Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Religion/Archive 3

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Peer review notice

1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack is on Peer Review. Your comments would be appreciated, at Wikipedia:Peer review/1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack. Cirt (talk) 02:54, 2 January 2008 (UTC).

Ordering of religions in lists

A discussion came up regarding the Meaning of life article ([1]) in which editors disagreed on the appropriate ordering of religions in a list. But the issue has much wider scope than just one article, so I decided to raise it here.

Any member of any major religion can contrive an ordering that places his faith at the top of the list, and usually give vaguely-reasonable-sounding justifications for it. For example, maybe we should order by prominence in English-speaking countries? A Christian certainly might think so. Defaulting to alphabetical ordering is the only way to avoid subjectivity and perceptions of bias. Ilkali (talk) 09:42, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Evaluation?

Hello, I am the creator of All Saints' Church, Wittenberg, which is where the Reformation began, an event which forever altered the landscape of religion, and I would like it very much if it could be evaluated by your WikiProject. Thank you, Benjamin Scrīptum est - Fecī 02:16, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Mitt Romney RfC

There is currently a discussion regarding how much weight to give the subject's religious affiliation at Talk:Mitt Romney#Material regarding subject's religious affiliation. Any input is welcome. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 21:02, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Toward Peer Review

Gospel of Mark could use some help tracking down missing citations to get ready for peer review. Thanks in advance. Ovadyah (talk) 16:29, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

A user by the handle GaurangaUK is reverting edits that I have made to the Vaishnavism page that are duly cited and appropriate. I intuit that this is due to religious intolerance. What may I do? The user has a history of doing this on the page.
Ah
B9 hummingbird hovering (talkcontribs) 12:20, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

On Japanese Religion

The opinion has been expressed that the sources on the religion section of the overall/general Japan article are not credible enough, not reliable/verifiable enough. If better sources are not found ASAP, drastic changes will be made to that section, removing discussion of the fact that while the vast majority of Japanese are officially counted by Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples both as belonging to those institutions, most Japanese when asked directly will claim to not be religious. This is a crucial aspect of religion in modern Japan.

Can anyone please please please help!? Surely someone out there must be a Religions of Japan scholar, with proper serious professional academic sources? LordAmeth (talk) 13:06, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Losar

Losar is currenting happening, how may I ensure that it is flagged as a current event? Is there a News Wiki article that this Wikipedia article can interwiki? How may I progress this? Is there anything else you recommend? Blessings in the mindstream
B9 hummingbird hovering (talkcontribs) 05:53, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Statement on book of mormon related pages

I posted this over on the village pump, but I was wondering if perhaps the specific wikiproject might draw a more insightful thoughts on this. User:Val42 previously tried to seek comment on it here but didn't get much response. So here is the gist - is it necessary to put such a statement as "The historicity of <Book of Mormon person's name> is not generally accepted by non-Mormon historians or archaeologists" on every single page for individuals from the Book of Mormon narrative? Such a statement was added to a few pages some months ago, though to much disagreement. Now another editor has taken to including on all the other pages despite no consensus ever being reached. In my opinion, such a statements comes off as needlessly and subtly POV. It should be sufficient for NPOV to simply state "According to the Book of Mormon..." or something similar at the start, as is done on such pages for biblical characters from Genesis and the Exodus, both which describe equally historically questionable events. I'm not against having such a statement on the Nephite or Lamanite page since the opinion of the historians and archaeologists is usually in direct relation to those groups, but putting something like this on Enos (Book of Mormon) seems overdoing it. Since this covers such a broad number of articles, and has implication on pages relating to individuals mentioned in other religious texts, I was hoping to see what the larger community thought. So, thoughts and directions on what policy would dictate? --FyzixFighter (talk) 06:33, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

My own personal opinion would be that adding it to the lead of the Enos article is overdoing it. The way the Noah article does it might work best with the Enos article. "Enos, according to the Book of Mormon, was a son of Jacob, a Nephite prophet and the author of the Book of Enos." I guess it could be argued that not qualifying in such a way might demand the dubious historicity be addressed, but with such qualification I don't think further qualification would necessarily be required. However, the Enos article does currently have a very short lead, and it would make sense to add to it more in accord with WP:LEAD. 14:43, 14 February 2008 (UTC)John Carter (talk)
Thank you John for the comments. Enos is kind of an extreme example because it is so short, so let me provide a few of the more center of the spectrum examples from both the BoM and the Bible articles. From the BoM side, Coriantumr, Captain Moroni, King Benjamin, Nephi the Disciple. By contrast, individuals from Genesis and the Exodus (which have similar dubious historicity problems like the Book of Mormon) - Seth, Kenan (another short article), Enos (Bible), Enoch (ancestor of Noah), and Aaron to name a few - and these aren't minor individuals either, and none of these mention the dubious nature of the source or events that surround those individuals. All of them, like the Noah article you point to, simply use the "according to the <religious text>" formulation. I'm sure that if I wanted to make a point, I could make similar to changes to these Bible-related pages but that would cause a needless uproar and be very bad form on my part. But I do want to make it apparent that, in my opinion, including such a statement on just the Book of Mormon related pages and not the Bible related pages represents a very bad, mainstream Christian-centric double standard. So, my follow-up question is would I be going against policy if I remove these statements, and can I refer the other editors to the discussion here should they disagree? --FyzixFighter (talk) 17:23, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
Your phrasing is a little ambiguous. I think what you're asking is whether you could adjust the content of some of the Mormon articles to something like the phrasing on the Noah page and remove the . I would think the answer to that wuld be "Yes", because it would be in accord with those other articles. You could probably reasonably remove the other sentence as well, if that qualification were added. John Carter (talk) 18:07, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Roman Catholic Church

The article Roman Catholic Church is is currently up for Featured Article status. Several editors on that page have expressed concerns about potential POV violations, the reliability of certain sources, and the inclusion/exclusion of certain information. Discussion are ongoing on the talk page of the article about potential improvements to the text. It would be nice to get more eyes to look at the article so as to reach broader community consensus. Karanacs (talk) 21:05, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Criteria for notable religious leaders in ISKCON

  • Question On the official Governing Body Commission website it states that there are "around 48" members. [2] So my question is are all 48 notable due to membership on the GBC of ISKCON? These 48 could be a good starting place for a discussion on a minimum standard for notablilty for religious leaders in ISKCON. I believe there needs to be some criteria set for establishing, "what is a notable ISKCON religious leader?" Any thoughts? Thanks. Ism schism (talk) 17:22, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
My guess would be no, although being referenced on that site would constitute one of the required indicators of notability. Biographical information published in ISKCON's in-house magazine would be another, and between the two would probably be sufficient for inclusion. However, at least theoreticaly, it might be possible for someone to be listed in that group before any substantive biographical information is published, so I would think that at least a single published substantial biographical piece should be available as well. There has been a proposed, abortive, notability guideline for religious figures in general at Wikipedia:Notability (religious figures) which has since been rejected, although if you can propose another variation, I'd be more than happy to at least review it. John Carter (talk) 18:00, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Note: There are basically two separate standards for notability, a primary, background one requiring coverage by reliable sources, and a separate one involving doing something regarded as something important based on criteria developed for certain special categorise of people. People who enough source coverage can get included regardless of what people think of the importance of what they've done. People who've done certain especially important things (for an example of the types of things Wikipedia considers especially important, see WP:Notability (people)#Pornographic actors) can get in with only minimal source coverage because its been determined that their position alone assumes source coverage. Wikipedia hasn't been able to agree on special notablility criteria for religious figures the way it has for pornographic actors, sports figures, and a number of other categories, so the basic requirement of "multiple" reliable sources (e.g. at least two) remains in effect. In practice, having done something important is still a relevant argument in deletion discussions even when there isn't a special category in effect, and people for whom a claim of particular importance can be made don't need to have as much coverage as people for whom inclusion is based on coverage alone. I suspect being a member of ISKCON would likely be accepted as a special claim of importance reducing (but not eliminating) the emphasis on needing available biographical information. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 21:06, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

This article has been nominated for deletion, but the dispute over whether or not to delete it is currently unresolved. People should take a look at the article; I don't know if it should be deleted outright, but it needs a major overhaul for one basic reason: It reads as if the author of the article is himself a biblical numerologist; it's more of a lecture on one author's (mostly unsourced) belief system, rather than an objective discussion of the topic. Minaker (talk) 05:36, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Project spam

I've just come here to register my complete disgust at the ridiculous spam-tagging of thousands of articles by your project. Is your "inter-faith workgroup" ever going to be able to contribute anything at all to Vefa Kilise Mosque or Liberian Catalogue? Of course not. How pathetic. Johnbod (talk) 18:48, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I too am quite concerned about the fact that nearly every article in my watchlist was just tagged with the WikiProject Religion banner. This was discussed at length over a year ago, with quite a lot of opposition to the idea (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Judaism/Archive_13#Wikipedia:WikiProject_Religion ) and I find it annoying that this umbrella project has gone ahead and tagged thousands of articles without first going to current projects. Like Johnbod, I feel that many of which the members here are going to have little to no understanding of most of the subjects at hand and will be ranking and editing articles in spite of this lack of knowledge. It's a bit late for discussion now I guess, but I'd like to register my displeasure. DanielC/T+ 19:00, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
See also numerous protests at User talk:BetacommandBot, in the 5 minutes before he deletes them. It goes without saying that all tags have been placed at the top of the list, pushing down other projects that actually look after these articles. Where the other project tags are nested, your bloated banner ignores this, and sits on top even of GA/FA tags! Johnbod (talk) 19:04, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

There's been a bit of a dispute about an infobox on the article War of Heaven. The infobox is intended for battles that appear in works of fiction. It lists the information therein as "canon information", though the stuff in it - including the exact number of angels on both sides, and the declaration that the war was won by something called "loyalist angels", is not part of any religion's canon that I'm aware of. I feel the box is just plain useless to the subject matter and verges on original research, but another good contributor believes it has value. I'd appreciate additional opinions.--Cúchullain t/c 01:07, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Heaven article badly needs citations

hi, i'm not a member of the project, but i thought i'd bring this up here. the article on Heaven is heavily laden with 'citation needed' tags, as well as the top of the article having been tagged since january 2007. per policy, an awful lot of material could legitimately be culled from the article on the basis that it's been challenged for a very long time. i'd like to encourage some focus on the article to mitigate the 'citation needed' tags. unfortunately, i'm not really qualified to work on the citations, as i'm not well schooled in the specifics. i'd just hate to see the article severely modified for lack of attention. thanks. Anastrophe (talk) 18:41, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

ISKCON work group or subproject?

  • Any thoughts on creating an ISKCON work group for biographies and ISKCON related articles? Thanks. Ism schism (talk) 15:49, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
You'd probably want to contact Wikipedia:WikiProject Hinduism regarding that subject, considering that the body in question is generally regarded as being a variant form of Hinduism. I do note that there is an extant Wikipedia:WikiProject Hinduism/Vaishnavism work group, and that might be an alternate possibility. Lastly, if there were to be sufficient interest in a proposed work group at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals and see if there is enough interest there to form one. But, at least initially, considering the group in question is generally regarded as being effectively "Hindu" in nature, I think that this project might be at least initially maybe not the best one to propose making it a subproject of. John Carter (talk) 16:03, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
I noticed that the ISKON-related AfDs didn't seem to be listed under Wikipedia:WikiProject Hinduism. Would there be a difficulty creating a subproject? Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 19:36, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
"Difficulty" might not be the word, but I'm not sure which project you'd be considering creating it as a subproject of. Generally, it'd help if there were at least five individuals interested in the group before implementation, but there probably wouldn't be any real "objections" or anything to the creation of such a group if there were sufficient interest. I suppose, if such were wanted, it might be taken as part of a subproject on New religious movements, if there weren't sufficient direct interest, but I still think that, based on what I know of the subject, it might be best to contact the Hinduism project first, given the rather pronounced degree of overlap between ISKCON and the extant, if not really active, Vaishnavism subproject. John Carter (talk) 19:44, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Having worked within the Hinduism group much in the past, my feelings are that any ISKCON sub-project would be best located under Vaishnavism. However, at present I do not see that we have enough interested editors to warrant this. I for one would not be interested in working within a sub-group with the way things currently stand. Regards, Gouranga(UK) (talk) 20:13, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
I have placed links to this discussion on the talk pages of a few editors who have contributed to ISKCON related articles. Thanks. Ism schism (talk) 20:31, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
ISKCON is just one organization under the huge span of Vaishnavism. So having a wikiproject for ISKCON is a case of undue weight, if i may say so. Wikipedia:WikiProject Hinduism/Vaishnavism can handle ISKCON articles.--Redtigerxyz (talk) 16:29, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
It would probably help if the Hinduism banner were set up for the Vaishnavism work group, though. It doesn't seem to have been set up for the group yet. John Carter (talk) 17:31, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
What type of process would that take? Thanks. Ism schism (talk) 19:16, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
I could probably do the changes myself, but it might be a good idea to get the Hinduism project's agreement to replacing the "vedanta" parameters with "vaishnava" parameters, and maybe getting an idea of what, if any, image to add to the new "Vaishnava" part of the banner. John Carter (talk) 19:32, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
I would not mind setting up this this project. I would suggest it will clear up some mess. However the name is to be agreed - vaisnava/Vaisnavism is the right scope.MBest-son (talk) 13:22, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

I will be in your project! (I am at school now, so I don't have much time, but I will help as much as I can.) David G Brault (talk) 02:07, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the offer but I more or less perform "drop in" edits. DeeKenn (talk) 21:25, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
I dont know about full fledged involvement, but I will definitely work on ISKCON pages in the future.Bakaman 02:31, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Religion and astronomy

I was thinking an article on the relationship between religion and astronomy or the universe (besides earth) at large might be a good subject for an article. What do you think?

Also, I note that this project does not link to requested articles on religion. Many projects now have their own requests page, but I think they should all at least link to a suitable requests page if they don't do this. Richard001 (talk) 07:38, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

If you can find any material relating to the subject of astronomy and religion which establishes the notability of the subject, please feel free to do so. Regarding the reuqested articles list, with this particular project that could be a bit of a problem, considering that such a list would probably have to be broken up so that each of the more focused religion projects each had their own such list, etc. But, certainly, I can't see any real objections to the creation of such a list. John Carter (talk) 15:04, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
On this topic, I was about to ask if Dating Creation and similar articles is within the scope of this WikiProject? --Shruti14 t c s 01:31, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
To some extent, yes. Astronomy can certainly tell us about the age of the universe, solar system and earth etc, and that sometimes overlaps with religion (e.g. the starlight problem). Richard001 (talk) 02:05, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
Oh, sorry, I thought you meant this proposed article (didn't read your question properly). Yes, definitely. Richard001 (talk) 07:52, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
And in reply to John, I don't think there is ever any doubt about the notability of the subject - I mean Galileo etc... you get the idea. In terms of requests, we currently have two different places where religion requests seem to be located at WP:REQ: 'Culture and fine arts' and 'social sciences'. It's difficult to categorize something like religion because it comes under so many different categories. All projects definitely need to be involved in the requests process though. Richard001 (talk) 08:01, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
You could leave a message at various related wikiprojects to attract interested and knowledgeable editors. You wouldn't want such articles to have a systematic bias by giving undue weight to Christianity-related issues, but that would be easy to slip into because there will be more English-language material on the Christianity-related controversies from Galileo to creationism in the USA. So it would also be good to alert some editors who are interested in Islam, Judaism, Taoism, Buddhism, Hinduism and the others. For Islam try user:Aminz and user:Itaqallah both well-informed on these issues and on WP policies and procedures. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:16, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

FYI, I have nominated the article 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack for consideration at WP:FAC. Your comments at the FAC discussion page would be appreciated. Cirt (talk) 09:10, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Definition of Latin re-ligion

Ligaments connect the mind with members of the body. The goal of religion is to reconnect the mind and body. Controlling the interior dialogue is the common element in all religions. Examples: Accepting the saving grace of the Death of the Word.

In Hebrew the group of Hieroglyphs translated Egypt is also translated slavery.

Picture the head as Egypt, the body as the Holy Land and the neck(voice box--restriction) as the Red Sea. The goal is reconnection. The head is filled with the slaveries of worldly addictions supported by wordy considerations of them.

Etymological research into this word is possibly more important than listing the ceremonies of each "religion" and remaining neutral about its association with nationalistic pretensions.Johnshoemaker (talk) 10:00, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
Possibly. Such content could certainly be added to the Religion article. However, as I remember, there is no consensus on the origins of the word. Given that, there is some question how much significance to give the various disputed possibilities, etc. If you can find reliable, verifiable, neutral sources for the points you make above, that would be fine and we would welcome content on such matters. But, in general, I tend to think that our objectives are such that we should focus some of our attention on the various extant groups, as, in general, I think that the individual religions are among the most frequently searched out subjects, probably more than the etymological discussion of the origins of the word "religion". John Carter (talk) 18:04, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I would appreciate help to improve the very new article theories of religion that I wrote. I think that it already quite reasonable. I am not a native speaker of English. Andries (talk) 22:00, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Expand {{Infobox church/sandbox}} to cover all places of worship?

There is a proposal to convert the draft infobox template {{Infobox church/sandbox}} into a template that can be used for all places of worship. We would like your views on whether you think this is a good idea, and if you are able to help identify parameters that would be relevant to the religion that your WikiProject deals with. Do join the discussion taking place at "Template talk:Infobox church". — Cheers, JackLee talk 03:46, 22 March 2008 (UTC)


Abrahamic religions: A term of Islamic origin. No, I don't think so.

Abrahamic religion currently says "Abrahamic religions is a term of Islamic origin."
I don't believe that this is true, as stated.
Would anyone care to discuss this at Talk:Abrahamic_religion#Abrahamic_religions:_A_term_of_Islamic_origin._No.2C_I_don.27t_think_so.?
-- 201.37.229.117 (talk) 20:04, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Proposing splitting this article up. See discussion. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 02:58, 24 March 2008 (UTC)


List of Pantheists has no cites.

List of Pantheists has no cites. -- Writtenonsand (talk) 07:32, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Roman Catholic Church overtaken by Islam proposed for Main Page

This news has been proposed to be featured in the "In The News" section of the Main Page. The discussion can be located here: Wikipedia:In the news section on the Main Page/Candidates. __meco (talk) 14:21, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Roman Catholic Church has been listed at Peer Review. Editors are anxious to get this to FA status, so please help review the article and leave comments. Karanacs (talk) 21:41, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Template:WPReligion

I added some instructions to Template:WPReligion to allow others to make fuller use of the WikiProject template. Revise as needed. Thanks. GregManninLB (talk) 18:57, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Since this topic is related somewhat to religion, and since the religion section is part of the issue, I thought I'd mention this is up for FAR. Richard001 (talk) 08:38, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

I came across this article and tagged it with your project. It's a DYK nominee. APK yada yada 18:58, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. John Carter (talk) 20:39, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Review request for Paul Nobuo Tatsuguchi

I think that I'm nearing completion in writing this article about a Japanese Seventh Day Adventist medical missionary who was forced to serve in the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II and was killed during the Battle of Attu. I hope to nominate the article for featured status soon. I don't normally work on articles of this subject, so, if someone could look at it and provide some feedback on the article's talk page on how it could be improved, it would be really appreciated. Cla68 (talk) 07:42, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Straw Poll

there is a straw poll underway at Talk:Roman_Catholic_Church#Capitalization_of_.22Church.22 regarding the style guidelines for capitalization and church bodies. Pastordavid (talk) 18:19, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Any editor with a broad knowledge of religion is invited to take a look at Wikipedia:Vital articles and offer suggestions on how to improve the list of 1000 vital Wikipedia articles, as well as on the process of choosing them. It suffers from a severe lack of attention and POV editing. — goethean 01:48, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Cleanup listing

We now have a list of articles which have been tagged by this project with one or more cleanup tags at Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion/Cleanup listing. Please feel free to do any work you can to address the existing problems there. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 20:04, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

You might want to keep an eye on this new Project. It was nominated for speedy deletion, but I think that is inappropriate. See my comments on the talk page. --Bduke (talk) 09:10, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

This will become a POV minefield instead of a WikiProject. A Workgroup on New religious movements may be useful, while one on "cults" and "sects" when mixed with NRMs will not. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:27, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
The term cult is widely known, more than NRM better defined than NRM in a scholarly term (though it tends to have more diverse definitions), there is at leaast a strong overlap and a significant fraction of scholars prefers the term cult over NRM. Andries (talk) 17:50, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
There is already so much disagreement about the name that the Wikiproject work group has forked i.e. Wikipedia:WikiProject_Religion/New_religious_movements_work_group Andries (talk) 17:57, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Discussion took place here Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Religion/Cults_and_new_religious_movements_work_group. Andries (talk) 18:01, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

What about Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion/Cults work group and Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion/Sects work group in addition to Wikipedia:WikiProject_Religion/New_religious_movements_work_group?

Question: Why? In addition to all the problems that are inherent in using the words "cults" and "sects", I don't see that many articles in Category:Cults not already covered by NRM. And "sects" of other major extant religious traditions will tend to already be covered by the main project for that religion. John Carter (talk) 18:39, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
As if the term NRM is clearly defined. How many articles in the category:new religious movements have scholarly consensus for this classification? Andries (talk) 18:50, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

This article, with the exception of one sentence, lacks information on any religions other than Judaism and Christianity. Can people knowledgable about other religions help expand it? Thanks, --Alynna (talk) 00:29, 23 May 2008 (UTC) (cross-posted to WikiProject Gender Studies)

There are some knowledgeable editors in WikiProject Islam who will be pleased to help. Itsmejudith (talk) 07:38, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, I'll go ask there. --Alynna (talk) 10:39, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Cleanup listing, feedback

Roughly a month ago, I created a cleanup listing for this WikiProject. I have now updated the list with a new data snapshot of May 24. Also, the list format has slightly changed.

On this occassion, I would like to ask you for feedback about this kind of listings. (I am currently evaluating whether it makes sense to offer them on a larger scale.) Did you find the listing useful for your project work? Does it reasonably lead you to articles that you can clean up? What could be improved about the content or formatting of the list?

As a side note, if the listings are too long when generated for the entire project, I can also generate them for individual workgroups, which might be easier to handle.

Please leave your comments at User talk:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings. Thanks, --B. Wolterding (talk) 09:32, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Proposed new work group

There is now a proposal at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Religious creeds/denominations for a group whose specific purpose would be to focus on the main articles on the various religious creeds, denominations, what have you, and bring them up to the highest level possible. If you would be interested in working in such a group, please indicate your interest there. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 18:38, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Abrahamic Religions

Hi! I am trying to start a new WikiProject Abrahamic Religions. This Wikiproject would be mainly based around the three major Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. My personnal goal for the project would be to have it focus on the relationship, similarities and differences between the religions, though of cousre with enough members and enough time the course of the project may well change or become equally focused on other areas. This project would help deal with articles which are currently within the scope of all of the Abrahamic religions wikiprojects but due to the small difference between them opinions and technical wording are often disputed and Wikiproject Abrahamic religions would fill this gap. The other Abrahamic religions such as Bahá'í would aslo be dealt with although in the begining of this project not a huge amount would be done on them as I dont know alot about them, due to them being less well known about within the Westeren world and it being quite hard to find any reliable information on them I suspect other editors would find similar problems as well although hopefully in time with a bit of research we would be able to incorporate these other faiths completely into the project. As you can probably tell this would be within the scope of WikiProject Religion but I feel that this is a group which would be too big in the long term to be a task force. Anyway the purpose of this is to invite any members of WikiProject Religion or anybody who is just viewing this talk page and think that they might like to join. As the Poroject is in the proposal stage if anybody would like to join please go to Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals and there you will find the proposal please but your name on the Interested Wikipedians list. Thanks and I hope to here from some of you soon. The Quill (talk) 13:08, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Wouldn't a task force of WP Religion be more appropriate at first? If it grows you can later convert it into an independent WP. -- alexgieg (talk) 15:20, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
I thought that at first but due to the comlicated posistion the task force would be in I don't think that it would work. Also becasue this such a large topic I have a feeling that after the intional dubious speculation as a Wikiproject it would grow rapidly while as a task force it would be restricted in size and what it could do. Anyway we will have to wait and see what reaction is although if the wikirpoject idea doesn't work as planned the task force idea is always an option. The Quill (talk) 16:24, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
There already is the Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion/Interfaith work group, which deals with much the same sort of content, if beyond just the Abrahamic religions. Maybe it would be a good idea to help that one first, and then see if there is enough content to make a separate work group for Abrahamic religions specifically viable. And, for what its worth, being a "child" project does nothing in terms of restricting what a group can do. John Carter (talk) 17:55, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Natural Theology and "Astrotheology"

The expertise of those knowledgeable in the subject of Natural theology would be very helpful both in that entry and on the possibly soon deleted Astrotheology entry. There is a content dispute that broke out on the second of the two entries, which has now spilled over to the first. Exactly what natural theology includes and how best to define it are at the heart of this dispute. Thanks for any help. (Note: I am cross posting this on WikiProject(s):Philosophy and Christianity).PelleSmith (talk) 21:42, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Userbox nominated

User:Hexagon1/Imagfriend, my atheist userbox, has been recently nominated for deletion. I would sincerely appreciate any input at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Hexagon1/Imagfriend. Thank you, +Hexagon1 (t) 08:51, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Admins (who may have this page bookmarked), its been more than 5 days on this MfD and there is clear consensus (to keep). Someone should go close it.PelleSmith (talk) 17:42, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Redundant project

Help I just got started on Wikipedia:WikiProject Bahá'í Faith and I tagged Talk:Bahá'u'lláh and Talk:Bahá'í Faith for assessment alongside the WikiProject Religion banners. Should I leave the Religion banners as well, or delete them as they are redundant? Please let me know on my talk or Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Bahá'í Faith. —Justin (koavf)TCM☯ 06:26, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Universal(izing) religion(s)

There should be an article and a category for these, but I don't know which is the standard term. At present universal religion redirects to universalism, which is something completely different, & universalizing religion redirexcts to major religious groups, which doesn't seem to mention the idea. Peter jackson (talk) 08:55, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

There probably should be, but I don't know the standard term either. Google returns 994 hits for "universalizing religion", and about 1.4 million for "universalism", but that number might be bloated because of its use in Unitarian Universalism and similar groups. I tend to think "universalism" is probably the more commonly used term, though. John Carter (talk) 14:53, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
As I said just above, that's something completely different. Universalism is the doctrine that everyone will be saved. A universal religion is one that addresses itself to all humanity,as opposed mainly to ethnic religions. Missionary & proselytizing religion are other terms, tho' I get the impression they are out of fashion. I may be wrong: perhaps one of them is the standard term. Peter jackson (talk) 10:44, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
We would probably need some sourcing. Also, it is still possible for a religion that believes in a "universal" or all-encompassing deity, as opposed to ethnic deities, to still proselytize. In fact, I think most of them do. What I think would probably be best under the circumstances is to find a reliable source which specifically offers the definition you're thinking of and create a separate basic article on the subject. I also know that "unitarian" in the sense of all creation being under a single deity is a sense in which that word has been used as well. I do acknowledge the difficulty in trying to find a name for the article though. Maybe it might be easier to opt for a phrase which can be a bit more specific rather than relying on a single word? John Carter (talk) 01:22, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
The only source I've found so far is Sopher, Geography of Religions, Prentice-Hall, 1967, pages 4 & 7, where the term is "universalizing religion". He says the term "universal religion is sometimes used in a wider sense. But WP naming policy is to use the commonest name, which is why I was asking. Peter jackson (talk) 11:13, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Hawaiian religion

Anyone interested in collaborating on Hawaiian religion is more than welcome to participate in its current cleanup and expansion. Viriditas (talk) 00:18, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

NPOV dispute. Peter jackson (talk) 10:28, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

The articles Predestination and Types of religious predestination have been listed to be merged for over a year. A drive is on to clear out Category:Articles to be merged since April 2007 and this merger could use the attention of someone with expertise in the field, or at least someone who knows more than me. If anyone could take a look, it would be greatly appreciated. --Gimme danger (talk) 22:57, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Rename proposal for the lists of basic topics

This project's subject has a page in the set of Lists of basic topics.

See the proposal at the Village pump to change the names of all those pages.

The Transhumanist 10:16, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme

As you may have heard, we at the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team recently made some changes to the assessment scale, including the addition of a new level. The new description is available at WP:ASSESS.

  • The new C-Class represents articles that are beyond the basic Start-Class, but which need additional references or cleanup to meet the standards for B-Class.
  • The criteria for B-Class have been tightened up with the addition of a rubric, and are now more in line with the stricter standards already used at some projects.
  • A-Class article reviews will now need more than one person, as described here.

Each WikiProject should already have a new C-Class category at Category:C-Class_articles. If your project elects not to use the new level, you can simply delete your WikiProject's C-Class category and clarify any amendments on your project's assessment/discussion pages. The bot is already finding and listing C-Class articles.

Please leave a message with us if you have any queries regarding the introduction of the revised scheme. This scheme should allow the team to start producing offline selections for your project and the wider community within the next year. Thanks for using the Wikipedia 1.0 scheme! For the 1.0 Editorial Team, §hepBot (Disable) 21:20, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Barnstar

Ive Created a Barnstar for WP:RELI.

{{subst:Religion Star|message ~~~~}} You have been awarded this barnstar in recognition of your contributions to the work of WikiProject Religion.

This award was created By Electrical Experiment (talk) on July 12th 2008

I plan to make a ribbon equivalent --Electrical Experiment (talk) 23:00, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Proposing an example explaining the appropriate use of religious sources in religion-related articles. The intention is to clarify and explain existing policy, not to change it. There have been a number of debates over the years, some of them heated, about whether and what kinds of religious sources should be used. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 21:14, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Comparative mythology needs a quality assessment

I recently made large-scale changes to Comparative mythology. I'd say the content is more than 50% different from what it was beforehand. The article has been tagged as part of Wikiproject Religion, but it doesn't yet have a quality rating from Wikiproject Religion. This would be an ideal time for it to receive one. --Phatius McBluff (talk) 03:20, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Simple English needs your help

Hello to all those of you who want a challenge. I am an editor of Simple English Wikipedia. Simple English Wikipedia is about explaining the same things as the regular Wikipedias, but ot use easier words and sentence structures, so that it is better understandable to those learning English, or those with a limited vocabulary. In short, we use shorter sentences, and avoid words with many meanings, if possible. The reason I write here is because we are a small project, with about 40 regular editors. We do not have the knowledge to bring many religion-related articles beyond the stub stage. What we currently need:

In short, we provide the ideal playground for anyone who want to get their hands dirty. I hope to see you there. --Eptalon (talk) 16:27, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Abrahamic religion

There is currently disagreement over the description of the term "Abrahamic religion(s)" as "post-modern" in the Abrahamic religion article. Discussion on the article talk page can be found here, here and here. Some discussion takes place on user talk pages here and here. Related concerns were raised on the fringe theory noticeboard here. Outside voices and feedback would be greatly appreciated. Vassyana (talk) 16:43, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

AfD

Ongoing AfD for article Ex-premie.org. Please see discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ex-premie.org. Cirt (talk) 14:18, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Because this issue comes up often and can be a source of contention, I am proposing adding a paragraph to the existing WP:NPOV/FAQ#religion with a more careful and clearer explanation of language to use and how to present the subject to implement WP:NPOV in articles involving disputes between religious views and historians/scientists etc. Doubtless the proposal can be improved. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 22:14, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

I have proposed this template for deletion in accordance with Wikipedia's deletion policy. Please see the discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2008 July 30. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 14:20, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi! A request for comments has been made for this proposed guideline. Please comment at WT:Naming conventions (Hebrew)#Community RFC on proposed guideline. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 05:28, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Those two categores seem to overlap. Categories "Religion in <continent>" are i the by region category. Should they be moved to the by continent category? Or should the by continent category be merged into the by region category? /81.231.249.162 (talk) 10:04, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hail Satan

An editor at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hail Satan thinks that the afd was tainted due to another editor posting notifications at the left hand path. So, I am notifying all religions about it. Not leaving anyone out. Enjoy. Undeath (talk) 06:18, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Request for article on Hjalmar Sunden

Does any one here have knowledge of the psychology of religion, and has come across the role theory of Hjalmar Sunden? In the talk page of the category for psychologists of religion, I have requested that we start an article on Sunden in the English Wikipedia. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 23:08, 22 August 2008 (UTC)


Help from editor who reads French?

Wikipedia:Articles requested for more than a year has a request for Cosmoplanetary Messiah, which is apparently a statue (taken down in 2001) erected by the religious group Aumism Universal and their founder Gilbert Boudin. Obviously, neither the group or the founder have an article, so my plan to redirect Cosmoplanetary Messiah to one of the two was foiled. I began research to possibly create an article, but I can't find anything other than blog/forum fringe stuff . . . nothing that indicates that this group meets WP:N. To put it in perspective, as of 2006, there were about 50 people living at the main temple. But since I can only read English and this group is French, I might be missing out on some information--there are references to Boudin's alleged legal problems and a battle with the French government over the statue, so it could be notable after all. Could an editor with the necessary skills check this out and let me know if we could use an article on either Aumism or Boudin? Movingboxes (talk) 07:05, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Lucifer and Modern Fiction

In Lucifer, there's a bit of a dispute as to whether a very limited list of appearances Lucifer has made in fiction is relevant to the article. We are trying to reach a consensus. Any opinions would be greatly appreciated. The discussion can be read here.--CyberGhostface (talk) 22:14, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

FAR

Bob Dylan has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here.

Proposal: Religion reference desks

I have noticed that the talk pages of various religious articles often become forums for questions about the article's topic rather than discussion on improving the article. Here's an example. Often the questions don't even point out a weakness in the article since the answers are often easily found in previous talk page discussions if not in the article.

The Reference desk doesn't have a separate sub-desk for questions on religion; users seem to split their questions between the "humanities" and "miscellaneous" help desks. I think that users may be more comfortable asking questions on boards that are specialized to a particular religion.

I'd like to propose that the various religion wikiprojects each set up their own reference desks that can be linked to from the main reference desk- perhaps via an index (including redlinks) that could be maintained here at wikiproject religion. Then a blurb could be included in the wikiprojects' talk page templates to the effect that questions not related to improving that particular article should be directed to the proper reference desk. Hopefully this will reduce a bit the Q&A clutter on those talk pages, at least for those users who RTM anyways.—Elipongo (Talk contribs) 15:55, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

This discussion should be continued at Wikipedia talk:Reference desk. I might point out however that Wikipedia does not exist to provide spiritual advice. --S.dedalus (talk) 00:00, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for Religion

Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.

We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Wikipedia:Release Version Nominations.

A list of selected articles with cleanup tags, sorted by project, is available. The list is automatically updated each hour when it is loaded. Please try to fix any urgent problems in the selected articles. A team of copyeditors has agreed to help with copyediting requests, although you should try to fix simple issues on your own if possible.

We would also appreciate your help in identifying the version of each article that you think we should use, to help avoid vandalism or POV issues. These versions can be recorded at this project's subpage of User:SelectionBot/0.7. We are planning to release the selection for the holiday season, so we ask you to select the revisions before October 20. At that time, we will use an automatic process to identify which version of each article to release, if no version has been manually selected. Thanks! For the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team, SelectionBot 22:30, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Additional input appreciated

I have started a merger proposal on Reports of organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners in China but as there are currently only 2 editors that looks over the article I feel there's a need for more third party opinions and potentially more editors to build better articles in this field. Please do come over and drop a line with your opinion and any suggestions. --antilivedT | C | G 08:46, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

I've just abandoned, for personal reasons, a long discussion with another editor regarding the article Angra Mainyu. I don't have time to go on with it, and won't be on Wikipedia for some time. As I'm pretty sure that my absence will be misused, I would be glad if any third party takes a look at the case. --Anonymous44 (talk) 12:35, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

This raises issues of cross-religion coordination. Peter jackson (talk) 10:31, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Can someone tell me who gave this a B (rather than start) rating as part of your project? Slrubenstein | Talk 15:33, 3 October 2008 (UTC)


Salvation needs cleanup re various religions

The section "Soteriology" of the article Salvation contains a mishmash of items on salvation and related concepts in different religions, and also contains some un-cited items as well as apparent editorializing. Can anyone clean this up? (I will not be editing this myself.) -- 201.53.7.16 (talk) 13:06, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Third party opinions requested

We are having a bit of a debate at Talk:Religious affiliations of United States Presidents‎ over how to discuss the fact that some of the early Presidents may have had Deistic beliefs (Jefferson being a prime example). Everyone can agree that the article should mention if a given President held deist beliefs, but there is significant disagreement as to how and where to discuss the topic. The debate essentially boils down to whether the personal beliefs of these Presidents should be included in a list of "Affiliations" or in a seperate section. Some third party comments from the members of this project would help to resolve our debate. Blueboar (talk) 15:41, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

  • Alternatively, the wording of the heading for the section could be expanded, so that the one list at the core of the article could be more comprehensive. The section name was only recently changed to narrow its scope, making the list far less informative to the readers --JimWae (talk) 18:24, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Giving (un)due weight to religions

Continued from WP:FT/N#Bahá'í Faith.

I suggest considering Hell as a case study. It was recently trimmed, so here are the facts:

  1. It now contains one paragraph on the Baha'i view.
  2. The section is alphabetically ordered, so the Baha'i view is listed first.
  3. Judaism, Christianity and Islam have their own Gehenna, Hell in Christian beliefs, and Jahannam articles.
  4. The Britannica article on Hell does not mention Baha'i at all.
  5. The Baha'i view is based on a book published by Oneworld Publications", which does seems to carry some heavyweight titles, e.g., Islam: Past, Present and Future by Hans Küng. Probably a good non-academic publisher specializing in religious topics.

The general question is how to present the views of these religions "in proportion to their representation in reliable sources on the subject"? Specifically, does Hell give undue weight to the Baha'i view? Vesal (talk) 00:41, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

The list is alphabetical order; which seems a strange and unhelpful way of listing religions. Perhaps the religions should be in chronological order, which would put Zoroastrianism first and the Bahais last. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 11:50, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

indeed. It is unclear whether there should be a Bahai section in the first place. Ordering sections alphabetically is ridiculous. I have ordered the contents thematically, but have already been reverted (without explanation). --dab (𒁳) 12:52, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Your thematic division works for me. I do not see anything wrong with Bahai being included. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 13:31, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
I suggest it be included under the heading "new religious movements", where other takes on "hell" in other nrms may be listed, briefly. Bahai is of little relative notability as a "(world) religion", but it is of significant notability as a nrm. WP:DUE. If we can summarize "European mythologies", "American mythologies" etc., we can also summarize "NRMs". We don't want a ToC with sections such as "Albanian mythology" ... "Zapotec mythology", i.e. we have to impose a sensible ToC from the beginning. Anything else results in listcruft, as can be observed on pretty much any Wikipedia article not under active editorial control. dab (𒁳) 15:14, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Vesal said "WP:DUE has nothing to do with number of adherents, or else we must rewrite evolution/creationism to reflect popular opinion. " That's not true because DUE is relative to the subject of the article. If the article is about evolution, it's about the science, not the popular opinion. The problem here would be if Bahia is in articles where it isn't really relevant. I would agree with dab that "discussing it is "due" whenever "various other religions" or NRMs are being discussed, but not otherwise." The notability of a thing is not merely about size, but political and historical role. You'd mention Judaism where you would not mention Bahai. I would agree with -Firefly322 that we should look at what other encyclopedias do, as a fair way to judge this.

One could say that the article on Hell should not mention Bahai at all, since they don't have Hell. But they do mention it, so I guess a small paragraph like what is there now should not be too much, in a section on new religious movements.

What it looks like to me is that the Hell article has become, here, an inclusion threshold, where if Bahai were less notable, then it would not be included. And we could judge other articles in this way? ——Martinphi Ψ Φ—— 23:09, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Re-writing enmass across pages to sort by any particular scheme - like alphabetical or chronological or by population (not to mention debates on chronology) - would seem to me to be a huge re-write that could drastically affect editors who've already made the articles the way they wanted them. Whenever adding content I've almost always obeyed the organizational structure that existed before. I think jumping in to some pattern and forcing it on everyone else requires a higher level of unity and understanding than trying to address the relevance and weight of any segments presence let alone just the Baha'is. Next I'll take a look at Hell...Smkolins (talk) 14:23, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

OK, speaking to the Baha'i entry it's placed under New Religious Movements as contented by some but going to New Religious Movements lends no substantiation that that placement is correct. It's at least debatable. I know many places on the internet where it's categorized as Abrahamic and very few where it is placed as NRM and there is an air of being prejoriative for such terms as discussed on the NRM page. That's my first thought but now I have to give my 4 yr old daughter a shower, so more later....(sorry that was me)Smkolins (talk) 15:22, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
As for the content of the entry I think it perfectly brief and on target. I still disagree with the heading it's placed under.Smkolins (talk) 15:40, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
A reading of the New Religious Movements article shows that Baha'i does not belong under that heading. I was going to move it up to a position under Islam, but then there could be complaints from those who regard Baha'i as an Islamic heresy. That, on turn, made me think that the alphabetic list might, after all, be best. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 15:47, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
That kind of makes it not notable for the article, don't you think? ——Martinphi Ψ Φ—— 05:08, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
I consider Baha'i as notable because of the value of the interesting body of literature that it is based upon. I don't think numbers is the only basis for notability in religion. Similarly, Jains and Quakers, to name just two, have notability beyond their small numbers for the same reason. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 12:01, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
Well I'm not an expert, and don't want to do extensive review of the situation. I just wanted to bring this to people's attention to see if there was any major problem. Thanks (: ——Martinphi Ψ Φ—— 00:00, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

it is jarring to list Bahai under "Abrahamic religions". "Abrahamic religions" usually refers to Judaism, Christianity, Islam. Adding "Bahai" to the list is arbitrary, you could as well list "Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Jehova's Witnesses" or "Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Rastafarianism". That's silly, and I do not intend to go to great lengths to explain why it is silly to those pretending they do not see what I mean: it wouldn't be a productive discussion. --dab (𒁳) 11:15, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

If you refer to this popular religious discussion board, you will see that Christianity, Judaism, Islam, the Baha'i Faith, and Rastafarianism are listed under the Abrahamic Religions section. In the hell article, the Baha'i Faith is also grouped under the Abrahamic religions category.
One can also see from this list that the Baha'i Faith is not listed as an NRM. I suppose it really could go either way: since the religion is about 160 years old, it is certainly new compared to the majority of other religions. But at the same time, one should also consider the possibility that it is a world religion, albeit not a major one. It is well-established in over 200 countries across the globe, as seen here, which is more than probably any (other) NRM can claim. This essay might also shed some light on the subject. AdibMasumian (talk) 12:39, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
In other words, the assertion you just made is entirely your own personal opinion, and you cannot find any kind of published sources whatever to back it up or justify it. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 11:30, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
It seems a failure of credit to suppose the above are his own opinion- he referenced his comments. But to extend the argument some, please consider, "Abrahamic religions are monotheistic faiths that recognise a spiritual tradition identified with Abraham." it says at Abrahamic religions. So are there credible source about the Baha'i stance on the spiritual tradition identified with Abraham?

"The Holy Land was conquered by the power of the Covenant of God with Abraham.... His Holiness Abraham who being an iconoclast and a herald of the oneness of God, was banished from His native land." (Baha'i World Faith, p. 271)

But perhaps more will add weight - Religionfacts.com, at Reasoned.org, World Association of International Studies, Stanford University, moderated Listserv, Lubar Institute for Religious Studies at U of Wisconsin, ‘Go Forth From Your Country’, What is Comparative Religion?,Trialog International - Die jährliche Konferenz (see section 3), Judaism: Beliefs, practices, Jewish-Christian relations, news... Smkolins (talk) 01:33, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

The Introductions to the pages on specific religions

Hey all. I was just browsing through the various pages such as Hinduism, Shinto, Christianity, Wicca and Judaism, and what shocked me was that the introductory paragraphs of every single one was different to one anothers, and some were really quite unsatisfactory. Surely is there a way to standardise this, so that, for instance, all pages will begin with a standard "Christianity is a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion", "Hinduism is an Indian religion", "Wicca is a Neopagan religion". It'll make things so much better and help bring about greater cohesion across the many articles. What does everyone think? (Midnightblueowl (talk) 22:40, 3 November 2008 (UTC))

Sounds reasonable to me. John Carter (talk) 19:19, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Message

First Crusade has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. OpenSeven (talk) 17:13, 9 November 2008 (UTC)