File talk:Secularmap.PNG

Why is Greece in yellow? The constitution of Greece states that Orthodox Christianity is the predominant religion in Greece not that it is the official religion. It also says that all religions can be freely practiced. It should either be grey or red. --Philly boy92 (talk) 00:40, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Orthodoxy is in fact the state religion in Greece: the preamble to the Constitution evokes the Holy Trinity and nothing else, other religions are forbidden from "proselytizing" whereas the Orthodox can do whatever they want, religious (read: Orthodox) education is compulsory in school, not to mention the privileged position the Church enjoys re state salaries and subsidies, limited to non-existent taxation, role in public ceremonies, etc. Constantine ✍ 09:42, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Updated per File:Map of state religions.svg. A few changes from that map: Norway should be blue per the talk page, and things changed in 2012. Per sources I checked, the Georgian church is recognized, but is not a state church. Independent Western Sahara had no state religion last I checked, so I split the country. Kwamikagami (talk) 20:58, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Recent edits explained

• Ambiguity: the previous map had colored in all the ambiguous states as secular. I don't think this is a good way to represent the information, as it ignores the complicated situations of many states. For example, Lebanon doesn't declare a state religion, but religious differences are coded into law and only members of certain groups can get certain positions (i.e. Pres must be Maronite, PM must be Muslim, etc.).
• Syria: Also an ambiguous case. Islam not declared the official religion, but the state allows only Muslims access to certain institutions (such as the presidency).
• Israel: Colored as theocratic for some reason? This is not true. Israel does call itself a Jewish state, but "Jewish" here is the secular definition that the Zionists use, which refers to a perceived Jewish ethnic group consisting of people who speak Hebrew, are descended from Jews (if a person's mother is a Jew they are considered one by Jewish law, regardless of what they believe/practice) and identify as such... it doesn't necessarily refer to practicing the rituals of the Torah. Furthermore, Israel declares no state religion. It should be either gray or blue.
• Sudan: Before I reverted it, Sudan was colored blue (secular). This is almost comical. Islam is hte religion of the Sudanese state, it is run by sharia, and the state ideology is political Islam. In fact, like Saudi Arabia and Iran, Sudan is a classic case of a totally non-secular state.
• Armenia: Christianity isn't established as the state religion but the Armenian Apostolic Church is given a "special role" with an "exclusive mission". Previously it was blue, it is now gray in lieu of this.
• Argentina: Colored as secular before I edited, however the constitution states "The Federal Government supports the Roman Catholic Apostolic religion". Changed (or rather reverted) to ambiguous.

There's a ton of other things to mention, but I'll try to not let this post become a wall of text. I simply reverted, so some of the changes that were actually warranted might have actually been lost, and I invite anyone to discuss and fix this. Unfortunately the computer I'm working on right now is rather limited, so I myself can't edit (I hope to fix this problem soon). --Yalens (talk) 20:02, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

This map disagrees with the other. Whatever's justified here would also be justified there. Kwamikagami (talk) 21:29, 31 October 2013 (UTC)