Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Religion/Archive 9

Archive 5

←

Archive 7

Archive 8

Archive 9

Archive 10

Archive 11

Archive 12

Existence of God

The above title does not cover polytheistic religions. Should there be a seperate article titled "Existence of gods"/"Existence of deities"? Pass a Method talk 17:57, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea to me. God (the creator) and gods (important supernatural beings) are really not the same thing at all. You can have one or the other without the other. BigJim707 (talk) 07:37, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Then you would also have to define "existence." I'm sure everyone agrees they exist as ideas. Probably few people now days think they exist as physically substantial beings. BigJim707 (talk) 07:39, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Nomination of Religious terrorism for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Religious terrorism is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Religious terrorism until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. BigJim707 (talk) 07:36, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Proposal for renaming Category:Legislatures of non-governmental organizations to Category:Legislatures of religious organizations

I have proposed renaming Category:Legislatures of non-governmental organizations to Category:Legislatures of religious organizations I am making this proposal because all the articles placed in this category are related to the legislative bodies of religious groups. I think members of this project may wish to way in over on its entry. --Devin Murphy (talk) 21:06, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

This category has been redirected to the new category Category:Governing assemblies of religious organizations. --Devin Murphy (talk) 19:11, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Possible merger of Religious abuse and Spiritual abuse?

Is there any support for a merger of Religious abuse and Spiritual abuse. It seems to me that, according to the terms of these two articles, they could be addressed in a single article, and that this fork does not aid readers. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 18:57, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Religious phenomenology needs major help

Hi! I'm new to Wikipedia and I don't know if this is the place to ask, but could we split phenomenology of religion (e.g. scholars Pierre Daniël Chantepie de la Saussaye, Geo Widengren, and Åke Hultkrantz) from religious phenomenology (e.g. scholars Cornelis P. Tiele, William Brede Kristensen, Rudolf Otto, Gerardus van der Leeuw, Ninian Smart, etc.) Or should they just be separated within the phenomenology of religion page? I'm working in my sandbox to differentiate both approaches within the page, but it might be easier to understand if they are separated. There is a huge difference between both approaches. Also, could we create a page for the religious evolutionism approach in religious studies(the idea that religion evolved socially e.g. Comte Eugene Goblet d'Aviella, Max Müller, James Frazer, and Edward Burnett Tylor )? Please let me know! Thanks! Zolotoi kryzhovnik (talk) 05:27, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Actually, ignore the part about splitting. It would be easier to differentiate inside the page. Sorry. Zolotoi kryzhovnik (talk) 00:53, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

TAFI

Hello, Please note that Church (building), which is within this project's scope, has been selected to become a Today's Article for Improvement. The article is currently in the TAFI Holding Area, where comments are welcome about ideas to improve it. After the article is moved from the holding area to the TAFI schedule, it will appear on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Today's Article for Improvement" section for one week. Everyone is invited to participate in the discussion and encouraged to collaborate to improve the article. Thank you, TheOriginalSoni (talk) 07:28, 27 January 2013 (UTC) (From the TAFI team)

Violence against religion

There is an article about religious violence but there isn't an article about anti-religious violence. Why is this? One need only to look at the oppression against Christians by the atheist Chinese government; and, not to single out China, many nations with atheistic governments or atheist rulers have committed acts of oppression and violence against Christians. But in the United States and throughout the world, Christians are victims of atheist violence and it is an ongoing conflict. Athiests have also expressed violence against Christianity on websites. In the "first world" nations, where one would think bigotry and anti-religious violence would be declining, people see more and more anti-religious violence. Websites, billboards, full-page ads in newspapers, the formation of atheist groups to perform violence against religion, etc all point to the rise in violence by atheists against Christians. It seems kind of surprising there isn't an article about such a thing. Volcanoguy 14:23, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Religious persecution perhaps? ~Adjwilley (talk) 16:17, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm talking about non-religious people attacking religion, not the other way around. How is it religious persecution if the people arn't religious? Volcanoguy 12:19, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Read the definition at religious persecution. It involves discriminating against the victims according to what beliefs they have. The definition doesn't involve discriminating the persecutors according to what beliefs the persecutors have, so it makes no difference to the definition what the persecutors believe or don't believe. So that article should be the place to cover what you are describing. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 14:31, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Feedback

I would appreciate some feedback here Pass a Method talk 21:45, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Shinto in popular culture

The coverage of the article Shinto in popular culture is under discussion at talk:Shinto in popular culture -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 04:52, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Top-Question

Hi, I usually edit articles in other projects, especially WP:Japan and WP:Death. In my editing experience, I have noticed what appears to be a vast number of articles rated Top-importance for WP:Religion. A quick look at this projects front page shows that out of ~8,000 articles, about 1/4 are Top-importance, a bit more than Low-importance, and twice as many as Mid and High combined. This is contrary to my experience in other projects, which follows a more pyramidal distribution. So, I am curious: Why all the Top-rated articles? Thanks. Boneyard90 (talk) 13:31, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

In a word, me. I went through the Encyclopedia of Religion, both editions, the Eliade and the Jones ones, and tagged those subjects which have articles in that work as being of "Top" importance to the religion project, given that they each have substantial entries in those works. One of the difficulties this project has, which others don't, is that it doesn't really deal with a clearly defined single topic, like Japan and Death, for instance, but rather a rather universal human endeavor which has an almost infinite number of forms. The list of articles found in those books can be found at User:John Carter/Religion articles. One of the other reasons that this project does have, and I think will continue to have, probably a higher percentage of high-importance articles tagged than most others is because it is the purpose here to allow the rather large number of articles of other related projects to deal with the topics which more clearly relate exclusively to their own topics. So, for instance, Jesus is going to be tagged by the WikiProject Religion, given that topic's broad importance to multiple faiths and the amount of discussion of it in sources dealing with the broad topic of "religion" in general. Other articles, like maybe Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, on the other hand, have much less broad significance to the topic of "religion" in general, and are covered much less in sources relating to that broad topic, and are on that basis pretty much going to be left in the hands of the more focused projects dealing with Christianity and Catholicism. And, yes, for what it might be worth, I am trying to go through good reference books on the other "religion" related projects as well and give them lists of articles that appear in good reference books dealing more specifically with their topics. John Carter (talk) 16:23, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Ok, a fair answer. Yes, I can understand Jesus and Buddha, and all the major prophets and gods and various supernatural beings and concepts of that span or have had an impact on multiple faiths, countries, ethnicity, or have shaped our present conceptualization of religion. I was confused with articles like Ippen, a 13th century Japanese Buddhist monk who founded a sect of a branch of Japanese Buddhism, itself a geographical and ideological branch of the larger Buddhist faith. Although rated Top-importance, neither he nor his sect have been influential outside of his own time period, and even that was of nominal influence, as far as I can tell. (By the by, I changed them both to Mid-importance. Apologies. I'm not given to changing the evaluations on other projects, it was an impulse. You can change them back.)So I wasn't sure, how did he qualify as Top importance to both WP:Buddhism and WP:Religion? Was it because he was listed in the Encyclopedia of Religion? Boneyard90 (talk) 20:22, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

At least regarding the articles I tagged as Top-importance, all of them were included as an entry in that work, and I do see it listed there in the User:John Carter/Religion articles#Buddhism section. That work does have some 3,000 articles, but for whatever reason, probably because he was, as you say, the founder of a significant branch of Buddhism, he was included in that source. Yeah, that is around 3,000 articles, and some of them might seem tangential to the subject of religion, but my own guess is, basically, that if they thought it important enough to include in that work, it is probably important enough for us to call Top-importance for Religion. The fact that it was tagged as top-importance for Buddhism was based on the fact that if it was Top importance to the broad field of Religion, it's probably Top-importance to the narrower field of Buddhism as well. And, FWIW, particularly when recognizing the number of articles we can and will have about some really minor topics about religion we have, like small-town pastors, local churches or temples, and the like, I think it not unreasonable to maybe err on the side of generosity for those topics which receive such mention. Also, I am in the process of trying to make a more specific list of articles from a Buddhist encyclopedia, specifically the Encyclopedia of Buddhism by Robert E. Buswell, Thomson Gale 2004, which only has about 400 articles, and I see Ippen is one of the articles included there as well. so I'm guessing he even qualifies as extremely significant within Buddhism as well. John Carter (talk) 20:43, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Understood. Thank you for the answer and your time. Boneyard90 (talk) 21:43, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

John and I have been having a similar discussion with respect to Judaism articles over on my talk page. First of all, tremendous credit to John for all the work he does on this, and for continuing to find appropriate outside sources against which we can calibrate ourselves.

That said, John's initial thesis has been that anything with an article in Encyclopedia of Religion is assumed a priori to be of Top importance to this project. Certainly that was a reasonable place to start. In our discussion, though, he offered, and I agreed, that anything included there is probably either Top or High here, but not necessary automatically Top. So I would like to make the following interim proposal, subject to John's finding additional resources:

1. If the subject is contained in the current (last one-two editions of) Encyclopedia of Religion, we assume it is Top or High for this project. (Included in an earlier edition, then dropped, would not only not qualify an article here as Top, but would probably be a red flag that suggests it shouldn't be.)
2. Between Top and High, it is up to the interested editors/WikiProject members to decide by consensus.
3. We should probably defer to more specialized WikiProjects' opinions in deciding that a topic is not Top. So if WikiProject Judaism, says "Such-and-such" is Importance:High, then we do, too. If the other project goes lower than that, we continue to hold at High. But if the specialized Project says it's not Top, it's hard for me to see why we should disagree here. (Alternatively, we can always ask the other Project for a reassessment if we do.)

Any thoughts others might have would be welcome. StevenJ81 (talk) 16:47, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

This is certainly reasonable. FWIW, there only have been two editions of the EoR published to date, one in 1985, the other in 2005. The editors of the second edition did indicate that they dropped a few articles from the first edition, and added a rather large number of articles relating to the broad topic of new religious movements, as well as a few main topical articles such as, if I remember correctly, a set of articles relating to the broad topic of gender and religion. A few of the articles which were dropped from the second edition were some of the smaller historical religion articles, such as, although I can't swear to this one being among them, the article on the history of religion in Armenia. And, having gone through a few more focused works on a few specific religious groups, like Buddhism, Jainism, and some forms of Christianity, I now realize that the comparative amount of space given various topics, as well as whether there are named subsections of articles, are relevant to our considerations as well, and am once again going through the latest edition of the EoR to check for that information. In a few weeks at most, because it does take a while to do this, the revised listing with the additional information should be available, hopefully with information from both editions.

My own, admittedly individual, opinion here might be to take the articles or groups of articles, in some cases, which have the most weight in these works as being not of "top" importance, but maybe as "core" importance, and allowing the rest to remain at the old "top" level. But any other opinions are welcome as well. John Carter (talk) 16:01, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Proposed move: Genesis creation narrative

For your information, there is a new proposal to move Genesis creation narrative to Genesis creation myth. See Talk:Genesis creation narrative#New proposal. StAnselm (talk) 21:22, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

AfD or stub

A merge discussion has been going on for some time regarding the Hebrew Gospel (Aramaic) article. It's time to wrap this up. Please weigh in at Talk:Hebrew Gospel hypothesis#AfD or stub. Ignocrates (talk) 18:01, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

The Hebrew Gospel (Aramaic) article has been tagged with a Proposal for Deletion as an uncontroversial deletion. Ignocrates (talk) 18:39, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

The PROD tag was removed. Therefore, the proposal for deletion failed. You may want to participate in a discussion of what to do as an alternative. Ignocrates (talk) 17:48, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Demon

These are not my usual stomping grounds, but I think the Demon page could be improved if it had fewer headlines.--Jim in Georgia Contribs Talk 17:04, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Wicca#GA Reassessment

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Wicca#GA Reassessment. —Sowlos 06:54, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

AfD

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Molko v. Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity. BigJim707 (talk) 15:22, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

"Dharmic writers"

Some time ago (2007), the article Dharmic religion was deleted after this deletion discussion and redirected to Indian religions. Category:Dharmic religions was deleted in 2008 after this deletion discussion. There is currently a deletion discussion about the final remnant category of these POV forks, Category:Dharmic writers. Attention may also need to be paid to {{Modern Dharmic writers}}, which contains such occultists as Helena Blavatsky. This all seems rather ill-defined and not source based. Please consider participating in this discussion. Thank you. Yworo (talk) 17:09, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

news

Move Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the United Kingdom and Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the United States to wikinews. Pass a Method talk 22:33, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Naming conventions (clergy)

WP:Naming conventions (clergy) has been requested to be renamed, see WT:Naming conventions (clergy) -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 11:21, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

AfD

Please see: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Neo-fascism and religion (2nd nomination) -Kitfoxxe (talk) 03:17, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Peer Review of Flying Spaghetti Monster

I have listed Flying Spaghetti Monster for peer review at Wikipedia:Peer review/Flying Spaghetti Monster/archive1. any input on how to improve the article would be very much appreciated. Thanks! --

21:58, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

WikiProject Religious texts

Would this project like to absorb the inactive WikiProject Religious texts as a work group? Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 20:17, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Soka Gakkai

Can some experienced editors please check over Soka Gakkai (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views).

There's some discussions going on, and a couple of editors have strong views. It would help if others could contribute to improve the article. Thanks, 88.104.27.2 (talk) 14:07, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

The disputing parties have been quite for two days. Perhaps it is better to say nothing rather than rekindle that battle.  —Sowlos  17:57, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

The main problem is - as usual - it's just two people, with two differing opinions - one says something should be added, the other says it shouldn't. Arguments like that go on forever, because there cannot be 'consensus'.

If others add their opinion, then it's possible to form a consensus to decide if it should be added or not - at which point, the person who disagrees should hopefully go along with the consensus. 88.104.28.176 (talk) 14:16, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Jesus GAN

The Jesus article has been nominated at GAN. Would anyone here be interested in reviewing it?--FutureTrillionaire (talk) 03:05, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

A second opinion is requested.--FutureTrillionaire (talk) 20:27, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

This went GA in May. I don't disagree on net, but I do still have issues with the article. See Talk:Jesus. StevenJ81 (talk) 21:45, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

RfC on weight given to religions

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

There has recently been some controversy over the amount of space or weight given to small religions (with thousands to millions of adherents) compared to large religions (with millions to billions of adherents). An editor has recently been adding sections and links to small religions like Raelism, Druidism, Church of Satan, Unitarian Universalism, Wicca, etc., to big primary-topic articles like Religion, Church, God, Marriage, Afterlife, etc. While this is very democratic, I see it as causing problems, because if every religion with a few hundred thousand adherents got similar preferential treatment, religion articles would turn into a huge, unmanageable jumbled list of religions. I have reverted the user's changes several times over the past few months, but we have been unable to reach a consensus between the two of us.

In an attempt to find out what the larger community thinks on the matter, I propose the following guidelines for the weight given to individual religions in religion-related articles. I'm not asking that these be accepted as official or added to any Wikipedia-space policy page; I just want to see where the community consensus lies.

When all other things are equal...

1. Larger religions should receive more weight than smaller religions in articles about general religious subjects. (This means having sections on Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, etc., but probably not sections on Raelism, Druidism, Church of Satan, etc.)
2. When choosing between "traditional" or "new" religions for inclusion in religion-related articles, preference should be given to the historic, traditional, stable religions with significant influence in society, politics, and economic affairs, over the short-lived, novel, charismatic popular faiths. (This means giving Zoroastrianism more weight than Scientology.)
3. The weight given to individual religions should be proportional to the weight given to those religions in reliable sources on the given topic. (In general, this will give more weight to the "Big Five" Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism and the "Classical Twelve" which adds Confucianism, Taoism, Jainism, Shinto, Sikhism, Baha'i, and Zoroastrianism. source)
4. Religions with a significant international following (geographical distribution) are more notable for inclusion in articles with an international scope.
5. A very slight preference should be made toward religions that have a sacred text containing their theology vs. those that rely on unorganized customs.
6. Religions become more notable in topics related to the religion. (For example: the Monotheism article will have more on Christianity and Islam, while the Polytheism article will have more on Hinduism; articles about reincarnation will have more on religions that have doctrines about reincarnation; articles about witchcraft will talk more about Wicca.)

Please indicate your agreement or disagreement with the above six guidelines. Answers may be of the form: "Agree with 1,3,5. Disagree with 2,4,6." ~Adjwilley (talk) 20:40, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Survey

• Utterly disagree, especially as to any codification of recentism, and to imposition of bias favoring scriptural faiths (oddly, since most scriptures have elements incompatible with others, at least most must logically be incorrect, and so any given scripture is probably incorrect; whereas systems without scripture ar more likely to be compatible, and so if they account for the existence of scripture, more likely correct). In fact why waste space having separate sections for differing Abrahamic faiths which have the same view on a particular point? Better that space be allotted in accordance with how much difference exists in less conventional faiths. And attention ought to be given to those beliefs which go beyond the theistic, such as Deism, Pandeism, and Pantheism. DeistCosmos (talk) 01:37, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

• I don't get it. I mean, you list Judaism among the big 5, which I like, but in terms of numbers, we aren't anywhere near that. - Lisa (talk - contribs) 02:22, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

But Judaism is the parent of Christianity, Islam, and to some extent other things (e.g., Ba'hai). And we continue to have an influence on the world that is higher than our numbers would indicate. So, yes, it's one of the big 5. StevenJ81 (talk) 13:34, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Lisa, It's not my idea, that's what the sources do, and likely for some of the reasons StevenJ81 was saying. There's actually a fairly good discussion of this here if you're interested. ~Adjwilley (talk) 15:05, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Zoroastrianism is partially a parent of Judaism. Does that make Zoroastrianism part of the big 6 by that logic? Pass a Method talk

Zoroastrianism is actually one of the so-called "Classical Twelve". ~Adjwilley (talk) 15:07, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

I would love to see a source which indicates that Zoroastrianism is a "partial parent" of Judaism. I know Judaism is considered by several academics to be at least partially derived/descended from the other early Mesopotamian religions, and I know that Zoroastrianism shares some similar beliefs with Judaism, but I don't know that I've ever seen an academic source explicitly state that Zoroastrianism was in any way a "parent" of Judaism in any way. John Carter (talk) 15:59, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

I believe that the Mithra article should contain some of the information to which the statement by Pass a Method would be referring.--Ubikwit (talk) 19:39, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

And in any event, Judaism does not concede such "parentage". In contrast, Christianity and Islam do acknowledge Judaism as parent, and everyone pretty transparently understands why. (Frankly, the identification of Judaism as one of the "Big 5" would probably need a source if this were an article ... but the statement that Judaism is parent to Christianity and Islam might very well not.) StevenJ81 (talk) 16:14, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

• Agree with 1, 2, 4 and 6, some agreement with 3 and oppose 5 As per WP:UNDUE I think that smaller religions with few followers are not always notable in all religion-related articles. We should of course have articles on those religions, and link to them were appropriate, but it really becomes impossible if we should discuss what every religion has to say about every religious subject. To make a comparison, should we always give the same weight to Nauru and San Marino as we do to the USA or China? However, I do think there is a general tendency of a certain judeo-christian POV in many articles and I think more space need to be given to hinduim, buddhism, confucianism, taoism, shintoism etc. Those are all large religions, all of them easily above ten million followers. I am a bit confused by the "big 5". Why is Judaism in the big 5 despite being much smaller than Shintoism or Taoism? That seems to be a typical examples of the judeo-christian POV I just mentioned.Jeppiz (talk) 15:44, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

• Qualified agreement with these proposals. First, as I think I said elsewhere, at least one recent academic source has counted Yoruba religion one of the "Big eight" it covers, as it is both the religion of a major African group and a religion which has had very significant impact on any number of religions of people of African descent in the New World. In general, I tend to think that the best way to determine weight as per WP:WEIGHT in matters like which religions to refer to as examples is to consult the relevant reference sources on the topic at hand and see which examples they use. In some cases, it may well be that Mandaeanism or Yazidi or some form of Gnosticism, for instance, is the best example of some particular belief, like maybe belief in a demiurge. If anyone wanted to check, they would see that with the huge degree of recent proliferation of reference sources of all kinds, I can honestly think of only a very few, generally very recent or very minor, topics which are not discussed at some length in at least a few of them. So, personally, in these instances, I would myself favor that any examples or other references to individual faiths in articles about topics other than the faiths themselves be cited to some such reference source, which to my eyes would be the best way to ensure that the best examples for any particular topic be the ones chosen. John Carter (talk) 15:59, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

• Agree with guideline 3 only, I saw this RFC linked from an ANI discussion. Disagree with the others, although guideline 6 is actually the application of guideline 3. This is a very straightforward application of WP:WEIGHT; quoting that policy, viewpoints are featured "in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources." A quick Google Scholar search on "Christianity" returns 1.1 million results; a search on "Raëlism" returns 55 results. For most topics, there's simply no comparison between the amount of weight reliable sources give to Raëlism relative to Christianity. For many topics, Wikipedia will feature Christianity much more than Raëlism (if it mentions it at all), and this may be perceived as a bias for the "Christian POV", but that's entirely by design because the sources are biased in their coverage in exactly the same way. A Google Scholar search on "Christianity afterlife" returns 46,200 results, a search on "Raëlism afterlife" yields 26 results, so I'd expect Afterlife to talk about Christianity a lot and Raëlism not at all. There might be some specific topics for which sources relatively feature Raëlism much more prominently, for example, cloning is a topic that's important to Raëlism and not so much Christianity; look at Ethics_of_cloning#Religious_views, and quite appropriately Christianity has a small sub-section there and Raëlism has a larger one. It's all about what's in the sources, the numbers of adherents is entirely irrelevant. Zad68 16:19, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

• Agree with 1, 3, 4, 6; weak agree with 2; weak oppose to 5. With respect to guideline 2, it is the historical and sociological influence of the older religions, not their age, that is the factor. I'm a little worried about using age as a proxy, and I think the other guidelines cover the issue better. Guideline 5 might represent an actual bias violating NPOV. The others are entirely in accord with the historical and current significance of religions as described in reliable sources. StevenJ81 (talk) 16:28, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
• Agree with 3 and 4 per Zad. Oppose 2 and 5. Pass a Method talk 16:30, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

• Agree with 1, 3 and 6. Unsure, agnostic about the others, partly disagreeing with 5. I think the point in number 3, go by reliable sources, as always is a keypoint. We should in particular look at how text books in religion handle this. But as we often go by Western text books,I think Jeppiz may be right that this will sometimes tend to lead to an overemphasis on the Abrahamic religions. Many of the minor modern religions that are named in the opening questions (Wiccans etc.) also appears to be mainly Western phenomenas, so giving much weight to them will just reenforce undue weight to the Western religions. Iselilja (talk) 16:58, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

• Agree with 6, 4, 3, 1, 2, 5 roughly in that order (ordered from "yes, this is a good idea" to "meh, whatever"). Appreciate the qualitative comments above. By the way, a number of the proposals are actually extensions of number 3: I got many of the ideas from reading sources about world religions, and those were ways they chose the religions that were important/useful to talk about. That's where #2 and #5 came from, although upon further reflection some may have used that criteria because it was easier. ~Adjwilley (talk) 17:27, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

• Agree with 3, oppose 5, "meh" on the rest. 3 is basically WP:WEIGHT. 5 is codified systemic bias. Most others look like good general guidelines for what I'd expect WP:WEIGHT to amount to, but if in doubt, we should follow the sources, not some general rules. Basically I'm with John Carter here. Huon (talk) 17:35, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

• Agree with 3 Treatment by reliable sources is how we should be giving weight to different religions. It will be different for some subjects, as well it should be. I see the occasional argument that there is systemic bias in reliable sources, because most of them are written by adherents of the main religions. To the extent that's true, it's still the best we've got for now. First Light (talk) 18:23, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

• Agree with 1, 3 and 6. StAnselm (talk) 19:40, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
• Agree with 1-6. Thanks for proposing npov reasonable guidelines. The flip side of this is that religions are sometimes founded to "push" a pov and get publicity in the media. Which should have nothing to do with influence on society in general. "Church for Better Health Care" or "Church to Help Haiti." With real small membership, but very large headlines. Student7 (talk) 22:14, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

• Varied:
  1. Agreed. Larger religions are more notable. It is a simple matter of WP:WEIGHT. In terms of what should be included in a main article, such as Religion, my personal requirement is adherence of at least a few million. This is a very manageable group of religions. Few even achieve more than one million.
  2. Disagreed. Greater age ≠ greater notability. We should depend on objective figures, such as adherence.
  3. Agreed. This goes back to WP:WEIGHT.
  4. Agreed. But I'd say religions with a significant international following should be featured more prominently than others of more modest international stature in any article they are relevant to, not just articles with an international scope. International religions are more notable. (This does not include some — what I hope to be hypothetical — religion that has 10 members each in 100 countries.)
  5. Disagreed, strongly. This is very much POV-tinted. "Religions of the Book" are no more notable than others because how they define themselves. Also, much (perhaps most) of even booked religions' relevant details are always outside of cannon. Academic coverage is enough.^{*(Response by John Carter bellow, at "FWIW")}
  6. Agreed. Of course; that is a simple matter of WP:SCOPE.

 —Sowlos  20:19, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

• Comments

With regard to Judaism and its numbers, vis a vis WP:WEIGHT, the interfaith movement and inter-religious dialogue worldwide in its iterations includes Judaism. Judaism has always had disproportionate weight, and is due popular use of Religions of the Book and the fact that Christianity emerged from Judaism itself. I doubt if there are very many practising Jews who would agree that Zoroastrianism is its parent religion.

• 1. Agreed. Larger religions generally have more developed philosophy-doctrine-dogma which has more effect and influence over larger numbers of people.
  2. Agreed. However, we need to define new religious movements. This may set a definable marker for inclusion or exclusion.
  3. Agreed. This goes back to WP:WEIGHT.
  4. Agreed. Consider. How do you treat Baha'i's who have a considerable international following in the media? Do you treat them as a new religious movement or not?
  5. Disagreed Who decides what theology is included in sacred writings? We all have a different method in theology, and to specify this as criteria would open a Pandora's box and exclude other editors.
  6. Agreed. Of course; that is a simple matter of WP:SCOPE.

Whiteguru (talk) 22:20, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

• Agree with all proposed guidelines in theory - But in practice? I get the feeling that most of this stuff really has to be decided on a case-by-case basis. I'd absolutely agree that giving something like Christianity (a "highly" notable religion) equal weight with something like Longhouse Religion (a "low" notability religion) on the page Religion in the United States would seem to grossly lack balance; however, giving equal weight to Christianity and Longhouse Religion might be reasonably balanced on a page like Native American religion. At the end of the day, the amount of weight you provide to any particular religion is sorta dependent on the context in which you are providing it. NickCT (talk) 12:21, 4 April 2013 (UTC) (called by the RfC bot)
• Agree - Noting the initial proviso 'When all other things are equal...' William Avery (talk) 08:58, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Threaded discussion

• Adjwilley, i would have thought that your above sentiment is genuine if i did not see you frequently try to remove or argue for removal of coverage of islam from various articles. Is Islam a small religion? Why leave out Sikhism and Baha'i faith which you previously described as insigificant too? Therefore your sentiment above is imo dishonest and is merely an attempt to push a Christcentric view on wikipedia. Pass a Method talk 11:27, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Please WP:Assume Good Faith. StevenJ81 (talk) 13:35, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

@Pass a Method: That's where you've gone wrong. Just because I oppose some of your edits doesn't mean that I'm pushing a "christcentric" view (whatever that means). In fact, at our most recent dispute at Joseph (son of Jacob), I favored not having references to Christian, Muslim, or Baha'i' scripture in the 1st sentence of the Lead, but just a link to the Hebrew Bible because that's where Joseph is most relevant. I challenge you to demonstrate how not having a links to to Eckankar, Druidism, and Raelism in the Lead sections of main topic articles has anything to do with Christianity. I'm just trying to improve the encyclopedia, and I have stated my reasons above. We aren't doing any service to our readers by turning main topic articles into long and arbitrary lists of small and obscure religions like Raelism and Eckankar. ~Adjwilley (talk) 14:13, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

• While I can see these guidelines would be useful in rating article importance, I cannot see how they could/should be applied to writing articles. If there is information available backed by verifiable citations, then there is no reason that Wikipedia should not report it. regardless of the size or scope of the religious tradition. On the other hand, WP:UNDUE does already dictate that the attention given inside articles to subjects should reflect the same weight as given in reliable sources. I am unclear as to the scope of this RfC. We should not (and cannot) limit the creation or content of articles that are backed by secondary and tertiary references. If the purpose is to limit attention given to groups within general articles on religion, then WP:UNDUE seems to already address that situation, though it would be OK to offer an essay on how to give weight to various religions when writing an article on the general subject of religion. Even so, we go with how religious traditions are treated in reliable sources. Clarification, please, because what is being proposed seems overly broad at first reading. • Astynax ^talk 17:54, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

• Per WP:LOCALCONSENSUS large discussion in small pond. Will not go anywhere, for it can not over-rider wider guidelines. History2007 (talk) 18:04, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
  • It's still worth discussing, even if there are no proposed changes to the main policy covering this (WP:UNDUE). First Light (talk) 18:44, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

You can discuss all you want, and I can say "save your breath"... as simple as that. History2007 (talk) 19:01, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Most of the discussion here is about how to apply policy, not rewrite it, in a circumstance that is specific to this WikiProject. I've seen such discussions be quite helpful in other healthy Projects. Discussion=Healthy, Even when it's just to berate every editor here for wasting their time—your opinion has been noted. First Light (talk) 19:29, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

That is correct. I certainly wasn't trying to rewrite any policy or guidelines...just trying to achieve a consensus on how the policy and guidelines should be applied in a specific circumstance. By the way, thank you all for the thoughtful comments you've left here and in the survey section. I feel this has been very helpful. ~Adjwilley (talk) 02:25, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

• FWIW, I can see a not unreasonable case for 5, which even the proposer didn't indicate particularly strong support for, which is basically that religions which have a clear text are also probably a bit less likely to have radical disagreements among their adherents regarding matters of faith, given the comparatively concrete nature of texts. Christianity, with roughly 20 thousand different denominations, notwithstanding of course. Honestly, all six seem to me to be, basically, reasonable, well-intentioned, attempts to apply basic existing policies and guidelines, and I think that they all, to some degree, could reasonably serve as rough guides to how to apply existing policies and guidelines, and I would probably myself support them all more strongly if it weren't the case that there are a lot of reference books out there on the broad subject of religion. I went through JSTOR and other databanks some months ago, and still have, I think, several thousand reviews of reference books relating to religion, covering, I think, somewhere around or over a thousand different works. Most of them are also comparatively recent. With that glut of generally highly regarded reference sources out there, these rough guidelines for how to apply policies and guidelines on content related to this subject might prove in at least some cases superfluous, those cases being one where the existing reference sources covering the topic themselves display some consistency in their material. But, for the rare cases when those sources can't be found or aren't available, I kind of like them all as "rule-of-thumb" guidelines. John Carter (talk) 21:02, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

• That case for 5 sounds like wishful thinking to me, and I'd happily argue the opposite - but even if the case were true, why should more "monolithic" religions be given preference? Huon (talk) 22:54, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

• I guess I should clarify - I wasn't thinking that they were "preferable" because of being fairly standard, but that one could, somewhat reasonably, with exceptions like Christianity like I already mentioned, be fairly sure in several of those cases that any article material would actually be accurate, and would be less likely to face problems like "My branch of (name) doesn't do (whatever), so this broad article about a tangential topic shouldn't say that it does" problems. And, yeah, I guess I would think that, in at least a few cases, it might be better to use an example which isn't itself going to be the subject of protracted, possibly unresolvable, potential edit warring and disagreement on the talk page of the article on that basis. Articles like the Two by Twos, for instance, have long been argued about on their talk pages because there are no readily available internal sources on their practices, teachings, etc. Those which have books of some sort, be they scriptural, liturgical, or otherwise, won't generally face the same degree of regular disagreement and dispute. John Carter (talk) 23:25, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

• Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism all have major sects with substantially different beliefs. Some don't even agree on what texts are canonical; some even war with each other.
  If the argument for preferring religions with "books" is that they are easer to classify, I must disagree. In all cases, complete descriptions of religions require coverage of contradictory/competing ideologies. If the argument for preferring religions with "books" is that it limits the number of religions to highlight to something manageable, I must point out this is a very biased POV. It is based more in the history of one part of the world than fact. Limiting highlightable religions to those with membership at least in the millions produces a list of about 15. That is not a lot. In reality there are not many large religions. There no need to prune such a short list.  —Sowlos  00:33, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

• True, and freely acknowledged, like I said before about Christianity. In the above comment I was referring specifically to individual groupings within those traditions. Like I said before, I kinda doubt all 20 thousand Christian denominations necessarily agree on anything, other than that Christ probably existed in some way. So, basically, it wasn't on the basis that they are easier to classify, but that the existence of some sort of internal document, be it scriptural, liturgical, or whatever, makes it less likely for that specific group/denomination that there will be the sort of repeated arguments and discussions about how "I don't see this aspect in my own history of observing the group," which is a point that has been repeatedly made, by I'm fairly sure multiple different people, on the talk page of the Two by Twos. Granted, good quality, hopefully somewhat lengthy, reference sources could still be used in such instances, but, in this particular case, the lack of any sort of real internal documentation has apparently made it harder for reference works to discuss their practices at length, resulting in fewer independent sources discussing them at length at all. John Carter (talk) 00:42, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

• In the above comment I was referring specifically to individual groupings within those traditions. Like I said before, I kinda doubt all 20 thousand Christian denominations necessarily agree on anything...
  So was I. I just wanted to point out it's not only Christianity.the existence of some sort of internal document, be it scriptural, liturgical, or whatever, makes it less likely for that specific group/denomination that there will be the sort of repeated arguments and discussions about how "I don't see this aspect in my own history of observing the group,"
  You raise a good point, but I feel this really only works for religions like Judaism and Islam, those with with single authoritative versions of scripture. Christian denominational interpenetration of scripture varies to extremes of complete contradiction, before even considering the multitude of translations and versions of the Bible. Some groups even hold other scriptures above the Christian bible. (Mormons are the largest example.) Buddhism doesn't have a single canon and — in theory — another Buddha could emerge tomorrow, throwing everything we knew into question (just like any religion without the stability of scripture). Hinduism has a similarly nuanced system.
  Ultimately, every religion is defined by tradition and each forms its own sense orthodoxy. The way I see it, the substantive differences you see are those of established religions no longer coping with competing orthodoxies as compared to new movements still in their juvenile states. I completely agree that describing established religions are easier than describing new ones, but there is strong resistance against favouring religions do to their age or political stability. That is why I consider adherence the most neutral metric. The more people follow a belief, the more notable it is. Best of all, 15 groups is a manageable number and clearly indicates we're attempting to provide well rounded coverage.  —Sowlos  06:28, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

• I am given to understanding that for a century and a half Mormonism denied being part of Christianity, and that it is only in recent decades that political considerations have overwhelmed doctrine on this point. I'm any event, Mormonism having an additional 'revelation' distinguishes it from Christianity about as much as Christianity is distinguished from Judaism-- the latter now being eclipsed numerically by Mormonism, a trend certain to increase as Judaism continues to shrink and Mormonism continues to be the most aggressively growing religion. If Judaism is grouped in a big any-number group, I don't see how Mormonism, can't fairly have its own place in that group. DeistCosmos (talk) 18:57, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Regarding Mormonism, I should emphasize that it's not just the numbers that count. As others have mentioned above, Judaism is given more weight because of its historical importance and being kind of the grandfather of Abrahamic religions. I personally see Mormonism as being more akin to Baha'i. They have similar numbers of adherents (14 and 6 million), and were both founded in the 1800s. One of the differences is that Baha'i is probably further from Islam than Mormonism is from Christianity, which is probably why Baha'i is more often referred to as a separate religion. ~Adjwilley (talk) 16:43, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

IMO most Mormons consider themselves Christian, but non-Mormons generally do not accept Mormons as Christians, due to some major doctrinal schisms. However, over time Mormonism is actively backing away from many of the schisms that differentiate it from mainstream Christianity. (To the point where some high-profile deacons are saying the Book of Mormon is no longer divine scripture or a historical record). Judaism certainly has historical weight, both as the parent religion of Islam and Christianity, but also as a major player in historical events. (Obviously the Holocaust, but also expulsion from Spain, the original Italian Ghettos etc)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Consensus

The most widely supported and uncontroversial option was 3:

The weight given to individual religions should be proportional to the weight given to those religions in reliable sources on the given topic.

This merely restates WP:WEIGHT, which should guide us for religion articles as much as any other article. A few editors complained that this is all that is needed.

However, two important issues were raised about following WP:WEIGHT exclusively. The study of religion in the West began with the study of Christianity and we should be on the lookout for systemic bias. If an article deals with all religions it needs to be talking about all religions and not just about those that ex-Protestant American atheists are most familiar with. This would mean going against WP:WEIGHT where it appears to cover an insufficient percentage of the world's population. Also, we should keep in mind that for some big subjects like Religion or Religion and science there may be a huge number of sources about countless religions, and calculating relative weights would be a waste of time.

As a general rule for both situations, there was a sizable support in this RFC for giving more weight to the most influential groups, less weight to smaller and newer groups, and no weight to groups that lack significant documentation. Furthermore, there was no significant objection raised to such a guideline, although NickCT helpfully pointed out that "influence" is not a strict, single rule, but always depends on the article's topic:

I'd absolutely agree that giving something like Christianity (a "highly" notable religion) equal weight with something like Longhouse Religion (a "low" notability religion) on the page Religion in the United States would seem to grossly lack balance; however, giving equal weight to Christianity and Longhouse Religion might be reasonably balanced on a page like Native American religion.

The only proposal actively disliked was 5. Good points were made in favor of it. We can say more about religions with texts, and it's hard to come to firm conclusions about witnessing practices without texts. Conflating Christian self-descriptions with anthropological discussions of Yoruba religion, for example, threatens to conflate religious studies with anthropology, when religious studies has strong elements of philosophy and written culture. Obviously, though, this raises a bunch of other issues about questions like whether anthropological outsider descriptions are accurate, and whether the Western world's love of written knowledge is just cultural supremacism. Cultural anthropology almost fell apart as a discipline in the 1980s because of discussions like this. Obviously, the much smaller discipline of Wikipedia is not equipped to handle such a discussion so we should just ignore the implications of rule 5.

A guideline should be written up for religion-related articles that reflects the following consensus:

1. Weight should be given to groups based on their level of historical influence on the article's subject. Examples of historical influence in religion include age, number of adherents, and geographical extent. Groups limited to a local area or single, small community should get only short mentions that reflect their relative importance in reliable secondary sources.
2. Per WP:WEIGHT we should ideally be summarizing what other people are saying and in what quantity, if it is at all possible.
3. Countering point 2, per WP:BIAS we should be making sure that an unbalanced load of reliable sources does not prevent us from presenting an accurate, globally balanced summary. Articles with international scope should reflect groups that have had an international impact on the subject, as opposed to groups merely known to the editors.
4. Finally, per WP:LOCALCONSENSUS editors are free to propose exceptions on a talk page if they have a good reason for it.

By the way, although it wasn't part of the discussion, I am concerned about the recent uptick in Wikipedians trying to debate theology on article talk pages. I recently dropped in on two discussions where people were trying to puzzle out if a group was "really Baptist" or "really Muslim". We need to stick solely to what reliable sources say about theology -- and that means theologians, within their sectarian disciplines, and academics when summarizing general opinions or popular language. If we are drawing up a guideline for religion I request someone include that as well. Shii (tock) 04:17, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Suggested merge …

of Deconstruction and Jacques Derrida on deconstruction. See Talk:Deconstruction#Merger proposal. Kind regards, 㓟 (talk) 13:37, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Jerusalem lead RfC

There is currently a request for comments open about the lead section of the Jerusalem article, and all editors are welcome to give their opinions. I'm posting this here because the WikiProject Religion banner is included at Talk:Jerusalem. The dispute over the lead section is one of the oldest on Wikipedia, dating back to 2003, and focuses on whether or not it is neutral to say that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. The discussion was mandated by the Arbitration Committee, and its result will be binding for three years. The discussion is located at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Jerusalem, and will be open until 22 June 2013 (UTC). — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 13:52, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Mergers of Ishtar/Inanna & Utnapishtim/Atrahasis?

Ishtar and Inanna are two names for the same goddess. Likewise, Utnapishtim and Atrahasis are two names for the same person. Should these articles be merged together? Articles for other figures in ancient Mesopotamian religion already seem to be merged (Enki and Ea, two names for the same god, are included in the same article). ComfyKem (talk) 00:58, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

For the godesses compare Venus (mythology) and Aphrodite; the Ishtar and Inanna situation seems similar. I don't think any mergers are necessary here. Utnapishtim could indeed be easily merged into Atrahasis with little loss; that article already mentions Utnapishtim as an alternative name. Huon (talk) 16:43, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

The comparison with Venus and Aphrodite seems apt. The attempt to disentangle the figures is informative and useful, even when ultimately doomed because of cultural interaction and influence. "Two names for the same goddess" implies that there is an actual, knowable goddess to whom two cultures applied a different name. But from an encyclopedic perspective, we can only know a deity through its representation, and in antiquity naming (invocation) was a crucial aspect of knowing the divine. Cynwolfe (talk) 17:12, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Freedom from Religion Foundation

I'm not sure why the FFRF is in this WikiProject as it is not a religion, and is not within the stated parameters of the project. Could someone go remove it? Or is it okay if I do? Cap020570 (talk) 19:14, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Go ahead, it would be right to remove it for that reason you gave. The Freedom OF Religion has been recognized as a human right by almost all governments of the world and the United Nations. Freedom FROM Religion means the exact opposite of this, and was recognized in very few countries like North Korea and Communist Albania as the role models. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 19:40, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

e/c Inclusion in this WikiProject doesn't meat that an organization is a religion. In a similar way, Separation of church and state in the United States is part of this WikiProject because it also deals with the issue of Religion in society and politics. Surely any articles that directly address religion in society and politics should be included in this project, among others. First Light (talk) 19:43, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

But, First Light, the FFRF is not within the stated scope of the WPReligion. And while I haven't been to every page related to atheism, none before this one had the WPReligion tag on it. Cap020570 (talk) 12:38, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

I'll let others give their opinion here, since there doesn't seem to be much interest in this yet. Mine is that any article directly related to religion should have the project tag. But then, I tend to have an open mind about project tags and how liberally they should be used. I don't see them as some sort of black mark that ties them unwillingly to a particular wikiproject, or some sort of ownership by a project. To me, those tags only say, "this is a subject that relates in some way to the subject of religion," in this case. First Light (talk) 15:20, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Ya, I'm with First Light. The scope of this project is "articles on religion" not religious only articles. Critiques fit that bill. There are lots of critique pages that are part of projects which organize the subject they are critiquing. In addition, not all atheists are non-religious (e.g., Confucius or Hiroshi Motoyama). --Dkriegls (talk to me!) 16:18, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Peer Review of Jainism

Hello, I have listed the article Jainism for peer review. Jainism is one of the ancient Indian religions. I request your opinions at Wikipedia:Peer_review/Jainism/archive4. Please help me in making it a Featured Article. Thanks, Rahul Jain (talk) 16:56, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

File:P religion world.png

File:P religion world.png has been nominated for deletion -- 65.94.79.6 (talk) 01:37, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Template:Universalism

I have attempted to cleanup the Template:Universalism infobox. But I feel it still needs some work. It would be good if others could have a look and see what they can add to it in the way of links, formatting and categorization. --Devin Murphy (talk) 18:39, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

WP Religion in the Signpost

The WikiProject Report would like to focus on WikiProject Religion for a Signpost article. This is an excellent opportunity to draw attention to your efforts and attract new members to the project. Would you be willing to participate in an interview? If so, here are the questions for the interview. Just add your response below each question and feel free to skip any questions that you don't feel comfortable answering. Multiple editors will have an opportunity to respond to the interview questions, so be sure to sign your answers. If you know anyone else who would like to participate in the interview, please share this with them. Have a great day. –Mabeenot (talk) 16:02, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Julius Evola

I was surprised to see that this page is marked as being of Top importance to this project (see talk). Regards, 86.161.251.139 (talk) 09:24, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Changed. The article's subject is not one of the "core topics about religion".  —Sowlos  11:37, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

• Thank you for doing that. I would be grateful if an experienced editor could watchlist this problematic page regarding a highly controversial cultural figure. FYI, I have tried to provide a measured talk-page response [1] to a user editing from a problematic IP [2]. 86.161.251.139 (talk) 08:49, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Project academy pages?

I am wondering whether it might be useful for this project, and/or possibly other religion based projects to have some sort of group of helpful pages for editors in dealing with this material, maybe something like the Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Academy pages. Would anyone have any interest in perhaps helping get such pages together? And, yes, I have also asked the same thing at the Christianity WikiProject noticebard, because, honestly, given the roughly 20,000 or so denominations of Christianity that are apparently out there, that is probably the other religion based project which might most benefit from having such pages, so as to help ensure that all those groups which have received attention from reliable sources have their beliefs and practices given attention as per weight requirements. John Carter (talk) 15:46, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

I started creating Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion/Notability guide last year, but never got around to finishing it. Perhaps it could serve as a starting point. --Dkriegls (talk to me!) 18:32, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Invitation to join a discussion

Through this way, I inform there is a discussion at WT:Disambiguation about partially disambiguated titles, known as "PDABs". This subguide of WP:D affects articles in this WikiProject, some examples can be found at NCCL. There you can give ideas or thoughts about what to do with this guideline. Note this discussion is not to modify any aspect of NCCL. Thanks. Tbhotch.^™ Grammatically incorrect? Correct it! See terms and conditions. 00:57, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Slightly off project

This has already been notified at WP Judaism and WP Video Games, but Talk:Sephiroth (Final Fantasy)/Archive 2#Requested Move 2013, but belated it seems worth notifying here too. Why notify? since though personally one might consider the intersections between Sephiroth and Christianity fringey, theres no shortage of attempts to link or compare them. Given that some of this project's editors may wish to be informed even though the subject is wholly Jewish. In ictu oculi (talk) 10:44, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Proposed merger

There has been a proposed merger of Erhard Seminars Training into Landmark Education for some time now, and I would very much welcome any input regarding the matter at Talk:Landmark Worldwide#Merging Erhard Seminar Traiining and Landmark Education articles/Article Neutrality. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 15:19, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Religion reference sources

I have started a page at User:John Carter/Religion reference sources which lists those reference sources in the broad field of religion, including some on philosophy and mythology, which closely relate to religion, which have received either recognition from the American Library Associations as outstanding reference sources, or been listed in the article on reference works in the Lindsay Jones Encyclopedia of Religion. I may have removed some entries from this list which have already been, basically, added to the various extant lists of articles from religion sources I have recently created. In any event, I think it is probably in our best interests as a whole to maybe see what content these sources have, because in most cases the articles in these works are probably the topics of most importance to whatever the individual topics of those reference works is. John Carter (talk) 00:18, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

One of your project's articles has been featured

Hello, Please note that Child, which is within this project's scope, has been selected as one of Today's articles for improvement. The article was scheduled to appear on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Today's articles for improvement" section for one week, beginning today. Everyone is encouraged to collaborate to improve the article. Thanks, and happy editing! Delivered by Theo's Little Bot at 00:08, 12 August 2013 (UTC) on behalf of the TAFI team

Missing topics page

I have updated Missing topics about Religions - Skysmith (talk) 11:33, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

List of new religious movements Rfc

There is currently a request for comments on Talk: List of new religious movements. A question has been raised as to whether Landmark Worldwide (previously known as, Landmark Education, The Forum, est, etc.), which is discussed in the scholarship on new religous movements, is ineligible for inclusion in the List of new religious movements and should be removed. Input by editors is appreciated. • Astynax ^talk 03:31, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Philotheos at Articles for deletion

The article on the journal Philotheos: International Journal for Philosophy and Theology is up for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Philotheos: International Journal for Philosophy and Theology. Recommendations would be welcome. Thanks, --Mark viking (talk) 12:09, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

AfD notification

See List of publications critical of the Latter Day Saint movement. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:02, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Ramtha's School of Enlightenment

Hi there! I see from the discussion page for Ramtha's School of Enlightenment that this Wikiproject has marked the entry as "Mid-importance" so I wanted to leave a message here for anyone who might be interested in the work I've been doing recently.

On behalf of the school, which is aware that the current version is not in very good shape, I have been working on improving the entry. After carefully looking over the page, and researching the school, I've written a new version that I would like other editors to consider.

On the discussion page you will find more information about what I suggest changing and why. You will also find a link to what I have written. Though I have written this on behalf of the school, I am not personally a member, however because of my "conflict of interest" I will not edit the entry myself. If what I have written is an improvement I hope that other editors will be able to make the changes to the entry for me. Calstarry (talk) 15:35, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Since you identify yourself as working on behalf of the school, and since the only article you have contributed to is the school's, I would like to offer some friendly advice. It is generally frowned upon for people directly associated with an organization to work on articles about the organization: it is very easy for that to be perceived as a conflict of interest. In your edits, please keep in mind Wikipedia's policies about neutral point of view, not promoting or advertising and the need for reliable sources from third-parties. Also, be careful that you do not assert ownership of the article: Wikipedia is a collaborative venture, and negative or unflattering information that meets inclusion standards cannot be removed just because someone with the organization doesn't like the material being added. TechBear | Talk | Contributions 16:04, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Calstarry, I would like to thank you for announcing your conflict of interest and taking the appropriate steps of suggesting your edits on the talk page instead of doing them yourself. I will take the rest of my comments to the article's talk page. Dkriegls (talk to me!) 20:07, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Misotheism

To my possibly untutored eye, this article appears to be full of original research, conflation of other concepts with misotheism, eg Dystheism without sources, etc. Dougweller (talk) 10:48, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Omnism seems to need this sort of help as well. Blessings! DeistCosmos (talk) 18:25, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

RfC on a category in the article Islamophobia

See Talk:Islamophobia#Talk:RFC:Should this article be included in Category:Racism. Dougweller (talk) 09:03, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

God rfc

I invite you to comment here Pass a Method talk 00:48, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Hinduism and other religions‎

There is apparently a dispute going on at Hinduism and other religions‎. Someone asked me to weigh in on it, but since I do not have the expertise, hopefully some experienced editors from the Religion Project may be able to help sort things out. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 12:41, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

GAR

Akhenaten, an article that you or your project may be interested in, has been nominated for an individual good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Dana boomer (talk) 17:06, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Jung Myung Seok

Seeking uninvolved admins to take a good look at the article on Jung Myung Seok (a Korean religious leader). This article has been the subject of edit-warring and both full and semi-protection for over a year. I listed it several days ago at WP:ANI (see here), but no one has responded so far. Thanks. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 19:15, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Category merge?

We currently have a Category:Protector gods, which in turn is the sole member of Category:Protector deities. Surely both of these are unnecessary, since Category:Tutelary deities suffices?

Would anyone have an objection if I moved all the pages in Category:Protector gods to Category:Tutelary deities, and deleted the two redundant categories? -- The Anome (talk) 11:44, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

OK, I've now changed the relevant categories for each of those articles to Category:Tutelary deities. which seems appropriate in each case. We now have two redundant categories: I'll make these category redirects. -- The Anome (talk) 23:27, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Strange article needs eyes

I see that Sanat Kumara is part of this wikiproject -- it's a bit bizarre, if anyone is interested in cleaning up that sort of thing. Dougweller (talk) 21:33, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Fresh start: Ramtha's School of Enlightenment

I posted on this page about six weeks ago looking for editors to help review a new draft of the Ramtha's School of Enlightenment article. Over the past few weeks the conversation has gotten very long and complicated so now, at the suggestion of several other editors, I would like to try and look at the article section by section.

I am looking for editors who can help review the page's current Research section and compare it to my suggested revision which I have named Research into Ramtha.

On the Ramtha's discussion page I've shared my concerns with the current section and some detailed notes that explain the changes I would like to make with my revision. If you can help you can see the message on the Ramtha's discussion page about this here. Calstarry (talk) 21:42, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Dispute at the page Criticism of Jainism

Note:This comment is left at the talk page of WP:INDIA and WP:RELIGION.

There is a dispute at the page Criticism of Jainism. A claim was added by User:Bladesmulti regarding dayananda's views on Jainism.[3] It used a primary source which I hence removed. It was re-added with another reference.[4]. Here is the precise quote from the reference now provided:

• Panicker, P. L. John (2006). Gandhi on Pluralism and Communalism. ISPCK. p. 39. The views of Dayanand Saraswati towards other religions as expressed in Satyarth Prakash was strongly condemnatory, predominantly negative and positively intolerant and negative. Jorden observes, "there is quite a lot of sarcastic bitterness" in the criticism of other religions. Dayanand called Jainism a "most dreadful religion" the founders and followers of which are "in dense ignorance". Their tirthankaras were ignorant. Dayanand condemned Christianity as a hollow religion. A barbourous religion and a false religion believed by fools and by people in state of barbarism. Jesus was the one who talked nonsense like savage. not a seer not even an enlightened man. For Dayananda, islam is a false religion that does nothing but harm and should be discarded. Muhammad (PBUH) was not a pious man but was immoral and lascivious. The militant Aryas followed the path of Dayananda and rejected any suggestion to soften Dayananda's criticism of other faiths or to change, in any way, the word of their rsi.

I do not think that the wordings of the article correctly represents the reference provided. I tried removing or rewording the statement, all of which were reverted.[5][6][7].

The discussion at the talk page is not helping. One of the user involved (User:Jethwarp) hasn't even participated. I tried asking for third opinion, but its been six days and no one commented. Can anyone provide their comments in this (preferably at the talk page Talk:Criticism_of_Jainism)? Rahul (talk) 06:39, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Hopefully, since that page isn't about Dayanand Saraswati, only the criticism of Jainism must be noted. Anyone can know by the numerous links of wikipedia that what actually dayanand felt about every other religion. Bladesmulti (talk) 06:42, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

I am also of opinion that since the page is not about any other religion and nor about Dayanand Saraswati - it Undue - to put weight of what Dayanand said about other religion. Again see as per [8] the lines removed were The comments of Dayanand Saraswati is generally seen as intolerant and negative. - now this is a affirmative statement but it does not mention who says so. (Even above source does not says so) Also other section removed was He uses same bitterness towards every other religion except Hinduism and the militant Arya Samaj continue to do the same - again this statement is false as Arya Samaj was founded as it Dayananda believed that there were faults in Hindu religion and Arya Samaj is not a militant organization. The above source mentions about Aryas - Rahul twisted words to Arya Samaj. The above source does not say Dayananda did not criticise Hinduism. Rahul put his own words to say except Hinduism. So it is clear that User Rahul has put his opinion citing above source (pl. see my edit summary wherein I have explained same)- which does not say anything about the lines removed. I am bit busy in real life and may not be able to follow up on day to day basis - so excuse me for that Jethwarp (talk) 15:02, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Nontrinitarianism

This is bleeping on Watchlist... anybody feel able to pass by and look :( I don't have the energy at the moment sorry In ictu oculi (talk) 13:50, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Nomination of Criticism of Jainism for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Criticism of Jainism is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Criticism of Jainism until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. --Rahul (talk) 06:30, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Criticism of...

I'm wondering what participants here think of the series of articles on Criticism of… particular religions. I know that some are quite developed, others certainly are not. As you can see from the previous thread, the new Criticism of Jainism article is at AfD. Criticism of Sikhism also looks in a pretty bad way. Is it a general policy of this WikiProject to see those articles merged? To my mind, they are all incoherent conceptual ragbags. Itsmejudith (talk) 18:58, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

FYI re discussion re categorization of cult-related books

FYI re discussion re categorization of cult-related books: See Category talk:Cult-related books#Description of category. 17:25, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Freedom of religion in Georgia — looking for comments

Hi. I've done a major revision (essentially a total rewrite) of the article on Freedom of religion in Georgia, in preparation for (hopefully) nominating it for Good Article status. I would be grateful for feedback — especially any pointers to reliable sources which might cast a more positive light on the attitudes and actions of the Georgian Orthodox Church (GOC) and its adherents towards followers of other faiths (or of no faith). Right now, the article feels heavily biased against the GOC, but given what the sources I've found so far are saying, I don't see any way to change this and still satisfy the NPOV policy requirement that an article must fairly and proportionately represent what the published reliable sources say. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 23:42, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

You might also try Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Eastern Orthodoxy, and this article might be tagged for it. Elizium23 (talk) 00:49, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Good point. I've asked there as well. Thanks. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 03:51, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

A discussion has started at the Eastern Orthodoxy wikiproject talk page, and the main point being dealt with over there right now is exactly what "freedom of religion" is — more specifically, whether "freedom of religion" validly takes in religion-vs.-society issues that might more properly be classified as "freedom from religion", or "incidents involving society vs. leaders/members of a religious majority". Since freedom of religion is clearly a much more general subject than simply what is going on in ex-Soviet Georgia, it seems to me that the question of exactly what freedom of religion should mean might be a valid topic of broader discussion. Without trying to slant the discussion either way, I'd like to encourage people here to go take a look at that discussion over there and consider contributing your views as you may see fit. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 21:52, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Original research in various articles regarding the number of Buddhists

Articles such as Buddhism by country or List of religious populations have been constructed through misuse of sources and original research (for example combining statistics of different religions), in order to enormously inflate the number of Buddhists in the world.--79.6.90.105 (talk) 22:19, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Could you perhaps give a specific example of how this is being done? (How many Buddhists are there? What does the article say? Where is the original research, or where are the calculations wrong?) ~Adjwilley (talk) 03:35, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Chart created mixing the statistics of Buddhism with those of other religions (Shinto, Chinese religion, Dao Mau, Tengrism, etc.).

Inflated numbers: according to surveys China and Vietnam should be in the 10-20 tonality, Taiwan and Japan in the 30-40, Mongolia in the 50%.

For example, in the article Buddhism by country statistics of Buddhism have been mixed with those of other religions of East Asia (Chinese folk religion, Taoism, Shinto, Dao Mau), that have more followers than Buddhism in the respective countries, claiming that they are "related" to Buddhism, when this is utterly false. In the case of China and Vietnam, where Buddhism is followed by little more than 10% of the population (see religion in China, religion in Vietnam), mixing this statistics with that of indigenous religions, the article says that these countries are 50% to 80% Buddhist. In the case of Taiwan, Korea, Japan and Mongolia, where according to censuses or surveys the Buddhists are, respectively, 35%, 22%, around 30% and 53%, the article says that they are over 90%, 50%, 90% and 90% respectively. The authors of this type of edits also use unreliable sources (tourist and travel websites, for example). The same hyper-inflated fake numbers (over 1 billion Buddhists in the world) have been cited also in the main article, Buddhism (which even reports 1.6 billion Buddhists!).--79.50.85.69 (talk) 12:43, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

In other cases, List of religious populations#Buddhists, the same author uses reliable survey statistics (those reorting lower numbers) claiming that thair count is only of "practicing Buddhists", while uses the hyper inflated numbers claiming that they represent both practicing and non-practicing Buddhists. East Asian Buddhism has been created using the same type of unreliable sources mentioned above to sustain the high statistics, claiming that East Asians practice "mixed religions" ultimately resulting in this "East Asian Buddhism". Also, many charts have been created by the same authors: I have inserted some of them here on the left.

Service book and Service Book

I don't think that the redirect of Service book to Service Book is correct, but I am not an expert on English religious terminology. Can someone look into that? Is this a generic term for a Jewish prayer book, or is it more widespread? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 16:58, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Devotional articles

I have created a new article, perhaps someone would like to help me develop it into a DYK? I am also not sure if this is the best name, or maybe devotional objects would be best ? Devotional merchandise and devotional souvernirs is too limited, I feel. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 17:28, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Shamanism

A flood of uncited edits are taking place at Shamanism. Does anyone here at WP Religion focus on shamanism and care to take a look? -Uyvsdi (talk) 06:22, 11 February 2014 (UTC)Uyvsdi

Invitation to User Study

Would you be interested in participating in a user study? We are a team at University of Washington studying methods for finding collaborators within a Wikipedia community. We are looking for volunteers to evaluate a new visualization tool. All you need to do is to prepare for your laptop/desktop, web camera, and speaker for video communication with Google Hangout. We will provide you with a Amazon gift card in appreciation of your time and participation. For more information about this study, please visit our wiki page (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Finding_a_Collaborator). If you would like to participate in our user study, please send me a message at Wkmaster (talk) 13:07, 18 February 2014 (UTC).