"What is your religious affiliation" makes absolutely no sense in a census exercise. IMO.

twoodfin 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The U.S. Census Bureau collects tons of data unrelated to the decennial counting for Congressional apportionment.

https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys.html

The American Community Survey is the most well-known, as it replaced the “long form” sampling that had been an extension to the Census.

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yoyohello13 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Unless you’re a government explicitly and openly aligned with Christian nationalists.

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talon8635 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The point might be going over my head… why does it make no sense?

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Rygian an hour ago | parent | next [-]

The United States are listed as a secular state (ie. it "is or purports to be officially neutral in matters of religion")

Edit: As I research a bit further, I have stumbled upon an interesting counterargument [1] that enumeration of ethnicity and ethnic groups results in "more political discrimination and state-sponsored violence targeting ethnic groups". Perhaps a similar conclusion could be reached about religious census information.

[1] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369183X.2025.2...

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iririririr 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

why it makes sense? please try to answer. what action of the gov would change based on that data?

then, make it so your answer is more valid than if they asked what you usually have for breakfast.

i guarantee you more gov actions can be positively impacted by the breakfast question than the religion one.

the ONLY use for religious data is to get it for free for campaigns.

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talon8635 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Isn’t religion, for those who follow it (I don’t), one of if not the most important aspects of their identity and life’s purpose? I love breakfast food, but not that much.

Don’t some religions not get along very well?

Given your criteria, what should be asked? Check the boxes for the physical and mental illnesses you have? What’s your BMI? How much time do you spend online? What percent of your diet is highly processed foods?

Is gender/sex also nonsensical? Is languages spoken also nonsensical?

	▲	adastra22 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		They are asking what policy decisions hinge on that religion question. Given 1st amendment protections against government policy that favors one religion over another, I think that’s a fair question to ask.

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rvba 40 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

If there is less than 50% religious people maybe the "in god we trust" could be removed from the dollar?

Also are you sure there isnt less than 50% religious people already?

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mschuster91 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It actually does. Religious affinity can absolutely be useful for longer trend studies, and census data is usually of much, much higher quality than other random sample studies.

	▲	Rygian an hour ago \| parent [-]
		With that perspective, how do you prevent scope creep when preparing a census exercise? You would collect everything and the shape of each house's kitchen sink, because "it can be useful".