Talk:God/Archive 4

message: Q.  In what society is the word "god" applied to influential teachers?  I have heard it applied to parents but never just teachers. - Tεxτurε 16:42, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I suppose that parents teach, right?  I tried to find the source of your phrase "influential teacher" but couldn't find it in the article.  At any rate, God as influencing the universe (from the quantum realm up, and since the beginning (big bang) of this "cosmic epoch") makes more sense than an omnipotent God that controls and is thus responsible for everything.  God's omniscient viewpoint, if creatures can come into contact with it (traditionally called God?s will) is better conceived as a guiding/teaching force?creatures may reject it or follow it and thus exercise free and real action in the world.  A traditional God is really the only force in the universe, and thus creatures are simply meaningless appendages.  See, e.g., Charles Hartshorne's Omnipotence and Other Theological Mistakes. Aliman 23:57, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: In what society is the word "god" applied to influential teachers?

message: An anonymous user just added that Hinduism also spells god with a capital "G" in the second sentence, apparently citing Brahman as his source.  I'm not sure if it should be taken out or not.
:he is correct. Sam [Spade] 03:04, 6 Jun 2004 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree.  for those interested... -- EuroTom 03:14, 6 Jun 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hinduism 

message: An anon added a lot of quotes, mainly aimed at the Christian understanding of God and Christianity as a religion. All were pejorative without fail, and IMO they contribute nothing to the article. Revert. JFW | T@lk 09:12, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Quotes barrage

message: Hi,
I am new to editing on wikipedia (infact I'm not currently registered, although I'll change that soon), and recently added a few changes to the 'god' article here. With such an obviously contentious issue it is probably best to be very open and honest from the outset. I am an atheist, and having looked at the page, I was a little dissapointed with the lack of any real references to atheism or alternatives to belief in some form of deity. As you are aware, I added a small amount about atheism (I thought not written in an aggressive style and fully within line with the rest of the article), and added a few qualifications to other areas and changed small amounts of grammar. I think what I did promoted the objectivity of the article rather than forced my particular viewpoint, or 'vandalised' the article in any way. I was therefore very dissapointed to see that the user with the name 'texture' decided to withdraw all the changes I made on the article. I am being completely honest and open about my atheism, and I would appeal to yourself and anybody else within the wikipedia community to have a look at the changes I made. I honestly do not think they appeared in any way dogmatic, and were simply an attempt to redress the balance a little and to present another alternative viewpoint.
If you would like to contact me in person please do so at: aaarrrggh_uk_1999@yahoo.com I will be happy to talk to you about this. Also, I will make an appeal myself in the community portal when I have more time. I hope this is ok. I honestly think the changes I made were in the better interests of objectivity and were for the benefit of the article.
Ps - I would also like to point out that I also noticed a number of anti-christian quotes go up not long after texture removed my additions to the article. I would just like to make it clear for the record that I was not involved in this.
Paul :)
:(I just answered this same query on my talk page - here is the response I gave.) Welcome, Paul.  What I saw last night appeared to be vandalism and advertisement for a website.  The first few words were replaced with "follooun", which set my thoughts to vandalism.  The changes made seems so anti-god and anti-religion that it appeared to be a vandalism of the article or an attempt to be so out there as to get people to visit your web site. Other anon edits before and after the one's I reversed also seemed to be anti-god vandalism.  I may be wrong on what you are attempting to do with the article.  If I am, I apologize.  However, before you create a large addition of atheist/anti-god/anti-religious text in the article on god, may I suggest you discuss it on the Talk:God discussion page?  In addition, you may want to add your information to the Arguments against the existence of God article instead. - Tεxτurε 15:00, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removal of atheist perspectives and lack of objectivity 

message: In my opinion, this article should be revisited seriously and soon; it is POV in a  number of aspects not least in the cultural ethnocentricity it displays. I do not want to break out an edit war here, however, the modern day Judaeo-Christian stuff  which largely presages this arrant nonsense does not even begin to create a context in which this subject can seriously be broached. Sjc 06:47, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Tell that to a Christian. Not that I disagree with your point. Yath 08:18, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text:  hehe nice work on starting to get this seething mess cleared up btw :) I don't particularly have it in for Christians, btw, they just seem so ubiquitously attention seeking Sjc 08:22, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV violations rife in this article 

message: I also like the "God vs. deity" split. It's much better than using the case of the "G" as the distinction. Now we need to refactor the articles. For example, some polytheist religions like Hinduism also believe in a supreme God of which (as I understand it) all their other deities are aspects. From the article: "Within Sanatana Dharma, or Hinduism (as it is commonly called) a variety of lesser gods are seen as aspects of the one God, Brahman (not Brahma). Brahman is the ultimate, both transcendent and immanent the absolute infinite existence, the sum total of all that ever is, was, or ever shall be." -- The Anome 14:22, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, also.  The God of Hinduism that you mention can be accommodated in the present article with one tweak: changing the description of the article to be "about God, the supreme being" (which is the capitalized usage—I'm not the one who changed the definition of the article to be about "the God of the major monotheistic religions" —although I've since realized that distinguishing an article by capitalization would be poor practice.)  As evidenced by the links in Wikipedia, when an English-speaker uses the three-letter word "GOD," they are almost always referring to a supreme being, regardless of what religion's (if any), just as when an English-speaker says "evolution," they are typically referring to biological evolution, regardless of which sub-theory (if any).  They are only rarely referring to the generic senses of either word.  In my opinion, the "supreme being" definition most fully meets the requirements of Wikipedia:naming conventions, quoted above, though I am very interested in what others have to say.  P.S. The article deity also needs a lot of work.--Johnstone 01:33, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  God ''vs.'' deity