Talk:Timeline of unfulfilled Christian Prophecy/Archive 2

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Archive of Talk:Timeline of unfulfilled Christian Prophecy during a particularly active period during February 2006.

Wording

I'm not sure how it would be fixed, but the wording of items in the article is sometimes a bit ambiguous - some of the items just state what the prophecy was, and let's the reader assume it didn't happen, some state what actually happened and compare with the prophecy, and as far as I can tell some of the prophecies are listed at the time they were made, and others at the time they were expected to come to pass. Is there a simple way to fix this? Confusing Manifestation 17:06, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Not Christian Prophesy

This is not christian prophesy, it is a list of lunatics who claimed to be christians, and were wrong about most everything. Also I would consider Bush's 2004 win to be a blowout, when it comes to presidential elections 3% is pretty big. Bt even with that said pat robertson is much better known to non-christians anyhow. and what does building a hospital have to do with theology? To sum it up this could well be the worst artical on wikipedia --T-rex 19:37, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

One of the most important elements of NPOV-tagging is the list of specific concerns which can be addressed in order to remove the tag. Your statement, "it is a list of lunatics who claimed to be christians," doesn't exactly leave the other editors like myself any room to resolve your concerns as they are not factual but opinion. I've personally never come across a definition of Christian that includes only "those Christians who don't make outlandish predictions." What's more, We've had the "blowout" discussion already, and it's really not worth having again. -Harmil 19:43, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

If this artical is still here, it is worth having the discussion again. The title itself is what is NPOV. --T-rex 20:10, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

I think you generalized my statement a bit more than I intended. I was saying that the "blowout" discussion has been had (see above), and it's not worth having again. Many useful sources were cited on what the media has, in the past, termed a "blowout" election, and this simply didn't fit the mould. It's not a subjective assessment by Wikipedia editors.

That said, your suggesting that the title somehow expressess a point of view confuses me. These are a collection of prophesies made by Christans who claim that their sources are divine. Now, of course, we cannot verify their sources, and it's almost certainly true that at least most of them are either mistaken or lying. However, making that kind of judgement is not for Wikipedia to do. we're simply reporting that there are Christian prophesies which remain unfulfilled (and in many cases contradict each other and/or have expired). There are several mistakes one could make with respect to using this information, but the information itself is not disputed. To say that this is, "a list of lunatics who claimed to be christians," is certainly not only a highly biased statement, but I'm relatively sure that it's inaccurate (not all prophets, even false prophets) are lunatics. We also cannot verify which of these people are or are not lunatics, and it would not be our place to do so. -Harmil 20:27, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

No, what I mean is that the name somehow implies that this is considered to be Christian doctrine, and I am unaware of any christian groups that every took any of this prophesy that way. As for a "blowout", yes that is subjective, thats not my point anyways --T-rex 23:08, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

T-rex. You have a point that none of these prophesies are Christain doctrine. The problem is that universal doctrine is very difficult, if not absolutely impossible to come by in this world today. Prophets are seldom recognized as prophets in any era. However, these indivdiuals are recognized as Christian leaders with a definite following. I think it is appropriate to mention these prophesies with the understanding that they none of these individuals are representatives of the entire Christian world. -23:27, 24 February 2006 Storm Rider

I would fully agree, and that's really why I feel we need the disclaimer that some of these people are not part of the mainstream Christian churches that exist today. We have that, so I'm satisfied. Then again, Martin Luther was once considered to be just some radical that was starting his own cult. -Harmil 23:35, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm not even looking for universal doctrine, just any. There is not one Christian denomination that believes in any of this stuff. Can you find one group that takes these as serious prophesies? Martin Luther was hated by the Roman Catholic Church becase he was saying they were outright wrong, but I still don't know anyone who even considers him to have made any prophesies --T-rex 23:41, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

The existence of the article in its present form (and title) is in itself POV. It is basically conveying the POV that so-and-so are Christian "prophets" when a great number of Christians--and I'd venture to say a majority of Christians--do not recognize them as such. —Aiden 23:42, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

As I quoted Dalf above, the article should be deleted or renamed to something along the lines of Some formal and informal predictions and guesses and statements of opinion made by some people who might have been associated with Christianity either by themselves or by being characterized as such by someone else. —Aiden 23:44, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

T-rex, you are missing the point. This is not the "ha, ha, all you Christians are wrong," page. This is a simple chronology of Christian propecies that never came to pass. It includes the prophesies of Montanism, Taborites, Elizabeth Barton (a Catholic nun), Anabaptists, Baptists, Millerites, Jehovah's Witnesses and many charismatic leaders of large followings of Christians in modern times including Oral Roberts, Benny Hinn, Rick Joyner, Paul Cain and Pat Robertson. These are all important Christian groups, and prophesies that many believed in at the time. Of course, when your prophesies don't come true, the faithful tend to find another place to hang their hats, so by its very nature most of the people on this list are going to be ex-Christian leaders. If you feel that your religion is being made fun of, then let me assure you that it's not. I'm not a Christian, but many in my family are, and I have a healthy respect for the lives of charity and peace that practice-what-you-preach Christians lead. We're just writing down the history of unfulfilled Christian prophesy here, not looking down on the religion at all. If you prefer to create the Timeline of fulfilled Christian Prophesy as a set of counter-examples, feel free, and I will support (strongly) the introduction of that list as a "See also" referenced from this list. -Harmil 00:26, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

No, my problem is the implication that these are commonly held Christian beliefs. I'll repeat what Aiden said above It is basically conveying the POV that so-and-so are Christian "prophets" when a great number of Christians--and I'd venture to say a majority of Christians--do not recognize them as such. Just because these people worked in various churches doesn't mean anything. A Timeline of fulfilled Christian Prophesy artical would be just as biased as this one. Also much of the prophesy that is listed here is in direct contrast to some Bible prophecy which (with a few exceptions) is accepted by Christians--T-rex 01:20, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

• There is no such implication, and, based on reading this discussion, your demands seem unreasonable. The page already specifically has the (if anything, over-generous) disclaimer "Christian Prophet" here refers to anyone who has prophesied about the future within visible Christian churches (Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox), even where they were considered heretical at the time or later. New Religious Movements that have their original basis in the Christian church are also included here. It should also be noted that the vast majority of modern Christians have never believed in these prophesies."; if you think that even that doesn't make it clear that something is "Christian Prophecy" because it was prophecized by a Christian (i.e. someone who believes himself to follow the teachings of Christ), not because all Christians believe in it (which is nonsense, there isn't anything that every person who has self-identified as "Christian" agrees in), your demands are too high, possibly reflecting bias towards the group in question. What we need to balance this page out isn't a "Timeline of fulfilled Christian Prophecy" (which would make as much sense as a "Timeline of fulfilled Marxist speculation"), but similar timelines for other major religions. "Timeline of unfulfilled Islamic Prophecy", "Timeline of unfulfilled Jewish Prophecy", "Timeline of unfulfilled Buddhist Prophecy", etc. are just waiting to be written! -Silence 01:34, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

The part that you claim "makes it clear" was added in the last two hours by me and Harmil. Similar timelines for other religions, would have the same problems as this article. My point is you would at least think that in order to be considered "Christian Prophecy", that it would be accepted by at least some Christians? It's not unreasonable, I'm just asking for a NPOV title --T-rex 02:01, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

The thing is, doesn't Wikipedia policy sort of come out and say it assumes anyone to be Christian if their a big enough group? Besides, once people read the article, it becomes fairly obvious who is Christian and who isn't often simply based on what they prophesise, or from the 2 or 3 words or whatever of background information we give on them. I don't see the big deal for offense.

I said this above and will repeat and rephrase here. The problem with the title is that it is at odds with the disclaimer. As was said many monts ago somewhere aabove onteh talk page. Wikipedia shoudl not be in the bussness of saying who is and who is not christian. I agree with this, however those who like the current title seem to think that ONLY refers to exclusion. That is it is ok for wikipedia to say who is christian but it is not ok for wikipedia to say who is not christian. This is the fundemental POV problem with the title. What does the title lead the reader to expect when he comes here or when he see the link in another article and does not follow it? What if he comes here sees the format and just scrolls and skims and does not read the top. The reason that the disclaimer is so over-generous is that it is a compensation for a misleading title. Dalf | Talk 04:36, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I just wanted to add that I do think most of this information belongs in wikipedia just not how it is currently orginized. An article in the eschatology space about prophecies involving the end of the world (possibly not limited by religion to avoide the problem of saying what group a prophecy represents) would be very intresting and provide a context for compartive discussion. I am sure there has been research done in this area. The quotes attributed to individuals that are not necessarrly realted to the end of the world would be better worked into the articles about those people. That avoide the problem of claiming that they are prophets when the people in question have made no such claims (and frequently have specifically disclaimed it). All in all I just do not htink this is a very good article. The POV problem totally aside the critera for inclusion here makes this whole thign ambigious and does nto provide a context for the information to be useful for anything but discrediting some people and falsly discredting others by association. Its not encyclopedic.

Another possible solution which overlaps a little with the above woudl be splitting the artilce andd expanding the scope. We could create:

• History of eschatological prediction or Timeline of eschatological predictions (I prefer the first as it provides more scope for somethign beyone a list). We would move all of the pre-20th century stuff into this article and expand it to include predictions form other sources. I think putting them all from all religions together provides a better chance for a good article anyway, and has fewer POV dangers.
• Modern eschatological predictions or possible Eschatological predictions of the modern age or even Eschatology from the 20th century forward, here we can give special handeling to people whoa re still alive and religions which are mroe recently derived and discuss how end time predictions have been part of their devlopment.
• Stuff that does not fit into either of these article can be moved to the articles about the people who made the predictions.

Dalf | Talk 04:48, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you wish to de-Christianize this article. Certainly, there is a topic to cover here, in that Christianity has produced a great many people who claim the power of prophesy, many of whom have developed large followings. Robertson gets 922,000 households watching his show. This is the timeline of specifically unfulfilled Christian prophecy, and thus the title fits the topic. You seem to feel that that somehow makes this page automatically present some particular point of view, but I'm not seeing what that point of view might be. The very fact that it's been around as long as it has seems to bring that premise into question. It even survived a vote for deletion, which Dalf spent quite a bit of time trying to push through [1] No, I'm sorry. I don't see a reason to re-name the article to a name which dissociates the content of the article (Christian prophesy) from Christianity itself. That would be a bit like asking that we re-name President of the United States to President of a representitive democracy. -Harmil 06:58, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Wouldn't a better title be "Timeline of Unfulfilled Prophecy by Christians"? I can understand how we'd want an article showing false prophecies, (I mean the Bible warns us about it and all) But when it just says "Christian", my first inclination was "Ah man, someone's trying to blast the Bible again -___-". Homestarmy 15:32, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Homestarmy, no one is "trying to blast the Bible", and I'm not sure that modifying page titles to avoid a particular first reaction makes a lot of sense. However, your suggested page title both accurately reflects the content, and does not change the scope of the article. If there's a strong feeling that it's actually a better title, then I won't block consensus. Let's let the conversation bubble for a bit and if that seems to be a consensus, we can structure an actual vote on the re-naming which I'll put in a pointer to on the appropriate portal talk pages for religion. -Harmil 18:12, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I am playing catch up a little here but I thought I would answer your questions. I think I actually covered them in my statements above but at least some of them boil down to you and I disagreeing. I stated pretty clearly that I wanted to decouple it from Christianity because I did not feel that there is as you put it a topic to cover here, that would be both NPOV and worthwhile. I stated my reasons pretty clearly, and more to the point what do you think Robertson would say if you asked him if he thought he was a prophet? Wikipedia has many pages of guidelines about labeling living (or even dead) people at being one thing or another. Try adding Category:Prophets to his article and see where it gets you. While I don't think my activity on the AfD for this page has any bearing on the merits of my suggestion or arguments I would point out that I did not nominate this page for deletion and that I only went to the AfD page 3 times over two days and aside from my vote left 4 comments. In any event the crux of my argument is that we are not in a position to decide who is Christian and who is a prophet and the context it is put in here is POV. I disagree that there is a significant phenomenon specific to Christianity, which you stated. To whatever extent there is a phonamana I think its pretty universal and within the context of Christianity could be addressed in a much more NPOV way in articles about the people involved (therefor not implying anything by the context it is presented in). Now I am off to read the rest of the talk page. Dalf | Talk 02:41, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Unfulfilled historical predictions by self-identified Christians is more fitting. —Aiden 18:18, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

How about Modern eschatological predictions by Christians. With this the word "Christian" could stay in the title, but the artical no longer would imply that these are accepted by most Christians, and also the word "Modern" quickly implies that this is not Bible prophecy. Could we argee on this? --T-rex 18:37, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Harmil, what I meant was when I saw the title of the page before coming here I thought it might of meant something about blasting Biblical prophecies, but when I actually started reading the article, it was clear it was only about documenting failed prophecies by people claiming to be Christian or who are Christians, so it's ok in that sense. T-Rex, on your title, I have no idea what eschatological means, there must be an easier word :/.. Plus, as the article points out, there have been a few ancient cases of failed prophecy by Christians or people claiming to be Christians. Homestarmy 18:42, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, the examples aren't just ancient, but that aside, "eschatological predictions" would be predictions pertaining to religion, and that's not all that we have here. We have many predictions that pertain to politics (starting with a nun who predicted the death of Henry VIII) and even some environmental predictions. They are all, however, distinctly Christian prophesies made by Christians who asserted that they were inspired by God. Homestarmy, it doesn't look like there's anything like a consensus, so I'm not sure that there's a point it bringing a re-naming up to a larger audience. -Harmil 20:11, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I would support Homestarmy's title. It does seem to define the issue better and complies with complaints about not being accepted by all Christian groups. T-rex, your proposal has merit, but I think it is too narrow and causes a problem for some readers as demonstrated by Homestarmy. Harmil, I would ask you to just change it and not go for a vote.

Also, T-rex a majority of Christians will never be reached unless Roman Catholics want it to be so. They are the vast majority and the rest lumped together does match their sheer size. The indivdiuals mentioned above do have a broad following; these guys would not be on television where it not so. Somebody is paying big bucks to allow them to be there. You and I might disregard their following, but that is more a reflection on our views than a qualification of them not being Christian or representative of all Christians. Storm Rider 21:17, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Timeline of Unfulfilled Prophecy by Christians would be more accurate although I would prefer Modern Unfulfilled Prophecy by Christians as the word modern would be included (for reasons I gave above). Also It would probably be better off not being called a timeline so that maybe it will become more artical like and less of a list. Storm Rider, sorry but I don't understand what you are saying about Roman Catholics --T-rex 21:49, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

T-Rex brings up a good point, if it was more like an article than a timeline it could maybe even become an FA in time, after all, this is a somewhat notable topic with some possible interesting facets of categories in false prophecies by Christians or supposed Christians, and could probably give out information in a more appealing manner that way. Besides, technically speaking, making this article is actually probably Biblically supportable since we are warned to watch out for false prophets, definently appealing to fundamentalists like myself :D. Homestarmy 22:02, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Only that RC are the largest group of Christians on the earth. It was not a knock of RC's only a recognition that they are by far the largest Christian church. I am sorry if I was not clear. You seemed to be wanting to quantify number of followers before according the term Christian prophecy. I think we agree that changing the wording from Christian prophecy to Prophecy by Christians is better wording and is an "easier to swallow" proposal. Storm Rider 22:38, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I just didn't understand what you meant by that, although I don't think the Roman Catholic church is all that big. Especially once you consider not only prodestent denominations, but also Greek Orthodox, and the many churches with no affiliation. --T-rex 02:09, 26 February 2006 (UTC)