Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Historical persecution by atheists

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 of the debate was Delete. --Deathphoenix 15:12, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Historical persecution by atheists

Delete. Point-making and insubstantial. Part of a series of "Persection by..." articles which are unsuitable for an encycolpedia. -Unsigned by Vjam Here it is: --Vjam 16:57, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

• Delete, this material belongs in Communism or Atheism. Please sign your edits.- Halidecyphon 16:54, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete. Cannot be anything other than POV. Atheism is not an ideology, it's a shared lack of belief. It is not possible to group together the actions of atheists and ascribe their actions to their shared beliefs. David | Talk 16:57, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

It's about atheists who did persecute non-atheists. It's not really about atheists as a whole joining in, it's about atheist philosophies that did persecute. Historical persecution by Christians is also limited to the Christian denominations that did persecute. Various Christian denominations were isolationalist, apolitical, or opposed to religious persecution in all forms. Added to this Persecution of atheists establishes treating atheists as a group that is presumably persecuted by various theists. This is simply the corollary of that.--T. Anthony 14:44, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Insofar as atheism is a statement of faith on a subject where evidentiary support is impossible, I can't agree that Atheism constitututes a "lack of belief" - on the contrary, many atheists that I have met have been more devoted to their religious beliefs (viz., "there is no God") than some Christians I have met have been in theirs (viz., "there is a God"). What you're describing is not atheism, but [[agnoticism]. Simon Dodd 23:47, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

• Neutral on the AfD, but most of the persecutions were committed out of secularism more than out of atheism. So a rename might be in order. Aecis ^{Mr. Mojo risin'} 17:01, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete — because the article content relates to persecution by certain communist governments, rather than by "atheists" per say. But I must certainly disagree with the nominators assertion that the "persecution by" articles are unencyclopedic. — RJH 17:17, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per RJH. --Squiddy | (squirt ink?) 20:15, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete the relationship with atheists as such is not established. What remains are just allegations about real events. gidonb 20:35, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete but move any information to new or renamed articles. --a.n.o.n.y.m ^t 20:36, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete. I would be in favor of getting rid of the entire "Persecution By" series, but as I understand it, the "Christian" and "Muslim" pages have survived AfD. I think these pages are almost always going to be loaded with POV mischaracterizations. Grandmasterka 01:56, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the original nominator's statement that these persecution by articles are unencyclopedic. The "atheism doesn't relate" here thing has some merit, but not as much as it's made out. Hoxha declared his state an atheist-state in a way that is different than other Communists and somewhat noteworthy. Other Communists, including Stalin, were occasionally willing to use religions to service some other agenda or pit churches against each other. Hoxha, and the Cultural Revolution, were unusual in the way they went after religion for atheistic aims. The Cultural Revolution article is currently large, but doesn't deal that well with the anti-religion issue. If you prefer "Religious persecution by Communists" though I could maybe see that. I'm going to move it to that if this is tolerated.--T. Anthony 14:35, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

The point is that atheism isn't a unifying belief system and it's not logical to lump together things done by atheists and link that to their atheism. It's comparable to, say, Historical persecution by people with blue eyes: having blue eyes is not a way people group together, because it's not a common belief. Secularism is an ideology which is often confused with atheism, and Historical persecution by secular ideologies might be possible. However, I can't think of a secular ideology which persecuted religion and wasn't also Communist. David | Talk 14:46, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

I can't move it to "Religious persecution by Communists" if it gets deleted. In fact I can't do that as long as it's on delete. And I'm aware atheists isn't a unifying belief system. However the article is not called "Historical persecution by Atheism" and deals with the fact these are philosophies with atheism as a component. The naming was sloppy, but so is the naming of all these. It can be easily argued that pretty much all Persecution of atheists occurs because of specific political-religion mergers in different nations. This is simply concerning the merger of atheist philosophies with political systems.--T. Anthony 14:57, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

• Delete as violation of WP:POINT KrazyCaley 23:00, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Having Abrahamic faiths as the only "persecution by" is already essentially a kind of pointmaking. Also I actually moved this to "persecution by Communists", but moved it back as that screwed up the connection to the delete page.--T. Anthony 03:07, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

• Delete. Not a violation of WP:POINT... just a bad article. An important distinction is that the Atheism of the people helped to cause the persecution... the fact that they persecuted and happened to be Atheists is irrelevant. I am open to such an article if it could be well written. gren グレン ^? 06:27, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

If I did a "Religious persecution in Communist nations" article after this gets deleted, and it uses some of this, would that be acceptable or a violation of the rules?--T. Anthony 14:39, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Don't know about the rules, but would suggest that an article entitled "Religion in Communist nations" (as far as I can see this doesn't exist yet) might be welcome and less likely to be criticised under WP:POINT. --Vjam 15:52, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Religion in Communist nations I don't think exists. Although there is Religion in the Soviet Union which comes closest to being such an article. The related Society of the Godless is maybe the closest to being in purpose similar to this article itself, although it's describing an organization within the former USSR. Still nothing on Communist nations in general as far as I can tell.--T. Anthony 16:06, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

• keep. The article isn't very good as it is, but it's a legitimate topic. I don't think it can be objected to because it should be "communists". There's no logical connection betwen belief in communual economics and disbelief in God. The point is that Marxism was, as part of its whole philosophy, atheistic. It was the fact that atheism was the "official religion" of these states that was significant. The reality is that what needs to be discussed is the connection between the rise of "progressive" secularism/scepticism and the emergence of persecutory pracitces from some anti-religious factions. So the title is a problem, and maybe "secularists" would be better, since it would be desirable to include the persecutions conducted by the officially Deist regime of Revolutionary France. However any title might be disputed ("...group X weren't secularists/agnostics/atheists/unbelievers/sceptics/freethinkers..."), and that's not a good reason for disallowing a topic. Paul B 21:58, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Keep. Could be expanded to show modern day persecution, etc through current overtly secular laws, etc. - G^t 13:50, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
• A decidedly diffident keep. If the topic is a legitimate one - and I think this one is no less legitimate than the other "persecution by..." articles - but the article is POV or otherwise needing improvement, my maxim would be to improve, not delete. It strikes me as nothing short of lazy to request the deletion an article whose legitimacy is not seriously disputed, instead of taking the time to improve it. Simon Dodd 23:51, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I'm willing to rename it "by secularist ideologies" if it survives.--T. Anthony 00:50, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete. I'm not a fan of any of the "Persecution by..." articles; atheism could cover a wide set of beliefs and is too often confused with political entities. (Of course, you could say that about any of these other articles too... Not worthy articles.) Grandmasterka 02:33, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Deleting all the "persecution by" articles would be good by me. Persecution by secularist ideologies seems as historical as the ones that survived and in retrospect I should've named it that. However now that the Jewish ones have died possibly the others are on the ropes too.--T. Anthony 04:29, 26 January 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.