Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Religious persecution by Christians

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. Sjakkalle (Check!) 10:17, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Religious persecution by Christians

Don't disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point. Created to parallel Religious persecution by Jews and Religious persecution by Muslims, which are both currently on VfD. See those discussions for additional debate.

• Delete. Handle persecution according to the religion of the victims, because it's more salient than the religion of the perpetrating regime. Grouping by persecutors is problematic because their motivations are not necessarily religious (the regime may not have an organized religion) and those responsible may actually be a more diverse body of powerful individuals, both in terms of religious and other interests. --Michael Snow 03:14, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. These are valid themes, and the Religious persecution by Muslims article may survive VfD. Note that incidents by a group may permit events against minor groups to be listed that otherwise would not be covered. OTOH, this is just a stub, and the whole series needs a lot of work. Also, Religious persecution by Jews is not viable at this time since there is not a community of people willing and able to have it be anything other than an anti-semitic rant. Even so, I would keep this one unless all of its "sister" pages are removed. --EMS | Talk 03:36, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
• Comment The persecution of any identifiable group by any other group is valid historical reportage. This article needs Help and a solid effort to edit and expand it. In fact, I may take a crack at this personally, and invite any suggestions and help that you as wikipedians can offer. Certainly attrocities have been commited by almost any identifiable religious group, excused by their own belief in a superior ethic or mandate from a preternatural force. In fact, the lack of this kind of behaviour is so exceptional in human society and civilization, it warrants nay it BEGS a separate article " Major Religious Groups Who Never Persecuted Other People". That would be a tough one to research. Good luck! Hamster Sandwich 03:52, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
• Keep and expand. Wikipedia does not need to succumb to religious whitewashing. Persecutions by religious organizations are very real events in history. --Tokek
• Strong Keep persecution by Christians is a known fact of history. I was surprised this article is so short, as Christians since Constantine I's reign to the present day have persecuted non-Christians in many different forms. Christians have persecuted Pagans, Jews, Muslims, other denominations of Christianity, atheists, and others throughout their almost 2000 year history. Revolución 04:54, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
• I was reading about Christian warmongering in Lithuania just yesterday. Keep, in the hope that somebody with knowledge and effort will do a much-needed revision. -- Hoary 08:26, July 21, 2005 (UTC)
• Vote Pending VFD on Religious persecution by Muslims and Religious persecution by Jews - This was not created as some sort of Point, and it did should not be seen as such. It was created to be part of a series, and not to disrupt. I was relying on others to chip in, but barely anyone helped. --Irishpunktom\^talk 10:28, July 21, 2005 (UTC)
• Keep Historically relevant. --malathion ^talk 11:56, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
• Keep for all the whinging Christians do about being poor and oppressed they are surprisingly good at oppressing those who aren't infected with their virus. Dunc|☺ 13:01, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. It's just going to need some incredible effort to keep it neutral. --Several Times 14:38, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
• Delete incorrect usage of religious persecution, content is more properly dealt with by other articles. Axon (talk|contribs) 15:34, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
• Keep as very important, though difficult, historical topic, already touched upon by article Coercion. --Mario 16:24, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. This is perhaps a noble idea, but these articles are already POV OR disasters. WP editors have enough problems dealing with prickly subjects as it is, without making up new ones. Any religious persecution by or of religious groups should be discussed in the articles that concern each religious group. Making up this series does not serve any purpose I can see, except to stir up animosities. If this series is kept, I foresee recriminations and accusations and the like leading to a dozen RfArs within a month. Tomer ^TALK 16:50, July 21, 2005 (UTC)
• Keep and rename. This has potential, I think... Thorns Among Our Leaves 16:59, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
• Keep it will take vigilance to keep NPOV, but a worthy subject. Themindset 17:07, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
• 'keep this please it is relevent Yuckfoo 17:55, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
• Keep- not only is it a well-recognised historical subject, it is extensive, and therefore merits documentation. Must be kept non-POV, however. Jdhowens90 18:04, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
• Keep although comments about the vigilance needed to maintain NPOV are quite true. ~ WCFrancis 18:11, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
• Strong Keep, just like its two partners. If you have a problem with its current state, fix it. Shem^(talk) 18:15, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
• Delete, along with the other "Religious persecution by x" articles, all of which appear to be anti-religious editorial rants rather than being encyclopedic. --MPerel ^{( talk | contrib)} 00:55, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
• Merge all three (Religious persecution by Christians, Religious persecution by Muslims, Religious persecution by Jews) into a single article titled Faith-based persecution. -- BD2412 ^talk 01:02, July 22, 2005 (UTC)
  • • Agree Strongly with BD2412 on this issue. I will make no further contributions to these related article until such time as they are merged. I suggest only editors that can retain a non-perjoritive stance be allowed to work on this material. Hamster Sandwich 02:23, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
• Keep Like I said on the other votes, if we keep one and delete another it would ruin the whole point of the series and make Wikipedia look extremely biased.Heraclius 02:12, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
• Delete, same reason I gave for deleting Religious persecution by Jews and Religious persecution by Muslims: Allowing separate articles singling out persecutions by different groups is POV. Kaibabsquirrel 02:22, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. Encyclopedic, not disruptive (we have similar articles for other religions), ergo no real reason to delete. Almafeta 02:33, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
• Keep all three. ElBenevolente 02:47, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
• Strong Keep as with "Persecution by Muslims" and "Persecution by Jews." I make this vote a strong one because I have been persecuted by Christians, and understand the need for dispassionate discussion of this topic. Xoloz 04:29, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
• Strong Delete all three, the template, and everything else related to this project. It's just a bad idea, destined to piss off everyone at the same time. In wiki articles describing specific, documented historical events, I would support having a "religion X persecuted group Y" kind of analysis. But trying to create a general "people persecuted by religion X" topic is the wrong way of doing it, and extending it to all religions and atheism, while it may seem neutral in theory, will only serve to attract the ire of everyone at once. This topic will turn into an endless edit-war and flame-war, with each side claiming to be absolutely right and the only one backed by historical evidence; a little like what happened with the Armenian Genocide page. Furthermore, like Michael Snow pointed out, making a "persecution by religion X" topic implies that religion X is a harmonious monolithic group with a single clear agenda; there is no religion on Earth for which that is true. Trying to group all actions of all sects and sub-groups of religion X over millenia under a single "things done by religion X" topic is a gross oversimplification of a very complex situation. Ritchy 22 July 2005
• Strong keep -- despite what other pro-delete people have said about POV and edit-wars, if W~paedia is seen as biased, especially towards a "Christians can do no wrong" line, then there will be edit-wars on every page, by those who know Christian sinners. Keep and then audit it weekly to remove the cruft, spam, and hate-mail. Sooner or later things will settle down and it will give somewhere for the nuts (and the people who create series of articles about hoax NFL teams) to hand out--SockpuppetSamuelson 07:29, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
• Delete (forgot to sign) crazyeddie 17:43, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
• Keep Incognito 17:04, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. Religious persecution by Christians is a legitimate subject. Besides, as a proponent of Christian beliefs I believe this article will prove that the scriptural evidence in favour of persecuting non-Christians is slim and contradictory to main Christian tenets.--Germen 11:08, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. - Dv 15:01, July 22, 2005 (UTC)
• #REDIRECT all these Persecution by . . . articles to homo homini lupus est or delete them all. Persecution is by necessity an action by the powerful against the powerless, and while religion may sometimes provide a reason, it just as often provides an excuse, and equally often has nothing to do with anything. Delete them all. —Charles P. (Mirv) 19:20, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
• Delete together with Religious persecution by Muslims and Religious persecution by Jews, as unsalvageable POV magnet. These topics could in principle be valid, if not entirely encyclopedic, subjects for articles, but realistically we all know they'll become a permanent hotbed of POV feuds and requests for comment. But they should really get voted on as a group rather than individually; having some "persecution by" articles survive but not others would be scandalous. - Mustafaa 23:51, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
• Delete, unless substantially revised with historiographical citations. El_C 07:26, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. These "religious persecution by" articles are only going to turn into POV fests.LokiCT 02:07, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. As noted, it's clearer when handled under the oppressed party, and is highly prone to POV insertion. Also, it's a bit ad hominem. While a whole group may be persecuted, it is hardly ever the case that a whole group is persecuting. Same for all "persecution by" articles. --DNicholls 02:16, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
• Strong Keep Though controversial, it's a necessary article, and could be quite informative if expanded, and watched closely for POV. Volatile 02:19, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
• Delete : As I voted delete for the article about jews. This kind of article will add nothing to wikipedia but POV debates and trolling.--Revas 02:31, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
• Delete and delete the others in the series. These will be magnets for POV (as Mustafaa said), but that is not the only reason to delete. The real issue here is the precision of the term - "Religious persecution by ____" does that mean persecution by members of that religion against anyone? By the religion itself (and under what interpretations)? By any member of the religion against another religion as a whole? Is all of history covered? Is nationalistic persecution the same thing? Would the Jedwabne massacre be religious persecution by Christians against Jews, or a case of anti-semitism? Would Baruch Goldstein's murderous rampage be religious persecution by Jews against Muslims? Are the July 23, 2005, Sharm el-Sheikh attacks persecution by radical Islamists against non-Muslims? The articles do not have a clear definition, and are likely to be POV disasters that are not informative. --Goodoldpolonius2 02:40, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
• Delete POV and vandal magnet. JamesBurns 02:54, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, for precisely same reasons I've supported keeping the other articles in this series. Babajobu 10:55, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
• Keep all articles on persecution by and of particular groups as long as they are factually accurate and verified. The desire not to offend any groups shouldn't stop us from deleting these. The fact that we can have articles on "taboo" and otherwise censored topics is one of the things that makes Wikipedia great. Note: This exact same vote has been made at all similar deletion pages. AndyCapp 17:48, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, controversial, but important historical topic Salsb 00:05, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
• Keep -asx- 05:54, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. No idea why this and the other articles were listed for deletion. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 03:49, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
• Delete - this should be dealt with by Religious persecution by Roman Catholics, or by Quakers or whatever group... as SlimVirgin said on the Muslim one up for deletion it's a POV magnet. I would have no problem if this was a disambig page called Religious persecution by Christian groups that linked to persecution by sects, that seems reasonable. gren 16:20, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. POV magnet. --Vsion 04:15, 27 July 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.