Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Religion

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.[1] It used a primary source which I hence removed. It was re-added with another reference.[2]. 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.[3][4][5].

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 [6] 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)

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)

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)

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

Template:Paganism

I see that the page Template:Paganism says "A general consensus has been agreed that this template should only be placed on articles that are about general Paganism,". But the template itself seems to include most non-Abrahamic, folk, and ethnic religions although Paganism says " modern ethnologists often avoid referring to non-classical and non-European, traditional and historical faiths thus broadly in favour of less ambiguous concepts (e.g. polytheism, shamanism, pantheism, oranimism)." I agree with that - we shouldn't be calling, for instance, Native American religion pagan, which is implied by the template. I ran into this after seeing the template added to a number of articles that don't mention paganism.[7] Can we just remove the non-pagan sections from it? Dougweller (talk) 07:54, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Absolutely. Native ceremonial people see "pagan" or "Pagan" as an insult. There are even members of other traditional cultures who do not want any association with the NeoPagan community. Many Native religions are considered by their adherents to be monotheistic or henotheistic, not polytheistic, so they don't even belong in a polytheism category. - Slàn, Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 20:13, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

I agree, as well. While I disagree with Kathryn's logic of evaluating the applicability of a label based on a subject community's general opinions of terminology (if the shoe fits, we shouldn't tepidly avoid the situation), makes a good case for the clean up of {{Paganism}}. If general consensus established the template is only for articles on paganism in general, than that is its scope. It should not direct readers to articles outside its scope. Additionally, even if it was decided that the template should list pagan religions, I've encountered a great deal of academic literature corroborating that statement from Paganism. Listing traditional belief systems such as that of the Native Americans would still be off topic. —Sowlos  04:03, 16 February 2014 (UTC)