical stance towards religion"). Touriste (talk) 17:57, 2 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

We distinguish religion from other views because it shows person's opinion on most fundamental (metaphysical) questions and this opinion decides many aspects of person's life. So this property ("theological position"?) should indicate metaphysical/theological views of person (some religion, atheism, agnosticism etc.) PS. is ietsism a religion? --AS (talk) 19:57, 2 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Atheists

Why can't we use the special "novalue" for atheists? --Wylve (talk) 06:36, 26 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's a great idea. Infovarius (talk) 10:14, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Weak support for using novalue for atheists. Might make more sense to have a property "world view (Weltbild)" that could take values like "atheism", "theism" (only then set religion), but also more exotic things like "belief in social Darwinism", "apocalypticism (Q618859)". Setting "religion = atheist" should be deprecated because that is a notion that atheists strongly reject. --Tobias1984 (talk) 18:02, 13 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Wylve, Infovarius: We have 534 statements that link to atheism (http://tools.wmflabs.org/wikidata-todo/autolist2.php?language=en&project=wikipedia&category=&depth=12&wdq=claim[140%3A7066]&mode=undefined&statementlist=&run=Run&label_contains=&label_contains_not=&chunk_size=10000). I am in favour of deleting these statements and setting either nothing or novalue. @Emw: What do you think about this? --Tobias1984 (talk) 13:33, 14 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm in favor of removing religion:atheist statements and replacing it with novalue. —Wylve (talk) 15:20, 14 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Nothing (i.e. no statement) is bad - it is unknowledge. About "novalue": how many items have this "value" now? And how to count them? --Infovarius (talk) 15:21, 14 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I don't like the idea of setting a novalue... though I understand we want to have something specified whenever possible, it just seems messy in this instance. How can you really say someone's religion is "null"? While some people might argue that atheism is the "absence of religion", according to the Wikipedia article, that's not always true: People who self-identify as atheists are often assumed to be irreligious, but some sects within major religions reject the existence of a personal, creator deity. So, I'd object to your belief that "[all] atheists strong reject" the characterization that their religion is atheism. I think atheism is in a similar situation to Confucianism -- some people consider it a religion, some don't, and it's technically more of a world view. Can we just add world view as an alias here? Cbrown1023 talk 02:20, 15 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The classification of "atheism" has interesting ontological facets. Defining atheism as "absence of belief in a deity" seems like a reasonable starting point. So atheism is the lack of something. In this regard the ontology of atheism is similar to a classic problem in philosophy: the ontology of holes. There are other worthy subjects of discussion here, like whether atheism entails irreligion, but the classification of things defined by their absence is a more general (and perhaps more productive) thing to consider here. Emw (talk) 15:23, 18 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Strong oppose novalue, because the definition of atheism as being a lack of religion is just one of its definitions, not the only one (as well explained on Wikipédia:Atheism). The only interesting question is whether the source say someone has no religion (religion = novalue) or is atheist (religion = atheism). Let the description of atheism (Q7066) handle all the (complicated) debate about its religious nature. — nojhan (✐) 13:48, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Instead of having the property (only) regard religions it could (also) incorporate "religious attitude". — Finn Årup Nielsen (fnielsen) (talk) 22:08, 25 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Again

I don't think that atheism (Q7066) should be used in this property. For now, there is about 2 000 items doing so. I think that we must deleted these entries and put a none-of constraint (Q52558054) for Q7066 on this property. Simon Villeneuve (talk) 18:55, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Extension of the "atheism" problem : how do we source ?

This discussion is pleasant, but does not dig the real problem : how can we source a "religion" item ? Do we require a source that uses the word "religion" ? It probably sometimes exists though seldom - trying to find an example through a random search, I stumbled on this source (in French) which asserts that the publisher Michel Lévy considered himself as "Français de religion israélite". Of course we don't go far if we ask for so much. So we do admit the already more tricky sourcing by syllogism : "Catholicism is a religion" (can probably be considered as obvious but can be easily sourced), "X is a catholic" (very often written in such a non ambiguous form in sources), so we can conclude that "X's religion is catholicism". It seems easy, BUT... There are tricks in the first part of the syllogism. We are discussing above whether "Atheism is a religion" - it is obviously easy to find a source answering "yes" and a source answering "no". So ? Does the "yes" win and allow to use "Atheism" as religion for anybody who is known as an atheist ? Beware ! The problem does not arise only with "atheism". "Judaism" is a religion, and can also simply allude to belonging to the Jewish community : there are atheist Jews, in this meaning. Can we use the syllogism if a source asserts "Y is a Jew" (say "Dominique Strauss-Kahn" is a Jew, for an instance who cause a debate on Talk pages of fr Wikipedia) and use the item "Judaism" in Y's Religion property. And what about Juche ? What about Scientology ? Can we, should we use Juche and Scientology as a value of the "Religion" property ? Beware of all the traps behind this property ! Touriste (talk) 17:57, 2 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think it is more general statements problem (eg. if X has a wife, is he a heterosexual?) which should be discused in some other place. --AS (talk) 19:17, 2 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'd imagine that this data may be imported from another source, at some point. Danrok (talk) 20:05, 2 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Rename?

While en:Category:Religions is redirected to en:Category:Religious faiths, traditions, and movements I think we can also rename this property to a similar name, after that may atheistic also can be used as a value for it, though I am not sure about it... –ebraminio^talk 10:18, 6 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Catholic

Which item should we use for people who are catholic? Catholicism (Q1841) or Catholic Church (Q9592)? — Ayack (talk) 10:41, 5 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Constraint requires instance/subclass of religion (Q9174), thus Catholicism (Q1841) is ok because it contains Christianity (Q5043). Michiel1972 (talk) 21:08, 5 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Mi bisabuelo era Católico sale referenciado varias veces en el texto. No sé por qué alguien lo ha modificado al Islam Pplans (talk) 13:38, 28 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Use for churches as well?

Should this property also be used for buildings like churches if they are used by members of a certain religion? Random example: Annunciation Church New York (Q4769767) --Bthfan (talk) 20:57, 5 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I like to know this as well, I think we can use it for that purpose. Maybe description of property can be changed to include churches : property for persons, organisations and religious buildings. Michiel1972 (talk) 20:58, 23 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I second that. Any other comment on that? — Fabimaru (talk) 18:32, 7 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This is OK. Thierry Caro (talk) 13:27, 8 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

2014 review

The current type statistics show that we are throwing to many things into this property. How about this:

Create property "world view / conception of the world" (Weltbild) including Menschenbild (conception of humans):

If any of the above fit with being religious religion or worldview (P140) should be set additionally to define the religion. Some previous discussion also hint that church membership might be notable. Other question might be, how to deal with denominations (Konfessionen). Statements like Flying Spaghetti Monster (Q12044) should rather use part of (P361) = Pastafarianism (Q14397660) rather than religion or worldview (P140). Maybe confine the usage to only humans? -Tobias1984 (talk) 16:00, 14 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

People are still adding wrong statements to "atheist" (which is not a system of belief, but something you identify yourself (note that there are 2 item with that label)) and "atheism". 548 links to these 3 items: http://tools.wmflabs.org/autolist/autolist1.html?q=CLAIM[31%3A14827288]%20AND%20CLAIM[31%3A593744] --Tobias1984 (talk) 12:57, 9 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Yair rand: A comment would be for this issue would be appreciated. --Tobias1984 (talk) 21:59, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Value for "Catholic"

See Wikidata:Project_chat#Catholic_bishop_.28Q611644.29. --- Jura 11:41, 26 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

No, churches cannot be value of that property according to its constraint which limits the value to items labeled as instance of: religion. Catholic church is not a religion but an organization. Snipre (talk) 08:45, 9 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

If the constraint is incorrect or ill-defined, we can fix it. Just wondering, is the religion of Catholics Christianity or Buddhism? --- Jura 08:49, 9 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Done --- Jura 07:01, 18 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Catholicism (Q1841) or Catholic Church (Q9592)

Hello. I would like to change everything from Catholic Church (Q9592) to Catholicism (Q1841), Catholic Church (Q9592) being an organisation, not a religion (Q9174). Would that be a problem? Thierry Caro (talk) 00:17, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The changes in question seem to be used as the value for religion or worldview (P140) in entries about people. I think it is more important to use the most specific value for this property that the references support, and the grammatical form of the entity title (Roman Catholic church vs Roman Catholicism) is less important. Catholicism (Q1841) bears the description "broad term for beliefs associated with several Christian churches". One or more churches that have recently split off from the Roman Catholic church because they want to keep the Latin mass would also fall under Catholicism. Probably having two entities that seem to be grammatical variants (one referring to the belief and worship system, the other referring to the institution) but are actually different because, according to Wikidata descriptions, followers of Catholicism are a proper subset of members of the Catholic Church. Maybe our descriptions need revision. But if we change the description, we would need to create new entities for those who call themselves Catholics but are members of churches that do not acknowledge the supremacy of the Pope. Then, if any people to which the new entities apply are in WikiData, we would have to change their entries. Finding them would be a difficult task. Jc3s5h (talk) 03:03, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

My point of view is that if the property is named 'religion', it should deal with faith, not institutions. But then we can change the name of the property to allow the use of Catholic Church (Q9592) as a value. It could be renamed to 'Church'. But then Catholicism (Q1841) would become a strange value. So maybe we could use 'religion or Church' as the name of the property. But then everything is less specific and different things get mixed. Whatever we decide, something must be changed. Thierry Caro (talk) 04:48, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I believe the value here should be as specific as possible (similar to located in the administrative territorial entity (P131) approach). Not only generic Judaism (Q9268) or Christianity (Q5043), but Arianism (Q83922) or Pentecostalism (Q483978) (if this information is available). If any local wiki community prefer to see only values on religion (Q9174) level (not specific religious denomination (Q13414953)), it can be achieved via lua API if correct hierarchy is presented here. Once we agree on semantics, we can come up with proper naming.

But I do agree that showing Catholicism (Q1841) or Catholic Church (Q9592) for people who lived before East-West Schism (Q51648) has no point --Ghuron (talk) 05:28, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

What would Ghuron use for those who lived between the w:Council of Chalcedon (451) and the East-West Schism (Q51648), since some Christians did not accept the decisions of the Council of Chalcedon? Jc3s5h (talk) 14:30, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If we know for sure they belongs to Armenian Apostolic Church (Q683724), Church of Caucasian Albania (Q2415313) or any other "local" churches we can specify them. If we are unsure, we can always specify Christianity (Q5043). Does this answer you question or did I get it wrong? --Ghuron (talk) 15:11, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If we know for sure they belonged to a part of Christianity (Q5043) that accepted the Council of Chalcedon, we should have an entity we can specify that covers only that part of Christianity. But I don't know what the name or number is for that entity, if it exists. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:48, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think the current name of the property does not imply that we should use the most specific information. When I see 'religion' I have the feeling that they just wait for the broad religion, not specific subgroups. So maybe should we change this name to 'religious faith' or something? Thierry Caro (talk) 22:55, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Notified participants of WikiProject Religions

It would be better to use the most specific element, because it will inherit from the generic one, which is easy to find. The converse reasoning would be impossible. In the case there is several specific religions attached, just list them. — nojhan (✐) 13:36, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. We should not confuse religion and their associated institutions. The Church is an organisation, and its actual members are the clergymen. author TomT0m / talk page 13:53, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It is important to note that the term "Catholicism" is broader than just the Roman Catholic Church. There are some splinter churches of the Roman Catholic Church which are closer in belief and practice to the Roman Catholic Church than to Protestantism or Orthodoxy, which is why these (far smaller) churches often get stuck under the label "Catholicism" as well – for example, Old Catholics (Q5169816), Polish National Catholic Church (Q32731), etc. However, it is wrong to say this is purely an "organizational" difference, because in religion differences of organisation are inevitably associated with differences in belief – e.g. the Roman Catholic Church insists on the dogma of papal infallibility but the Old Catholic Church rejects it. This is why I disagree with this proposal, because "Roman Catholic Church" is the more specific term. Much of this discussion seems to presume a distinction between religions as belief systems and religions as organisations, but that distinction doesn't really work, because differences of organisations in most cases involve differences of belief. To be a member of religious denomination X instead of religious denomination Y normally involves believing different things. That isn't universally true; there are probably some Protestant denominations with near identical beliefs which are distinct for purely historical reasons–that is likely true of African Methodist Episcopal Church (Q384121) vs African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (Q384125), for example – but, even with Protestants, the Lutheran and Presbyterian churches take quite contrary stances on important questions of doctrine, and even within say Lutheranism, there are significant doctrinal differences between Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (Q730726) and Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod (Q693844) and Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (Q1379931). Also, with respect to the question about what to call the main body of Christianity between the Council of Chalcedon and the East-West Schism, the answer is Chalcedonian Christianity (Q2711500). SJK (talk) 09:57, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

opposite of (P461)

Is there P for scientist (Q901) (has nothing to do with religion)? --Fractaler (talk) 08:42, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Being a scientist and being a religious believer are not mutually exclusive. Many scientists believe in some religion or another. SJK (talk) 10:28, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Events?

Is this property intended to use for events like Pentecost (Q39864). If not, which property should I use? Thanks! Paucabot (talk) 08:34, 26 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I can't see why not. I think this property should be used for anything which is in some sense particular to some religion or denomination – events, doctrines, scriptures, institutions, offices, buildings, etc, etc, etc. SJK (talk) 10:30, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Using most specific information and proposed label change

I'd like to propose that we change the label on this property from "religion" to "religious affiliation", and that it be filled by the most specific information available, for example Satmar (Q3490215).--Pharos (talk) 20:08, 26 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. "Religion" suggests to many people it should be a broad descriptor (such as Judaism or Christianity) as opposed to a more specific one. "Religious affiliation" means any religious group or belief an individual affiliates with, whether it be a major world religion (some people identify as just "Jewish" or just "Christian" without choosing a more specific denominational identity) or some small and very specific sect within such a religion. So that proposed term is better. SJK (talk) 10:19, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I agree too. Either "religion affiliation", "believes in" or "have religion" would be better. — nojhan (✐) 11:41, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like a whole lot of fussing, or modernisation of a sort of political correctness, or spin, put them as aliases if you want them.

If you look at English-language public records in history, the column will simply say "Religion" be it shipping records, birth/death/marriage records, section of cemetery buried, never seen a public record that says "Christianity" though have seen "Jew", and we record what the source says. In many countries/communities there were no public options, you were of a religion as the law said, no matter your (suspected) beliefs.

Affiliation? OMG! What does that mean? The people in history were "affiliated" with a religion? They were "of" their religion, have we got source material to say that people were affiliated?. "Believes in" we/you don't necessarily know what they believe, we deal with facts as recorded sources, and what they believe would be God, the wholy Trinity, etc. and believe that the religion that they followed best represented their belief set. The guidance here is specific about strong attribution and pertinence, we have clergy where we expect to reflect the record of their religion. Keep it simple, record facts, don't try to put your interpretations into this. — billinghurst sDrewth 01:32, 19 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I don't understand what you mean at all about a political implication. The proposal is just to clarify that we should use the more specific value, for example Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod (Q693844) rather than Christianity (Q5043).--Pharos (talk) 02:31, 19 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

So, is this going to be renamed into something more specific than a "religion"? Currently there already are many uses of it where value is a specific organization which practises a religion like Christianity or a branch of it instead of the religion itself. If it isn't going to be renamed, then these values should be corrected. 90.191.81.65 08:10, 21 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

"religious attitude" should be a separate property

See Wikidata:Project_chat/Archive/2017/07#Use_of_Q7066_as_a_religion.

I don't see reason to mix P140 and other property for this. d1g (talk) 14:41, 31 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There is no summary in that discussion. But the main point is about "atheism" (some even mention nonsensical "religious atheists"). --Infovarius (talk) 20:14, 1 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I summarized several points relevant to this at Wikidata:Project_chat/Archive/2018/08#List_of_atheists. --Yair rand (talk) 16:32, 28 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Warnings about "instance of" constraint

There are constraint violations for most items with this property, including the example given. This property requires the value to be instance of (P31) religion (Q9174). But on the page Wikidata:WikiProject Religions/Ontology, there is a statement requiring that every religion (Q9174) should be subclass of (P279) religion (Q9174). These conflicting requirements should be reviewed.--Midleading (talk) 15:53, 20 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Deities

Maybe we should be allowed to use this property for gods and goddesses, that now have a constraint. Example: Q639313#P140. What do you think about it? Paucabot (talk) 03:48, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

But we have worshipped by (P1049) instead. I believe that a god has no belief in any gods :) --Infovarius (talk) 15:27, 3 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Infovarius: Yes, you're right. I've changed it, but it still complains ... Paucabot (talk) 18:46, 4 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Where? --Infovarius (talk) 19:05, 5 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Infovarius: Q639313#P1049. Paucabot (talk) 04:56, 8 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Paucabot: oh! Hinduism (Q9089) was the wrong value! I've corrected it by adding subclasses too. --Infovarius (talk) 14:39, 22 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Einzelnachweise ist nur hier erforderlich

Diese Vorschrift nur für die Religionszugehörigkeit ist ein Witz. Alles mögliche wird hier reingeschrieben, ohne das irgendwas nachewiesen wird. Aber für Menschen, die laut ihren Artikeln Bischöfe oder Kardinäle sind, soll die Religion nachgewiesen werden.

Und dann kann man nicht einmal ein Buch - ja das aus Papier eintragen, weil Wikidata das zuerst gefressen haben muss.

Gesine Schwarz: de:Aschwin von Salder. In: Horst-Rüdiger Jarck, Dieter Lent u. a. (Hrsg.): Braunschweigisches Biographisches Lexikon – 8. bis 18. Jahrhundert. Appelhans Verlag, Braunschweig 2006, ISBN 3-937664-46-7, S. 54–55. (appelhans-verlag.de).

--Eingangskontrolle (talk) 21:04, 21 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Work of art

I added work of art (Q838948) to the list of possible types. We have quite a bit of religious art (11061 paintings and counting) for which it's nice to be able to connected it to a religion. Multichill (talk) 13:06, 25 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This would really be the wrong property for that. How about "genre (P136): Christian art (Q645717)", etc? --Yair rand (talk) 15:57, 25 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Why would this be the wrong property? We use it for buildings too. Most religions have a lot of different denominations. This property can be used to capture that (probably already done for other domains). For art genre it means we would end up with tons of sub-classes. Multichill (talk) 11:53, 27 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Although it is technically possible to use the “genre” property for grouping religious artworks, that would mean we would need to create items for many subsections of many religions - creating a highly fragmented tree of single-purpose “art of <religious denomination>” items. We already have (or at least should have) a list of religions/denominations as items and we already apply this “religion” property to inanimate things (e.g. to indicate the denomination associated with a particular religious building). Given this, isn’t it easier and neater to have a high-level genre + specific religion (and sometimes + artistic movement)? For example: “genre = religious art, religion = Catholicism, art movement = counter-reformation” (instead of “genre = catholic art”) or “genre = religious art, religion = Sunni Islam” (instead of “genre = Sunni Islam art”). Wittylama (talk) 12:16, 27 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It is very problematic to have a property that is basically "generic relation to an entity which is an instance of X", as it makes the data very unstructured. The relationship between a person and their religion is very different that the relationship between a painting and its associated religious artistic genre. --Yair rand (talk) 02:16, 31 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

if that is so, what is the difference with us placing a “religion” Property on buildings - if a specific construction of bricks and stone and coloured glass can be understood in data terms to be connected to a specific religious denomination, why can’t a particular painting, fresco, or stained glass window too? Wittylama (talk) 19:14, 31 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Wittylama: I've been thinking about this, and I think there's a lot of ambiguity about how a building might have a religion.

A building might be associated with an institution that associates itself with a religion. In this case, we probably want to clarify the use of the item. The relationship between an organization and its declared religious affiliation seems a lot closer to official religion (P3075) than the relation between a person and their religion, so we might want to modify the scope of these somewhat.
A building might be a place used specifically by members of one religion, for religious purposes or otherwise. (Schools/clubs/services specifically for members of a religion, etc.) Not completely sure how to store that. intended public (P2360) has been suggested for things like that, but it's not completely clear. (Related discussion, maybe.)
A religion itself might associate with one particular building, ascribing specific significance to the building. Again, not very similar to a person's connection to their religion.

Note that this property currently also allows organizations, which has a similar issue. Perhaps this should be reconsidered. --Yair rand (talk) 05:23, 19 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with Multichill. Perhaps secular art may be far indeed, but what about religious writings created within a specific denomination or religious organization? Right now there are quite awkward links, like Q459864 (Pearl of Great Price) is declared as an instance of Q6912675 (Mormon literature), which is incorrectly, so the database says, declared as P140:Q747802 (Mormonism)). Or, Q3624385 (Lambeth Articles) was created inside the early Q82708 (Church of England) and concerns the calvinist (Q101849) doctrine. Both are appropriate for religion field, why not, but the database says they aren't. Retired electrician (talk) 00:06, 3 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Demanding a reference for an obvious truism

Scientology belief (Q62058028) has religion Scientology (Q131036). It demands a reference for this fact. That is just silly – it is an obviously tautological statement, no external evidence should be required to justify it. Is there some way I can add a dummy reference to shut it up? Mr248 (talk) 01:26, 6 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Add "world view" to label

At Wikidata:Properties for_deletion#religion or world view (P8929) there seems to be a consensus to delete that property (and merge it with this one), but that requires this property (P140) to allow for values such as humanism (Q46158), atheism (Q7066), and anthroposophy (Q184719). Are there any objections? The constraint on value types may need to be expanded a bit, and the label and/or aliases here adjusted slightly. There doesn't seem to be another property to describe a person's non-religious world view currently. ArthurPSmith (talk) 17:19, 23 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

world view (Q49447) added to the value-type constraint (Q21510865)

Done

"or world view" added to English label

Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 05:19, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

How will this differ from "movement", which we used for non-religious world-views and philosophies? --RAN (talk) 06:55, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

ArthurPSmith, I read the deletion discussion for P8929 and I don't see how you come to conclusion that there's consensus to add "world view" here. Several users supported deletion specifically because "religion" and "world view" in label do not go together. E.g. it was compared to "color of eyes or height" property, or it was noted that "I can't see the point of replacing multiple specific non-overlapping concepts with a single conflating one, other than deliberately muddying the waters". Such concern was not even further addressed, let alone no attempt was made to reach some sort of consensus over it. I agree that current label oddly suggest that all sets of convictions are comparable to each, or as atheism was brought as an example value for this property, it may even support the common fallacy circling in some churches in particular that is to say atheism is yet another religion (see also multiple topics on that issue above). I think separate "world view" property, eventhough world view's a fuzzy category, would be sort of tolerable compared to current situation. I don't see why it was necessary to mix it with religion in the first place. Even without this move existing uses of religion property were confusing and incomparable as the property is also used for denominations and alike that not separate relgions really (again, see topic above). 2001:7D0:81DA:F780:68A9:B030:795:2B23 12:45, 16 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Nevertheless others came to the same conclusion as I did (I'm not the one who actually made the change here, and my above comment has been posted here for almost half a year now). Feel free to open another discussion - Project Chat would probably be a good place to start, or an RFC, if you really think it's important. ArthurPSmith (talk) 18:46, 16 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Religious denomination

Need a Property for religious denomination (Q13414953).Maqivi (talk) 18:05, 14 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Requiring this property to be "Catholicism" for Property:P3501 to contain something - needs to be corrected

While looking at Q912932, I was surprised by the fact this property (P140) has to be set to Q1841 for Property:P3501 to contain something. This is obviously wrong and should be corrected to allow any Christian denomination in P140 to have a parameter of P3501. I am not sure how such requests are fulfilled on Wikidata, so I ping @MSGJ, Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ), ChristianKl:. Veverve (talk) 13:50, 21 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You may change this here: Property:P3501#P2302 — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:15, 21 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@MSGJ: I have removed the "Catholic" part of the constraint. Did I do it properly?

Now that I see how those things are built, I think it is almost impossible to make a clear constraint of all Christian denominations that have existed for the past 2000 years. Veverve (talk) 20:44, 21 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Okay! You could leave "property" defined with P140, which says that all items should have that statement, without specifying the actual value of that property. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:59, 21 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Citation needed only for people

Hi ! I think it would make more sense to limit the citation needed constraint to only human (Q5) and have all artificial physical object (Q8205328) (such as liturgical object (Q21818579) or work of art (Q838948)) and all structure of worship (Q1370598) be ok without references. Léna (talk) 07:23, 3 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Why? Nikkimaria (talk) 01:02, 4 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Because it is often "obvious", like if items that are of nature church (Q16970) do not need a reference for its religion, why would the specific altar (Q101687) of the church (Q16970) (such as Q90810591) would need one ? It is the same for artworks, like obviously Q112872322 has Mithraic mysteries (Q219903) as it religion since it is a depiction of a religious myth. Léna (talk) 14:04, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Léna, just not sure if it's possible? Multichill (talk) 19:00, 7 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I deprecated the constraint to get rid of the thousands of incorrect constraint violations. Multichill (talk) 19:00, 6 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Commons show two religions (?!)

Infoboxes of Vank Cathedral and Church of Our Lady of the Rosary (Isfahan) show "religion" two times. Why?! --Orijentolog (talk) 17:49, 20 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Orijentolog: Thanks for reporting. This will be fixed in the next release of the infobox. LennardHofmann (talk) 07:52, 21 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Property talk:P140

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