Yes, but what sort of disbelief do you have?
There's an old, old joke:
A man jumps into a taxi and starts chatting to the driver about philosophy. The taxi driver turns to him and says, “Are you a Catholic or a Protestant?”
The man says, “Well, I'm an atheist.”
The taxi driver thinks for a moment and says “OK, but is it the Catholic God or the Protestant God that you don't believe in?”
I've written before about the UK's rapid loss of faith, but it is always interesting to have statistics confirmed by lived experience. A few weeks ago, I was filling in a form that wanted some diversity information from me. You know the drill, rough age, race, disabilities or lack thereof, and religion.
This was their drop-down menu for "religion":
I find it interesting that all the denominsations of the world's major religions get lumped into one grouping. It doesn't matter if you're Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region - you're just "Christian".
But if you have no religion? Well! You've got a choice of three! You're either a non-believer but don't want to put a label on it, or a fully paid-up member of the Dawkins appreciation society, or a wishy-washy milquetoast who doesn't want to offend anyone.
I was a little miffed that I wasn't able to register myself as an "Apathist", but I got over myself.
I've previously written about the social construct of race. The same is broadly true of religion. In some communities, the exact sect you're in matters. In other communities, you're just "other".
Can you imagine what that drop-down menu will look like in a dozen years? It's easy if you try...
dataquality
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Obliquely, disbelief is a choice and including it in a diversity metric is questionable.
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