Talk:John Nelson (convert)

forced conversion

If he was forced to convert, why didn't convert back?

I'd imagine that it would be due to the anti-apostasy laws in Islam. BigHaz 22:17, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I am not sure about that. The only reference to his claimed forced conversion is Richard Hakluyt. I had put a fact tag to provide a citation for that. -- Szvest 22:37, 9 July 2006 (UTC) ^{Wiki me up™}

I am appalled.

I am appalled by what can only be described as pure stubbornness and desire to argue for the sake of arguing. The fact that 16th-century English people worshipped a crucified man was common knowledge even to the contemporary Native Americans, but for some reason we have editors here playing dumb and requesting a source that explicitly describes this man as a Christian. To make the matter even more ridiculous, a book that mentions this man among the renegados, Christian converts to Islam, is apparently too ambigious to be considered a source for the fact that he was a Christian. This feels like being trolled. Surtsicna (talk) 10:17, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Your assertion of being appalled aside, I act in good faith as a Wikipedia editor. We merely strongly disagree on the amount and nature of evidence required as proof that someone was once a Christian. I err on the side of caution based on WP:BURDEN. I tried not to revert any articles that had clear and reliably referenced statements to the contrary. If I got a few wrong out of the dozens I had to try to check, then I am merely human. There's no nastiness involved and no desire to dissuade a "newbie" from remaining as a Wikipedia editor. Your own reversions could equally be called trolling. But I won't say that, and I won't pick a fight with you. If I have upset you, I apologise. Let's leave it at that. Yours, George Custer's Sabre (talk) 12:39, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

DRN issue - previously a Christian?

It's a safe assumption that he was brought up in a community that regarded itself as following some version of Christianity. It doesn't of course follow that he ever fulfilled any relevant definition of Christian faith. To describe him here as "Christian" has been contested; hence, to do so, we would require a reliable source explicitly saying so, and also consensus here that the fact is worth putting in. I haven't found the primary source on line nor any specific secondary statement that he had been "Christian". I suggest that a blunt statement of his "Christianity" is not suitable for this article. I hope this comment helps. Richard Keatinge (talk) 10:48, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

The fact that he was a Christian has been "contested" by users who embarked on a witchhunt, pestering a newbie editor. The witchunt, noted by yet a fourth user, also included reverting the newbie's edits at Nuh_Ha_Mim_Keller, Malcolm X, Jermaine Jackson, and a dozen others. The reasoning given in the edit summaries was the same: the article allegedly did not say they used to be Christians. Nonsense, of course. The article about Nuh Ha Mim Keller, for example, states that he "converted to Islam from Christianity", while the article about Jermaine Jackson says that "he was raised as a Jehovah's Witness by his devout mother". This is obviously not about Nelson being a Christian (something so obvious and easily ascertained in context of the book that mentioning it explicitly would be absurd). It's about mass reverting of a newbie's edits. Surtsicna (talk) 11:56, 25 June 2014 (UTC)