Talk:Creationist perspectives on dinosaurs

Purpose of this article

I have created a stub article here based on discussions on the Dinosaur article Talk page. Essentially, the consensus was to relocate detailed information about religious perspectives on dinosaurs into a forked article. Killdevil 00:51, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

To do list

Please help to expand this. We need to try to capture not just Christian creationist views but those of other religious groups with specific understandings of dinosaurs that differ from the interpretation favored by mainstream science. Killdevil 00:51, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Let's start by formulating a to-do list here.

POV

This article title states religious perspectives on dinosaurs. But, as it is the focus seems to be on only one noise-making fundamentalist christian group: YECs. Until the article is developed to include the full range of christian denominations, as opposed to just the grandstanding fundamentalists, and more importantly the views and positions of other world religions - it is POV. Also, if a particular group or sect has no published opinion or doctrine re: dinos, that also needs to be pointed out. Any group that accepts or agrees with the scientific evidence and interpretations also need to be specifically mentioned. I am not talking about popular polls based on the blather of the noisey few. What is needed is factual references to the doctrine and beliefs of the mainstream religions. Until this has been achieved, the page is seriously POV and ripe for afd. Vsmith 00:45, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

You're preaching to the choir here, Vsmith. We all want to include more information on different religious perspectives; YEC is the obvious one, of course. Help us out. Currently, I'd say the article is incomplete, not POV. We're not deliberately excluding information on other religious viewpoints, you know. Here's a reference to dinosaurs in the Quran, for starters: [1]. — Matt Crypto 09:17, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Some Jewish views: [2], [3], [4]. — Matt Crypto 10:15, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Merge

I am going to put a merge tag on this article, suggesting that it be merged with the Young Earth creationism article. This is partly because the article, as it stands, should really be named "Young Earth creationist perspectives on dinosaurs. If you feel there's enough material to show various religious viewpoints on dinosaurs, the please add it and delete the tag. –Shoaler (talk) 16:06, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

As time permits, I'd like to add more. I don't think this needs to be added to an article that is already far too long (YEC). agapetos_angel 16:12, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

As it stands the merge is obvious, but it might be better to expand this. However, since nobody has after a bit of time, it seems unlikely in the near future. - Just zis  Guy, you know? ^[T]/_[C] 19:01, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

I think this could be a great standalone article with a little more research. As is pointed out in the article text, dinosaurs constitute a popularly-understood and serious challenge to religious interpretations of natural history. Because of this, more than one faith group has specifically addressed dinosaurs.

I suggest letting it stand for now. Perhaps somebody more Wikipedia-skilled than me could advertise in the appropriate places that this is a religion article that needs help? Killdevil 22:45, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree for many of the reasons stated above. It's a separate topic from YEC if 'religious perspectives' are discussed (a stub is not necessarily a reason to merge). Maybe if it's not expanded, in say 30 days, it should be merged with dinosaurs instead? agapetos_angel 03:30, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Agapetos, the backstory on this article is that it was created to resolve an ongoing controversy over at the Dinosaurs article. Basically, it was decided over there that religious groups' perspectives needed to be forked into a separate article -- this was a compromise of sorts. If we move it back then a several-months-long debate will reignite. So I'd be very much against merging with the Dino article. 24.63.83.203 20:41, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Exactly--MWAK 09:48, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

There are exactly two articles with "Religious perspectives on ..." in WP, the other one being about Jesus. Now either we are in an urgent need to produce more articles such as "Religious perspectives on Archeopteryx" or any other random fossile that might daringly fail to line up with various religious beliefs - or not.

Creating this article to get rid of a debate in the dinosaurs article was a Bad Move and merging it back there would obviously make things worse. Instead, whatever worthwhile content lives here should be gently integrated into the article of the religion in question and this article then quietly join the fate of the dinosaurs before this page gets nominated for whackiest article in WP. --Ministry of Truth 22:31, 9 June 2006 (UTC)