Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Theistic rationalism

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 Keep. JERRY ^talk _contribs 22:40, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Theistic rationalism

Theistic rationalism (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

The creator admits to creating this article after reading the term on Facebook. They googled it, found one source containing original research, then put this article up. The only source for this article reads, "which might be called theistic rationalism". Delete, per WP:OR. Zenwhat (talk) 10:01, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

• Delete per nom. Not an established philosophical term; the only source cited treats the term as a nonce-word. Tevildo (talk) 20:00, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
• Keep, it has 227,000 Google hits, well beyond the "one blog" rationale cited. One can find at least one book which discuss the topic. — Trust not the Penguin (T | C) 20:13, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

  Comment - The first few pages of Ghits seem to be from right-wing blogs citing the essay that's referenced in the article already... Tevildo (talk) 20:39, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

  Comment The Penguin seems to be misusing search engines. Hits by themselves can't determine the factual content of the term. See WP:GOOGLE. Zenwhat (talk) 21:11, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

  Which is why I added the book link as an example. Read the whole comment, not just the part you disagree with. — Trust not the Penguin (T | C) 22:37, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

  The book is WP:OR also. "Rick James" is not a professional reviewer, just a guy that signed up for Amazon.com. You can do it too. He uses the term "rationalistic" as an adjective to describe an original thesis on theism. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 22:48, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

  That would make the review OR, not the book, which a term you're misapplying in either case. OR applies to editors, not outside reviews. Those are considered unreliable, which is different. If you do not understand these terms, then please do not use them. — Trust not the Penguin (T | C) 22:57, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

  Comment.' The "227,000" hits is from a Google search without quotes, i.e, a search for both words wherever they appear in a webpage. If you search for the phrase "theistic rationalism" there are only 668 hits, but there are 36 hits for the phrase under Google books. I have not attempted to analyze those hits. —Preceding unsigned comment added by FarleyKatz (talk • contribs) 03:50, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

  Good point, but by using "ism" alone, you automatically reduce possible hits where there would be helpful ones. Still, the article has sources now, so it's a bit of a moot point. — Trust not the Penguin (T | C) 03:56, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

• Delete. Without even reading the article, I can picture what the concept is. As a matter of fact, now that I've heard the term, I might use it to refer to my own beliefs, but in Wikipedia terms that would be OR. The real question is, are there enough people talking about theistic rationalism to warrant an article? Is there even a standardized definition for that? Right now, I have to say no, but I have no prejudice against a future recreation of the article should the theologians agree on a definition. As far as the article itself goes, it is too vague to stay. --Blanchardb-^{Me•MyEars•MyMouth}-timed 20:55, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

  Comment I love when deletion rationales start with "Without even reading the article..." Sarsaparilla (talk) 13:42, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

• Delete - Per Blanchardb. Brusegadi (talk) 02:28, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
• Keep I've expanded the article, added references, and formatted it appropriately. It could still stand to be expanded further, as it remains a stub, but I believe it now meets our requirements for inclusion. The concern over WP:OR has been addressed with the citation of two books on theology which discuss Theistic rationalism specifically, as well as two other articles. Theistic rationalism now meets our requirements of verifiability, it is written in a neutral manner, and it does not contain any original research (all claims are reliably sourced). Check, check, and check: keep. - auburnpilot talk 04:56, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

  auburnpilot, the two links you added still appear to be WP:OR. Whether or not a certain belief system is "rational" is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. That's why a person can simply glance at the title and see it's inappropriate. With that said, I would support a redirect to Deism, since that's what the sources appear to be referring to. The claim that there is "Theistic rationalism" apart from Deism appears to be original research. From the article on Deism:

  Deism is a religious philosophy and movement that derives the existence and nature of God from reason and personal experience.

  ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 07:27, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

  As has already been explained to you, WP:OR does not apply to sources. It is a policy prohibiting editors at Wikipedia from injecting their own personal knowledge/experiences as fact. WP:OR prohibits unpublished facts; these are published. Please, I beg you, actually read policies and guidelines before referencing them. I have yet to see you apply a policy correctly. - auburnpilot talk 13:16, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

  auburnpilot, WP:OR indirectly applies to sources if editors are gathering them to support original research. I.E., I could find all kinds of reliable, verifiable sources to support your beliefs that Christianity is evil, that Minarchism or Market Anarchism is feasible, and that Ron Paul is a viable political candidate. That wouldn't, however, reflect the mainstream and would thus violate WP:FRINGE. As an administrator, I hope you are aware of this. Per WP:NPOV, if there are more reliable sources that make one claim as opposed to another, the former claim should be upheld and the latter claim should not even be mentioned unless there are enough sources to support it to make there be a notable dispute. You can't "fish for sources" in order to push a particular POV. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 03:19, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

  No, it does not. You think it does, but you also think SPA applies to long term editors, and you're no more right there than you are here. The fact remains that the sources provided are reliable, and you've said nothing that proves otherwise. All you're doing is attacking auburnpilot for making an effort, while making no effort of your own. — Trust not the Penguin (T | C) 03:36, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

• Delete per WP:NEO. - Headwes (talk) 04:42, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
• Merge with Deism per Zenwhat. Thanks to auburnpilot for expanding the article, but the additional references don't seem to assert the _independent_ notability of the term; it seems to be mainly used for the religious beliefs of Madison, Jefferson, et al, rather than in any more generic sense. This is a similar situation to the distinction (or lack of the same) between Theistic evolution and Evolutionary creationism; two different terms as a matter of language which once had separate articles, but are now regarded as insufficiently distinct in practice. Tevildo (talk) 08:23, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

  I probably could be convinced this topic isn't notable enough to merit its own article, and a merge and redirect may be the best alternative. - auburnpilot talk 13:24, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

• Keep Article includes several references, so not sure what the problem is here. AFD isn't for cleanup. Article needs improvement and expansion, not to be deleted. Nobody of Consequence (talk) 01:04, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
• Keep Adequate sourcing. It certainly describes Jefferson, and possibly the others mentioned. DGG (talk) 22:10, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

AuburnPilot, did you read any of the sources you used?

About the adequate sourcing:

• The Claremont Institute Similarly, while Franklin and Jefferson are regularly listed as deists, they did not believe in the fundamental tenets of deism. The key founders shared a common belief which might be called theistic rationalism. The first sentence acknowledges this is a fringe assertion. The second sentence is speculatory.
• Systematic Theology by Henry Clarence Thiessen. In the beginning of the book, it states that it's a theology text written in 1949 and re-published in 1979, used in theology courses. That's a little bit old and, considering the culture of America during the 50's, 60's, and 70's, I think we can safely say that theology texts back then were probably pretty poor. Today, this text doesn't seem to be used by any universities, though it is occasionally cited in academic journals and sold on lots of Christian websites.

The text isn't on page 17 (what Auburn's using) isn't available on Google (though you can get some of it through creative searches for certain sentences), so unless he owns this book, this source hasn't been verified and his actions violate WP:GOOGLE. I did some digging on Google and from what I've gathered, the text reads:

During the course of history there have appeared three types of rationalism: atheistic, pantheistic, and theistic. Atheistic rationalism appeared first in the early Greek philosophers: Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Empedocles, Heraclitus, Leucippus, and Democritus." Pantheistic rationalism is represented in Anaxagoras and the Stoics, and theistic rationalism ... (can't get anymore of the text than that)

Despite the book's usage, the idea that rationalism ought to be divided along religious grounds is clearly speculatory. Many of those listed as "atheistic" rationalists were themselves pantheists. My own college textbooks on philosophy and logic do not mention such a division. Neither does Wikipedia's article on Rationalism and though Wikipedia can't be used to source itself, it is something sometimes worth considering during verification.

• George W. Bush's biography - Biographies are often suspect, particularly political ones. See the Oprah controversy a while back and also criticism of George Tenet's biography. Biographies are generally quasi-fictional, in that they'll be lazy with the facts in order to paint a particular story.

On page 25, it notes that George Washington and the Founding Fathers were Deists. It then says, "Perhaps a better for label for what Washington and other like-minded founders believed is theistic rationalism." Again, clearly speculatory.

Now, the last source: It's a self-published column by Gary Smith on an advocacy group's website. The sentence cited:

I conclude therefore that Washington’s faith is better explained by the label “theistic rationalism” than by deism, Unitarianism, or Christianity.

That's Gary Smith's opinion and it may be true, but it isn't a verifiable fact and his assertions there again suggest that "theistic rationalism" isn't a widely-used term. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 05:34, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not going to read through everything you've written above, but I have read the sources and I haven't misquoted anything. The book is available for you to verify if you'd like, but do not remove sources from this article, simply because you cannot very its contents through a google search. That is unacceptable. - auburnpilot talk 05:39, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

We are not trying to decide what was jefferson's religion and what the best name for it would be. We are trying to decide if the name of a very broad religious movement definition actually has been applied to real people in academic works, and is thus notable. Quite a number of religious movements could -- and do -- claim these figures as representatives. The neocons even consider them all protestant Christians, as I understand it. DGG (talk) 05:48, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

DGG, the existence of a term in academic works does not imply notability. Many academic sources still contain fringe theories. As noted above, 1 of the 4 sources above contains a contentious claim about rationalism, the other 3 are self-admittedly speculatory! ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 06:04, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Comment. You guys should put substantive discussion about content on the article talk page, then point out improvements related to deletion criteria here. The talk page is empty. Tparameter (talk) 17:00, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

• Comment. Yes, but the above discussion isn't about the content of the article, it's about the notability of the term, which is relevant to AfD. Is it more than just a right-wing euphemism for "deism"? If not, it should go. Tevildo (talk) 20:08, 19 January 2008 (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.