Talk:Vaccination and religion

message: Dutch: http://new.hst.org.za/news/index.php/20030624/
Dwight:  http://lowcountry.humanists.net/SEPS/sep-2001-11.html (secondary or tertiary though) 
:In this connection we may quote the words of the learned Protestant divine, Rev. Timothy Dwight, who served as president of Yale University from 1795 to 1817. Rev. Dwight is on record as stating: 'If God had decreed from all eternity that a certain person should die of smallpox, it would be a frightful sin to avoid and annul that decree by the trick of vaccination.' [Cited in John Shelby Spong's book, 'Why Christianity Must Change or Die', (Harper Collins, 1999), pp. 7-8.   ISBN: 0060675365 ]  from http://www.noosphere.cc/eugenics.html viewed July 2006 
Midgley 21:00, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sources 

message: Theres a line in there somewhere that has weasel words or something like that. I cant remember where it is. maybe someone deleted it already. If it isn't there, please delete the NPOV tag and disregard this message. —Preceding unsigned comment added by  (talk • contribs) 
I'm not seeing a POV problem (although it's hard to tell amidst the style problems). There are a lot of unsupported statements, marked as needing citations, but there's not enough flow to result in a bias, I think.Lisamh 01:40, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know of any religion that favors vaccination on doctrinal grounds. Most religions accept vaccination. I suppose one could argue this means they favor vaccination indirectly, on humanitarian grounds. However, I don't know of any reliable source that makes this point. To some extent it's a dog-bites-man story to write that a religion accepts vaccination, which may explain why I couldn't easily find a source. Eubulides (talk) 20:10, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV/Weasel 

message: The article has NPOV problems in that it currently focuses on religious opposition to vaccination.  Needs more coverage of religious views favoring vaccination.  I am not up on theology and religious history enough to know where to find cited examples.  (However some of the missionary health care activities might be a source?) Zodon (talk) 19:29, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know of any religion that favors vaccination on doctrinal grounds. Most religions accept vaccination. I suppose one could argue this means they favor vaccination indirectly, on humanitarian grounds. However, I don't know of any reliable source that makes this point. To some extent it's a dog-bites-man story to write that a religion accepts vaccination, which may explain why I couldn't easily find a source. Eubulides (talk) 20:10, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Religious views favoring vaccination 

message: I have searched around to find the location of the Dwight quote. It is certainly present in a number of other works but none of these texts has a direct reference that I can see. I am now seriously thinking that the quote was either false, or that it was out of context.
I have a feeling that Dwight may have really said it... but said it in a way as to be sarcastic or satirical. He was probably quite supportive of vaccinations, but may have also been quite against theological fatalists. His quote was thus designed to critique fatalists.
The reason I point this out is that Dwight was not strictly Calvinist. That is, he did not necessarily agree with the standard Calvinist line of the day. Moreover, there seems to be evidence that he had quite a high regard for science and reason.
Certainly Nathaniel William Taylor, one of his proteges, completely abandoned fatalism and embraced "common sense" and "scientific reasoning".
But, as yet, I have found no hard evidence. If anyone else can please modify the article and link it. Thanks.
--One Salient Oversight 15:49, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Timothy Dwight Quote

message: How do we know it wasn't God's will for someone to be saved by vaccination? Maybe he wanted that person to be saved. --M1ss1ontomars2k4 17:46, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Against God's will? 

message: "Christian Scientists care about their neighbors and fellow community members and gladly abide by city and state laws or mandates regarding quarantines, vaccinations, and the like."
http://www.christianscience.com/questions-christian-science-faq.html
Is this a valid source? It seems to contradict what is written in the article.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.132.6.17 (talk) 19:03, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The page is linked from Christian Science, but not used as a reference and it gets very few links on Google. If it is a reliable source, it is only as a reference for the organization's opinion. I do not doubt their statement that Christian Scientists care about their friends, neighbors, and children, but they do not cite any examples of compliance. I will see if I can dig up a reference for the currently uncited sentence on their support or opposition to vaccination as a doctrinal tenet and as level of action in the community. - Eldereft ~(s)talk~ 23:57, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  That sounds reasonable. In the meantime I removed the claim. It's been unsourced for over a year, which is plenty long already. It can be put back once we find a reliable source for it. Eubulides (talk) 03:13, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Christian Science 

message: This set of changes has introduced a considerable amount of text that is dubious because it appears to constitute original research. Apparently what is happening is that Wikipedia editors are going through historical records looking for instances of Christians supporting vaccination. That's not how Wikipedia is supposed to work: it's supposed to rely on secondary sources, on history of vaccination or history of religion, that show the relationship between vaccination and religion.
A good chunk of the text, for example, cites a quote that says nothing about religion; apparently it is included because the quote is about vaccination and was originally published in a newspaper called The Christian Observer. But that is like saying that Christian Scientists favor Musharraf resigining because The Christian Science Monitor has an article entitled "Musharraf resigns". In other words, this isn't even good original research.
For now I will just tag the section in question, but a better fix is to replace the newly-added text with text that relies on reliable secondary sources. Eubulides (talk) 22:27, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: see http://books.google.com/books?id=dQMPAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA358&dq=churches+and++Vaccination&lr=&ei=YbKoSNPiCIzaigGsqaD7BA&client=firefox-a   Hardyplants (talk) 21:26, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Ah, OK, I see the problem. You are citing the 1864, not the 1850, volume. But this citation is extremely weak: it mentions vaccination just once, in an almost offhand comment, in a volume that's hundreds of pages long. It is citing a primary source (a letter from a missionary who vaccinated 20 children), and the missionary himself gives only a single short paragraph to this incident (and he constrasts vaccination to preaching, which tends to undermine the claim that vaccination promotes his main work) in what is a multipage letter. Using a primary source like this, to support a claim that missionaries used vaccination as part of their work, is WP:OR, and we shouldn't do that. We should be citing a secondary source, ideally a review or a major work by a historian, which makes the point in context. Eubulides (talk) 21:36, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Original research in religious support for vaccination 

message: The first claim in question is "In the 1700's and early 1800's churches were used as places for inoculation after ministers preached the value of vaccinations." But the cited source (p. 608) does not say that the sermons preached the value of vaccinations, nor that the vaccinations were done after the sermons; this is an inference that is not made by the source. Nor does the source say when the vaccinations were done (whether in the 1700s, or in the early 1800s). Furthermore, the source is not about vaccination and religion; this is merely an offhand remark in an 1839 letter, quoted in the Notes section of a history about something else. This is clearly WP:OR in the context of vaccination and religion. I removed the claim in question. We need much better sources if we want to have a claim like that in the article. Eubulides (talk) 20:17, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Claim about places of worship 

message: This citation:
*American Baptist Foreign Mission Society. 1850. The Missionary magazine. Boston: American Baptist Missionary Union]. p 358.
is to a page that doesn't seem to have anything to do with vaccination. Here's a more-accurate citation to the article which doesn't have anything to do with vaccination that I can see:
*
I removed the citation for now. Eubulides (talk) 20:36, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: see http://books.google.com/books?id=dQMPAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA358&dq=churches+and++Vaccination&lr=&ei=YbKoSNPiCIzaigGsqaD7BA&client=firefox-a   Hardyplants (talk) 21:26, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Ah, OK, I see the problem. You are citing the 1864, not the 1850, volume. But this citation is extremely weak: it mentions vaccination just once, in an almost offhand comment, in a volume that's hundreds of pages long. It is citing a primary source (a letter from a missionary who vaccinated 20 children), and the missionary himself gives only a single short paragraph to this incident (and he constrasts vaccination to preaching, which tends to undermine the claim that vaccination promotes his main work) in what is a multipage letter. Using a primary source like this, to support a claim that missionaries used vaccination as part of their work, is WP:OR, and we shouldn't do that. We should be citing a secondary source, ideally a review or a major work by a historian, which makes the point in context. Eubulides (talk) 21:36, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citation to Missionary Magazine 

message: This citation was added to support the claim that vaccination was part of Christian mission work since the early 1800s:
*Chiang, Mei-ling Sung. 1940. This is our China. New York: Harper & Bros. p 172.
But the cited source says only this about vaccination (I have only a snippet view): "co-operate with mission hospitals, schools, and country churches in conducting vaccination campaigns in near-by villages." and says only this about vaccines "vaccine available for use in country districts. The New Life Movement was appealed to, and through its medical adviser, Mrs. Shepherd, and she immediately arranged with local New Life Movement...". The New Life Movement was not a missionary (nor a Christian) organization, and that page says nothing about missionaries, according to Google Books. This seems a very weak source to support the claim, so without further info I'm inclined to remove it as well. We need far better sources than this to support the claim that vaccination was a part of Christian mission work since the early 1800s. Eubulides (talk) 20:50, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citation to This is Our China 

message: The citation to Boyd is a good one, but it doesn't support the broad claim about Christian missionaries and vaccination in general. I made this change to try to rewrite the claim to match the source better. Eubulides (talk) 21:17, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citation to Boyd 

message: As mentioned above, citing articles about vaccination in the Christian Observer in support of claims that missionaries viewed vaccination as part of their missions work is fairly weak; it's a bit like citing articles about vaccination in The Christian Science Monitor in support of claims that Christian Scientists support vaccination as part of their mission. Furthermore, even if the sources were relevant, this would be citing primary sources, i.e., doing historical research, which runs afoul of WP:OR. We need stronger sources, that directly speak to the claim that missionaries viewed vaccination as part of their mission, and which are not primary historical sources.
Also, along with this citation, some unsourced text has been added on why vaccine safety was an issue of concern. The relevance of this is dubious, as this article is about vaccination and religion; at any rate some sources would be needed.
For now, I removed the citations in question, the claims they support, and the unsourced text. Eubulides (talk) 05:49, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Christian Observer and unsourced text 

message: We need to create a short lead that sums up some of the content in each section. Here are some tips. -- Fyslee / talk 01:15, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Missing [[WP:LEAD|LEAD]] 

message: I've found a few interesting things regarding religious opposition to vaccination, originally posted on the "vaccine controversy"'s talk page. Basically some pro-life activists claim that some vaccines have hidden abortive/sterilizing components, added with the intent of mandatory population control; that some vaccines are abortion-based and shouldn't be used; and that some diseases were created by God to discourage premarital sex, thus vaccination, at least in these cases, isn't a good thing. --Extremophile (talk) 22:52, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: This search returns many ".gov" sources for sexual disinhibition in this context. --Zigger «º» 00:53, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

text: …And I saw you'veEubulides already started to incorporate the re-published Christianity & Pharmacy article on the abortion issues — thanks.  I'm undecided about including the population control scaremongering and its impact, as objections to "surreptitiously" imposed abortion and sterilisation, and to medical trials without informed consent, have a much broader basis than specific religions! It would be relevant if the misinformation was promoted with a religious motivation, but it would of course need reliable sources showing that. --Zigger «º» 02:54, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

text: Another resource: NNHI has a webpage listing nine journal articles on Vaccination and religion topics, three of them hosted. --Zigger «º» 07:46, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Claims of population contro/abortion conspiracy, and incentive to premarital sex 

message: On their Bullshit program, P&T said the Catholic Church was at one time opposed to the Smallpox vaccine. Is this true? Paul, in Saudi (talk) 12:01, 19 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Penn and Teller

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: See
https://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/blog/religion-vaccination-confusion
 ...only the Church of Christ, Scientist (whose adherents are known as "Christian Scientists") and the Dutch Reformed Church are the two religious groups that openly discourage vaccination. Zezen (talk) 17:25, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dutched Reformed Church 

message: I check pages listed in :Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of :Vaccination and religion's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.
Reference named "WHO2016":
From Chikungunya: 
From Jonas Salk: 
From Polio vaccine: 
From Yellow fever vaccine: 
I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 18:07, 18 November 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Orphaned references in [[:Vaccination and religion]]