Talk:Mother Teresa/Archive 9

message: This stikes me as odd "a northern Macedonian town and capital of the Ottoman province of the Kossovo Vilayet"... last time I checked Skopje was the capital of Republic of Macedonia.
Indeed odd phrasing.  Hopefully I've edited in what all will think is a neutral way! Nfitz 02:40, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Correct, possibly, but still odd. FYROM is a bizzare political compromise; even many countries officially call it the Republic of Macedonia in two-way communications.--Prosfilaes 01:29, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

text: the article is correct - Adam Mathias 17:31, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Strange 

message: Another point: The article includes the following statement: After Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's suspension of civil liberties in 1975, and her son's campaign of forced sterilisation, she said: "People are happier. There are more jobs. There are no strikes." If she made this statement, I think it is necessary to make the following clear: 1. Did she support the suspension of civil liberties? 2. Did she support the campaign of forced sterilisation? 3. Did she support both? She might have supported the state of emergency, but I think that it is quite unlikely that she supported forced sterilisation (since that would have contradicted her (and the Vatican's) stance on similar topics (e.g. abortion, contraception etc.). It'd like to have the question of her support of forced sterilisation be backed up by sources. Gugganij 19:10, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: So do I. I doubt its truth very much. Pfortuny 12:16, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Support for forced sterilisation?

message: I believe the source for the claim is Aroup Chatterjee's The Final Verict: from chapter 14:
Q.101. What were the relationships of Mother Teresa and of Missionaries of Charity with various religious and civil authorities with which they came in contact with?
A. She was expedient and practical about keeping good relations for survival in a generally hostile country like India. The ruling party of West Bengal, the Marxists had close ties with the (erstwhile) Albanian Communist Party which had persistently refused her permission to see her mother and sister. But she appeased the West Bengal government and would collaborate with any politician (of whatever persuasion) who would further her cause. She maintained friendly relations with all religious groups because it was necessary for her to do so. During the 1974 - 77 Emergency in India, thousands of men (many of them unmarried and childless) were forcibly vasectomised, but she praised the state of emergency as she had friendly relations with Mrs Gandhi who she saw as the best protector of Indian Christians amongst the Indian political establishment.
Chatterjee's response is clearly juxtaposing the fact of the mass sterilisation with MT's support for the state of emergency and provides a motive (expediency, ie. currying favour), but does not directly assert that MT specifically supported the sterilisation. ---- Charles Stewart 01:26, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Supporting documentation

message: I'm surprised the supposed miracle of good camera work in the Muggeridge documentary isn't mentioned.  Maybe it is covered and dismissed in the endless talk articles.  I would add it myself but I might loose an arm, perhaps a braver soul then I will see fit to include what I think is a significant point. MeltBanana 01:04, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I have not seen it here ever and I do know the talk pages rather well... Feel free to add true content (dunno what that is about). Pfortuny 17:30, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Muggeridge miracle 

message: Why should Mother Teresa be a "controversial topic" I wonder? So many intolerant and hateful people are in the world as it is, do we need so many at Wikipedia? Pitchka 20:36, Jan 8, 2005 (UTC)
:Are you suggesting we remove the Mother Teresa article from Wikipedia because it's about an intolerant and hateful person? :) Bryan 21:49, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Apologies, the "controversial" notice was tagged incorrectly, it is supposed to be issues that comes with the topic. At first I thought I had to use  because I thought  was supposed to put on the article itself. - Mailer Diablo 11:58, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  I Find it Unbelieveable that Mother Teresa is a Controversial Topic! 

message: This edit by Digby moved the whole of the criticisms section onto a subordinate page.  Was this a good thing?  Possibly not all of the criticisms deserve to be on the main page, but the edit seems to me to have imbalanced the article. ---- Charles Stewart 00:32, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think so, it was getting very big.  Somebody needs to go and summarize the criticisms to put on the main page, then it should look better. -Frazzydee|✍ 00:38, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

text: Okay, didn't know it had been discussed before.  For the record, I didn't move the section, I just renamed it.  And left a short summary on Mother Teresa. -Frazzydee|✍ 02:12, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No problem. Looks like Digby did it, and he has very few edits so he probably wasn't aware of the previous discussion either. He didn't even give an edit summary or I probably would have noticed this split a lot earlier, I have things on my watchlist for reasons I've long forgotten and don't pay a lot of attention to any more. :) Bryan 06:14, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Farming out criticisms

message: I agree with those above that political views is not grounds for an encylopedic section labeled criticism. I think criticism sections should be more reserved for ideologies, policies, politicial views, and philosophies rather than people. Ideologies, policies by their nature warrant criticism and can have a 'criticism section', whereas a section of criticisms of people tends to just be selective agenda-driven, dislike for the person or their views. I mean, its one things to have a criticism section in a pro-life article, but a criticism section for each and every publicly pro-life person for being pro-life? That's too POV in my opinion.
I'm sure those who put her political views on abortion are quite hypocritical and would oppose a pro-lifer criticizing every single outspoken supporter of abortion or safe sex or whatnot. Controversial issues involving a person should be incorporated in different sections such as say "Controversy over Missionary Work"  or "Funding Incident", not a Criticism section - anonymous one
I have two comments on the statement "Teresa also campaigned tirelessly against divorce, insisting it should be made illegal; she organized an unsuccessful campaign to keep the Irish ban on divorce in 1996. However, when Diana, Princess of Wales divorced, she spoke approvingly of it in a magazine interview. [4]" in the Political and social views section.  1) The sentence makes it appear that MT was quoted as supporting divorce, rather than expressing sympathy for Diana's difficult marriage. 2) The link to supporting documentation is to a web-page that is filled with additional criticism of MT.  This seems disingenious.  Either link it to the article itself or something less pointed.  Unfortunately the only reference I could find was http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft9606/public.html which is more pro-MT but probably is a more balanced treatment of the issue. OnLooker 14:48, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Moving criticisms to Political Views

message: Most of the criticism section is taken from rotten.com without citation.
:Can you cite some specific sentences? I read through the rotten.com article and didn't see any clear cut cases of plagiarism, but I probably just missed it, so if you could be more specific? Let me also add that it could very well be rotten.com that copied parts of this article when they wrote their. Most of the criticism section here dates back to 2003, I think, (was subject to lot's of flaming and controversy), and I believe the rotten.com article was written this year. But I could be wrong, and we should take copyright violations seriously. Shanes 06:52, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The Rotten article uses text snippets copied from our article, not vice versa.  You can verify this by going back in the history of this article and seeing that the words change over time, but the Rotten phrases are static and taken from a specific point in this article's history. silsor 07:05, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

text: I looked again at the text I was using for comparison before, the bit about Keating and the $252 million, and I think I was wrong about it being original to Wikipedia - the edits I was looking at earlier were not the first source of it.  It seems to have come in here in the history and may very well have been copied from the Rotten article.  That text is no longer present in the article and I can't find anything else that might have been copied from Rotten.  Are there any copyright problems still here? silsor 20:27, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Plagiarism 

message: I think there should be a mention of the criticism and accusations from Christians of her being pantheist and Universalist, and not truly Christian. For example, here are some links to some criticism based on her various quotes and actions: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc... I'm surprised it wasn't even mentioned in the article. Well, somewhat surprised, knowing Wikipedia. Okay, maybe just disappointed. Also the first of the criticism links is broken. 66.41.75.236 05:00, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: And, incorporating this in the criticism section would probably blunt the criticism that Mother Teresa tried pushing Christianity down people's throats. Would lend perspective to the criticism section - Pl. include the facts from the sources listed in a concise manner. --Gurubrahma 06:28, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

text: Some of the websites you mentioned critisize Mother Teresa on the basis of her catholic faith (belief in transubstantiation ect.) I think it is not necessary to include that in MT's article, since protestant criticism on catholic doctrine is already covered in other articles. Gugganij 10:40, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Christian Criticism 

message: The fact that she became a naturalised citizen of India doesn't seem to find mention in the current version of the article. Also, mentioning her as an Albanian in the intro may not be very appropriate, imo. --Gurubrahma 05:16, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: As no response seems to be forthcoming, I've updated the intro. Please feel free to discuss the change below. --Gurubrahma 06:05, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citizenship?? 

message: Who is Dr. Overland?  Is it true that MT credited him?  --Slashme 06:02, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The hoax is getting old, my friend.  Knock it off, please.  Tom Lillis 07:06, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Thanks for that.  Let me just mention that I am very polite, but only somewhat gullible.  Maybe you will find more support for your worthy campaign at the Uncyclopedia. --Slashme 07:20, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You must excuse me if I come off as a little harsh, but I grow incresingly irritated at the thought of you gentlemen making a mockery of this fine man's life. I shall say this once and only once: Dr. Samual L. Overland is not a hoax or any other kind of mysterious person who does not exist! Please take your personal attacks elsewhere, this is a place where we respect other people's lives and ideas. --Neoumlaut 07:26, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

text: No doubt, you may have the right to tell about him, but you also have the responsibility to adhere to policies here on Wikipedia such as WP:V. You may want to inform your colleague also about our policy here. Thanks a ton for your efforts and have a good day. --Gurubrahma 07:43, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Also, please cite your sources. --Slashme 07:45, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Yes, please tell us where we can learn more about Overland and his relationship to MT. I see that user:Neoumlaut's first action was to upload this helpful picture. -Willmcw 07:58, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

text: I also see that, according to his Wikipedia bio, Dr. Overland "received the Nobel Prize for Literature." Funny, but no one told the Nobel Prize committee. -Willmcw 08:02, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Dr. Overland

message: I remember reading a letter sent to the Catholic church speaking out against her beatification which mentioned that the frequently made claims that she rescued people off the streer was largely not true (she rarely did) and which also mentioned a number of physical donation like ambulances were not used for their intended purposes (I believe it was claimed the ambulances were used to ferry members of her order). Does anyone know who this critic was? To me it sounds as if these should be included unless they are completely untrue Nil Einne 13:38, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Criticisms again

message: Some of the argument over Mother Thresa appears to have spilled over to the Missionaries of Charity. I feel most of the criticism section is valid but I question the merits of the response of criticism of cricitism section. I have already raises some issues on the Missionaries of Charity talk page. However there is one more issue I want to raise. Most of this section appears to be coming up with the idea that all this criticism of Missionaries of Charities stems from opposition to Mother Thresa. This may be a valid point but I feel it should be very brief and should link here. That is to say any response to criticism and theories behind the motives of critics which are related more or less exclusively to Mother Theresa should be on this page rather then the Missionaries of Charity page because they focus on the idea the critics are doing it because of Mother Theresa. Nil Einne 14:23, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Missionaries of Charity]] page 

message: I would like to remove the statement "She also believed in woman's rights."  Any objections? KaB 08:44, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I was bold and deleted it. It's overly vague; which rights does she believe in? A brief scan of the linked article didn't reveal a mention of women's rights, as I think of them, once.--Prosfilaes 18:20, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:   Women's rights  

message: i would like to add external link of her biography from World of biography link This page includes her detailed biography as well as good sketches of her in design. --Kbi911 08:37, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: World of biography

message: There is a photo available (of where the house originally was) at the Macedonian version of the Skopje entry: http://mk.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A1%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BF%D1%98%D0%B5 .  Maybe someone more knowledgeable would like to insert it.
:Done. ProhibitOnions 19:26, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: "Photo of the house" where she was born

message: The article states that the Indian government carried out a census of charitable organizations and said that "no other religious organization in all of India has contributed nearly as much to the well-being of the poor and infirm as the Missionaries of Charity."  Is this true?  I have not been able to find out anything about it.  If it is true perhaps more should be said about it.KaB 11:54, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Nor could I, which is why I added the  tag to the assertion some time ago. Since no-one has come forward to verify this, I think it's about time it be removed. ProhibitOnions 13:21, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Government census

message: Why do the authors of this article spend half the article criticizing Mother Theresa?
How come in my many years of life have I never heard criticisms to this extent of Mother Theresa? It seems as if the authors of this article have a specific vendetta against mother Theresa.
This article should be rewritten, or the criticisms taken out or featured less prominently.  It is reasons such as this why people often do not trust Wikipedia for reliable information and for the sake of the encyclopedia it must be changed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by mrosscan (talk • contribs) 
: People don't trust the encyclopedia because it doesn't parrrot back at them what they already know? It seems that would be fairly useless. I think you've probably never heard criticisms against Mother Teresa (not Theresa) because you've never looked, and you've never hung out in forums where people would tend to criticize Mother Teresa. Part of the thing that NPOV means is that we don't exclude concepts just because they aren't heard of in any one person's social group.--Prosfilaes 20:51, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Prosfilaes, you're being unreasonable. I actually read this article because I didn't know that much about Mother Teresa. So I wasn't just looking for "what [I] already know". Every thoughtful person I know (non-Catholic, even non-Christian) raves about her. And I grew up and live in a pretty liberal place. I, too, was struck by the disproportionate criticisms section. You're not suppoed to make a detailed case for the criticisms; you're just supposed to mention them. When we write an encyclopedic article about x, it is not an article about criticisms, or opinions, of x. You should know that. Anyone without an ax to grind can see the criticism is much too extensive here. --Hyphen5 03:43, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Every thoughtful person you know raves about here? That's bizarre, because I can't remember ever hearing about her in person when I didn't bring her up. And you've heard from every single thoughtful person you know? This article is filled with opinions about Mother Teresa, like the Nobel Peace Prize, whereas the criticisms are generally more than just opinions about her, but facts and critiques of what she did.--Prosfilaes 06:02, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  So the Nobel Peace Prize is an "opinion" but what Christopher Hitchens says is a "fact"? I must say, that's a novel way of thinking. --Hyphen5 08:07, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  The Nobel Peace Prize is an opinion; whether or not she deserved it is not objectively measurable, and what exactly she did that they felt was prize-worthy isn't even recorded.  When Hitchens says that most of the money went to missionary work in Africa, for example, that's a fact. It may be right, it may be wrong, but it is objectively verifiable; provided access to the right records, we could check the truth or falsehood of it. When Hitchens criticizes her for it, we may agree or disagree, but we don't have to take Hitchens' opinion that it was a good or bad thing.--Prosfilaes 08:25, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

text: No one is trying to hide criticism (why is that you keep asserting that?). The issue that I and amny other editors are raising is one of undue weight. So far only four critics have been identified, and we should be listing their POVs in the article. But as it stands now, 25% of the article is about these four individuals criticism of MT. This is a too very obvious case of lack of NPOV because of undue weight. ≈ jossi  ≈ t • @ 22:05, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Only four critics? What about Sally Warner, whose linked from the bottom of the page? I see no evidence that among the people who have seriously studied her, that 25% of the article being criticism is excessive.--Prosfilaes 22:23, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

text: Well, I disagree with that assessment. The POV of four individuals cannot and should not take 25% of a biographical article about a notable person. Try that trick on George W. Bush and see hoiw far you get... 22:41, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Whoa, whoa, whoa. This is not about the POV of four individuals. There is way more people who believe that Mother Teresa was not goodness incarnate. There are at least five critics who we are citing. Moreover, George W. Bush isn't comparable; he's got several specific criticism pages longer than the Mother Teresa page. If you want to discuss sources, let's see what verifiable sources the pro- side of the article is based on. --Prosfilaes 23:03, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: From all these five critics, the only one that was notable before becoming a critic is Hitchens. The two doctors became notable because of their criticism. My point is that Wikipedia is not a place to promote the POVs of non-notable individuals. People have personal homepages, blogs and other publishing platforms to describe their views. ≈ jossi  ≈ t • @ 17:38, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  You're confusing the notability of individuals and the notability of their opinions. There's lots of non-notable people who wrote newspaper articles and books that are cited in Wikipedia and elsewhere as important works. Most of the opinions of notable people are non-notable; we don't cite Stephen Hawking's opinions in religious articles. Likewise, the census report forms the basis for thousands of articles even though none of its authors are terribly notable. If what these people said is true and accepted, then it doesn't matter if they're notable at all.--Prosfilaes 08:25, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticism Overbiased 

message: The recent addition about the show Bullshit! does not clearly specify if this Hitchens featured M. Teresa in that show. Could you please clarify if this as the case? Thanks. ≈ jossi  ≈ t • @ 19:37, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I take it you haven't seen the episode. I've edited the section for clarity.  I suggest that you find this particular episode somewhere. GeorgeC 02:02, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. ≈ jossi  ≈ t • @ 04:24, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

text: You're welcome. :-) GeorgeC 05:07, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Penn and Teller