Talk:Religion/Archive 4

message: The quotes are from an old 1960's edition and need to be replaced with quotes from the latest authorised English edition accepted by all Vaisnava authorities. I added links to the verses on the official BBT web site for now. — Ruptor 22:35, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Bhagavad Gita verses

message: The article used this Quranic verse to show exclusivism in Islam:
The Qur'an states: "O you who believe! Do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends; they are friends of each other; and whoever amongst you takes them for a friend, then surely he is one of them; surely Allah does not guide the unjust people." Qur'an 5:51
This Verse does not establish anything exclusivist. This Verse was revealed to Muhammad at a time when the Jews and Christians of Arabia were cooperating with the enemies of the Muslims and also speaking against Muslims. But not all Jews and Christians did this, so the ones who did were called "the unjust people", and it was these types that the Muslims were not to befriend. To misinterpret this Verse means to ignore other Verses in the Quran that welcomes Jews and Christians as fellow believers. Such as Quran 5:69:
"Those who believe (in the Qur'an), those who follow the Jewish (scriptures), and the Sabians (converts) and the Christians, any who believe in The God and the Last Day, and work righteousness,on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve."
::I don't know my cliches ... but according to what's written here, these are not just idle words.  Sadly, there are some Jews and Christians who don't get along with each other too.  Personally, I prefer a round of laser tag to settle my personal differences.  Ariele 21:56, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Exclusivism 

message: How does the speed of light being being constant conflict with Christianity? Or any of those things listed?  They might conflict with the Bible, but the Bible isn't the sole  authority of Christianity.
The section religion and science currently is deeply flawed. According to scientific method science can't give any answers on unobservable phenomena or value judgement. Nor were nazis or communists very scientific. Actually nazis oposed theoretical physics and chased some of the best German scientists, for example Albert Einstein, out of Germany.
I will rewrite it as soon as I find some time. Markus Schmaus
For the time being I removed that horribly wrong and biased last paragraph. Markus Schmaus 13:49, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I've found the actual Newton quote, which is quite different from the paraphrase that was in the article before, and added it to the article. Rick Norwood 14:56, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Religion and science 

message: I was surprised no one had written on this before on Wikipedia (except, to my knowledge, briefly in Universalism. Given that ethnic religion linked to this article it seemed to make sense to write about it here. Anyway, perhaps someone with more knowledge on the subject can fill in my holes. Also, prhaps someone can give a more concise and better sounding name to that section -Tydaj 29 June 2005 22:03 (UTC)
Hinduism shares many qualities of Universalism, in fact it's original name, Sanatana Dharma essentially means Universal path. Hinduism is also not limited to people of Indian ethnicity. I am moving it from ethnic religion category to universal religion. --Pranathi 20:36, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Ethnic religion and universal religion compared

message: The statement "Catholicism asserts that individuals are saved by declaring faith in god, but are still subject to punishment for unrepented sin at death, which is purified in purgatory;" is not technically correct,  nor is the statement "Traditional Protestantism asserts that individuals are saved purely by declaring their belief in the saving power of Jesus's death and resurrection;".
Christian theology divides the process of salvation into merit and justification. Traditional Protestantism (taken by this editor to mean something like Lutheranism) has as a fundamental element Sola fide, based largely on John 3:16, "...that whoever believes in Him will have eternal life." Therefore, it would be more correct to say, "Protestant Christians generally hold that salvation is merited by the sacrifice of Christ, and that the individual soul is justified by faith in Christ." No declaration is truly necessary, because such a declaration would be a work, an evidence of faith, not faith itself.
Likewise, Catholics do not require a declaration of faith, but rather the faith itself. Catholics have historically been labeled as believing in faith-works justification, but the official position of the Catholic Church is highly nuanced, and is clarified in the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, an agreement with certain Lutheran churches which basically resolves the root conflict of the Lutheran Reformation as a misunderstanding of words. The portion of the statement regarding purgatory is on the whole correct.--Mm35173 05:26, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Christian ideas surrounding salvation 

message: When referring to a deity of people of a monotheistic faith, it is not correct to present the first letter of the word God in the lower case, because in this case, God is a proper noun. It might not be improper to say something to the effect of "Christians believe in a single god who is commonly styled, among other appellations, God." However, I do not believe it is correct to say "Christianity and Islam have a Heaven and Hell, and god as judge to decide our eternal fate." See Merriam-Webster's definition of god (God), note use in no. 4 Wiktionary definition of god (God).
This could be rectified in one of two ways. The word god could be capitalized: "Christianity and Islam have a Heaven and Hell, and God as judge to decide our eternal fate." However, this introduces  the debatable point of view that the god of Islam and the god of Christianity are, in fact, the same god, which is not desireable. I propose, instead, the addition of the article 'a': "Christianity and Islam have a Heaven and Hell, and a god as judge to decide our eternal fate."--Mm35173 05:26, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Capitalization of God

message: User:Baphomet. is damaging Wikipedia: he his trying to label Religious articles as Superstition (from a POV view of positivism, that he calls Science). At the article Reincarnation he just went on to add to category "Superstition" and later on without discussion put a POV msg in the article. Please see the discussion page between both of us Talk:Reincarnation#Superstition.
Through the use of a Culture created by extremism in Science, he is clearly trying to do the job that the Inquisition did in the Middle Ages in a Culture created by extremism in Religion. He is damaging Wikipedia in a subtle invious way! 
: Please see also the Alert message I have created at Wikipedia:Wikiquette_alerts#September_4, Thank you! --GalaazV 20:25, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: - Thank you for your answer. I have nothing against science, just against actions based on radicalism (be it in science or in religion). I have already explained my point of view on this subject; if might be of interest please see: "REQUEST to the Administrators of Wikipedia: Religion as a main category at the Main Page & the also related discussion at Talk:Main_Page/Archive_42#Religion_as_a_main_category_at_the_Main_Page, Best Regards. --GalaazV 14:21, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request for your aid dealing with actions from a user against Religious, Spiritual and Esoteric articles 

message: Why is Agnostic/Atheist/Secular not on the statistics at the bottom of the page? It used to be.
It is still there, in the introductory paragraph, but not listed as a "religion". Rick Norwood 19:34, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Agnostic/Atheist/Secular 

message: I've returned a short etymology section the article.  I know we need to economise space in the religion article, but this is important to avoid edit wars.  I think it's okay as long as we keep it short.--Pariah 01:41, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Etymology Issue again 

message: This article is excellent in many ways, but it is long, and there are several passages that seem doubtful or at least unsupported.  I think a good way to procede, to avoid reversion wars, is to post doubtful passages here.  If a week goes by with no supporting evidence for the passage, then I think deletion is justified.  For starters, I've read a lot of ancient texts in translation, and the following seems misleading at best, unless by "modern" you mean "after 500 BC".  Note, for example, the reference to Cicero in the etymology section.  Any support for this? Rick Norwood 15:15, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Rick--that makes sense--post long & unsupported passages posted here and see if they can be improved or else scrapped.  Having said that, I have to offer some support for the above passage--proper support is needed, but the statement itself is consistent with an anthropological approach, if not a historical one.--Pariah 16:37, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I understand the point being made.  Robert Graves would probably have agreed with it.  On the other hand, it certainly seems to me that Plato made a clear distinction between religion and other aspects of life.  Aristotle certainly drew a clear distinction between religious duties of a citizen and other civic duties.  Maybe you could rewrite the paragraph from an anthropolotical viewpoint -- or even from the point of view of how the common man views religion, as distinct from the intellectual view.  Sagan's A Demon Haunted World would be a good reference for that.  In any case, the viewpoint expressed needs to be labeled as one of many views, and it doesn't belong in the introduction.  Rick Norwood 18:29, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The best thing to do with that passage would probably be to make it less specific in terms of geography. Also, I would agree that the was, in many pre-modern societies, no distinction between religion and politics within the given culture. The problem is "science". What we think of as science really hasn't been around long at all. Things like alchemy and metaphysics would have been hard for pre-modern folks to distinguish from what we call religion (still is in some places) but those two don't constitute a "science" in the way most modern people use the word. --Tydaj 20:10, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

text: I fixed it some. It definately had a western bias i hadn't noticed before. The ideas in the latter part of the paragraph could still be integrated into the main text better. --Tydaj 05:17, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

text: Hi Rick, Tydaj.  Sorry I can't add much to it at the moment, but I'll keep my eyes open for any supporting info, etc., which I will post here on the talk page--Pariah 01:27, 22 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  shorter article 

message: I've done a little polishing, removed an extraneous quotation mark, etc.  The article looks very good to me down to the "Closely related topics".  This section seems to me way too long, and some of it is nonsense.  Some of it should just be a short note with a link to the corresponding article.  I'm going to plow into it and see what happens.  Wish me luck.  Rick Norwood 13:30, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Good luck!!! :-)  The Human article has a section on Religion, science, and philosophy that places religion in the context of four major types of cosmology - religious, physical, metaphysical, and esoteric.  I believe working in some of that narrative would highlight key similarities and distinctions among these four approaches and strenghten this section.  — RDF talk 14:42, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

text: You certainly have done a lot of work on it!  I can try adding something in the next day or so.  — RDF talk 18:17, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

text: I certainly don't think we need to quote so extensively when a link would do -- also, I hate to see the Ghandi quote go.  But, then, you invited me to "have at it", so I will, mainly with a goal of making the quote less extensive (and putting at least some of Ghandi back). Rick Norwood 23:23, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You took out most of the cosmology wikilinks in the process, which was the main theme of the added text.  I put those wikilinks back in.  — RDF talk 04:07, 22 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Religion and closely related topics 

message: As best I can tell, from a google search, Ayyavazhi does not exist outside of Wikipedia.  Does anyone have any evidence otherwise?  If so, is this a good thing or a bad thing or, maybe, a neutral thing? Rick Norwood 20:25, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The main Ayyavazhi article list three external links.  A Vivisimo search on Ayyavazhi produced a list 87 items for 3,542 hits.  At least some of them aren't wikis or mirrors :-)  — RDF talk 22:33, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ayyavazhi 

message: Have at it, you said.  I did.  I kept all of the Ghandi stuff, because I felt without it there was too much Western bias, but if you want to cut some of it, that might be a good idea.  Let me know what you think. Rick Norwood 00:06, 22 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rewrite of section three 

message: Wikipedia is specifically not the place for original research.  I am moving most of the "new perspective" to the appropriate article, with a link here. Rick Norwood 18:00, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  A new perspective on religion. 

message: Removed the following from the etymology section for discussion here:
: * The Arabic meaning of Religion derived from debt which means we have to thank God, Parent and good people who help us. At the end there is day of judgment and each of us will take his rights after paying his debt.
This is a bit confusing: Does it mean the English word /religion/ originated in Arabic?  Or is the author talking about the origins of an Arabic word, such as /deen/ ( دين ), which translates into English as religion?
I like the idea of including words for religion in other languages and their root meanings, but we should include the actual words.--Pariah 00:50, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Arabic Etymology 

message: There have been more than a dozen changes in this article so far today.  I don't have a problem with them, but a word of explanation on the talk page would have been nice. Rick Norwood 21:49, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  People who make major changes should explain here. 

message: is there a political science approach to studying religion, esp. organised religion? ideas of ritual, morality, the infallibility of religious leaders, dorma & heresy and approaches to other religion appear to have "explanations" in political theory. can anybody point to works on this?   Doldrums 05:22, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  political science approach to religion 

message: problems with the paragraph - 
New voices within Christianity point out that there is a very important distinction between directives espoused by the 'Church' in the sense of an instutionalised legal/political entity (particularly the historic papal Roman Catholic Church) and the teachings of the Bible and point to various publications and researchers who have mediated many seemingly conflicting claims. (See resources such as The Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics by Norman Geisler and http://www.answersingenesis.org ... and related) 
#vague - what is the "distinction" being takled about? what "conflicting claims" have been "mediated"?. how/why are these voices significant enough to occupy the space they do. 
#book to be cited in text or in the references section
#link  is to a christian group website, and not to particular material which has a bearing on the context. advertising?    Doldrums 05:32, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  problems with "New voices within Christianity..." 

message: It says in the section "Religion and science" that science can only answer questions about the physical universe. But what about sciences like economics, linguistics and much of psychology, whchi clearly don't just talk of the physical. One can argue that their statements are ultimately reduceable to physical facts, but that is at least a dubitable philosophical position (though I might agree with it). At any rate, the statement is at least misleading, since such sciences aren't discribing things physically. I therefore changed that paragraph, and hope it's not POV like this. Marcoscramer 14:47, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The focal distinction of that paragraph was between religious cosmology and physical cosmology, not dualism between body and mind.  I just added the removed links back in.  — RDF talk 15:20, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: "Science about physical universe"???

message: I think the myth section could use a bit of work.  How about Eliade's "definition" of myth: myth is a true story that may or may not have happened.  Alternatively, what about treating myth as a genre of literature?
I also don't understand the paragraph about polytheistic religions BEING myth.  What are we trying to say there?  The next sentence goes on to also indentify religion in pre-industrial socieites with myth.  What is going on here?  Do all religions have myths?  Do myths extend beyond religion (for example, the myth of the american frontier)?
:I think a lot of these are questions for the myth article, but they are interesting.  Speaking for myself, I would argue that the words "mythology," "religion," and "worldview," are kind of the same thing--stories that help us make sense of the world.  But this means everybody has a religion, even if they don't call it that.  Durkheim had a lot to say about this--how nationalism or even a military ethic was pretty much the same thing as religion, complete with venerated symbols and complicated rituals.  That would make everything from the American dream to a graduation ceremony in some ways religious, even if people don't normally think of these things as "religion."  
:Just for fun, consider how much effort went into the construction of mideval cathedrals, and compare that to the size, expense, and architecture of a modern shopping mall or office tower.  What do we venerate, in our secular age?
:But I think the article is more or less okay.  That first definition of myth in the article is pretty much the same as Eliade's--though not quite as poetic.  But the article doesn't say that polytheistic or pre-industrial religions ARE myth, it just says they are categorized/treated as mythology (in the sense of "useful stories") by social scientists.--Pariah 16:40, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Myth 

message: Aaron Brenneman removed a large number of external links, citing wiki policy on external links, but that policy does not forbid external links.  Did these really need removal?  All of them? Rick Norwood 21:39, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  removal of external links