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Criticism of Religious Belief

This section contains the following:

In North America and Western Europe the social fallout of the 9/11 attacks contributed in part to the appearance of numerous pro-secularist books, such as The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, The End of Faith by Sam Harris, and God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens. This criticism is largely, but not entirely, focused on the monotheistic Abrahamic traditions.

We should have a source for the claim that the 9/11 attacks were even partly responsible for the appearance of the "pro-secularist" books. Otherwise it should be deleted.Desoto10 (talk) 00:32, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Good point, I agree with you. I'm pretty sure I remember that these authors themselves mention 9/11 prominently, so it may be good to add that as a footnote. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:16, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Classification of Buddhism

I find it strange that Buddhism has not been classed as an Indian religion, as it shares the concept of karma - listed under Indian religions - with Hinduism, as well as much more. It began in Nepal, and the Buddha is said to have achieved Nirvana in India. the Buddha is a Hindu deity and the two are strongly linked, it seems strange that it should be separetly classified. Even though now its core followers are resident in the far east, it is still an Indian religion, in the same way Zoroastrianism is still a Persian(Iranian) religion. --Ironman1503 19:14, 03 October 2009 (UTC)

As I noted above, some forms of Buddhism prevalent today would be totally alien to Indian people. Shii (tock) 02:55, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

This argument can be applied to Hinduism just as well. Bali Hinduism would be 'alien' to Indian people. In fact, any religion that managed to spread outside its original core area for any significant amount of time can fall prey to it. There is no sensible limit to this line of argument and it effectively renders the whole concept of grouping religions meaningless. "Alien" reeks of PoV in any case. This aspect of the article directly contradicts Wikipedia's own "Indian religions" article (as well as "Eastern Religion"), which uses the much more common sense and defensible definition that Indian religions consists of religions that originated in the Indian subcontinent. This article itself grouped Buddhism under Indian religions for years. I see no reason why this was changed. If there is disagreement about this, it would be better to settle it in Indian Religions and Eastern Religion and change it (if needed) in this overview article only afterwards. -- Matuenih (talk) 01:33, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm asking this question from a position of really not knowing anything about the subject, so I'm really just asking: In the edit, you also shortened the description of various groups within Buddhism. Would it be better to restore those, regardless of where in the organization of the section they appear? --Tryptofish (talk) 18:36, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

With this classification, Matuenih can assert the domination of Indian philosophy over such faraway places as China and Japan. It's interesting that he hasn't seemed to have picked up on the blatant POV of the Indian religions article. Of course if Buddhism is just a subcategory of India its various forms which span an entire continent deserve no more than a brief mention. But I'm not going to revert him, because no recent work that I can think of has discussed the meaningless question of whether "Buddhism" (which, as the original classification noted, is actually an extremely disparate bunch of local traditions) is "Indian" (who knows what that's supposed to mean). Shii (tock) 17:56, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Come to think of it, this is actually more amusing than I thought: there was no such thing as India or Hindustan until the medieval period, so Matuenih is asserting the domination of a modern political entity over an ancient philosophy. Shii (tock) 17:58, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I shortened the Buddhism section merely to conform with the rest of the list (which does not make use of third level bullets and has fairly brief second level entities). The links to the separate schools of Buddhism were retained but if you feel that it should be more detailed still, feel free to change it back (looking at it again, some of the Abrahamic sections are quite large so perhaps it makes sense to do this for Buddhism as well).

Shii, the argument is largely geographic. Bringing in the Republic of India is a strawman. "Indian" here refers to the Indian subcontinent and it is quite sensible to call the religions originating in the Indian subcontinent to be Indian. This article itself starts off that way and that was not my edit: "Indian religions are practiced or were founded in the Indian subcontinent." In no way does this assert any sense of ownership (or "domination") by the Republic of India. "India" has been used to refer to the subcontinent since much earlier than the medieval period (see Names of India). The article Indian on Wikipedia duly informs the user that Indian may refer to the subcontinent as a whole. Arguing that Buddhism has changed since it left the subcontinent makes this whole exercise of grouping religions meaningless (I am not necessarily opposed to that line of thinking, but since grouping we are, I will assert this definition of Indian religions as it is fairly straightforward and long-standing). -- Matuenih (talk) 16:46, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Auto archiving

I would like to see automatic archiving activated for this page using MiszaBot. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 23:57, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

So would I! For now you had manual archiving using me! --Tryptofish (talk) 00:58, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Auto-archiving is now activated. 31 day old threads moved to archives with four threads always left behind. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 21:16, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Suggestions of changes to the article

Since the article is locked against editing by anonymous users, I have created this section to suggest changes to the article.

• I suggest that the link infidels in the Memetic theory of religion section be changed to infidels, as now it incorrectly leads to a musical collection, instead of a religious concept. 95.103.50.222 (talk) 01:53, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

 Done  —  ^{.`</sup>^) Paine Ellsworth<sup>diss`cuss} (^^`.  05:00, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

New edits

With regrets, I just reverted a large number of edits. I think the edits were really changing the direction of the article, towards a focus on the study of the idea of religion as a concept, and away from many of the traditional components of this article. I'd like to suggest that, either, the proposed changes be userfied, or, that they be listed first in this talk, and that editors have an opportunity to discuss them in this talk before they are enacted. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:03, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the traditions of this article are outdated and no longer needed in modern society. The progress of science demands that we continue to revise and improve this article, bringing it into a newer and richer century. But seriously, do you have any specific problems with my rewriting, or the citations I've used? You seem to think that I've deleted the "criticism" section, but I've actually just moved it a few paragraphs upwards. Shii (tock) 23:20, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

It seems you have a POV agenda, and one this is a minority view at that. Hardyplants (talk) 23:52, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Apparently I am pushing a POV too horrible to be mentioned by name, the Lord Voldemort of POVs. Suggestion: Read Talal Asad, read his critics (Tweed maybe), come back later. Shii (tock) 23:58, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Please understand that I do not mean to be disrespectful towards the work you are putting into the page. However, yes I do have problems. The overall change in emphasis seems to me to be OR and maybe COI. But most of all, you are making it difficult for other editors to follow what is or is not changing. You said in your edit summary reverting me (which you really should not have done) that you did not delete the criticism section. Well, I looked pretty carefully before I made my revert edit, and it looked to me like it was no longer there. In one edit, you removed some seemingly noncontroversial see also links, why? Please take it as a given that, in this case, your edits are not necessarily agreed to. That being the case, please consider listing here the specific changes you want to make, and then I and perhaps others can give you specific feedback. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:34, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

1. The reason I reverted you is because I am not a fan of people who revert without explanation. You still haven't explained what I've done wrong, only, that I made a big change. I do not take it as default that this article has owners who want it to remain in its current state, or that I need to state my case before the Wikipedia Court. This is the intent of the WP:BOLD policy.
2. Actually, this article is a piece of crap that could not possibly survive a GA review. I'm trying to improve it by adding recent scholarship. It's neither OR nor COI, but rather an encyclopedic summary of the religious category as currently understood by people who study religion, using cited sources. I apologize that I haven't cited Asad yet. He will come later, as soon as I'm sure that I won't be subject to revert wars.
3. I want to change the page to what it looked like before you reverted me the second time. This is an improvement on its current ignoble state.
4. The entire "criticism" section was moved to "atheism" (although you could rename that section "criticism"-- it's sort of a moot point), and I only added Feuerbach, rather than removing any names.
5. The meme section was integrated with the religious studies section. This was sloppy on my part because I am aiming for an agreed upon structure first.
6. The see also links weren't relevant to that section. They were leftovers that came along with the image I was moving.

Shii (tock) 23:45, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I only reverted you once, and I do not understand what you mean by "second time." Much of your comments are angry in tone, so please calm down. Please remember that it is the responsibility of the editor making the changes to substantiate them; there is nothing WP:OWN about expecting that. From what you said here, some of what you did was, in your own word, "sloppy". Maybe I just misunderstood what you were doing as a result of that sloppiness. If you explain calmly and clearly what you are doing, I'm sure we can come to an understanding. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:57, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

If you look at the Philosophy article right now you can see what I'm trying to do with this article: rewrite it in terms of religion as it was understood in each time period of history, giving ample weight to the issues of today, but not necessarily in the messy form it's in right now. I've requested a peer review to get some ideas for structure, so this is just a start, but it's an improvement over looking backwards and representing the past in terms of modern religion, which is something no scholarly text has done in decades. (Imagine if you will a Philosophy article that described the entire history of Western philosophy through the eyes of Derrida. That's the POV that gets me so incensed.) Shii (tock) 00:03, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

OK, that's a start. Can you be more specific about what that rewrite entails (as opposed to your overall goal)? There is no need in any of this to be "incensed". You can see now that a second editor in addition to me has concerns. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:10, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for approaching this in such a confrontational way. I am still very much in 2002 mode and don't like the idea of "revert first, ask questions later". I decided to take a break, and thinking about it more, I understand the impetus to write a draft in userspace and make it tidy before moving it in. But the previous edition of this article was just plain bad. I had tried to fix it in little increments but it was a disconnected mess.

First, let's assume that this article defines the concept of religion, singular, since religions redirects somewhere else (to a far worse article, but that's a story for that talk page). In that case, the history section as it previously existed did not belong on this page; it was a history of religions plural, as opposed to a history of religion and religiousness, a category that has had real influence for centuries and is not just the idle curiosity of scholars. That's why I merged the definition sections and history section. Second, let's assume that as the article currently claims, religion is a category that has had strong ties to various other cultural categories. In that case, it is our duty to report on the existence of opinions on religion, but also to place them into social and historical context rather than acting like they exist in a void. That's why I moved the atheism section and why I added other sections on older historical opinions.

My ideal for the future of this article is to begin with these historical and modern views of religion, then proceeding to the list of religions, and then tackle the overlaps with other cultural categories (although this is part of the sloppiness of the original article; I would recommend not being so generic and wishy-washy and using specific cultural precedents where religion was unified with X, Y, and Z). Beyond that I'm open to suggestions. Shii (tock) 02:32, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for that. I appreciate it (and have reverted the tag). I do realize that you are putting a lot of serious thought into these issues. Please understand that I was only coming from a position of WP:BRD. I can now get more specific:

• Let's start with that distinction between "religion" and "religions". I'm far from an expert on the academic scholarship, but I take your point about how academic scholarship regards it. At the same time, I think that Wikipedia is writing for a general public audience, as an encyclopedia rather than as an academic text. Therefore, I think most of our readers will come to this page (rather than to Major religious groups) when they are looking for information of the sort that academics would (instead) call "religions". I'm concerned that your revisions will make it less user-friendly in that regard.
• Similarly, I am unsure as to whether what you have characterized as present-day scholarship really is present-day academic consensus. (As I say, I'm no expert.) I looked at Talal Asad, and he certainly looks to me like someone with a controversial thesis. I'm really not competent to argue the point with you, but I'd like to see what other editors think about that. Perhaps we may decide to have an RfC or a 3O.
• I'd probably prefer to change the "atheism" header back to criticism of belief. There can be (and around the Wiki, there is) endless argument about whether atheism is a religion and whether it belongs here, and the section is more concerned with atheist critiques of religion than with atheism in its own right. On the other hand, I think NPOV makes a good case for having a criticism section.
• I think "History of the religious category" sounds stilted as a section title. The page is about religion, not something called "the religious category".
• On the other hand, I think it is pretty typical of Wikipedia articles to have a "Definitions" section.
• I'd like to understand a little better the rationale for your current organization of the history section, what specifically was wrong with the old version, and what specifically this new one does better.
• It's a little hard to follow from the edit summaries, but I think that some of your edits moving things around have also deleted content. I feel we need to look carefully at all deletions to see whether they really have consensus.

OK, I think that will do for a start. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:17, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Good points. There are opponents to Talal Asad, and I'm going to be reading about them for my "integrative exercise" class starting in January and summarizing what I learn here. They are indeed currently missing from this article and I will do my best to "write for the opponent", but I don't think anyone denies that the meaning of religion has changed over time, or that it developed in different countries through intercultural dialogue-- some people just think that history necessitates an essentialist definition in the case of modern issues. For example, David Chidester: "After reviewing the history of colonial productions and reproduction on contested frontiers, we might happily abandon religion and religions as terms of analysis if we were not, as the result of that very history, stuck with them." Thomas A. Tweed: "The term religion... has prompted further conversation, more contestation. It has done its work." Also, I hate to play the broken record, but before I revised this article everyone was missing; the article was out to lunch. (P.S. The reason I prefer Asad to Tweed or Chidester is that the latter two mainly study Christianity, whereas Asad is a Muslim trying to make Islamic culture accessible for Western understanding and, e.g., encyclopedic summary.)

You can feel free to make large changes yourself as long as we have agreed upon this new combined section as a precursor to a proper discussion of religious discourse in context. I'm only trying to rearrange this article for the benefit of all editors and readers, not to own it. Restore anything I've deleted, like the summaries of meme theory, if it was well sourced. I changed the topic headings--change it again if you like. I'm actually writing a paper on Ambedkar and need to get back to work. I feel kind of stupid now. Shii (tock) 05:16, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. We can take our time with this. It's hard for me to know exactly what we have or have not agreed to. I appreciate that you have already fixed some of the things I mentioned, and I will probably be bold in fixing other things as I see them, particularly with regard to restoring material that was deleted. I may ask for a 3O about the overall direction and its relation (or, perhaps, lack of relation) to scholarly consensus, as well as to how it impacts usefulness for a non-scholarly audience. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:17, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Looking at the version that exists now, I observe some issues about the organization and content:

• It would make better sense for the section on religious belief to come earlier, before the major religions section.
• The secularism/criticism section isn't really history, and is important enough to be its own major section lower on the page. (I will probably change these first two things myself. √ Done.)
• The history section as it is now has problems with balance. It is very skewed towards the Abrahamic religions at the expense of others, and it is more concerned with the history of the concept of religion (as an academic study) than with the history of religious belief, thus omitting much early history. (Tagged for that reason.)

--Tryptofish (talk) 18:52, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I personally doubt that a history of religions can exist as a coherent narrative. It would read something like "In 1300, X happened in Africa. Meanwhile, in India, Y happened. In Japan, Z happened." That's what the old article looked like, and it's a back-construction; we would be hard-pressed to explain what X, Y, and Z had to do with each other at the time. Keep in mind the Philosophy article as reference: it separates Eastern and Western philosophy (in fact, "ne'er shall the twain meet"... we don't have to do that in this article). It is possible to understand how different cultures interacted with each others' religions, and with the concept of religion itself, over time. State Shinto, for example, was a challenge to our understanding of religion-- much like atheism is today-- and if the History section were its own article I'd list that there. Would you prefer, say, linking to the history of each separate tradition?

On another note, I would say that the secularism/criticism section is grounded in history, just as everything else is, but it's pointless to dispute this point in a discussion that only includes two people. I'll come back to it in 3 months or whatever. Shii (tock) 19:19, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I understand. Take your time (and please indent). About the history, an approach might be to link, as you said, and also to cover the history of belief, beyond just the history of how people have conceived of belief, for example, early archaeological evidence of religious practices. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:32, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't quite get what you added to the page, are we supposed to write a history on the assumption that there has been an unchanging category called "religion" throughout history? That seems like a POV to me. Shii (tock) 06:48, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Once again, please indent. I assume you are asking about the tag at the start of the History section? I thought I already explained it, but I'll try to make it clearer. Most readers of Wikipedia are from the general public. They will come to this page looking for information about religion in general. The section as it is now is skewed towards the Abrahamic religions and ignores others. It also is about the history of how scholars have thought about the idea of religion as a category of scholarly study, while failing to cover at least some of the history of how people have practiced religion or believed religious beliefs. I have never said that we should assume that there was an unchanging category; rather, I am saying that there is more to the history of religion than the history of how scholars have thought about changes in the category. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:35, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

"I am saying that there is more to the history of religion than the history of how scholars have thought about changes in the category." And who are the reliable sources that will discuss such an objective history? Shii (tock) 23:20, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

I suppose they would be the scholars who have studied the history of religion, as opposed to the scholars who have studied whether such an objective history exists. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:01, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

So basically, this article should be written from the perspective of "damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!" I doubt there is anyone who currently studies religion and is unfamiliar with these historical problems. Shii (tock) 02:28, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

That's strange, in that I'm not the one who has been making the recent edits! Please understand, I have never objected to adding the material you have added, only to leaving out the material you want to leave out. You and I have reached the point where this dialog is no longer accomplishing anything constructive. I note that another editor has now gotten involved, in the new etymology section. I think the issues where you disagree with other editors will best be figured out by having more editors look at this page with fresh eyes. Let's see if that happens on its own. If not, I'll start an RfC. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:51, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

I think that this has been a very productive discussion so far, but we do need new voices to help us decide the direction for this article. I don't know if RFC would be the best forum, but I'm not up to date on how new voices can find articles these days (it seems that Peer Review is backlogged), so do whatever you like. Shii (tock) 21:37, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Good, thanks. (About Peer Review, it's more about assessing article quality as a prelude for GA or FA.) --Tryptofish (talk) 22:45, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

You probably noticed this if you monitor this article, but I'm attempting once again to draw "criticism of religion" into the flow of the article by grouping it under a subheading. However, this time I didn't change the text. I think all sections of this article should be reference each other by context if it is to reach GA status. Shii (tock) 21:32, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I just saw that, and at first glance, it looks good to me. I haven't had time lately to look closely at some of the other details I raised earlier, but I will come back to do that. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:36, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I restored the section tag that was deleted. As I understand it, the reason for the deletion was that a source was added indicating that the word "religion" was not used in its present-day sense prior to a relatively recent date. Even if that is true, it doesn't change the fact that religion existed before that date, and it had a history. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:35, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

I believe it is worth mentioning that there are certain criteria that a "religion" has to fulfill before becoming a religion and being included on this page. Otherwise I can see people editing in a plethora of homebrew religions that do not contribute to the article. “Religions assure salvation; religions believe in a precise theology; and religions convert nonbelievers.” (The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown) I thought this was an interesting way to see it, and I was wondering if citing a novel (although it is researched) is appropriate. Furthermore this description is probably from another source, if someone knows of it, I think it will be a valuable inclusion to this article. Can a more experienced user clarify/verify this? User1618 (talk) 21:19, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Original research in the Etymology section

I have edited this original message which had suffered for my stress level Shii (tock)

User:Meieimatai has been repeatedly adding a very silly Etymology section which I have repeatedly removed because nobody else is getting involved. I really just wanted him to go away because the section is worthless. But it looks like he's here for good, so here's a little breakdown. His original claims are as follows:

1. The single most reliable source for the etymology of "religion" is Cicero.

   And my reply: The importance of Cicero is not attested by anyone in particular. And for good reason, because it's a figura etymologica, as anyone who read the cited passage would understand. Cicero is being about as scholarly as Plato was when he derived anthropos from anathron ha opope. Little did Cicero know that one day his figure of speech would be cited as the very height of linguistic research.

2. Cicero should be included here but all other information belongs on "Wikidictionary". (his comment on my talk page)

   This article needs an Etymology section like Barack Obama needs an Etymology section. You read this article to understand what "religion" means, where the idea came from, the types of practices that people call religion today, etc. If you wanted to know that the root is Latin you'd go to Wiktionary. I removed the etymology section from the word Library in 2007 and nobody ever added it back. But nobody had a theological agenda to explain where libraries came from either.

3. No, nobody has ever claimed that Cicero was talking about Jews here, but "Cicero being who he was could not have been ignorant of [Jewish oral tradition], and it is this socio-cultural environment that I brought to the attention of the Wikipedia reader." (his comment on my talk page)

   A pure fabrication, not found in any reliable source. Nothing else to say about this. It's the definition of WP:OR.

4. Therefore the word "religion" came from describing something that Jews did.

   I invite the curious reader to check out Meieimatai's user talk page and consider why Meieimatai might want to write an Etymology section that reads this way.

Yeah, I just spent 2 days edit warring instead of doing this point by point. I handled this the wrong way, but I was quite stressed by this debate. He left many condescending messages claiming he knows way more about etymology than me. Rather than owning up to his POV pushing he called me an anti-Semite. He has also claimed on my talk page to be associated with Wikipedia:WikiProject Etymology editing for the benefit of all curious readers, whereas in reality this is the first non-Jewish article he's edited since July 2008 (the month he registered). Shii (tock) 06:08, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Please take care to use more civil language. I reverted this back to your version again. The other version is poorly written while stressing the less common (in modernity anyway) interpretation of religio. I also do not understand why the part about Judaism was there. It seems like original research. I highly suggest discussing these and future disagreements here instead of revert warring with each other, something that always takes at least two parties by the way (hint, hint to those engaged accusing only the other party of doing so).PelleSmith (talk) 07:17, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

PelleSmith - I am highly curious why you reverted to a version which is even less substantiated and certainly less referenced, never mind selectively quoting original source in Latin?

As for the points raised by the un-named editor (wonder why?)

1. Cicero is not the single most reliable source, simply the first known one, and is commonly accepted as such by all.

2. Have you red the cited passage? You assumed the average Wikipedia reader is fluent in Latin, and chose not to translate it.

3. I linked the Wikidictionary entry to the section, which you chose to ignore.

4. What "religion" means, where the idea came from, the types of practices that people call religion today, etc. surely starts with the word itself! It seems to mean different things to different people in different times and that seems to me to be significant.

5. As you have perfect knowledge of Latin, you no doubt have read Cicero. The discourse on religion in his time was fairly limited and Jews, who were represented in Rome by a small community, were a noticeable difference of monotheists to the rest of the polytheistic practices. This is relevant to the article as a whole, but more so in the sense of observance, which is related to the core of Judaism, a religion that has reading and reciting at its core. The OED may not say so, but an online etymological dictionary says that

c.1200, "state of life bound by monastic vows," also "conduct indicating a belief in a divine power," from Anglo-Fr. religiun (11c.), from O.Fr. religion "religious community," from L. religionem (nom. religio) "respect for what is sacred, reverence for the gods," in L.L. "monastic life" (5c.); according to Cicero, derived from relegare "go through again, read again," from re- "again" + legere "read" (see lecture). However, popular etymology among the later ancients (and many modern writers) connects it with religare "to bind fast" (see rely), via notion of "place an obligation on," or "bond between humans and gods." Another possible origin is religiens "careful," opposite of negligens. Meaning "particular system of faith" is recorded from c.1300.

is sourced from several specialist dictionaries including Weekley's "An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English," Klein's "A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language," "Oxford English Dictionary" (second edition), "Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology," Holthauzen's "Etymologisches Wörterbuch der Englischen Sprache," Ayto's "20th Century Words," and Chapman's "Dictionary of American Slang." To me this doesn't look like OR at all.

5. I did not suggest that the word religion came from something Jews did! All I said is that in a given interpretation, suggested by several authoritative sources, it is very applicable to the practice contaminator to its origin with Cicero. It is not OR, but a fact, and besides that informs the reader as to possible derivation of the term. Cicero, and other Romans, often cited practices that other people did, including the Jews. In Cicero's time this was news because Judea had just become a latest addition to the Roman Empire.

6. What has my user page got to do with this editing? PelleSmith user page says he is semi-retired. Should I extrapolate from this? As it happens I did a course on Talmudic discourse, and being left with course material, and noting a decided lack of some articles in the Talmudic are decided to add to them and make that a project. Unfortunately I got sidetracked into some other editing.

7. I never received an answer to how you assumed that it is my "attempt to promote Judaism as the true religion is hilariously transparent" or "attempt to promote primitive tribal myths remains hilariously transparent", though you seem to be having a lot of fun at my expense. I never attached any value judgements to the section, and I'm sure you managed to offend a great number of people by suggesting that their beliefs, which clearly you do not share, are "tribal myths". I do however suggest that the religious obligation to know how to read and write is not such a bad "tribal myth" highlighted by my edits--Meieimatai? 07:57, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Compromise

I edited a compromise version. I have no bone in this, with the exception that I believe Meieimatai's version included OR while lacking a balanced presentation of the two etymological possibilities. I also removed the citation to Cicero's with the addition of his original Latin. I suggest getting a better citation from an English language source that is secondary or tertiary. I also reversed the order of the options if only because this is how the OED presents the etymology. I assume it has to do with ligere being older in Cicero than ligare in Lactanitus but I really don't know. The point is that at least we have a good basis to go by if we follow the OED. Please flesh out this section more if possible, but lets not go back to edit warring over it. In the end the ultimate origins of the term are extremely trivial.PelleSmith (talk) 14:27, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree that this is a trivial point and I should not have edit warred over it. It's finals week for me now so I won't be working on this immediately-- hopefully we can come to a reasonable consensus. Shii (tock) 18:21, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Header image

It's not very nice to revert people without giving a reason. Look at the tertiary sources which were used for this image. Do any of them show Iran as the same color as Saudi Arabia? No? Then there's nothing more to discuss. Shii (tock) 09:05, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Edits to retain some neutrality

These lines seem to bias against religion, and should be edited to maintain neutrality:

"Religion is commonly identified by the practitioner's prayer, ritual, meditation, music and art, among other things, but more generally is interwoven with society and politics."

The bolded section makes religion sound like it is mainly used as a societal or political tool. Some people do use religion in this way, but others use it for the purposes mentioned before that (meditation, worship, prayer, etc).

Suggested edit: "Religion is commonly identified by the practitioner's prayer, ritual, meditation, music and art, and is often interwoven with society and politics."

At the moment, that is the only real problem I have with this article.

Chargee (talk) 09:28, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

That's a fair point. Done. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:51, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Global Warming

Under list of religions, Global Warming Movement was left out. Believe this movement fits the definition of 'Religion' as stated in this article and has a wide enough following of 'believers' that it should be included. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.162.8.58 (talk) 20:24, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Global warming and climate change are concepts that have a sound baking backing from the scientific community. The environmental movement, which is attempting to mitigate the effects of global warming use the scientific consensus. It is nothing to o with religion. It is not a religion. Some may pursue the goal with a religious fervour but that does not make it a religion. If that were to be the case we could class sport as a religion. To believe in anthropogenic global warming does not need prayer, churches and deities. Finally, Wikipedia documents the dominant opinion of society that is gleaned from all of the referenced, reliable source. None of these classify global warming as a religion. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 20:42, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

For what it's worth, The Book of Lists lists "scientism" as a religion, but that was the 1970s. Shii (tock) 02:04, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I just thought that they were (the IPCC and the angclian uni.) just cought to hiding the decline and the mass of 'professionals' seems to be out of peer pressure. So if the IPCC lied, the science is not settled and all is not well. I would very much want to see you produce this scientific concensus. I think it's all about carbon trade and mass control. I see no real climate change except for the norm. See 'climategate' orth. But yes. Climate change fanaticism is approaching religion, which is allso belief without proof. --82.181.195.240 (talk) 23:34, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

"The use of the term "nonreligious" or "secular" here refers to belief or participation in systems which are not traditionally labeled "religions." Of course, in the absence of traditional religions, society exhibits the same behavioral, social and psychological phenomena associated with religious cultures, but in association with secular, political, ethnic, commercial or other systems. Marxism and Maoism, for instance, had their scriptures, authority, symbolism, liturgy, clergy, prophets, proselyting, etc. Sports, art, patriotism, music, drugs, mass media and social causes have all been observed to fulfill roles similar to religion in the lives of individuals -- capturing the imagination and serving as a source of values, beliefs and social interaction. In a broader sense, sociologists point out that there are no truly "secular societies," and that the word "nonreligious" is a misnomer. Sociologically speaking, "nonreligious" people are simply those who derive their worldview and value system primarily from alternative, secular, cultural or otherwise nonrevealed systems ("religions") rather than traditional religious systems. Like traditional religions, secular systems (such as Communism, Platonism, Freudian psychology, Nazism, pantheism, atheism, nationalism, etc.) typically have favored spokespeople and typically claim to present a universally valid and applicable Truth. Like traditional religions, secular systems are subject to both rapid and gradual changes in popularity, modification, and extinction." ([1])

"In 2001, a US district court judge ruled that Alcoholics Anonymous is a religion." (Clarke & Beyer, The World's Religions, Routledge, 2009, page 138)

Peter jackson (talk) 16:28, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Zoroastrianism

This page is bereft of mentions of this monumental religion. Warmest Regards, :)--_thecurran Speak your mind ^{my past} 15:58, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Damages religion causes

This page is also bereft of mentions of these monumental ideas: "Mental Health versus Mysticism and Self-Sacrifice," by Nathaniel Branden (1963), in Ayn Rand The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism.

Please see full text here. Retrieved today.

Warmest Regards, :) 94.230.82.161 (talk) 11:18, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Perhaps more directly related to Criticism of religion? --Tryptofish (talk) 16:22, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Dawkins

i am a little hesitant to leave Dawkins in the religious studies section

"Although evolutionists had previously sought to understand and explain religion in terms of a cultural attribute which might conceivably confer biological advantages to its adherents, Richard Dawkins called for a re-analysis of religion in terms of the evolution of self-replicating ideas apart from any resulting biological advantages they might bestow. He argued that the role of key replicator in cultural evolution belongs not to genes, but to memes replicating thought from person to person by means of imitation. These replicators respond to selective pressures that may or may not affect biological reproduction or survival.[23] Susan Blackmore regards religions as particularly tenacious memes.[24] Chris Hedges, however, regards meme theory as a misleading imposition of genetics onto psychology."

None of these People are exactly experts on the subject of religous studies, it seems like pov was inseted and added to as much as i am a fan dawkins i cant help but feel that this uhm has LITTLE to do with the subject of religous might work better in section called origins of religoin or something. i dont think its in appropirate for the article but uhm but not quite in the same paragraph as Lindbeck. Weaponbb7 (talk) 03:32, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree with this statement. None of these people have degrees in religious studies... maybe we should remove the paragraph, which is just one aspect of criticism of religion. Shii (tock) 23:15, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Can you please learn how to spell? None of your "arguments" have any value because you can't even spell... . This is an encyclopedia, not a forum for people who can't even spell to spout their opinions. And, in case your first language is NOT English, please limit your stupid remarks only to that language forum. 173.168.177.217 (talk) 20:56, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Ravidassia Dharam

Please include ravidassia dharam in your religions of india —Preceding unsigned comment added by Superiorfaither (talk • contribs) 17:22, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from Brendan Connolly, 11 May 2010

{{editsemiprotected}}

To be added to the section "Religion and Philosophy" under the "Religion" entry:

One suggestion to link religion and philosophy is to use recently acquired knowledge to address the issues that religions traditionally address is made in the book "The Natural Religion", The Natural Religion, 2008; ISBN 978-0-9558313-0-0, by Brendan Connolly.

Brendan Connolly (talk) 20:31, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Not done: Judging from your user name there seems to be a conflict of interest regarding this book, see Wikipedia:Conflict of interest. Also please remember to write what text to add and where to add it, not just a suggestion to use a specific source. jonkerz♠ 01:49, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Latin

Under etymology, religio has the o marked as long, but not the e. Is this right? In Lucretius' famous line "tantum religio potuit suadere malorum", the metrical pattern of the verse seems to imply the e is long too. Peter jackson (talk) 11:59, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Isn't the macron redundant/unnecessary for the O even? 72.228.177.92 (talk) 17:22, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. After all, it's only an invention of later scholars anyway. The Romans themselves didn't use it. Peter jackson (talk) 10:49, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

I miss the map of world religions we used to have here

Can't we find another one? I googled some examples:

http://www.wadsworth.com/religion_d/special_features/popups/maps/matthews_world/content/map_01.html http://www.mapsorama.com/maps/world/map_world_religions.gif

I'm not wise in the ways of copyright myself, but perhaps someone here will be able to find a picture that we can use.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Obhave (talk • contribs) 15:09, 1 May 2010

The second one seems decent, although it's slightly wrong: South Korea is predominantly Christian, minority Buddhist. Shii (tock) 17:31, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Here's one for consideration:

Main religions of the world, mapped by distribution (without denominations.)

On SKorea, the latest primary source I saw is 1/2 no religion, 1/4 each Christian & Buddhist. Even the World Christian Encyclopedia doesn't claim more than 40%. Peter jackson (talk) 10:53, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Eurocentrism of the History section

It has become a perennial issue that various editors express concern that the section of the page about History is Eurocentric. This isn't anything personal towards the editor who wrote most of the section, just a response, by multiple editors, to how the section reads. Let me make a suggestion. The second sentence simply says: "The words used in other languages for similar concepts, such as dharma, bhakti, Tao, or Islam, have vastly different histories." How about expanding that, to describe briefly how those various histories are "vastly different"? The single sentence has the appearance of dismissing those other traditions as somehow less important, even though that was not the intent of the sentence. It would be very interesting and encyclopedic to expand on that. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:12, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree; giving a section to each of those would be educational and informative. However, this would conflict with the other aspects of this article: describing things such as "specific religious movements" or "religion and science". So, we can take it two ways. We can model this article after the article on Culture, which describes the concept as it developed in Western thought. Or we can try to model it after philosophy, although that article itself is flawed; for example, it covers "eastern philosophy" but then hops back to western for the "main theories" section. It seems to me, based on these two examples, that the former goal is much easier and more sensible to achieve than the latter. Shii (tock) 02:19, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to suggest a simpler, intermediate, solution. We could do less than a section for each: just a paragraph for all of that, containing a sentence or two about each, in summary style and linked to other pages. --Tryptofish (talk) 14:59, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, a paragraph for each of what? How would you structure this article to eliminate the illusion of universalism? Shii (tock) 17:44, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

One paragraph. Total. Within the one paragraph, an elaboration on the existing sentence, "The words used in other languages for similar concepts, such as dharma, bhakti, Tao, or Islam, have vastly different histories." Without going into more than one or two sentences for each of dharma, bhakti, and so on, explain briefly how their histories have been "vastly different". --Tryptofish (talk) 18:13, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm afraid such an undertaking is not only beyond my language abilities but would be insulting to people of other cultures. I insist that we must model this article after "Culture" or "Philosophy", preferably the former. Shii (tock) 18:34, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, the way it is written now could be considered insulting to people of other cultures, which is the point. If you want to write a sketch of the main points in this talk or in user space (since you, not me, are the expert on the sources), I think you will find that my language abilities are pretty good, and I might very well be able to work it into presentable form. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:58, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Maybe I'm not being clear. There are two ways to address this problem:

1. Shorten the history section given here, and add some other sections for these different terms. This is akin to the "Philosophy" article. The first problem with this is that although notability for these terms is obvious, reliable sources may be written from a Western perspective; the study of religion (i.e., pre-British dharma) is banned in India, and non-Communist philosophies were banned in China until recently. The second problem is that while I have access to sources, and I'm familiar with some of the worldwide historical questions, I haven't taken a class on the subject. The third problem is that the string of foreign-language words is only meant to give some understanding of the problem; I don't intend them to be translations of "religion", because they aren't, and that's the point. In my opinion, they should be discussed in their own articles. To include a large amount of text that does not pertain to the religious category in the "Religion" article clouds the issue.
2. Remodel the entire article to be a discussion of how the category "religion" was formed and continues to be redefined around the world. This is akin to "Culture". I prefer this model because the article is entitled "Religion". Now, people seem to have complaint with that because it means the History section is about Christianity and European scholarship. However, this is an article about an English word, with a specific history. The word "religion" was not being thrown around in 12th century India. Academic consensus says that to conflate those other discussions with the English "religion" is more harmful than helpful. The terms that were being used in other cultures should be discussed in their own articles.

Both of these options are somewhat acceptable to me. What I find unacceptable is to give token references to foreign-language categories and consider the problem solved. That actually increases the Eurocentrism of the article. Shii (tock) 05:13, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, in fact, that is clearer, thanks. I guess I have a couple of thoughts in response. First, I think that it is important to consider that WP:Wikipedia is not a dictionary. In other words, part of the problem here may arise from treating the history section as being about the history of the word religion. Perhaps it may be helpful to open it up to be less focused on the word.

A second idea is about what you said about the word not being thrown around in other cultural traditions, and the words that are listed are not translations of the word religion. Fair enough, and fair enough to link to each of their individual pages, where what they do mean can be addressed in sufficient detail. But I question whether it is really the case that it would not be possible to briefly explain what each of them does mean, how those meanings differ from the meaning of the word religion, and to do so in a way that does not treat them as tokens.

The final thing that stands out is your comment about not having taken a class in the subject. I wonder whether it might be helpful to have an RfC, to attract more editors to look at ways we might be able to address the issue. It may perhaps be a matter of bringing in some fresh eyes. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:12, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Even before I read your comment, I was reconsidering what I wrote on my trip home today, and I realized I was being pigheaded and uncooperative. There's no reason we can't have both the existing history section and a paragraph about other words, just like the list of words already in the article but with a little background. So, I'll accede to your original request; here's an example of what we might want to say: "The Sanskrit translation of 'religion' in modern India is dharma, which means 'law'. Throughout classical South Asia, the law was divided up into concepts such as governmental justice, penance through piety, and accepted practices. Medieval Japan distinguished between the ideas of 'kingly law' and universal or 'Buddha law', which were at first united but later became independent sources of power." As you can see, the reason this originally felt like "tokenism" in my mind is because it covers so much ground so quickly. Shii (tock) 22:41, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks so much! I think that's very good. Go for it! --Tryptofish (talk) 17:34, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

religious map

There is Incomplete information while making religious map, if u see the russia not all of russia has converted to christianity some parts are still pagans and some people are still atheist, that is true that christian number has increased in past years, same with australia, while if you see the malaysia, current map showing all malaysia is muslim in fact the state of sarawak has 45 % Christian.

marshmir (talk) 18:21, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Confusing numbers

Section Religion and science says:

33% of American scientists and 83% of the general public believe in God, 18% of scientists and 12% of the public believe in a higher power

the confusion in that section are the selection samples for each number, such is 33% of the god-believing scientists selected from the 18% of higher-power-believing scientists as would be (un?)reasonable to believe, or are "higher power" actually referring to "higher power but not God"? Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 08:25, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Inserted "[another kind of] higher power" and removed the {{huh}} call. Maybe a little less confusing now. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 08:30, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Good point. I tweaked it a little more. --Tryptofish (talk) 14:58, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Pending changes

This article is one of a number (about 100) selected for the early stage of the trial of the Wikipedia:Pending Changes system on the English language Wikipedia. All the articles listed at Wikipedia:Pending changes/Queue are being considered for level 1 pending changes protection.

The following request appears on that page:

Comments on the suitability of theis page for "Penfding changes" would be appreciated.

Please update the Queue page as appropriate.

Note that I am not involved in this project any much more than any other editor, just posting these notes since it is quite a big change, potentially

Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 23:42, 16 June 2010 (UTC).

Gnosticism

there is a proposal for the creation of Wikiproject:Gnosticism. It is mentioned here as Gnosticism is a cultural impulse that in some of its forms has combined many religions and philosophies such as Christianity, Judaism, various Mesopotamian Traditions, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Hermeticism and more . Its scope will include all gnostic faiths and will serve as a nexus for the improvement of Gnosticism related articles on Wikipedia, If any one would like to join or comment it is located here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Proposals/Gnosticism --Zaharous (talk) 01:21, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Untitled

• Approaches to defining religion ... *User:Melamed's approach to distinguishing religion from non-religion

---

Definition of the word "Religion"

{{editsemiprotected}}

The currently cited source for the definition found in the very first sentence (A religion is a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe), is http://dictionary.reference.com.

Problems with this reference:

1) This is not a recognized citation source, nor is it a recognized authoritative reference on the English language.
2) Not one of the following sources agree with the dictionary.com:
  a) Oxford http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/orexxligion?view=uk
  b) Cambridge http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/religion
  c) Longman http://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/religion
  d) Merriam-Webster http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/religion

My proposal is to change the first sentence to read as follows: "Religion is the belief in and worship of a god or gods, or any such system of belief and worship" a la Cambridge.

The currently used definition is misleading in the sense that it classifies everything which has a belief in the cause, nature and, purpose of the universe as a religion, leading to potential false inclusions and exclusions under the Religion concept/classification. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Corrie.engelbrecht (talk • contribs) 14:51, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Note: This has been uncommented on and thus uncontested for 3 days now. I will make the edit in question if another 3 days pass without comment, unless there is a protest or unless someone else makes the edit --Corrie.engelbrecht (talk) 07:58, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree, the first sentence is a little bit misleading, but the second is alright. I say go ahead and make the changes. jonkerz♠ 13:34, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

I've untranscluded the editsemiprotected template since you are already autoconfirmed and able to make these edits for yourself. Thanks, Celestra (talk) 13:55, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Done. I only added editsemiprotected to evoke discussion. This is a sensitive topic, or something:) --Corrie.engelbrecht (talk) 16:05, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

I think there are several definitions of religion that need to be presented. The "new" one does not seem to include all systems that are ordinarily considered to be religions - such as Buddhism, in which any gods have only a minor role to play, being themselves subject to some "underlying order" that is part of the universe. Pagan religions also are not just about the gods and their worship - such religions incorporate rituals and social hierarchies. The phrase "any such system..." does not tell the reader anything new - except perhaps vaguely signalling that the previous "definition" might be incomplete or need to be modified. This "new" definition pretty much identifies religion with theism, except for the addition of "worship". What has been lost in the change is the idea that there is some sort of "objective" purpose to life and/or the universe. Not all religions think the purpose of life is to worship any deities. "Religion" is also often used to specify a particular social denomination, and "spirituality" is often contrasted with "religion" in that sense. --JimWae (talk) 19:22, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

I came on to this page to see if wikipedia defined religion strictly as being theistic. I think this article should acknowledge the existence of atheistic religions but also accept the social dispute in this term. Oh wait, it's protected.

"Religion is the belief in and worship of a god or gods, or any system of belief and worship" would be more in line with what Oxford says. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.4.119.195 (talk) 01:53, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

---

From William P Alston, Encyclopedia of Philosophy, entry for "religion", 1965, reprinted 2005:

A survey of existing definitions reveals many different interpretations.

• “Religion is the belief in an ever living God, that is, in a Divine Mind and Will ruling the Universe and holding moral relations with mankind.” —James Martineau
• “Religion is the recognition that all things are manifestations of a Power which transcends our knowledge.”—Herbert Spencer
• “By religion, then, I understand a propitiation or conciliation of powers superior to man which are believed to direct and control the course of Nature and of human life.”—J. G. Frazer
• “Religion is rather the attempt to express the complete reality of goodness through every aspect of our being.”—F. H. Bradley
• “Religion is ethics heightened, enkindled, lit up by feeling.”—Matthew Arnold
• “It seems to me that it [religion] may best be described as an emotion resting on a conviction of a harmony between ourselves and the universe at large.”—J. M. E.McTaggart
• “Religion is, in truth, that pure and reverential disposition or frame of mind which we call piety.”—C. P. Tiele
• “A man’s religion is the expression of his ultimate attitude to the universe, the summed-up meaning and purport of his whole consciousness of things.”—Edward Caird
• “To be religious is to effect in some way and in some measure a vital adjustment (however tentative and incomplete) to whatever is reacted to or regarded implicitly or explicitly as worthy of serious and ulterior concern.”—Vergilius Ferm
• “The essence of religion is a belief in the persistency of value in the world.”—Harald Høffding
• “The heart of religion, the quest of the ages, is the outreach of man, the social animal, for the values of the satisfying life.”—A. E. Haydon
• “The essence of religion consists in the feeling of an absolute dependence.”—Friedrich Schleiermacher

More from William P Alston, Encyclopedia of Philosophy, entry for "religion", 1965, reprinted 2005:

When enough of these characteristics are present to a sufficient degree, we have a religion. It seems that, given the actual use of the term religion, this is as precise as we can be:

• Belief in supernatural beings (gods).
• A distinction between sacred and profane objects.
• Ritual acts focused on sacred objects.
• A moral code believed to be sanctioned by the gods (or the "universe")
• Characteristically religious feelings (awe, sense of mystery, sense of guilt, adoration), which tend to be aroused in the presence of sacred objects and during the practice of ritual, and which are connected in idea with the gods.
• Prayer and other forms of communication with gods.
• A worldview, or a general picture of the world as a whole and the place of the individual therein. This picture contains some specification of an overall purpose or point of the world and an indication of how the individual fits into it.
• A more or less total organization of one’s life based on the worldview.
• A social group bound together by the above.

--JimWae (talk) 19:39, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Hey Jim. The very next paragraph in fact addresses most of your points. The rest of the article explains all of the finer points you wish to make, and if some of those are lacking, they should be incorporated into the main article body. --Corrie.engelbrecht (talk) 02:00, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

The first sentence currently in the article: "Religion (from Latin religio, "reverence for the gods", "piety", possibly related to religare, "to bind"[1]) is the belief in and worship of a god or gods, or more in general a set of beliefs explaining the existence of and giving meaning to the universe, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.[2]" has a few problems :

• Etymology. I have seen several etymological attempts in various places, which probably means the etymology here is too uncertain to have in the intro. I suggest one leaves the etymology out of the introduction, and further down in the article, where it can be given a more detailed discussion and several references.
• Definition. Since it is the first sentence it appears to the reader as a definition. However, this apparent "definition" leaves out several systems of thought that are considered religions. I am not going to list all of them here. Each left-out religion presents the present definition with a different type of problem. I suggest that the introduction begins by stating that no definition so far covers all religions. Following such a statement, the current four paragraphs seem to me together to be a good description of the word religion.
• Reference. The current reference at the end leads to dictionary.com. I am sure there are better references, and preferably more references.

DanielDemaret (talk) 21:11, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Symbols

Personally, I don't have a strong opinion about this, but I remember that there was some sensitivity about the appropriateness or inappropriateness of the figure about religious symbols, that is now at the bottom of the lead. Thoughts? --Tryptofish (talk) 18:57, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

i think the picture should stay. There is nothing inappropriate about it. Thats why i added it. I though there was too much writing and not enough pictures.

Iwanttoeditthissh (talk) 19:58, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

As I said, I'm not the person who objected to it last time, but I seem to remember several editors saying that some of the symbols are not, in fact, accepted by the religions to which they are attributed by the image. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:13, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

This is a different picture and all symbols seem fine. Iwanttoeditthissh (talk) 20:44, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

I didn't realize that this is a different image. As I said, I don't have a strong opinion, and if other editors agree that there's no problem here, I don't have a problem with it either. And I do agree that it is desirable to have more images. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:48, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

I was kind of pissed last time that "every religion has a symbol", a dumbing-down of both the term religion and the complex reality of symbols. I know that the "symbol" for Shinto does not mean "Shinto" in Japan, and the "symbol" for Islam does not mean "Islam" in the Middle East. However, I'll let it stand for the time being. Shii (tock) 20:55, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Belief system or social institution?

The article leads with a definition in terms of belief, which reflects a Christian bias, since Christianity is the most credal of religions. Other religions, especially Judaism, Shinto and Hinduism, place far less emphasis on belief. Perhaps someone who is abreast of the sociology of religion can find some sources that refer to religions as social institutions, with their own hierarchies, congregations, scriptures, rules, rituals, liturgy and ethics - which are just as important as belief in God if not more important. Marshall46 (talk) 15:13, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Now we have a nice History section that I wrote, so you can see where your definition of "religion" came from as well as the article's current definition, and take your pick of which one is more helpful. Shii (tock) 20:52, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Purely reason based belief systems ...

... such as The System of Nature are why it is wrong for belief systems to redirect here, (in as much as there is yet no accepted, legitimate religion of reason/science, tragic miscarriages like "scientology" or "christian science", and well intentioned anti-religions like the brights or other irreason rejectionists notwithstanding). Lycurgus (talk) 15:50, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Doxastic attitudes would be the proper redirect, but of course there's nothing there. 72.228.177.92 (talk) 10:13, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Belief system at least goes to a disambig page now. 72.228.177.92 (talk) 22:10, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Introductory paragraph

I have re-written the introduction, which looked as if it had been put together by someone who didn't know anything about religion. It was full of muddle. E.g. Religion is often described as a communal system for the coherence of belief focusing on a system of thought, unseen being, person or object that is considered to be supernatural, sacred, divine, or of the highest truth. What on earth is a "communal system for the coherence of belief", and what on earth is "belief focusing on a system of thought", and has religion ever been thus described by anybody? The article still contains a lot of this sort of waffle and a lot of unsourced opinion. Marshall46 (talk) 13:08, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Torah and Abrahamic religions

I removed the passage saying that the Abrahamic religions share the Torah as an initial religious text. Given that the relationship of Judaism, Christianity and Islam to the Torah is so different, this is a misleading statement. The Torah as a source of detailed guidance for daily life is central to Judaism but as such is irrelevant to Christianity, which reads the Hebrew Bible completely differently. Muslims believe the existing text is corrupted. Marshall46 (talk) 13:24, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. A ntv (talk) 14:34, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Religion and the body politic

This section is a good start, but it is mainly about Christianity, and is not written in an encyclopaedic tone of voice. The association of Islam with political power is historically important and should be mentioned as well. Before the destruction of the Second Temple Judaism was also associated with political power. I am less familiar with eastern religions, but they should be mentioned too even if they tend to shun power.

Is it possible to write about religion as such in this context, or only about the various religions? Some religion shuns power, some embraces it. Some authorities are quoted (not in this section) as saying that religion as an expression of human psychology can be discussed independently of any particular religion. How should that fact be reflected in the article? Should it be about the universal aspects of religion as part of human psychology, or a summary of different religions as well? I would think the average reader would look for both. Marshall46 (talk) 09:51, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Religion and philosophy

This has two aspects that I can think of: (1) Religious philosophers (e.g. Maimonides and Aquinas) and (2) Philosophers writing about religious concepts, whether they are religious (e.g. Hegel) or not (e.g. Bertrand Russell). Marshall46 (talk) 10:01, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Edits to lead re scientists

The following discussion started on my user page in response to edits to this article, and more righty belongs here: -- Timberframe (talk) 12:16, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

"Not balanced" ??? Please do explain. Most scientists are not religious, per recent scientific developments. Europeans tend to be less religious (known fact). Australians too. Not true in the US, Russia and Islamic world. It seems perfectly balanced. What are your arguments please? --Little sawyer (talk) 11:44, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

You say Most scientists are not religious both here and in your edit to the article. Firstly, to comply with WP:V and WP:BURDEN the onus is on you to support this claim by citing reliable sources that make it. I'm afraid that neither your own opinion alone, however well informed, nor your assertion of "tendancies" and "known facts" carry any weight when it comes to the community deciding what to accept. Secondly, the claim is not balanced because you do not mention or cite the many sources that refer to religious scientists. If I may venture an observation, your hypothesis seems to be based on an equation of "religion" with fundamental scriptural literalism - believing that every word of the genesis and creation narratives is true - and on the belief that these are of such importance that to question them is to undermine all religious belief. If you read widely on the subject of religion, you'll discover that most religions are fundamentally about relationship with God / gods / others / self, and that the ever-widening scientific panorama merely illustrates the wonder of God's / gods' / nature's creativity; thus the view you're proposing gives undue weight to one aspect of religion which is, to "most" religious people, of only minor importance. -- Timberframe (talk) 11:58, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I agree that the material was properly reverted as unsourced. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:03, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I too agree to revert the whole new inserted paragraph, because it is not encyclopedic. A ntv (talk) 05:56, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Prohibition on eating pork

I removed the passage that referred to giving the status of morality to "ancient, arbitrary, and ill-informed rules — taboos on eating pork, for example, as well as dress codes and sexual practices". I don't know about the Muslim prohibition on eating pork, but I do know that the Jewish prohibition is neither a taboo nor a matter of morality, it simply an unexplained commandment. The editor who put this in gives no source and knows nothing about the topic. Marshall46 (talk) 19:58, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree. Moreover it is not a problem of source (on this issue we can find written texts that sustain any position) but it is not encyclopedic: it mixes an important information with later moral explanations of the prohibition. If necessary said explanation shall be placed in some articles about specific religion moral. A ntv (talk) 06:00, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Also agree. It highlights the danger of creeping subjectivity on the part of well-intentioned editors whose efforts to inform end up mis-representing scale, scope and significance of presumed doctrine and dogma through their own ignorance of religious diversity and nuances. That's not to say that atheists shouldn't write about religion (or Jews about Islam, etc), but that in fleshing out the sourced material it's all too easy to incorporate misconceptions and generalisations ("pork is taboo in Judaism", "Catholicism bans contraception", "all Jews are Zionists") and we all need to be on the guard against it. As A ntv points out, the debate and nuances underlying each of these cliches could form the basis of an article in its own right. -- Timberframe (talk) 09:40, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Actually, the editors themselves are religious, so this article can not be biased, so as to provide equality to the religious masses. If you honestly think your ad hominem is not that noticable, well, I'd recommend taking your common sense and getting it checked out it seems to be inept to the fullest. You all presume that this page is under complete atheistic control, whenl in factm it isn't.\ If it were, you'd see a giant picture of Richard Dawkins flipiing off the religious masses and t-bagging the pope. It's not something that I'm out to prove, not something, that I'm proud of expressing immense discord, but hey, I'm only human, and I can't help but feel curious about the world. That so bad?

Furthermore, religion is farce; Christianity in particular. Let's all believe that some Comsic Jewish Zombie came down from space and made you telepathically accept him as his master and eat his flesh, because all of humanity is damned because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree. Makes PERFECT sense. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.6.65.154 (talk) 19:51, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Section on Cosmology

A collection of truisms, unreferenced generalizations and, for some reason, a detailed description of a particular type of shamanism. It is not about cosmology at all. Does this section add anything to the article? I am tempted to delete it completely. Marshall46 (talk) 18:21, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

I will go ahead and delete it. Shii (tock) 00:01, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Religious belief

The section headed "Religious belief" contains the following unreferenced statement: "Religious belief can also involve causes, principles or activities believed in with zeal or conscientious devotion concerning points or matters of ethics or conscience, not necessarily limited to organized religions." I see what is meant here: it is common to talk, for example of communism as a religion, or to say that football is someone's religion. But that is an extension of the idea of religion. The statement is trivial and does not add anything to the article. I will delete it. Marshall46 (talk) 09:21, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Why is it trivial? Shii (tock) 13:28, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it's important in an article on X to say that there are some things that are a bit like X. Do you think it adds anything to the reader's understanding of what religion is? No examples were given and the statement was without citation. One example I imagined, football, is trivial; the other, communism, is confusing. Marshall46 (talk) 19:33, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

As a matter of fact, it's an important point that other attitudes can be described as religious even if they are not "real" religions. This is attested to in a lot of modern theoretical discussions. Shii (tock) 02:50, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Then mention it as such, with a citation and some examples. The text I deleted was an unsupported and unillustrated generalisation. Marshall46 (talk) 08:07, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

I have added some material to this section.

I have deleted: "Unlike other belief systems, which may be passed on orally, religious belief tends to be codified in literate societies (religion in non-literate societies is still largely passed on orally)." This muddles codification with written codes. Non-literate societies are perfectly capably of passing on oral codes, but it is true by definition that they cannot pass on written codes. On the other hand, literate societies may also have oral codes - for example, the Talmud was passed on for hundreds of years orally in a literate society and only later committed to writing. So all the sentence says is that literate and non-literate societies may have either written or oral codes – which tells us nothing. As to the vague reference to "other belief systems", I cannot see what it adds. Marshall46 (talk) 09:18, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

What is this article about?

As you can see, I have made some small edits to this article in the last few days. It seems inadequate as an encyclopedia article and omits a lot of basic information. For example, there is almost nothing about prayer, temples and priests, which are important in all religions, but there is a lot of philosophical and sociological analysis of the concept of religion, which is of secondary importance. It gives the impression of being written by editors who would rather criticise religion than describe it. The description has to come first. A lot of it is written in a highfalutin tone, as if excerpted from an academic paper, which is not helpful to the average reader. Can we try to improve it, please? Marshall46 (talk) 14:11, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I think the edits you have been making have been very helpful. I think it's a little simplistic and unfair to assume that editors in the past have had an anti-religious POV, however. You'll find it very informative, I think, to take a look at Talk:Religion/Archive 9#New edits. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:46, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for linking to that discussion, which I have read. I take your point about the anti-religious POV.

Sorry to go over old ground, but I agree with what you say at Talk:Religion/Archive 9#New edits, that "Wikipedia is writing for a general public audience, as an encyclopedia rather than as an academic text." Coming to the article recently, I thought that it did read like an academic text - about the "category of religion" rather than about religion. The average reader would expect an encyclopaedia to provide, at the very least and first of all, information about religion, not an essay about about how the concept of religion has been constructed. A section on the academic debate is perfectly in order - somewhere down the page - but at present the article opens with the the debate and is dominated by it. It is almost an exercise in deconstruction. It is reasonable to start from the position that there is such a thing as religion, as a social institution and a personal experience, and to describe it.

I don't have Shii's advantage of a degree in religious studies, but I think that he is too close to the academic debate and can't see that it is not appropriate to devote this article to it. If that means, "Damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead!" then, yes, full steam ahead. This is not a university tutorial. Marshall46 (talk) 10:49, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

The article at present draws heavily on the constructionist hypothesis advanced in Daniel Dubuisson's The Western Construction of Religion, in which he proposes the term "cosmographic formation" instead of "religion". This book has not been accepted in its entirely by all academics in the field. To the extent that it is shaped by Dubuisson's hypothesis, without giving alternative hypothesis equal weight, it is POV.

For a good discussion see this symposium. Perhaps if a thorough account of the constructionist debate about religious studies is thought desirable it could be taken out to a separate article on Cosmographic formation or to the article Social constructionism. Marshall46 (talk) 11:12, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

I have re-structured the article and taken the constructionist theory of religion to a separate section. As it was, the theory was presented as fact rather than a particular view of religion, albeit academically important. I have retained all the material from Dubuisson, Fitzgerald and Asad and have added some brief explanatory passages.

Otherwise, I have put it in what seemed to me a more logical order, opening with belief, then going on to religious groups, then associated ideas, then science and religion, then social constructionism, then criticism, etc.

There is still a lot missing. Whatever may be the case about the Christian and western origin of the concept of religion, worship and priesthood are pretty widespread throughout the world and they deserve more discussion. Religion and law is very thin. There is a lot to be said about the incorporation of religious ideas into legal systems, religious freedom, church and state, etc. There is also a lot to be added about religion and philosophy, at least some summaries about the important religious philosophers of Judaism, Christianity and Islam and the large topic of Buddhist philosophy, and the treatment of religion and God in philosophers like Spinoza and Hume, and a lot more I don't know about. Marshall46 (talk) 13:36, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

It looks like a significant improvement to me (although I'm sure there will be further discussion). Thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:35, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

"For example, there is almost nothing about prayer, temples and priests, which are important in all religions" You realize that these words are meaningless when applied to the whole world, right? Is it the word itself that deserves mention? For example, where is "prayer" in Buddhism-- should we stretch the definition to fit meditation? What is an Islamic "temple" -- considering Muslims can pray anywhere, is the world their temple? It's too bad you brought this up right as I'm starting a new job, when I was unemployed and looking idly at this article for the past 6 months or so. Shii (tock) 00:04, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure what academic background you're coming from, but during my BA course in religious studies I was struck by the absolute void of non-constructionist explanation of what the English word religion is supposed to mean. In fact, it is an infamous and politically loaded issue in religious studies that anyone can propose their own definition, and nobody can agree on any definition; Asad's writing on Geertz should be a pretty helpful primer here. The reason I added constructionist stuff to the article is because it's historically verifiable and helps people understand what religion means, in a way that individual propounding does not. The rest of the article, in my opinion, is trash, except for the "Specific religious movements" section which you were right to place at the top (it's what most people will be looking for here IMHO). For example, take a look at the "Religion and science" section, which is 80% Christianity, 10% Bahá'í, and 10% Hinduism. This will not help people understand "Religion" generally as related to science. What I believe -- although this may be radical or "academic" -- is that it is impossible to make a single correct generalization about how all religious people relate to science. Shii (tock) 00:17, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

My academic background is in history and sociology. I agree that this is a poor article, and I appreciate the time you have put into improving it, but I think you are being too clever about it. The fact that there is no agreement on what the word means is neither here nor there. You will see from the page view statistics that this article is consulted by thousands of people. I think it is a safe bet that most come here for information about religion, not information about how the word "religion" has been deconstructed by post-colonialist academics, who, IMHO, condemn us to the silence of Cratylus.

If you think there is an over-dominance of Christianity, the answer is to put in more about other religions, as I have begun to do. But there is not even much about Christianity.

I disagree that that "worship" and "prayer" are meaningless words. Prayer may differ in different cultures and may vary in importance, but the fact that it is important in major religions like Islam and Christianity means it should be described. The same may be said of priesthood, temples, religious law and many other topics that readers would like to know about but can't find out about here. Marshall46 (talk) 09:59, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

And my academic background is definitely in no way related to religious studies! But Marshall46 is expressing much more articulately than I could the kinds of concerns I've been raising for some time about this page. I'm very receptive to including the post-colonial academic deconstruction of the word "religion" as part of the article, but it should not, in my opinion, be the organizing principle of the page. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:56, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

While I do think my revision of the article gave it historical context rather than bias (see the Culture article for a well-handled approach to the same problem), I don't have a problem with the rearrangement. Since there's no objection to my criticism of the "science and religion" section, I will deck it. The histories of specific religions should be mentioned under their own articles. Shii (tock) 08:51, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Tryptofish. There is nothing wrong with giving space to the constructionist theory of how the concept of religion emerged, but in my opinion Shii's revisions raise questions of due weight. I think he is giving undue weight to the theory in the sense that he wants not merely to report it (and it is reported here at reasonable length), but to shape the entire article according to its presciptions and to remove material doesn't fit in with it. And where is the reporting of those who disagree with the constructionists? It's rather as if an article on Capitalism reported only Marx's theory of Capital. I would welcome other editors' opinions on this.

I can't claim first hand acquaintance with the theory, but I am fairly familiar with the post-structuralist project, so I think I understand what it is saying. The problem as I understand it is that it rules out nearly everything that previously passed for comparative religion, leaving little more than an account of how Christians have distorted the discourse about other religions and doubts about our ability to say anything about religion at all, as opposed to the word "religion". I accept the main thrust of the argument, but I think that where leaves us in a Wikipedia article is not a summary of constructionism to the exclusion of everything else but an account of various religions in their own terms. Thus the "list of data" that Shii mentions. The article should thus be a summary of other entries.

Shii seems to be the only editor taking such a strong constructionist line and, if I may say so, seems to be reluctant to contribute to a consensus. Marshall46 (talk) 14:22, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

One more point. Shii explains some of his changes, including huge deletions, by saying the material he removed was not "comprehensive" and "encyclopaedic". I must say that it seems odd to me to justify the deletion of an entire section of the article on the grounds that it makes the article more comprehensive. I would say that reducing the coverage of the article makes it less comprehensive. It seems to me that by "encyclopaedic" Shii means "theoretical", which is not what I understand by the word. I understand it to mean broad in scope, but with reasonable detail, capable of meeting the needs of the general reader and capable of being understood without great difficulty. Marshall46 (talk) 15:30, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't see where you're getting this from. I already said I agreed with the two-thirds consensus. I nevertheless removed information of the form "X believes X, Y believes Y" because it's a ridiculous direction for the article to take. We can't have a list of A to Z under every category; that's hardly useful. Shii (tock) 08:27, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Good - glad to hear that you are interested in building a consensus here. If I was wrong, I apologise. But why is it ridiculous to say "X believes X, Y believes Y"? Of course, the article on each religion is the place to go into detail, but what's wrong with a summary here? I don't understand your objection to lists, which I would have thought were very useful indeed for the reader seeking an overview of the subject. Marshall46 (talk) 09:34, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

At Shii's suggestion I have looked at the article on Culture. I agree that it is a good model for the article on religion, and I now understand better what Shii is trying to achieve. But this article has a long way to go before it can even be compared to the article on Culture. What it needs in order to come up to that standard is a much more thorough account of how the concept or category of religion has changed over time. For example, not just a reference to St Augustine in a quotation from a recent book, but an account of how Augustine used the idea of religion. Then better information about the discipline of religious studies. If Geertz is thought by Talal Asad to be mistaken, we also need a good account of what Geertz thought. And so on. All these thinkers and all the phases of religion as a concept need to be presented in their own terms and not, as present, as misguided or even malevolent. Marshall46 (talk) 11:04, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

I disagree with an impostation of the article as we find in Culture. The only view about Culture we find in Article "Culture" is "Culture as an athropological fact". About religion we cannot use the same approach, i.e. to approach religion only as an "athropological fact" which is a blatant POV because most of believers dont't agree tha religion is simply a "athropological/sociological fact". Studies of religion under Anthropology, Sociology and which ever other approach shall be developed in specific articles. I prefer a quite short article about religion, almost an index or a few more, but absolutly NPOV. A ntv (talk) 11:37, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

This is an interesting point you made, because I was just reading an article in Harper's about Christians who refuse to call themselves "religious" ('“I don’t like ‘religion,’” a fundamentalist evangelical major told me. “That’s what put my savior on the cross. The Pharisees.”') and it reminded me of this ongoing discussion. The entire idea of describing something as a religion, rather than a universal Religious Feeling which everyone thinks is best described by their own personal religion, is exactly the new idea that I had been trying to lay out with my history section. If you compare to the Culture article, you will see that there were older and more chauvinist concepts of culture before the Boasian anthropologists won the day. So, I think it's important that there is some sort of history section, not exclusively "constructivists" but simply laying out the facts to explain why we westerners think about religion and religions in the way we do.

However, Antv, I do agree that this article should have a list of major religious philosophies alongside that information. I think a lot of people will come to this article looking for that, and it's something that's a lot easier to do. Shii (tock) 23:23, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

I think that a general top article as "Religion" shall serve the general user who wants to look for the basic facts about religion/s: which are the religious gruops, which are the principal key-points (tenants, history, rites, meditations, etc). Thus this article should mainly serve to redirect the general reader to more specialized Articles. More advanced topics as "what the recent scholarship consider the religion to be" or "sociology of religion" or "science and religion" or "constructionist religion" shall be simply alluded, but developed in separated specific articles (these articles are already existing, it is enough to place the links). A ntv (talk) 15:43, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Table of world religions

Shii's proposed deletion made me look more closely at the sources for the figures in this table. They are pretty mixed. The figures for world population come from the UN and the figures for the number of Muslims comes from the Pew Forum, which I'd never heard of before, but it looks like a creditable think tank. The other figures come from random websites. Better sources are needed. I don't have time to seek them out at the moment. Marshall46 (talk) 10:01, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

I agee with said table. The ranges of the numbers are so explicit and large that they can give reasonable information about the great numbers to the casual reader intrested to have an idea, which is the purpose of said table. A ntv (talk) 10:12, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I was thinking along those same lines when I restored the table. I think such a table is useful. I also agree that better sourcing ought to be found, which is why I added the cite needed tag, but I would guess that better numbers would not change the table that significantly. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:44, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

A minor correction

The article says, "the Catholic Church, leaded by the Pope...." It should be "headed by the Pope." Stokesdc (talk) 04:57, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Fixed. bobrayner (talk) 07:05, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Religion is a set of beliefs concerning the purpose of the universe???

I am very puzzled by this claim(!) I have not read the source that is the basis of this claim, nor do I feel inclined to read it. Now, my issue with this claim is, that it is presented as a factual part of a definition of religions. I have to say, that I have never heard, never read, never been taught about such a religion during my education within science of religion. Would someone or anyone please be so kind as to give at least more than one example of such a religion. Because if there is indeed a singular religion that has formalized such a doctrin, I would very much like to know and read about it :-) Further more, what confuses me is that religions really do not tend to formulate doctrin(s) about purpose of anything, much less purpose of the entire universe. Look at Christian religions: the god creates the world - there is given no reason why, much less purpose of, this creation; then the god recreates the world - there IS given a reason for this, but no purpose; then the god incarnates as the christ - there does not seem to be any reason for it, but there does seem to be a purpose for it, although the christology itself is not really used to give any cosmological purpose; then the god judges all humans - the purpose? it is not explained... Look at Buddhist religions: the cosmos is an eternal cycle of creation and destruction, ergo purpose is irrelevant. Look at Islamic religions: the god creates the world; then the god recreates the world; then the word of the god manifests itself as a book, namely the Qur'an; then the god judges all humans - the purpose? it is not explained... What is wrong with this rather eccentric claim, is, that most religions do not really even contain any myths about the creation of the universe. Usually religions have myths about the formalization of social norms, of gender norms, and of in-group/out-group relations (e.g. ancestry, territory, etc.), the introduction of important rituals, artifacts, institutions, religious specialists, etc. Much of everything else is simply there without further explication. So again, please someone explain this rather surprising definition :-) I have never heard of it before... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shaloqin (talk • contribs) 18:58, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

A source is given for this definition, but it is a dictionary and not a very good source. For this controversial topic we need several authoritative sources. Marshall46 (talk) 11:26, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Sometimes I feel like this article should start with "Religion is _________________, please fill in the blank with however you feel this article should start." I already wrote a well-sourced lede using a Geertzian definition which is the most commonly used in academic texts. Someone changed it a few months ago because there was a discussion that they "thought it should mention God". No sources were mentioned in this discussion, and thus the eventual new lede was sourced to a dictionary. I'm not even going to bother trying to rewrite it again, seeing as my nuanced, historical explanation of why it's defined the way it is and how we got there has been relegated to a subheader as "POV" for some damn reason. Shii (tock) 12:03, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Rastafarian Christianity

Hello

The Rastafari cultus should be added in the christian section of religions. It's based on the Ethiopian tradition mixed with the Poco cultus from angola and voodoo/akan cultus from Ghana and formed a whole new codex and cultus. It's not a part of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, nor the Angelician one (where it also took a lot of stuff from). I'm in no way an expert on it, so i won't write the article...

There is actually an artikle about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rastafari_movement

91.182.213.133 (talk) 17:10, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

I disagree. The list in this Article shall be extremely synthetic: for example there not even the name of any Protestant denominations. Rastafari can be found in other Articles about Christianity as List of Christian denominations (and also in List of new religious movements). It is impossible to promote all the Christian factions to the main Religion article. By the way there is already a reference to Rastafari among the "Smaller Abrahamic" A ntv (talk) 19:39, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

The definition of religion could be improved.

I think the first sentence:

"Religion is the belief in and worship of a god or gods, or a set of beliefs concerning the origin and purpose of the universe."

could be much better worded as follows:

"Religion is a set of beliefs concerning the origin and purpose of the universe, which often accompanies a belief in and worship of a god or gods."

This way the middle "or" does not imply a disconnection between a belief in a god or gods with the beliefs regarding the purpose of the universe that usually tag along with it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.102.132.16 (talk) 23:31, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Please see the earlier discussions on this question. Marshall46 (talk) 07:57, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Lead

The second lead paragraph must begin with: "The word religion is sometimes used interchangeably with faith, belief system, or bigotry."

Note: this is not a forum discussion, the following is proof that the above statement is valid, true information. Since wiki provides true information about Religion, it must include the suggested sentence.

Why it is correct to use bigotry interchangeably with religion:

Merriam-Webster defines a bigot as "a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance."

It is not a requirement that one treats a group with hatred, though this is often the case in many religions; ie. The stoning of those who do not believe, death to all infidels, etc... It is also worthy to note that intolerance is not a requirement for bigotry.

If one is obstinately devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices, he or she is correctly referred to as a bigot.

The following are definitions of obstinately according to Merriam-Webster:

"1

perversely adhering to an opinion, purpose, or course in spite of reason, arguments, or persuasion <obstinate resistance to change>

2

not easily subdued, remedied, or removed <obstinate fever>"

According to the definitions of the English language, every religion in the world is necessarily obstinately devoted to its own opinions and prejudices. Religious practices are thus performed by bigots and any religion is a form of bigotry.

It is therefore correct to interchange the word religion with bigotry. Since this statement is true, and it is wikipedia's duty to provide unbiased true information about subject matter, including religion, the second paragraph of the lead must begin with the sentence:

"The word religion is sometimes used interchangeably with faith, belief system, or bigotry." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.202.24.78 (talk) 21:05, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Please see WP:SYN. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:22, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the information, I am currently looking for published sources. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.216.229.162 (talk) 04:04, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

JWs, LDS, and small Abrahamic groups

There appears to be some disagreement about how to handle groups like JWs and LDS, if at all. Honestly I'm fine not mentioning them at all - they are a small percentage of the total sum of Christianity, although they are more notable than non-denominational Christian groups. However, the current wording that groups them as a small Abrahamic group and implies that they are outside of Christianity ("coming from") is at odds with all the other high level Christianity articles and with reliable secular sources. I also see no problem with a single sentence within the Christianity section stating (like Christianity#Major groupings within Christianity) that there are groups that don't easily fit into the three primary divisions, although I do admit it is awkward to place the sentence after the list of the three primary. Perhaps a sentence before? Thoughts? --FyzixFighter (talk) 21:33, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

I think that the worst option would be to leave them out. We include other "minor" groupings, and it would smack of POV to omit them. That makes it a choice between making them a part of the small Abrahamic groups paragraph, or including them as part of the Christianity listing. The sky will not fall whichever of those options we choose, but my first choice would be the version you wrote, with a sentence at the end of the Christianity part [2], possibly with some tweaking of the wording to indicate that they are closer to Protestantism than to the others. I'd rather see them after the three main divisions than before, simply because they are considered smaller groups. As for the edit disputing that version [3], I think there is a valid point about them being closest to Protestantism, but I disagree with the suggestion that we need to keep the Christianity listing simple, and I mildly disagree with the wording of "coming from" in the lower paragraph, because it incorrectly implies cause and effect. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:40, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

There are some some issues to list them into the tripartite (Cath/Prot/Orth) division of Christianity: 1) almost all other churches consider them not to be Christian (see Mormonism and Christianity), so to be NPOV we cannot take any stand here, and 2) their size (a few millions adherent) is extremely lower of the other three divisions (some hundred of thousand millions adherents each): if we give room to them, later we shall list separately lots of different Christian grouping (as Anglicans, Oriental Orthodox, ect), which is not the purpose of this list which shall be very general. So I suggest to list them in the "small Abrahamic groups paragraph", but without taking any stand about their belonging or not to the Christian group: this is simply a general list. It the wording "(coming from Christianity)" is not liked (but it is historically correct) we can change it, perhaps with a simple "(Christianity)" or "(their belonging to Christianity is not accepted by all)". The same is valid also for Samaritans and Druze.A ntv (talk) 07:32, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Specifically about the "coming from" language, the previous wording was "influences from", which I think avoids getting into whether or not those religions from which they came would accept them as part of the religion. How about going back to that? --Tryptofish (talk) 18:09, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Ok with back to "influences from"A ntv (talk) 18:42, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Good, I made that change. I'm fine with it this way. I realize that there is still the earlier issue of whether this makes it sound like they are "outside of" Christianity, but perhaps the "influences" wording makes this a reasonable solution to something where there may never be a perfect solution. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:11, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps a somewhat fuller explanation would work? "questionably part of Christianity"? Munci (talk) 12:27, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

But questionable according to what reliable source? Frankly, it doesn't matter what other churches think, or what the LDS and JW think for that matter. What matters is what reliable, scholarly sources say. Reliable sources, such as The Religious Composition of the United States, 2001 American Religious Identification Survey, CIA - The World Factbook -- Field Listing::Religion, ARIS 2008 Report: Part IA - Belonging, etc., place JW and LDS within Christianity. We don't have to reinvent the wheel - the solution reached by consensus on pages like Christianity, where this is a perennially raised issue, is to include these groups as within Christianity. This consensus is seen on several pages, categorizations, and even at WP:CHRISTIAN. I don't see how the current wording is compatible with either the RS or the previous consensus. Having these groups as a separate item in the list necessarily implies the idea that they are separate from the other items in the list. If the JW and LDS are going to be listed, I think a brief mention at the end of the Christianity item is the best solution. I favor this because there are other Christian groups, whose Christianity is not generally challenged, that don't fit into the three main groups which such a sentence or two will also accomodate. --FyzixFighter (talk) 19:47, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

As I said earlier, I'm OK with doing it either way. I guess it comes down to whether sources treat JW and LDS as closer to Christianity than the other religions in the "small Abrahamic" paragraph are close to the religions that we describe them as influenced by (ie, sources say LDS is part of Christianity whereas Druse is not part of Islam). Put another way, to what extent do these sources treat them as "part of" Christianity, and to what extent as having "influences from" Christianity? --Tryptofish (talk) 21:25, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

If we look at written references/reliable sources, please note that the page of BBC about religions BBC lists JWs and LDS as separate religions. The same is found in other sites (asreligionfacts), the same in literature (see [4]). My point is that we shall not take any stand here about their appartenence to Christianity. Thus the solution in the "small Abrahamic" paragraph is good, perhaps we could, as Munici proposed, add some short explanation there, like "Small Abrahamic goups, which inclusion in the main above gruops is disputed, are: Samaritans (Judaism), JWs, and LDS (Christianity), Druze (Islam)...."A ntv (talk) 08:27, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

The BBC site says about the LDS, "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is certainly Christian to the extent that Christ is at the centre of its beliefs. Individual Mormons try to live their lives following the teaching and example of Christ." And, although I haven't had a chance to read the entire text of "World Religions in America", but I haven't found yet in it where it lists JW and LDS as separate from Christianity. My main problem with your solution is that it is categorically different from the solution reached and used across the rest of Wikipedia. So why on this page is that solution not to be used? Seeing as we have, ostensibly, two for keeping them in the small abrahamic groups and two for placing them in the Christianity item, should we now ask for some outside opinion from the WP:CHRISTIAN and WP:RELIGION? --FyzixFighter (talk) 15:06, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

I clicked through to each of the sources liked above in this thread, both those from FyzixFighter and those from A ntv. What I see is a mix of sources, some placing them within Christianity, and some listing them as freestanding but showing influences from Christianity. I have a hunch that's the way it is. The CIA also lists Druze as part of Islam, while the BBC treats Rastafarianism as separate from the Abrahamic religions, further suggesting how ambiguous this classification can get. Can we accept the premise that this is something where there is not going to be a right answer and a wrong answer? --Tryptofish (talk) 20:04, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. I think that a quest for neat hierarchies/categories of all religions which folk will agree on is a wild goose chase. bobrayner (talk) 20:13, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

That is the reason why I said that we cannot take any stand here. Simply let's explain the situation: the 2Small Abrahamic goups" is for this reason.A ntv (talk) 23:22, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

But the text as it is now does implicitly take a stand - that is, that JW and LDS while abrahamic are outside of Christianity. The question still remains why this requires a new solution that is different from the consensus solution used throughout the rest of WP? For example, both JW and LDS are included in Christianity#Major groupings within Christianity, List of Christian denominations, List of Christian denominations by number of members, {{Christianity}}, Category:Christian denominational families, as a subset of Christianity in the demographics of states and nations,...and the list goes on.

To be in agreement with the pattern throughout the rest of wikipedia, and to satisfy both POVs, would an amenable solution be to add a sentence to the Christianity list item along the lines of:

There are other Christian groups and movements, such as Jehovah's Witnesses and the Latter Day Saint movement, that do not fit neatly into the three main divisions and whose inclusion in Christianity is sometimes disputed by other Christian churches.

--FyzixFighter (talk) 00:34, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

That looks fine but perhaps a bit more succinct:

There are other Christian groups, such as Jehovah's Witnesses and the Latter Day Saint movement, that do not fit into these three divisions and whose inclusion in Christianity is sometimes disputed by other churches.

Munci (talk) 00:40, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm really fine with any of the options discussed, but let me throw out:

There are other groups, such as Jehovah's Witnesses and the Latter Day Saint movement, whose inclusion in Christianity is sometimes disputed by other churches.

Still more succinct, and trying to remove the parts that could be subjects of argument. Just putting the sentence at the end of the Christianity section implies that these groups are Christian (in some way), and that they do not fit neatly into the other groups, without explicitly saying those things. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:59, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Ok, consensus always wins (even if I strongly suggest to list them as a separate bullet, not in the Christianity bullet. I fear that listing them among the three main divisions of Christianity will open the door to list lots of different denominations and churches, of the same size of JWs/LDS, that cant well fit into the simplified threefold division Cath/Prot/Orth, while "Religion" is a general overview article.)

New proposal according to the consensus (I've solved also Samaritan/Druze using the same criteria and deleted the Small Abhramic Group):

• Abrahamic religions are monotheistic religions which believe they descend from the Jewish patriarch Abraham.

• Judaism is the oldest Abrahamic religion, originating in the people of ancient Israel and Judea. Judaism is based primarily on the Torah, a text which Jews believe was handed down to the people of Israel through the prophet Moses in 1,400 BCE. This along with the rest of the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud are the central texts of Judaism. The Jewish people were scattered after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE. Judaism today is practiced by about 13 million people, with about 40 per cent living in Israel and 40 per cent in the United States. Closely related to Judaism there is a small group, the Samaritanism.
• Christianity is based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth (1st century) as presented in the New Testament. The Christian faith is essentially faith in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God, and as Savior and Lord. Almost all Christians believe in the Trinity, which teaches the unity of Father, Son (Jesus Christ), and Holy Spirit as three persons in one Godhead. Most Christians can describe their faith with the Nicene Creed. As the religion of Byzantine Empire in the first millennium and of Western Europe during the time of colonization, Christianity has been propagated throughout the world. The main divisions of Christianity are, according to the number of adherents:
  • Catholic Church, headed by the Pope in Rome, is a communion of the Western church and 22 Eastern Catholic churches.
  • Protestantism, separated from the Catholic Church in the 16th-century Reformation and split in many denominations,
  • Eastern Christianity which include Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy and the Church of the East.
  • There are other groups, such as Jehovah's Witnesses and the Latter Day Saint movement, whose inclusion in Christianity is disputed.
• Islam refers to the religion taught by the Islamic prophet Muhammad, a major political and religious figure of the 7th century CE. Islam is the dominant religion of northern Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. As with Christianity, there is no single orthodoxy in Islam but a multitude of traditions which are generally categorized as Sunni and Shia, although there are other minor groups as well. Wahhabi is the dominant Muslim sect in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. There are also several Islamic republics, including Iran, which is run by a Shia Supreme Leader. There are other groups, such as Druze, whose inclusion in Islam is disputed.
• The Bahá'í Faith was founded in the 19th century in Iran and since then has spread worldwide. It teaches unity of all religious philosophies and accepts all of the prophets of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as well as additional prophets including its founder Bahá'u'lláh.

A ntv (talk) 09:21, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for being flexible about this. A couple of points:

1. I'd suggest changing "is disputed" back to "is sometimes disputed".
2. Originally, we were talking about the JW and LDS sentence as just being a sentence, rather than as a fourth bullet point, and I think that might be better.
3. The deleted paragraph also included Rastafarianism, so we would need to have that somewhere.
4. Do we really agree that the Samaritans and Druze, as well as the Rastafari, need to be integrated into the upper parts, instead of keeping them in the small Abrahamic paragraph at the end? Until now, we were only discussing JW and LDS.

--Tryptofish (talk) 19:39, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

(after ec) Tryptofish sums up most of what I was about to comment on. I'd also suggest saying "is sometimes disputed by other churches" to identify who in general disputes it. --FyzixFighter (talk) 19:57, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Here my ideas:

1. I deleted "sometime" because of WP:WEASEL. Actually the word "sometime" adds nothing. Anyway it is a minor, for me it is the same. Also the addition "by other churches" is not fully true because not only churches dispute it, nor the word "churches" represents all the denominations. Sometime in general lists it is better to say as less as possible.
2. I agree to have the JW and LDS like a sentence not like a bullet, but I cant find the way of doing it with a good graphic result. I'm not very good with formatting. :)
3. About the Rastafani, we can list it in a separate bullet or better consider it as part of the "new religious movements" at the end of the list. This is a general list, we cannot list all the new religious movements borne in the last 50 years.
4. For the Samaritans, I've checked and they are considered Israelite by State of Israel. Thus I put them in the Judaism bullet with the wording "Closely related to Judaism..." which is taken from Article Samaritanism, and thus probably already checked. For the Druze, they like to be in a situation very similar to the LDS, and the best it to use the same criteria.

A ntv (talk) 21:40, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Major Edit Proposal

Discussion at Talk:Criticism of religion

My proposal is to merge the Religion and Criticism of Religion articles. As it stands, the Religion article is biased; that is, the article does not follow the fundamental Wikipedia principle of neutrality—see Balance. Please refer to Evaluations in a "Criticism" section to evaluate whether the Religion page should have a distinct "Criticism" section or whether we should attempt to incorporate the opposing views directly into the text. In my opinion, it would be easier to initially include a "Criticism" section directly in the Religion page. It would be a much more neutral article if the criticisms and differing points of views were directly incorporated into the text, but this task would be much more difficult to perform. In light of this, we propose to temporarily include a "Criticism" section in the Religion page while we prepare the completely merged article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.49.92.181 (talk) 23:54, 7 December 2010 (UTC) I guess I have low enthusiasm for doing that. It would make for an awfully long article. It's a perennial issue at Wikipedia what to do with pages critical of religion, and it seems like there is really never a solution that makes everyone happy. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:53, 8 December 2010 (UTC) The splitting out of the "Criticism Section" and making a separate "Criticism Article" is a direct violation of the neutral point of view policy. Specifically, refer to Breaking out trivial or controversial sections. Also see WP:CFORK, from which I quote "A point of view (POV) fork is a content fork deliberately created to avoid neutral point of view guidelines, often to avoid or highlight negative or positive viewpoints or facts. All POV forks are undesirable on Wikipedia, as they avoid consensus building and therefore violate one of our most important policies." — Preceding unsigned comment added by JacoLink (talk • contribs) 21:56, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

New Image Suggestion

I think this symbol was used during one of the "World day of prayer" events [at Assisi, Italy ?]. If it is appropriate, then someone can replace the existing one. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Breaking_bread-200.jpg — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gizziiusa (talk • contribs) 05:00, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Wordiness

I've noticed that this article and the articles on specific religions and religious beliefs are very wordy and esoteric. It's not very accessible to someone who knows nothing on the topic. I suggest a general overhaul of the religion section of Wikipedia for the purpose of making it easier to understand by someone who just wanted some basic information. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.10.196.97 (talk) 20:34, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, you are probably right! --Tryptofish (talk) 23:52, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Religion As A Destructive Force

This page needs to have a section on the negative aspects of religion, ie. religion as a destructive force. The following source highlights several examples.

The destructive power of religion: violence in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, JH Ellens - 2004 - Praeger Publishers. The book can also be found in google books.

I apologize for not properly citing the source, I am still familiarizing myself with the wiki formatting.

Feel free to add to this section. I will formally complete it in the near future such that it is an acceptable wikipedia section so that it can be posted on the religion page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.216.229.162 (talk) 04:17, 1 December 2010 (UTC) I would tend to agree but perhaps the Religion and Violence section already covers this sufficiently. Errolmo (talk) 06:40, 14 January 2011 (UTC)errolmo

Actually, we do have other articles such as Criticism of religion, Judaism and violence, Christianity and violence, and Islam and violence. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:57, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Does anyone disagree with my comment here?

[5]

I wrote this, nobody replied, it was archived, and people still continue to add crap like dictionary.com or Britannica to the lede. Anyone out there?? Shii (tock) 05:26, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

I never saw the original comment when it was posted but I read the archive and I have to say I'm confused. What was the original definition in the lead that you wrote? --Pseudo-Richard (talk) 06:07, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Too lazy to go through the article's long history now, but something based on this: [6] (note that there are almost 1000 unique results for this passage) Shii (tock) 07:12, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Hearing no objection... Shii (tock) 05:02, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Galileo affair misrepresented

In Religion#Christianity_and_science:

The Roman Catholic Church, for example, has in the past reserved to itself the right to decide which scientific theories were acceptable and which were unacceptable. In the 17th century, Galileo was tried and forced to recant the heliocentric theory based on the church's stance that the Greek Hellenistic system of astronomy was the correct one.

This omits the political nature of the Galileo affair, which is arguably the larger factor at play with Galileo and the Pope. Essentially, you have a scientist insulting the most powerful person in the world, after he had been warned not to. I'm not sure how I should edit the page directly, so I present the problem here. Labreuer (talk) 03:26, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

An excellent point. Please fix it, or even remove the section, because I don't know why an article on religion has to talk about "Christianity and science" in the first place. Shii (tock) 11:16, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Various religions

I have uploaded a new image representing various worldwide religions, including Pastafarianism that has more followers worldwide than Judaism. If the picture is going to be removed the one who will remove it must also explain why. Thanks Entropy1963 (talk) 09:18, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Pastafarianism has more followers than judaism? Got a source for that?

Parodies of religion are not, themselves, religion; so Russell's teapot &c do not belong on that image. bobrayner (talk) 11:02, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Don't post nonsense to Wikipedia. Thanks. Shii (tock) 11:15, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Parodies? Nonsense? Religion is what people believe about the supernatural and Wikipedia is to report it. It is not what you and me believe about god. Since there are enough people to believe in Pastafarianism, I do not see why Pastafarianism should be excluded. The symbol of atheism is also excluded from this picture and atheism is a lifestyle as any other religion and has more followers than Judaism. (the source for this argument is Wikipedia itself) Entropy1963 (talk) 14:17, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

This is ridiculous. This insipid, self-defeating argument will get you nowhere, and I beg you not to waste everyone's time. Shii (tock) 16:25, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Oh! I’ve just seen that you have a BA in religion… sorry… I didn’t mean to upset you… Entropy1963 (talk) 18:14, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Editorial oversight?

The word "god" is not wiki-linked anywhere on this page about "religion" on first usage, nor is the word "god" explained with reference to "religion" (which is merely described as a "cultural system") on first usage -- so it appears as an unreferenced and undefined term with no connection to the "cultural system" under discussion.

It is as if one had turned to an article on "railways" that defined them as a "cultural system" and then, along about the eight paragraph, suddenly referred to "trains" but neither defined nor wiki-linked the word "trains" on first usage.

I refuse to log in to fix something this lame. Truly, wikipedia is idiocy on toast. 64.142.90.33 (talk) 05:49, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Why does religion have to involve God? Shii (tock) 08:48, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

That's an off-topic question. A discussion page is not for debate, it is a place to plan imporvements to the article. The fact is that the words "god" and "gods" DO appear on the page more than 30 times, but the article is so poorly conceived that the authors have failed to wiki-link the term god(s) on first usage, nor have they given any reason for mentioning god(s) on first usage. The problem is one of poor writing. Your sophistry is beside the point. 64.142.90.33 (talk) 09:33, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

TBQH I don't know why God is invoked as many times as it is-- usually in connection with atheism or tangential discussions about Christianity. Shii (tock) 11:54, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

According to standard wikipedia form, if a word that has a wikipedia entry of its own is used anywhere on a page -- whether one time or one thousand times -- it should be wiki-linked on first usage. So, i logged in and wiki-linked it, and this discussion is now finished. Catherineyronwode (talk) 09:46, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Article

What happened to this article? Its now focused completely on abrahamic religions and in particular Christianity. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.163.34.176 (talk) 13:53, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

OK, I'll bite...

Noting this edit: [7], I agree with not going too far down the path of parroting dictionaries, but I wonder whether there might be some value in restoring some of the language about "In religious studies, religion has been described as a cultural system that creates powerful and long-lasting meaning...", etc. The point it helps get across is that this terminology is specifically an academic one, and it helps locate the terminology as coming from the particular sources cited. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:52, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Wiki shall speak to all the people, so it is better to use a simple and wide-accepted definition. The definition of religion as "cultural system" may be corrected in sociological studies about religion, but it is not a definition that can be made own by the millions of people who believe in Religion, not it match the common sense of most of the people. It can also be considered quite offensive by religious people. Is suggest something very simple like "Religion is the human attitude to belief and worship". Or whichever other definition, but not too specialist, for an Article which is almost a portal to other Articles.A ntv (talk) 19:20, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

To be clear, I'm not arguing for removal of the "cultural system" terminology. But I am raising the question of whether we should place it as being a terminology used in academic studies, rather than by society as a whole. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:24, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

What exactly is that supposed to mean? Is Wikipedia's reliable source policy suspended with regards to this article because of the "will of the people"? "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth." I don't even know what you mean by "society as a whole" or "most of the people" here. What is a more reliable source than academic consensus? Shii (tock) 06:18, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Actually, I'm not altogether convinced that it is academic "consensus", so much as a significant train of thought within an academic specialty. I'm certainly not arguing for suspension of RS or V! And there are examples of other things where there is a scholarly terminology for things within academia, while at the same time the general public understands the subject differently than academics do. And I'm not suggesting that Wikipedia take sides between academia and anyone else, anyway. All I'm saying is that there might be value in indicating that an academic definition is an academic definition. Is something along the lines of "In religious studies, religion has been described as... " really such a problem? --Tryptofish (talk) 19:35, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with it, as long as there is no other definition listed and no implication that religious scholars are somehow an inappropriate group to consult on this subject. What I mean by that is that I think it's fine to have a personal definition of religion that makes you feel better about own religious opinions-- in fact, I bet many people do this-- but it's not okay to use Wikipedia as a soapbox for your own beliefs by replacing the academic consensus with your own definition or a dictionary definition that sounds better to you. Fighting over which dictionary has the best definition will at best be reinventing the wheel since these same arguments have been had by religious scholars for over a hundred years. At worst it will make Wikipedia worthless on this subject. Shii (tock) 08:17, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

I think that's very fair, and I have no problem with doing it that way. Thanks! --Tryptofish (talk) 15:59, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

proposed simple definition

--Ryans.lewis3365 (talk) 18:17, 30 March 2011 (UTC)proposed definition of the word Religion- The social/physical interaction between beings/entities.

I recently decided that "Conscious Social Science" was simply the activity of all supposed "religions". Although, as a "Conscious Social Scientist" I understand that all of the teachings in the world are the part of the same religion --Ryans.lewis3365 (talk) 20:08, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Please read WP:NOR. Thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:51, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

That simplified defition means that rape, congress, and beer pong are religion as well. Ian.thomson (talk) 13:34, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

"I recently decided that" is a great way to start a statement about how you want an encyclopedia to be written. My day is brightened. Shii (tock) 15:20, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Definition of religion

A definition of religion by Geertz (a truncated version of which is currently used in this article) is used at Theories of religion. From "Religion as a Cultural System",

religion is: (1) a system of symbols which acts to (2) establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by (3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that (5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.

(http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic152604.files/Week_4/Geertz_Religon_as_a_Cultural_System_.pdf)

Editor2020 (talk) 02:54, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Are you suggesting changing what the article here says? --Tryptofish (talk) 23:57, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

• The definition of religion in the article is pure bull**** In reality, religion is simply a belief in something supernatural that controls the world. It's that simple. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.203.17.154 (talk) 03:39, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm also interested to see if we can write for the lede a better definition of what we actually mean by the word "religion". I've always quite liked this one from Dr. M. Scott Peck:

"The understanding we have of the world is our religion. Everyone has a religion, whether he formally belongs to a church or not."
—Source: Peck, Morgan Scott (2002) [1978]. The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth (25th anniversary ed.). New York City: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 9780743238250. OCLC 50124814. Retrieved 20 March 2011.

Is there anyway that this quotation could be included in Wikipedia, either on this article or elsewhere? A Thousand Doors (talk) 22:22, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

That depends, was the book peer reviewed? Is it considered a standard reference for religious scholars? Shii (tock) 10:03, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, that's a good question... I shall look into it. A Thousand Doors (talk) 21:32, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Surely religion is a political system as it is an attempt to control people's actions so that they best serve the purposes of the leaders of the religion. Part of this is the defence of the religion's defenders (normally the state).Ppeetteerr (talk) 17:52, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Religious belief - Judaism?

Why does Judaism have the most content in this section? Why does Islam have the least? Why even include this section here without mentioning other religions? Judaism is practiced by so few people in the world that it hardly deserves a mention here in comparison to Christianity and Islam. Why not include Buddhism and Hinduism? They make Judaism look like dust mites in comparison to how many followers each has. Judaism might be the oldest Abrahamic religion, but there is non-biased (non-Zionist) sources which prove Judaism is a modern invention newer than Christianity, a hoax in many ways. One need only take a look at the Zionst-bias here on Wikipedia itself, it's no secret. Look at the editors who argue. They all have star of David on their user pages. Despite making up .2% of the global population, these folks have a very loud voice to spread there propaganda and it is no secret at all. I propose removing Judaism from the religious belief section because of its extremely small follower base compared to other major religions (literally a drop in the bucket). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.228.225.34 (talk) 05:17, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Really?

I am deeply shocked and offended by this statement. "Buddhism and Hinduism concentrate on the practices of ritual and transformation rather than on uniformity of belief, and tribal religions express their view of reality through a variety of myths, not a 'rule of faith' for their members" Mind you it is not even sourced. Ever heard of the concept of Karma introduced by Hinduism? it preaches a belief that is beyond and above any ritual to all Hinduism practitioners. and so called 'myths' here are not myths, why are they still recalled after thousands of years (of invasion and destruction) if they were myths. I mean we easily forget the characters in Shakespeare literature that occurred some 500 years ago (because they are myths). Then why are the 'myths' not forgotten after thousands of years? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Margipatel (talk • contribs) 02:58, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Why is this article focusing on Christianity? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.163.15.84 (talk) 18:47, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

On the definition

>>> I know this is a difficult thing to do perfectly, but I don't think the initial Geertz inspired definition really pins down the subject. "Religion is a cultural system that creates powerful and long-lasting meaning by establishing symbols that relate humanity to beliefs and values." This really could just as well describe ideologies like socialism, philosophies like stoicism or even national identities like American nationalism. What the definition lacks is some kind of reference to the supernatural or spiritual. Also, the definition uses quite relative terms like "powerful" and "long-lasting" which are hard to pin down, and may in some cases be wrong, as not all religions are long-lasting, and how powerful the meaning religion provides may vary from religion to religion and from follower to follower. I argue that we should use a Melford Spiro inspired definition of religion instead, who defines religion like this: "religion is an institution consisting of culturally patterned interaction with culturally postulated superhuman beings". The essay where it's from is here and he also dissects this definition in detail in that essay. To me it really captures it all without being vague or overly condescending.TheFreeloader (talk) 21:08, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Consider the insert that reads: "The scientific method gains knowledge by testing hypotheses to develop theories through elucidation of facts or evaluation by experiments and thus only answers cosmological questions about the physical universe. It develops theories of the world which best fit physically observed evidence. All scientific knowledge is subject to later refinement in the face of additional evidence. Scientific theories that have an overwhelming preponderance of favorable evidence are often treated as facts (such as the theories of gravity or evolution)."

This definition is EXTREMELY subjective.

A statement of "faith" in the "wiki-religion" might be: "I believe the definition should say..."

Therefore, Geertz' definition is better than we assess above. Perhaps you could be religious about a "god" but also about "peanut butter"... Introduction of the "supernatural" brings us to decide that religion is somehow tied to faith in the supernatural, thereby negating religion that is focused on the natural ~ even if it is inexplicable.

Somebody smarter than me please edit the content of the definition and the section on "Religion and Science" so that we can discover who is "right"; since the nature of this entire entry pits "science" so-called vs. "religion" so-called! When, in fact, this is an unnecessary presumption, unless you trust a comedian (like the most politically correct Maher) over science.

Hope, Matt

Hope, Matt

Why?

Why is this article completely focused on abrahamic religion? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.150.247.171 (talk) 18:17, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Some answers are below. You can also read Due Weight to understand how are opinions balanced. ~ AdvertAdam ^talk 10:25, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

I could add to that, that the page, at any given time, is a product of the writings of the editors who have worked on it. It may, in fact, be correct that the article should include more coverage of some topics than it does now. So, please feel free to add to it, so long as your additions are well-sourced. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:05, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Wrong

The article mentions that Mahayana buddhism was developed in China while Vajrayana originated in Tibet. If i'm not mistaken then i would have thought that they both originated in India given that articles on both aspects of Buddhism state they originated there. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.164.137.79 (talk) 19:18, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Judaism and "knowledge"

There has been a slow edit war in the last several days over two points concerning how Judaism is discussed in this article. The contested issues are:

1. Should the lead refer to "Judaism" or to "Abrahamic religions" when discussing a scholarly theory about how the term "religion" might be imposed upon Eastern traditions (including Hinduism and Buddhism, amongst others)?
2. Should a passage from Deuteronomy be characterized as "knowledge" or as "belief"?

Editor Koakhtzvigad answers both of these questions with the first of those possible replies; three editors, Adamrce, Bobrayner, and myself, disagree. I'd like to suggest that we discuss the issue instead of prolonging an unproductive process of reverting. I'll also note some prior talk about it at User talk:Bobrayner. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:16, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Here is my personal opinion about it:

1. For the first point, I can certainly understand Koakhtzvigad's reasoning that Judaism is the model, as it were, for the other Abrahamic religions, and thus Judaism is the model that is being "imposed" on Hinduism, Buddhism, etc., according to those sources. However, I do not think this is what those sources are getting at. Instead, they are academic theses that certain traditions that are widespread in Europe and the Americas have unthinkingly been applied to Eastern traditions for which the term "religion" is not really applicable. In fact, prior versions of the page actually referred only to Christianity in this regard. Thus, the sources are talking about a theory that Western writers, most of whom were actually Christians, were imposing their personal assumptions on Eastern traditions. It was never a matter of Judaism, specifically, trying to impose itself on anything else. Thus, I think that "Abrahamic religions" is more correct, and is in no way disparaging or diminishing the significance of Judaism.
2. For the second point, persons who believe in Judaism will understandably consider the sacred texts to be "knowledge". However, persons outside of that belief system would not necessarily agree. It is common English usage to refer to religious "beliefs". The word "belief" is, again, not a disparaging one: it simply indicates what members of the religion believe. WP:NPOV requires us to write neutrally, not assuming that any one world view is superior to another. An insistence on using the word "knowledge" is what a proselytizer for a religion would do, not what neutral editing requires.

More broadly, I am concerned about the appearance of a single editor pushing, against the consensus of multiple other editors, for writing that appears to promote an Orthodox Jewish view on this page. In this regard, I also think that the lengthy quote from Va'eira may be WP:UNDUE, and should be better put in a footnote. (Please note the IP editor comment directly above this thread, and compare the length of the section about Religious belief in Judaism with the lengths of the other sections.) I think we may actually have a consensus about this, just not a unanimous one. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:16, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Sorry about that, as I was totally unaware of the edit history. I haven't been closely following this page. I agree with you on both, especially that this article is about all religions, so an Orthodox Jewish pov can't have such a weight like that. Also, an Encyclopedia tone only says "belief" to be neutral, as this is not a lecture of the Old Testament. There's no need to open personal discussions while there's many editors involved, so I wish everyone will stick here. ~ AdvertAdam ^talk 10:14, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Nothing to be sorry for. Thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:27, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree (approximately) with both points. Well put. bobrayner (talk) 18:06, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

I am noting here that Koakhtzvigad reverted against consensus again, without coming to this talk, and that a fourth editor, Ian.thomson, has agreed with the three of us above in reverting that. I am going to leave a comment on Koakhtzvigad's user talk, advising him that these edits are becoming disruptive. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:45, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Goes beyond what is needed at Talk:Religion. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:52, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Speak of the devil... I first noticed Koakhtzvigad's POV-pushing over at Abraham, where I have given a rather detailed explanation of what was wrong with his edits there. About the beginning of this month he kinda went off the deep end. I'm about to go shopping, otherwise I'd alert the guys there about what's going on here, so if we could all get together, I think the seven or eight or so of us (as I recall, AdvertAdam is over there as well) should be enough to discourage more POV-pushing, or be able to build a water tight case against him (I have a text file with about a couple dozen choice diffs if it becomes necessary to go to RFC/U or ANI). While we're at it, not quite on topic (but I thought it couldn't hurt to ask), but User:In ictu oculi could use some help over at Notzrim with an IP editor giving the Talmud undue weight there. Ian.thomson (talk) 20:34, 18 June 2011 (UTC) Ah, sorry, I should've stuck to the thread, hat's fine. Ian.thomson (talk) 22:09, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

What exactly is my so called "POV pushing"?

You haven't even read the article!

For example, above Tryptofish says "I can certainly understand Koakhtzvigad's reasoning that Judaism is the model, as it were, for the other Abrahamic religions, and thus Judaism is the model that is being "imposed" on Hinduism, Buddhism, etc., according to those sources." - but, this is NOT TRUE. The article in Types of religions section, divides religions into two classes, universal (world) religions, and ethnic religions. At no time did I edit to say that Judaism acts as a model for the later! However, the Intro doesn't even agree with the article, since it proposes three classes of religions, world (universal), indigenous (ethnic) and new religions! I keep changing Abrahamic to Judaism because the sentence says "One modern academic theory of world religions, social constructionism, says that religion is a modern concept that suggests all spiritual practice and worship follows a model similar to the Abrahamic religions as an orientation system that helps to interpret reality and define human beings," I was however watching to see what 'considered response' I would get to my 'controversial editing' (I knew there would be one). And I did. No one above pointed out that Judaism can not be considered a model for either of the other two classes of religions because all are bent on removing Judaism from the intro. Nor has anyone bothered to read what social constructionism ACTUALLY is, or says. How can religion be a "modern concept" modeled on something that is attested for over 3300 years?

Consequently, Tryptofish hasn't got a clue what he/she is talking about, and User:adamrce is simply giving his POV without any consideration to facts when he/she says "an Orthodox Jewish pov can't have such a WP:DUE like that". Like what? Does anyone disagree that Christianity was modeled on Judaism? Does anyone disagree that Islam borrowed substantially from Judaism?

I'm not giving a lecture on the Old Testament, because it is not the subject of the section in question. Nor is it relevant to says that "an Encyclopedia tone only says "belief" to be neutral" because in this case the Encyploǣaedia is recording the value of a given set of people based on their cultural tradition and text. Can you offer any source that says there is a requirement to believe in God as a demand from God to the nation of Israel in the Tanakh? I can't very well give a source for something that doesn't exist, can I?

I don't see anyone opposing my sources giving any sources of their own, so "put up, or shut up" as the saying goes. Empty accusation fo POV as just that...Koakhtzvigad (talk) 01:23, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for coming to talk with this. That's a good step towards moving towards consensus, instead of having an edit war.

First, let me ask editors to look back please at Talk:Religion/Archive 8#Criticism section. It's a lot to go through, but please especially note the comment by editor Shii about partway through, saying in part, "Actually, in Japan, India, and so forth, there was no word for 'religion'. There were different kinds of social institutions doing different things, and what I'm claiming here is that the critics of religious studies have hypothesized that those different things are not synonymous with our 'religion'." An awful lot of the history at this page has been disagreements about whether we are writing about religion as an institution of human culture and civilization, or as a concept of academic study. The issue arises again in Talk:Religion/Archive 9#New edits, where there is discussion of sourcing from Talal Asad, and in Talk:Religion/Archive 9#Eurocentrism of the History section, where there is discussion of words "such as dharma, bhakti, Tao, or Islam" that have sometimes been used synonymously with "religion", but, arguably, should not be. That sentence of the lead is trying to introduce the section on Religion#Religion as a Christian concept. The current state of this page is doubtless imperfect, but it reflects compromise over these past discussions.

That is what the sentence about "Abrahamic religions" in the lead is trying to explicate. Thus, that sentence is not about the role of Judaism as the model from which Christianity and Islam arose. So, no, no one here disputes that Christianity and Islam were modeled on Judaism. Of course they were. No one is bent on removing Judaism from the lead. But that simply isn't the topic of that part of the lead.

As for "belief", I think everyone actually agrees that we should be "recording the value of a given set of people based on their cultural tradition and text." The issue is, instead, whether we should be adopting that value in Wikipedia's own voice. There is a difference between "recording" what a religion says, and adopting it as Wikipedia's own position.

I'm beginning to see that the objection to "belief" is that it can be construed as saying that there was a requirement to believe, when that was not the case. We can work with that. But "knowledge" is not a good solution, because it puts Wikipedia in the position of saying that Wikipedia "knows" this, which Wikipedia does not. Should we look for a different word? Perhaps "tenet"? --Tryptofish (talk) 18:12, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

I put "tenet" on the page. If for any reason that is unsatisfactory, another possibility might be "principle". --Tryptofish (talk) 20:31, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Actually, no. That sentence I was editing, with that context, if one applies logic, can have only Judaism in place of Abrahamic.

I don't care to spend even a minute of my time going over old discussions.

The word 'religion' is a Roman observation of Judaism that was borrowed during the middle ages by Christianity and applied in an entirely different way, as is often the case with cross-borrowed terms that change meaning over time due to loss of cultural context.

There is no word for 'religion' in Ivrit (Hebrew) either for your information. Dati is, as the Wikipedia redirect says, is - A Hebrew term for an observant Orthodox Jew. Its root, as any Hebrew dictionary will tell you, is da'at, which is variously translated as knowledge, mind or thought depending on context, but not belief (emunah in Ivrit). Therefore when I edit that there is knowledge, and not belief, in that context, I'm not just entering semantics, or engaging in "POV pushing", but actually stating a widespread popular usage in a given language! So no, "tenet" won't do.

This knowledge is not what Wikipedia believes, but what the Jews believe, or at least the Orthodox Jews to whom 'religion' is most applicable in Judaism. Why would you think that it could be read any differently?

The Orthodox Jews know it because they have retained evidence as part of their cultural heritage that the core text of this knowledge was revealed and received from God on Mount Sinai, and witnessed by the entire People of Israel at the time. That text is also called Sinaitic Covenant, but legally can be expressed as an agreement, contract, treaty, promise, pledge, bond, or pact.

Something that is witnessed becomes certifiable knowledge, i.e. evidence admissible in court, such as a witnessed text which in modern law is covered by the parol evidence rule and the Romanistic rule. This is a logic on which most of contemporary judicial practice is based on. If you say that testimony of witnesses which are no longer alive is invalid, you will by default nullity the Western, and for that matter many other court systems. Consider that in the USA alone at least 80,000 prosecutions every year rely largely on eyewitness testimony. This concept by the way IS applicable to Wikipedia editors also because "Every witness is an editor: he tells you not everything he saw and heard, for that would be impossible, but what he saw and heard and found significant, and what he finds significant depends on his preconceptions." Patrick Devlin, The Criminal Prosecution in England 66 (1960).

Based on the above I can not accept your proposals since they are based on erroneous preconceptions.

One such preconception is that consensus can produce a perfect article in Wikipedia. "The current state of this page is doubtless imperfect, but it reflects compromise over these past discussions." But, IT IS THE COMPROMISE THAT WAS REACHED BY WIKIPEDIANS LIKE YOURSELF THAT CREATED "The current state of this page"! And Religion is a fairly old and core encyclopedic subject, never mind a "mother" article for a very large number of "offsprings". If Wikiepdia cant get this article 'perfect', what can it get right?Koakhtzvigad (talk) 03:26, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

At least, I'd like to say thank you to you again, for discussing this here on the talk page. I would also be very eager to hear what other editors think at this point of the discussion. If you can find sourcing from the section of the page Religion#Religion as a Christian concept that would support your interpretation of what the lead should say, that might be a good way to find consensus. Otherwise, what we have here is increasingly looking to me like a situation in which one editor—you—feels very strongly that we should write the article in a manner that treats this content as "this knowledge was revealed and received from God on Mount Sinai, and witnessed by the entire People of Israel at the time", while I and, I think, three other editors are trying to tell you that this is not how Wikipedia works. When you express an unwillingness to engage with past discussions in this talk, and when you express a disagreement in principle with the process of consensus, you appear to me to be putting yourself on the wrong side of WP:TE. Maybe you don't really care about that, and are confident that you are correct according to a higher level of knowledge, but you are likely to find that Wikipedia will not accept your position. Again, I am eager to hear what other editors think. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:45, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

The problem is that there' not much to say, as many points have been continually explained from different directions, here and in separate discussion too. Frankly speaking, Wikipedia is not an Orthodox Jew, nor does it hold any religious status.

I'll try to bring it another way, but I think I'm braking some policies tho (just consider it a personal opinion). If we consider half of the world's population believe in the divinity scripture at mount "Sinai," another half doesn't believe so. "Belief" is not un-acceptable for the %50 believers (just a weak diction). Therefore, "belief" can be simi-acceptable to the world's population, while "knowlege" is only acceptable to the %50. What's more neutral, in your opinion? I hope that helps :) ~ AdvertAdam ^talk 08:17, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Religious belief in Islam

Religious belief in Islam

Muslims declare the shahada, or testimony: "I bear witness that there is nothing worthy of worship except Allah, and I bear witness that Muhammad is the slave and messenger of Allah.

((this is wrong ))you don't have to say ((slave)).

((this is the right way to say it)) "I bear witness that there is nothing worthy of worship except Allah, and I bear witness that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah. أشهد أن لا إله إلا الله وأن محمد رسول الله

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Hotsalah (talk • contribs) 04:30, 29 June 2011 (UTC) 

Considering that you might know how to read Arabic, I don't think that you never heard: "وأشهد أن محمد عبده ورسوله" (whether it's heavily used in your specific community or not). Yes, the section needs a lot of work, but there's nothing suspicious here. Thanks for your opinion... ~ AdvertAdam ^talk 07:42, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from Ocalvo, 4 July 2011

Change: Religion is a collection of cultural systems, To: Religion is a virus of the mind that holds a collection of cultural systems,

[virus of the mind] reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viruses_of_the_Mind

• Not going to happen, per WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:22, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Statement about the prevalence of Clifford Geertz's definition of religion spurious

I came across the sentence:

"Clifford Geertz's definition of religion as a "cultural system" was dominant for most of the 20th century and continues to be widely accepted today."

Considering that Geertz published his 'Religion as a Cultural System' in 1966, and his theories contained therein really didn't come to prominence until the mid to late seventies, the claim that his theory was dominant 'for most of the 20th century' is spurious. The sentence (which appears under 'the Social Constructionists' heading) ought to be removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Toastie1 (talk • contribs) 19:02, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for catching that. For now, I didn't completely remove the sentence, but I changed it to not have the problems you pointed out. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:27, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Why do we have sections on "Religion X and science" "Religion X and belief"

We can't very well include the views of every religion. Including only a few makes the article incomplete. It doesn't really follow that you can understand science and religion generally by understanding the views of a few specific religions. People should go to more specific articles for that information. Shii (tock) 05:11, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Seeing no objections over 20 days, I will remove the sections. Shii (tock) 05:33, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

If I had noticed your comment above before you made the edit, I would have chimed in to agree with you...so I guess I'm just chiming in to agree with you after the fact, for what it's worth. I agree with your reasoning and I think your edit improved the article. Cheers, Dawn Bard (talk) 06:56, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Overall, I agree too, and especially approve of removing what had become an undue imbalance in the part about Judaism and belief. A rather minor quibble is that I restored a small amount of material in the Violence section that was sourced (albeit in need of page numbers, but that's fixable), and which really does not fall within the rationale expressed above. However, I pruned it from what it had been originally. (To make comparison more convenient, here is a combined diff, showing the changes in total: [8].) --Tryptofish (talk) 19:15, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Addition to External Links

• The Natural Religion, modern analysis of religion suggesting morals and ethics without supernatural beliefs, Dr. Brendan Connolly, www.thenaturalreligion.org. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brendan Connolly (talk • contribs) 20:23, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

No, personal blogs fail WP:RS and WP:ELNO. Wikipedia does not exist to promote your site. Ian.thomson (talk) 20:57, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Abraham Jewish?

I intend to remove the non NPOV that states that Abraham is Jewish. The written Torah makes no such claim, and indeed cannot since there was no concept of Judaism at the time when Abraham is believed to have lived. Judaism may subsequently have claimed Abraham as Jewish, but this should not be included here as a statement that indeed he was. Such a statement is not neutral. I.e change Abrahamic religions are monotheistic religions which believe they descend from the Jewish patriarch Abraham. to state Abrahamic religions are monotheistic religions which believe they descend from Abraham.Dalai lama ding dong (talk) 11:51, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Dogma as a distinguising characteristic of religion

Is it common to all religions to have a dogmatic approach to "cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews" (par. 1)? If so, I think it would be useful to add the word 'dogma' or 'dogmatic' as it helps distinguish public religions from early philosophies (e.g., Greek), personal (alterable) beliefs, and modern scientific theories.

Don't know why I'm unable to edit this article. If someone with the right privileges could update the introduction in that way? — Preceding unsigned comment added by DSDMtom (talk • contribs) 03:00, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

The article is protected, so you have to make a dozen or so other edits to other pages before you can edit a protected page. Do you have any reliable sources which state what you'd like to add? And if you do, we can only present that as one theory among many. Additionally, if we find sources pointing out that many religions (such as Vodou, neopaganism, some forms of Hinduism and Buddhism, or the Quakers) do not have dogma, we must point that out as well. Ian.thomson (talk) 15:50, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Found part of my thoughts in the section on 'Secularism and irreligion': "A major criticism of many religions is that they require beliefs that are irrational, unscientific, or unreasonable, because religious beliefs and traditions lack scientific or rational foundations." That, however does not state positively that religious belief requires acceptance of dogma, but it rules out IMHO all the alternatives to it. That's why I thought it should be more obvious in the introduction section as well. I'll keep looking for a reliable source to quote. Thanks for your tips. DSDMtom (talk) 18:36, 12 September 2011 (UTC) DSDMtom

Timeline.

Can someone please add to the see also section, the timeline for the appearance of known religions? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_religion#50th_to_11th_millennium_BC Please/thanks. Would be v helpful for studies. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.53.3.229 (talk) 20:28, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Done. Ian.thomson (talk) 20:36, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Removal

Under the Indian religion section, it states that Hinduism is not a monotheistic religion, when in fact it is. This needs to be changed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.164.142.186 (talk • contribs)

You're allowed to edit your comments, but quit removing the unsigned template unless you're going to sign your post (using four tildes, like ~~~~). Ian.thomson (talk) 23:43, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Religion and health

Could anyone add Impacts of religion on health to religion and health part. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Teddykra (talk • contribs) 13:15, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Done. Thanks for starting the article. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:22, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Sections: one more needed and one too long

I added a couple of quotes from anthropologists John Monaghan and Peter Just. There did not seem to be a good section to work them into. Perhaps one should be added discussing ethnography or another term that would encompass general statements of the types I added.

On an unrelated note, I question the length of the section called "Religion as a Christian concept". It seems excessive relative to the rest of the article. It certainly is notable, but the article itself defines religion in a broad manner that is inclusive of more than Christianity. I recommend pruning this section to be more concise or splitting it into its own article. --Airborne84 (talk) 04:22, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

About the "Christian concept" part of what you say, it's been an issue of discussion before. Please see Talk:Religion/Archive 9#New edits and Talk:Religion/Archive 9#Eurocentrism of the History section. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:51, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for adding an academic source to the article, but does the quote really accomplish what the heading suggests? Is there any history of any "prophet" in any religious tradition who came to a previously entirely irreligious society and then make it religious? The section title seems to suggest that we are going to read something about the origin of Religion, not the origins of the various specific religious traditions. This is a fascinating question (on the origin and universality of religion) that the article might helpfully address.65.71.203.98 (talk) 21:13, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Fair points. As I mentioned above though, there did not seem to be a good section in which to add the quote—which seemed useful in this article. Perhaps it belongs in an as-yet-uncreated section. --Airborne84 (talk) 21:51, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

File:Lord hari.jpg Nominated for speedy Deletion

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A bug in the revision history

I think there's a small bug in the first revision. How can you compare the difference between the first version with a non-exist "previous" version? I tried to look the process of creation of this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Religion&oldid=332500026

Apparently there's a wrong hyperlink lead to a follow up revision. I mean, this is not the way like: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dance_science&oldid=131569219

Is this a bug of the BOT or just a mistake in this article? Gunbuster23 (talk) 00:15, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

I see what you mean. The "earliest" version of this page has an edit summary referring to even earlier versions. I suspect that what must have happened was that there was a content merge from an earlier page that was deleted, and an administrator would have to fix the revision history. I'm not an administrator, so I don't have access to what was deleted. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:49, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

I see. Thanks for reply. But not only the earliset version, I found that this situation happens in several versions. Is this normal? If it's the merge that cause the abnormal link, the further question would be: where can I see the creation for an article of this kind? Could the process be traced? How do I know that the edit history of an article is altered? Thanks for your kindly reply again.--Gunbuster23 (talk) 12:01, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

You would need an administrator to do that. I was hoping that one might see this discussion thread and step in, but I guess that hasn't happened. If you leave a request at WP:AN (include a link to Talk:Religion#A bug in the revision history so they see what we said here), someone will take care of it, I expect. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:55, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Bali is 92.29% Hindu!

I appreciate the map showing the distribution of religions around the world but what happened to Bali? It is 92.29% Hindu however it does not even seem to be on this map! HELP! I do not know how to fix this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.132.244.204 (talk) 11:52, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Make sure your statement is verifiable and not original research. Hill Crest's WikiLaser (Boom). (talk) 00:48, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Mistakes in the Buddhism Sectioin of your article

There are factual errors in your article on Buddhism. Mahayana Buddhism began in India, not China. Vajrayan also began in India, not Tibet. You really should not allow such an error-filled article to be published.

````

Pauline Westwood — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.217.150.69 (talk) 06:19, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Criticism section

It is consistent with other philosophy articles that there be a link to the criticism article and/or a short summary of it. There is no reason (I can think of) why religion should be exempt. Examples: anarchism, atheism, existentialism, pragmaticism, secular humanism (controversy section), etc. byelf2007 (talk) 25 August 2011

Well, WP:OTHERTHINGSEXIST ain't a valid argument for your added section. Yes, criticism is always considered a part of controversial topics, and usually have a section of critics' opinions. However, that's not the case here. Criticism of Religion is a large parallel article, and a "see also" is where it belongs, IMHO. Btw, I don't see a criticism section for Atheism as you claim, and it falls into similar account. It's just mentioned their, not a dedicated "criticism" section. ~ AdvertAdam <sup>talk</sup> 18:29, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Also, I think you should take-a-look at Religion#Secularism_and_irreligion. ~ AdvertAdam <sup>talk</sup> 18:35, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough about the "other things exist" point, and I didn't see that "criticism of religion" is already linked. So why not have a criticism blurb separate from the rest of the article? I think it's good to have that near the end. If you don't like criticism blurbs in other articles, does that mean you want those removed? If not, what is your rationale for having them there but not here (I like format consistency in articles). Furthermore, having "criticism of religion" in the "modern issues in religion" section implies that criticism of religion has only occurred in modern times. I think it would be better if we had what I put in and eliminate the other "criticism of religion" link. Byelf2007 (talk) 27 August 2011

So, you simply admit that you haven't closely read the article :p. First, this is not the talkpage of those articles, and I'm honestly not involved in them to give my option.

Second, what you're suggesting is like adding a focus on criticism. "Issues of religion" is the same as "problems/criticism of religion," so that's the relevant place for it, according to this article's style (also Atheism's). Yes, "modern" is a good catch, which is simply inaccurate because it's reported that there was critics since the 5th century BCE. I just removed it. Btw, even the used tag is "main article" not a "see also".

Do you have further concerns :). ~ AdvertAdam <sup>talk</sup> 19:56, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

A problem with a short section on Criticism, serving mainly to have a link to the Criticism of religion page, is that it really doesn't say very much. Obviously, this page isn't the place for every criticism that has ever been raised, and I think that the material in the Secularism and Irreligion section probably covers what we need here, although I suppose one could add some further content there. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:23, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm good. byelf2007 (talk) 27 August 2011

The splitting out of the "Criticism Section" and making a separate "Criticism Article" is a direct violation of the neutral point of view policy. Specifically, refer to Breaking out trivial or controversial sections. Also see WP:CFORK, from which I quote "A point of view (POV) fork is a content fork deliberately created to avoid neutral point of view guidelines, often to avoid or highlight negative or positive viewpoints or facts. All POV forks are undesirable on Wikipedia, as they avoid consensus building and therefore violate one of our most important policies." Furthermore, the Religion article does not even mention the criticism anywhere. The ideal would be to completely incorporate the criticism directly into the text (i.e. merging the criticism article with the religion article). Since that has not been done, we must at least have a criticism section in the religion article. Right now, the criticisms have been deliberately removed from the article creating a POV fork!

Also note Wikipedia's policy on Tag-team editing: Tag teams work in unison to push a particular point of view. Tag-team editing – to thwart core policies (neutral point of view, verifiability, and no original research); or to evade procedural restrictions such as the three revert rule or to violate behavioural norms by edit warring; or to attempt to exert ownership over articles; or otherwise to prevent consensus prevailing – is prohibited.

In conclusion, the Religion article requires a criticism section to abide by Wikipedia's guidelines. The following banner must be placed on the Religion page as well. JacoLink (talk) 17:02, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

I am disappointed to see that nobody responded to this post and that no administrator had the courage to do the right thing and put the disputed neutrality banner on the main page.184.161.195.19 (talk) 04:35, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree. No courage to stand up to Religion174.0.218.219 (talk) 06:26, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Guys, try actually looking before complaining: We have a Criticism section in the religion article, and we even have a Criticism of religion article. The criticism article is longer than the religion article. Placing it in this article would violate WP:UNDUE. The article includes a lot of specific criticisms of specific religions (instead of general criticism of the subject broadly), which violates WP:SYNTH. Pushing a bias against religion does not deal with any sort of bias for religion. Ian.thomson (talk) 16:33, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Hey Ian, try actually reading WP:UNDUE before responding to a complaint. From that I quote "Keep in mind that, in determining proper weight, we consider a viewpoint's prevalence in reliable sources, not its prevalence among Wikipedia editors or the general public." The criticism of religion page has 223 sources listed as opposed to the 75 listed on the Religion page. The criticisms of specific religions should be directly incorporated in the Religious Movements section and then they would not violate WP:SYNTH. Let us not forget that you have ignored the fact that the creation of two separate articles (Religion and Criticism of Religion) is "A point of view (POV) fork"..."a content fork deliberately created to avoid neutral point of view guidelines". WP:CFORK. Furthermore, it is the Religion article that is currently violating WP:UNDUE and WP:SYNTH. For example, the 'Religion and Violence' section serves to attack atheism, instead of describing the countless historical religious wars and the current ones in the middle east etc... I could go on like this for every section in the whole Religion article.

An administrator must put the following banner on the Religion page as there is an obvious dispute over the neutrality of this article! JacoLink (talk) 21:02, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

On a positive note, I am pleased to see that there is now a Criticism section in the Religion article and would call that a good start. We still need the neutrality banner to be placed on the main page and we should be working on merging the Religion article with the Criticism of Religion article. This would address other violations such as the violations of WP:CFORK, WP:UNDUE, and WP:SYNTH as described above. JacoLink (talk) 21:18, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Why haven't any administrators responded to JacoLink's comments and suggestion to place a neutrality banner on the Religion page?195.245.148.112 (talk) 03:08, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Because he didn't know what he was talking about, and Wikipedia is not a pulpit for him to preach from. There was a criticism section long before he saw that there was one, and with his interpretation of WP:CFORK we might as well lump Communist mass killings into Marxism, then shove that into the Atheism article. The article is about religion in general, not specifically the criticism thereof, which is why we have two different articles. For such a highly diverse topic, we have to separate this into smaller portions. The Buddhism article currently has 238 sources, the Christianity article 267, the Hinduism article 213, and the Islam article 210. Those are just four of the biggest religions. To shove all 200+ sources from the Criticism article into this article would completely violate WP:UNDUE, and to shove the thousands (probably millions) of sources from the various religion articles to keep it from being undue would make the page unreadible. Ian.thomson (talk) 19:51, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Ian.thomson, you have an attitude problem - this is a talk page, not a place to make personal attacks on people who comment. Please understand that the argument in this thread is about separating out the criticisms of religion; maybe you should re-read the thread with an open mind. Nobody suggested that articles such as the Crusades or Religious violence be incorporated into the Religion article, which is what you are suggesting in your last irrelevant comment about Marxism. If all you are going to do is make personal attacks on people trying to be constructive, please do not comment at all.

In my opinion, JacoLink has a valid argument and it seems that Wikipedia's policies clearly state that criticisms should NOT be separated out of the main article. I believe that this is a good policy because it keeps articles neutral and ensures that those reading the article do not receive a biased opinion based on fundamentalist views. Neutrality is one of the most important principles of Wikipedia, and from reading the Religion article, my personal opinion is that it is biased - not neutral. For now, I also think it would be a good idea to put the neutrality banner on the Religion page.92.105.113.195 (talk) 10:58, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Please point out where I made a personal attack. I have not changed my posts since you have posted, so please, point out where I have made a personal attack. I have pointed out how the article fits the current neutrality policies, that it gives due weight according to sources, and that it discusses the main subject and then discusses secondary subjects elsewhere. JacoLink has proposed moving the Criticism of religion article into this one ("we should be working on merging the Religion article with the Criticism of Religion article"), which completely goes against WP:UNDUE; and is no different than merging the content of Communist mass killings into Marxism. Ian.thomson (talk) 15:49, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Ian.thomson that having here a section about criticism and a article itself for criticism is well balanced and we don't need to do any other changes. A ntv (talk) 18:43, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

"Because he didn't know what he was talking about, and Wikipedia is not a pulpit for him to preach from." To me, this is nothing more than a personal insult. Please do not take this thread on another tangent about what is or is not an insult etc... Just try to be more respectful of others in the future.

I think that there is a more fundamental argument here, which has nothing to do with merging Communist mass killings into Marxism. Please stick to the "Criticisms" argument and stop talking about merging random articles together. I don't understand why this topic is still in the thread. I could say that Ian.thomson is suggesting that we separate Trotskyism and Maoism out of the Marxism article but that is not what he is suggesting, that is irrelevant to the conversation, and it is definitely not productive. On the same note, it is obvious that JacoLink did not suggest to merge Communist mass killings into Marxism, only Ian.thomson talked about doing that. Try to stick to the point of the thread!

Sticking to the point of this thread, one could draw the analogy of merging Criticisms of Marxism with the Marxism article, which would make sense, and I would say that those articles should also be merged. The problem with separating the the two articles is that when someone wants to know about Religion or Marxism and does a Google search, they just see the Religion or Marxism article-the criticisms remain hidden in separate articles; my guess is that most people do not even know that the criticisms articles exist and would expect those texts to be incorporated in the main article. In addition, the criticism section is extremely simplified and is way down at the bottom, many people don't get that far in the articles. To me, creating these separated articles are nothing other than content forks: "A point of view (POV) fork"..."a content fork deliberately created to avoid neutral point of view guidelines" as JacoLink pointed out. Why would one want to take out all the criticisms and hide them in a separate article? It may be "easier" as the two biased articles do not have to directly confront each other, but it decreases the quality and accessibility (more so for the criticisms) of the articles. When reading an article-the article itself should be balanced. There should not be one easily accessible biased article with all the criticisms separated into another biased article. The two biased views should be put together in one neutral article that everyone accesses.92.105.113.195 (talk) 19:28, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

If I begin to assume that JacoLink knew what he was talking about, that he intentionally suggested merging the Criticism of religion article with this article despite competently understanding WP:UNDUE, I would have to assume he was here specifically to disrupt WP:NPOV. Instead, I assumed he was mistaken. You are twisting my words, kettle. I never said that JacoLink suggested that we should merge Communist mass killings into the Marxism article and I never suggested doing that. I pointed out that there is no difference between that and merging the Criticism of religion article into this one. If you completely twist about what I say again like that, I will only be able to assume you're either incompetent or a troll. As for the main subject: Criticism of a topic is not the same as a general overview of the topic. If you want to know about Capitalism, you read about its basic ideas and history, and then move on to reading about criticism of it; if you want to know about Israel, you read about its culture, history, and government, and then move on to reading about political criticism directed towards it, and so on. If the criticism section is large enough to start a new article, most of it gets moved into a different article. You simply do not learn about a subject from reading only or mostly criticism of it. If this article was "why you should be religious," you would have a point about merging the supposedly diametricaly opposed POVs to arrive at a neutral article; but this is simply explaining the concept of religion, not advocating it. Merging the criticism of religion article to this one would make it about %33 "this is what religion is" (~68 kilobytes) and %66 "criticism of religion" (~138 kilobytes). Only a troll is pushing an antireligious POV could honestly know and consider that and say "Oh, these need to be merged for balance." I'm not saying that you are (yet), as I will assume that you simply did not know what an imbalance that would create. The claim that people cannot find the criticism articles would matter if the criticism articles were not linked from the main article. However, they are. If anyone bother to read this one, they will find links to the criticism article as well. If they cannot click that link, they will not be able to click any links to this article. If they don't have time to start on a new article, they won't have time to read the same material in this article. Ian.thomson (talk) 21:12, 9 April 2012 (UTC)