Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Religion

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  • Requests: American Ethical Union (currently a redirect); Aquarian Foundation; Church of Divine Man; Church of Eductivism; Church of Mercavah; Church of Revelation; Church of the Awakening; Church of the Humanitarian God; Church of the New Song; Church of the White Eagle Lodge; Commandment Keepers Congregation of the Living God; Confraternity of Deists; Congregational Church of Practical Theology; Coptic Fellowship of America; Cosmic Awareness Communications; Deistical Society of New York; Fellowship of the Inner Light; Foundation Faith of God; German Rabbinical Association; Holy Order of Mans; Inner Circle Kethra E'da Foundation; International Church of Ageless Wisdom; International Spiritualist Alliance; Jewish Reconstructionist Foundation; Light of the Universe; Little Synagogue; Lotus Ashram; Mark-Age; Missionaries of the New Church; National Federation of Spiritual Science Churches; National Spiritual Science Center; Neo-American Church; Omniune Church; Orthodox Jewish Congregational Union of America; Progressive Spiritual Church; Radiant School of Seekers and Servers; The Reform Society of Israelites; Roosevelt Spiritual Memorial Benevolent Association; Rosicrucian Anthropomorphic League; Sanctuary of the Master's Presence; School of Natural Science; Semjase Silver Star Center; Sisters of Amber; Society of Evangelical Agnostics; Society of Jewish Science; Solar Light Center; Temple of the People (currently a redirect); Temple of Universal Law; Theosophical Society of America; Understanding, Inc.; United Libertarian Fellowship; United Secularists of America; Universal Brotherhood of Faithists; Universal Church of the Master; Universal Harmony Foundation; Universal Spiritualist Foundation; Universe Society Church; World Catalyst Church; World Council of Synagogues;
  • Copyedit: Hauka;
  • Verify: African traditional religion; Yoruba religion;
  • Cleanup: Lozi mythology;

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Contents

[edit] Religion barnstar?

There is now a proposed barnstar for religion-related content at Image:REstar.png. If the members of this project would like to make this image, or a variation of it, the barnstar of this project, I think at this point all we would have to do is include it on the project page. Just letting you all know the at least potential award exists. John Carter 14:15, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I like the barnstar. --Shruti14 t c s 19:51, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
The "barnstar" looks rather humanistic than divine. It looks like its some synthetic man made plastic/metal floating in the sky. I oppose such an image to represent religious articles / co-operation. Perhaps just for religion, the barnstar could be rendered more like a see-through glass, or more divine than the traditional metally, plasticy star. Also, the clouds look fake. I will try to do much better version. --Sina 15:34, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
There are several visual implications loaded into the proposed barnstar. Remember, all imagery is loaded; ie, it conveys meaning. What I'm getting from this is a very "New Age"-Cult vibe. Not good. I think partly due to the synthetic/idealistic nature of images (such as the clouds and blue sky) that are meant to be "divine" and metaphysical-looking, the barnstar ends up suffering from a sort of online-cult aesthetic. Compounding the problem is that the Star itself is white, and thus looks synthetic like plastic. Since most religions have a relatively solid icon associated with them (see our WikiProject icon, for example: ), we could keep the barnstar iconography more solid as well and include various religion icons. As it stands, the current purposed star looks like it belongs on WikiProject Spirituality or Metaphysics. Basilides/ούκ ών θεός 20:30, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Sina and Basilides, it doesn't have the right feel... Maybe something about (sun)light? In practicly all religions and believes the concept of light is a good thing.
Isn't there another type of symbol that represents religion as a whole without favoring a single or discriminating others? --Soetermans 22:47, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
If you look through the archives of the project, I think the answer you come up with is no, there are basically no universally accepted images which could be used. Maybe several images of specific religions could be incorporated around a barnstar, but any single image will almost certainly start major controversy, other than maybe light and/or the sky. John Carter 23:00, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
I think it looks great. Colin MacLaurin 11:19, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] De pace fidei

A couple of weeks ago I visited a monastery, with my study group. In the gift shop there was little book section where I found a small book by Nicholas of Cusa with the Latin title De pace fidei, On religious peace. It was written 1454, a few months after the Ottoman Turks sacked Constantinople. While Christian Europe called for revenge, this bishop wrote a work how representatives of the major religions should come before the throne of God and talk, rather to fight, to find a solution. Is it interesting and significant enough to add? I've done lots of minor edits, I've never really started a serious article. In case it might be good to create one, may I assume I'll get some help? --Soetermans 23:07, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

If you can prove that it meets the standards of Wikipedia:Notability (books), it certainly would qualify as significant enough. The questions that come to mind are whether you'd have enough for a separate page, or could perhaps place it in the Nicholas of Cusa article. We can try to help, but the scope of this project being what it is, and the membership as diverse as it is, I'm not sure whether many of us have access to resources to help. Considering the author was a Catholic bishop, you might also check with Wikipedia:WikiProject Catholicism and maybe Wikipedia:WikiProject Books. I think the article would probably be a good one, I just don't know when anyone would necessarily be able to pitch in. If anyone does feel that they could do so, however, please feel free to do so. John Carter 23:19, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for you advice, John. I haven't finished the book yet, so when I do I'll try to make a small summary and drop a line over those other WikiProjects. --Soetermans 19:12, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

At the very least, it could definitely be mentioned in the Nicolas of Cusa article. Given that it's been reprinted, I'd be very surprised if it didn't have enough mention by theologians and/or historians to merit its own article. Best, --Shirahadasha 06:35, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Notice of List articles

Page(s) related to this project have been created and/or added to one of the Wikipedia:Contents subpages (not by me).

This note is to let you know, so that experts in the field can expand them and check them for accuracy, and so that they can be added to any watchlists/tasklists, and have any appropriate project banners added, etc. Thanks. --Quiddity 19:54, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Jewish-Christian Gospels: Patristic Citations

Greetings. We have a new article, Jewish-Christian Gospels: Patristic Citations. I don't know what to make of it. Would you have a look at it please? --Malcolmxl5 00:10, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

In the edit creating the page, it says it was moved from Wikisource. I can't see that it meets any of the criteria for wikipedia, though, so I'm going to nominate it for deletion and notify the Christianity project about the discussion. John Carter 00:17, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mesoamerican reconstruction

This is a touchy subject, so I want some opinions on the article Mesoamerican reconstruction. I, myself, am an Aztec recon and there IS a community for it. But its not "established" religion, unlike the likes of Asatru. So is this a valid article? I mean there are multiple wiki rules to be considered, including reliability on references. I really do not believe there is much or any "scholarly" sources on the subject. All I know is my friend's website, but it may be considered by wiki to be a personal one. Xuchilbara (talk) 00:58, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unitarian Universalism work group?

I'm wondering if we should create a work group of folks interested in articles related to Unitarian Universalism. Is anyone interested in being on such a work group? Aleta (talk) 03:06, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I would be interested in being on such a work group. --Devin Murphy (talk) 21:58, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
No objections here. You might want to post the idea on the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals page, and maybe drop a note on the Unitarian Universalist page and a few others about the listing there. That might be the quickest way to determine how much interest there might be. John Carter 22:29, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
I just mentioned this suggestion over on the talk pages of the Unitarian Universalist Association and Unitarian Universalism articles as well as on the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals page. We will see what comes of all this. --Devin Murphy 08:15, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the suggestions, John, and for posting at the other relevant pages, Devin. I wasn't familiar with the Council/Proposals page. Aleta 19:40, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
Hi! Just want to point out that many other religions with active projects generally have stand-alone WikiProjects as distinct from workgroups under WP:RELIGION. See e.g. WP:JUDAISM, WP:CHRIST, WP:ISLAM, WP:LDS, WP:BUDDHISM, as well as a WP:BIBLE and various others. There would seem to be a lot of precedent for a discrete WikiProject being an option. Best, --Shirahadasha 22:47, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, I thought we'd start out as a work group, because I'm expecting relatively few members. We can always move to a stand alone group later if appropriate. Aleta 19:02, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

OK, enough interest has been expressed that I've started a page for the workgroup at Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion/Unitarian Universalism work group. Aleta 19:02, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Meaning of life

With much regret I have proposed this article for deletion, the discussion is here. It doesn't seem possible to have a single article on such a topic that is reliably sourced without its being at best an original research synthesis. There also seems to be difficulty complying with WP:NPOV on the subject. There seems to be no way to determine, for example, what weight to give opinions. A number of articles seem to be dumping grounds for POVs and their pushers, but there doesn't seem to be a practical way to construct a policy-compliant article. If I am wrong in this I could not be more pleased. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 03:13, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi, The purpose of life is a Topic that we can say forms the crux of the religions around the world and having it as a central part of this whole post is of utmost importance. While every religion has tried to present its own way of what the purpose of life is there is absolutely no doubting the fact that the decision of finding ones own purpose is to be left to that Individual himself about how he or she feels about it.Even though there is no unanimity about the same trying to shape others views of purpose of life has been a bane of all religions and no matter what amount of force was used or methods employed the question still is so complex that people are not able to find content suitable to be listed here. I request learned men on the editorial board to forget the complex multitude of religious scriptures and let us try and make it a simple one line question as to what is that that to you for now which can be defined as your own purpose of life and leave it at that.I would sure like to be interacting with men of knowledge to complete this section and see it online and complete in the days to come.

Anand Damani. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Damaniindia (talk • contribs) 01:49, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Categories

Hi. I recently created Category:Religious sanctuaries and Category:Historical religious sanctuaries, which may or may not merit inclusion. User:Athinaios raised some issues about these categories (see this), and I thought I'd bring the discussion to a broader audience. I'll defer to this project how to handle those categories, and how to deal with the issues raised. Mindmatrix 16:05, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

The only questions which really come to mind to me are what the specific criteria for inclusion in these categories is. Sanctuary seems to be the only relevant article, and I don't think the meaning it gives there is quite the same one you seem to be using. What do you see as being the specific criteria for inclusion in these categories? John Carter 16:10, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
Truthfully, I didn't have inclusion criteria in mind when I created it. I was trying to populate Category:Sanctuaries, and these two categories seemed appropriate, though I didn't use any specific definition of sanctuary when doing so, particularly not the definition provided in sanctuary. Anyway, I brought the discussion here to see if the project could find uses for these categories, and if not to nominate them for deletion. However, the secondary issue of categorizing historical and pre-historical religious places (ie - those no longer in operation) needs to be addressed. Mindmatrix 16:37, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
Oh, that's a misunderstanding of what I meant. The distinction between historic and prehistoric is not whether they are still in use, but whether they are from a period from which written (i.e. historical) sources exist (see Prehistory). That is important because it profoundly affects the approaches and avenues of analysis applicable to them. Thus, Delphi, albeit long out of use, is a historical sanctuary and can be understood to a considerable extent by reading ancient Greek literature, whereas for, say Stonehenge, such sources are not available. - The other problem I referred to is how to define sanctuaries as a category, as it seems unclear whether "religious sanctuary" means any sacred space (in which case every church, shrine, temple etc etc would fit this category, making it virtally useless), or the "inner sanctum" of such a place (in which case there's be hardly any specific articles to find), or broader "sanctuary areas" or "sacred landscapes", such as Delphi, The Bru na Boinne or the Nazca Lines (in which case we'd be using a consistent definition, but one at variance with most established ones, including the one used in the article Sanctuary). athinaios (talk) 13:22, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Religion in old age: Experts needed on this subject

You seem to be one of the more active project groups in Wikipedia, so I wonder how many of you would be interested in contributing a knowledge of religious gerontology to the articles on aging and gerontology? Perhaps some of you might like to join a newly proposed Wiki-project group - see my plea at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:COUNCIL/P#Gerontology

While I am here, you might also also be interested in my proposal at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:COUNCIL/P#Transpersonal_Studies I know that I have said that being more towards Exopedianism than metapedianism, I tend not to join project groups, but I might make exceptions here if enough interest can be gathered in these proposals.

ACEOREVIVED (talk) 20:46, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Holy anointing oil merger proposals

There are two proposals to merge Holy anointing oil, one to merge it with Shemen Afarsimon and one to merge it with Chrism. Please see Holy anointing oil for discussion locations. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 04:56, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Peer review notice

1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack is on Peer Review. Your comments would be appreciated, at Wikipedia:Peer review/1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack. Cirt (talk) 02:54, 2 January 2008 (UTC).

[edit] Ordering of religions in lists

A discussion came up regarding the Meaning of life article ([1]) in which editors disagreed on the appropriate ordering of religions in a list. But the issue has much wider scope than just one article, so I decided to raise it here.

Any member of any major religion can contrive an ordering that places his faith at the top of the list, and usually give vaguely-reasonable-sounding justifications for it. For example, maybe we should order by prominence in English-speaking countries? A Christian certainly might think so. Defaulting to alphabetical ordering is the only way to avoid subjectivity and perceptions of bias. Ilkali (talk) 09:42, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Evaluation?

Hello, I am the creator of All Saints' Church, Wittenberg, which is where the Reformation began, an event which forever altered the landscape of religion, and I would like it very much if it could be evaluated by your WikiProject. Thank you, Benjamin Scrīptum est - Fecī 02:16, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Mitt Romney RfC

There is currently a discussion regarding how much weight to give the subject's religious affiliation at Talk:Mitt Romney#Material regarding subject's religious affiliation. Any input is welcome. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 21:02, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Toward Peer Review

Gospel of Mark could use some help tracking down missing citations to get ready for peer review. Thanks in advance. Ovadyah (talk) 16:29, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Vaishnavism

A user by the handle GaurangaUK is reverting edits that I have made to the Vaishnavism page that are duly cited and appropriate. I intuit that this is due to religious intolerance. What may I do? The user has a history of doing this on the page.
Ah
B9 hummingbird hovering (talk • contribs) 12:20, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] On Japanese Religion

The opinion has been expressed that the sources on the religion section of the overall/general Japan article are not credible enough, not reliable/verifiable enough. If better sources are not found ASAP, drastic changes will be made to that section, removing discussion of the fact that while the vast majority of Japanese are officially counted by Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples both as belonging to those institutions, most Japanese when asked directly will claim to not be religious. This is a crucial aspect of religion in modern Japan.

Can anyone please please please help!? Surely someone out there must be a Religions of Japan scholar, with proper serious professional academic sources? LordAmeth (talk) 13:06, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Losar

Losar is currenting happening, how may I ensure that it is flagged as a current event? Is there a News Wiki article that this Wikipedia article can interwiki? How may I progress this? Is there anything else you recommend? Blessings in the mindstream
B9 hummingbird hovering (talk • contribs) 05:53, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Statement on book of mormon related pages

I posted this over on the village pump, but I was wondering if perhaps the specific wikiproject might draw a more insightful thoughts on this. User:Val42 previously tried to seek comment on it here but didn't get much response. So here is the gist - is it necessary to put such a statement as "The historicity of <Book of Mormon person's name> is not generally accepted by non-Mormon historians or archaeologists" on every single page for individuals from the Book of Mormon narrative? Such a statement was added to a few pages some months ago, though to much disagreement. Now another editor has taken to including on all the other pages despite no consensus ever being reached. In my opinion, such a statements comes off as needlessly and subtly POV. It should be sufficient for NPOV to simply state "According to the Book of Mormon..." or something similar at the start, as is done on such pages for biblical characters from Genesis and the Exodus, both which describe equally historically questionable events. I'm not against having such a statement on the Nephite or Lamanite page since the opinion of the historians and archaeologists is usually in direct relation to those groups, but putting something like this on Enos (Book of Mormon) seems overdoing it. Since this covers such a broad number of articles, and has implication on pages relating to individuals mentioned in other religious texts, I was hoping to see what the larger community thought. So, thoughts and directions on what policy would dictate? --FyzixFighter (talk) 06:33, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

My own personal opinion would be that adding it to the lead of the Enos article is overdoing it. The way the Noah article does it might work best with the Enos article. "Enos, according to the Book of Mormon, was a son of Jacob, a Nephite prophet and the author of the Book of Enos." I guess it could be argued that not qualifying in such a way might demand the dubious historicity be addressed, but with such qualification I don't think further qualification would necessarily be required. However, the Enos article does currently have a very short lead, and it would make sense to add to it more in accord with WP:LEAD. 14:43, 14 February 2008 (UTC)John Carter (talk)
Thank you John for the comments. Enos is kind of an extreme example because it is so short, so let me provide a few of the more center of the spectrum examples from both the BoM and the Bible articles. From the BoM side, Coriantumr, Captain Moroni, King Benjamin, Nephi the Disciple. By contrast, individuals from Genesis and the Exodus (which have similar dubious historicity problems like the Book of Mormon) - Seth, Kenan (another short article), Enos (Bible), Enoch (ancestor of Noah), and Aaron to name a few - and these aren't minor individuals either, and none of these mention the dubious nature of the source or events that surround those individuals. All of them, like the Noah article you point to, simply use the "according to the <religious text>" formulation. I'm sure that if I wanted to make a point, I could make similar to changes to these Bible-related pages but that would cause a needless uproar and be very bad form on my part. But I do want to make it apparent that, in my opinion, including such a statement on just the Book of Mormon related pages and not the Bible related pages represents a very bad, mainstream Christian-centric double standard. So, my follow-up question is would I be going against policy if I remove these statements, and can I refer the other editors to the discussion here should they disagree? --FyzixFighter (talk) 17:23, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
Your phrasing is a little ambiguous. I think what you're asking is whether you could adjust the content of some of the Mormon articles to something like the phrasing on the Noah page and remove the . I would think the answer to that wuld be "Yes", because it would be in accord with those other articles. You could probably reasonably remove the other sentence as well, if that qualification were added. John Carter (talk) 18:07, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Roman Catholic Church

The article Roman Catholic Church is is currently up for Featured Article status. Several editors on that page have expressed concerns about potential POV violations, the reliability of certain sources, and the inclusion/exclusion of certain information. Discussion are ongoing on the talk page of the article about potential improvements to the text. It would be nice to get more eyes to look at the article so as to reach broader community consensus. Karanacs (talk) 21:05, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Criteria for notable religious leaders in ISKCON

  • Question On the official Governing Body Commission website it states that there are "around 48" members. [2] So my question is are all 48 notable due to membership on the GBC of ISKCON? These 48 could be a good starting place for a discussion on a minimum standard for notablilty for religious leaders in ISKCON. I believe there needs to be some criteria set for establishing, "what is a notable ISKCON religious leader?" Any thoughts? Thanks. Ism schism (talk) 17:22, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
My guess would be no, although being referenced on that site would constitute one of the required indicators of notability. Biographical information published in ISKCON's in-house magazine would be another, and between the two would probably be sufficient for inclusion. However, at least theoreticaly, it might be possible for someone to be listed in that group before any substantive biographical information is published, so I would think that at least a single published substantial biographical piece should be available as well. There has been a proposed, abortive, notability guideline for religious figures in general at Wikipedia:Notability (religious figures) which has since been rejected, although if you can propose another variation, I'd be more than happy to at least review it. John Carter (talk) 18:00, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Note: There are basically two separate standards for notability, a primary, background one requiring coverage by reliable sources, and a separate one involving doing something regarded as something important based on criteria developed for certain special categorise of people. People who enough source coverage can get included regardless of what people think of the importance of what they've done. People who've done certain especially important things (for an example of the types of things Wikipedia considers especially important, see WP:Notability (people)#Pornographic actors) can get in with only minimal source coverage because its been determined that their position alone assumes source coverage. Wikipedia hasn't been able to agree on special notablility criteria for religious figures the way it has for pornographic actors, sports figures, and a number of other categories, so the basic requirement of "multiple" reliable sources (e.g. at least two) remains in effect. In practice, having done something important is still a relevant argument in deletion discussions even when there isn't a special category in effect, and people for whom a claim of particular importance can be made don't need to have as much coverage as people for whom inclusion is based on coverage alone. I suspect being a member of ISKCON would likely be accepted as a special claim of importance reducing (but not eliminating) the emphasis on needing available biographical information. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 21:06, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Biblical Numerology

This article has been nominated for deletion, but the dispute over whether or not to delete it is currently unresolved. People should take a look at the article; I don't know if it should be deleted outright, but it needs a major overhaul for one basic reason: It reads as if the author of the article is himself a biblical numerologist; it's more of a lecture on one author's (mostly unsourced) belief system, rather than an objective discussion of the topic. Minaker (talk) 05:36, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Project spam

I've just come here to register my complete disgust at the ridiculous spam-tagging of thousands of articles by your project. Is your "inter-faith workgroup" ever going to be able to contribute anything at all to Vefa Kilise Mosque or Liberian Catalogue? Of course not. How pathetic. Johnbod (talk) 18:48, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I too am quite concerned about the fact that nearly every article in my watchlist was just tagged with the WikiProject Religion banner. This was discussed at length over a year ago, with quite a lot of opposition to the idea (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Judaism/Archive_13#Wikipedia:WikiProject_Religion ) and I find it annoying that this umbrella project has gone ahead and tagged thousands of articles without first going to current projects. Like Johnbod, I feel that many of which the members here are going to have little to no understanding of most of the subjects at hand and will be ranking and editing articles in spite of this lack of knowledge. It's a bit late for discussion now I guess, but I'd like to register my displeasure. DanielC/T+ 19:00, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
See also numerous protests at User talk:BetacommandBot, in the 5 minutes before he deletes them. It goes without saying that all tags have been placed at the top of the list, pushing down other projects that actually look after these articles. Where the other project tags are nested, your bloated banner ignores this, and sits on top even of GA/FA tags! Johnbod (talk) 19:04, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] War of Heaven infobox

There's been a bit of a dispute about an infobox on the article War of Heaven. The infobox is intended for battles that appear in works of fiction. It lists the information therein as "canon information", though the stuff in it - including the exact number of angels on both sides, and the declaration that the war was won by something called "loyalist angels", is not part of any religion's canon that I'm aware of. I feel the box is just plain useless to the subject matter and verges on original research, but another good contributor believes it has value. I'd appreciate additional opinions.--Cúchullain t/c 01:07, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Heaven article badly needs citations

hi, i'm not a member of the project, but i thought i'd bring this up here. the article on Heaven is heavily laden with 'citation needed' tags, as well as the top of the article having been tagged since january 2007. per policy, an awful lot of material could legitimately be culled from the article on the basis that it's been challenged for a very long time. i'd like to encourage some focus on the article to mitigate the 'citation needed' tags. unfortunately, i'm not really qualified to work on the citations, as i'm not well schooled in the specifics. i'd just hate to see the article severely modified for lack of attention. thanks. Anastrophe (talk) 18:41, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] ISKCON work group or subproject?

  • Any thoughts on creating an ISKCON work group for biographies and ISKCON related articles? Thanks. Ism schism (talk) 15:49, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
You'd probably want to contact Wikipedia:WikiProject Hinduism regarding that subject, considering that the body in question is generally regarded as being a variant form of Hinduism. I do note that there is an extant Wikipedia:WikiProject Hinduism/Vaishnavism work group, and that might be an alternate possibility. Lastly, if there were to be sufficient interest in a proposed work group at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals and see if there is enough interest there to form one. But, at least initially, considering the group in question is generally regarded as being effectively "Hindu" in nature, I think that this project might be at least initially maybe not the best one to propose making it a subproject of. John Carter (talk) 16:03, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
I noticed that the ISKON-related AfDs didn't seem to be listed under Wikipedia:WikiProject Hinduism. Would there be a difficulty creating a subproject? Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 19:36, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
"Difficulty" might not be the word, but I'm not sure which project you'd be considering creating it as a subproject of. Generally, it'd help if there were at least five individuals interested in the group before implementation, but there probably wouldn't be any real "objections" or anything to the creation of such a group if there were sufficient interest. I suppose, if such were wanted, it might be taken as part of a subproject on New religious movements, if there weren't sufficient direct interest, but I still think that, based on what I know of the subject, it might be best to contact the Hinduism project first, given the rather pronounced degree of overlap between ISKCON and the extant, if not really active, Vaishnavism subproject. John Carter (talk) 19:44, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Having worked within the Hinduism group much in the past, my feelings are that any ISKCON sub-project would be best located under Vaishnavism. However, at present I do not see that we have enough interested editors to warrant this. I for one would not be interested in working within a sub-group with the way things currently stand. Regards, Gouranga(UK) (talk) 20:13, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
I have placed links to this discussion on the talk pages of a few editors who have contributed to ISKCON related articles. Thanks. Ism schism (talk) 20:31, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
ISKCON is just one organization under the huge span of Vaishnavism. So having a wikiproject for ISKCON is a case of undue weight, if i may say so. Wikipedia:WikiProject Hinduism/Vaishnavism can handle ISKCON articles.--Redtigerxyz (talk) 16:29, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
It would probably help if the Hinduism banner were set up for the Vaishnavism work group, though. It doesn't seem to have been set up for the group yet. John Carter (talk) 17:31, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
What type of process would that take? Thanks. Ism schism (talk) 19:16, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
I could probably do the changes myself, but it might be a good idea to get the Hinduism project's agreement to replacing the "vedanta" parameters with "vaishnava" parameters, and maybe getting an idea of what, if any, image to add to the new "Vaishnava" part of the banner. John Carter (talk) 19:32, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
I would not mind setting up this this project. I would suggest it will clear up some mess. However the name is to be agreed - vaisnava/Vaisnavism is the right scope.MBest-son (talk) 13:22, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

I will be in your project! (I am at school now, so I don't have much time, but I will help as much as I can.) David G Brault (talk) 02:07, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the offer but I more or less perform "drop in" edits. DeeKenn (talk) 21:25, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
I dont know about full fledged involvement, but I will definitely work on ISKCON pages in the future.Bakaman 02:31, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Religion and astronomy

I was thinking an article on the relationship between religion and astronomy or the universe (besides earth) at large might be a good subject for an article. What do you think?

Also, I note that this project does not link to requested articles on religion. Many projects now have their own requests page, but I think they should all at least link to a suitable requests page if they don't do this. Richard001 (talk) 07:38, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

If you can find any material relating to the subject of astronomy and religion which establishes the notability of the subject, please feel free to do so. Regarding the reuqested articles list, with this particular project that could be a bit of a problem, considering that such a list would probably have to be broken up so that each of the more focused religion projects each had their own such list, etc. But, certainly, I can't see any real objections to the creation of such a list. John Carter (talk) 15:04, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
On this topic, I was about to ask if Dating Creation and similar articles is within the scope of this WikiProject? --Shruti14 t c s 01:31, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
To some extent, yes. Astronomy can certainly tell us about the age of the universe, solar system and earth etc, and that sometimes overlaps with religion (e.g. the starlight problem). Richard001 (talk) 02:05, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
Oh, sorry, I thought you meant this proposed article (didn't read your question properly). Yes, definitely. Richard001 (talk) 07:52, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
And in reply to John, I don't think there is ever any doubt about the notability of the subject - I mean Galileo etc... you get the idea. In terms of requests, we currently have two different places where religion requests seem to be located at WP:REQ: 'Culture and fine arts' and 'social sciences'. It's difficult to categorize something like religion because it comes under so many different categories. All projects definitely need to be involved in the requests process though. Richard001 (talk) 08:01, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
You could leave a message at various related wikiprojects to attract interested and knowledgeable editors. You wouldn't want such articles to have a systematic bias by giving undue weight to Christianity-related issues, but that would be easy to slip into because there will be more English-language material on the Christianity-related controversies from Galileo to creationism in the USA. So it would also be good to alert some editors who are interested in Islam, Judaism, Taoism, Buddhism, Hinduism and the others. For Islam try user:Aminz and user:Itaqallah both well-informed on these issues and on WP policies and procedures. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:16, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack on FAC

FYI, I have nominated the article 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack for consideration at WP:FAC. Your comments at the FAC discussion page would be appreciated. Cirt (talk) 09:10, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Definition of Latin re-ligion

Ligaments connect the mind with members of the body. The goal of religion is to reconnect the mind and body. Controlling the interior dialogue is the common element in all religions. Examples: Accepting the saving grace of the Death of the Word.

In Hebrew the group of Hieroglyphs translated Egypt is also translated slavery.

Picture the head as Egypt, the body as the Holy Land and the neck(voice box--restriction) as the Red Sea. The goal is reconnection. The head is filled with the slaveries of worldly addictions supported by wordy considerations of them.

Etymological research into this word is possibly more important than listing the ceremonies of each "religion" and remaining neutral about its association with nationalistic pretensions.Johnshoemaker (talk) 10:00, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
Possibly. Such content could certainly be added to the Religion article. However, as I remember, there is no consensus on the origins of the word. Given that, there is some question how much significance to give the various disputed possibilities, etc. If you can find reliable, verifiable, neutral sources for the points you make above, that would be fine and we would welcome content on such matters. But, in general, I tend to think that our objectives are such that we should focus some of our attention on the various extant groups, as, in general, I think that the individual religions are among the most frequently searched out subjects, probably more than the etymological discussion of the origins of the word "religion". John Carter (talk) 18:04, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Help needed theories of religion

I would appreciate help to improve the very new article theories of religion that I wrote. I think that it already quite reasonable. I am not a native speaker of English. Andries (talk) 22:00, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Expand {{Infobox church/sandbox}} to cover all places of worship?

There is a proposal to convert the draft infobox template {{Infobox church/sandbox}} into a template that can be used for all places of worship. We would like your views on whether you think this is a good idea, and if you are able to help identify parameters that would be relevant to the religion that your WikiProject deals with. Do join the discussion taking place at "Template talk:Infobox church". — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 03:46, 22 March 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Abrahamic religions: A term of Islamic origin. No, I don't think so.

Abrahamic religion currently says "Abrahamic religions is a term of Islamic origin."
I don't believe that this is true, as stated.
Would anyone care to discuss this at Talk:Abrahamic_religion#Abrahamic_religions:_A_term_of_Islamic_origin._No.2C_I_don.27t_think_so.?
-- 201.37.229.117 (talk) 20:04, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Development of religion

Proposing splitting this article up. See discussion. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 02:58, 24 March 2008 (UTC)


[edit] List of Pantheists has no cites.

List of Pantheists has no cites. -- Writtenonsand (talk) 07:32, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Roman Catholic Church overtaken by Islam proposed for Main Page

This news has been proposed to be featured in the "In The News" section of the Main Page. The discussion can be located here: Wikipedia:In the news section on the Main Page/Candidates. __meco (talk) 14:21, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Roman Catholic Church Peer Review

Roman Catholic Church has been listed at Peer Review. Editors are anxious to get this to FA status, so please help review the article and leave comments. Karanacs (talk) 21:41, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Template:WPReligion

I added some instructions to Template:WPReligion to allow others to make fuller use of the WikiProject template. Revise as needed. Thanks. GregManninLB (talk) 18:57, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Free will FAR

Since this topic is related somewhat to religion, and since the religion section is part of the issue, I thought I'd mention this is up for FAR. Richard001 (talk) 08:38, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Prayer in the Bahá'í Faith

I came across this article and tagged it with your project. It's a DYK nominee. APK yada yada 18:58, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. John Carter (talk) 20:39, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Review request for Paul Nobuo Tatsuguchi

I think that I'm nearing completion in writing this article about a Japanese Seventh Day Adventist medical missionary who was forced to serve in the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II and was killed during the Battle of Attu. I hope to nominate the article for featured status soon. I don't normally work on articles of this subject, so, if someone could look at it and provide some feedback on the article's talk page on how it could be improved, it would be really appreciated. Cla68 (talk) 07:42, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Straw Poll

there is a straw poll underway at Talk:Roman_Catholic_Church#Capitalization_of_.22Church.22 regarding the style guidelines for capitalization and church bodies. Pastordavid (talk) 18:19, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Vital articles

Any editor with a broad knowledge of religion is invited to take a look at Wikipedia:Vital articles and offer suggestions on how to improve the list of 1000 vital Wikipedia articles, as well as on the process of choosing them. It suffers from a severe lack of attention and POV editing. — goethean ॐ 01:48, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup listing

We now have a list of articles which have been tagged by this project with one or more cleanup tags at Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion/Cleanup listing. Please feel free to do any work you can to address the existing problems there. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 20:04, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:WikiProject Cults, sects, and new religious movements

You might want to keep an eye on this new Project. It was nominated for speedy deletion, but I think that is inappropriate. See my comments on the talk page. --Bduke (talk) 09:10, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

This will become a POV minefield instead of a WikiProject. A Workgroup on New religious movements may be useful, while one on "cults" and "sects" when mixed with NRMs will not. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:27, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
The term cult is widely known, more than NRM better defined than NRM in a scholarly term (though it tends to have more diverse definitions), there is at leaast a strong overlap and a significant fraction of scholars prefers the term cult over NRM. Andries (talk) 17:50, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
There is already so much disagreement about the name that the Wikiproject work group has forked i.e. Wikipedia:WikiProject_Religion/New_religious_movements_work_group Andries (talk) 17:57, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Discussion took place here Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Religion/Cults_and_new_religious_movements_work_group. Andries (talk) 18:01, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

What about Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion/Cults work group and Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion/Sects work group in addition to Wikipedia:WikiProject_Religion/New_religious_movements_work_group?

Question: Why? In addition to all the problems that are inherent in using the words "cults" and "sects", I don't see that many articles in Category:Cults not already covered by NRM. And "sects" of other major extant religious traditions will tend to already be covered by the main project for that religion. John Carter (talk) 18:39, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
As if the term NRM is clearly defined. How many articles in the category:new religious movements have scholarly consensus for this classification? Andries (talk) 18:50, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Help with Gender and religion

This article, with the exception of one sentence, lacks information on any religions other than Judaism and Christianity. Can people knowledgable about other religions help expand it? Thanks, --Alynna (talk) 00:29, 23 May 2008 (UTC) (cross-posted to WikiProject Gender Studies)

There are some knowledgeable editors in WikiProject Islam who will be pleased to help. Itsmejudith (talk) 07:38, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, I'll go ask there. --Alynna (talk) 10:39, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup listing, feedback

Roughly a month ago, I created a cleanup listing for this WikiProject. I have now updated the list with a new data snapshot of May 24. Also, the list format has slightly changed.

On this occassion, I would like to ask you for feedback about this kind of listings. (I am currently evaluating whether it makes sense to offer them on a larger scale.) Did you find the listing useful for your project work? Does it reasonably lead you to articles that you can clean up? What could be improved about the content or formatting of the list?

As a side note, if the listings are too long when generated for the entire project, I can also generate them for individual workgroups, which might be easier to handle.

Please leave your comments at User talk:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings. Thanks, --B. Wolterding (talk) 09:32, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed new work group

There is now a proposal at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Religious creeds/denominations for a group whose specific purpose would be to focus on the main articles on the various religious creeds, denominations, what have you, and bring them up to the highest level possible. If you would be interested in working in such a group, please indicate your interest there. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 18:38, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Abrahamic Religions

Hi! I am trying to start a new WikiProject Abrahamic Religions. This Wikiproject would be mainly based around the three major Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. My personnal goal for the project would be to have it focus on the relationship, similarities and differences between the religions, though of cousre with enough members and enough time the course of the project may well change or become equally focused on other areas. This project would help deal with articles which are currently within the scope of all of the Abrahamic religions wikiprojects but due to the small difference between them opinions and technical wording are often disputed and Wikiproject Abrahamic religions would fill this gap. The other Abrahamic religions such as Bahá'í would aslo be dealt with although in the begining of this project not a huge amount would be done on them as I dont know alot about them, due to them being less well known about within the Westeren world and it being quite hard to find any reliable information on them I suspect other editors would find similar problems as well although hopefully in time with a bit of research we would be able to incorporate these other faiths completely into the project. As you can probably tell this would be within the scope of WikiProject Religion but I feel that this is a group which would be too big in the long term to be a task force. Anyway the purpose of this is to invite any members of WikiProject Religion or anybody who is just viewing this talk page and think that they might like to join. As the Poroject is in the proposal stage if anybody would like to join please go to Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals and there you will find the proposal please but your name on the Interested Wikipedians list. Thanks and I hope to here from some of you soon. The Quill (talk) 13:08, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Wouldn't a task force of WP Religion be more appropriate at first? If it grows you can later convert it into an independent WP. -- alexgieg (talk) 15:20, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
I thought that at first but due to the comlicated posistion the task force would be in I don't think that it would work. Also becasue this such a large topic I have a feeling that after the intional dubious speculation as a Wikiproject it would grow rapidly while as a task force it would be restricted in size and what it could do. Anyway we will have to wait and see what reaction is although if the wikirpoject idea doesn't work as planned the task force idea is always an option. The Quill (talk) 16:24, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
There already is the Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion/Interfaith work group, which deals with much the same sort of content, if beyond just the Abrahamic religions. Maybe it would be a good idea to help that one first, and then see if there is enough content to make a separate work group for Abrahamic religions specifically viable. And, for what its worth, being a "child" project does nothing in terms of restricting what a group can do. John Carter (talk) 17:55, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Natural Theology and "Astrotheology"

The expertise of those knowledgeable in the subject of Natural theology would be very helpful both in that entry and on the possibly soon deleted Astrotheology entry. There is a content dispute that broke out on the second of the two entries, which has now spilled over to the first. Exactly what natural theology includes and how best to define it are at the heart of this dispute. Thanks for any help. (Note: I am cross posting this on WikiProject(s):Philosophy and Christianity).PelleSmith (talk) 21:42, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Userbox nominated

User:Hexagon1/Imagfriend, my atheist userbox, has been recently nominated for deletion. I would sincerely appreciate any input at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Hexagon1/Imagfriend. Thank you, +Hexagon1 (t) 08:51, 9 June 2008 (UTC)