Talk:God

Inconsistency

I just noticed that the page on Superman starts, "Superman is a fictional character." Why doesn't the page on God start the same way? I know this is not supposed to be discussed here, but I am arrogant and feel my views should take precedence over others' views, since I am arrogant, and have been shown through special powers the entire knowledge of the world. Oh wait, doesn't that mean I also believe in the supernatural? Oh boy, I'm such a hypocrite; that or I actually do NOT know all the answers to life. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.119.54.82 (talk) 17:44, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Neither his existence nor his lack of existence are objective facts. Tgeorgescu (talk) 21:35, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Wouldn't it help if we could get a photo of him to run at the top of the article, establishing his (or her) identity for all to see?Codenamemary (talk) 18:36, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

We should probably also get a photo of Homer too, as long as we're talking about disputed entities. OH WAIT. Stop trolling. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.205.7.207 (talk) 03:34, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

But Homer was not alive in a time when cameras were invented. God, however, is eternal and everlasting. So he is still around to pose for a wiki photo. I say we get one. I will pursue this, and get this photo of God, with me in it. Clearly, when I don't succeed, you all will see how pointless my contributions to this discussion are. Codenamemary (talk) 21:11, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Most religions consider God to be incorporeal, unless their pantheistic. Hard to take a picture either way. Ian.thomson (talk) 21:51, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

But if man was made in a (Christian) God's image, He must have looked like something to begin with...?Codenamemary (talk) 22:40, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘The Imago Dei bit is actually in Genesis, which is accepted by Jews as well. Jews and Christians (except Mormons) generally figure that the image of something incorporeal would likewise be incorporeal. Ian.thomson (talk) 00:03, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, as far as Judo/Christianity goes, God has a physical presence when He wants to. See Genesis 3:8 And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden. 9And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? (ie, God was walking through the garden of Eden and couldn't find Adam and Eve. Which is very physical and not very omniscient.) Then in Genesis 32:24 Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day... 30 And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved. (So with Jacob, God used to be physical enough to physically fight with.) At any rate, it seems God has/had a physical form, so he should be able to pose for a picture. Codenamemary (talk) 01:37, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

As we try to get a photo of God to use in the article, we might have better luck if we assure Him it will be photoshopped to be flattering, if necessary. It's possible there aren't any existing (?) pictures of Him because he's getting older, and is self-conscious about it? If anyone here is on good terms with God and wants to help with this project, please assure Him He will have final photo approval. The wiki article will obviously be more complete if it features a photo of God. Codenamemary (talk) 19:39, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

As I said, Wikipedia does not state as a fact that God would exist. Nor that he wouldn't. Since it is not a fact, it does not require a photo. Myself I am a pandeist, I believe in Deus sive Natura so any photo of some piece of nature would do as evidence of the existence of my God (or photos of people, machines or buildings, since they are part of nature, too). Otherwise, read WP:NOT#FORUM, since your comments, although witty, are not meant to improve the article, and talk pages are meant for discussions about improving the articles. Even in Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous) are discussed only subjects related to Wikipedia. Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:13, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Re: << As I said, Wikipedia does not state as a fact that God would exist. Nor that he wouldn't. Since it is not a fact, it does not require a photo. >> I would point out that the wiki article at THIS point has a detail of a Michelangelo painting that depicts God. It seems that finding and adding a contemporary photo of the subject would certainly improve the article, as it would be better than (or a good addition to) merely showing a 16th Century piece of art. Codenamemary (talk) 23:52, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘The article does not give that picture as "THE picture of God," but far later in the article as one artistic representation that's fairly common for how God is represented in western art. It says in the caption right below it "a well known example of the depiction of God the Father in Western art." This isn't a place to be a smartass. If your problem was that there's a painting of God and you thought that it didn't clarify that it's an artistic depiction, you should have tried, oh I don't know, actually stating it. If you honestly thought that that is a real picture of God, we don't need you here. Any more comments that are not about article improvement will be removed. Ian.thomson (talk) 02:35, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Is anyone concerned that my 21:11, 28 November 2011 (UTC) post was vandalized and edited? Setting the photo of God issue aside for the moment, I would hope that disturbs other editors. (I also don't think threatening to delete others comments altogether is really in the rhelm of Good Faith.) Codenamemary (talk) 21:37, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

I've hopefully fixed that. Both 198.36.94.35 (talk · contribs) and 198.36.95.12 (talk · contribs) have vandalised comments on this page, but they've now been undone. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 21:52, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

That is very kind of you. Thanks. I would think vandalizing other editors' posts would be a bannable offense. EDIT: oh dear, vandalisims is still there. I don't know what I originally posted, but I'm quite sure it wasn't << I will pursue this, and get this photo of God, with me in it. Clearly, when I don't succeed, you all will see how pointless my contributions to this discussion are. >> Did Mr. Thomson do that?? Codenamemary (talk) 22:04, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ If you look at the talk page's history, you can clearly see that it was not me. Talk pages are for article improvement. Do you have any comments relating to article improvment in any way? Ian.thomson (talk) 00:22, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

You have left an unsigned comment, so I do not know who you are... Codenamemary (talk) 00:14, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Do you have any comments relating to article improvment in any way? After this, I will remove any further discussion not relating to article improvement. Ian.thomson (talk) 00:22, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, I don't know my way around wikipedia as well as you do, apparently, but IMO, a photo of God would improve the article. I never said I thought that that Michelangelo detail was a photo of God, I just said that if we're showing a depiction of God's face and form in the article, we may as well show the real thing in addition. The Bible states God has a physical form that can wrestle and be seen face-to-face, etc., so if you believe in the Bible, it's not outlandish to think someone can photograph it. But if other editors, or some with an anti-Biblical bias, don't want to be involved in a try, okay. (Also, I don't think we're supposed to remove others' discussion posts without their consent, which I wouldn't give, in my case, as I'm not pro-censorship. If you would like to remove something, perhaps you would be kind enough to put the posts in this thread back into their original forms. The first one reads like it was tampered with, as well.) (I don't want to mess up anyone else's posts by trying to do it myself.) Codenamemary (talk) 20:29, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

That is only if one takes a literalist interpretation of the Bible (which in the grand scheme of things is pretty recent and far from universal), and only if one accepts the Bible's events as historical facts. This site operates off of what peer-reviewed academic sources have to say, and they look for physical evidence first. Ian.thomson (talk) 18:48, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Etymology

There is an error in the Etymological part of the article, it is assumed that the word used by Arab Christians and Muslims is the same, due to nothing more than the sounds of the words, but they are two completely different words, though based on the same proto-Semitic roots. The word Alaha used by Christians is based on the Aramaic Biblical translation of the Hebrew word for God, Elohim (the Lingua Franca of the Middle Eastern Christians was Syrio-Aramaic), the same word in Arabic is Ilah (NOT Allah, which is a completely different later Muslim construct and personal name). The AUDITORY similarities, and that's the limit of the similarities, are due to the fact of close relationship between Syrio-Aramaic (which was a very high cultural language) and much borrowing and development by Arabs for their language, which eventually became "classical" Arabic, Arabic originally being a very low cultural language, with no standardization until well after Islam was established, as well as both political and religious missionary reasons. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.250.11.188 (talk) 13:42, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, most Arabs don't speak Hebrew. However, find a reliable source which says that, and you may add it to the article. Tgeorgescu (talk) 20:52, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Improvement of Article Neutrality and General Objectivity

Wikipedia is intended to be a source of neutral information, not a source of one-sided conjectures. Therefore, in order to improve the neutrality of this article, I propose the following changes: "God is most often conceived" becomes: "God is often believed to be" etc. Conceived means "to bring forth," which inclines human creation and falsehood thereof. "Believed" makes things much more objective. Instead of stating anything about God's Biblically stated gender, I propose the statement be removed entirely. On one side, some Christians would likely agree with the male/female incorporation revision, while others would be offended since they advocate a particular gender, etc. To remove this statement would make the article much more objective, effectively neutral, and much more reliable (due to the removal of possible conjecture) - plus, the statement seems quite out of place from a literary standpoint. According to my propositions I have made such revisions. --Tatoranaki (talk) 03:29, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

I have made such edits as stated above in other sections as well to improve neutrality and remove argumental fallacies (statements which incline one side of the argument is "more right" than another). There is much more work to be done, however, before the article is more objective than subjective. (Please note my use of objective refers to the following definition: "not influenced by irrational emotions or prejudices," as subjective "influenced by opinion-driven emotions or prejudices")--Tatoranaki (talk) 03:45, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Your justification is preposterous, see WP:FRINGE. There is no such thing as objective knowledge about God. In this respect, there are just views which some hold as authoritative. See also my answer below. Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:18, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Besides, in matters of religion one is in general prejudiced to hold on to the religion of his/her parents, this is generally not a choice made rationally. Also, conversion to a specific religion has more to do with emotions that with a cold analysis of rational arguments. Also, deconversion (becoming an atheist/agnostic) has more to do with emotion than with rational analysis. As Hume said, reason is and ought to be the slave of passions, see http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume-moral/ Tgeorgescu (talk) 00:56, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Doing away with three major thinkers on this matter as "prejudiced and irrational" is the worst kind of character assassination I have ever encountered. I don't agree with many of their theses, but they still have a place in the history of philosophy and they influenced theology for centuries. You cannot be serious in denying that they lacked critical judgment or rationality. E.g. Strauss and Cropsey have included two of them as relevant in their book upon political philosophy. Tgeorgescu (talk) 01:42, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

And another reason: one man's superstition is another man's holy writ. Tgeorgescu (talk) 22:54, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

This article is a mess. It purports to be about "God in the context of monotheism and henotheism." Then it goes on to discuss the full range of concepts of deity, while confusing and conflating those other concepts with a purely Biblical definition - with all serious theological discussion only Christian apologetics. In fact, this article is redundant as other articles handle the subject perfectly well, in manageable semantic and historical scope. I propose that this page be gutted and remain as a disambiguation page, only. Keep the first paragraph and the See Also section. It would be nice to see some links included to articles in the anthropology, archeology, and evolutionary psychology domains to fill out the picture with the science of the subject matterlKcornwall (talk) 19:36, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Jews (such as Maimonides), Muslims (such as Al-Ghazali), Hindus (including Vaishnavists), Mahayana Buddhists, Theistic Satanists, new agers, David Hume, Anthony Flew, Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Dawkins, Carl Sagan, Sigmund Freud, and Émile Durkheim are not Christian, but all of their views are discussed. The only thing that begins to be purely Christian is the Gender of God section, but the majority of the verses in that are from the Tanakh (which, hey, the Christians got from the Jews, and the Jews still use). I believe your finding Christian bias in this article is a confirmation bias on your part. Material applicable to theism or monotheism in general is applicable to Christianity, but that does not mean that it is inherently Christian and does not also belong to Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Mahayana Buddhists, etc, etc.

Breaking it down:

• Intro: General, mentions Jewish, Christian, and Muslim thinkers towards the end (btw, the Christian thinker was influenced by the other two and pretty much only changed "Allah" to "Christ.")
• Etymology and usage: Discusses proto-Germanic language (general), Jewish terms, Islamic terms, and Hindu terms.
• General conceptions: Discusses Jewish, Christian, Islamic, Hindu, and Buddhist views
• Oneness: Discusses the general idea, Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, and mentions the Islamic repudition of Christian doctrine (rather than elaborating on the Christian view of that doctrine).
• Theism, deism and pantheism: Discusses the general idea, and mentions in a sentence (out of the entire first paragraph) the Catholic church's rejection of certain ideas, as an example that not all the ideas discussed are universal. The deism section is secular, while the pantheism section only mentions the Liberal Catholic Church for any Christian groups, but does mention Theosophy, Hinduism, Sikhism, Neopaganism, Taoism, Kabbalah and its acceptance within Hasidic Judaism.
• Other concepts: Discusses dystheism and nontheism without really discussing organized religions except for an offhand mention of Theistic Satanism as an example of dystheism. Towards the end, the section mentions some philosophies which are accepted by a minority of Christians, but these philosophies are not Christ-centric and are applicable to most other theistic religions as well (replace any mention of "Christ" with Allah). Two writers who happen to be Christian are mentioned, but any Christian nature of their ideas is not discussed.
• Existence of God: Discusses different positions, with the only mention of religion being Stephen Jay Gould's agnosticism. A Christian author is mentioned, but his ideas are not Christian-specific and have been argued by a number of theists.
• Epitheta: Discusses Jewish, Islamic, and Vaishnavist Hindu ideas.
• Gender: Starts of general, but in going into Bible verses, it brings up nine Tanakh/Old Testament verses and three Gospel verses. Reminder: The Jews read the Bible, too, particularly the Tanakh/Old Testament. Still, this section could be improved by adding Quranic and Vedic ideas.
• Relationship with Creation: Discusses Christian, Islamic, and general ideas. If there is any bias, it is anti-clerical, but not pro-Christian (as many Christians happen to be pro-clerical).
• Theological approaches: Mentions Jewish, Christian, and Muslim thinkers in the first paragraph, but goes with ideas that most religions agree upon. Discusses medieval philosophy (hey, Jews and Muslims were present in Europe then, too!). Eventually discusses more secular discussion, including skeptical views. Any bias present is Eurocentric, but not Christian-centric. (This is perhaps a result of most of the editors only being able to use sources written in English).
• Non-theistic views regarding God: Yeah, try and tell me there's any Christian bias in this. Do it, I dare you.
• Distribution of belief in God: Just gives the figures for different religious beliefs. Reality isn't a bias.

Of the 13 sections of the article, 6 discuss non-Jewish Christian ideas (7 if you want to count Islamic views of Islamic understanding of Christian ideas). In contrast, Islamic ideas appear in 6 sections, Jewish ideas in 7 sections, and Hindu ideas in 5 sections, and disbelief is discussed in 4 sections. Considering 53% of the world's population belong to Abrahamic religions, it's not really all that undue. The only way one could pretend that the article has a Christian bias is to either not read the article, or interpret any secular or Jewish ideas as only Christian and not belonging to any other religion (which would be a bias towards Christianity on the part of the reader, not the article).

As for gutting this article: The article provides a general overview of the other articles. This isn't paper, so redundancy is not a problem when what would otherwise be a gigantic article is split into several other articles and a summary of those articles is left as a central page. The current arrangement works for those who want a general overview or who wish to go more in depth on specific topics. Ian.thomson (talk) 20:45, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Nice summary, Ian. A huge problem and the main one for "God" as treated here is that it is a proper name in Christianity. It is exactly on par with the name "Zeus". It would be a weird to stretch Zeus into being a reference to "more or less like other people's gods". But that is what is being done here. Anyone coming to this article is not going to find a nice summary, they are going to be extremely confused by finding a superficial mishmash like what is here. Now, if the article was titled "Deity", it wouldn't be so bad as that subject fits the content here. But if this is intended to be about the more general idea of "god", as you claim, then my previous objections stand. This misses the mark. I need to apologize though, as I see I wasn't clear. I could have saved you a lot of trouble by referring to "the Big 3 Middle Eastern originating religions who all share the same predominant concept of a monotheistic god, which other religions do not," instead of referring to Christianity, like I did.

So, if this is article is going to be about "God," it should be redundant exclusively in terms of the Judeo-Christian aspects, and then we can pour on all the Western theology related to MidEastern lineage that is there now. On the other hand, if the goal is an article to be glutted up with every conceivable angle on "deity", I can easily triple the length with hundreds of ethnographic references, along with dozens of scientific references from anthropology, to neurology, evolutionary psychology as to the what-wherefore-and-why of supernatural deities in human culture and the human brain. What can I say, I have a degree in cultural anthropolgy. We can't have it both ways and still claim objectivity/neutrality. Which is it going to be? Again, because all else is properly discussed elsewhere I vote for disambiguation. The first paragraph, plus something about "God the name of a character who appears as the major deity in the stories of Judeo-Christian religions. Though on superficial inspection it might seem that the major supernatural deities in the stories of other cultures could be translated as "God," the similarity is superficial, and urge to conflate extremely different conceptions of the supernatural should be resisted." Kcornwall (talk) 03:04, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Any further support or objections to proceeding with my recommendation. As the Hindus' say, there are many names of God. A situation like that is why we have disambiguation pages.Kcornwall (talk) 00:13, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Subjective Text Removal

The following passage has been removed: These attributes were all supported to varying degrees by the early [[Judaism|Jewish]], [[Christianity|Christian]] and [[Islam|Muslim]] theologian philosophers, including [[Maimonides]],<ref name=Edwards /> [[Augustine of Hippo]],<ref name=Edwards>[[Paul Edwards (philosopher)|Edwards, Paul]]. "God and the philosophers" in [[Ted Honderich|Honderich, Ted]]. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', [[Oxford University Press]], 1995.</ref> and [[Al-Ghazali]],<ref name=Platinga>[[Alvin Plantinga|Platinga, Alvin]]. "God, Arguments for the Existence of," ''Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', Routledge, 2000.</ref> respectively.

Reasons: -Subjective statement which is capable of: (a) Utilizing an argumental fallacy of appealing to higher authority for authenticity of a particular subjective and often debated idea, conception, or reality. (b) Discounting a particular argument by utilizing sources of higher authority which may be seen in a very subjective light. -Wikipedia standards promote neutrality and objectivity, and this passage has been removed to retain quality in accordance with standards. --Tatoranaki (talk) 03:56, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

I think you are misunderstanding Wikipedia policies. WP:SOURCES is a pillar of Wikipedia, as are WP:VER and WP:NPOV. About the latter, you did not prove a violation of NPOV, you just state something as WP:IDL. I suggest that you read these policies before contributing to Wikipedia, otherwise your contributions could be seen as WP:VANDALISM. To cut the story short: there are no facts or objective information about God, there are just philosophical theories and theological opinions and we render them according to their notability. Of course religions as Judaism, Christianity and Islam have very notable ideas about God and definitely they are subjective in doing this, since there is no such thing as objective knowledge about God. We render these views according to their due weight, see e.g. WP:FRINGE. In itself, the idea that there is objective knowledge about God is a fringe theory. No serious theologian or scholar of religion would agree with it. So, we cannot do otherwise than render religious and philosophical authorities who are notable on this subject. This is not a fallacy of appealing to authority, since in this matter there is nothing except statements done by those who are regarded by some as authorities. I have undone your edits. Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:08, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

I suggest that you also read this, this and Argument from authority. They explain that an appeal to authority isn't always fallacious. In matters of religion, everything depends upon quoting the proper authority (Bible, Pope, notable theologians and so on). There are simply no "supernatural facts" whereupon a consensus could be reached by scientists. Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:43, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the information, I'll keep that in mind. I'll stick to writing pages on novels. I apologize for the inconvenience. --Tatoranaki (talk) 20:16, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

The statement "In itself, the idea that there is objective knowledge about God is a fringe theory. No serious theologian or scholar of religion would agree with it." seems an opinion. First, "fringe" implies crackpot, which tends to dehumanize someone you disagree with. Second: Instead of "No serious..." it should say "Few serious...." Paramanhansas Ramakrishna and Yogananda studied many religions and their lives illustrate there is objective knowledge. Third: Some Hindus, Buddhists, Christians and other religious scholars consider the material world an illusion, therefore the "objective" does not exist; everything is subjective. 71.22.155.114 (talk) 05:58, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

WP:FRINGE is an official Wikipedia policy and we have to draw the line somewhere. Otherwise we could dehumanize some people so we could give AIDS denialism equal footing with science. Here we simply render the academic consensus, if any. Otherwise we simply render the most notable opinions. About Ramakrishna and Yogananada, they were gurus, but I don't think they count as scholars of religion or as academic theologians. In theology, scholars have agreed to disagree, this is an important progress from the situation wherein Catholics and Protestants thought they were the sole owners of the Truth and waged religious wars which scarred Europe. The idea is that in theology there is no objective truth, there is just opinion which depends upon one's church or pet theologian. What is valid in Protestant theology could be invalid in Catholic and Eastern-Orthodox theology. What is valid for Mormons could be invalid for Adventists, Baptists and Jehovah's Witnesses. So it is ridiculous to claim that a couple of gurus proved with their own lives that there are objective theological truths. I think that only adepts of such gurus are inclined to accept their lives as proofs of such claim, which renders it a fringe view by the dictionary definition of the term "fringe". Anyway, I don't see any mainstream Hindu support for their theories, they were just some of the many gurus which India had and they were famous mostly in the West, i.e. famous among the hippies and the New Agers. Tgeorgescu (talk) 21:38, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

God the Creator

Seems to me that God the Creator (ex nihilo) is an important aspect that I don't see discussed. You know, "Why is there anything?" "Where did the universe come from?" "What I observe... is it material, vibrational, or illusion?" and "What is the nature of the universe?" The Big Bang-Big Crunch theory doesn't say where the matter came from. If the vibrational, quantum universe has "existed forever" then that's a miracle(s), of about the same order of magnitude as a cosmic embryo, "in the beginning," or the Nasadiya Sukta:

"Who really knows? Who shall declare it here? Whence was it born? Whence issued this creation? Even the Gods came after its emergence. Then who can tell from whence it came to be? None knows when creation has arisen; Whether He made it or did not make it, He who surveys it in the highest heaven, Only He knows, or maybe even He knows not." 71.22.155.114 (talk) 05:45, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Lede redaction

The last sentence implied that there was a vigorous debate in Medieval times, presumably Christian Europe and the Muslim lands, in any case whatever the unstated but implicit cultural context is with atheistic viewpoints authentically defended as would later be the case. This is patently false. Atheism is of course much older than the European Enlightenment and there are whole large areas of the Earth that are essentially atheist now and were (at least in the classes that could have expressed an opinion) in the European medieval period, but that is beside the point. The point is, in the Medieval European period of world history, atheism and arguments for the existence of god were not given the balanced treatment the former text implied. Where gods and demons had already been put aside in scholarly debate it was a non-issue. Where the Abrahamic god held sway no serious disbelief was tolerated. Would be noteworthy as an example of ignorance of history of Atheism in the west if it wasn't. 72.228.177.92 (talk) 13:23, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Sign for bias complaints?

As this article is open to attracting complaints of a bias for or against whatever worldview you like, and such complaints almost never come with any real evidence, perhaps we could have a sign at the top of the page to the effect of "please provide evidence in line with guidelines or policies such as WP:RS or WP:NPOV when making complaints of bias, or your post will appear to be trolling or an attempt to insert your own bias." Thoughts? I know it wouldn't eliminate all the unevidenced or biased complaints, but it would at least give us something to point to when they occur. Ian.thomson (talk) 20:55, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

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GA Review

Toolbox
dashboard disambig links external links See WP:DEADREF for dead URLs

This review is transcluded from Talk:God/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Pgallert (talk · contribs) 07:57, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Initial comments

After reading through this article I feel there are some general concerns which I will throw in right away. I have a long list of specific concerns that I will add below during the course of the week.

I foresee that a thorough review is going to take me several days (I cannot devote all day to WP). I hope that you will stay on board for longer than the usual 7 days.

General

Broadness

A quote from User:Ian.thomson on Talk:God probably best summarises this concern:

[...] Of the 13 sections of the article, 6 discuss non-Jewish Christian ideas (7 if you want to count Islamic views of Islamic understanding of Christian ideas). In contrast, Islamic ideas appear in 6 sections, Jewish ideas in 7 sections, and Hindu ideas in 5 sections, and disbelief is discussed in 4 sections. Considering 53% of the world's population belong to Abrahamic religions, it's not really all that undue [...]

I agree that this is not undue, but it is likewise not broad. Within all general topics under discussion, there should be respective representation of the main religions. Which religions to cover, and which to only link somewhere under see-also, should probably be determined by consensus. It would then still be appropriate to include particular views of minor religions in sections that specifically concern their difference, but a situation that one section covers Christianity and Islam, while another only mentions Hinduism and Shikism is not good.

The article further lacks a History section. There are plenty of sources.

Structure

The structure seems to be not entirely thought through, preventing a smooth flow of prose and confusing the reader. For instance:

• Subsections about properties (Oneness, Gender, Anthropomorphism, Existence) are spread over 3 different main sections.
• The subsection "Theism, deism and pantheism" mainly covers ontology (Existence), yet is followed by a section "Existence of God".
• The subsection "Relationship with creation" does not actually discuss this notion but rather covers the views onto the validity of respective other religions. Neither does it talk much about different ways of worship which is singled out as one of the main articles for this section.
• The hatnote restricts the article to monotheism and henotheism. It seems this has not been carried out consistently; general conceptions occur all over the article. It also might not be a good idea to restrict coverage that way, if we call "God" what X believes in, and if X' religion is a major one, then what X believes in should be covered in this article.
• The epistemology of the ontology of God should probably be covered elsewhere, as it is on an entirely different abstraction level. A short summary is fine, though.

Suggestion: It seems that the infobox {{God}} is properly structured. Would it therefore make sense to have a general structure according to the Attributes (omnipotence, existence,...), and within those sections coverage of particular religions? (Not the other way round, that's what religion should cover)

I am aware that this is essentially requesting a complete rewrite but I am willing to accompany the process as reviewer.

References

I am aware that reference requirements for GA are now less strict than even for DYK. Still, I see entire paragraphs without references, and the pattern of which propositions carry a reference, and which ones don't, is unclear to me. Per good article criteria every assertion that is "likely to be challenged" must be referenced. It is hard for me to see which ones that would be, but the current pattern makes no sense. I'll give an example for clarity:

Many medieval philosophers developed arguments for the existence of God.

This has been referenced although it is quite common knowledge and unlikely to be challenged.

However, if by its essential nature, free will is not predetermined, then the effect of its will can never be perfectly predicted by anyone, regardless of intelligence and knowledge.

This has not been referenced but would certainly be challenged by Islam.

NPOV

This is a very difficult topic; I have a concern also in this section: Which sources have been picked to create the article seems to be, for lack of a better expression, somewhat haphazard. There are frequent text patterns such as Some theologians, such as the scientist and theologian A.E. McGrath, argue, or Stephen Jay Gould proposed an approach and Another view, advanced by Richard Dawkins, is that---How have these representatives been elected? Are they the leading theologians of their time, are their views representative?

Specific

Overall

• Capitalisation of god/God is not consistent. If I understand it correctly, this article is about "God", not "god". Due to technical restrictions we cannot have two articles with only the first letter capitalised differently, but if anything needs to be split, this technical detail can be overcome with disambiguation, appropriate article titles, and hatnotes.
• Several web links have in the mean time moved or disappeared. I tagged those links ad removed a few that were of rather dubious relevance.

Lead

• God is most often conceived of as the supernatural creator - What does "most often" refer to? Which conditions would cause this not to be so?
• These attributes were all supported to varying degrees by the early Jewish, Christian and Muslim theologian philosophers - This statement is not repeated, or elaborated on, in the article body, against the recommendations of WP:LEAD. The sentence is further aligning views from a time span of 800 years; maybe early Christian, early Jewish, and early Muslim theologians should not be compared that way without further explanation. This is covered in the article body and does not need to be cited in the lead. (corrected 21:11, 6 March 2012 (UTC))
• and in modernity against. - This suggests that there was no attempt to disprove God's existence before a certain date and thus needs to be referenced. Also, as the linked modernity article leaves open what time span this notion covers, the wording should, at least in the article body, be more specific.

Etymology and usage

• The Germanic words for god were originally neuter—applying to both genders—but - unnecessarily difficult wording. Suggest shortening to "The Germanic words for God originally applied to both genders".

General conceptions

• There is no clear consensus on the nature of God. - The reference for this recently died. Apart from that, this sentence can mean many things (among whom?) and is too vague to be useful.
• and the Islamic concept of God - This should be explained as it is obviously one of the core topics of this article.
• Monotheists hold that there is only one god, and may claim - vague expression, why is the "may" in this sentence, and what are the conditions for this possibility?
• Thus, Muslims are not iconodules, and are not expected to visualize God. - Is "expected" the right word here? Are they not rather forbidden to do that? (If it is indeed like this, and as I have just challenged this claim, it needs a reference).
• Theism generally holds... these assertions should be connected by commas, not semicolons.
• Not all theists subscribe to all the above propositions, but usually a fair number of them, c.f., family resemblance. This sentence makes no sense to me. What does family resemblance have to do with this?
• Most theists hold that God is omnipotent [...] Some theists ascribe to God a self-conscious or - again rather vague. Try to be more specific about who claims what.
• Open Theism, by contrast, asserts that, due to the nature of time, God's omniscience does not mean the deity can predict the future - Which property of time would that be, and which physical and philosophical understanding of time is the basis of this claim?
• not in the original pantheistic sense that denies or limits persona to God. - Meaning of this claim needs to be clarified, and referened.
• The section "Other concepts" seems to cover extreme fringe views that do not need to be part of this general article.

Existence of God

• There are many philosophical issues concerning the existence of God. - If existence is to be covered, this paragraph should not avoid discussing those issues. Currently it is overly defensive and does not say anything.
• Arguments against the existence of God typically include empirical, deductive, and inductive types. Conclusions reached include: - Two of the mentioned positions are not arguments against God's existence.

Specific attributes

• Vaishnavism, a tradition in Hinduism, has list of titles and names of Krishna. - Ungrammatical. Moreover, I find it rather unlikely that they have a list; this should be worded differently.
• God who states “We are nearer to him than (his) jugular vein” I doubt you can find a reliable reference that God has said that. Wherever this claim was found it should be stated "according to ..., God stated that...."
• as to how to best worship God and what is God's plan for mankind, if there is one. - The wikilink from "God's plan" is incorrect, and the wording is insensitive: It seems that only a tiny minority of believers would say that He doesn't have a plan.
• There are different approaches to reconciling the contradictory claims of monotheistic religions. - One of these claims has been mentioned, that He cannot be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent at the same time, even though this trilemma could have been deeper explored. Are there more contradictions? If yes, they should be described somewhere before this claim, if no, the sentence should not have a vague plural as exhibited.
• One view is taken by exclusivists, who believe they are Again, this is a list of fringe views. It would be much more enlightening what the major religions say about this problem.

Theological approaches

• picture subscript In Islam, it is considered a sin to anthropomorphize God - After the pictures of Muhammad drama WP editors are probably now all in the boat about this claim. For some readers this should maybe be explained a little further, along the lines of ... therefore He is depicted in a calligraphic symbol
• These attributes were all supported to varying degrees by the early Jewish, Christian and Muslim theologian philosophers - The sentence is aligning views from a time span of 800 years; maybe early Christian, early Jewish, and early Muslim theologians should not be compared that way without further explanation. Further, theology is not part of philosophy. The term "theologian philosopher" thus does not make sense to me.
• Many medieval philosophers developed arguments for the existence of God - Some prominent examples such as Anselm of Canterbury and Avicenna could be mentioned and linked. The sentences that follow this assertion are not statements of medieval theologians; the concept of free will was inconceivable, possibly heretic, at that time. Those statements should therefore be covered after Kant and Hume, as the section seems to follow a chronological order.
• Most major religions hold God not as a metaphor - already covered elsewhere.

Non-theistic views regarding God

• I see the relevance of both Gould and Dawkins to this debate. However, they are the last voices in a long tradition of open or disguised atheism, and to concentrate only on the two seems to be a case of recentism. Frankly, I cannot imagine how this section can exclude Kant, but for GA I would be happy about any expansion beyond the last decade. Non-theism is a bit older than 10 years.
• The same is true for anthropomorphism.

Distribution of belief in God

• map subscript: Cyprus cannot have both an Eastern Orthodox and a Muslim majority.
• Abrahamic religions beyond Christianity, Islam and Judaism include - unnecessary unless everything including the Spaghetti monster should be included here
• a few forecasts about the future of religious adherence would be nice here, the article currently ends quite abrupt.

See also

• Most of these are already linked somewhere in the article and do not need to be mentioned here again.

Notes

• too many dictionary and encyclopedia entries for my liking.
• TheFreeDictionary.com (Reference 21) does not contain any own content and is for this reason hardly suitable.
• References 4 (OED Compact Edition, G, p. 267) and 6 (Webster's New World Dictionary) are incomplete (author? ISBN? weblink? publisher?).
• Reference 12: If a piece of literature is internally linked it should work. This one doesn't.
• Reference 28 has no useful title.
• Reference 35 is incomplete. This text has an author, and the title is slightly different.

References

• Harris interactive, no bibliographical details at all
• Hastings, James Rodney, What is the purpose of this quote?

External links

• General: What do these links offer that hasn't been, or cannot be, described in the article? Any unfree media that would otherwise be lost to the reader? If the content is not important, remove the external link. If the content is important, use the external link as reference. Every external link that remains should have a somewhat logical rationale behind why it is included.
• Wikinews seems irrelevant
• Last entry (knol) is not a reliable source

This concludes my initial assessment. I put the GAN on hold to see whether any improvement is going to take place, currently it looks a bit like a fly-by nomination. If you have any questions please contact me here or on my talk page. Cheers, Pgallert (talk) 21:11, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

GAN failed

Hi all, it has been nine days now without anyone improving the article in any substantial way. I fail this nomination for lack of broadness and inconsistency. --Pgallert (talk) 06:58, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

origins required

there is no section on main page that gives the origins of god if any one has an explanation about how the concept of god began in first place write it here — Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.241.16.133 (talk) 17:33, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

God's Master Plan

In The Bible, we see that The One Way, The Only Way, of The One True God, Who Free Will Chooses to Create Satan, with God in All Knowledge and All Power, and then God Expects Eternal Perfect Obedience from Adam and Eve, Immortal Humans with a single law to obey, so capable of Sinning, and then God Free Will Chooses to Permit Satan to walk the Garden, to make things more complicated for His Master Planned Reich - Kingdom in the english. 24.24.239.194 (talk) 01:23, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

= Is this a long enduring case of God throwing His Bride, The Chruch of Humanity, into a snake infested pit under Universal Death Sentence, in God's All Knowing All Powerful ways, and giving humanity an offer they can't refuse, in Christ, to save them? 24.24.239.194 (talk) 01:23, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

= Is this Love which we are to model in His Image? To throw one's bride into a pit of snakes under death sentence, and offer salvation, to make the bride freely love and worship you, obviously, by their own free will choice that you gave to them (humanity)? 24.24.239.194 (talk) 01:23, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

New message

Hi Wikipedia. I don't desire to edit articles but to add SBT pages to them for further Biblical historical facts that clears up Myths to Wikipedia articles on any of the references quoted if needed---Can some help me get stated doing that for the Articles on GOD or god And John 1:1 updates --Open http://simplebibletruths.net/GODorgod.htm and http://simplebibletruths.net/John-1-1-Updates.htm If someone could work me up an example on how the easiest way to do that and to create a new page if one I doesn't exist how---I only ask this because I am disabled and small print is hard for me to read—put once see and easy WAY to read AN example with all my information printed in it correctly. I CAN get all others done without assistance. I WROTE this in 16Sise then pasted it to here---And all articles I READ I copy AND PASTE them to a bigger size of I CAN READ them. Thanks for any and all the help that I CAN Get Gody Verde— Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.42.98.30 (talk • contribs)

New stuff goes at the bottom, not in the middle of templates. Those sites do not appear to meet the reliable sourcing guidelines (linked to here). We have no idea who the author is or what their education is, and we have no evidence the site was peer-reviewed by other academics. Also, this article is on the general concept of God, not just Judeo-Christian beliefs.

As for reading the articles, try holding down CTRL (at the bottom left of your keyboard), SHIFT (just above it), and then +. This should increase the size of text on your screen. Ian.thomson (talk) 15:42, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

The Talk of the first sentence in the God article at Wikipedia, the English section

Ok. This is quite complex. My hope of convincing any majority that the first sentence in this article about God should better be changed is not strong. Obviously God is for most English speaking people regarded as a name, or even The Name (cf. Hashim) lest of the singular being for which there is no way to express; except, for the indications of the tetragrammaton; but I do question wether the accuracy which is sought, of the first line in the article, hits the point: God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions (and other belief systems) who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism. It seem to compromise, and suffer from a lacking consistency. I find that the sentence is trying to be accurate. That's good. It is difficult to say it is a good sentence though. It doesn't feel good neither in the mouth, when reading it loud, nor in the ear, when hearing it. Please try, taste it. I think most people will agree, independently on standpoint, religiously, theologically or academically. On the other side, what to expect from a wikipedia article on God?

First thing that comes to my mind is the problem of truth-tentativity. The expression "God is the English name given to..." excludes what is perhaps the original intention of the first line of translators/theologians/missionaries into the Germanic speaking world. I believe they sought, in communication, in dialogues, word-name(s) that could express the divine character, but not attach specificity, nor a particular image of a god. Odin/Wodan was All-father too, and God, of course, but Odin is a Name, and an image of God. God is not that, this or anyone to which we can reduce, the early messengers would hold. The God is rather like a gate, a door, an index; but only the fool looks at the indexfinger pointing to the moon. The proper theological tradition of the Abrahamitic Religion will point to the fact that the name of God is hidden, and protected most dearly. The force in, and the taboo of revealing, the Name(s), (Hashim), are expressed most poetically in the Song of Songs, an allusion to the nature of God, without ever mentioning Gods name but the name(s), Hashim, in the opening verses (Salomo was bearer og the title Messiah, remember). Jews normally refer to God, just by saying Hashim, the Name(s). The name(s) itself (tetragrammaton(s)) are only to be named in the holiest of holy, in ritual, or in prayer. When speaking about God, in conversation, Hashim is what to be used. This was revered by the earlier christians too. It seems to be rather forgotten in the contemporary world. I would say, on the basis of intuition that true names hardly can be translated. I will say this is even a feature of names. When I was young the Capital of China was called Peking. Now it is renamed Beijing in order to be more sounding as Chinese people expresses the name. Translation of names, I regard as a de- and reconstruction. Which may lead to a renaming at best. Which is ok. It is evident for most people that God is a translation, primarily of the Greek (New Testament) Ðeos (Latin Deus), also of various Hebrew renderings of course (Old Testament), El, Elohim among others, and especially Hashim which, I believe, is the most frequently used in the scriptures translated mostly into God in the English Bible(s) (sometimes 'the name' as in the Song of Songs).

It is not on a theological ground, nor a religio-historic basis that I will argue that the first sentence in the article is partly misleading. I may hold that God is not a name, but a word used primarily as translation of the Hebrew word Hashim, which simply means the Name(s). That is not the point. For some, or most people it is a name. Thus it is not wrong to say it is the name of the singularity, or of a singular being. My suggestion for an alternative opening line simply comes from the fact that as it stand now (11.03.2012) it actually excludes the point that makes God interesting. In other words the mysterious, the anonymous.

My suggestion: God is the English rendition of the Names given to a singular being of primarily Abrahamitic religions, but not exclusively. --Xact (talk) 15:53, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Volcano God

There doesn't appear to be any mention of the fact Yahweh was clearly described as a volcano. --FieryDarts (talk) 20:49, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Read WP:VERIFY & WP:RS. You have to find reliable sources making this suggestion. Dougweller (talk) 21:30, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Is the Bible not a reliable enough source? It contains all the proof needed except the word 'volcano'. If not the Bible then how about this...

“According to Exodus 19 … Mount Sinai blazed with fire, was enveloped by a huge plume of cloud or smoke and shook violently as in an earthquake. Flashes of lightning and sounds like trumpet blasts also occurred. The description fits a a volcanic eruption. The emission of hot gases from fissures can produce trumpet-like sounds, and observers have reported seeing massive electrical displays emanating from volcanic clouds. No volcanoes are known to have erupted during that period in the Sinai Peninsula, but Arabia has many volcanoes. One volcanic mountain in the western Arabian Peninsula, Hala al Bedr (Mount Bedr), is according to this theory a particularly promising candidate for ancient Mount Sinai.”

NIV Archeological Study Bible, p. 123.

--FieryDarts (talk) 23:32, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

I can see nothing in this paragraph that would suggest that the volcano is God. --Pgallert (talk) 07:06, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Lede

The page "God" gives false information. It implies in the first sentence of the article that the God in Islam is different than the one in Christianity. This is false. I am Muslim and Allah is GOD, the same god embraced in Christianity and Judaism. Allah is simply a title for God, NOT his name. It only means the "One and Only God." There is no such thing as "the Islamic God". The same god in Christianity is the same god in Islam. They are one and the same. The Quran is founded on Christianity. It is only an extension of the same religion, nothing more, or less.

Reference: http://www.godallah.com/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.133.254.22 (talk) 14:57, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

New stuff goes at the bottom. I've rephrased it. Ian.thomson (talk) 16:01, 17 March 2012 (UTC)