Talk:Pete Stark

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article must adhere to the policy on biographies of living persons. Controversial material of any kind that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous. If such material is repeatedly inserted or there are other concerns relative to this policy, report it on the living persons biographies noticeboard.

This page is about an active politician who is running for office, is in office and campaigning for re-election, or is involved in some political conflict or controversy. Because of this, this article is at risk of biased editing, talk-page trolling, and simple vandalism.

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page.	Biography Portal
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the Project's quality scale. Please rate the article and then leave a short summary here to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article. [FAQ]
	This article is supported by the Politics and government work group.

This article is part of WikiProject California, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to California on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit this article, or visit the project page to join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.

Pete Stark is part of WikiProject U.S. Congress, an attempt to build a comprehensive guide to the United States Congress. You can help by editing this article. This template adds articles to Category:WikiProject U.S. Congress articles.

[edit] Religion

Even though he has no belief in a god, he still is a member of the Unitarian Universalist church, as a "nontheist" member.

>It doesn't matter, he doesn't have a belief in a god therefor he is an a-theist.

He explicitly doesn't self-identify as one, however. He does self-identify as Unitarian. Bryan Derksen 01:18, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

>Until now. Now he admits to being an atheist.

There is no contradiction between being nontheistic (which really should be an adjective as it describes only one aspect of someone much like being theistic can range from a Christian to a Muslim to a Shintoist to a Thugee) and being a Unitarian. The old joke was that Unitarians believed in at most one god (nowadays they can believe in any number of gods from 0 to infinity). --Erp 02:09, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

On this same subject, as someone who just saw the news article, I wonder why his quote specifically self-identifies as Unitarian, but all the news reports say Unitarian Universalist. Unitarianism isn't the same as UU, even though Universalism and Unitarian churches combined and basically ended their separate movements in modern times, so how is this person supposed to be identified? I was under the impression Unitarianism, despite being relatively broad, was a deistic non-trinitarian group, and not atheistic when its churches used to exist separate from the UU. Homestarmy 18:14, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm a bit confused here myself. Maybe he's a Unitarian Universalist, but thinks it's a bit long and doesn't like to identify as a UU. Let's leave it for now and see if anyone can find any reason why he'd identify as a Unitarian. --AlexJohnc3 ^(talk) 22:17, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I really think that we shouldn't use the word "atheist" unless it's at least attributed to a reliable source. Even if it were though, I'd prefer not to use the term unless Pete Stark himself specifically self-identifies as an atheist, since there are a number of related but distinct terms that people can self-identify as. It's one thing to explain what a given label means, or how Stark might interpret a given label, but it's another thing to start applying new labels that aren't widely applied to him. --Interiot 20:10, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree, he doesn't identify as an atheist, so, even though he does fall under the group of people who can be considered atheists (and thus he can identify as such, if he chooses), he didn't. Therefore it wouldn't be best to call him an atheist since he doesn't identify himself as one. --AlexJohnc3 ^(talk) 22:17, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to make it Unitarian Universalist because all the reports say he calls himself a "Unitarian Universalist".--Zombiema7 15:41, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I dunno, the only ref given at the moment for Unitarianism is a blog, which seems kind of silly because so many news outlets have about the same content, but when I read them, his quote identifies him as "Unitarian", and all the news articles immedietly jump to conclusions for no apparent reason and say "Unitarian Universalists believe....". Homestarmy 15:51, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Unitarians believe in the Christian God, but not the Trinity and UUs may or may not subscribe this belief. If he were only a Unitarian he would believe in God, which he doesn't (correct me if I'm wrong here). From what I said above: "Maybe he's a Unitarian Universalist, but thinks it's a bit long and doesn't like to identify as a UU." I think this might just be the case. --AlexJohnc3 ^(talk) 00:25, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

On "Unitarian" vs. "Unitarian Universalist", there are still Unitarian churches that did not join the UUA, churches in which nontheists are welcome. It is possible that Stark is a member of one of these congregations. Not a "WP" reliable source, but this blog comment explains it well. However, these non-UUA Unitarian churches are rather few in number, and there are plenty of UUs who don't go to the trouble of saying "Unitarian Universalist" every time they mention it. I think it is quite sane to go with UU unless and until we are specifically informed otherwise. — coelacan — 17:47, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] An Omitted Article

"Pete Stark's tiring tirades" from the San Francisco Chronicle was removed. I'm putting it back since it's an editorial by the newspaper.--Username:BRivera

Becareful in using an editorial as an objective claim. If an editorial is added, which I don't think it should, imagine it we included editorials on George W. Bush, it must be made clear whose opinion it is and that it is an editorial. Areasbref 17:08, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

If we're going to link to op-ed pieces, we might as well link to blogs and message boards. They're just as opinionated and unreliable. — BRIAN0918 • 2007-03-18 18:53Z

[edit] on Pete's atheism

All the MAINSTREAM media reported the declared "atheism" of Pete Stark. No one talked about non-theism or spiritualism or agnosticism or whatever you're trying to put.

• SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLES: Voters unfazed by Stark's atheism
• ABC news:: Rep. Stark Applauded for Atheist Outlook
• CBS:Politician Applauded For Revealing Atheist Beliefs
• New York Sun:California Lawmaker Becomes Highest-Ranking Official To Say He's a Nonbeliever

Non-theism is a fuzzy word that describes religions or spiritual beliefs and philosophies that don't embrace the concept of a supernatural deity as monotheist and polytheist religions. This can include buddhism, confucianism, pantheism, deism, etc.....

So even if you think "atheist" is a dirty word, please be objective and do not confuse people with foggy words such as "non-theist". Vincent Shooter

• We should base our wording on his wording, not on a 3rd party interpretation of his wording. If the media had more information on which to base their wording, then I'd listen, but not otherwise. Headlines are intented to draw readership, not be accurate. — BRIAN0918 • 2007-03-26 13:08Z