Talk:Sign of contradiction

message: The section on Opus Dei appears not to be written from a NPOV.
This topic is about Catholic theology. It entails a certain discipline and knowledge to contribute here. This article should respect the NPOV policy which states that NPOV means reporting on the views of the credible experts on the field in proportion to what is said by these experts.
Expertise here then on the shoulders of those who know Catholic theology. And not anybody who has his own opinion on the subject. 
Sign of contradiction implies a double-movement: (1) the downfall of those who reject Christ, and (2) the rise of those who who accept him.  
This should be presented in its entirety throughout all the instances when there is a supposed sign of contradiction as seen by Catholic theology. If the two movements are not presented in their entirety then the article becomes inaccurate.
If the article is not proportionate to what the credible experts say (Catholic theologians) then it is not neutral. Marax 11:08, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: NPOV

message: There are now attributions for statements which can be deemed pov. With this they are now facts and npov. Also cleaned up misspellings, etc. Marax 08:17, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Removed clean up and neutrality tag

message: There are problems of grammar and usage with the opening sentence of the article:
"Sign of contradiction refers to the idea that certain persons or entities who are thought to manifest holiness have, at the same time, or consequently, subject to extreme opposition."
The main verb of the sentence appears to be "have subject". It's not at all clear what this is intended to mean. ("have been subject"?). Moreover the word "consequently" is used here as if it means "afterwards", which it doesn't; "consequently" means "therefore" or "as a result". Is the author looking for "subsequently"? At any rate, the article needs tidying up by someone with the appropriate knowledge of the subject and the appropriate writing skills. C0pernicus 13:39, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The opening sentence

message: In last sentence of the 4th parag. of "Black Legends" he states is not attributed.  Is it Keppler, the Pope, or who that is making this statement?Elburts 19:26, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Dangling pronoun

message: Jesuits are hardly representative of today's Catholic ideology 
contrasts with 
I will believe that the white that I see is black if the hierarchical Church so defines it.
i think it is better to explain this phrase or move it to jesuits
--Riccardov 08:38, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Jesuits

message: This article makes many statements which are not supported by any references, much of it appears to be the article author's own writing, violating Wikipedia's no original research policy. I am attempting to tag this article as such, but Curps seems to be reverting the edits without comment. 216.209.114.132 15:27, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the reminder. I just added a section on references, although throughout the article they are referred to. Marax 08:24, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Original research, no references

message: I had to mention this belief as an example of fideism within the Roman Catholic Church.  The apparent acceptance of this belief among high levels of the RCC hierarchy seems to me to be at least partially in conflict with the traditional Thomism of RC theology, and specifically the rejection of fideism within official RC teachings, such as the encyclical Fides et Ratio.  
Are there Roman Catholic theologians who contest the concept?  It seems problematic that a belief is considered confirmed by the fact that other people disagree with it.  Smerdis of Tlön 16:31, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, it is problematic. In theology it is called a paradox, a problem that is only resolved in the supernatural level, i.e. from the point of view of God. As the laying down of the life of God, the deicide, the greatest evil can produce the greatest good--salvation. Hope this helps! :-) Marax 10:13, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  How widely accepted is this belief? 

message: The article currently states, . . .(B)lack legends he discusses are the opposition of the Church to the free-market economy. . . 
The whole section seems to be POV, and this sentence is just an example.  Of course, the very concept of a "black legend" is POV-pushing, and especially so outside the context of the Spanish Inquisition.  AFAIK there was no general "opposition of the Church" to a "free market economy;" there was moral condemnation of certain economic activities, such as speculation and usury.  The teachings of moral theologians such as Aquinas and his predecessors is a matter of record, see just price.  (Some months ago I had to clean up a lot of POV in the just price article that seemed to assume that the very idea was a relic of the past.)  
In my experience, people who call attention to these things now in my experience are not telling a "black legend," whose point is to call attention to alleged moral failings in the Roman church.  Most contemporary references to such things praise these historical teachings, and use them as one moral basis to justify condemnation of free-market ideologies.  
Of course, if this is the claim the source makes, so it goes.  It strikes me that the source is somewhat confused, though.  - Smerdis of Tlön 16:20, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Yet more POV or accuracy problems 

message: "The Shroud of Turin, an image viewed by some Christians as a miraculous imprinting of the image of Jesus on the cloth, together with the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, are disputed as authentic supernatural depictions. For this reason, Catholics consider them to be signs of contradictions."
"If you dispute my claim, that means I'm right."
Clever. --131.111.8.104 22:35, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hmmm 

message: This latter parts of this article in effect treat anything connected to Catholicism that has been criticized or opposed as a sign of contradiction -- even when no evidence is been adduced that that the Church, in whole or in part, or noteworthy theologians or, indeed, any significant group of Catholics regard them as such.  This is about as pure as original research gets.  Even the earlier parts of the article are afflicted with freestyle Bible interpretations claiming that cited Bible passages exemplify signs of contradiction, but with no references to any published source to establish that they are regarded as such by anybody except the Wikipedian who contributed them.  This is also OR.
From the latter part of the article I single out for special mention:
#Black legends and the Church's contributions to civilization
:*Like many others, this section doesn't even mention sign of contradiction.  It is a list of Catholic contributions to civilization, culled from a book.  The unstated assumption, I gather, seems to be that if Catholicism's contributions to civilization have been neglected, this proves that the Church is a sign of contradiction.  This is evidently believed to be the case the case even though the book's author doesn't use the phrase sign of contradiction.
#Pius VII and Napoleon
:*Napoleon opposed Pius VII and later kidnapped him.  Therefore Pius VII is a sign of contradiction.  And, incidentally, Pius VII outlived Napoleon, and died older.  No source is offered suggesting that anybody but the nameless author of this confusing passage regards Pius VII as a sign of contradiction.  In Wikipedian circles, this is known as a sign of original research.
#John Paul II
:*People, both inside and outside the Church, disagreed with John Paul II; some opposed him.  Evidently the contributor who added this passage believes that this in itself qualifies him as a sign of contradiction -- but the phrase is not applied to John Paul II in any of the cited sources.  Again, the writer seems to assume that because some criticized him, it is axiomatic that John Paul II is a sign of contradiction.  What is actually needed, in this case and throughout the article, is published sources which establish that some significant body of opinion views the subject -- in the case John Paul II -- this way, in precisely that language: sign of contradiction.
If no such evidence can be located, each of these sections and others like them simply need to be deleted.
There are also unsupported, sweeping statements of the kind "Catholics believe," "in Catholic doctrine," "Catholic theologians say" and so forth.  No sources are cited and neither the theologians nor their works are named or cited.  Sources need to be provided to establish who makes such claims and in what published works, otherwise these claims, and any material which depends on them, also need to be deleted.
I can't pretend to be sufficiently knowledgeable about the topic to be able to rewrite the sections competently even if I knew where to find the required sources.  The best I could do is identify OR sections and other passages unsupported by published sources and delete them.  If no one can come up with reliable, verifiable, published sources in fairly short order, that's what will need to happen: judging by this talk page, the need to correct this problem has gone unheeded for nearly three years.
--Rrburke(talk) 03:27, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Significant [[WP:NOR|OR]] problem 

message: Lots of info, much of it seems in conformity with Catholic-baptismal-fount talk of western Canada,
but yesyes where be all the references?
And further, large parts of the page seem to have nothing to do with the article [e.g. Jesuit section?]
Needs a serious restructure and quite a few more refs plz..  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.126.152.70 (talk) 04:20, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hmmm #2 

message: The article boldly claims that Luther was the only reformer defending the Catholic Transsubstantiation. Odd! I've always been told that Luther was fuzzy about the nature of Eucharist. I found an enlightening link here: while it for sure can be claimed that Luther criticised the Catholic Transsubstantiation, it seems he didn't discuss the dogm in itself, but derogated the use of (from his POV) obsolete Aristotelean + scholastic reasoning for explaining Transsubstantiation. That implies that he didn't defend Catholic Transsubstantiation as the article claims. It is unclear whether he adhered to the Transsubstantiation doctrine, or claimed, as usually believed, in Consubstantiation, but this ignorance will probably always remain, and so the content of the articles in Wikipedia should always be ignorant. (Personally I believe that he never elaborated the doctrine even in his mind, as being a futile logical exercise) Rursus dixit. (mbork3!) 09:31, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Luther on eucharist

message: There's something missing in the intro, i.e. whether this so called "contradiction" is what is called contradiction within logic, or rather an opposition against a certain doctrine. "Absurdity" seems to originally refer to something like "preposterously wrong", which might include logical contradictions, depending on context. Rursus dixit. (mbork3!) 09:50, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Honestly, I believe it is a sub-mindset of the Catholic faith that allows a 100% degree turn of opinion fast as a greased flash. Flexible and somewhat admirable, but the risk for real logical contradictions adding up to the system making it an illogical mess, seems overwhelming to me, and not spiritually elevating in most cases. Rursus dixit. (mbork3!) 10:00, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: What is it?

message: Substituted at 06:08, 30 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment comment