Talk:Rodney Stark

message: Alan Wolfe described Statk's The Victory of Reason as "the worst book by a social scientist I have ever read". The New Republic 16 Jan 2006 p.32
I think that Lofland and Stark tried to hide the identity of the group  I believe that they referred to a subgroup of the then not unified Unification Church. Andries 22:18, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This article needs a criticism section. I just did a Google search and he has critics. It's a lot of work summarizing it thoughYou very nice place 08:15, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

text: I wouldn't agree. Take his American Piety, for example. He throughoughly demonstrates that orthodoxy is negatively correlated with ethicalism, which I do not believe is a conclusion which a religionist would try to induce in his books. I have added the book to his bibliography as it is treated (at least where I'm studying) as a significant work of the sociology of religion. The definition is even paraphrased in depth by Furseth&Repstad in their introduction to the sociology of religion.   —Preceding unsigned comment added by Melpomenon (talk • contribs) 20:34, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: ...

message: Many of the terms--"Fundamentalist" and "Attack" being two of the more striking--that I just removed from the article have no place in an NPOV description of a scholar's life and work--outside, perhaps, a direct quote.  Furthermore, it's somewhat awkward to say what someone "said" in a written article, or speaking to what someone "believes" absent a direct first person quote on the topic.  Jclemens (talk) 23:00, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: JClemens- As to the term fundamentalist being wrong when describing Stark's views on evolution, this is not true. Just look at the Wikipedia listing for creationism which clearly states: creationism is closely related with religious fundamentalists.  In any case I have edited the phrase somewhat and added a quote and a reference. Juanholanda (talk) 22:19, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If he calls himself a fundamentalist, that's one thing.  If one of us conclude that he's a fundamentalist based on his criticisms of mandated Darwinian education, that's something else entirely. I'm not disputing that both terms accurately apply to some folks, but they're not one in the same.  Please be especially careful when using potentially pejorative terms like fundamentalist--it's easier and more NPOV to describe what he's written, and let the readers judge the man's writings on their own merits.  I will be going through and re-doing several of my NPOV cleanups, since all of that got reverted based on the copyright infringement I pointed out. (sigh) At any rate, if you believe any of my NPOV cleanups to be deleting supportable, documented facts, feel free to adjust them appropriately. Jclemens (talk) 06:56, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: NPOV

message: Now that I've redone a bunch of the work that was unfortunately but necessarily clobbered due to the copyrighted text insertion, it's clear to me we need a bit of a reorganization.  To that end, I propose that 1) the issues about Stark's personal views be moved into their own section, and 2) More explanation of his recent arguments be made.  In support of 2, he's gotten to be a rather prolific author in the past half-decade, and has written a number of thought provoking things which could be appropriately summarized here, as his work on Christianity from the mid-90's is.  Right now, the article seems to give too much weight to his own personal views rather than his professional work; adding more about his professional work seems the most productive way to remedy that. Comments? Jclemens (talk) 08:45, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: To Do

message: This article focuses too much on his views on evolution. He is a notable sociologist of reliigion, not a biologist or archeologist. When reading the article I get the feeling that it has become the victim of the war between Wikipedia creationists and evolutionists. Andries (talk) 05:42, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I quite agree. It's better than it was before I edited them for NPOV, but I haven't had time to include other bits of his work. Jclemens (talk) 23:29, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

text: Speaking of that, is The American Enterprise (the venue cited) the same as American Enterprise Institute? Based on a secondary source, the URL was http://www.taemag.com/issues/articleID.18132/article_detail.asp but that whole site is down right now. Tijfo098 (talk) 15:00, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

text: http://www.aboutus.org/Taemag.com gives American Enterprise Institute as owner of the domain. Tijfo098 (talk) 15:14, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Too much focus on his views on evolution

message: Rather than keeping separate articles for all of Stark's notable books, I'd rather merge The Rise of Christianity into this article.  Why?
*Stark's arguments, while centered in that book, appear in other works as well.
*Adding notable theories that Stark has advanced seems to be the most encyclopedic way to expand this asrticle.
*I'd rather see one large comprehensive page than a bunch of overlapping little pages. Jclemens (talk) 14:00, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: ^^Insane Comment^^ No rational thinking person would ever argue that a Pulitzer-Prize winning should not be included in an encyclopedic entry about its author.  Ergo, 81.68.201.148's comment is that of a crackpot, an utter nut. --199.106.86.2 (talk) 03:33, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merger proposal 

message: "Mr. Stark is an open enemy of Evolutionary Theory, (see below) and as such his views on all subjects must be interpreted with his religionist position in mind."
Juanholanda added that 3x, and I removed it 3x as NPOV.  Really, though, there's more to it than just that:
#What is "an open enemy of Evolutionary Theory?"  Has a WP:RS called Stark this, or is that WP:OR?  Remember, even analysis that an editor finds intuitive can be original research.  It's not any of our place to label Stark an enemy of anything, but if a reliable source does, we can and should report that.
#Is it the place of an encyclopedia to tell the reader how to interpret an author?  No.  The article quotes Stark's own words to illustrate his position on evolution, as it should, in true WP:NPOV fashion.  Anything beyond that should be left to the reader. Jclemens (talk) 22:57, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree 100% It's like automatically assuming an atheist/agnostic is a complete supporter of evolution (I've known at least one athiest that called evolution "rubbish"). 98.198.83.12 (talk) 19:32, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed addition 

message: Article begins with "Rodney Stark (born 1934) is a conservative American sociologist of religion." Given what I know of his work and his views, the label conservative is probably accurate; yet still, I don't think we should use it unless either (1) we have a reliable source calling him that, or (2) we can cite him adopting the label himself. So I am going to delete that word, but I won't object to its reinsertion provided there is a cite. SJK (talk) 04:52, 22 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Conservative" 

message: what problems arouse in the early church,as the result of admission gentiles 45.213.195.79 (talk) 21:40, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  New Testament