Talk:Neo-druidism

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Contents 1 Stonehenge? 2 Odd... 3 Theonyms 4 Splitting out RDNA 5 Capitalisation etc. 6 Request for comments at another article 7 Loyal Arthurian Warband and other groups 8 Druid Orders and subsections 9 The Mother Grove of the Reformed Druids of North America

[edit] Stonehenge?

Stonehenge mentions neo-druidism, but neo-druidism doesn't mention Stonehenge. Dbenbenn 14:29, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I just added a photo. It's supposedly of the "Druidic Brotherhood". I didn't put that in the caption, though, because this particular organization isn't mentioned in the article. Dbenbenn 14:49, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Odd...

I think it a tad fishy that the article begins "Neo-druidism is an attempt to reconstruct the ancient religion", etc. I wonder what other religion articles might begin this way – is Christianity an attempt at being the Church? Is Islam an attempt to submit oneself to God? Will try to think of more NPOV alternatives. QuartierLatin1968 19:13, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Don't waste your time, unless you can find others who find troublesome this language that has been in place thru 49 edits over 3.5 years. You seem to be missing two objective differences between this and your hypothetical horror stories:

• It's not PoV but a fact that Neo-druidism lacks the historical continuity to do anything but attempt to reconstruct. In fact, its adherants are not being dissed; they are being given the credit they deserve for verifiably not making the usual unverifiable and implausible PoV claims of centuries of faithfulness to the Truth that holds the universe together.
• There is also no comparability whatsoever between success or failure at reconstruction on one hand (a matter of conformity with historical events, albeit unknown onces), and on the other to "submit[ing] oneself to God" or to "being the Church" with "the" and a capital C, both of which are about things whose very definitions are inherantly meaningless unless PoV assumptions are granted; distinguishing between doing, and attempting those things is not encyclopedic not bcz of NPoV, but bcz the distinction between them is unworthy of discussion beyond saying that success at them is part of the dogma.

--Jerzy (t) 21:02, 2005 May 5 (UTC)

Okay, I'll concede you the substance of both those points – I guess what bothered me was rather that we were saying Neo-druidism is an attempt to do X, rather than Neo-druidism is something that attempts to do X. The formula Religion = Attempt is what seems screwy to me; I don't at all object to the idea that religions do attempt to do things. Perhaps what would most mollify me would be language to the effect that "Neo-druidism is a religious tendency within Neo-paganism, that attempts to reconstruct...". However, I won't press the issue if I'm the only one who finds the current phrasing odd.

No one is saying that Religion = Attempt. Perhaps it could be better rephrased to say "Neo-druidism a religion which attempts to reconstruct the ancient religion". It's still a religion, even if it falls short to whatever extent of reconstructing the ancient religion.--RLent 21:53, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

(By the bye, there are actually Druid groups around today who claim quite adamantly that the original authentic Druidic tradition never died, it just went into occultation, or was syncretized with Christianity through the Culdees and the Welsh Bards down through Iolo Morgannwg and the various neo-Druid movements we know today. Not my opinion, but there definitely are those who hold it.) QuartierLatin1968 03:07, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

(Further to this "by the by", I would strongly argue that these druid movements in Britain that stem directly from the revival two hundred years ago are Meso-Druids, not Neo-Druids. The biggest difference between them is that neo-druids are pagan, and meso-druids include Christians.) AVR 28 August 2005 09.51 (sorry if I've done this wrong, it's my first time, feel free to delete this, but I needed to put this point across)

[edit] Theonyms

Is the large table needed in the article when it is duplicated at Proto-Celtic theonyms? It is also duped at Celtic polytheism. The theonym page is an orphan adrift in the harsh wiki world and should be united with this article or... Well you know the rest, it is a tragic fate for any article, I will delete the table and make a link to the orphan if nobody objects. MeltBanana 14:32, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Duplication baaaad. Do you feel comfortable splitting the table into its own article, so we can link the three (at least) that use it? Nae'blis 16:25, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Splitting out RDNA

Reformed Druids of North America probably deserves its own page, rather than redirecting back to this one. It would probably make both the RDNA stuff and this page much less cluttered. Straif 18:30, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Capitalisation etc.

I've cleaned up some of the capitalisation inconsistencies, settling on "druid" as it is indeed defined uncapitalised in the dictionary (Chambers, 1988). —Ashley Y 20:59, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Request for comments at another article

• Ben_McBrady If anyone could comment, it would be appreciated. -THB 03:29, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Loyal Arthurian Warband and other groups

Does anyone else think that The Loyal Arthurian Warband are worth mentioning? Also, why does the External Links section only refer to two groups? Surely there should be a broader cross-section of modern Druidry? Note that I have also added a few more links to 'See also'. I believe that the new links are all relevant to the subject (though the list is growing, I hope that it is not too long). abdullahazzam

Speaking fo the links you added--I deleted them in error, and do apologize. I have restored the page to your edit. Justin Eiler 14:45, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Justin. :) /|\ This section may require a little expansion here and there, which I hope you will permit - and check!

I was also going to raise another issue: there is rather a lot of mention of the ADF and RDNA. These are not the only modern Druid Orders. I hope that there is not bias/partialism appearing here (though I certainly accept that these groups be discussed in depth, I just think that maybe there should be more?). abdullahazzam 15:48, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for being so understanding--that will teach me to edit before my second cup of coffee. :) Justin Eiler 14:54, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

The restoration does not appear to have worked. I hope you will permit me to add a few links to some of the sites of other Druid groups. :) abdullahazzam

External links sections can easily spiral out of control. I agree there are more than just ADF and OBOD, but what will our criterion be for inclusion/exclusion? Otherwise we run the risk of being targeted as a link farm. -- nae'blis 17:27, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Link farming is a problem. Having said that, many of the articles I have seen have copious amounts of references, footnotes, external links and suchlike - I have seen one case that had something like 234 footnotes on it. But for an article this size, I don't think that's justifiable.

Maybe a few Irish Orders and some French and Canadian Orders would balance it out a bit further. We can look at the size of the list once it's done. abdullahazzam

[edit] Druid Orders and subsections

I have decided to split the External Links section into different subsections to represent each country. I think this will make things much easier to understand as it will now be possible to scan the links and see which group or bit of info comes from which place. The subsections can include information as well as the Orders themselves. New sections need to be added for Canada and France, as well as more for Ireland and further sections for Scotland and of course Wales. I will attempt to work on this over the coming days. abdullahazzam

With reference to the External Links section, why was the link to my article, "Varieties of 'Druidic' Experience" (http://groups.msn.com/CromansGrove/varieties.msnw) removed? I suppose it does not fit into the links as they have been re-labelled, but it's still of value in making the distinctions between various "Druid" groups plain and helping to explain the often bewildering assortment of these groups and how they can differ so significantly from one another. Croman mac Nessa 11:31, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Mother Grove of the Reformed Druids of North America

Has anyone read this section? It reads like a joke. Seriously, this is the most confused, oblique writing i've ever seen, and i have no idea what it's trying to say.

"Carleton College's requirement that each student participate regularly in religious services was the most focused of the factors occasioning the promulgation of "the Reform"."

Really? what's "the Reform"? Plus, I love the phrase, "the most focused of the factors occasioning the promulgation of..." *Sigh* - if anyone has time who knows the subject matter, it would be nice to see this written better. Torgo (talk) 14:22, 29 March 2008 (UTC)