Talk:Raëlism

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Contents

[edit] The material of this article was originally from Raëlian Church

The awards have been moved to this talk page.◙◙◙ I M Kmarinas86 U O 2¢ ◙◙◙ 19:48, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

The material orginally on this article has been moved to Raëlian beliefs and practices.◙◙◙ I M Kmarinas86 U O 2¢ ◙◙◙ 19:51, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] General

I note that the term "the prophet Rael" is used. isn't that a bit a non neutral viewpoint?

Orphan redirects for Google: Claude Vorilhon, Raelian revolution, Rael, Raelian religion, raelite, raelites

Seems like there are a lot of "references" for so short an article on an obscure subject. Looks more like proselytizing to me. maveric149

But links are no content, they are more of a hint for discussion. Links are dealing with (web)space in a very parsimonial manner, so there could be place for displaying controversial information in it's original ocurrence in this way. With an object being "obscure" that doesn't mean it's unimportant. And, I would say, in the age of and in terms of information nothing is unimportant. But as a Raelian I would like to invite others, maybe more objective non-Raelians, to participate in the "so short an article" to make it more complete. Love and Harmony, A Raelian

I don't know if having so many external links is "proselytizing", but I think there are too many, with too little explanation of why each is important. Therefore, I'm moving all but to rael.org link here for the moment:

--Ryguasu

"The group says it has about 55.000 members." ... Who says this? It is a statement made by a chosen representative, I presume... This implies that Raelians have some large-scale organization and leadership. It would be nice to have a description of this organization.

Well It's listed on the offical dutch site. Also, there are 84 country's listed there. I changed the page so that the reduced numbers are shown. 60k people -> 55k and 100 country's -> 84.--Soyweiser 12:00, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

I think a redirect page should be made entitled "Raelian Movement" so that a search for it will take one to the Raelism page. Personally I don't know how to do that.

Just make a link and insert #REDIRECT [[Raelism]] in it. --mav

I was going to whip up an article on the Raelians a couple months ago, but never quite got around to it, so take note: if you want to speed up your group's entry in Wikipedia, throw a press conference and claim to have cloned a human. -- Stephen Gilbert 13:37 Dec 28, 2002 (UTC)

Do you think it's NPOV to call it a cult in the first line? - Montréalais

Read the article cult. The word isn't intended to be disparaging but descriptive. If any religious movement were a cult it would be one like this. Heck even Christianity started off as a cult (read: tight-knit minority movement centered around a given personality or idea). --mav

Removed paragraph:

Modern psychology however, finds that this is not valid, and more truthfully, human psychological development is nearly entirely based on the environment in which that person has grown up in. This is the (nature versus nurture) discussion. Hence, a clone of Napoleon Bonaparte's cells, may grow up look almost exacly like the Napoleon Bonaparte of antiquity, but in evey other way remain a unique individual, with individual rights to be respected.

In spite of not being about the topic of this article the above claim is a debatable at best since many reasonable and highly intelligent people both in and out of psychology and genetics hotly debate this very topic (ever heard of the separated-at-birth-twin studies?). We already have an article on nature vs nurture so lets just leave it at that. --mav

Ahem. ok. sure. I do agree with the off-topic part, and added some similar material to the NVN article about five mins after I did this one, with a bit more balance that only comes with detail. As for topics still hotly debated, I might suggest that debate can be a means and an end in itself. On another off topic, How do you do it mav? there must be three of you. --Sv

Yes - all clones. ;) --mav
}=~~ understood. -Sv
The Raëlians are known for their support of technological advancements like genetic manipulation in order to 'improve the usefulness and beauty of life, the Internet, and nanotechnology'. As Rael said on CNN Q&A May 16, 2002, "Science should be free".[1]

Removed. This doesn't flow with my current revision, and it doesn't seem to add much either. --Ryguasu 08:39 Jan 3, 2003 (UTC)

Agreed, Raelians (ignoring the umlaut) seem to be known more for their showmanship. This could be reintroduced as an undoctored quote, however. ---Sv

Just to be picky and to get it into this talk page where it might be useful, those two dots above the e are called dieresis, not umlaut. The typography is the same, but in German, the umlaut marks a different pronunciation of the vowels a and u, while in English and French, the dieresis separates two consecutive vowels into separate syllables. Ortolan88 20:18 Jan 7, 2003 (UTC)

I'm removing my addition here. I thought the Raelians took cloning Jesus as requiring no more than Jesus' DNA, but the new addition to the article seems to suggest it also requires a "mind transfer" of some sort, in which case this isn't really relevant:

The third option seems not to require a mind transfer, and therefore might seem more feasible. Without a mind transfer, however, it is far from certain that, even if a clone could be constructed out of, say, Jesus' DNA, that it would actually grow up to be Jesus. This seems to be based on an assumption that each person's development is determined almost entirely by genetics, with very little influence from the environment. See nature versus nurture

--Ryguasu

On second thought, I'd like a clarification. Someone has recently added the idea that the Raelians would need to find a "recording" of the minds of Hitler or Jesus in order to be able to reincarnate either of them. Could someone please clarify where this information came from? I think it is important to clarify whether the Raelians think this "recording" lies inside or outside the DNA, and, if outside, where it lies. This matters, because it determines which scientific objections are relevant. (For example, if the claim is that the "mind recording" lies outside the DNA, then the "nature vs. nurture" objections don't really apply; they're dealt with by a sort of "mind transplant".)

Perhaps the argument is this: you need both DNA copying and a mind transfer in order to either clone or resurrect anyone.

--Ryguasu

Removed:

  • Outside of Raelian thought, the second and third options are currently seen as in the realm of science fiction, not science. In the philosophy of mind, there is disagreement about whether or not mind transfer is possible in principle. If this does turn out feasible, it can be questioned on moral grounds, because it seems to require "erasing" the mind or soul of the clone in order to provide a host body to extend the life of the mind or soul of the parent.

If its "outside of Raelian thought", does it belong here? no. disagreement about ideas that are unpopular is one thing. This is a supposed disagreement about an idea that is not even possible, currently, or even has a casually outlined basis for its reality, and as such is fiction, which is not within the context of a factual article about Raelians. ---Sv

ps. Rygu, doesnt some of this require a disclaimer above it at least? under the subheading of claims by raelians this might be a way to separte the factual aspects from the fictional ones. just a simple cut down the middle, reality/fantasy --Sv

Sv, I think we should distinguish between two sorts of claim:

  1. As the Raelians have pointed out, mind transfer is just around the corner.
  2. The Raelians believe that mind transfer is not only in principle possible but something that humans will eventually achieve.

The first, which implies that mind transfer is a generally accepted idea, is absolutely silly.

The second, however, is what I see as a NPOV statement about what Raelians believe. Furthermore, I think that, in light of it, it is quite reasonable to include a paragraph comparing this to other schools of thought's views on mind transfer. Perspectives from religion would of course be welcome, but the only perspectives I am familiar enough with come from western philosophy and science fiction. Do you object to this?

As for separating generally accepted facts from particular beliefs, I agree that this is worthwhile. But note that most of the fact vs. fiction issues arise in connection to Clonaid, and are discussed in its article. The point of this article is to explicate Raelian belief. Unless these beliefs are being presented as generally accepted facts, I don't see the problem.

Finally, even though I do not take Raelian ideas very seriously, I think you are unnecessarily insulting them by calling them "fiction". I'm sure you wouldn't get away with such behavior on the talk page for, say, Christianity.

--Ryguasu

The current article conflates "cloning" and "mind transfer" which are two completely different things. (I'm about to change that.) Is this confusion because Raelians also fail to adequately distinguish between them? (That is, when a Raelian says the goal is to "clone", does he really mean the goal is to "clone and memory/brain/body transfer"? If so, we should explicitly state that what Raelians mean when they use the word clone is not what the rest of the world means. Also, if the Raelians believe that using a cloned body will lessen the chances of "rejection" of a mind-transfer, that should stay in and we should say it's their belief: but if it's just someone's theory about why Raelians might prefer to use a cloned body, we should get rid of it. -- Someone else 22:41 Jan 9, 2003 (UTC)

This is a vital distinction to make, and I'm glad you're on top of this. All the same, I think your creation of two separate headings here was a little excessive. I'm rewriting it again under one heading, but with new emphasis on the distinction; let me know what you think.
In any case, I think it is the case that Raelians fail to distinguish between biological "cloning" and science fiction-like "cloning". You can hardly say that they are alone in this, however; the general public has some crazy idea of what "human cloning" is all about. I think this is ultimately to be blamed less on the public than on the scientists who named their technique "cloning"; taking a word from science fiction to label a new science probably can't help but stir up confusion for years. (I assume that the biological term didn't come first, though I'd love to hear more about this.)
I am removing the following, because they seem confusing, in retrospect:
They believe that transfering the mind to a clone, as opposed to a random human body, will reduce the new body's chance of "rejecting" the mind.
(I don't know who inserted this.)
(The possibility for rejection is presumably seen to exist due to analogy with the way bodies sometimes reject transplated organs - the actual scientific speculations on the likelihood and limits of this technique are discussed in the article on human cloning - at best it seems like a long term goal).
(I originally inserted this. I think the analogy with organs is the only way to make sense of the Raelian program. But that's my argument, not theirs.)
I also inserted talk of "whole-body transplants" not to imply that the Raelians use this terminology, but to invoke terminology others have used for discussing the same issues. I think this particular phrase may be due to Daniel Dennett.
--Ryguasu

Your way of clarifying without new headings looks fine. I would suggest that if Raelians don't use the term "whole-body transplant" that it too should leave their article. (As far as I can tell they have never publicly stated their beliefs about exactly how one would "download" a mind from one body to another. If they say "mind transfer" we should use that - you could put a link to whole-body transplant as a "see also" or something.) BTW, the word "clone", I think, was scientific first, science fiction later: the first citation in the OED is 1903 and relates to plants. Maybe science fiction was the first to apply it to humans?? Or they went back and forth expanding the meaning... -- Someone else 01:39 Jan 10, 2003 (UTC)

Whatever process the Raelians envision for immortality assumes that a mind must be transferred rather than copied.

Wait a minute! Someone else, are you sure this is what the Raelians think? Keep in mind that I myself (and I am most certainly not a Raelian) may have inserted the phrase "mind transfer". Now that you make the distinction, I realize that I have no idea if the Raelian view is based on copy or transfer. Does anyone? --Ryguasu

Well, making endless copies of a thing is not the same as that thing having eternal life. I think they are rather clearly aiming at the latter. If anyone can find a more explicit statement, more power to 'em! -- Someone else 05:57 Jan 11, 2003 (UTC)
That's an excellent point. I just hope our efforts (mine included) to reverse-engineer what the Raelians believe are not too misguided. It would be odd if the world's most coherent statement of Raelian beliefs ended up being here on Wikipedia, having been written, to a large extent, by people that do not share these beliefs at all. --Ryguasu 06:19 Jan 11, 2003 (UTC)
Indeed<G>. -- Someone else

A slight inconsistency: this article uses "mind transfer" to mean only non-surgical processes. The article mind transfer uses the phrase to mean non-surgical and surgical processes. I have no opinions about which is more "correct". Just seems a little odd. --Ryguasu 06:41 Jan 12, 2003 (UTC)

BFB, I object to your removing speculation about how the person's mind/brain could be transferred into the clone. People are very curious about how this might work, and, even if the Raelians don't advocate a particular, concrete technique (I don't think they do, although I'm not too sure), Wikipedia should provide some kind of explanation. At very least, this is necessary for the reader to assess whether or not the group is "out to lunch". Now perhaps you object to having such an explanation on this particular page. I don't find it troublesome, but perhaps you could suggest another page where we could move the explanation, and which we could link to? --Ryguasu 21:47 Apr 23, 2003 (UTC)

Hi Ryguasu. I reviewed my edits, and I'm not sure exactly what part you are objecting to. Reading the Raelian website makes it clear that they believe they can *somehow* transfer the mind from the old physical brain to the new physical brain, and not that they take the old physical brain and put it in the new physical body. They don't say how they plan on doing this "mind transfer", and I think speculation here is in order. What I was trying to remove is the stuff that speculated they were going to swap physical brains, because they are pretty clear that isn't what they are up to. -º¡º
I guess I didn't understand the purpose of your edit; now things make more sense. So people had got carried away misinterpreting the Raelians. To prevent further confusion, as well as for general edification purposes, it might be worthwhile leaving a link to full-body transplant, and indicating that this is not what the Raelians have in mind. I guess we agree that some speculation about what the Raelians actually could (or perhaps should) have in mind is in order. --Ryguasu 22:32 Apr 23, 2003 (UTC)
Sounds fine to me. All I was trying to do was interpret what I read on their web page into the article. -º¡º

[edit] The science fiction link

Critics of Raelism may be interested in this episode [Wink of an Eye] from the late 1960s Star Trek television series. It has themes along the lines of Raelism, and has an alien character called Rael. —Crusadeonilliteracy 20:47, 15 June 2003 (UTC)

It's also interesting to note that the name "Rael" appears in the juvenile science fiction novel Escape to Witch Mountain, by Alexander Key (Westminster Press, Philadelphia, 1968 -- ISBN 0-664-32417-7). The character in the novel is a kind of patriarch or leader of a group of extraterrestrial refugees. It may not be coincidental that Claude Vorilhon reinvented himself as "Raël" within five years after the novel was published. The book was published in the same year that the aforementioned Star Trek episode was aired. —QuicksilverT @ 03:54, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
Interesting indeed, but there's a catch to this association. Source: http://www.memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/France
“ Star Trek: The Original Series didn't air on french televisions until 1982. Only 13 episodes were, at the time, diffused on TF1 (the first french television channel) : "Catspaw" (01/02/1982), "Assignment: Earth" (01/09/1982), "The Deadly Years" (01/16/1982), "The Immunity Syndrome" (01/23/1982), "Tomorrow is Yesterday" (01/30/1982), "Wink of an Eye" (02/06/1982), "The City on the Edge of Forever" (02/13/1982), "Whom Gods Destroy" (02/20/1982), "The Mark of Gideon" (02/27/1982), "Errand of Mercy" (03/06/1982), "The Doomsday Machine" (03/13/1982), "The Lights of Zetar" (03/20/1982), "The Tholian Web" (12/26/1982). The 66 other episodes aired finally in 1986 on the channel La 5. TOS was the only Star Trek series to air on the french hertzian televisions. TNG aired finally on the cable and satellite channel Canal Jimmy since 1996, followed by DS9 in 1998, VOY in 1998 (season 1 to 4 only) and ENT in 2004.

This late (even after the Star Wars phenomenon) and relative confidential diffusion lead to a complete ignorance and a bad reputation about Star Trek from the french people. But the arrival of DVD since 2002 and the new channels introduced by digital terrestrial television (2005) seem to make evolve the minds and knowledge about the franchise.

 ”
The 25th anniversary of Wink of a Eye (in France) appears on Februrary 6, 2007. Mark those dates! ;) Kmarinas86 06:20, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
Well, just to play devil's advocate (since while I think these two bits are noteworthy, and perhaps worth entering into the entry on Raël the individual, just not here), the VCR was certainly available at the time the show originally aired. While I would certainly consider it a leap of faith (perhaps even a blind one) for a critic to infer that this means that the episode was likely inspiration, it certainly isn't impossible. --Human.v2.0 03:41, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Rm *Human Rights Without Frontiers (HRWF) because the link does not work any more Anthère 00:05, 4 Nov 2003 (UTC)

This works: [2] hence I'm reinserting that link. --FvdP 21:14, 12 Nov 2003 (UTC)


If I may dare...the sentence "Many people consider the Raelians to be a cult." is a bit...short... in terms of NPOVing. After all, french speaking people have only been fighting for 4 months now, precisely on that sentence :-)

Anthère 12:00, 12 Nov 2003 (UTC)

So wait, if I understand this correctly, these people worship aliens? -jsonitsac

if this is what you understand after reading the page, then it is likely the page is crap :-)
lol, no, I was half asleep when I first read this. i think i understand more of it with a mind working on all 4 cylinders.  ;) -jsonitsac

[edit] Wikipedia editors are biased

I suggested to add more descriptive information on Raelism and it was removed by the editors. Moreover, there is statement in there now which is totally false and discriminatory about Elohim wanting to kill Woodrow Wilson and Tom Cruise ? Where do they get that from??? And how could it be allowed in in the first place. I tried several time to remove it and the editor refused. This is incredible and totally unacceptable. And they claim Wikipedia is neutral ! What a joke and what a shame for Wikipedia.

Andre Julien

A few editors are indeed biased, and sometimes it's a fight between you and them. That's indeed a problem that occurs on Wikipedia, but not always and not everywhere. The sad thing about strange and minoritary cults like Raelism, is how easily people get into believing they must be bad and accept too easily the worst statements about them and get inobjective about it. So, the biased editors are easily a majority on such an article... Now, there is a special page ("Edit conflicts" ? I don't remember) where you can put your problem here forward to the community. Me, I haven't looked at this article for a long time, I'll give a try. --FvdP 18:21, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Possibly you should put your extra stuff in with checkable references, so it doesn't look like weird stuff someone's just throwing in for the sake of it - David Gerard 18:27, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
But, ditto for you when you reintroduce the sentence about the attempts at murdering Stalin & others. I could not find any serious reference on this on the web. Only this old message (already deleted) on a web forum (thanks to Google's cache for keeping it). You'll notice a significant similitude with the wording of the article's sentence:
According to Vorilhon a message of the human origin was dictated to him in December 1973 in personal meetings with a 25,000 year old extraterrestrial who came in a UFO. The story goes that after terraforming of Earth, aliens (the "Elohim") created humans via DNA manipulation. The Elohim have planned many times to murder such political leaders as Joseph Stalin, Woodrow Wilson, and Tom Cruise. (Source: [3]) --FvdP 18:41, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Probably. I just hit 'revert' on the apparent weird stuff added, not noting the weird stuff still present. Sorry about that. Sadly, editing anon gets little respect by default - David Gerard 19:02, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
So on the Stalin sentence, we all agree ;-) Glad that this is clarified now. --FvdP 19:15, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I removed the "Raelism as a cult" section, which was previously added under the guise of "minor edits". Started by trying to copyedit but there wasn't enough in it that could be verified and NPOVed to keep. IMO. Mindspillage 02:16, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Why suppressing everything if YOU, Mindspillage, think it's not "NPOV" ??? Informations about Claude Vorilhon were taken from a reportage on a national french TV, M&, where he agreed on it. Do you think it's NPOV talking only about the "benefits" and not about the way it gain money from its followers ? It's NOPV not talking about pedophilia trials ? Or the way they consider other religions. For example, if there "wasn't enough in it that could be verified and NPOVed to keep", I give you a tip on Internet: there is a site called Google. Here, you'll have fastly found this "http://www.rael.org/int/press_site/english/pages/press_releases/250204.html". And it's the same for other points. So, instead of putting everything to the trash, perhaps you should before "try to copyedit", or at least add some kind of arguments on this talkpage.

[edit] Symbol

Can somebody talk about their symbol? I heard that it originally mixed a Star of David and a swastika, but, after the expectable criticism, the changed it to other. -- Error 00:31, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] "never been proven to be a cult"

"Despite the allegations made by various medias the Raelian Movement has never been proven to be a cult." Since you could never get everyone to even agree on a concrete definition of "cult", this is a very pointless statement. By some people's standard of what a "cult" is, there is no question that the Raelians qualify. By others' standards, you could never prove that the Raelians were a cult unless Rael himself announced "Look! I started the whole thing for money and power and to show how stupid people were!" and even then if one follower said, "Well, I still believe it's all true" that would be enough to prove, by some people's standards, that it's not a cult.

To say "it has never been proven to be a cult" is a useless claim. -- Antaeus Feldspar 03:52, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I altered that section somewhat.--T. Anthony 03:26, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

I slightly changed the first paragraph pertaining to the section on 'decribed by detractors as a cult' to 'percieved by some people as a cult' The origional has the consiquence of attempting to express POV of the reader through the use of 'described' a weak term, and 'detractors' a strong very negative term defined "persons disparaging and belittleing the worth of". 'Percieved as' implies beliefs in excess of those that are simply being described. I believe that this edit would more closely promote NPOV. rmosler 21:48, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Sounds good.--T. Anthony 04:55, 28 October 2005 (UTC)


>>In the first paragraph is says that Elohim is translated as "God" in the bible. Then it says that the raelians mean it to mean "those who came from the sky." The meaning in Hebrew is plural for "Gods." H430 אלהים 'ĕlôhîym Brown Driver Briggs (Hebrew Lexicon of the Old Testament) Definition: 1) (plural) 1a) rulers, judges 1b) divine ones 1c) angels 1d) gods Notice in the raelians definition it is meant as plural also? "Those" who came from the sky? Instead of telling us what it is translated as in the bible (which, interpretations and translations can varry) why not tell the definition from the hebrew that fits with the context of the article?

The point is to communicate the Raelian point of view.. not to question if it's right or wrong. The text is explaining how Elohim is translated in the text of the Raelian message that was given to Rael in 1973 during his encounter with an extra-terrestrial called Yahweh. I believe they explain that in ANCIENT Hebrew, Elohim means "those who came from the sky". Do a Google search on 'Elohim' and you will quickly find that the word is prehistoric with it's true etymology being unknown.

[edit] Canadian tax status

Here's the link for checking tax-exempt charity status in Canada under whatever corporate name Raëlism uses: Canada Revenue Agency Charity List As I noted in my request for citation, even Scientology hasn't managed to get much more than non-profit corporate status after years of trying, so I'd be surprised. AndroidCat 12:48, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

The link to the page on the Rick Ross site doesn't answer the simple question of Raëlism's current Canadian tax status. All that's needed is the corporate name that Raëlism operates under in Canada. Pop it into the government link I gave above, and it will say if Raëlism has a tax-exempt charity status or not. This is the acid test from the primary source. Knowing the hoops CoS had to jump through when they tried and failed to get tax-exempt status in 1999, I really doubt that Raëlism has this. Pa-merynaten, you added the non-reference reference, is there there anything on the Rick Ross site that says where this tax-exempt claim comes from? AndroidCat 12:06, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
I apologise for my bad source on this, I had not been able to re-locate the piece of information which states this on that particular site, but I have recently located another source here [4] and below the "01.17.03" news report it clearly states tax exempt religious status. pa-merynaten 16:20BST, 11th May 2006
Wow, I see it and I'm amazed! From what I thought I understood about Canadian tax-exempt charity status, the Raëlian Movement would be disqualified on the simple stuff like length of existance in Canada. I wish the National Post story was still online so that I could be sure that Rick Ross wasn't misinterpreting the Canadian status from a US viewpoint. I'll check to see if he archived a copy on his site. Meanwhile, if it is true, then it should be on the Canada Revenue Agency list, but that site isn't very helpful without the actual corporate name. (There were no hits for rael among all the israel ones.)
I was surprised myself to see that he achieved tax free status. I'm unsure as to whether the tax-free charity status is different to religious status. Rael does not generate revenue from anything other than donations though as far as I'm aware, Raelian doctorine states 3% of annual income from every registered member should be donated I beleive, which would support the charity status idea, but I'm still unsure as to the Canadian policy.pa-merynaten 16:54BST, 11th May 2006
I've looked for the National Post story, but there doesn't seem to be anything online. Now, I could get my lazy self to a main library and search the archives for the story .. but the Rick Ross link doesn't really give a proper citation (date, title, author) of the National Post story for finding it. So what we're left with is Rick Ross's blog saying that a National Post story said they have tax-exempt status, and we don't know who claimed that in the Post story. On the other hand, we do have the link to the Canada Revenue Agency site which will definitively say if a corporation is a tax-exempt charity or not. I've checked a few obvious searches there with no results that Rael-anything is. (Possibly they have some tax status in Quebec, but that would be a different thing.) Unless there's a better reference than that blog link, I don't think that the "tax-exempt religious status" claim can stand. AndroidCat 06:23, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

According to the Rael Deal (2001), the application was turned down, so I trimmed the claim until more information surfaces.

They are recognized (for tax purposes) as a religion in the U.S. and have applied for federal recognition north of the border as the Raelian Church of Canada. (Last February I wrote a report supporting the application, which had been denied on the grounds that, although Raelians indeed venerate godlike extraterrestrials, their "gods" did not fit the tax law’s criteria, since they are material rather than transcendental beings.) AndroidCat 20:21, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mutable quotations from The Raël Deal

I notice that the text claimed to be from The Raël Deal by Susan J. Palmer, and within quotation marks, has frequently changed. Checking against an online copy [5], I can't find that exact text in her article, and it looks like the article has been paraphrased. If so, the quotation marks need to go. AndroidCat 12:24, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] MrPeabody's removal of "very low ranking links"

Say what? Are you periodically trimming links that you say have a low Google ranking? (Or some other measurement of rank.) That seems like a very strange determination that a link should be removed. AndroidCat 05:37, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

-- Yup, and you'll see plenty of it elsewhere on wikipedia. I would hardly call a geocities-hosted site a significant link. Wikipedia is not for increasing your google-rating.MrPeabody 06:30, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

They're not my sites, thank you very much, and I doubt you'll find many other editors on Wiki applying such a goofy metric for deletion. Could you explain the exact methodology that you used to determine the "ranking"? AndroidCat 20:43, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Book

On this page, the book shown is described as Raël's first book, but on the Raël page, it's described as his second. Any ideas on which is right? 70.224.36.53 02:43, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

The books are as follows:

Intelligent Design (2006)
The Message Given to me by Extraterrestrials (1986), The Message Given by Extraterrestrials (1998), The Final Message (1998), True Face of God (1998)
no. 1 The Book Which Tells the Truth (1974)
no. 2 Extraterrestrials Took Me to their Planet (1975)
no. 4 Let's Welcome the Extraterrestrials (1979), Let's Welcome our Fathers From Space (1986)
no. 3 Geniocracy (1978)
no. 5 Sensual Meditation (1980)
no. 6 Yes to Human Cloning (2001)
no. 7 Maitreya (2003)

This hierarchy shows which books contain other books, which ones have more than one name, and which ones are independent.Kmarinas86 16:56, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright Images

Several images have been posted that are copyright. If you are not Rael himself or the original creator of the image, or someone designated by one of the two, you shouldn't be uploading it. MrPeabody 06:30, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

The use of reduced images of book covers seems to be one of the allowed uses on Wikipedia: "It is believed that the use of low-resolution images of book covers * to illustrate an article discussing the book in question * on the English-language Wikipedia, hosted on servers in the United States by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation, qualifies as fair use under United States copyright law." AndroidCat 20:51, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] criticism

I noticed that the "History of Raelism" contains numerous criticisms; perhaps this should be noted in this article. Perhaps change the section name to "History and Criticisms of Raelism" or similar. --Natalie 18:51, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

But isn't the criticism mainly a subset of the history? (Unless it's present-day current criticism) AndroidCat 03:16, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kudos

Good job Kmarinas86 in shifting off some sections to their own articles. It was probably a good idea not to leave anything in the main article other than the Wikilink. From experience, any small paragraph left usually tries to regrow itself into the article that was moved. (Sometime accelerated article cloning results! ;) AndroidCat 03:16, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "said to be"

Why is the phrase "said to be" repeated so often in this article? E.g. The said to be story goes that after terraforming the Earth, human beings from another planet—the "Elohim" (Hebrew for the word "God" as found in the Hebrew Old Testament, which the said extraterrestrial himself translated as meaning those who came from the said to be sky in ancient Hebrew) —created humans and all life on earth using DNA manipulation and genetic engineering. The message dictated to Raël during his encounter with the said to be Elohim states that the said to be Elohim contacted some forty people to act as their prophets on Earth, among which are said to be those who founded the said to be world's major religions (Moses, Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, etc.) The only place where that phrase makes sense in this excerpt is "among which are said to be those who founded ..." Nik42 03:20, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

said to be story If someone said, "it is a story," then it follows that it was said to be a story. Others might call "reality" or "nonfiction", and yet others might call "bonkers", "plotless", "a bad excuse for a story", and so forth.
said to be sky If they said, "it came from the sky" they could later say, "It would come from, what we call, a sky". They could have mistaken "space" for the "sky".
said to be Elohim Do the Elohim really exist? They're said to be "Elohim", but are they really? Some would say they are demons or decievers. So we have to be objective and say they are said to be Elohim - whether they're Elohim, real, or not.
Tell me what you think sounds more NPOV:
"Do the Elohim exist?"
"Do the said to be Elohim exist?"
"Do the 'Elohim' exist?"
I suspect you might choose the third one, though I find that one a bit further from NPOV than what I felt others were demanding.
said to be world's major religions Some may think that Buddhism is not a major religion, but a minor one. To avoid that dispute, I left it like this.Kmarinas86 04:13, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
As a guideline, I try to keep zero or one "said to be" phrases for every gerund (excluding the "said to be phrases" that come out normally - e.g. the one you pointed out specifically - and excluding ones where I edit phrases such as "the Elohim" to "the said to be Elohim" in a sentence that contains "the Elohim" more than once.Kmarinas86 04:58, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

But most of those make no sense. It IS the Raelian story, not their "said to be story". "Said to be" doesn't even make sense as an adjectivial phrase. Besides, we're describing their beliefs. You wouldn't say "the said to be prophet of Allah" when describing Mohammed in an article on Islam, for example.

These Elohim are part of Raelian beliefs. There's no need to constantly point out that it's a belief rather than verified fact when the article is clearly about their beliefs! Nik42 05:32, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree, this said to be article really abuses "said to be". For example "Raëlians consider human cloning as the said to be only step toward everlasting life." Why does "said to be" need to be included? It adds nothing to the said to be sentence and sounds dumb! I think a said to be "said to be" obsessed person edited the said to be article pasting "said to be" everywhere, for example, in quoting a said to be CNN article's title the page says "Sect leader: Cloning is just the said to be beginning" but the actual title of the said to be article is simply "Sect leader: Cloning is just the beginning". --A Sunshade Lust 05:59, 25 August 2006 (UTC) Another crazy said to be example "the said to be founder of the said to be Raelian Movement". Someone's really said to be neurotic. I'm said to be removing pretty much all the "said to be"s from the article. --A Sunshade Lust 06:10, 25 August 2006 (UTC) Done. In my said to be edit I say "countless" but there were (and hopefully, there won't be again) 21 "said to be". --A Sunshade Lust 06:14, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A point of information

The term, "philosophy" is rooted in "knowledge", rather than rooted in "belief". This article presents the Raelism philosophy as being a belief. I think a philosophy would be the knowledge which said beliefs might be based on, but not the beliefs themselves. However, I do recognize the term, "philosophy" is overused and variously defined. [6] Terryeo 16:18, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] See Also:

If, as Kmarinas86 says, none of the articles are similar to Raelian cosmological thinking, then they all need to be removed. Should someone want to create a separate page wherein the differences between how the Raelians view those subjects (and virtually every other group unilaterally views them), as long as it is not made up of original research, then full steam ahead. Otherwise, since the Raelian belief structure is so different from how the terms are universally viewed, it is misleading to leave those links on the page only for people using them to find out that the way (for example) ID as viewed by the general populace, and government, is completely different to, and therefore lacks any relevance to, Raelian cosmology. Gnrlotto 07:04, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

  • If you want to contribute, fine, but you don't change the contextual value of someone else's invitation to discussion.Gnrlotto 07:04, 9 September 2006 (UTC)


First of all, allow me to extend my apologies for not discussing my edit in this forum previously. Since my link took me directly to the "See Also" portion of the page, I was unaware of this forum's existence until this morning.

Secondly, I am wounded that my edit has been labeled "vandalism." When I discovered that, I sought out and read the Wikipedia policies, specifically relating to vandalism, only to find that my edit does not meet any of said qualifications. Should I be mistaken, I cordially invite you to peruse the policy pages yourself and inform me under which section my edit qualifies.

Lastly, now that I have completed the courtesies, I shall proceed to elucidate the line of reasoning that indicates that Raelism and Intelligent Design are not only similar but, in fact, related.

Intelligent Design contends that it is, statistically, so unlikely that mankind evolved at random that an external intelligence must have designed humanity(1). While the official public statement does not explicitly state as much(2), ultimately, their belief is that the external intelligence was "God."(3)

Raelians believe mankind was created by a technologically advanced race of extra-terrestrial geneticists(4), that mankind mistook those geneticists for God(5), and that Jesus Christ was the son of one of them(6).

So, Intelligent Design believes mankind was created by an unspecified external intelligence (that is probably God), Raelians believe mankind was created by extraterrestrial scientists who were mistaken for God (which mistake is the root of all Earthly religions(7)). How can these NOT be related (or, at the very least, similar)?

References:

  1. "The stated purpose is to investigate whether or not existing empirical evidence implies that life on Earth must have been designed by an intelligent agent or agents." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design#Overview)
    "...they infer that some aspects of life have been designed." (Ibid.)
    "Note that intelligent design studies the effects of intelligent causes and not intelligent causes per se." (Ibid.)
    "...the essential argument remains the same: complex systems imply a designer." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design#Origins_of_the_concept)
  2. "Intelligent design deliberately does not try to identify or name the specific agent of creation – it merely states that one (or more) must exist." (Ibid.)
  3. "While intelligent design itself does not name the designer, the personal view of many proponents is that the designer is the Christian god." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design#Origins_of_the_concept)
  4. "...life on Earth is ... a deliberate creation, using DNA, by a scientifically advanced people who made human beings literally 'in their image' " (http://www.rael.org/rael_content/rael_summary.php)
    "They were also to leave traces of the Elohim so that we would be able to recognize them as our Creators and fellow human beings when we had advanced enough scientifically to understand them." (Ibid.)
    "Those scientists who did all this came from the same planet as me. I am one of those people who created life on earth." (Intelligent Design: Message from the Designers Rael; 2005, The Raelian Foundation; Book 1, Chapter 2, "The Truth" page 15)
  5. "the word 'Elohim' has been mistranslated as the singular word 'God,' but it is actually a plural word which means 'those who came from the sky," and the singular is 'Eloha' (also known as 'Allah')."(http://www.rael.org/rael_content/rael_summary.php)
    "...the Elohim nevertheless maintained contact with us via prophets including Buddha, Moses, Mohammed, etc." (Ibid.)
  6. "Jesus, whose father was an Eloha" (http://www.rael.org/rael_content/rael_summary.php)
    "The creators therefore decided to arrange for a child to be born of a woman of the Earth and one of their own people." (Intelligent Design: Message from the Designers Rael; 2005, The Raelian Foundation; Book 1, Chapter 4, "The Role of Christ" page 65)
  7. " 'It is not only in the Bible and the Gospels that there are traces of the truth; testimonies can be found in practically every religion.' " (Intelligent Design: Message from the Designers Rael; 2005, The Raelian Foundation; Book 1, Chapter 5, "The End of the World" page 88)


Respectfully,
216.175.83.249, 21:17, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

First off, to have "completed the courtesies" and to end a conversation "Respectfully," it is actually polite to not hide behind an IP address. Otherwise you are being disrespectful despite whatever claims of amiablity or flowery words or phrasology you may enter into in this social phronistery we have engaged ourselves in.
Secondly, whether or not the Raelians claim that other religions are mistaken, their ideas are not what is generally universally taken into account by the basic media and common public as you, yourself, noted. That is why the link is a false classification reading either as an attempt to legitimize Raelism by linking it to a generally accepted concept as being of Christian origin, or by trying to make the Christian idea of ID seem even more foolish by linking them to what has been called several times in the press "A UFO cult."
And being that the ID page also goes into the different aspects of ID, and being that those claims are truly miles away from the Raelian view on what ID is, to keep linking the pages gives the appearance of entirely misguided effort on your part.
As well as that fact that this page has had this discussion topic for weeks now, (as per the original edit which was plainly and simply titled, "See discussion,") and the other main contributors to the overall article have had no problem with the link's removal after an alternative idea to explain the differences between Raelian ID and ID was proposed--possibly not enacted--but was at least proposed, your efforts seem disengenuous at best and malicious at worst.Gnrlotto 06:21, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
Firstly, I signed my post with the IP address because that was how the edits were credited. Had I signed them with a name, there would have been little or no apparent connection with the edits. How is using an IP address, which uniquely identifies my machine, any less identifying than a made-up handle? Unless your handle IS your name, you are hiding more than I. Here I made a good faith effort to engage in discussion the very day I discovered its availability, and you responded by calling me impolite, disingenuous, and malicious.
Secondly, are we to perpetuate a misapprehension simply because it is popular opinion? If that were always the case, the world would still be flat, the sun would still revolve around the Earth, and man could not fly at all, much less faster than the speed of sound. Whether or not "the press" recognizes the similarity between the two is irrelevant. The CORE beliefs of both ARE similar, even if the ancillary trappings differ. My liking of the two is based on the CORE of each. Both believe that an external intelligence designed mankind. Should it not be the reader's prerogative to determine the extent of that similarity? And are you not, by removing the link, denying readers the opportunity to make that determination for themselves?
Finally, I read the alternative idea to explain the similarities and differences yesterday afternoon and I agree that a page with a section for each of the links currently in the "See Also" section is an excellent idea. So, let's remove all of those links and replace them with a link to that new page when it is created. Until then, the very aspect of fairness suggests that all of those links either remain or depart together.
"...the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence."
- Louis Dembitz Brandeis, Supreme Court Justice, 1916 - 1939
Again, respectfully,
216.175.83.249 (Christopher), 19:16, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

How is using an IP address, which uniquely identifies my machine, any less identifying than a made-up handle?

A) Many different machines in your IP range may have your address.

B) There is no true individual talk page dedicated to you.

C) Therefore it appears as if you do not respect Wikipedia, nor your fellow Wikipedians enough to "set up shop," so to speak.

Unless your handle IS your name, you are hiding more than I.

And a Peewee Herman, "I know you are but what am I?" right back at ya. Now that we've grown up, moving on:

Secondly, are we to perpetuate a misapprehension simply because it is popular opinion?

'That is why the link is a false classification reading either as an attempt to legitimize Raelism by linking it to a generally accepted concept as being of Christian origin, or by trying to make the Christian idea of ID seem even more foolish by linking them to what has been called several times in the press "A UFO cult." '

If that were always the case, the world would still be flat, the sun would still revolve around the Earth, and man could not fly at all, much less faster than the speed of sound.

Not relevant as we are not talking about scientifically proven facts. This is an invalid argument for the false linking.

Whether or not "the press" recognizes the similarity between the two is irrelevant.

Actually, this one is completely relevant. An encyclopedia is a collection of general knowledge often with some sub-references to less used views that share a similar name and/or memetic idea but are not otherwise related.

The CORE beliefs of both ARE similar, even if the ancillary trappings differ. My liking of the two is based on the CORE of each.

That's like saying the moon and the sun are the same because they are both heavenly bodies viewable from Earth and they're both round.

Both believe that an external intelligence designed mankind.

And a platypus and a chimpanzee are both mammals. And that's where the similarity ends.

Should it not be the reader's prerogative to determine the extent of that similarity?

If this were not a general reference site and instead was a trivia show, then absolutely.

And are you not, by removing the link, denying readers the opportunity to make that determination for themselves?

No, we're clearing up purposeful obfuscation.

Until then, the very aspect of fairness suggests that all of those links either remain or depart together.

No it doesn't. Again, this is poor reasoning to justify purposeful obfuscation of an issue.

"...the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence."
- Louis Dembitz Brandeis, Supreme Court Justice, 1916 - 1939

"I yam what I yam, and that's all that I yam."-- Popeye, Sailor, 1929-?

Gnrlotto 22:29, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cloning

Wasn't this the organization that claimed to have sucessfully cloned a human a few years back? If so, we really should have a mention of that in the "Cloning" section of the article. Kerowyn Leave a note 06:12, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Raelism is the beliefs of the Raelian Movement, not the Raelian Movement itself. If there is such a relationship (of equivalency) between Clonaid and the International Raelian Movement, then suggest a merge of Raelian Church into the Clonaid article.Kmarinas86 23:23, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

--Kmarinas86 16:55, 17 December 2006 (UTC)--Kmarinas86 16:55, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Automated Peer Review

[edit] (cur) (last) 14:05, 4 January 2007 Kmarinas86 (Talk | contribs)

The following suggestions were generated by a semi-automatic javascript program, and might not be applicable for the article in question.

You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions for further ideas. Thanks, Kmarinas86 19:27, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP:WikiProject Religion assessment

Mid-Importance. Religious beliefs of a fringe religion.
B-Class. Lede needs to be shortened and brought to WP:LEDE standards. Better sourcing needed throughout article, especially in the second half. Overall the writing is acceptable, but needs general improvement. Vassyana 11:14, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Raelian symbol - mix of hakenkreuz and Star of David

Look here: http://dictionary.laborlawtalk.com/Star_of_David

The Raelian symbol, hakenkreuz+Star of David before 1991 on left and hackswirl+Star of David after 1991 on right: http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/thumb/d/d2/300px-Raelian_symbols.png This proves some connection between Raelians and Nazis, and is offending for Jews, because depicts Raelians as fictional Nazi-Jews, which is contradiction. 83.5.15.164 20:09, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Raelism

I first saw this on Sex TV late on night and scoffed at the whole thing. I still scoff at it, it's a load of bullshit. 65.93.58.29 21:04, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I appreciate you wasting your time with us. - 2 minutes =P. Kmarinas86 22:59, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
It's still awesome though.--66.75.48.94 (talk) 19:23, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Sex is a normal, healthy and natural part of life. Raelians agree. User_talk:Bnaur User:Bnaur 02:54, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Other Controversy"

I don't see how that block quote is relevant. Going to delete it now.--Nick 00:06, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] LACERTA FILES

have you read the Lacerta Files?, a supossed interview with a reptilian female by a Swedish man Jimmy Bergman in 1999, and 2000. In the interview, the reptilian called herself as Lacerta said that the human race were created by extraterrestrials from the Pleyades Star System, called Ilojim, best knowm as Elohim, but she said that the Elohim were hostile. they had already created other 7 civilizations before us, and they exterminated them. They just wanted us for being a slave race. And probably in the future they would come to destroy us too. What you think about it?? The Raelian religion claims that the Elohim love to us.Lithop 23:41, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

...OK, even as I type this response, I'm trying to think of a way to word it as neutrally and inoffensively as possible. Basically, what you're listing here is a vauge question as to if these "Lacerta Files" should somehow be worked in/linked. Now, because you didn't reference the source of this information, I googled it to find that the Lacerta Files exist as an e-published-only site; a very roughly designed site at that. If which there is the complete coincidence of an interview with a "reptilian female" that also happens to allmost directly reference Raëlism while at the same time pretty much contradicting everything that Raëlism states. As an individual allready trying to maintain a neutral skepticism to Raëlism, I think the correct response to you is "The Lacerta Files currently exist as information from a quasi-reputable source at best, and therefor do not meet criteria for inclusion." --Human.v2.0 01:42, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Do not merge Raëlianism with Raëlism

While either of these two words may be used to label the belief system or the body of the belief system, it is clear that Raëlism is distinct from Raëlianism, where Raëlism is sustained mainly by Raël while Raëlianism is sustained by all that is Raëlian which includes the Raël, his followers, his teachings, their activities, as well as activity that surrounds them.◙◙◙ I M Kmarinas86 U O 2¢ ◙◙◙ 08:40, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

A better alternative might be to merge the Raëlian Church, Raëlism, and Raëlian activities articles into Raëlianism, but it is not a good alternative to eliminate alternatives, where a reader may rather just see the church and its church-wide activities, or just see the religious doctrine, or just see the specific activities of Raëlians.◙◙◙ I M Kmarinas86 U O 2¢ ◙◙◙ 08:58, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

  • I am not sure that I understand the above. But in any case, the forked articles made absolutely no attempt to make this distinction themselves. I propose most strongly that Raëlism be left as a redirect until other opinions have been expressed here. -- RHaworth 17:50, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
Ok people... this is why I did this. It was to increase the chances for GA.
“ This is the first time I have reviewed an article for acquiring GA status. I have done a lot of reviewing in my life, but not in Wikipedia, so my criteria for what is good and what is not might differ from the wikiconsensus.

That said, let me start out by saying thank you for introducing me to a new subject. I had never heard of Raelians before, and I found reading about them fascinating.

Most of the comments I read dealt with the language of the article. The language does, indeed have a lot of problems, but I think the major - and much more daunting - problem is one of organization. Having looked over some of the various articles on the subject (Raelism, Raelian Church, History of Raelism), I find myself confused about what belongs where, and whether three separate articles on the subject really make an overall understanding of Raelism clearer than if there were only one.

When I think about how an article on a religion might be organized, I think of the following topics:

Beliefs

Theology (their concept of God)
Ontology (origin of the universe)
Ethics (what do they think of right and wrong, and what sanctions - human or divine - are imposed on violators of ethical rules)

History

Founder, inspiration
Growth
Current status - where are the followers located, legal status, and so on
Internal and external controversies - schisms, legal battles, scandals, notoriety, accusations of cultism.
Sociology - who are members, how are new members recruited, socioeconomic characteristics of members.

Scriptures (what religious texts do they follow)

Ceremonies

Holidays
Forms of worship

Organization

Clergy, congregations, clerical hierarchy
Membership (how do people join, how many members are there, what sociological characteristics do the members have)
Legislation and adjudication (who makes the rules, how, and how are disputes about rules settled?)


I realize that Raelism is different from most religions in that it is, in a sense, antireligious - denying the divine, opposing traditional forms of morality and so on - but I believe it nonetheless could be discussed in the terms above.

Now most of these topics are covered in some place or other in the three articles, but not in any discernible order or with any clear structure. It is, I believe the lack of order in the articles, and not the actual content, that have given rise to complaints of NPOV.

I realize that implementing the suggestions of this critique would involve a lot more work than merely shuffling around a few words. But if you really believe in the topic - as it is apparent that you do from your impassioned writing and your responses to criticisms - I think it might be well worth the effort. As for problems of grammar and syntax, they can be cleaned up later.

The bad news is that the article, as it stands, would certainly not get my vote for GA status. The good news is that the subject is worthy, and with (a lot of) work, it could become good.

 ”
Now you know why there is a Raëlianism article. Can you believe it when stuff like this is actually requested in order to pass for GA? It's ridiculous.◙◙◙ I M Kmarinas86 U O 2¢ ◙◙◙ 18:21, 30 June 2007 (UTC)


[edit] New discussions

[edit] False information regarding Symbols

There have only ever been 2 official swastika symbols of the Raelian Movement - not three. See the error: (Oldest Raëlian logo to newest). The 'original one' you have used was only printed in that form due to restrictions from the publisher at the time. Please do your research before adding false assumptions like this to wikipedia. Of course, this kind of information will not be found by searching websites, so if you don't know something to be a fact, please don't add it. Otherwise you are simply misrespresenting the Raelian Movement and it's philosophy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by MrPeabody (talk • contribs) 02:01, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Copyedit denied

Hello! I am from the WP:LoCE and attempted a copyedit of this article. However, there are substantial problems with the article that I identified within the first few paragraphs which need to be addressed before a copyedit can be performed. Among these issues are:

  • The lead is very poor. It does not clearly summarize the article or the topic and in fact introduces information that is never later addressed in the article
  • Rael is mentioned as an entity in the "Women and.." section, but there is no previous indication of who or what Rael is
  • Tthe order of your sections is confusing--I would suggest placing the Beliefs section after the lead, then Organization, then Cult Status, etc.

I am removing this article from our list of requested copyedits for now. Please clean up the article and feel free to re-submit it to the League when you are ready. Thanks! Galena11 15:06, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

For starters, Raël is indeed referenced in the very first section, but if you didn't read through for content then you might have missed the Raël/Claude Vorilhon paragraph. I'm not terribly sure how you missed all of that infor (there and elsewhere), or if you are specifically referring to there being no in-depth coverage specifically in the "Women and..." section.
In fact, I'm not sure what any of your comments are actully referring to. The info in the lead is indeed covered more later (I was unsure if Clonaid was covered in depth, but it is and there is a link to its own article), though perhaps not the most ideally worded starter. As for your third comment, I'll quote from the header of the article:
"This article is about the Raëlian Church. For its history and beliefs, see Raëlian history and beliefs."
Which leads me to try asking as politely as possible... did you actually read the content of this wiki? --Human.v2.0 18:58, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
Indeed, I did. Perhaps I am singularly afflicted with the inability to understand this article--you are welcome to resubmit it and see if other copyeditors have more luck. Galena11 00:48, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Post script: I discovered the disconnect here--the version I was looking at is very different than the one that is currently live. See the revision history for the first revision of 20 October to compare the versions, and maybe my notes will make sense. I've noticed that most of the changes I suggested are now in the live version and that you've re-listed it for copyedit with the League. Thanks! Galena11 14:19, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Anti-Semitism

Their symbol is very much like a swastika, and the article talks about them claiming Israelite territory. Are they Anti-Semites?--69.234.212.85 (talk) 01:00, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Their symbol is very much like a Star of David, and the article talks about them establishing a Third Temple in Jerusalem. Are they Zionists?Kmarinas86 (talk) 19:27, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

They want the territory for themselves, when it rightly belongs to Jews. They don't plan on building their Third Temple for the Jews. Besides, I'm under the impression the Jews (at least the ones who are not self-hating) are more chaste. 69.234.214.46 (talk) 16:46, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
I never heard of the idea that they would keep the territory for themselves. The claim (the future embassy) is supposed to be neutral territory. How could is it possible to keep an "embassy" to yourself? An embassy is supposed to be meeting place for different societies to discuss this thing like politics. Raelians think their embassy should be used for cooperating with heavenly extraterrestrials, hence "Raelian Embassy for Extraterrestrials" +=P.....Kmarinas86 (talk) 04:48, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
Oh. So they plan to help all of humanity?--69.234.194.41 (talk) 00:13, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
They wish. Not sure they have a "plan" as in a pre-made script in which they would help humanity. In all practicalness however, very few dedicated individuals can single handedly help all of humanity; MLK and Gandhi are the only two I can think of. They obviously promote civil liberties (e.g. supporting gay rights, masturbation, financial compensation for descendants of colonization victims, etc.), but that does not directly translate as "helping humanity", especially when these Avant-garde values they espouse are not yet accepted by the majority as being human values.Kmarinas86 (6sin8karma) 04:23, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
That's true. I've heard that sexual liberalization can actually harm humanity, based on the argument that marriage is culture and culture separates us from the animals. As for financial compensation for the descendants of colonization victims, that's impractical. Many nations were once colonies of Europe, America, Russia or Japan, and many European nations were once colonized by the Romans, and many Asian nations were once colonized by the Mongols.--69.234.211.216 (talk) 16:31, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
I think most religions claim to be able to help all humanity. The issue here is the swastika. This symbol pre-dates Hitler and has a meaning of infinity. The Nazi symbol had the white and red back ground and is different, but to be sure, I know many Raelians who are Jewish, as are my children and I have zero tolerance for superiority views. The Raelian jewelry with this symbol is only made in Jerusalem, and Raelians have pretty much given up Isreal as a Embassy location (which is all they ever asked for - not the entire state silly) and as discussed in the book "Intelligent design", are satisfied with an alternate site for the Embassy. I know of no bigotry of any kind in Raelism and have been active for quite awhile and attended seminar in Las Vegas 2008. Preceeding signed by: Bnaur Talk 03:04, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
I see. However, the Israelis have already given up a good deal of land...--69.234.207.172 (talk) 23:54, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Glenn Carter

I notice that the page has several links to Glenn Carter. However, his page now has no mention of Raelism and I notice it has been edited on a number of occasions by user:Glecart (contribs). It seems odd to link to his page and call him the uk president when there is no mention of this on the linked to page. I am not disputing he was the uk spokesman (or whatever) as I knew of him before he appeared on tv discussing it. I am guessing he has distanced himself from the movement. However, unless it is a contravention of wp:bio his page should prob have a referenced mention of it - or else his name should prob be removed from here. The two need to tally up somehow. Perhaps someone who knows more about this than me could fix it? (i only ended up flicking thru Raelism after reading a page on Elijah and so really don't know anything about it or have any up to date sources). Thanks! Sassf (talk) 18:36, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Korean images

I think there is a disproportionate amount of korean images in the article. It gives the impression that there is some kind of heavy korean focus in the subject which there does not appear to be other than his once being denied entry in to the country.--137.186.84.54 (talk) 00:22, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Raelians are a worldwide organization and Americans are a minority in the group. A large population exists in Asian countries. Preceeding signed by: Bnaur Talk 03:10, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
They are a world-wide organization. Hence my point about a bit of an image bias in the article. The membership article only has about 4,000 Koreans in the last reference (5 years ago) but 80,000 Raelians world wide. Its not like Koreans make up 50-75% of all raelians or anything like that. A quick glance at the article with the eye-catching images has it come across as if there is some huge tie in with Korea which there isn't.--137.186.84.54 (talk) 00:27, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "William James (1964)"

What is the purpose of the 1964 here? William James was obviously dead for decades by then. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.251.17.204 (talk) 10:29, 18 April 2008 (UTC)