Dispute resolution won't do any good. The feedback you've gotten so far is the exact same kind of feedback that you would get in Wikipedia's dispute resolution systems. To simplify it somewhat, Wikipedia reflects the kind of scholarship that you find at leading secular universities, such as those mentioned at WP:CHOPSY: the kinds of things you would find taught at Cambridge, Harvard, Princeton, the Sorbonne, and/or Yale. If a view is considered fringe in those kinds of circles, you can bet that it will be considered fringe at Wikipedia. Now, that may not seem fair, especially if you believe the CHOPSY outlook is wrong. But that is the way Wikipedia has been since its inception, and it would be very unlikely if you could talk the Wikipedia community out of the approach that they've used since the beginning. As William Dever put it in "What Remains of the House that Albright Built?', "the overwhelming scholarly consensus today is that Moses is a mythical figure." That's from William Dever, who is on the conservative side of much of the debate currently going on within mainstream biblical studies. The great majority of mainstream scholars have abandoned the idea of Moses as a historical figure. Alephb (talk) 00:10, 23 January 2018 (UTC)
... Calling a spade a spade is not "incivility", and should never be the reason for blocking, banning or even admonishment. ... Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:29, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
... Here's the bottom line: I call a troll a troll. I call a POV pusher a POV pusher. Accuracy is not incivility. ... I am not here to promote "Wiki-Love". I am not here to get my narrow, judgmental mind in a tizzy because someone used a Naughty Word. I am here to help with the enormous, challenging, exceptionally special group effort of creating the most amazing knowledge resource since the Library of Alexandria. Ask yourself, Why the hell are you here? Perhaps you'd be happier on some online community preaching some kind of feel-good pretend pablum than here. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. KillerChihuahua?!? 15:22, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
Just because you are paranoid, that doesn't mean that they aren't out to get you. There is an organized group that wishes to replace science with religious pseudoscience on Wikipedia, and this page is one of their main targets. As for bias, Yes. We are biased. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:02, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
And if you don't want your editing to be limited by the Wikipedia community's particular goals and methods and decisions, the good news is that there's plenty of other outlets for your work, like perhaps Conservapedia, or getting a personal blog. At the end of the day, Wikipedia really is the private project of the Wikimedia Foundation. It is, roughly, a service that provides summaries of the contents of mainstream scholarship, in the specific sense that "mainstream scholarship" has here at Wikipedia. It's really not an experiment in treating all views equally, and if you think it is, you're likely to wind up frustrated. Alephb (talk) 12:16, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
Awery, just a bit of housekeeping. When you post new comments to this thread, the newest comments need to be put at the bottom of the thread. That's the only way others can easily keep track of how the conversation has flowed. The Harvard Theological Review probably is a prestigious forum. On the other hand, the paper on Daniel that you want us to use was not published by the Harvard Theological Review. It was published by JISCA, an outlet for advocating conservative religious views. This fits with the general trend we've already observed here -- the folks saying that Daniel was written in the sixth century don't publish in mainstream outlets, generally speaking. It's entirely possible that MacGregor has published all sorts of stuff in reliable outlets. JISCA, however, isn't what most editors here would treat as a WP:RS outlet. When a journal is dedicated to a particular religious view, that matters. Just as, for example, Wikipedia does not make use of articles published in Journal of Creation when dealing with the subject of creationism. The question I'd like to see answered is, have any defenses of a sixth-century date been published in mainstream academic outlets. And if they have been, are they the work of a tiny fringe group of scholars, or do they represent a significant number of scholars. So far, it looks as is the 2d-century date for Daniel assuming its present form is the scholarly consensus, although of course there are hold-outs in the religious world, just as there are hold-outs on creationism. Because of WP:FRINGE, Wikipedia generally doesn't make much use of those who hold out against academic consensus. I don't want to speak for Tgeorgescu here, but I don't think he's saying that Christian scholars are automatically disqualified due to their personal faith. Indeed, almost all biblical scholars that Wikipedia cites are either Christian or Jewish. There's only a handful of non-Christian, non-Jewish biblical scholars out there. We don't sideline the views of Christian scholars on Wikipedia, it's that we sideline the views of WP:FRINGE scholars, those whose views have been overwhelmingly rejected by the academic mainstream. Alephb (talk) 21:14, 31 December 2018 (UTC)
@Til Eulenspiegel: First of all, popular opinion or the opinion of non-scholars on scholarly topics is of no encyclopedic significance whatsoever. Second of all, WP is very much biased toward real qualified academic scholars from real universities writing in real academically reviewed journals and books. If you have a problem with that, you're in the wrong place. Third of all, we cover only significant views, not extreme minority or fringe views. Last of all, and most important, you have not explained why you failed to provide any reliable independent secondary SCHOLARLY sources when asked to do so to support your contention that other significant views exist. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 23:57, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
(talk page stalker) The Evangelical Theological Society is not the sole keeper of "the truth." You ignored a number of cited reliable historical sources in those sections and replaced them with an overtly-apologetic source which has declared an a priori belief in the "inerrancy" of Scripture. That's not going to fly here. And no, it's not "bigotry" to adhere to what the vast majority of mainstream reliable sources say. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 21:04, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
There is no "non-religious community on Wikipedia" whose "logical kinks and biases" you can analyze. Wikipedia as a whole is a 100% non-religious project. Wikipedia is not atheist or anti-religion either, but it only presents religious topics from an outside disinterested view. It absolutely does not present any religious beliefs as true (or as false). We always approach religion from the "Christians believe that...", "Islam posits that..." etc approach. So while your vision of "all-inclusive knowledge" is based on presenting Christian theology as truth, you will not edit articles related to religion. That will be either by your being topic banned from religion (in general) and Christianity (specifically), or by your remaining blocked. That choice is up to you. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 19:19, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
Junaid1068, digressions aside, Wikipedia policy is very clear about this. The edit you’re suggesting would violate WP:RNPOV, a foundational aspect of Wikipedia. What you’re proposing is that we include a theological view specific to Muslims as unvarnished truth, and that’s simply not going to happen. We reflect what mainstream scholarly sources say. And that some Muslims might get “wrong information” is immaterial. We do report what the majority theological view amongst Muslims is. So, it’s very much already there. But we can’t say it’s the truth, because it’s contradicted by archaeological and textual evidence. It’s not our job to practice Muslim apologetics, or discourage what you see as heretical opinions. Symmachus Auxiliarus (talk) 18:39, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
If you want to write about a religion/ideology/whatever from that religion/ideology/whatever's perpective, then WP is the wrong place to write. See WP:RNPOV. WP is not the domain of the true adherents of any faith. They're as welcome as any other editors within WP:s policies and guidelines, but it's not their domain. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 21:39, 4 July 2020 (UTC)
In my opinion, the proposition that a particular religious dogma should be given a special license to override our preference for secular scholarship is an attack on the integrity of Wikipedia. Zerotalk 09:10, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
... Wikipedia is based on empirical fact. If historical fact contradicts religious truth then NPOV demands that we write from the perspective of historical fact even when describing the religious truth. In matters of opinion, such as whether a belief is heretical, Wikipedia is not and cannot be the arbiter of religious truth - in the absence of any universally agreed canonical authority, NPOV demands that competing viewpoints are represented according to their significance. ... IZAK is warned that giving preference to religious scholarship over mainstream secular historiography is likely to be interpreted as a violation of NPOV. ... Guy (help!) 20:16, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
Xonq Yeah, I know what you mean about The Tao of Physics - I don't think we would look to use that as a reliable source for anything except as a primary source for assertions about what the author wrote in the book. The Atmospheres of Breathing book seems to be talking about qi as being metaphorically similar to fields in physics - I don't think it's saying that qi exists, and it is discussing in terms of biological energy again. The School of Oriental and African studies source is talking about 17th Century Chinese philosophy, and I don't think it's written by a physicist - I don't really understand why it's relevant. This is all interesting stuff, but I don't see how we could use any of it to support the idea that qi is, or even might be, an actual thing that exists. This is the problem with this sort of subject - we don't want to talk disrespectfully about people's belief systems, philosophies or whatever, and so long as these things are kept within the realm of spirituality we don't have to wrap them up with language about pseudoscience. But qi is something that people argue actually exists, that can cause or cure ailments, all that sort of stuff - that is intrinsicly pseudoscientific, and we can't shy away from mentioning it. GirthSummit (blether) 18:42, 27 June 2020 (UTC)
If anyone claims
- "God exists and created all things".
- "Jesus saved me and the Bible is his inspired word".
- "The Torah, both Written and Oral, as literally revealed by God on Mount Sinai and faithfully transmitted ever since"'
- "Joseph Smith is a true prophet, and translated the Book of Mormon from golden plates with divine assistance".
Those are religions, not science or pseudoscience. Wikipedia will never say that those claims are false, and Wikipedia will never say that those claims are true. We describe them as accurately as possible, and we describe who holds those beliefs. However, the following claims are both religion and pseudoscience:
- "God reliably heals people of HIV. You have received his healing and you can stop taking your medications".
- "What you read in the Torah is historical fact, literally happened exactly as described, all of the scientists who say otherwise are wrong and quite possibly antisemitic".
- "Joseph Smith says that in the pre-Columbian Americas there were horses, elephants, and steel swords that rusted, so those are historical facts and all of the scientists who say otherwise are wrong."
- "The earth is less than 10,000 years old, and humans and dinosaurs coexisted."
The above are all religious pseudoscience because, although motivated by religion, they make claims that purport to be factual and supported by science but are not. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:29, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
IZAK, you are wrong. We do NOT "report all sides of the coin" as if they are equally valid. Yes, we do report that all sides of the coin exist (See WP:WEIGHT), but we often report that one side or the other is wrong. As I explained to you in User talk:IZAK#Yes. We are biased., we don't report evolution and creationism, holocaust studies and holocaust denial, or the sociology of race, and scientific racism as "two sides of the same coin". We report that both exist, but we also report that creationists, holocaust deniers, and scientific racists are full of crap. Sure, we use nice language like "The methodologies of Holocaust deniers are often based on a predetermined conclusion that ignores overwhelming historical evidence to the contrary" and "Historically, scientific racism received credence throughout the scientific community, but it is no longer considered scientific", but those are just nice ways of saying that holocaust deniers and scientific racists are full of crap. As is your theory that the Angel of Death killing the firstborn of Egypt is a historical fact, but somehow the extensive records the Egyptians left failed to record such a major event. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:37, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
No. It's a historical question. And by "theological points of view", you're not referring to the mainstream theological position but what is essentially a fringe theory held by fundamentalist theologians. The purpose of theological study of the bible is hermeneutical - it's about interpretation, and most respected theologians accept that Genesis was written somewhere between the reign of King David (c. 1000 BCE) and the exile period (560 BCE). Claritas (talk) 14:11, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
Agree. Sanger's central argument is that WP should never have accepted the idea of WP:false balance. He thinks we should include points of view strictly on the basis of the number of people that hold them. This would require changing the whole idea of a WP:reliable source; the most reliable source on any topic would be whatever the most people believed, whatever had the largest circulation, and factual evidence would be irrelevant.
The Bible, the Koran, and the Bhagavad Gita would be the main "reliable sources" for our articles about the Earth's origin, cosmology, evolution, and ancient history. The idea that the Democratic party is run by a secret cabal of pedophiles, that Trump won the 2022 election, that Covid is no worse than a cold, would have to be written as possible facts, given equal credibility with the truth, since about half the US population has swallowed these lies. Our biographies of celebrities would have to include, as facts, the fake scandals published in the National Enquirer, as it is a main source of celebrity info. Our medical articles would have to include, on an equal basis, not only alternative medicine cures, but curses, the evil eye, faith healing, witchcraft, and demonology, as worldwide these are 'medical' traditions believed by a large percentage of developing world populations. Our articles on Woman and Feminism would have to include, as an equal theory, that women are inherently biologically inferior to men, because a large proportion of the developing world still believes this.
In other words, Wikipedia would become like the rest of social media, Facebook Groups without the content controls, a summary of whatever the lowest common denominator believes, because they are the most numerous. --ChetvornoTALK 19:29, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
It's fairly clear what agenda you are following by doing so - how can anyone have this discussion without concrete examples? You continue to dismiss out of hand people you identify as "theologians" (which is incorrect) or Christians (which is absurd) without any evidence that this has any affect on their scholarship. The only other places you have made these arguments have been in attempts to deny the historicity of Jesus or else, most recently, to deny that Tacitus has anything to say about it because the scholars saying he does are "biased". You have provided no evidence that mainstream scholars who happen to be Christian have reached conslusions any different than anyone else's. Ask anyone who edits in this area: scholars following a non-mainstream, fundamentalist view are regularly removed from Wikipedia. There is no problem on Wikipedia with
the POV of theologists be considered a mainstream just based on the fact that their works are historically more numerous. This is just your own POV.--Ermenrich (talk) 00:53, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
You misunderstand WP:NPOV; it's not about finding a compromise between academia and religion. It is about accurately representing what academics say about religion. Jeppiz (talk) 18:07, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
The more serious problem in your arguments above is that you continously imply we should find some middle road between faith and scholarship. We should not, as that would be the opposite of WP:NPOV. I know many people misunderstand NPOV and think it's about meeting halfway. It is not; it's about representing the most reliable sources as accurately as possible. Jeppiz (talk) 09:52, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
The Bibles, both the Hebrew one and the Greek one, are, in my view, largely a collection of religious myths. However, these two collections of religious myths have been also fundamental for the development of Western civilization. They have been in fact so fundamental, that they have been considered factual historical truth for most of the history of this Western civilization. Up to the so-called modern Enlightenment period (roughly from the second half of the 17th century and up to the great French Revolution of 1789), no one ever dared to even start to question the historical truth of these religious narratives or myths. Wikipedia tries to continue in the digital age the rationalistic traditions of the Encyclopedists of the Enlightenment period, who did question the historical truth of these myths. By the second half of the 20th century, Western thought and philosophy got close to almost completely denying there was any historical truth in them. These are the sources that open this article. However, this rationalistic turn of civilization never struck any deep roots in the popular minds of the countries in the Western world. The majority of the populations in these countries, including in the United States, are still fundamentally religious. They are still brought up to think that the Bible they read and study in their own native language is the absolute, final truth in the world. As such, by and large they are still definitely believed to contain the the factual historical truth of the ancient periods in which they were collected and put together. And so, the thin veneer of rationalism achieved by Western civilization by the second half of the 20th century is about to be wiped out by a new wave of religious fundamentalism. This current discussion here is just one of the harbingers of this new wave that is surging and is about to overwhelm Western civilization as we know it, I feel. warshy (¥¥) 23:14, 31 May 2021 (UTC)
The comment "Islam is the truth, despite to even if you do not want to admit it," is a prime example of what is delaying your unblock. It is very easy for me to read that and interpret your statement as you saying that your belief in Islam will cause you to edit with a pro-Islam perspective and rejecting neutral, factual sources for religious ones.
No religion holds a monopoly on truth: not Islam, not Christianity, not Judaism, not Hinduism, not Buddhism, not the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. It may feel like Wikipedia's version of truth is an atheistic truth. If so, it's because atheists don't look at religious perspectives for guidance but focus on objective, observable facts. Wikipedia's WP:Neutral point of view and WP:Reliable sources policies work on those lines: events should be written about in articles based on reliable sources, and preferably independent ones. The encyclopedia does not yield to religious doctrine or polity.
One personal note: yes, I'm a member of an organized religion. The teachings—or truths, if you prefer—of my church are the lens by which I look at my own behaviour. Other than being mindful of how I treat my fellow editors, it does not influence my editing. Even in articles related to my religion, what is "truth" is dictated by what is shown in the historical record and independent sources. —C.Fred (talk) 16:03, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
No, the claim that Jesus died is categorically and absolutely not a subjective belief. Everyone dies, eventually. A man who was born 2025 years ago is, undoubtedly dead, especially when you consider the fact that he was executed by the state around 1997 years ago.
We say that Jesus died for the same reason we do not call Muhammad a false prophet or refer to Zoroastrians as devil worshippers. Wikipedia is secular, and relies upon secular scholarship. Wikipedia describes the beliefs of the various religions, it does not endorse or operate by those beliefs. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 17:22, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
You've again mistaken Wikipedia for a democratic society where social freedom, personal expression and the liberty thereof are values placed above all other. In such a society McCarthyism is a malignant prejudice designed to silence opinions and constrain political thought. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. A book. An online repository. The people who are making it are doing a job. They're working and they are adhering to a basic set of management principles. If this were a company, like the marketing department of coco cola for example, it would be perfectly reasonable for the company to have principles, which say, "no - we don't want that". And to enforce them if employees persistently acted in contrary. For some reason, because a group of editors have objected to your contributions and you have found no support, you accuse the project of being Machiavellian, whereas the reality is that your content has been looked at (ad nauseam) and has been rejected. You are required to disclose COI here. Just like you are required to sign NDAs or exclusivity contracts if you work for coco cola. In fact the only real difference between this organization and a company is that we don't fire or sue people when they come into the office and spend all day bending the ear of everyone they meet, telling colleagues what a bunch of pigs we and the company are for not seeing eye to eye with them. In a nutshell - its OK for Wikipedia to have policies, its OK for Wikipedians to decide they don't like certain content and its OK to exclude that content from our pages. Edaham (talk) 04:05, 4 January 2019 (UTC)
This is an encyclopedia article about an event in history, not a Sunday school lesson. The stuff you quote is exactly what I meant when I referred to "desperate attempts of Christian fundamentalists to make the Luke story seem accurate". I have read it all before many times and it is all a load of tosh. The Luke story is objectively historically false. The dating is wrong, end of story, and even the sources you quote do not attempt to defend "Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. " People did have to return to their homes for certain Roman censuses, yes, but the idea that someone had to go to a city of a supposed ancestor from a thousand years earlier for a census is absurd. Actual historians of Roman history, as opposed to "theologically conservative" propagandists, dismiss this story as laughable. However I do not believe in one person trying to force their view onto a WP article, if I were the only person saying these things I would accept consensus but I am not.Smeat75 (talk) 13:01, 8 September 2017 (UTC)
@Mahusha:FYI, when pinging another user, you need to capitalize the username exactly as it is - I didn't get your ping because the R and P are not capitalized Generally, we cannot use historical records, such as letters, to draw conclusions because that would be original research. Historians interpret these records, their interpretations are peer reviewed, and that's what we use on Wikipedia. That's why you cannot use Tipu Sultan's letters or other original documents. That's our policy, sorry. Also, just a suggestion, it is not a good idea to complain about "political mindsets" or biases. A far better idea would be to get reliable academic sources to back up your changes. Wikipedia is not a crowd sourced encyclopedia but is a reliably sourced one.--regentspark (comment) 15:13, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
Not concerned with what the truth isand even less concerned with what Wikipedia editors think the truth is. There is no need to go deeper into this matter than that, since anything claimed to be truth on Wikipedia pages is, first and foremost, a Wikipedian's opinion about what the truth is. If that Wikipedian can justify it by citing reliable sources, we are back to the original modus operandi: citing reliable sources. Can we stop this philosophical excursion please? The deliberations of philosophers about absolute truth, or the deliberations of Wikipedians on those deliberations, are pretty irrelevant to the question of what to write about Bryant G. Wood. Which is the purpose of this page. Just this: we describe the current scientific consensus and not any future scientific consensus because we do not know what that one will be. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:25, 16 November 2020 (UTC)