Talk:History of atheism: Difference between revisions

Browse history interactively

← Previous edit Next edit →

Content deleted Content added

VisualWikitext

Inline

Revision as of 01:21, 9 August 2010

Atheism B‑class Top‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Atheism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of atheism on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.AtheismWikipedia:WikiProject AtheismTemplate:WikiProject AtheismAtheism articles

B

This article has been rated as B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.

Top

This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale.

For more information and how you can help, click the [Show] link opposite:

If you would like to participate, you can edit this article and visit the project page.

Quick help

Recent activity

To do

Join WikiProject atheism and be bold.

Add a userbox to your page ({{User WikiProject Atheism}} or {{User WPA2}}) and attract potential members.
Help with articles.
See this month's adopt-an-article.
Help out with this to-do list.

Be consistent

Use a "standard" layout for atheism-related articles (see layout style, "The perfect article" and Featured articles).
Add Atheism info box to all atheism related talk pages (use {{WikiProject Atheism}} or see info box)
Ensure atheism-related articles are members of Atheism by checking whether [[Category:Atheism]] has been added to atheism-related articles – and, where it hasn't, adding it.

Maintenance, etc.

Find sources for all positions of an article (see Citing sources and atheism references).
Try to expand stubs. Ideas and theories about life, however, are prone to generating neologisms, so some stubs may be suitable for deletion (see deletion process).
Watch the list of atheism-related articles and add to accordingly.
Always write for an encyclopedia.

Articles to improve

Agnosticism

Create

Articles on notable atheists

Expand

an atheism stub

Immediate attention

State atheism needs a reassessment of its Importance level, as it has little to do with atheism and is instead an article about anti-theist/anti-religious actions of governments.
False choice into False dilemma: discuss whether you are for or against this merge here
Clarify references in Atheism using footnotes.
Secular movement defines it as a being restricted to America in the 21st century.

Archives

Atheist persicuting

"Christians in Rome were also considered subversive to the state religion and prosecuted as atheists." Requires citation around that part. Faro0485 (talk) 12:48, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"New atheists"

The nascent "new atheism" article was awful, and I think redirecting it here was the right thing to do, but I do think the "21st century" section should mention the term. Even though it's generally only a pejorative used by theists, it does have some currency in the American and British media as does the "four horsemen" of Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennet, and Harris. --LDC (talk) 16:31, 23 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I went ahead and merged what I could. I agree, just a mention of the term should be fine. Artichoker^[talk] 16:32, 23 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Should new atheist have a sub heading? I'd say that it's becoming a movement on par with other social/political entities we have articles for. Kode (talk) 00:07, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think a subheading is appropriate for content that is only a sentence long. Artichoker^[talk] 00:18, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

New atheism does in fact need its own article. It does in fact describe an emerging trend, vastly documented and reported upon, of a more outspoken, more organized atheism. Redirecting an article for lack of quality doesn't make sense. Marking the article as needing improvement is more appropriate. Benplowman (talk) 20:16, 30 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Footnotes

I was editing the footnotes to include more info and I noticed one of the pages referenced is 404, specifically http://www3.niu.edu/univ_press/books/257-5.htm can anyone find a replacement source? I'll let you know here if any more go missing. Kode (talk) 00:05, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I found a new reference and added it to the article. Artichoker^[talk] 00:25, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oldest known atheist text

User:Techbear deleted my edit on the text Theophrastus redivivus, which is being perceived as the oldest known atheist text. I think it is better to first investigate the issue, instead of immediately lazily deleting an edit. Only Google would be appropriate to see that there are enough sources supporting my claim.Daanschr (talk) 15:37, 10 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I did a brief search which appears to support that the article could be useful. However, I see Techbear's point: the article is currently just a single (unsourced) paragraph. It may not need to even exist as a separate article. Once some sources are brought in, we can see about either expanding the article, or putting its content into this one. Oh, and it's generally frowned upon to call another editor's actions "lazy." — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 17:03, 10 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I did a web search for the document. I found plenty of references, which is why I did not immediately flag the new article for deletion. However, the article needs a great deal of work before it meets the encyclopedic standards of the Wikipedia, and I do not believe it would be proper to begin cross-linking it to other articles until it has been fleshed out. This would require adding more text and some verifiable references from reliable sources. I was willing to extend an assumption of good faith when I deleted your link; please do me the courtesy of the same. TechBear | Talk | Contributions 18:49, 10 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have been around on Wikipedia for 4 years and this is new for me. I leave it with this. Perhaps someone wants to continue editing.Daanschr (talk) 20:33, 10 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed the addition and viewed the article. It seems kinda pointless to include a link to one sentence in the See Also section. That seems to me to be almost like WP:TRIVIA. I agree that the article in question should be expanded before it is relinked per WP:COMMON. AzureFury (talk | contribs) 21:37, 10 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Darwin

How can there be no mention of Charles Darwin and "The Origin of Species"? Surely its publication was one of the key events in the evolution (sorry) of atheism. By suggesting a process for the diversity of life that did not require a God Darwin hammered the final nail into God's coffin.

Almost every debate today on theism/atheism consists at least half on the theory of evolution and the theists objections to it.

This article is not complete without a big section on Darwin. Not to mention the 150 years of science since that have confirmed his theory and made atheism more obvious and acceptable to more people than ever in human history.

96.54.55.67 (talk) 07:22, 7 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The article is not semi-protected, feel free to contribute :). AzureFury (talk | contribs) 17:17, 7 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"New Atheism" again.

Bricaniwi brought to my attention that a new article on New Atheism has been created. First, I think we may need to bring in an admin for a history-merge between this new article, and the old article that was at New atheism (small "a"). That small-a article was merged & redirected here nearly a year ago (Jul 2009), and I moved its Talk page to an archive of this page (see above). A history-merge might be best, so we can keep track of what's happened between the redirect to here (History of atheism) and the creation of the new article. Second, it may be time to have another discussion on whether the new article passes WP:NEO. In the intervening time, the term has been used quite a bit more, but I'm not entirely sure the argument has any more weight. That debate might be best taken up on Talk:New Atheism, though, so we can have full input of the current editors there. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 15:54, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

confucianism?

would it make sense to mention it as an atheist tradition? don't know enough to claim this, but I thought it was basically atheist or at least with little emphasis on the supernatural? Aryah (talk) 18:24, 27 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Eastern religions are so complicated, they don't fall neatly into western categories for spirituality. Regardless, anything we say needs to be backed up by reliable sources, and I don't think any consider confucianism an "atheist tradition." AzureFury (talk | contribs) 01:22, 28 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Krishnadas Kaviraja Goswami described in Chaitanya-charitamrita Adi 6.38:

‘chaitanya-mangala’ shune yadi pashandi, yavana

seha maha-vaishnava haya tatakshana

If even a great atheist hears Shri Chaitanya-mangala (previous name for Shri Chaitanya-bhagavata), he immediately becomes a great devotee.

So all the great atheists which comprise of 99.99% of the world’s population can become maha-vaishnavas if they get the supreme good fortune of reading this book. Thus in my personal opinion, when this book is published and distributed in mass quantities all over the world, it will break open the gates of the flood of the love of Godhead brought by Lord Chaitanya and His associates and will hasten the advent of the predicted Golden Age in all its glory.