Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Buddhist-Christian parallels

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 06:11, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Buddhist-Christian parallels

"Two identical articles have previously been created and deleted (Click Here) One of the previously deleted articles has exactly the same title but without the underscore thus suggesting someone is recreating articles have already been agreed shouldn't be on Wikipedia!!" An anonymous IP listed this for deletion in another article's deletion subpage. [1] T REX_speak 01:14, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

• Keep, You fail to mention that they were deleted on Wikiquote not Wikipedia. The articles there appeared to be just the quotes with no explanation. Comparisons between Christianity and Buddhism have been made in outside sources other than Wikipedia and are even listed on the article under the "Further reading" section. T REX_speak 01:17, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
• Strong keep There is no real reason to delete this article, and many people have worked long and hard on it. It seems to be a relatively interesting subject for some. Ultra-Loser Talk / Contributions 01:24, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep When I saw the title, I thought, "oh, boy-- another OR mess". When I saw the article, I thought, "wow- people have worked hard on this." It looks like a well-written article. Cheers, :) Dlohcierekim 01:39, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep per above especially Dlohceirekim. Great, well researched article. Dina 02:02, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Dlohceirekim and Ulta-Loser are correct. Someone certainly work to reference and verify this work. The article editors are just gonna have to be careful to keep it maitained.-- danntm ^T _C 02:09, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Keep, Great article, If this article had more pics and referances I would nominate it for WP:FA and next time dear editor please, please make sure to tell us which Wikiproject it was from Wikiquote AFD's have nothing to do with here in my opinion--†hε þяínce öf ɒhaямa ^{Talk to Me} 02:29, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Keep, Very well written and researched article, I'm surprised that it is up for deletion. Please keep in mind that this is an article on comparative religious studies. This article provides historical sources and citations.--Lightwork 02:57, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
• Speedy Keep per everything above. --Daniel Olsen 03:11, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
• Change to delete Per WP:OR. Piuro 17:01, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep- I'll say keep for the same reasons above.--SUIT⁴² 03:41, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep I actually have a book that compares Jesus/Buddha statements side-by-side not more than three feet from where I'm sitting... EVula 03:56, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete or Total Re-write I'm surprised how low the standards being applied are. First, it has tons of WP:OR, a comment above notwithstanding, and regularly violates WP:NPOV. Who decided, to take an early example, that "cognitive" and "theistic" are antonyms? The article is an extended argument in support of the theory that Christianity derives from Buddhism -- and as with all such arguments, it displays an incredible lack of critical judgement -- Antioch was founded by a king of a line that had diplomatic relations with an Indian king, therefore Buddhism influenced Christianity? Nazarene comes from Nazir? -- and a total disregard for chronology whenever it suits the argument.

Where do we get the source for Jerome saying Buddha (rather than Jesus) was born from the side of a virgin? I seriously doubt any reliable source can be found for this. Have a closer look at the "parallel sayings" table -- first, some of them have little or no similarity and were apparently added just to bulk up the list, second, we are given no information about whether the Buddhist saying are recorded in Theravada or Mahayana sutras, which is necessary information in that Mahayana Buddhism is several hundred years younger than Chistianity. At least one has Buddha and Jesus actually saying opposite things. The article generally plays fast and loose with the account of Jesus. In one place it says Jesus told all his disciples to give up all material possessions, a common misunderstanding of what He told the rich young ruler. But encyclopedias exist in part to correct misunderstandings, not spread them.

FA? Please. A.J.A. 04:13, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment I voted to keep. Much is not OR and presents long standing comparative religion scholarship, but some of the statements are undocumented OR, such as you cited. But the libraries of theological schools are full of dusty tomes which could and should be cited vis a vis such questions. Unsupported claims should be fact tagged and then deleted. The WP principle is to edit boldly and footnote everything to reliable and verifiable sources, which does not necessarily favor online sources rather than published work.Edison 15:23, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, it's not just some original research -- what is or could be cited is generally presented misleadingly. A genuine comparison would be interesting and encyclopedic, and have virtually nothing in common with the article that exists now. A.J.A. 04:07, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

• speedy kept- I am one of the contributers to this article and Administrators take note that this is an abuse of the deletion processWP:DP
  WP:DEL
  WP:DELETE

Abuse of deletion process [[2]]

The deletion processes all focus on whether an article meets the criteria for existence on Wikipedia;

1)that is, they are to determine whether it is not original research -- There is no original research, all the work is researched with quotes from major scholars and works, links and references are fully listed.

2)its central information is verifiableand it is capable of achieving a neutral point of view with good editorship.... -- all sayings and quotes are verifiable, all historical information is verifiable

3)XfD (deletion) processes are not a way to complain or remove material that is personally disliked, whose perspective is against ones beliefs, or which is not yet presented neutrally. Using XfD as a "protest strategy" in an editorial or NPOV debate is generally an abuse of process and the article will usually be speedy kept.

I would like to add that this article is a part of Wikipedian categories of religious comparisons

Wikipedia Category:Religious comparison [[3]] and is perfectly in line with this category.

I would like to thank all the wikipedians who support the keeping of this article. Thank you!--216.254.121.169 13:37, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

• KeepThe similarity of the teachings of Buddha and Jesus has long been noted by scholars. Comparison of religions has a long scholarly history, so the article has a lot of scholarship to draw on. The subject is notable and encyclopedic.That said, the scholarship can be improved. Footnote 5 is very vague as to what it refers to. Footnote 1 is to a website which appears to be a book, but no ISBN is furnished and it is not footnoted as a scholarly book. It is important in documenting 1st century Christianity in Palestine, a subject with few primary sources. The same info is cited to writings by Hypolytus, but clicking the link leads to a disambiguation page, and checking the various pages does not produce backup for the claim made re Terebinthus. This is only skimming the surface of need for improvement. Editors, get busy and make all references to only verifiable and reliable scholarly sources. (Edited to add: I added ISBN info for ref 1, but tthe form could still use a tweak. Please check other books cited and provide full publication info)Edison 15:17, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Keep: while it may contain some OR, it clearly is not OR. Could use some cleanup, but how many articles is that not true of? (Even including a few on this list.) Xtifr _tälk 23:35, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Keep, if this isn't encyclopaedic I don't know what is! --Steve 00:29, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

keep I don't need to look at the article to know that it is a suitable subject for an encyclopedia. If the content isn't up to scratch, or it isn't being worked on then OK, but my own opinion is the request to delete is an abuse of process. --Mike 10:27, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

• Keep per Xtifr Qaanaaq 12:34, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep - This article does need some work but it is a good topic. --BenWoodruff 17:27, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

• Strong Keep This isn't Wikiquote, so there are different rules for what gets deleted. Religious comparisson is a very widely studied topic, and it is a valid encyclopedic topic.Koweja 19:35, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

• Strong Keep. This topic is constantly drawing attention of historians of religions. There are many notable scientific works on subject. For example Rudolf Otto "Mysticism East and West" --Encyclopaedia Editing Dude 12:05, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

• Speedy Keep. 5 days has passed, and due to overwhelming support (which I would like to thank all the support from wikipedians), this article should be speedy kept. --216.254.121.169 14:07, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

This article can't be cited as original work as the core of the work is supported by sources: Furthermore, I have added sources and am willing to add more references. I have added references for the parallel sayings and lives table as well as the historical interactions sections.--216.254.121.169 22:35, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.