User talk:Ret.Prof

'Wikipedia does not care about you or me being qualified scholars. Wikipedia is not a scholarly site, but a summary of sources that speak for themselves. We all have the right to edit, but there are rules to make sure that proper sources are used for appropriate articles and editors are civil. If you want to accuse me of a Christian bias:

Please read this.

At Wikipedia we must all try to edit from a NPOV. On occasion my Faith has been called into question. Indeed some have honestly wondered how I can write what I have about the Historical Jesus and still be a Christian. The answer is simple, my relationship with God never had anything to do with history or archeology. Let me explain... Christianity not relevant in our modern world As a young litigation lawyer, I believed in God, but felt that Christianity was no longer relevant in our modern world. Jesus' teachings such as "Thou shalt not kill" "Love your enemy" "You can not serve both God and Money" were just not relevant in these modern times. I believed in the death penalty, war, material wealth. I did unto others before they did unto me. I did not get angry, I got even...and a bit! Spiritual awakening Then, a series of events made me reconsider my beliefs and come to the conclusion that the Gospel of Jesus Christ was still relevant today. I read a great deal about people who still believed in the Gospel, including Mahatma Gandhi, Dr Martin Luther King Jr., etc., etc. This led to a Spiritual awaking that forever changed my life. South Africa It was here, working for Archbishop Desmond Tutu, that my faith was put to the test. Could love and non violence really bring down the Apartheid government? We were out-gunned, out-matched in every way. What the Archbishop was preaching made no earthly sense. Yet before my eyes I witnessed this racist government fall. As I stepped out in faith on a daily basis, I experienced God in a real way. In my heart I came to believe that the Gospel of Christ was the most powerful force in the Universe. The Roman Empire never stood a chance. Nor did the British Empire in India, or, for that matter, Segregation in the South. Twelve Step Program Several years later I was approached by a group who wanted to use my Church. They explained to me that their program was basic Christianity without many of the offensive "buzz words" that had been added over the years. Confessing that we were miserable sinners became "We admitted we were powerless over alcohol or drugs etc -- that our lives had become unmanageable." Faith was changed to "Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity." Accepting Jesus Christ as our Personal Saviour became "Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him." Accepting that we had all sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God was changed to "Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves." Making our confession was reworded to "Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs." Repentance became "Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character." Bin saved became "Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings." "Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all." "Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others." Continued confession became "Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it." "Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out." Born Again & Witnessing became "Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others, and to practice these principles in all our affairs." This simplified "Gospel" has transformed the lives of millions. It is truly powerful regardless of the packaging. My faith finds form in Anglicanism because of the freedom from "strict dogma", but I have seen the power of Christ in all denominations. Walking with Christ for these many, many years has given me a faith that allows me to edit Wikipedia from a NPOV. The reason is that my faith is not based on the "historical evidence" that has survived to 2012 but rather it is based upon my experience over a very very long time...

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Merge discussion reopened

Since no one else had the decency to inform you, you should be aware that In ictu oculi reopened the proposal to merge your Hebrew (Aramaic) Gospel article into the Gospel of the Hebrews, in what now appears to be a proposal for deletion. Although you were not informed, a notice was given to the original proposer, as well as several selective notices to editors who were previously in favor of deletion of the original article, here, here, and here, in what, to my mind at least, seems like a rather obvious attempt at collusion. Ignocrates (talk) 17:27, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Copying material from one article to another.

Wikipedia's licensing requires that you provide attribution to the original contributor(s). When copying within Wikipedia, this is supplied at minimum in an edit summary at the page into which you've copied content. It is good practice, especially if copying is extensive, to also place a properly formatted

template on the talk pages of the source and destination. If you have copied material between pages before, even if it was a long time ago, please provide attribution for that duplication. You can read more about the procedure and the reasons at Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia. Thank you.

You copied material from Oral gospel traditions into a new article Christian Oral Tradition. As it is clearly a duplicate of the same topic, I've redirected it. You also seem to have ignored the consensus on the original to stub the article. Please don't try to undo consensus in this way. Dougweller (talk) 06:51, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Licensing Breach? Copying? Undo Consensus? Now I am really confused! I never copied material from Oral gospel traditions to the Christian Oral Tradition????? Also, even though my name APPEARS in the edit history, I NEVER edited Oral gospel traditions?????? What is happening????? I truly apologize for any wrongdoing on my part. There is no need to block me as I will voluntary stop editing until things are sorted out. - Ret.Prof (talk) 13:58, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

There's no way that your name could appear 283 times as an editor in an article[1] without those edits coming from your account. In fact you created the article[2] so if you think you're confused you can imagine how confused I am. That could explain why the same material appeared in Christian Oral Traditions. The problem is that if you look at Talk:Oral gospel traditions it was agreed to remove that material and turn the article into a stub. You then created the new article Christian Oral Traditions despite that decision, using the same material. Could you think again about denying editing Oral Gospel Traditions? Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 16:05, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Ret.Prof, how would you feel about participating in an RfC/U, and recusing yourself from further editing until that happens? I left a proposal to do that on Doug's talk page. I think it could really help to clear the air for a number of people you have had encounters with over the last two years. Ignocrates (talk) 19:24, 18 January 2013 (UTC)