Talk:João Teixeira de Faria

message: Wikipedia articles are supposed to be "encyclopedia-like", not "magazine-like".  In particular they should try to report the important facts, not debate them. It is OK to say "most scientists believe X" or "many people of group X claim Y" because those are *facts* about the attitudes of those segments of society. However,  it almost never necessary to quote the statements of individuals from those groups; instead one should sumarize their positions as succintly as possible. Hope it helps... Jorge Stolfi 22:22, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, it's actually a really bad idea to do that, and wiki policy discourages that. See weasel words and WP:WEASEL. Opinions should always be attributed to someone. Tenebrous 23:21, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Style of article 

message: This is not going to be a complete list at this time, when these problems get fixed I'll add some more.
:"According to sources, which are provided by his followers, João got only two years of education and spent many years travelling from village to village in the states of Goias and Minas Gerais healing people and administering the local herbs to whomever turned up wherever he stopped"
Sources provided by his followers are probably not the reputable third-party sources that we should be using on Wikipedia
:"Eventually João was told by his spirit guides that he must expand his work to reach more people, so he left the protected life at the army base. He visited his friend, the late Chico Xavier, one of Brazil's most celebrated healers who told him he should go to the small Goiás town of Abadiânia where he was meant to fulfil his healing mission."
That would be, he claims to have been told by his spirit guides. "Protected life" is non-encyclopedic.
:"This controversial figure attracts thousands to his center, the Casa de Dom Inacio, where many undergo either visible or invisible psychic operations. Hundreds line up outside to pass before the medium, who decides if the patient will get a visible or invisible surgery. According to eyewitnesses, 95% of the operations are invisible and take less than one minute."
Eyewitnesses. Who? Where does this information come from? How are we to know if this is reliable?
:"João, who was the study of a a book by Robert Pelligrino-Estrich, called The Miracle Man, supposedly incorporates entities, spirits of famous doctors, to do the operations. Some of the most famous of these entities are Inacio de Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, Dr Osvaldo Cruz, and King Solomon of Biblical fame."
Talk about an unverifiable claim. Need to tell where this comes from, and the latter sentance needs to be done away with or rephrased to emphasize the nonfactual nature of that claim.
That's enough for now. Tenebrous 23:21, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Factual claims are falsifiable by definition. Tenebrous 13:33, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Your personal experience is, I'm afraid, not something we can use in this article, so please try and keep it to the books; as well, partisan websites are not good sources. I think that belief in faith healing is probably a minority view in the medical field, and probably needs to be represented as such. Also, the critical view of his work is not well represented; there are many reasons people believe he is a fraud, and we should mention the more common ones. And perhaps put in a section summarizing faith healing with a link to the main article. Tenebrous 13:33, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

text: OK, I've included more references to the critical view. I'm removed claims that I couldn't find any citation for. By the very nature of the subject, I could not find many NPOV references, so any information backing up claims has to come from partisan websites, but I've made it clear that the soure is biased. I've included a section which states that the scientific evidence is sparse. I've removed the disputed tag for now, but feel free to put it back in if you think it needs more work, but detail here what you require.--Epideme12 21:38, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Things that need citation

message: I've done some serious clean up and sourcing. Personal blogs don't cut it for evidence that goes against science.
:Thanks for the clean-up, it needed it. The Website stating personal testimony is used as a direct rebuttal to Randi's critism. Randi attacks the ABC documentary claiming none of the people were actually cured. Matthew's story claims he has made a full recovery from a devistating tumour.--81.155.103.15 07:35, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Okay, where's source? What doctor has concluded he is cured? Was Matthew also taking western medicine? FGT2 04:58, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  PS. the phrase 'evidence that goes against science' is illogical. Real science is about looking at the evidence. However, sadly, science in the 20th century often tends towards a system of belief. As we have seen in our history in cases such as Aristotle, Copernicus, Darwin, and pretty much every scientific revolution, the evidence trumps the widely held belief in 'truth'. Deryk Wenaus (talk)  —Preceding undated comment added 16:11, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  You're taking it too literally. The plain meaning is that a blog isn't credible if it makes claims that contradict our best understanding of the world as obtained through the scientific method --- not that it matters as long as WP doesn't consider blogs to be reliable sources, period. And your claim about science "in the 20th century" (or the current one) is simply false, and amounts to special pleading ... "science" is an enterprise involving thousands upon thousands of educated and trained people, and the sum of their interpretations of the evidence, competitively cross-checked and peer reviewed, trumps that of any individual, including yourself. Talk of belief in 'truth' is a strawman -- the comment was about science, not truth; science based on a massive accumulation of evidence. And that's relevant to this article, where it is currently understated. -- Jibal (talk) 06:39, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Cleaned up

message: Does he travel to do these "healings" too? It would be helpful if there was a sentece in the article about that, with a reliable source. xleax 9 February
: We don't add sentences about things that don't happen. If you have a reliable source that says he travels to places other than his casa to put on his shows, you can add it. -- Jibal (talk) 09:28, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Does he travel?

message: I don't mean to burst anyone's bubble around here, but lemme quote something:
ABC's update on the five people involved lacks detail: two are making either slow progress or none at all, one is worse, but one seems to have recovered to the extent that he assumes the tumor is gone.[citation needed]
Is it just me or I count four people in that? I ain't no mathematician, but you know... :) And it's not even sourced anyway. If anyone has any information on that, and that they only have information on 4 people, then probably adding a little "we ain't gots no thang abouts the last person yo" would be kinda great.
But if it were only me, I'd just remove that part. Some firm believers around here would come here, lurk a little bit, see that "one seems to have recovered to the extent that he assumed the tumor is gone", and they'll go alakazou and be prayin' Lord my Savior to save their soul.
Amen.
Seigneur101 20:39, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The fifth one died of his illness. Hope that helps. FergusM1970 (talk) 04:35, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Five people

message: James Randi does not have a NPOV. Just as sources directly from the John of God group do not represent a NPOV, James Randi's words also do not represent a NPOV. James Randi a recognized skeptic; his whole career is built upon the idea of debunking anything that is not based in the physical. Also, James Randi does not represent scientific belief (which an oxymoron - true scientists do not believe, they observe). What he does represent is the naturalist (scientific materialistic) point of view, which is only one of many scientific world views. The naturalistic POV is from the time of Galileo and Newton. Since the advent of quantum physics at the beginning of the 20th century most physicists have adopted expanded  views about reality. However, naturalism it is a point of view shared by most technician scientists; in this way it is more of a belief rather than a careful study of the evidence and facts. I'm not trying to open up a big debate here, I'm just wanting to point out that James Randi does not represent a NPOV and give some backing to that claim. A few supporting articles here:
* a skeptical look at James Randi (http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/exam/Prescott_Randi.htm)
* The Myth of the Million Dollar Challenge (http://www.dailygrail.com/features/the-myth-of-james-randis-million-dollar-challenge)
Deryk Wenaus (talk) 16:02, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: By a straight removal of the Critism section you have made the article NPOV. What the Randi references provided was a place to check the other POV. Now the article has no references backing up the statememt "Skeptics claim that any improvements are the result of natural spontaneous remission, a placebo effect, possibly caused by conventional medicine, or wishful thinking on the part of the patient.". Bear in mind that the references were added in the first place so that the NPOV tag that this article had could be removed. 92.43.67.35 (talk) 15:28, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

text: Your soapbox comments are irrelevant to WP other than showing that you don't understand NPOV ... it doesn't apply to individuals, so "James Randi does not have a NPOV" is a nonsensical objection. -- Jibal (talk) 09:34, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  James Randi and NPOV 

message: At Diane Spodarek's blog there are dozens of comments, including by experiencers, detailing sexual predator behavior by Joao/John. Here's the link:
http://dangerousdiane.blogspot.fr/2008/01/john-of-god-from-i-dont-believe-it-file.html
I'm surprised that this has not yet been mentioned at this Wiki page on John as a "public service" warning so that younger females (or parents of young females) have more "informed consent" before visiting him.
I don't have time in a "beyond busy" schedule to monitor this talk page but one or more of the folks responsible for updating this page may want to at least add the link.
Contact me at t.conway1@cox.net for further correspondence.
On this particular topic of sexual predation, there are "mandated reporting" laws for anyone in the helping professions-- and, as we've all tragically learned, in these kinds of cases it's best policy to operate on the assumption "where there's smoke, there's usually fire."  Looks like there's a lot of "smoke" connected to Joao/John.
 TimothyConway (talk) 19:54, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I know you are trying to make money by promoting João. Please stop it. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk)  21:23, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: The sexual predator allegations look to be in the news today though.T. Anthony (talk) 09:17, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sexual predator allegations? 

message: Deleted section: medical associations and scientists reject "psychic surgery" as pseudoscience, as it involves only deception by sleight of hand and the production of items such as chicken livers which are claimed to be tumours
There are no references that support there is evidence, or that John was caught using slight of hand, and chicken livers. These statements are pure allegation. Also "tumours" was misspelled, and should have been "tumors".
Deleted: ABC also reported that a local district attorney claims to have received death threats from De Faria after investigating his claims
The alleged threats made to the reporter are purely the claims of the reporter, and no one else. Furthermore said reporter offered no evidence to support his claims. His word, and possible attempt to gain fame are not important enough to mention in the article. It also creates a biased tone, and suggests the accusation holds merit. It's just the claim of one insignificant reporter with no evidence to support his claim.
Deleted Skeptics guide to the universe section. It's clearly completely biased, and whether or not it's even a valid source that would be acceptable by wiki standards is questionable.
Lucius Sempronius Turpio (talk) 07:41, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deletions 

message: I can't believe the POV pushers on Wiki who do not believe in creationism and think a magic snake caused human duffering even have the privilage of editing this page. Christians have tolme that computers are the product of satan and satan is evil. Why is this pseudoscientific charleton allowed any credibility whatsoever? Why is this project even considering this fucking nonsense: Oh, and by the way, map my IP adress and you will knoww EXACTLY where I'm editing from. 177.7.68.166 (talk) 13:42, 6 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text:  Link me to some reliable sources about him being a con man, please - with a little balance this article can be a touch better. Spacecowboy420 (talk) 13:49, 6 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text:  My source is logic. There is no need to cite any source. Science  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 177.75.61.64 (talk) 21:21, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: The man, who I hadn't heard of before seeing his name in the news, looks to be a "spiritist" so I'm not sure why you're bashing Christians to criticize him or the article. Christians could be, and I think some clearly are, critical of him too. (I know this was years ago, but anti-Christian bias in Wikipedia is an interest of mine.)T. Anthony (talk) 09:20, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

text:  I'm not trying to have a conflict about this article, and I agree with you - common sense makes it really clear that this guy is a scammer. Of course he is. The problem is that Wikipedia requires reliable sources and a neutral point of view when making edits.
If edits are made by you (or anyone else) saying he's a scammer, without backing it up with credible sources, they will be deleted as per wikipedia procedure. I know it seems unfair and illogical to have to provide proof for something so obvious, but as editors we have to work within these rules to put the correct information out there. Spacecowboy420 (talk) 07:02, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

text: Please stop trying to promote your business. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk)  21:14, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

text: Maerlander, I'm glad you had a positive experience with Mr de Faria, but everything you say is irrelevant to the wikipedia article. Please read WP:Verifiability before continuing to edit the article. Ashmoo (talk) 12:09, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Are you seriously fucking kidding me? 

message: Shouldn't we refer to him using one single term throughout? I suggest "de Faria", and definitely "de" shouldn't be capitalized. VdSV9•♫ 12:16, 1 August 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I tried to make the article consistent regarding use of the subject's name. Also did a rename (page move) to use the subject's REAL name as the article name. RobP (talk) 03:36, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  "de Faria"/"De Faria"/"John"/"John of God" 

message: The first paragraph starts with accusations, something which is never proved in court, so I @maerlander  think that part should be removed!
On top of that, Wikipedia has two pop up boxes on the article:
1: This article's lead section may not adequately summarize key points of its contents. Please consider expanding the lead to provide an accessible overview of all important aspects of the article. Please discuss this issue on the article's talk page. (November 2016)
Which I agree upon, and that is the reason why I deleted the accusations.
Then I go to edit page and I see this pop  up:
2:Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libellous. If such material is repeatedly inserted, or if you have other concerns, please report the issue to this noticeboard. If you are connected to one of the subjects of this article and need help, see this page.
And yes, where is the source of these accusations. Does it come from a court? In the first  article sourced, they don't come up with to me  convincing arguments of why he would be a fraud. Its basically a copy paste of the 60 minutes article. And I don't read anything of sexual accusations. 
The second article, I find a good source, it actually tries to understands spiritism (which has a deep root in Brazil). 85% of all Brazilians, see a spiritist doctor, next to their own doctor. There are spiritist houses/hospitals here in every city. (This info comes from the PHD of Emma Bragdon, who did her research about spiritism). But is also does't come with arguments on why he would be a fraud, nor do I read anything about sexual accusations.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Maerlander (talk • contribs) 20:59, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Please stop trying to promote your business. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk)  21:01, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I know you are trying to make money by promoting João. Please stop it. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk)  21:23, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

text: This isn't the first website you've tried to promote João on. I can use Google. En ik kan trouwens ook in het Nederlands communiceren als dat je meer bevalt. (translation, just in case anyone is curious: "And I am also able to communicate in Dutch if you prefer") (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk)  22:13, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Introduction

message: The cites for the YouTube video source, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtsNfy1eVMA, use many different titles. My guess is that the video or title has changed over the years. Somebody who cares may want to figure it out. Not me -- User-duck (talk) 23:06, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  60 Minutes YouTube video source. 

message: Hi, everybody. I signed up with Wikipedia just now specifically to report this page. It’s written entirely in a subjective tone, lacking in source evidence on many occasions (ironic considering the page is about a fraud), and is it just me or do multiple sections feel like skeptic James Randi himself edited them?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m on the guy’s side here, but every instance of his name contains a link and several portions of the article read like Randi is bemoaning personal injustices.
This is an important page and it deserves a near-complete do-over. StarfleetLieutenant (talk) 03:57, 16 August 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Multiple major issues with this page 

message: I think this page warrants a section on John of God running a human trafficking farm. There seems to to be several accusers who came out with this at the same time as his sex crimes which are featured prominently in this page. Why not the trafficking accusations? 75.188.155.9 (talk) 23:36, 18 December 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Human trafficking farm accusations