Cekoviu wrote:The Xenopolis Confederation wrote:Why is Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy so popular in this forum? This seems really disproportionate compared to the general internet using population.
Catholicism is quite prevalent in the Americas outside of the US (as well as parts of the east coast of the US) and in Southern Europe, and it's the largest Christian denomination worldwide. As for Eastern Orthodoxy, perhaps that's a result of immigrants using the site?
There's nothing remarkable about the figures.
This is an international site with a broad range of backgrounds represented, though any English-language site will necessarily have a strong North American demographic.
Going by the NSG poll for this site, Gallup figures for the United States, and Pew Research Centre figures for international demographics (with the latter likely far more reliable for their data set), and rounding to the nearest whole number, Catholics are underrepresented on this site compared to their global share of Christianity (50%), but overrepresented compared to their share of US Christianity (23%). The NSG 34% share therefore seems reasonable given that this is an international site with a strong (but not necessarily as dominant as Xenopolis Confederation seems to assume) North American core.
As to Orthodox Christians, our 10% share on this marginally below our global share of Christianity according to Pew (12%). Gallup is useless here for the United States since it folds us in with Protestants as 'Protestant/Other Christian' in opposition to Catholics (which likely leaves both Protestants and Orthodox equally bemused). It's also difficult to count how many Orthodox Christians there are in North America; I've seen estimates across the US and Canada of up to 6 million, but as low as 2 million; so we're roughly 1% of the US population. If the US is your metric, then we're certainly more overrepresented than Catholics are, though still slightly underrepresented compared to our global share. But note that Orthodox Christians in the United States tend to be better-educated and have a higher income than other Christian groups, which may lead to us being overrepresented among American users on an internet forum relative to some other Christians.
It also goes without saying that Orthodox Christians are wittier, more attractive, more debonair, and more sophisticated than Catholics, and every word we write sparkles with a coruscating brilliance beyond the ken of mere Protestants; which is why we might be more noticeable here. But presumably you don't need any data to back up such a self-evident assertion.
Short version: I see nothing particularly remarkable in the representation of the two largest Christian denominations in this thread given that it's an international forum.