Talk:Universalizing religion

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I have changed the source now to more reliable source. Also , article for the opposite of Universalizing Religion ie Ethnic Religion exists, so the article for Universalizing Religion also should exist.

Hinduism is a notable exception , being a major world religion, but not being Universalizing Religion. See [Ethnic religion] for details. Hinduism is a notable exception , being a Universalizing Religion but not being Major World Religion. See [Ethnic religion] for details.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Realphi (talk • contribs) 21:36, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

Secular humanism is the newest universalizing religion?

I have two concerns with this claim. First, secular humanism isn't identified as a religion in its article. Second, per said article, it looks like secular humanism dates to 1851, and there are at least two non-ethnic religions—Satanism and Pastafarianism—that are newer than that. (And that assumes that neo-Paganism keeps its status as an ethnic religion.) So, on what source are relying to say that SH is the newest universalizing religion? —C.Fred (talk) 01:34, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

I have removed the statement that says SH is the newest universalizing religion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Realphi (talk • contribs) 03:51, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

The case has been made, but of course (a) the statement needs to be decently attributed and (b) it will be enough to put the referenced statement on the secular humanism page, there is no need to create a separate page just for this item. --dab (𒁳) 07:02, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

Potential sources for overhaul

At least one of these is already cited, but here are the sources I'd use if someone put a gun to my head and said "write this article right now":

• The Complete Idiot's Guide to Geography, Joseph Gonzalez and Thomas E. Sherer, Penguin, 2004, page 22.
• Religious Conversion: Religion Scholars Thinking Together, Shanta Premawardhana, John Wiley & Sons, 2015, page 35.
• Religious Diversity--What's the Problem?: Buddhist Advice for Flourishing with Religious Diversity, Rita M. Gross, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2014, page 24
• AP Human Geography 2017-2018, Kelly Swanson, Simon and Schuster, 2017, pages 119 and 143. There are other pages they get into specifics as to which religions are universalizing and which are not, but this is just to establish that the phrase "universalizing religion" is used in religious studies.

These are not necessarily the best sources, but they define the term. It is used so casually in some academic works that it gives the impression that the word is standard in religious studies. Ian.thomson (talk) 02:25, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

Added the sources. Realphi —Preceding undated comment added 03:54, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

It is not useful to create "one page per synonym". By all means improve our coverage of religious proselytism, but please do so at existing pages instead of building another WP:CFORK.

"Universalizing religion" is a religion which proposes active proselytism, potentially of the entire universe. It is "universal" in the sense that it has to be transferred to the context of foreign cultures, i.e. to potentially any culture. This is different from but related to the term "universalism", which is one strategy of being "universalizing" (i.e. absorb any possible pre-existing religion into your framework as a matter of principle, or phrased more negatively, water everything down to the point where all religions are the same anyway). It is not synonymous with "universalism", but the two concepts are by their nature closely related. There is no need to create a new page to point this out, there are articles about proselytism and universalism in dire need of attention, please use your research to improve those. --dab (𒁳) 12:12, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Appearances of this term in other articles

This article seems to be young and is also a deletion candidate, meaning it should only be freely linked after all discussions regarding its validity are suitablly concluded. However, I've recently noticed "Universalizing" has newly been inserted in the first lines of some religious articles such as Christianity and Buddhism, for example "Christianity is a Universalizing Abrahamic monotheistic religion". I'm not going on a mass-undo spree, but I'd council anyone looking to use this term to acknowledge it currently appears to have a slightly contentious nature. Additionally, assuming the term is accepted, I believe the correct format would be a lowercase "u", as in "universalizing". Apologies and thanks. Thrif (talk) 02:29, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Merge to Cornelis Tiele

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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As part of this recent AfD discussion, merging to Cornelis Tiele was proposed. This discussion is to assess if this should be done. Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 17:34, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

• Support - As one of the proposers. —PaleoNeonate – 17:34, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose - Look at number of pageviews for Cornelis Tiele and Universalizing religion. Also, Cornelis Tiele was not the first one to understand Universalizing religion. The fact that Buddhism had the universal applicability since their founding while Hinduism didn't indicates that Universalizing religion is not some recent concept. If someone searches hard enough, they will find reference to this classification in eastern literature as well. Realphi (talk) 20:17, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Reference to "Universal Religion" is found even in 1800 , much before Cornelis Tiele's birth as per https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=universal+religion&case_insensitive=on&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=5&share=&direct_url=t4%3B%2Cuniversal%20religion%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Buniversal%20religion%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BUniversal%20Religion%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BUNIVERSAL%20RELIGION%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Buniversal%20Religion%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BUniversal%20religion%3B%2Cc0

Realphi (talk) 20:21, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Not necessarily the same thing, especially when you go beyond 1850 or so. Those uses could be talking about Universalism, Moral universalism, non-sectarianism, or syncretism... Not necessarily advocating the merge, but this argument doesn't quite work. Ian.thomson (talk) 23:39, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

It is found even in 1750. Realphi (talk) 21:10, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

• Support - re "pageviews", that's not a valid argument, per policy cited in the AfD. As to the appearance of "Universal religion" before Tiele, that is not particularly significant if he is the main historical contributor to the subject (ex. pre-Mendelian genetics are not very important today since Mendel is seen as the main contributor who gave the discipline basis in modern science - despite the term "genetics" appearing before him and studies of the topic having been done centuries before). 198.84.253.202 (talk) 22:06, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
• Support a merge/redirect completely. I'm not knowledgeable in the nuanced discussion of where it should redirect to, but it appears this one had more rational in the AfD after I supported others. In any case, it can still be mentioned (briefly, with just a sentence or two) on two, three other relevant articles after it's merged to Cornelis Tiele. Rhinopias (talk) 22:51, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

By that logic, Ethnic religion article should be merged with the person who coined that term. Realphi (talk) 23:14, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Not necessarily. That term is so broadly used and its various nuances discussed that it's clearly grown beyond the original author's use. Again, not advocating the merge, though. Ian.thomson (talk) 23:39, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

• I'm about to grab dinner and didn't study every single word, but the AfD discussion I saw noted that Tiele discussed "universalistic" vs national (not ethnic) religions. Are we certain, without engaging in WP:OR, that this is indeed the same concept? Ian.thomson (talk) 23:39, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

universalistic religion = universalizing religion = "universal religion 'in old sense' " Realphi (talk) 23:45, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

This quote from Vivekananda proves that universalistic religion = universalizing religion = "universal religion 'in old sense' "

" You hear claims made by every religion as being the universal religion of the world. Let me tell you in the first place that perhaps there never will be such a thing, but if there is a religion which can lay claim to be that, it is only our religion and no other, because every other religion depends on some person or persons. All the other religions have been built round the life of what they think a historical man; and what they think the strength of religion is really the weakness, for disprove the historicity of the man and the whole fabric tumbles to the ground. Half the lives of these great founders of religions have been broken into pieces and the other half doubted very seriously. As such every truth that had its sanction only in their words vanishes into air. But the truths of our religion, although we have person by the score, do not depend on them. "

https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/quotes/swami-vivekananda-on-universal-religion

Realphi (talk) 23:48, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

You're really not helping your case with that. Proving that Tiele's "universalistic religion" is not the same as a universalizing religion would mean that they couldn't be merged. Ian.thomson (talk) 23:56, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

• Support a merge with Cornelis Tiele, taking care not to mix terminology/meaning of terms "universal," "universalistic," "universalizing," etc. This article seems to grab snippets of information from disparate and not always authoritative sources, which gives it an incongruous feel. Mark Froelich (talk) 00:04, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

• Support proposed merge. To repeat some of my thoughts from the AfD, there's no indication that this is a meaningful categorization used in academia today, at least under this name, and therefore lacks notability. Notability requires more than verifiability, it requires that the topic has gained significant independent coverage or recognition, and from the sources presented and from my own quick searches I don't think this topic has crossed that threshold. --FyzixFighter (talk) 00:38, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

@Realphi: Concerning page views (again), this is very clearly an example of the page being seen by an increased number of persons as a result of the AfD nomination - views prior to the article expansion by you are very insignificant. A quick look at the page views tool confirms that there is no statistically significant impact of the removal on the number of page views of the article it was redirecting to - one can conclude that this term isn't very popular... Therefore, in simple terms, your argument is both insufficient and incorrect. 198.84.253.202 (talk) 01:07, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

This book from Cornelis Tiele uses the WORD "Universal religion" for the same definition. So, this proves "universalistic religion" = "universal religion". See how Tiele defines "universal religion" so casually. That means word was very much in use before Cornelis Tiele as can be seen from Google frequency count and it is not proper to give credit to Cornelis Tiele for that word.

• Outlines of the history of religion, tr. from Geschiedenis van den ...By Cornelis Petrus Tiele, page 3.

Realphi (talk) 01:17, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

Realphi, might Tiele, in his "Geschiedenis van den godsdienst, tot aan de heerschappij der wereldgodsdiensten," have been writing in Dutch? And might the choice of "univeral" or "universalistic" or whatever have just depended on who was doing the translating of any particular work into English at a particular time?

I'm not saying (and I don't think anyone is saying) that Tiele should get "credit" for inventing a term. Rather, he is a figure in history who seems to have made a concept popular in the study of the history of religions. If you know of an earlier scholar who popularized this concept, I'd be open to adding something to that person's page too. Mark Froelich (talk) 01:46, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

@Ian.thomson: now that we have established that universalistic religion = universal religion, and discrepancy was due to translators using different english words for dutch word, do you ( and others ) agree that we are out of the "notability" discussion? If people don't agree with the term "universalizing religion", we can transfer all the content to "universal religion". Realphi (talk) 05:37, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

(Realphi, I hope you don't think that I "established" above that translators working with Tiele's works are to blame for varying terms. I was merely putting forward the possibility that this *might have* happened with Tiele's works or with the works of others. To determine such a thing would take research into the matter, by proper researchers.) Mark Froelich (talk) 07:48, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose None of the three reliable sources[1][2][3] that I had provided on AFD include a single mention of "Cornelis Tiele", just like nearly all others. The term has sufficient notability on its own. Excelse (talk) 10:29, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

Those sources don't seem to treat "universalizing religions" to any kind of depth - besides summarily stating X religion is a "universalizing religion" or giving a short definition. If I take my example with "genetics" again, I expect most scientific journals in the field would not mention "Mendel" - that being information which the readership already knows well. 198.84.253.202 (talk) 22:51, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

This frequency count of Ethnic vs Universal Religion shows that "Universal religion" is much more popular than Ethnic religion. Realphi (talk) 00:11, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Google hits have several problems - we have no clue how detailed mentions they are - it might just be quotations or uses by biased authors from a particular religion (in this case, since it is in English, probably Christians). See WP:GOOGLEHITS. You are better finding reliable, ideally unbiased sources which clearly use "Universal[izing] religion" as a term of it's own - and again, if such use is only found in rare specialist books (and is more than a passing mention of X religion being "Universal" and a simple definition which can be traced back to Tiele), then it's probably not notable enough on its own and should just be mentioned in the article about the original author of the classification scheme (which would be Cornelis Tiele in our case). 198.84.253.202 (talk) 01:20, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

And, popularity is not notability. 198.84.253.202 (talk) 01:23, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Someone was saying that I am creating false dichotomy with respect to Universal Religion and Ethical Religion. This statement from Religion#Classification says following:

" Some scholars classify religions as either universal religions that seek worldwide acceptance and actively look for new converts, or ethnic religions that are identified with a particular ethnic group and do not seek converts. "

Also, it attributes this classification to one "Hinnells, John R" not "Cornelis Tiele" Realphi (talk) 16:53, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

WP:Wikipedia is not a reliable source - that's all I've got to say now, given the extensive discussion of this previously in the AfD. 198.84.253.202 (talk) 00:41, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

Realphi, Hinnells was only the editor of that text. The passage in question was written by Chris Park, who teaches at Lancaster University. When was Chris Park born, in comparison to Tiele or others? Don't you check these things before you type? I'm beginning to feel like we're reinventing the wheel on this page. Mark Froelich (talk) 07:53, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

I obviously checked that. My point is : nobody who used the word "universal religion" associates it with Cornelis Tiele. Also, I have given the definition of dharma to mean "universal religion" , thousands of years before Cornelis Tiele was born. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Realphi (talk • contribs) 17:33, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

Your attempt at OR isn't acceptable per WP policies (anyway, the meaning is only "cosmic law and order" - which can refer to topics outside of religion...). Does the actual term "Universal religion" in the modern sense (i.e. the one given in the article) appear 'thousand of years' before Tiele or is modern usage only a use of that concept as elaborated by Tiele (it being directly attributed to him is irrelevant - authors probably have reasons for not wishing to elaborate too much upon what is only a definition)? 198.84.253.202 (talk) 00:51, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

Cosmic means Universal. Law means Religion. I don't understand how it is a topic outside of religion. In fact, "cosmic law" is synonym of "universal religion". Realphi (talk) 01:52, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

Here, laws mean physical laws and psychological laws. I mean law in the sense of "newton's third law of motion". Realphi (talk) 01:55, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

That's contradictory. But as you yourself say, "cosmic laws" can refer to, as you pointed out, the laws of physics (i.e. not a religion). Anyway, a definition without context has no meaningful encyclopedic reason to be in an article. 198.84.253.202 (talk) 02:50, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

• Support merge/redirect Lacks notability. No significant mainstream coverage as a concept. -- Begoon 12:19, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.