Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Judeo-Christian-Islamic

This page is an archive of the proposed deletion of the article below. Further comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or on a Votes for Undeletion nomination). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was keep as redirect.

I found nothing to merge into the current target article. If someone does see content worth merging, please recover it from the page history.

Comment: May I again urge all participants in these discussions to remain civil and as fact-based as possible. This was a relatively straightforward decision which got badly derailed by the use of inflammatory language. Rossami (talk) 23:26, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Judeo-Christian-Islamic

This is a neo-logism. A quick Google search elicits 10,300 instances, compared with almost 800,000 for Judeo-Christian. Also note that several of the former entries are Wikipedias, Islamic apologist sites, and news sites. Of those 10,300, 10,200 come from the past year. My suspicion, although it's virtually impossible to prove, is that this is PC garbage to convince people to be more "tolerant" toward Islam (see Newspeak). In addition, the phrase itself is basically self-contradictory, as Islam has further inspired the creation of Sikhism and Bahia, so if one is being logically consistent, it would be "Judeo-Christian-Islamic-Sikh-Bahai" if I follow the reasoning. Justin (koavf) July 5, 2005 05:42 (UTC)

• Don't really agree with nominator's arguments; 10,300 is not a bad Google total at all, and the "PC garbage"/"Newspeak" stuff is melodramatic. Nonetheless, delete as dicdef since the article doesn't go beyond simply defining the term. Dcarrano July 5, 2005 05:48 (UTC)
• Delete as dicdef. JamesBurns 5 July 2005 06:18 (UTC)
• Redirect to Abrahamic religion. Christopher Parham (talk) 2005 July 5 06:44 (UTC)
• Keep if author expands article. By the way, I think language like "PC garbage" and "Islamic apologist" has no place in deletion nominations. If it's deleted--- which I hope it's not; as pointed out above, 10,300 is not at all a bad Google total--- I hope it's on more neutral and appropriate grounds.Thepinterpause 5 July 2005 07:01 (UTC)
• This has been a significant idea and term in ecumenical discussion in recent years; with a bit more heft and context I would probably vote to keep. As it stands, I say merge (not just redirect) to Abrahamic religion.--Pharos 5 July 2005 07:05 (UTC)
• Merge into Abrahamic religion. I also believe that the nomination is less than professional and hope that we can all refrain from that kind of language in the future. Fernando Rizo 5 July 2005 08:46 (UTC)
• Merge into Abrahamic religion and redirect. Abrasive comments in the nomination are rather unnecessary at best - Skysmith 5 July 2005 09:31 (UTC)
• Merge as per Pharos. --Moritz 5 July 2005 09:57 (UTC)
• Merge and redirect per above. It's good that tolerance of Islam is still regarded as PC garbage. It would be horrid if people became "tolerant" to all religions, wouldn't it? --Scimitar 5 July 2005 14:44 (UTC)
  • Comment: Generating tolerance of Islam, regardless of the merits of that, is surely rather foolish when it undermines intellectual clarity. "Judeo-Christian" is usually used to refer to the tradition that supports and influenced Western morality and law. The influence of Islam in this sphere is minor. I'm all for increased tolerance of Islam, but I don't think we should get that by rewriting history to imagine that the Western Judeo-Christian system carries an equal influence from Islam. However, the fact that this term is PC garbage is irrelevant to this discussion. Christopher Parham (talk) 2005 July 5 18:22 (UTC)
    • Actually, you are really quite wrong there. Islam is the only reason we still have many classical texts, such as Plato's republic, and the Elements. Algebra is named after Al-Jabr, and Algorithm is named after Al-Khwarizmi, an Islamic scholar and the text he wrote, such was his contribution to mathematics. And there is a good reason our numbers are called Arabic numerals. The christians burnt the original texts, they were the destroyers there, the texts survive only because copies were preserved by islamic scholars. Likewise all science effectively died under christianity for some one and a half thousand years, it only continued in islam. During the crusades, it was the Christians who persecuted people of other religions, in some places even subjecting them to the Inquisition, and massacres such as the Albigensian crusade, and blood libel, Islamic areas merely taxed non-muslims, which was significantly more tolerant. We can't have got such tolerance from the Christians as they had none. N.b. I am not islamic, nor jewish. ~~~~ 5 July 2005 18:28 (UTC)
  • I really don't see the relevance of algebra and numerals to systems of morality and law. The contributions made by the Islamic world in science nonwithstanding, the influence of Islamic thought and tradition in shaping Western common and civil law systems and the Western conception of morality -- the contexts in which the term Judeo-Christian is most used by far -- has been minimal. Christopher Parham (talk) 2005 July 5 23:08 (UTC)
    • I'd classify as a hopeless endeavor any effort to cast Islam as less significant to Western thought than its Abrahamic precursors. At a minimum, I think all will agree that Islam has shaped the West by opposition -- Christian thought of the last 1400 years uses Islam as THE anti-model. The moral and legal order of the West would not exist as it does without its favorite antithesis. This is not to disparage Islam -- most Christian criticisms of it in pre-modern times was made in ignorance. To ignore Islam's role in shaping the Western world is as much of a folly as it would be to ignore the Roman role in shaping the early Christian world. And, of course, as above, without the saving grace of Islamic scholars, the Renaissance might well have been impossible. Xoloz 6 July 2005 04:12 (UTC)
• Comment Isn't the standard term Abrahamic religion ? ~~~~ 5 July 2005 18:23 (UTC)
• Merge but no redirect Neologism, but salvagable content. ~~~~ 5 July 2005 18:23 (UTC)
• Merge and redirect to Abrahamic religion. 10k+ Google hits suggests that this is no neologism. -- BD2412 ^talk July 5, 2005 21:54 (UTC)
• Merge and redirect to Abrahamic religion seems to be important enough to deserve at least a little space in Abrahamic religion and as as such should be redirected there as well. Jtkiefer July 5, 2005 22:28 (UTC)
• The current content is a mere dicdef (a discussion of the meaning, origins and usage of a word or phrase). My preference would be to transwiki though I could also support the redirect argument. Rossami (talk) 6 July 2005 01:54 (UTC)
• Merge into Abrahamic religions per Pharos. Xoloz 6 July 2005 04:01 (UTC)
  • Comment I feel moved to object to the nominator's tone as well. His suggestion for a "logically consistent" expanded neologism is highly flawed -- Islam has 800 years more history and 600 million more followers than Sikhism, as well as a much more extensive involvement in Western history. Xoloz 6 July 2005 10:50 (UTC)
• Keep Neologism invented by Antonin Scalia though he used the term ""Judeo-Christian-Islamic" Klonimus 6 July 2005 07:48 (UTC)
• Merge and redirect. -Sean Curtin July 9, 2005 01:46 (UTC)

===>Allow me to comment As far as my original statements go, I think that some people here are either ignoring germane evidence, or misreading what I'm saying.

• "10,300 is not a bad Google total" You're right, but 10,200 of them were from the past year. That is precisely what makes it a neologism. Neo=new, and who of us have ever heard this word used in commonday speech, or read it in the newspaper? Until that is the case, it is a neologism. It was not created out of academic or scientific necessity (such as a newly-discovered element, for instance), but rather political jockeying to infer that Islam and its associated culture are as deeply integrated into Western society as Judaism and Christianity's. The contributions those faith traditions have made in art, law, politics, language, and others pale in comparison to Islam's, which are not themselves without merit or worth mentioning. They simply aren't as fundamental. In point of fact, as was described above by Xoloz, the West has been defined as an opposing socio-cultural group versus Islamic society for centuries. This dialectic has been made almost universally by Westerners, Muslims, and third-party objective analysis. I have never in my life read any source, academic or otherwise, that would insinuate the histories of those two large social categories are intimately intertwined in the same way that Jewish and Christian culture have been. The assertion is untenable.

• "language like "PC garbage" and "Islamic apologist" has no place in deletion nominations" I certainly don't see why not. I'm building a case against the inclusion of this article in a (virtual) encyclopedia, and my main complaint is that it is politically-motivated (PC) and it is certainly not NPOV (garbage). The objection to the term "Islamic apologist" puzzles me: several of these sites were, in fact, apologetic in nature, in favor of defending Islam. I would imagine the authors themselves would claim the same. There is certainly no reason to disregard a site simply becuase it is an Islamic apologetic source (in fact, I referenced one in this article, since it had a good overview of objective information), but the motivation of the authors in using this term is clearly to pursue a political agenda, rather than present objective fact. Since they are using this neologism for non-academic purposes, their use as justification for keeping this article is suspect at best.

• "It's good that tolerance of Islam is still regarded as PC garbage. It would be horrid if people became "tolerant" to all religions, wouldn't it?" The reason that I put "tolerant" in quotes here is not because I desire intolerance, but rather, the word itself is used in a politically-motivated context, and has significantly different meanings to different people using it in the same discussion. Since "tolerance" can mean anything from embracing, to accepting, to simply not discriminating against (and discrimination is also vague word of this type), it is a vague word in regards to "religious tolerance". I'm not actually advocating any kind of attitude toward Islam or Muslims at all, and I'm not critical of any attitude toward that worldview either. My criticism is directed toward the kind of political manipulation and thought-control implied in trying to shoehorn Islam into a category of influence where it simply does not belong. As with all immense social groups ("Pacific Islanders", "Sub-Saharan Africa", etc.), the cultural traditions that exist today are the product of interaction with several other such cultures. None of us would argue that black, urban America have influenced American culture, which is itself a large component of current Western culture, but the traditions of the past 70 years of black, urban culture pale in comparison to centuries of deeply-ingrained thought produced by Judaism and Christianity. There is no need to overlook or discredit the impact of Islam on Western society, but certainly no need to inflate it, either, unless there are some kinds of ulterior motives at work. It is a knee-jerk reaction to perceived criticism of Islam, like below:

• "During the crusades, it was the Christians who persecuted people of other religions, in some places even subjecting them to the Inquisition, and massacres such as the Albigensian crusade, and blood libel, Islamic areas merely taxed non-muslims, which was significantly more tolerant." This has nothing to do with anything. The user here goes from extolling the virtues of Islamic society and its contributions to the West (including citing Arabic numerals, which were a product of Indian, pre-Islamic society, and were only exported to the West due to the efforts of an Italian) to an historical criticism of Western, Christian society. You can harbor and express any discontent you have with Western Christianity, but how is it relevant to this discussion? It's not. This mini-diatribe is precisely the sort of knee-jerk reaction I mentioned above. Nowhere in my description am I critical of Islamic society, and there is no justification in terms of this vote for criticizing Christian society either. It's entirely out of place.

• "His suggestion for a "logically consistent" expanded neologism is highly flawed -- Islam has 800 years more history and 600 million more followers than Sikhism, as well as a much more extensive involvement in Western history." Of course, but this isn't merely a numbers game - Sikhism has more followers than Judaism, and Zoroastrianism has existed for approxiametly as long, but neither has any definable significance in Western culture. Islam does play a larger role in the historical shaping of Western society, but it is much smaller than Judaism and Christianity's by far. This is exactly the point that I'm making. Also, I find it highly doubtful this term was invented by Antonin Scalia. Justin (koavf) 03:48, July 10, 2005 (UTC)

• • My only reply to your comment is that, as you consider "Islamic Apologists" to be "PC", so I consider those who characterize Islam as insignificant in Western History to be "PC." The term is incredibly subjective -- you're entitled to use it as you like, but (as the criticism you garnered suggests) I would submit that such language does not aid in fostering a consensus. Typically, dispassionate language builds consensus more easily.

Also, I question your assertion that calling something "garbage" is equivalent to calling it "POV." Clearly, much value can come from "POV" works, e.g. any religious text. POV works do not belong here, but that does not make them "garbage". I think the word "garbage" upset many readers. Xoloz 07:31, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

• • I simply don't see how the argument is even relevant. I don't see the phrase as stating that Christianity is as close to Islam as it is to Judaism. As the article says, "it is used when referring to something shared by all Abrahamic religions." Even if one generally has need to refer to such things less frequently than one has need to refer to things shared by only two of the religions, it can nonetheless still be encyclopedic. I put no stock in most of the links being "within the last year" because 1) even a recently coined phrase would be encyclopedic if it has caught on sufficiently; the date is not realy the point, 2) web pages are very fleeting by nature, so I'd imagine this statement is true of many Google searches, and 3) I don't even trust Google's "dates" for webpages anyway, I have no clue what they're based on. And yes, if your objection is "that it is politically-motivated and it is certainly not NPOV", then SAYING that instead of "PC garbage" and "apologists" would be a really good idea. Dcarrano 17:28, July 10, 2005 (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 an undeletion request). No further edits should be made to this page.