Talk:Orthodox Bahá'í Faith

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Discussions from this page are archived under the following headings

• /Archive01 December 2001-October 2004

[edit] Article cleanup

This article desperately needs cleaning up. Its all about why there was a split not about the religion at all. I know its had a bit of an awkward initiation, but we have Bahá'í divisions now so that can all go. It would be nice to include such things as what the orthodox plan on doing with the universal house of justice, how the administrative order works, and where major concentrations of Orthodox Bahá'ís are maybe?

Does anyone know how many (ish) Orthodox Bahá'ís there are around though? the localities bit if a bit vague. -- Tomhab 14:17, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Intro

So, it seems that there's some concern about statements in the intro of this article. I have a concern about the most recent changes, and would appreciate them at least being addressed to avoid a back and forth of reverts (which has apparently already begun).

1. It's sloppily written: in its current form the implications are that they were members that were excommunicated, and now are a new group. In reality we know that they left the group before the UHJ was established, and formed their own group. It's a sloppy sentence.
2. Hardly fair or honest not to allow that they also shun sans-guardians; it's a characteristic of each and every group. Mason enjoined the OB's to shun upon the groups inception.
3. Undue wieght cannot be leveraged against a group that the article is about. I'm sure some may want to argue semantics on this, but if a group can't express itself in it's own article, where is it supposed to. The fact that they shun sans-Guardians in return is a matter of fact. What's the problem with saying so. I would think that other than to reference the BWF for clarification purposes, what they think or feel doesn't even warrant more than a sentence in an article that isn't about them. It's about the OB's here. Why would anyone even think to invoke undue weight? Jeff 05:04, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I've attempted to rewrite the sentence expressing the point of the sans-Guardians,and will footnote the statement. As one of the concerns was of citing sources, it seems odd that the rewrite didn't include any sources for the new version. I will. Jeff 05:26, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't have time for a detailed response for a few days, but quickly... sloppy, I agree, and I didn't write hardly any of this article. Shunning, I got that from reading Orthodox Baha'is commenting on several discussion boards. They specifically said that they consider the rest of Baha'is as misled, and not Covenant-breakers. Since the article wasn't referenced in that regard, I changed it (with good intentions). I never mentioned undue weight, so you'll have to be more specific. Cuñado - Talk 07:34, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

MARussell noted undue weight when he reverted back to your last in his edit summary. I understand the policy, just not sure why it is warranted here. I've been wrong before, and I'm sure if I am I'll find out soon enough. I've given this article a brief once over already, and I'm going to set out first thing tommorrow at tidying it up a little. Starting with refs, etc.

I'm familiar with what you're saying in regards to comments you've read elsewhere about "misled" versus CB's. There's a dicotomy not being addressed in this article which I'd like to take a stab at as objectively as possible. What I mean is that the Orthodox Baha'is were actually first and foremost Remey's group. Joel stole the name and his followers at the same time (I know that's biased, but you know what I mean). Somehow it should be addressed, or delineated more clearly that this group was spawned originally at Remey's proclamation (to wit: he declared the Hands and anyone who went along with them "violators"). This is sort of glazed over in the article. And the referencing is persona non grata. But, somehow this article starts to look as if it was a group of heretics who were shunned, and then formed a group of their own, sortof. That's the problem with this whole thing. It doesn't delineate the history of it's origins well, doesn't address their structur or goals, or any of Joel's recent activities. He's quite a busy body you know. I just felt that even though their presence here has been vacant in the last year or so, doesn't mean that this article can't be improved upon objectively. I'm up for improving it however I can. Jeff 09:19, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I feel like I should mention this before you add a bunch, since we've argued before. There doesn't seem to be any published material by Marangella other than what he posts on his website, at least no secondary sources that I know of. Most secondary sources mentioning him just say that there is very little doctrinal differences other than the leadership dispute. The Wikipedia:Notability requirements will effectively reduce an obscene expansion... "In order to have a verifiable article, a topic must be notable enough that information about it will have been researched and checked through publication in multiple independent reliable sources."

But like I said, it is pretty sloppy right now, and you're right about the need to note the difference between Orthodox under Marangella, and Orthodox under Remey. Cuñado - Talk 01:41, 4 December 2006 (UTC)