Portal talk:Religion

message: Hi,
I was advised to post this here, rather then at the village pump. 
grt,
Xochipili
=== Sahaja yoga and in general: articles on religion ===
Hi,
I don't know wether I'm posting this at the right place, but I felt angry after reading two articles and googling around a bit and I didn't feel like editing.
First of all, English is not my first language and second: I guess it's not a good idea to edit or contribute to a talk page when angry. I'm not a wiki editor anyway. 
However, I do feel I have a point so I guess the village pump is the place to leave something like a rant. 
Like a lot of people nowadays, I use wikipedia as a source of information a lot, especially on topics I don't want to spend weeks or longer doing research on. I know a bit how it works, so I know not all information on wikipedia is always accurate.
I do get the impression that articles on various religions, cults, sects, New Religious Movements etc. quite often are written and/or edited by people who actually belong to the group which is written about, so I won't get any objective information at all. In the past I was looking for sociological theories about the historical witch hunts and all the time I got trapped into articles which were used by Wiccans to shed their light on history. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Wiccans and it seems like these things have been improved or corrected by now. Now I read Dutch, English and German and compare different articles, so I might confuse some wiki's in different languages.
Now I have also read quite some stuff about Scientology and about the history of Scientology on Wikipedia. The whole story seems to have resulted in a load of good and critical information about the CoS on wikipedia (well, at least on the English wiki, the Dutch one definitely is a different story). My compliments to the people who did all that! But I'm afraid it doesn't all stop with CoS...
However: the articles about Sahaja Yoga http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahaja_Yoga , and it's founder, [], seem like a load of crap to me. This is most definitely not neutral information, this is a complete eulogy, to a certain level it might be promotion according wiki-guidlines. 
For instance in the part "Cult allegations and refutations", there is stated: 
A 2008 court case in Brussels has ruled that Sahaja Yoga had been wrongly labelled as a cult by a Belgian state authority and awarded the group compensation.
Further on is stated:
In 2008 the Belgian newspapers De Morgen,[155] De Standaard[156] and Le Soir reported that the Court of First Instance of Brussels ordered the Belgian state to pay 1,500 Euros compensation to Sahaja Yoga for wrongly labelling the movement as a sect (cult). The Centre of Information and Opinion on Harmful Sectarian Organizations (CIAOSN/IACSSO) had given an unfavourable report on the meditation movement which was found to be unobjective and had resulted in the movement being defamed. The state appealed.
Now I felt I wanted to get a bit deeper into this and I found the actual court verdict from this appeal, which is quite nasty for Sahaja Yoga and it's late founder. You can find it on the site of the Belgian state organization IACSSO, both in Dutch and in French and it dates from 12-4-2011. You can find it here: 
http://www.iacsso.be/actualiteit.htm  
in Dutch there's this scan: http://www.iacsso.be/110412-hof_van_beroep_te_brussel-2008-AR-889.pdf  
in French there's this one: http://www.iacsso.be/110412-cour_d%27appel_de_bruxelles-2008-AR-889.pdf. 
The point is: the Belgian organization never did say that Sahaja Yoga was a destructive cult or anything like that. However, it did point out some things which this Court of Appeal found justifiable remarks, even according the ECHM. The French scan looks better than the Dutch one and I can recommend anyone interested in this subject to read this verdict carefully! As far as I get it, the Belgian Court of Appeal stated that a state organization may rightfully say that the founder of Sahaja Yoga did make anti semitic and thus xenophobic and racist remarks in her writings. And there is more, Sahaja Yoga lost the case completely! I'm amazed that the Belgian press didn't put any attention on this verdict (at least so it seems, they were probably too busy with other matters at the time). 
As far as I understand this verdict stands as long as there is no higher appeal (Cassatie) but didn't find any information on such an appeal. Did Sahaja give up? I would understand that, when I read this verdict. 
Now this verdict is almost two years old and hardly anyone noticed, even when a scan in two languages was put on the internet! I guess the writers and editors of the two wiki articles missed this one as well ... or didn't they want to know? 
Another thing is: one organization which is given as a source in the wiki articles is "Human Rights Without Frontiers International" - this seems to me a bit shady small NGO - apart from it's own website there's not much mention of it on the internet. Is this actually a genuine human rights organization or a Brussels lobby group? Where do they get their money from? 
One more quote: 
In 1995, Nirmala Srivastava was awarded an honorary doctorate in Cognitive and Parapsychological Sciences by the Ecological University of Bucharest, Romania.
Now that sounds like bogus to me and it's just supported with one dead link. Can someone find a reliable source for this honorary doctorate? I can't find anything about it, apart from Sahaja-sites. Anyway, there's a lot more like this. 
Now I understand it's not possible to put a sign on articles like this, saying: "WARNING! Joining this New Religious Movement might be dangerous for your mental and physical health, your children might be put in some dodgy school in another country and you may not see them again for years, your marriage might get ruined or you might get put in some arranged marriage, if you suffer from epilepsy or when you are gay you might get labeled as 'possessed by an evil spirit' and it's founder is known for her anti semitic ideas and was a complete homophobe who stated she could cure homosexuality with yoga, just tell them you're HIV-positive and they won't even allow you to meditate with them". 
But that is just my opinion. Yes, I am biased! This whole thing is complete Mumbo Jumbo to me! They are most definitely not up front with their agenda! You have to dig really a bit deeper on the internet to find this out. And it's another good reason why I shouldn't edit those articles...
I'm afraid there's more examples of things like this on wikipedia and I don't have a clear proposal how to avoid them. But could somebody please have a closer look at those articles, maybe? I'd love to read something more neutral!  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Xochopili (talk • contribs) 02:57, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Somewhere like Portal talk:Religion might be a better place for these comments (more likely to be seen by editors who may address any problems) - and, of course, there's the talk pages of the specific articles.  P.S. Your English is much better than many WP contributors! DexDor (talk) 11:17, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

text: If a group were problematic, I think that the best defense is credible knowledge about them, something that a well written Wikipedia article imparts. (more than an opinion/warning written by one editor) And something which is as problematic as you indicate will have sourced criticism and content on the problematic areas to include. North8000 (talk) 13:55, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sahaja yoga and in general: articles on religion 

message: Hi,
I don't know wether I'm posting this at the right place, but I felt angry after reading two articles and googling around a bit and I didn't feel like editing.
First of all, English is not my first language and second: I guess it's not a good idea to edit or contribute to a talk page when angry. I'm not a wiki editor anyway. 
However, I do feel I have a point so I guess the village pump is the place to leave something like a rant. 
Like a lot of people nowadays, I use wikipedia as a source of information a lot, especially on topics I don't want to spend weeks or longer doing research on. I know a bit how it works, so I know not all information on wikipedia is always accurate.
I do get the impression that articles on various religions, cults, sects, New Religious Movements etc. quite often are written and/or edited by people who actually belong to the group which is written about, so I won't get any objective information at all. In the past I was looking for sociological theories about the historical witch hunts and all the time I got trapped into articles which were used by Wiccans to shed their light on history. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Wiccans and it seems like these things have been improved or corrected by now. Now I read Dutch, English and German and compare different articles, so I might confuse some wiki's in different languages.
Now I have also read quite some stuff about Scientology and about the history of Scientology on Wikipedia. The whole story seems to have resulted in a load of good and critical information about the CoS on wikipedia (well, at least on the English wiki, the Dutch one definitely is a different story). My compliments to the people who did all that! But I'm afraid it doesn't all stop with CoS...
However: the articles about Sahaja Yoga http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahaja_Yoga , and it's founder, [], seem like a load of crap to me. This is most definitely not neutral information, this is a complete eulogy, to a certain level it might be promotion according wiki-guidlines. 
For instance in the part "Cult allegations and refutations", there is stated: 
A 2008 court case in Brussels has ruled that Sahaja Yoga had been wrongly labelled as a cult by a Belgian state authority and awarded the group compensation.
Further on is stated:
In 2008 the Belgian newspapers De Morgen,[155] De Standaard[156] and Le Soir reported that the Court of First Instance of Brussels ordered the Belgian state to pay 1,500 Euros compensation to Sahaja Yoga for wrongly labelling the movement as a sect (cult). The Centre of Information and Opinion on Harmful Sectarian Organizations (CIAOSN/IACSSO) had given an unfavourable report on the meditation movement which was found to be unobjective and had resulted in the movement being defamed. The state appealed.
Now I felt I wanted to get a bit deeper into this and I found the actual court verdict from this appeal, which is quite nasty for Sahaja Yoga and it's late founder. You can find it on the site of the Belgian state organization IACSSO, both in Dutch and in French and it dates from 12-4-2011. You can find it here: 
http://www.iacsso.be/actualiteit.htm  
in Dutch there's this scan: http://www.iacsso.be/110412-hof_van_beroep_te_brussel-2008-AR-889.pdf  
in French there's this one: http://www.iacsso.be/110412-cour_d%27appel_de_bruxelles-2008-AR-889.pdf. 
The point is: the Belgian organization never did say that Sahaja Yoga was a destructive cult or anything like that. However, it did point out some things which this Court of Appeal found justifiable remarks, even according the ECHM. The French scan looks better than the Dutch one and I can recommend anyone interested in this subject to read this verdict carefully! As far as I get it, the Belgian Court of Appeal stated that a state organization may rightfully say that the founder of Sahaja Yoga did make anti semitic and thus xenophobic and racist remarks in her writings. And there is more, Sahaja Yoga lost the case completely! I'm amazed that the Belgian press didn't put any attention on this verdict (at least so it seems, they were probably too busy with other matters at the time). 
As far as I understand this verdict stands as long as there is no higher appeal (Cassatie) but didn't find any information on such an appeal. Did Sahaja give up? I would understand that, when I read this verdict. 
Now this verdict is almost two years old and hardly anyone noticed, even when a scan in two languages was put on the internet! I guess the writers and editors of the two wiki articles missed this one as well ... or didn't they want to know? 
Another thing is: one organization which is given as a source in the wiki articles is "Human Rights Without Frontiers International" - this seems to me a bit shady small NGO - apart from it's own website there's not much mention of it on the internet. Is this actually a genuine human rights organization or a Brussels lobby group? Where do they get their money from? 
One more quote: 
In 1995, Nirmala Srivastava was awarded an honorary doctorate in Cognitive and Parapsychological Sciences by the Ecological University of Bucharest, Romania.
Now that sounds like bogus to me and it's just supported with one dead link. Can someone find a reliable source for this honorary doctorate? I can't find anything about it, apart from Sahaja-sites. Anyway, there's a lot more like this. 
Now I understand it's not possible to put a sign on articles like this, saying: "WARNING! Joining this New Religious Movement might be dangerous for your mental and physical health, your children might be put in some dodgy school in another country and you may not see them again for years, your marriage might get ruined or you might get put in some arranged marriage, if you suffer from epilepsy or when you are gay you might get labeled as 'possessed by an evil spirit' and it's founder is known for her anti semitic ideas and was a complete homophobe who stated she could cure homosexuality with yoga, just tell them you're HIV-positive and they won't even allow you to meditate with them". 
But that is just my opinion. Yes, I am biased! This whole thing is complete Mumbo Jumbo to me! They are most definitely not up front with their agenda! You have to dig really a bit deeper on the internet to find this out. And it's another good reason why I shouldn't edit those articles...
I'm afraid there's more examples of things like this on wikipedia and I don't have a clear proposal how to avoid them. But could somebody please have a closer look at those articles, maybe? I'd love to read something more neutral!  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Xochopili (talk • contribs) 02:57, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Somewhere like Portal talk:Religion might be a better place for these comments (more likely to be seen by editors who may address any problems) - and, of course, there's the talk pages of the specific articles.  P.S. Your English is much better than many WP contributors! DexDor (talk) 11:17, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

text: If a group were problematic, I think that the best defense is credible knowledge about them, something that a well written Wikipedia article imparts. (more than an opinion/warning written by one editor) And something which is as problematic as you indicate will have sourced criticism and content on the problematic areas to include. North8000 (talk) 13:55, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sahaja yoga and in general: articles on religion 

message: Does anybody know any literature one could use for the creation of the above lemma? I would be glad to receive your feedback. Thanks a lot in advance,--Der Spion (talk) 23:32, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Eucharistic miracle of Buenos Aires]] 

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