Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Religion

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Contents 1 Judaism 2 Islam 3 Hinduism 4 Buddhism 5 interreligious 6 Infobox for Places of Worship 7 Fictional religions? 8 Satanism 9 Image on Religion Article 10 Swastika in Hinduism 11 B9 hummingbird hovering 12 The Yoruba mythology page 13 Happy King Day 14 Synergy 15 Jesus article a candidate for Wikipedia:Article Improvement Drive 16 Proposed subproject 17 Omnipotence and Taoism 18 Christian mythology talk page 19 Help needed: Cessationism 20 Missing topics 21 Taoic Religions 22 Sathya Sai Baba movement Can somebody take over? 23 review of Eckanar 24 Presuppositional apologetics FAR 25 Taoic religion 26 Culture and religion 27 Womadhism 28 Religious conversion and terrorism: comments requested 29 Editing the Creation (theology) article 30 User:Antimuslim 31 Religious pareidolia 32 Crypto-religion 33 Please see the deletion discussion for List of people who went to heaven alive

[edit] Judaism

Main article: Wikipedia:WikiProject Judaism

NOTICE and OBJECTIONS:

1. No-one has the right to take upon themselves to be the controlling "project" for every religion on Earth!
2. Wikipedia:WikiProject Judaism has been, and shall remain an independent project and will not accept interference in its work based on the assertion that editors not familiar with Judaism's traditions have a self-appointed "right" to interfere with Judaism-related articles by mere dint of being members of a "religion" project.
3. So far, as of 12/21/06 the mere six members of this project, are mostly Christian, (as self-described on their user pages) and raises the question, why don't they do their work in Wikipedia:WikiProject Christianity (81 members as of 12/21/06)? How can a project with six members "pass judgment" on other projects with one hundred and twenty four members?
4. What will members of other projects, such as Wikipedia:WikiProject Islam (64 members as of 12/21/06) think and react when "religion project" editors will advise what's best for Islam-related articles or not?
5. Note: Wikipedia:WikiProject Judaism adheres to WP:NPOV and is one of the oldest Wikipedia projects with over one hundred and twenty members (as of 12/21/06), a number of whom are respected sysops as well, highly knowledgeable about many matters relating to Category:Jews and Judaism.
6. It would not be advisable for anyone to interfere with Judaism-related articles or Hebrew Bible-related topics that ignores the broad based consensus and general agreement that exists between Jewishly-oriented editors of Judaic articles, many of which touch upon Jews because being Jewish includes being both a part of Judaism as well as being part of an ethnicity, and a project on "religion" alone cannot and does not have the scope to touch upon issues that effects not just Jews and Judaism, but also Israel and Jewish history, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Jewish history (with 33 members as of 12/21/06) and a broad range of related issues and projects, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Jewish culture (19 members as of 12/21/06) and Wikipedia:WikiProject Israel (23 members as of 12/21/06).
7. Finally, Wikipedia is not the forum to create a de facto neo-"ecumenical project" which is only bound to cause confusion and resentment and will result in confusion and chaos and inevitabley violate Wikipedia:No original research; Wikipedia is not a publisher of original thought; and Wikipedia:Avoid neologisms.

Thank you for taking this matter seriously. IZAK 09:21, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Please see the response on the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Judaism page. Also please try to address others in a more civil manner in the future. Badbilltucker 15:24, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Touching on Judaism, I have made proposals about the organisation of Antisemitism and related articles on that article's talk page and would be grateful for any comments.Itsmejudith 18:08, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Why have you removed my postings on this subject? Are you too afraid to entertain the truth of others?

[edit] Islam

The Islam article itself is the main priority at the moment. It was assessed for good article status but failed and some of us would like to get it ready to try again. If you visit the page you will see the To-Do list. Any comments here or on that article's discussion page very welcome.

There is a lot of perpetual edit-warring about all Islam-related articles. Some people seem to see religion as a zero-sum game, i.e. Islam's gain must be some other religion's loss. It would be nice to see more editors making visits to these pages as sometimes the informative purpose of the encyclopedia gets lots in the desire to shape articles in one way or another.Itsmejudith 18:01, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Can someone, perhaps with more knowledge than me, help me in improving Alevi? --Hurax 21:59, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

When I was but three, I said: "You don't need a car or a boat or a house to be happy. We just need to be the brothers and sisters of the One Father that we truly are and we will save the world!" How about that, O Islam? Is not your Father Abraham worthy of respect? Are not you half brother to Jews? Even the Great Prophet recognized Jesus, and looks down from heavenly realms with Him in horror at what violence and hate have done to his great and godly work to bring wisdom to mankind! Please understand that America is not being represented by her people, but by multinational corporations who serve the golden calf, idol worshipers of money, guns, oil and drugs, a false god! Many of us here wanted to "bomb" Iraq with food and medicines, and not military dominion! unfortunately, we have not yet been heard in any realms but that of the Holy spirit whose name is above every other name. No respector of persons, god will honor what is in your heart, not your choice of religion or creed. What if my onlly creed is miracles? Will you help by believing in the Most High Good, O Gracious and Merciful One, whose Mercy endureth forever?!````

[edit] Hinduism

[edit] Buddhism

I've been deleting attempts to orgainze Buddhist categories that include the concept Asceticism - I appreciate the efforts at creating article pages and improve categorization, that's definately a good thing! However, the reason I'm deleting Asceticism is that the Buddha taught against that concept. Tthe Middle Way is a central tenet of Buddhism. Every Buddhist child knows the story of Gautama Buddha that he left his life as a prince and went to live with the ascetics but denounced that path, he lived a life of hedonism, but rejected that path as well. He preached that nether extreme will lead one to truth. The wiki article on Monasticism states that Buddhist monasticism grew from the ascetic tradition (which clearly isn't true), however there is no citation for that section. I would guess that the person who added this section drew from a source written by a Westerner, possible an older text. As early as the 30's, translations of Buddhist texts were popular, but not very accurate, since the translators did not understand Buddhism but drew from their own world view and paradigms. I'll look for a better source for the Buddhist monasticism section of the Monasticism article. Working on the cateogories is a really good idea and the heavy lifting, I can do the housekeeping for the minor details like this, as I'm sure members of individual religion projects will do as well. Nightngle 15:08, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree. However, if you are going to do this, please do more than simply remove what is currently an existing parent category from the list, and try to change the categorization of a category, or of a given article, outright. I am in no way defending the existing categorization scheme by saying this. Please understand that I (I think?) did not place any of these articles in their current categories, and I don't know who did. I also don't know how some of the categories wound up where they did. Right now Category:Jainism is actually, through progression, actually a second-or-third generation subcategory of Category:Jesus, and I am frankly astonished at that. That is one of the reasons why I am working to create these lists. If you are going to change any categorization of articles or categories, however, please indicate as much here, so that all of the lists can be changed accordingly. Badbilltucker 15:37, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I will and I agree that there are many astonishing categories and articles out there. I'm not as dedicated an editor as you (I work full time and have to steal a few minutes here and few there to work on wiki stuff) and it does take me some time to follow all the threads and get all the projects done. I'm also a member of Project Buddhism and I'm slowly but surely working on a number of to-do lists. On the other hand, a quick review of the category Asceticism, I'm not seeing any more Buddhist articles. Obviously, that category can't be deleted, it applies to lots of other articles, just not Buddhist ones. I've changed the two monastic ones that were mis-categorized. Thanks, Nightngle 16:45, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] interreligious

I seek somone in order to gather a knowladgeble editoraial group that can launch Wikipedia: WikiProject Interreligious, having as first goal of interweaving parallel perceived totalitarian and triumphalism denominations and political and theological branches of the three Abramic faith.

I want to interweave articles like Islamism and Dominionism and its Jewish counterpart, if applicable, through having a structure of refereing to eachother in the articles and the "see also" section.

Also having a structure of refering to movements accused of terrorism like the christian Lord's Resistance Army, IRA and Loyalist Volunteer Force with the Muslim Al-Qa'eda, Hizbollah and such. Also, lets not forget the KKK and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the LTTE Black Tiger.

Possibly creating Totalitarian theologies or Religion and terrorism or something along that line that can give an overview of the those movements.

In short: Im a Muslim and tired of people forgeting that there where shit happening before self proclaimed "Muslims" organizations started to terrorize the world. America was in the hand of KKK, IRA where accused of terror in England, Africa was engulfed in the terror of LRA, and the Tamilian Tigers where wreking havoc in their part of the worl, but that was totaly ignored. Now, people seem to belive that the terrorist actions in the west are a new fenomena. Its not, its the media's etnocentric reports that give that impression.

I want to spread the truth, who's with me?

--Striver 05:02, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

This is completely incoherent, in addition to being ungrammatical and misspelled. There is a word for religious dialogue between faiths, it is called Ecumenism, and it already has an article. Zora 06:14, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes Zora, we all know that you love to pic on my grammar. Yes Zora, we know that you love to oppose me for shear joy. Yes Zora, you do know that i was not talking about creating a article about religious dialogues. --Striver 02:58, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Although im angry at the moment about having the reputation of my beatiful relioun geting sodomized by animals, this project could evolve to identifyng and interweaving other peacefull parallel articles like Names of God in Judaism - 99 Names of God, and creating parent articles to those when needed, maybe a Interreligious parallels article. Peace! --Striver 05:17, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

• Another existing article on this topic can be found at interfaith. Personally, I find interfaith to be more widely inclusive than ecumenism. Keesiewonder 00:48, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi Striver. I hope that this project will be somewhere where articles about inter-religious topics can be discussed. Also, I hope that you and Zora can make peace as you are both editors that I have a lot of respect for.Itsmejudith 18:06, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox for Places of Worship

I created based on a previous request from a Wikipedian for an infobox for religious buildings. Here's what I came up with: Template:Infobox religious building. I think it works universally for all religous buildings. I've already implemented the infobox in Old New Synagogue, Saint Joseph's Oratory, and Faisal Mosque. -- Sapphire 15:26, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

One problem with the template. Some buildings, particularly in Europe, have been used by several faiths, at least within Christianity, and, sometimes, outside of Christianity. How would you complete the affiliation line in these cases? Badbilltucker 23:57, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I think it's a good idea to form a template for these sorts of things, or perhaps a series of separate templates by building type, as Buddhist temple complexes differ greatly from medieval Catholic cathedrals, which in turn differ from the Kotel. I recognize that this goes against the issue Badbilltucker suggested, which is a very valid point. But nevertheless, I tried using the infobox as it stands now, and it's difficult, particularly as there's no description on the talk page as to what certain elements are meant to stand for, etc. It might also be very helpful to incorporate colors, as are listed at Wikipedia:List of infoboxes/Society#Religion. LordAmeth 12:32, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I've listed my thoughts on the talk page of that infobox. I'm not sure what can be or should be done to rectify the concern brought up by Badbilltucker, but I do think it's helpful to have such an infobox, and if those members of the Project who are more inclined could take a look at my thoughts, I'd appreciate it. LordAmeth 12:47, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fictional religions?

I don't want to take responsibility for removing the Wikiproject Religion template from D'ni, if the particpants in this project think it appropriate that it be there, but perhaps it should be pointed out that the D'ni are a fictional culture in the Myst series of computer games. (The D'ni are monotheists, worshiping a god named Yahvo, who may or may not be identified with the Judeo-Christian YHWH.) Are other fictional religions going to be a part of this project? Cactus Wren 06:17, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I acknowledge the question you raise, and, in fact, it was a question which I considered when placing the banner there. I decided to include the banner on that page, and in fact on those of all the fictional religions, for the following reasons:

• (1) The majority, if not all (I forget) of those articles had yet to be assessed. Given that the scope of this project is the Category:Religion, of which the Category:Fictional religions, is a subcategory, I perhaps presumptuously decided that any relevant assessment would be better than no assessment at all. Certainly, any article can benefit from having a greater number of editors focusing on it.
• (2) Any well-constructed fictional religion, which I believe from the article this one is, reflects the personal beliefs of the creator of the religion on the general subject of religion itself. As the scope of this project is intended to deal with religion in all of its forms, we would be remiss if we did not pay attention to these written discussions of the subject as well, particularly because:.
• (3) As a former religion student of the school of Mircea Eliade, I am aware that several of the "fictional religions" are created by individuals who are allowed by the nature of their work to engage in rational speculation about the subject of religion which many of the professionals in the field are obligated by their professional standing to avoid. Certainly, Robert Holdstock's Mythago Wood series, particularly the novel Lavondyss contains a very clear, punchy summary of what could very well have been one of the early influences in the development of the religious impulse. Having said that, I'm not sure exactly how to include that particular idea in any articles, but I believe we may be able to reasonably do so somewhere down the road. If not, a link to that article from some other article, with perhaps an expansion of the article to more directly deal with that subject, are certainly possible.

You are, of course, completely within your rights to remove the banner if you believe that it's inclusion is not appropriate to the subject. Thank you, however, for your polite inquiry on the subject. It is refreshing to see that at least some editors are capable of manners. Thank you again for your polite question, and it is my sincerest hope that you continue to enjoy working on all the articles you find of interest in the knowledge that I and this project, to the degree that I can speak for others, will not seek to assert our own prejudices or presumptions on the rational content of the articles. Badbilltucker 15:18, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

My vote would be that we have a lot to cover with the religions of the world, so until we're done organizing those, we should probably not include fictional religions too. Nightngle 18:15, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Satanism

Are there any plans so far for the Satanism article. Controversy seems to have escalated at this point though some of us agree that using Religioustolerance.org's defintion seems the best thing to do at this point. Still as it is a religion, its recieved a B rating, and it is quite a controversial topic, perhaps it should be included as a project to be revamped. WerewolfSatanist 00:38, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Are we all just gonna go quiet and let the Biased article prevail, well I'm not.Rev. Michael S. Margolin 00:40, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it would be good either to let it be. Wikipedia needs to be factual. Specially religious article as to prevent bigotry bias. Lord Metroid 13:07, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image on Religion Article

• Does anyone know why the symbol of Diane de Poitiers is included in the image at the top of the religion article? Unless I'm missing something here, I wasn't aware that she started a religion... -- Chabuk ^{[ T • C ]} 06:01, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

• According to the original versions of that image, the symbol is supposed to represent the Triple Goddess of Neopaganism and Wicca, not Diane de Poitiers.
• A related question: what's the relevance of the sunset image at the top of Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion? -Silence 03:30, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I like the above image very much. The only problem is that sometimes it doesn't want to appear for me - but that's true of many images. However, you just have to click on it. It reminds me of all the Wikipedians out there...Nina Odell 12:10, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

OK... I love that image too (especially the full-size version), but what's it have to do with religion either? Many of the less lit areas are the most religious areas of the world. -Silence 12:20, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

To clarify why we have a picture of a sunset on the religion page, I put it there because the banner this project puts on talk pages of articles and user template previously had: first; a picture of a statue of a man meditating (that is offensive to a number of religions and they let us know they objected to it); second, we had Albrecht Duer's praying hands - yikes! no need to say why that's a bad idea, I hope; third, we had one of those religion icons collages, but that kind of collage can never be inclusive of all the religions that this project proposes as it's scope (my personal opinion is that omitting someone's religion for the sake of expediency is a poor excuse, and that we shouldn't use those types of graphics). Having the Earth from space might be a good option, but I find that those images look kind of puny when they're sized as small as a user template would make them. One proposal was having a picture of a cloud filled sky with sun rays streaming through, but an image like that is already being used for the Spirituality project, so I don't think we should copy them for clarity's sake. Not to mention that it's an allagory for "spirit" and heavenly hosts kind of thing, rejected by some religions and not appropriate on their pages.

I'm certainly open to considering a different picture, but we really have to consider the scope of what we're doing and the appropriateness of the graphic being present on pages relating to other religions. Not being a follower of a diety, I don't want to see any allusions to dieties and otherworldly thingies. Perhaps the answer is as simple as not having a graphic at all, or as complex as realizing that the project is too broad in scope to have any real meaningful purpose. Nightngle 18:02, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

The image draws the eye to the banner, and can be seen to be one of the few images which people can actually agree would be relevant to the general subject, deities and religion in general generally being overtly or less obviously tied to the sun or the concept of light. Regarding the image for the Spirituality banner, I more or less created the banner and included the image on that banner only a few days before the image changes to this one, so I could probably change it to a different image with a more or less blue color scheme just as easily. As for whether the project is too broad in scope to have any meaningful purpose, that is something that can be considered. My primary intention in starting the project was, actually, to create a banner which could indicate the current status of articles, and to provide peer review of said articles on request from someone with at least a little familiarity with the subject, that being, at the time, limited to me. Many of the articles relating to older, often now dormant, faiths could also fall under the field of cultural anthropology, but there wasn't a group dealing with that subject when I tried to reactivate this dormant project. It is my hope that in time the project will be more or less a clearing-house for support services for a number of subprojects, as well as a place where editors can at least see which articles which fall under the general group of cultural anthropology/history of religions articles can work to improve them. Clearly, many of these articles are in less than stellar shape right now, and any degree of concentrated effort to improve them would probably be a good idea. Badbilltucker 18:31, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

• If the reason the sun is being used in this image is because a reference to sun-worship is more inclusive than a reference to prayer, meditation, or deities, then I think the justification for the image is very poor indeed. Prayer and meditation and deities and the like are vastly more common (and vastly more directly relevant, since unlike the sun there's very little else they could apply to) religious themes than a sun, because there are more religions that don't revere light or the sun (e.g., Wicca prefers the moon) than that don't pray. Having an image like the Blue Marble would be even worse, by far, as it would imply that the entire Earth is religious, or that religion is more concerned with worldly affairs than otherworldly.
• The problem with the image is threefold: (1) it is too vague and abstract, conveying no informational content at first glance about the actual scope of the project, and thus at best only serving an aesthetic purpose and nothing else; (2) because of its abstraction, it runs the risk of being considered unencyclopedic or POVed, as it gives the impression of being an expressionistic value-judgment about religions rather than a neutral, academic representation of them; and (3) it is misleading in its implications, as reverence for light and the sun is not one of the essential or defining components of religion.
• It is more important for the image to be directly relevant (both for informational value and for avoiding POV or unencyclopedic artsiness) than for it to be supremely vague and all-inclusive; there's nothing wrong with including some random religious artifact as the image, for example, or a man praying, or a congregation at a place of prayer, or anything of the sort, as what matters is that it gives an example of "religion", not that it provides an absolutely all-encompassing summation of every religion in existence (a clearly impossible feat, no matter how vague we make the image).
• For this reason, I would suggest that we use a smaller version of the "religious symbols" icon--smaller both because it will be easier to see at a shrunken size, and because we should, to avoid controversy, only include symbols for most widespread and major world religions (the current large one reflects a significant bias in that it includes no less than 3 or 4 separate symbols for Neopagan religions, while including no symbols for dramatically larger non-Western religions like Cao Dai, Tenrikyo, Falun Gong, or arguably Confucianism, or dramatically more important religions like Zoroastrianism, Unitarian Universalism, or Scientology). Even an image as simple as Image:P_religion_world.svg would work, were it not for the fact that it gives undue weight to the Abrahamic religions (to resolve this, one could simply replace the Star of David of Judaism, a relatively small religion, with the Aum of Hinduism, the third-largest world religion). This allows for an image that is NPOV (as it doesn't make any value judgments about the importance of religions, but simply neutrally reports on the most widespread ones), informative, uncontroversially relevant, and appropriately academic and encyclopedic. -Silence 21:38, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I clearly agree, as the one who put two other now removed images on the banner initially. Unfortunately, my own graphic talents are more or less at the Simon Templar stick-man level. If anyone could create such an image, I would be more than happy to put it on the banner instead. But, trust me, you don't want me to even try to make such an image, it would be very objectionable, at least on the artistic front. I'm really bad at that sort of thing. Badbilltucker 21:45, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I strongly oppose using an icon collage because 1) they always look ugly, and b) they can't be all inclusive. The "important" religions are a value judgement no matter what the criteria - why does the number of adherents make a religion important?, and Bill has even suggested that we include religions found in fiction in the scope of this project - how would their symbols fit in?, and even if all religions could be included, some religious pages might strenuously object to having one of the other icons on their pages. There is absolutely something wrong with having images that a religion finds offensive or even blasphemous on a banner for this project. It strikes me that a lot of the controversy about this project is about it giving the appearance (intentional or not) of being a project that over-sees all pages and projects about religion. The specific religions have projects that include at least some practicing members of that religion who will have a much better grasp of that religion. For this project to make the determination that other religions should just have to accept our dictates is unacceptable and, I would guess, would start revert wars taking the religion project's banner off their page. At this point, I feel the project should have no graphic - the graphic is just for show anyway, and not mandatory for the banners/project page, etc. Bill has tried hard to find a graphic that works, and I do not intend to be critical of his efforts. I do think that a project that wants to coordinate, organize, dabble in all religion's pages, we of all people, need to be knowledgeable and sensitive to what may be offensive, hurtful, or even blasphemous to others who are faithful to their religion and take it's precepts seriously. Nightngle 01:42, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

• (1) Icon collages do not always look ugly. I just gave an example of a very pretty one: Image:P_religion_world.svg.
• (2) They don't need to be all-inclusive, because they aren't intended to be all-inclusive. The whole idea of using several religious symbols is to give examples of specific religions, not to try to summarize every religion into a single, monolithic icon, which is clearly impossible. In fact, it is truly bizarre beyond belief that someone would try to argue for using a singular image, and against using a pluralistic one, on the grounds that a pluralistic one "can't be all-inclusive". Not only is this an irrelevant objection, because no image could ever be all-inclusive for a topic like religion, but it's also an infinitely stronger objection to any singular image than to a pluralistic one, for the simple reason that choosing a single image to represent all religions--for example, praying hands, or a man meditating, or the sun setting, or even just a vague, impressionistic ball of light--is clearly an attempt to try to devise a single image that can represent every religion, which is something that the religious will always object to. It is simply impossible to find an adequate image to represent all religions, and trying to do so is POVed and unencyclopedic. On the other hand, simply making the icon a small arrangement of the most widespread world religions' symbols sidesteps the entire problem by basing the symbol solely on fact (the fact that certain religions have the most adherents), not on opinions about whether one singular image or another is appropriate for all religions. Trying to compress all religions into a single image is insulting and inevitably biased; simply giving examples of specific religions, on the other hand, is neutral and unproblematic.
• Simply pick symbols for the 4-9 or so most widespread religions, put them together in an image, and have done with it. Trying to fabricate controversy serves no purpose here. The "sun" image is unacceptable because it insinuates that the sun is a central theme in all religions, a universal central object of worship, or the valid symbol for their beliefs. The only way to not insult people's specific religious views by trying to cram a thousand thousand different denominations into a single graphic, is to not bother with trying to summarize the whole of religion in a single image at all, but just to simply use a sampling of a couple of religions symbols', as examples, not encapsulations, of all religion, and be done with it. -Silence 02:31, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

The problem with saying that the icon collage doesn't have to all inclusive is that the scope of this project is all inclusive. I personally don't see a picture of a sunset as a sun worshiping symbol, but you object to it on those grounds. You're saying that I'm fabricating a controversy (even though if you would read the history of the banner and some of the other activities of this project, you'd see that it's not fabricated at all), and I could say the same of you - that you're fabricating a controversy over an innocent photograph of a landscape. On the other hand, you want folks who would object to seeing a religious icon on their page that they object to, or not see their own icon on their page because their religion isn't deemed important or widespread enough to just accept that the graphic that we pick is good enough. My vote is for the project not to have a graphic at all - graphics are superfluous and certainly not mandatory for a project. Nightngle 21:18, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Agree that the image is not mandatory, and it does look like virtually any image will be found to be objectionable by someone. Unfortunately, I just removed the graphic from the banner, and the banner looked even worse, with lopsided text. I've returned it in the short run, hoping to have time to work things out tomorrow so that it looks OK with no image. Badbilltucker 21:33, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Then remove the image. No image is better than a useless image. The sun image is unacceptable not just because it is offensive, but because, more importantly, it is encyclopedically irrelevant. You might just as well use an image of a bar of milk chocolate for the image, if you're going to try for ultra-vague non sequiturs in lieu of informational content. A happy generic sunshiney pic replaces any meaningful, relevant images? Oy. Political correctness wins again. -Silence 15:05, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

• The problem, in my mind, with the above proposals are that they rely on size as the most important determining factor. While Judaism is far from the largest religion, from it were founded the two arguably most powerful religions today, Christianity and Islam, and to discount the crucial role Judaism has played in the development of Western culture is simply naive. Unfortunately, I don't see how you'll ever be able to make everyone happy, but why not use a more arbitrary marker - when most people think of "religion" they do not think of the plethora of tiny groups like some of the ones featured on the original image - I've never even heard of half of them. Put something together with a group of symbols for something like; Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, Sikh, Buddhism. In that you certainly cover the vast majority of the population -- Chabuk ^{[ T • C ]} 21:48, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
  • While the above statement is true, it is also true that literally every group you named already has one or more projects dealing specifically with it, dozens in the case of Christianity. By and large, we will not be working with articles dealing with those religions, except in those cases when the article deals with a general topic which crosses religious lines. Much of the focus of this group will be related to those creeds/faiths which are not included in the list you mentioned, so, unfortunately, we would be misrepresenting ourselves by placing the symbols of faiths we deal with less primarily in our banner. Badbilltucker 22:05, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
    • I agree, Bill. The scope of this project is huge - kind of mind boggling, really. Makes finding an appropriate graphic very difficult if not impossible. Nightngle 14:49, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

• No, finding an appropriate graphic is extremely easy: the only intelligible system to neutrally discern which religions to pick from is number of adherents. That is the only workable, neutral system (and it's the one focused on on almost all religion articles, such as major religious groups); it's either that or nothing. A system based on ignoring adherents and picking how influential a religion was is completely unworkable, for the simply reason that it's a completely subjective assessment. I'm a Jew, but even I can see that if we include a Judaism icon solely for the reason that it's been historically influential, then it's twice as important that we include icons for the Zoroastrian religion--and for that matter, we'll have to include icons for extinct religions, like the Roman religion, the Egyptian religion, even the Proto-Indo-European religion and other prehistoric denominations... Obviously this would be absurd. Therefore the "influence" scale is untenable; it is based on subjective, original-research analysis, whereas a pure population scale is based on nothing but fact and number. This avoids any potential conflict or controversy from any users who have a genuine, realistic justification for being upset. Such a system is the only one that is both encyclopedic (unlike the artsy, uninformative sunset image) and unbiased (unlike the above image of a dozen or so arbitrarily-selected religious symbols). -Silence 15:05, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

True, however, what you propose above fails in what I think might be the most critical area. Specifically, such an image as you propose would misrepresent to anyone who saw it what the factual scope of this project is. We are for the most part only dealing with any of the major religions which already have their own projects only in contexts where a given article deals with more than one specific religion/religious group. Basically, I think that the best guideline would be to only "tag" those articles whose content is such that it relates to at least three existing Project's religion. Thus, for instance, an article dealing with Catholicism and Anglicanism, for example, is one we would have nothing really to do with. The Catholicism and Anglicanism projects would be more than capable of doing so. Similarly, any article whose content relates to all the Christian faiths would fall within the scope of the Christianity project. The same would hold for Islam, Judaism, etc. Only when at least three distinct faiths with non-overlapping projects is dealt with do I think that this group should step in. Given the number of religion articles out there, the number that deal with that kind of scope is a comparatively small one. Thus, we would be misrepensenting ourselves to anyone who saw the image if we included the images of the major faiths, as we really don't deal with those faiths that often. The one graphic I can think of that might qualify would be a photo from the internaional meeting of religious leaders regarding the environment some years ago, as everyone from the Pope, the Dalai Lama, and Amerind medicine men attended. Unfortunately, all of those images are I believe copyrighted, and thus can't be included on the banner. On that basis, I think we are better off with no image at all, and will be adjusting the banner today accordingly. Badbilltucker 15:24, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Very well, that's reasonable enough. I suppose the only other option is to try and find hundreds and hundreds of different religious symbols and make a single icon out of them all, and hope that they'll be so small and dense that no one will be able to tell which ones we didn't include. :) But not using any image is easier. -Silence 15:29, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

First, thanks, Bill, for changing the banner - while the graphical "religion portal" link might not be exciting, it's functional and fits well. Secondly, I think that this discussion has actually been very thought-provoking and informative. We live in an ever-shrinking world, and we do have to challenge our pre-existing notions of what is "neutral" or "un-objectionable". (I'm actually running into this very topic in a different format at my work as a hospice nurse.) I also spent some time reading the discussions about the use of the swastika as a graphic for various religions for whom it is an ancient, meaningful symbol and for others who continue to be injured by the corruption of this symbol by Hitler. I continue to be amazed at the power of symbols even though many of us consider them a kind of colorful filler rather than something with the power to bring out passions and for people to fight and die over. At any rate, the graphic should fit the scope of the project, and currently the scope of this project is becoming more defined, but a single image really doesn't leap out that would fit it. Thanks to everyone who contributed to the discussion. Nightngle 15:03, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Just to make a case (extremely belated) for "Lights of the World from Space", I thought the imagery and symbology would be sort of obvious. We are "lights of worlds" being watched by...whatever and whomever. Furthermore, we are shedding "light" on some of the worlds most over-looked and ancient beliefs as a part of this project. I'm not much for extremely long and dense paragraphs (a touch of ADHD, plus an OCD desire to copy-edit other people's comments), so if this has been said somewhere, then I apologize in advance. NinaOdell | Talk 14:50, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

But not all religions believe in anything like the idea that we're being "watched" from "out there"—consider Buddhism, for example. And even if all religions agreed on that, the symbolism isn't well-suited by the image, because the image only has lights for certain parts of the world. I imagine that anyone living in an "unlit" area would be quite offended if this image was used to symbolize world religions, as there is actually in many cases an inverse correlation between religiosity and luminescence on the image (cf. Bright). So, even if the symbolism is obvious, it's not appropriate or neutral. -Silence 15:16, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Swastika in Hinduism

Some users have decided to remove the Swastika of all Hinduism related templates despite the fact it is the most prevalent symbol in Hinduism. Please join the discussion here. Nobleeagle ^[TALK] [C] 03:59, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] B9 hummingbird hovering

Expression of interest in project collaboration: I noticed this Project mentioned on the Singing Bowl article and I would like to be involved. May somebody please join the dots for me when convenient?

Thanking you in anticipation B9 hummingbird hovering 13:59, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Yoruba mythology page

Hello,

I am wondering why the page on the religious system of Yoruba is Yoruba mythology and not Yoruba religion, as this is a currently practiced religion.

The Orisha article states "An Orisha...is a spirit that reflects one of the manifestations of Olodumare (God) in the Yoruba spiritual or religious system". Here, the term "Yoruba" links to Yoruba mythology, while the term "religious system" links to religion. There seems to be a disconnect here, or perhaps a bias against non-mainstream religious views, relegating them to "mythology".

Is there any sort of protocol about what can be designated a religion and what is called mythology? I would like to call for a renaming of this article, but I wanted to check here first to see if anyone has any ideas or opinions on the matter, as the article in question is under the domain of this wikiproject. Thanks, romarin [talk ] 18:22, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

There are no extant protocols of which I am aware. And I've had questions about the naming and categorization of some pages like that as well. However, there is a valid area of mythology within any currently practiced religion. There is the recognized field of Greek and Roman myths (about things which are no longer widely credited) as well as Jewish and Christian myths (about stories and ideas which have been repeatedly told, but generally not in an official religious story or text.) I do note however that the Orisha page, which is listed on the Yoruba disambiguation page, is probably the page for the religion per se. I regret to say that a lot of these pages have been comparatively neglected for a long time, and this project only recently formally formed to try to deal with them. We're still in the early stages in regards to a lot of things, including many of the lesser known religious traditions and determining exactly what and how many articles are out there. If I were you, I might try to transfer the details specifically related to religious practices and values to the Orisha page, and keep the content related to the stories and legends of the faith (which generally qualify as mythology) on the Yoruba mythology page. Like I said, we're new and still in the process of finding out what all is already out there, which will probably still take a bit longer. User:Kathryn NicDhàna, one of our other members, might be able to help more in this particular field than I with my limited knowledge am likely to be. However, if you do have any further questions regarding this matter, or want any help in working on the pages, please feel free to put another message here or contact me directly. Also, there is another, even newer, project out there, Wikipedia:WikiProject Mythology, which might be of some additional assistance. Badbilltucker 18:50, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Badbillticker I like to endorse your concept that the religion pages should go over the theology and then possibly link to a related mythology page for "stories and legends of the faith (which generally qualify as mythology)" Although sometimes it is impossible to separate religion from stories you can just "mention" a story on religion page and then go into full detail on the "mythology" pages, or something like that. The way I understand the relationship, is that religion is the nugget of theology - while mythology is the outside of the seed of theology, the traditional narratives of creation, heros and eschatology- if I may humbly propose after reading. In Romara's case... perhaps something like a prewritten theology outline with the 3-6 suggested theology topics would be useful to for religion/theology stubs. Goldenrowley 06:59, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

It strikes me as entirely POV to characterize aspects of a religion statable as propositions as "theology" and other aspects as "mythology". I suggest the term "mythology" should be avoided in religion articles -- it's often little more than a term for religious beliefs one doesn't share. I would agree that Yoruba mythology is inconsistent with WP:NPOV and the article should be moved to Yoruba religion. As an example, the article on Christian mythology contains stuff like King Arthur and the Holy Grail, and the talk page makes clear that the page's editors regard attempting to put core beliefs of Christianity into the article as a kind of trolling. Why should articles on minority religions be treated differently? How can WP:NPOV permit an article characterizing the core beliefs of a living religion as "mythology"? Best, --Shirahadasha 08:14, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Moved article to Yoruba religion for the reasons above, because of WP:NPOV and the potentially pejoritive connotations of the term "mythology", and for consistency with articles on Western religons, which are uniformly called "religion" rather than "mythology". --Shirahadasha 04:23, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Happy King Day

I'm fulfilled in what I do... I never thought that a lot of money or fine clothes — the finer things of life — would make you happy. My concept of happiness is to be filled in a spiritual sense. - Coretta Scott King (attributed)

From Commons. NinaOdell | Talk 13:13, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Synergy

I'm available as a (now) active member of WikiProject:Buddhism. My emphasis is on Mahayana Buddhism and Buddhism in India-related articles. In truth, these are the topics that I know best, but I'll try to make a more concerted effort at copyediting other articles. I'm know more than a few folks in Wikipedia land, so I'm a good resource in enlisting help on various other religion-related projects as well.

I've been trying to recruit some other people for Ayyavazhi and related articles, because I feel that someone who can speak Paul's language might be able to help more. Frankly, I sometimes can't understand what he's trying to express. It's difficult, and slow-going. If we can get some other folks to help out that can speak directly to Paul, I think that would be more efficient. NinaOdell | Talk 14:43, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Wouldn't this article fall under the WikiProject:Hinduism? Nightngle 17:48, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Possibly. The difficulty is that the adherents of the faith consider it a technically different religion, presumably as it incorporates several beliefs which are not generally regarded as Hindu. I left messages on both the Hinduism project page and on the main article talk page and was told this. On that basis, it seems less controversial if it is counted as being a separate entity unto itself. Badbilltucker 18:43, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Jesus article a candidate for Wikipedia:Article Improvement Drive

Some of you may have noticed that the article Jesus is currently a nominee for the Wikipedia:Article Improvement Drive. The article is currently a good article, which is good. However, it is also the first page that appears when one runs a google search of the name, and the fact that it is only a good article under those circumstances isn't so good. I noted on the talk page that the article as it now reads, at least to me, is more than a little unbalanced toward the religious aspects than the pure biographical aspects, and that it does show a definite "Christian" bent. There are some wonderful new sources available for use listed on the article's talk page, and I hope that all the members at least consider whether they would be willing to vote for the nomination for article improvement, and perhaps work on the article if it is nominated to show a more neutral, NPOV perspective. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 01:19, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed subproject

Considering that individuals who found one religious movement generally arise from another one, and that their articles will be edited primarily by adherents of the faith s/he founded, not the one s/he arose from, I have proposed a new subproject to deal with these possibly difficult articles at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Religious leaders in the hope that we might be able to better ensure they be NPOV and have a global perspective. Any and all interested parties should indicate their support there, so we can see if there is enough interest to start the group in earnest. Badbilltucker 15:07, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Omnipotence and Taoism

Concerns have been expressed elsewhere that some recent attempts to include content related to Taoism in the above article have been reversed. If anyone feels qualified to address this matter, it would be very appreciated. Badbilltucker 14:24, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Christian mythology talk page

I need help to answer some person using the "intolerant" word 2-3 times on the page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Christian_mythology Thank you in advance. Goldenrowley 21:24, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Okay I am good now. I was taking the "mythology expert" challenge on that page and added some of the Early Christianity narratives. I think it still could use expert attention from others as well because I am not a theology major.Goldenrowley 06:39, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Help needed: Cessationism

Cessationism could use some serious attention from any interested editors and/or experts. It is currently heavily biased with a huge Charismatic/Pentecostal focused bibliography and similar POV. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. Vassyana 06:47, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Missing topics

I have collected a list of topics related to religions. I've tried to find any equivalent articles and redirect but I'd appreciate if any experts could have a look at the list. Thank you. - Skysmith 12:04, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi! I am interested in how quantum physics approaches will change educational matrices as well as cultural, religious, and secular bias. Will the scientific method's supposed monopoly on knowledge via the "scientific experiment" (now known to be affected by the very thoughts and bias of the observer, especially in artificial laboratory conditions as opposed to the "crucible of experience" acknowledged by Leonardo da Vinci), ever be seen as the lie it is? We are MIDI's, musically intelligent design interfaces, and I have shown how and why in the latest paper for my PhD available at the following link: Google me at SPIRITUALUN (it will come up on angelfire) and follow links or type in the following directly: http://www.angelfire.com/hi5/aaadesignservices/Breadth.html Please reply with feedback in my guest book. thanks!66.14.38.104 22:39, 18 March 2007 (UTC)66.14.38.104 21:03, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Taoic Religions

I would appreciate any help and assistance anyone would be willing to offer over at Taoic religions. It has been significantly expanded from a stub, but still needs further expansion and reliable sources for its claims. Thanks! Vassyana 13:56, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sathya Sai Baba movement Can somebody take over?

I will probably receive a topic ban from the arbcom, so I am looking for a contributor who will replace me. I was and am the only major contributor. The article was never controversial and there were never serious disputes, except about the external links. Andries 16:57, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] review of Eckanar

Hi! I'd like somebody with more topic knowledge than me to review Eckanar. Sorange (talk • contribs) has been making a number of unexplained major edits while marking them minor, and doesn't seem interested in discussing them. I have done my three reverts, and he's still going strong. He's so far an WP:SPA, and the removal of cited criticism makes me suspect WP:COI issues. I'd love some help from religion project members on this. Thanks, William Pietri 22:38, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

The article is a mess and always has been with SPAs deleting contents they do not like. Nobody ever cared about proper sourcing. I think you are probably confusing strong POV with WP:COI. Andries 22:46, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree it could be strong POV just as well. In this particular case, sourced information was disappearing. I'm an eventualist when it comes to bad articles, but I'm reluctant to see them go from bad to worse. So if you have time to look at and clean up some of the current mess, I'd appreciate it. Thanks, William Pietri 22:54, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

yes, the information was cited but I doubt it was a reliable source. Andries 18:33, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Presuppositional apologetics FAR

Presuppositional apologetics 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. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:57, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Taoic religion

I have nominated Taoic religion as a good article. Feedback is welcomed. Vassyana 10:22, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Culture and religion

Per this discussion, we should come up with a consensus over wheteher we should have similar sections in all religion articles, or if we should remove the section from the Islam article.--Sefringle 02:03, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Womadhism

Hi, couldn't find a relevent AfD section on your project page, so I'm posting here to alert you to an AfD I would like your input on. The article s in the title, and the AfD is here. Thank you. The Kinslayer 11:46, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

It's hardly necessary to notify anybody as it's not a real religion... article has been zapped. --kingboyk 17:51, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Religious conversion and terrorism: comments requested

Please have a look at the entry titled Religious conversion and terrorism. It is misleadingly titled at the very least, but I believe it really doesn't warrant existence as an entry of its own under any name. Another user, one of the project members here, seems to disagree. The opinions of other Wikiproject:Religion members would be much appreciated. Thanks and best.PelleSmith 04:13, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Editing the Creation (theology) article

I have seen the Creation (theology) article and it has been proposed that a suitable candidate should completely revise it. I am a Biblical Studies 4 year graduate student majoring in the Old Testament and studied much about the creation mythology in Genesis and would be willing to tackle this over a period of time. How do I get this permission? --Monasticknight 20:38, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User:Antimuslim

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Antimuslim

Please keep your eyes open for this troll Zazaban 01:27, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Religious pareidolia

Proposing significant restructuring and renaming, and/or RfC for this article. Please discuss on Talk:Religious pareidolia. Best, --Shirahadasha 07:53, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Changed article name to Perceptions of religious imagery in natural phenomena. Rewrote introduction attempting a more neutral discription of the phenomena. Consolidated the material on pareidolia in a section called Perceptions of religious imagery in natural phenomena#Pareidolia explanation. Reworded language in a few other sections which I believe tended to suggest that claims of miracles and and pareidolia explanations are exhaustive/mutually exclusive. In general I attempted to modify narrative language that could be perceived as presenting a false dichotomy about this subject. Best, --Shirahadasha 23:02, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Crypto-religion

There are quite a few articles dealing with people who, under pressure, convert to a religion while secretly holding on to their old beliefs, such as:

• Anusim
• Crypto-Christianity
• Crypto-Islam
• Crypto-Judaism
• Crypto-Paganism
• Morisco
• Taqiyya
• Converso
• Marrano
• Xueta
• New Christian
• Belmonte Jews
• Kakure Kirishitan
• Hanare Kirishitan

I wonder, would there be enough material to write an article about this phenomenon, or should it be integrated into Forced conversion? --Benne ['bɛnə] _(talk) 14:35, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Please see the deletion discussion for List of people who went to heaven alive

This article's name isn't the best (replacement suggestions are welcome), but the concept of ascension into heaven is important in a number of religions, even going beyond Judaism, Christianity and Islam, so I'm trying to improve the article and save it from deletion. It seems to me that members of this project would have a particular interest in an article on a topic of comparative religion. In the deletion discussion, some editors seem to be calling the belief in ascension without death a "joke". It seems to me that the best response to that is to improve the article and show the concept is not treated as a joke by those who take religious questions seriously. Please take a look at the article and the deletion discussion and consider contributing to both.

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of people who went to heaven alive

Noroton 19:51, 29 March 2007 (UTC)