Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Origin of religion

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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 Delete. Consensus is that the article is an inappropriate content fork. -- Jreferee t/c 22:42, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Origin of religion

Origin of religion (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Blatant POV fork of development of religion. Partially consists of edits rejected by the wiki process from related topics. Redirect to Development of religion. Vassyana 22:08, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

  • No POV, just based on reliable sources from scholars in the field. Muntuwandi ::::This entry needs to be deleted speedily, and this is made even more apparent by the fact that the creator of this entry is showing unwilliness to work with anyone, even sympathetic editors to improve upon his NPOV synthesis and OR that seems mainly to push the unprovable point that behavioral modernity and hence religion necessarily evolved in Africa. We need to delete this entry and fix Development of religion in part by adding the notable and sourcable material present in Muntuwandi's synthesis.PelleSmith 21:18, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
That's an editor behavior problem that should be handled with those procedures, I think. --lquilter 21:23, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
Well this editor's behavior should probably be dealt with through other procedures, but I believe his behavior is acccentuating the problems with the entry. That's what I was trying to say ... so I edited my original statement.PelleSmith 21:31, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep. If modern humans originated in Africa, which is the mainstream consensus, then what is wrong with the hypothesis that religion appeared with modern humans at at the same time.Muntuwandi 22:54, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
Because its your own original hypothesis and it isn't notable in the least.PelleSmith 23:04, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
I am not a scholar or expert on religion, I wouldn't be able to synthesize such a hypothesis, this based on archaelogists, not me. Muntuwandi 23:12, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete. I agree with PelleSmith, a synthesis of original research and doesn't have any reputable arm's-length third-party citations, just sources. Accounting4Taste 23:15, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
What is an arms length third-party citation. I haven't seen that anywhere in wikipedia guidelines. But I have seen reliability and verifiability as wikipedia requirements, which the article currently meets these standards. Muntuwandi 23:19, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete per nom. Is WP:OR. ffm 23:33, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
comment While some may dispute the content of the article, the topic "origin of religion" is a valid topic. Muntuwandi 23:50, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
And if it is it can be recreated in a balanced, NPOV manner citing notable theories of religion's origin.PelleSmith 00:09, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
I noticed the poor grammar as well and have to admit that it initially biased me against the article. Luckily, I fought against my bias and read the entire thing, including examining some of the sources. Ben Hocking (talk|contribs) 14:26, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
comment has anybody even bothered to read the sources. Muntuwandi 01:39, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete - Maybe this is being a bit too picky, but the 2nd sentence isn't a sentence and the 1st reads like the intro to someone's thesis. If it were to stay, it'd need serious work. If the POV is evident from the first sentence, it's hard to take the rest too seriously. Interesting topic? Sure. But, that alone doesn't cut it.--Jonashart 03:29, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
comment. If the grammar is incorrect, that shouldn't be a problem, one can always correct it. Muntuwandi 03:41, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
comment The article development of religion focuses on psychological elements that could have lead to the development of religion. The article makes no mention of middle or upper paleolithic peoples with regards to religion. Neither does it make any mention of primate or animal self-awareness. Consequently it is not a POV fork because the materials are totally different and independent.Muntuwandi 05:29, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep or Merge to Development of religion, without prejudice to recreation, should that article grow too large to accommodate it.  – ornis⚙ 08:57, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete both articles and start from scratch First of all, we need to distinguish carefully between institutionalized religions' own accounts of how they developed - which I believe belongs not in a general article on the origins of religion but in the article son those specific religions - and accounts by scientists. Now, it may be possible to merge both articles to turn it into such an article. However, both articles suffer from two very serious flaws: first, they ignore the considerable debate over what religion is/how to define it; there is no scholarly consensus. Second, se will never, ever have adequate evidence for a scientific theory of how the first religions formed. All we have are speculative models and any article needs to emphasize this. It seems to me that explanations for how religion starts/started all actually are byproducts of specific theories of what religion "is" and i think it would be misleading to frame it any other way. Slrubenstein | Talk 12:58, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
Agree 100% with these assertions but I think the development entry could be significantly re-written to do what you suggest, and in fact it could be renamed as well.PelleSmith 13:22, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
I believe completely separating scientific and religious perspectives presents significant WP:NPOV and WP:POVFORK issues. Best, --Shirahadasha 04:57, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep This article is talking about the earliest origins of religion as well as how it relates to our primate cousins. It does need more sources (especially the Lower Paleolithic bit), but that can be remedied by either finding the sources or removing the unsourced bits. The article it supposedly is a POV fork from is talking about the more modern development of religion. A merge is a possible compromise with this article covering the earlier times and the other article the later. Ben Hocking (talk|contribs) 14:26, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete per PelleSmith. Moreover, the majority of this article is material that was added by Muntuwandi to Religion months ago and rejected by discussion here. This is synthesis of throwaway comments from books and papers on other topics which have very little, if anything, to do with the topic of religion or Muntuwandi's assertions about it. There is no encyclopedic value to the sources as far as religion goes, so there's nothing worth merging. MSJapan 15:27, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Merge then delete - it is clearly a fork of Development of religion; merge anything worth keeping (of which there is more than people here are giving credit for) and then delete the renmants. – Mike.lifeguard | talk 17:12, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
comment I have included some of the sourced information on the talk page Talk:Origin of religion. Muntuwandi 19:24, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
Sources cited
The sources cited include:
Correct me If I am wrong but I believe these are reliable scholars and hence reliable sources. This is not original research because it is their work. Muntuwandi 21:22, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
Taken individually they are reliable sources, but... organizing them as the article does creates a novel synthesis, which is considered Original Research under WP:NOR. Blueboar 00:27, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
but aren't all articles a synthesis of several sources. In fact a good article requires citations from several sources. A synthesis that is original research provides a conclusion, that the individual sources did not arrive at. There is no conclusion in this article.Muntuwandi 02:10, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
development of religon
My understanding is those are different disciplines altogether, for example development of religion states
The development of religion is concerned with a variety of perspectives on the ways in which religions come into being and develop. Broadly speaking, three types of models provide different perspectives on the subject:
  • Models which see religions as social constructions;
  • Models which see religions as progressing toward higher, objective truth;
  • Models which see a particular religion as absolutely true;
There is no mention of what archaeologists have found regarding religion. This is a social science view of religion. The origin of religion deals mainly with information from archeology and evolutionary biology which goes back millions of years. The very first evidence of any sort of behavior that can be directly associated with any form of ritual, spirituality or religion is the intentional burial of the dead by the Neanderthals some 300,000 years ago. No other species on the planet is known to intentionally bury the dead, especially with the addition of grave goods. All this is not present in the development of religion article, and hence this article, origin of religion is actually covering different material. So to say that the origin of religion is a POV fork is incorrect, because they are not covering the same material. POV forks cover the same material as the article that they are forking from and put non-neutral slant on it. Muntuwandi 21:39, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete per PelleSmith. -- Jeff3000 22:47, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete or merge (and rewrite to avoid synthesis) Blueboar 00:27, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete. Too speculative. rossnixon 01:20, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
comment Even evolution is speculative. The speciation of large organism has actually never been observed. Muntuwandi 05:07, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
comment A suggestion, instead of one liners on an editors opinion, I would be greatful if someone could actually pinpoint which section, paragraphs of the article are not neutral, original research or a synthesis. A one-liner without an explanation could be simply an opinion of an editor that is not backed by wikipedia guidelines. Muntuwandi 02:10, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
comment development of religion offers no timeline on religion. Muntuwandi 02:17, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Abstain I abstain. --Flamebait 04:31, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
  • speedy keep, indefensible nomination. "development of religion" is talking about completely unrelated topics in its separate h2 sections and needs to be split anyway. dab (𒁳) 15:37, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep per Dab. "Development of Religion" is concerned with the development of particular religions, not the development of religion in general. Raul654 17:09, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
What do you mean by that? What "particular religions" does it deal with? I don't think that is accurate at all. It doesn't have any good information or theoretical content on "origins," but that doesn't mean that the origins of religion, or proto-religion, doesn't belong in the entry. The creator of this origins entry simply refuses to work with the development entry, and has done so for some time now. How is this material not relevant to the development of religion?PelleSmith 17:15, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete The majority of the references don't seem to mention where Religion comes from, which does seem to support the idea that this article (Or at least most of it) consists of original synthesis. Homestarmy 18:06, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
comment the article origin of religion has better sources than the article Development of religion. the development of religion article only has 6 references.
  • Faces in the Clouds, Stewart Elliot Guthrie, Oxford University Press (1995).
  • http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/anthro/bec/papers/boyer_religious_concepts.htm, Functional Origins of Religious concepts, Pascal Boyer
  • Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought, Pascal Boyer, Basic Books (2001)
  • Robert William Fogel; The Fourth Great Awakening & the Future of Egalitarianism; 2000, University of Chicago Press, ISBN 0-226-25662-6
  • William Strauss and Neil Howe, The Fourth Turning, New York: Broadway Books, 1997.
  • Joseph Tracy, The Great Awakening: A History of the Revival of Religion in the Time of Edwards and Whitefield, 1997, Banner of Truth, ISBN 0-85151-712-9. This is a reprint of the original work published in 1842.
only one subsection Religion as a Byproduct of Evolutionary Psychology out of the whole article has any footnotes. The rest of the article has no footnotes whatsoever.
the article origin of religion has over 28 references, the majority of the articles are available on the web for instant reading. The article has footnotes all through. If there should be any complaints about an article, they should be about the Development of religion article. This article origin of religion,thus cannot be a POV fork of a poorly referenced article. Muntuwandi 18:51, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Synthesis
WP:SYN says Editors often make the mistake of thinking that if A is published by a reliable source, and B is published by a reliable source, then A and B can be joined together in an article to advance position C. However, this would be an example of a new synthesis of published material serving to advance a position, and as such it would constitute original research.[1] "A and B, therefore C" is acceptable only if a reliable source has published this argument in relation to the topic of the article.
There is no section in the article where sources are combined to form a conclusion that the authors of the article did not make. If there is one, please highlight the exact paragraph. Any accusations of original research or synthesis require evidence. Muntuwandi 19:08, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep - There are now a number of published works (not all of which were cited above) precisely on this topic. I also note that "origin" is conceptually quite distinct from "development". I think these two articles should both play out a bit and then be revisited to see if they would benefit from coordinated development or merger. --lquilter 19:20, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
  • UPDATE and COMMENT--to address the concern of Muntawandi's that no one has challanged any of the actual content or given him examples of how the entry is a synthesis I have provided an in depth point by point analysis of Origin of religion available to view and to comment on at Talk:Origin of religion.PelleSmith 00:15, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
Comment. The editor who nominated this article for deletion did it on the basis that this article was a Blatant POV fork of development of religion. However he has not provided any evidence that this article was created as a fork of the Development of religion article. Muntuwandi 06:01, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
the article in its present form is quite horrible, but there can be little doubt the topic is valid. Issues of WP:CFORK with development of religion, prehistoric religion and anthropology of religion need to be addressed, if necessary by merging. This is a difficult job for expert editors, and calls for deletion are not very helpful. The topic is valid, but the article as it stands is crap? The solution is {{cleanup}}, not {{afd}}! dab (𒁳) 07:44, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Merge - looking through it, the article is so weak that it should be merged into the equally weak development of religion. Deletion isn't required for this, the title is valid, but until somebody sits down and does a proper job, it's better to have one weak article on the topic than two. dab (𒁳) 08:03, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Move + Redirect + possible Merge/Redirect: Origin of religion seems dedicated to a single theory whereas Development of religion provides a framework for exploring a number of different competing theories. Therefore:
    1. Development of religion should be treated as a main article for any theory of the origins or development of religion
    2. The article Origin of religion should be moved (renamed) to clearly identify which theory of religion is being described and clearly marked as a sub-article of Development of religion. This will allow readers to assess the importance of this particular theory in the context of all available theories of the origin of religion.
    3. The name Origin of religion should be redirected to Development of religion as origin is merely a stage of development. It is confusing and misleading to have a single theory be associated with a title that identifies a stage in the development of origin, especially when there are multiple theories about the origins of religion. A redirect will also prevent a future attempt to reserve this very general title for a particular theory. I note that Origins of religion (the pluralized name) is already redirected to Development of religion.
    4. No delete: In Development of religion, a brief description of the theory should be included along with some cited material indicating its relative importance among the theories. If no such cited material is available, I would like us to take a wait and see approach - sometimes it takes time for even an expert to get to the library and find the sources.
      • Although the idea of God gene may seem bizarre to some, somatized theories of religon are not new. They were particularly mainstream in the 19th century and much of the 20th. There was a very popular book in the mid 1980's that attempted to explain religion in terms of right/left brain communication. Before that it was common to explain religious experience as a form of epilepsy, schitzophrenia or some other neurological disorder.
      • The various criticisms on the talk page pertain to the quality of the theory itself - even notable and well documented theories have holes big enough to drive trucks through. For years Freud's theory that "religion is a mass neurosis" was quoted by many as near gospel, even though Freud himself acknowledges that religious people have fewer neuroses in the normal medical sense of the word (see "Future of an Illusion, trans. James Strachey, New York: WW Norton, 1961, p. 44).
    5. A merge should be considered unless it would make the development of religion too long or raise WP:UNDUE issues. WP:UNDUE says that marginal theories may be treated in a separate article, so if there is a consensus that this theory is marginal at best, it is probably better to leave a full description of the theory in a separate article (appropriately named after the theory). If a merge is possible, the renamed article should be redirected to development of religion
Egfrank 12:43, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
comment. I think development of religion should focus on how religion progressed from basic ancestral worship to religion as an institution. This article should focus on biological and evolutionary factors. Muntuwandi 23:21, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
The article as it stands does not address biological and evolutionary factors except in the opening paragraph where it refers to a second article on the God gene. Furthermore, the article is titled "Origin of religon", not The role of biology and evolution in the development of religion. Additionally, an article that had that name would have to present several different biological and evolutionary theories and ideally give the reader a framework for evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of those theories relative to one another and relative to non-evolutionary/biological theories. The article doesn't do that either. Best, Egfrank 12:02, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
Much of the criticism is focussed on this article, but I think the Development of religion has no useful information on religion in general. I don't believe the articles should be merged because the "origin of religion" is a valid topic on its own. The materia for the "origin of religion" is going to be significantly less because scientists are still trying to piece together human evolutionary history. Development of religion will have more material because most of the studies deal with present day religions. However, as you mentioned, there are several ways to approach the origin of religion. In this case we should focus on the most objective, that is the human fossil record. Muntuwandi 20:46, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
The wikipedia way (and the academic way) is to include all theories and let the reader decide for themselves which is the most objective/best formulated/etc. Hence the need to address multiple theories. Best, Egfrank 21:20, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete. Synthesis originating on WP as it is now. Pavel Vozenilek 23:32, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete agree with poster... this is a POV fork.  ALKIVAR™ ☢ 03:09, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
comment. Editors are entitled to their own opinions, however no one has provided any evidence that this article is a POV fork of any other article. Muntuwandi 03:57, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
WP:POVFORK states:
POV forks usually arise when two or more contributors disagree about the content of an article or other page, and instead of resolving that disagreement, someone creates another version of the article (or another article on the same subject) to be developed according to their personal views rather than according to consensus. This second article is known as a "POV fork" of the first.
There was never any dispute on the development of religion article regarding this content. So according to this definition "origin of religion" cannot be a POV fork of development of religion because the editor who created this article never edited development of religion before. Muntuwandi 04:25, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Merge. As other people have already noted, some parts could be merged into Development of religion, but the article is a bit too synthetic as it stands. Does not appear to be a POV fork to my eyes, although I can see how this conclusion may have been arrived at; may have been an accidental duplication of effort. A merge would help expand Development of religion to cover this area, which I think falls within its subject matter. The merged material should obviously make sure to avoid synthesis. --tiny plastic Grey Knight ⊖ 13:42, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
Also, could people please try to keep indentation levels tidy? I've taken the liberty of doing some minor neatening so that I can read the page; if I messed up please fix my efforts! --tiny plastic Grey Knight ⊖ 13:42, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
comment I disagree with merging the articles because development of religion has plenty of its own problems. If someone is willing to clean up the development of religion article, then a discussion on merging may be warranted. One of the key differences between the two articles is that development of religion deals with actual religions such as Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Hinduism. The sources for the origin of religion, such as the books cited above, actually make no mention of any specific religion. This is an important distinction between these two articles at the moment. Muntuwandi 16:40, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
We could also merge Origin in before cleaning up, which would be beneficial since the merged-in content would serve as a scaffold for expanding this particular subtopic of Development during cleanup. The two articles may be distinct in their contents at present, but if you read this page you'll note a few people would prefer them not to be; and since this is a wiki, we can effect that change, starting with a content merge. --tiny plastic Grey Knight ⊖ 07:06, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete. Improper content fork based on synthesized original research. Burntsauce 17:03, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
comment. Which information is a synthesis and which is OR.Muntuwandi 03:02, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
all of it. You are quite obviously unable to write an article on any topic whatsoever without turning it into an essay about "out of Africa". Most of your material is perfectly valid, but belongs on completely different articles. dab (𒁳) 07:51, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
You are right that I am interested in 'out of africa'. But this is one of the most important hypothesis of the 20th century and it has implications beyond the theory. I dispute merging the articles for a number of reasons:
  • The main sources cited use the term "origin of religion" and not "development of religion" eg Evolving God: A Provocative View on the Origins of Religion" and The Prehistory of the Mind: The Cognitive Origins of Art, Religion and Science. this article uses the term "origin of faith"[1].
  • the article Development of religion is not well defined and has several problems with it. As I have mentioned earlier it only has 3 footnotes in the whole article. Origin of religion has 28 footnotes. Why is development of religion being treated as like it is good article, when it is possible that it has plenty of OR.
  • None of sources cited in Development of religion are cited in origin of religion and vice-versa meaning these topics as they stand are mutually exclusive.
  • merging is an attempt to water down some of the information that is in this article. As I mentioned earlier, the sources cited make no mention of any particular religion. Development of religion does make mention a number of religions such as judaism, christianity, bahai etc. To mix these up is OR and a WP:SYN because the sources cited have not mixed them up.
My suggestion therefore is to let these two articles run for some time. They can be revisited in the future. Development of religion has had very little activity recently. If editors truly believe that the articles should be merged then someone should clean up development of religion to give an accurate representation of how the topic is studied academically. Muntuwandi 19:27, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
It's been clearly indicated to you on this article's talk page what is wrong with the article, addressing specific issues. What is wrong with your sourcing and approach has been explained to you in relation to no original research, synthesis and reliability on multiple occasions. Please do not put on airs to the contrary. Vassyana 20:49, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
I haven't seen any credible explanation. I think editors are confusing certain issues. It seems that editors are disagreeing with the authors of these studies not with the article. You are entitled to disagree with the author's assertions at a personal level. However one's personal beliefs should not interfere with wikipedia articles. At this stage, nobody has shown any proof that the article contains information that is not found in the sources. We should recall the Wikipedia is not censored (WP:NOTCENSORED).Muntuwandi 22:09, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
WP:MERGE states: If a page is very short and is unlikely to be expanded within a reasonable amount of time, it often makes sense to merge it with a page on a broader topic. For instance, parents or children of a celebrity that are otherwise unremarkable are generally covered in a section of the article on the celebrity, and can be merged there.
This article is not short and likelihood of expansion is high. Especially when scientists begin to find more genes related to religion. Muntuwandi 22:31, 16 October 2007 (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.