Talk:Fowler's stages of faith development

message: There should be a firmer definition as to where this stands with the scientific community, and just how  Fowler's work is defined. I think that being over-focused on the scientific criticism can blurr the article's focus (not to belittle its importance by any means). Not sure what the solution is, but I am starting to read this book, and may be able to help this article along. --SpencerTC 22:01, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: There is a problem with this entry in that the stages are presented as numbered from One to Seven, but Fowler's original numbering was from One to Six, with what he calls the infantile "Pre-Stage". Thus, what is here presented as Stage Two was designated as Stage One in Fowler's book, Wikipedia's Stage Three was Fowler's Stage Two, Wikipedia's Stage Four was Fowler's Stage Three, etc. --- clearly this could be initially confusing to a novice. (To complicate matters, popular author M. Scott Peck has written about Fowler's stages of faith, but using a four-stage system. Obviously, confusion reigns the day.)
:I consider this entry important and this entry calls for much further development, but I do not want to attempt it myself in isolation; also I am relatively new as a Wikipedia contributor. Ajlopp 15:31, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  How to Number Fowler's Stages? 

message: This article is very broken!  It is one-sided and full of errors and typeos.  To say, "anyone who has ever been around them, knows this to be the case" doesn't leave room to criticize Fowler for lack of empirical integrity.  These amount to personal attacks and do not serve to explain the theory or its significance.MacBookGreen 05:41, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Also the Anonymous criticism seem to be original research. Origional research is still not acceptable for a Wikipedia article, rights?68.228.37.86 10:11, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. Not NPOV at all, and you're right about the original research thing; it sounds like it would be a perfectly good religious studies paper, but it doesn't fly as a Wikipedia article. I don't know enough about Fowler to revise this; does anyone here? And in the interim, I'm going to tag the page as being non-NPOV. At least, if I can figure out how. dcd139 23:41, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed it. I don't think there's a "better" version of that objection that meets wikipedia standards. Thomas1617 02:33, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Removed the NPOV tag.--Fyedernoggersnodden 17:33, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Very one-sided trashing of Fowler. 

message: I haven't read Fowler myself, but I find myself confused by the statement that "stage three persons have a strong belief in the justice and reciprocity of the universe, and their deities are almost always anthropomorphic."  First I assume it's supposed to be "stage two" since the proper numbering was restored.  More importantly, did Fowler extend the stage model to serve as an analogy for development of cultures and religions over historical time spans?  That's what the description seems to imply.  This article most assuredly needs work for clarification on what's there, not only extension into what's not.  --Fyedernoggersnodden 18:41, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Personal or Cultural? 

message: How does Fowler does Fowler explain the development of people who, as they age, decide that deities do not exist, by the process of rational thought? That is, how do atheists fit into this scheme? That would seem like important information for this article.--Rossheth | Talk to me 21:09, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Very interesting question indeed. The rational stage is indeed predicted by Fowler's stages, but that laves us with the question whether eventually religion would cancel itself out by going into the rational stage.Inisus  —Preceding comment was added at 11:21, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lack of faith? 

message: Substituted at 15:25, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment comment