Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mathematics and God (2nd nomination)

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 no consensus. | Mr. Darcy talk 18:06, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mathematics and God

Mathematics and God (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

not article but a collection of citations; WP:NOT#DIR says: Wikipedia articles are not lists or repositories of loosely associated topics such as quotations, aphorisms... Due to the vagueness of the subject, the article looks like original research and is a battlefield for POV warriors from both sides. Mathematics is basically not about God, and when mathematicians speak about God, they speak as philosophers and not as mathematicians in the narrow sense. Ioannes Pragensis 10:58, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

• Abstain. The previous AfD is at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mathematics and God. It was argued there that "Mathematics and God" (more properly, "Mathematics and religion") is a proper subject for an article. The article is not only a collection of quotations, though I agree that there are too many citations and that there is little coherence. It has been in a bad state since the previous AfD, more than a year ago, so I think it's better for Wikipedia to delete the article. However, I also think that would be against the deletion policy: bad articles on a encyclopaedic subject should be sent to cleanup. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 11:45, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

• Thanks for the link. - There are of course encyclopedic facts on the border between mathematics and religion, but they are very disparate (from the pagan Pythagorean number mystic over Christian Pascal's Wager to the atheistic philosophy of Bertrand Russel) and IMHO cannot be summarized into a single coherent article.--Ioannes Pragensis 12:01, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

• Delete. I voted strong delete the first time this came up for deletion. I'm still not happy with its contents, though I tried to improve it once it was kept (for lack of consensus). It is not just quotations, but it is little more than that; there has never been any attempt to add context and discussion, which it still needs. If, say, Plato, Newton, Euler, and Erdős all used the word "God", they had rather different ideas in mind. (Plato was a pre-Christian, Newton was an idiosyncratic alchemist, Euler was Christian Protestant, and Erdős was agnostic.) You'd never know it from the article. Worse, it seems that fans of believing in God (presumably in the Judeo-Christian tradition) stop by from time to time and delete the section with dissenting voices ("God as human invention"). I like history and human interest; I do not think this article has enough of either to justify its persistence. --KSmrq^T 11:59, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

• Delete. There is apparently a list of quotes on the same theme at the Wikiquote site, so there is no reason to host the same thing here, especially since the article, such as it is, pretty much is just a list of quotes. I agree that a `mathematics and religion' article may be a good idea, but it would be tough to do it without lapsing into original research and generally making an obnoxious mess of things. Rosenkreuz 12:08, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment: The topic of the article is rather broad and ill-defined. We have references on everything from ontological proofs of God's existence to philosophical references to Platonic mystical remarks. This article seems to be a collection of any kind of semi-spiritual-philosophical quotes about mathematics. This in itself is a problem, but a more serious one is that I get a feeling that NOR is being violated. This may be one of those cases when it is an unpublished synthesis of an assortment of topics. An article like Mathematical proofs of God's existence would be clearly defined and easily writable without violating any policies. Same goes for articles like philosophy of mathematics or Greek mysticism and mathematics. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by C S (talk • contribs) 17:42, 22 December 2006 (UTC).

• I agree with all the main points made by the previous commenters. If someone is prepared to give a serious go at the topics proposed above, and wants this page as a source (and thus needs to preserve the edit history for the GFDL), then Userfy it (or move it to a subpage of the new article). If no editor indicates willingness by the time of this AfD's close, my position is weak delete per WP:NOR and WP:NOT#DIR. Barno 21:44, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

• Keep: The article certainly needs work, but there's good content underneath and the subject is notable. Erdos' Book, Einstein's deism, Cantor's Omega... there's sense here. Of course some of the philosophical material may need to be culled. CRGreathouse (t | c) 02:40, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

• Delete: this is nonsense. the content of the article needs to be found under the various theories of transcendentalism related to the philosophy of mathematics. as it is, this article is just a mess and nonsense without the other context.--Buridan 03:57, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment: Although I voted to keep during its first AfD, I now find that I agree with most of the comments above. I would like to save this article — I still think there is encyclopedic potential here — but no one seems to be inclined or able to do the necessary work, and more importantly I now begin to think that it might be impossible to stay within NOR. I'm more of an inclusionist than deletionist, but I can't really vote to keep, given its present state, and its predictable future. Paul August ☎ 18:49, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

• Keep: I agree with CRGreathouse. The subject is one that has arisen over the course of intellectual history. It deserves coverage here. I endorse Jitse Niesen's view that the proper title should be "Mathematics and religion," since deism is one of the points of contention. The proper response to a poorly written article or an article whose neutrality is disputed is better editing, not deletion. Chenx064 02:07, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Ah, good point on the name, I agree. CRGreathouse (t | c) 09:15, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

The most important deletion reason is not its poor state (although I do not believe that somebody here is able to write it better) but WP:OR. If you make the topic even broader by the renaming, then this problem will be even more accute. I agree that many pieces of information in the article are notable, but not under this title - it should be separated into different articles divided by schools of thought and so on. I am not against a category named Mathematics and religion, but an article like this is a biased mess and will be a mess forever.--Ioannes Pragensis 11:00, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

• Keep: Needs rewriting but subject a potentially useful one, particularly given Richard Dawkins' latest bout of fame. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 16:17, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Just for your information, Dawkins is a biologist. Sigh.--Ioannes Pragensis 18:09, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, actually, he's an evolutionary biologist, if you want to get picky. But his recent efforts have highlighted the clash between religion and science generally. Stop being a dick. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 18:15, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

It might be of interest for you that we are discussing Mathematics and God and not Religion and Science. Deep sigh of desperation.--Ioannes Pragensis 20:10, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes Ioannes has this exactly right. Paul August ☎ 20:15, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Deep sigh that Ioannes is deliberately missing what I'm saying because he's peeved that his AfD isn't going the way he wants. *Hand over forehead* What is the world coming to that people won't vote that way Ioannes wants! Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 20:22, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Things are even much worse than you think. The horrible truth is that I fully understand what are you saying and why. Tears.--Ioannes Pragensis 20:32, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

These comments are uncalled for. I don't think I'm the only one that sees that Ioannes is himself making a point. It has nothing to do with him trying to "own" the discussion. --C S (Talk) 06:06, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

• • I think you're confused as to what the subject is. This isn't an article on clashes between science and religion. --C S (Talk) 06:06, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
• Weak Keep Mostly OR, but could become more. Just H 20:24, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
• Delete. I've become convinced that the people saying "keep" don't have very good reasons. Given the real issues with the article (see my longer comment above), delete seems the only option. --C S (Talk) 06:09, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
• Delete. Reluctantly, Per Chan-Ho and others. I would be happy to see an attempt to make this content encyclopedic by CRGreathouse or others, but I now think that any such efforts should take place in user space. Please feel free to userfy this material. Paul August ☎ 18:45, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Delete. It's a notable subject, as evidenced by the number of quotations we've found. I don't think the article should be deleted just because it's poorly written and has POV problems. This article simply needs to be rewritten and doesn't merit a deletion as per Wikipedia:Deletion policy. After doing a little bit of research online I can find almost nothing relating mathematics and god. If it were a notable subject there'd be a little more than just quotes. A mathematics and religion article would have some merit though. --Calibas 19:23, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

POV and poor quality was discussed in the previous AfD more than one year ago. Nobody from users voting keep was able to write it better since then, and you also do not offer any idea how to proceed to this end. But there is another important deletion reason: the article seems to be original research and nobody knows how to avoid it. It is perhaps based in the fact, that the subject is too broad and not clearly defined. A simple observation: After three years of existence, the article has many religion-related quotes from different mathematicians (and interestingly no mathematics-related quotes of theologians), but no one single non-trivial sentence about its subject, the relation of mathematics and God. "What we cannot speak of, we must pass over in silence." (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus).

• Bonus points to the editor (unsigned until a bot comes by) who cited the Tractacus L-P. Barno 02:18, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

• Keep, encyclopedic subject in need of an article (and cleanup). Ford MF 20:53, 26 December 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.