Talk:The Disappearance of the Universe

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29 June 2006 - Talk from merged in page on Author

Contents

[edit] Weasel words

The "DU theology" section makes unsupported claims about what some (unnamed) Biblical scholars believe. This needs to be fixed or the text needs to be removed. — goethean ॐ 23:28, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Dear Goethean,
I have since reworded that section, attempting to use more neutral terminology, and also added supporting citations. Thanks for your concern here.
-Scott P. 14:55, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
Scott, your edits did not solve the problem. the entire section beginning with In addition to its popularity amongst ACIM students... and continuing to ...still DU does describe Paul's conversion experience as having been genuine. make unsubstantiated claims about unnamed Biblical scholars. Furthermore, a link to Amazon is not an appropriate citation. Furthermore, Wikipedia does not link directly to bookstores. Also, deleting your own comments from Talk pages is frowned upon. If you would like to retract a comment, you can cross it out with HTML. — goethean ॐ 15:51, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
The reason I inserted the original comment on this page was simply as a place holder and as an invitation to others to comment on this article. Since there are now comments on this talk page, I felt that the page place-holder was no longer needed, and only served to clutter up the page. I didn't really see why removing my stub-comment, "A most amazing read for anyone! Reviews by more neutral parties might be helpful. All comments welcome," might prove controversial. I apologize. You have my permission to put it back if you wish.
-Scott P. 23:21, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
That's ok. I was just letting you know. — goethean ॐ 23:26, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
Hi Goethean,
I've tried to tighten up the section about questions about how fully Jesus' teachings on forgiveness were taught by Paul. About Amazon.com, lots of Wiky pages I've seen have book links pointing there. I could find no Wiky policy against this. Do you know of one?
Thanks, -Scott P. 16:33, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Where is the citational support for the following?

The citations fail to support the claims being made; hence I have removed most of this section and placed it below:

In addition to its popularity certain ACIM students, DU has raised some interest amongst some Biblical scholars as a result of its unique theology. DU specifically affirms the religious philosphy and outlook of the American founding father Thomas Jefferson who chose to prefer the direct teachings of Jesus as found in the four Gospels (accounts of Jesus' life), over what he considered to be the interpretations of these teachings as found in the 23 Epistles (accounts of the development of the early Christian church after the crucifixion). Particularly addressed by DU are some of the apparent theological omissions found in the Bible that might more smoothly bridge between the teachings of Paul as found in the Epistles and the teachings of Jesus as found in the Gospels.

Throughout history, traditional churches have tended to author various theological explanations in their efforts to resolve some of these apparent omissions. Still some such as Jefferson have remained unconvinced by some of these traditional church theologies. Even though DU does point out some of these ssemingly missing theological explanations in the Bible, still DU does describe Paul's conversion experience as having been genuine.

Perhaps the foremost example of such an apparent Biblical omission is the apparent discrepancy between the exact nature of forgiveness [1] as taught by Jesus in some of the Gospel accounts, vs: as it was taught by Paul in the Epistles. Here the Gospel accounts offer numerous examples of a certain type of radical forgiveness that does not seem to be addressed by Paul. The Gospel teachings about 'turning the other cheek', 'going the extra mile', and forgiving others first, before we might be able to sense God's forgiveness of ourselves, as taught in the Our Father prayer all appear to be somewhat inconsistent with the Epistle teachings of Paul regarding forgiveness. By contrast, Paul appears to focus more uopon the need to simply have faith, or to believe in Jesus and to believe that only by Jesus's crucifixion are man's sins forgiven. In Paul's theology, it would appear that his insistence on central role of the forgiveness of the crucifixion would relegate the role of the need for the forgiveness of one's fellow man to a sort of a secondary position, secondary to the need to believe in the crucifixion.[2]

Gene Ward Smith 23:10, 21 April 2006 (UTC)


OK, perhaps it has not raised too much interest amongst too many Biblical scholars, but.... it does specifically cite the Jefferson Bible and the apparent discrepancy between Pauline forgiveness and Gospel forgiveness seems to me to be well documented here. What specifically were your problems with these citations and this reference here?
-Scott P. 16:09, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Irrelevant links

The following links do not discuss Renard or his book, and I've removed them as irrelevant.

[edit] Removed material

"However, such assertions tend to overlook the non-dualistic emphasis of the Course." This seems to me to be both overly vague and controversial. "Non-dualistic" is not a phrase ACIM uses, and what the phrase means and whether ACIM is "non-dualistic" in some sense which can be made specific is a matter of some controversy.

Because it doesn't bear on Renard specifically but rather just argues for the reality of appearances in general, I pulled this: "Further support for Gary's experience: Kevin Ryerson's spirit guide, Ahtun Re, has also confirmed that world-famous painter and author Glenda Green experienced Jesus manifesting before her in a light body in 1991. Jesus asked Glenda to paint his portrait and the ensuing dialogue was made into Love Without End, a bestselling book. Ahtun Re also validated the fact that this Jesus was the same teacher who authored A Course in Miracles through psychologist Helen Schucmann. This is further confirmation that Gary Renard does not stand alone in this powerful spiritual experience". In Renard's case, actually, he claims Arten and Pursah appeared as conventional bodies rather than beings of light. The passage there is interesting but doesn't argue for Renard specifically, it'd be better to have different material on the subject either way. Chris Rodgers 05:01, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Science

It's really more than a "theory" that human beings don't come from Mars; present-day science regards that as a fact. Of course perhaps Renard is right and science is wrong, but let's be clear about what the book says, and what it is contradicting. Gene Ward Smith 05:41, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Gene,
Four things....
1. Regarding DU's popularity vs: unpopularity, if you wanted, you could do two Google searches as follows: A. "Gary Renard", Popular, and B. "Gary Renard", Unpopular. Popular comes up with 20,000 plus hits, unpopular comes up with 15 hits. Also, I happen to know that Kenneth Wapnick and Gary Renard are good friends. To me this seems to indicate that Wapnick must have no major qualms about Gary's work.
Neither of these does anything to prove your claim.
2. Regarding whether or not DU contradicts prevailing scientific beliefs/ theories, I agree, it certainly does. I have no problem with that statement. As for whether or not all current scientific beliefs/ theories are necessarily facts? I am not as certain. Is not the beauty of the modern scientific method that it holds itself as always ready to be revised in the light of whatever new information may arise? Stating scientific theory as fact seems to me to be contrary to the modern scientific method. It seems to me that open-mindedness is at the very heart of the modern scientific method. Up until only 150 years ago the concept of the existence of the unconscious mind was unknown, the existence of radio waves was unheard of, many still theorized that man was inherently incapable of flight, and it was still deemed as heretical to question the Biblical Genesis account of the creation of the universe.
There are some scientific claims so well established that the chance of them being refuted is essentially nil; the idea that humans did not come from Mars is clearly in that class. If you want to make a scientist laugh, suggest it might be true. You will then hear a lot of good reasons, starting from molecular biology and moving on, why it can't possibly be. The idea is a nonstarter.
3. Regarding your assertion that some see DU is so incongruous with ACIM that they find it wholly incompatible, do you have any links to such views that have been published?
Greg Mackie of Circle of Atonement is coming out with a critique shortly.
4. Why did you remove all references and the link to the Jefferson Bible? Part of DU refers to this little known work, and I see no reason not to include a link to it here.
The Jefferson Bible is of no scholarly significance outside of Jefferson scholarship, but restore it if you want. However, please do not make claims about it which sound as if you were saying it represents what Jesus really taught; that goes far beyond the evidence. Why don't you just say what Renard says about it? Gene Ward Smith 02:14, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
I am obviously and admittedly a fan of Renard, and I value your obviously anti-Renard views. Perhaps between the two of us we will arrive at a more complete view than either one of us had before.
Thanks,
-Scott P. 15:56, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed rewrite

Dear Gene,

Clearly there are some like yourself who both consider themselves to be students of ACIM, and who also have some very major concerns about the teachings of DU as you have listed above. I would like to attempt to rewrite this article to better reflect these views. Still these views do seem to me to be what I will call minority views amongst ACIM students. I call them minority views because at the moment the Google results stated above, limited though they may be, happen to be the best piece of documentation that we now have to determine which views are most popular amongst ACIM students.

Scott, I'm afraid you don't understand what Wikipedia's NPOV policy means. It means not only are you not supposed to write the article from an advocacy point of view, you should not write it from the point of view of ACIM students. ACIM is very much a minority position, and DU is something beyond that--claiming that humans came from Mars is, in the context of the wide world, an extreme fringe position. Wikipedia is not the place for advocacy, and certainly not for advocacy of extreme fringe belief systems. Your attacks on other ACIM points of view does not help matters, but any article which suggests that DU is true is advocacy, and not NPOV. Gene Ward Smith 01:37, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm sure you know that documentation is everything here, and until a stronger piece of counter-documentation might be established, I think that it would be safe to say that based on the best piece of documentation that we now have on this question, this is the best assumption that we can now make about its answer. If you might have any further comments, suggestions or documentation regarding this subject matter, or about my stated intention to rewrite this, before I do this rewrite, please feel free to post them here.

Thanks, -Scott P. 14:38, 4 June 2006 (UTC)


Why even attempt to address "minority views," and "majority views," of course students when clearly such "views," would be nearly impossible to ascertain without a poll, and a poll would be nearly impossible without a data base of all course students and that data base doesn't exist. Moreover, the rhetoric of "views," smacks of doctrine, and there is certainly no established doctrine or one correct interpretation of A Course in Miracles. As such demoting Gene's view of DU to minority status is at best wishful thinking on your part.

On the other hand, what one can talk about with some accuracy is a literal interpretation of the Course text, as compared to a largely metaphorical interpretation of the text. As I understand Gene he falls in the literal interpretation camp, while Renard's warmed-over Wapnick interpretation of the Course text falls into the largely metaphorical interpretation of ACIM. Why? Because Wapnick argues much of ACIM including the Trinity --Father, Son and Holy Spirit,--must be taken metaphorically. As such Gary Renard and Renardians fall into the same error of meta-commenting the author of ACIM as Ken Wapnick.

Despite Gary Renard's outrageous claims of ascended mastership, Renard is no great Course scholar or thinker. Renard serves warmed over Wapnickian metaphysics. Renard would be totally out of his league in any course discussion with Gene Smith. Despite claims, and despite your claims, there is absolutely no indication or evidence that Ken Wapnick's interpretation of ACIM has any consensus allegiance among course students. This is simply an assumption based on Wapnick's prominence as a course commentator, while it makes just as much sense to assume most course students/readers would gravitate to a literal interpretation of Course writings more than to Wapnick's heavily speculative metaphorical interpretation. In short, you have no basis to talk about "minority views," and a google search as "evidence" is beyond ridiculous.

Jl2200 06:13, 13 June 2006 (UTC) John

[edit] Please, let's write in English

I removed the following:

  • However, these so called contradictions could be explained by the fact that the Course uses metaphor in order to describe duality and is speaking literally only when discussing the truth. Thus what is seen by some as contradictions could be a misunderstanding on their part of the non-dualistic nature of the Course.

It's true this sort of near-gibberish is used by many ACIM students, but "uses metaphor to describe duality" is not good English and consequently does not belong in the article. Moreover, the claim boils down to saying that Renard can say anything he likes, however silly it may be, and it doesn't matter. That, obviously, will not work if we are trying to determine if the book contradicts known facts. If you say "saying human beings came from Mars is not false, since it is merely using metaphor to describe duality" then you are using badly worded doublespeak to get around clear contradictions. Wikipedia is not a Gary Renard sandbox; there are standards to be met. Gene Ward Smith 07:15, 12 June 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Merge and Notes on Merge

During articles for Deletion debate discussing the authors article it was determined that these two articles be merged, the authors and this article, as well as cleaned up, and provided with cited sources. Ste4k 08:14, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Took a while to find the original and ensuing publisher. All of the original research has been removed and can be found in the history. So far only one actual article has been found about it and I'm working on that currently. If anyone knows of any other press on this book, please make the cite available. This book reached #2 on Amazon so, it must have something else out there. Ste4k 16:18, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

About the words "has become" and "became". The quoted source states, "Much of Disappearance grows out of Renard's study of A Course in Miracles,the 1976 three-volume set of books that became a spiritual curriculum for many individuals and study groups." To change this from "became" to "has become" is an unnecessary addition of POV, so I am reverting that back to the original form to avoid any original research here. Ste4k 11:10, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

"Has become" and "became" are essentially synonymous. Your claim that one version is POV is absurd and rather insulting. Gene Ward Smith 00:13, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

In what way do you feel that it is insulting? One statement means that the books are an enduring spiritual curriculum, and the other statement means that they were a curriculum. At the time the statement was printed in Publisher's Weekly, the books in question, (i.e. not the book that is a subject of this article) were ranked at 500 on Amazon. The new edition (single volume) is currently ranked between 19,000 and 100,000. Ste4k 00:41, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

  • The absurdity of merging making the name of the merged article the name of the book and not its author has now become clear, since Renard has a new book out. I think the page should be moved to "Gary Renard". Gene Ward Smith 09:16, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move

The Disappearance of the Universe → Gary Renard – Renard has a new book out Gene Ward Smith 09:28, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Survey

Add "* Support" or "* Oppose" followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your opinion with ~~~~

  • Support. Does not seem a notable book, it actually might be best to simply delete the thing. Jefffire 09:33, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Support. Was going to suggest change for same reason of new book. Deleting book article would then be okay: irrespective of its value, that'd be a normal kind of redirect, but content regarding first book should be moved to the new article. Chris Rodgers 06:00, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Oppose deletion. It's certainly notable to lots of other people which made it a best seller on Amazon for awhile. ~~
Right, but it's not deletion of the content but moving it to a more logical location. For just a few titles it makes more sense to redirect book inquiries to the author and just have sections for each book there. That way it still gets due attention but in a more organized way. Poll started a year ago; going once... Chris Rodgers 04:27, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

Add any additional comments

[edit] Reverting - Uncited material

Without any explanation or apparent logic, it appears that an editor may have some personal "but unstated" reason to delete or censor out supportive information about this book and about the controversy surrounding this book by apparently attempting to delete any properly documented supportive information from this page without presenting any rationale or documentation for such deletions. This information seems to me to make for a more balanced article that fairly presents both sides of the controversy, all of which was fully documented.

In the future, please do not delete such information without first fully documenting your rationale with citable facts that might reasonably prove your rationale for such deletions. Otherwise it by simply deleting one side of a debate without the due process of advance discussion, it begins to appear to me as vandalism. Undocumented deletions are generally viewed unfavorably per {WP}.

Thanks,

-Scott P. 15:08, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Please see the basic WP policy Wikipedia:Verifiability: "Unsourced material may be challenged and removed." Unless the statements can be verified they should be removed.—Who123 15:53, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Yahoo Groups not reliable source

Yahoo Groups is not a reliable source. Please see: Wikipedia:Reliable sources: "Posts to bulletin boards, Usenet, and wikis, or messages left on blogs, should not be used as sources." I will remove this source.—Who123 16:00, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Good point. I have narrowed down the discusion to a summary of the articles. Thanks, -Scott P. 18:27, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks Scott.—Who123 13:26, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Promoted with spam

From the citation it is clear that the book was promoted using spam. I often receive emails from/for this author that automatically (without my intervention) are marked as spam. What is the problem with calling something what it is?—Who123 17:08, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

To me, labeling the online marketing strategy as spam is POV. I've added "unsolicited" to the text to try to convey the methods better. --ZimZalaBim (talk) 17:29, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
I am not trying to be difficult here but why is it POV? E-mail spam is clearly defined on WP. The citation clearly states that the book was promoted with this method. Everyone I know does not like spam. ISPs and other companies try to deal with this problem. It is such a problem that it is illegal in a number of countries. Why not call it what it is? Thanks for helping me to understand.—Who123 18:12, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
No, the citation "clearly states" that they sent "an e-mail pitch out to selected lists of people we believe will be interested in a particular book" and that "the pitch for Disappearance went out to 2.3 million addresses". That is unsolicited bulk e-mail, but whether you consider it "spam" in the common parlance is an individual determination. Seems to me that stating they sent "unsolicited promotional offers" is a sufficient description without muddying it with the potentially negative connotation the term "spam" has (despite whether or not everyone you know dislikes spam).--ZimZalaBim (talk) 22:47, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
I still do not understand the problem with calling spam what it is. This is from the E-mail spam article:
There is no universally accepted definition of spam, but most definitions are based on the e-mail being both unsolicited by the recipients and having bulk quantities of substantively the same e-mail being sent. In other words spam is usually defined as Unsolicited Bulk E-mail (UBE). This e-mail is usually also unwanted and sent by automated means.
The problem is not just that I do not like it (nor do most others according to multiple articles that I have read), it is illegal according to the WP article. —Who123 18:30, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Criticism

I've reverted this addition numerous times now [1]. There is no support in the citations (as far as I can tell) to back up this refutation of the criticism. If we want to include mention that Renard's supporters feel these criticisms are invalid, we'll need citations from reliable sources. --ZimZalaBim (talk) 14:37, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm taking the liberty of segregating this book from the topic of "ACIM" altogether. The only connection appears to be that various people of the ACIM community don't like this author and/or his writings. If that were justifiable inclusion then we would need to likewise include the opinions of every faction of every opinionated group on every topic on WP. Fortunately, though, in agreement with Who123 above "Unless the statements can be verified they should be removed". Also ZimZalaBim notes immediately above that inclusion requires reliable sources. The Criticisim section has no reliable sources, but, rather instead, lists four questionable sources and in doing so introduces a section which is in its entirety POV. The two statements of rebuttal from Gary himself COULD be included since he is a primary source speaking about himself, but they have only as much relevence to this article as the POV they answer. I am certain that an ACIM community person will more than likely want to revert this edit, however, before doing so, he should be ready to justify the revert by answering this portion of discussion as well as being able to justify how the opinion of the ACIM community outweighs the opinion of the major religions, the major political parties, all major non-profit groups, etc. Simply put, the connection here is argumentative rather than encyclopaedic in nature. Zghost 08:16, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Disappearance-of-universe-book.gif

Image:Disappearance-of-universe-book.gif is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 20:46, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Fair Use Rationale added to image as requested. Thanks, Scott P. (talk) 14:22, 16 February 2008 (UTC)