Template talk:Atheism sidebar

Holbach

do we really want to make Holbach "the face of atheism"? Perhaps Image:Ephesians 2,12 - Greek atheos.jpg would be preferable as an image, or, of course, no image at all. --dab (𒁳) 20:47, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Colour

This template is a bit sterile looking, perhaps it should given the same colour scheme as the atheism portal?Coffeeassured (talk) 07:14, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Scarlet Letter

File:Red-a-clear.jpg

Scarlet A

This image has become a popular logo for atheism. Maybe we should include it.--Hamsterlopithecus (talk) 07:12, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

This image isn't really representative of atheism in the same way that the cross represents Christianity or Om represents Hinduism; a popular logo shouldn't be confused with a representative symbol. I'll admit that I've never seen it until now. The image isn't particularly good either - it's unsourced, harsh (bright red on a white background), and it's suffering from obvious compression issues. On top of that, I'm not sure that the template needs an image.-Wafulz (talk) 15:55, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Hubble Ultra Deep Field photo

I have removed this photo since it has no more relevance to atheism than it does to theism. I have written a longer comment on Talk:Atheism, and right now I am being bold and removing the image. The template still looks pretty. :) 65.191.180.91 (talk) 20:50, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Image(s)

There have been a few suggestions for what image this template should include. As some said before about D'holbach, The Scarlet Letter and the Hubble Ultra Deepp Field photo; none of these does a good job of representing atheism as a whole. But without a picture, and especially with the black color, the template looks rather sterile and uninviting. What I suggest is using a few small photos of well known atheists, in the same way as the tempate on this page (Ashkenazi Jews) does to represent Ashkenazi culture. There could be Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Stephen Jay Gould, Emma Goldman, Charles Bradlaugh, Stephen Weinberg, Pete Stark or anyone else in List of atheists. -ramz- (talk) 00:31, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Image

There seems to be a dispute over the image File:Atom of Atheism-Zanaq.svg which is used to illustrate this template. The anon now claims that the image is a derivative of the American Atheists logo: File:American Atheists logo.svg. This claim is unsubstantiated; you can say it's a derivative all you want, but there's no evidence. It's simply a picture of an atom, which represents science; the concept which an atheist uses to verify an claims made of the natural world. The image is already used extensively to identify with the WP:WikiProject Atheism (example: {{wpa}}) So, anon, rather than edit warring; please respond in this discussion. Artichoker^[talk] 21:54, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Please note the discussion at Talk:Atheism#Atheism symbol. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:30, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I think the change looks good. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:11, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Arguements against theism/God's Existence

As stated in the first line on this article, atheism is "the rejection of theism, or the position that deities do not exist.". The arguements section should not read "Arguments Against God's existence" as this is not a percise description of what atheism argues against. I will change this unless I hear objections. NickCT (talk) 16:04, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Objection While that is indeed what atheism is about, that's not what the category which is linked to is about; you'd be misrepresenting the category. --Cybercobra (talk) 20:48, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Cyber.. I'd agree with that, but it seems silly linking to an arguement which aethism isn't exactly about. I propose we either rename the category, or simply delete the arguemtents section all together. Thoughts? NickCT (talk) 20:57, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Looking at the arguments in the category, I agree it could probably be renamed to "Arguments against theism" as a few are more about justifying nonbelief than nonexistence per se. If you want to CfD it, I'd support a rename. --Cybercobra (talk) 21:08, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Ok. I think we are agreed on the correct course of action. I have never CfDed before. I will take a look at it when I get a chance. NickCT (talk) 04:35, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

See discussion re other related articles

See discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Atheism#Improve_relationships_between_anti.2Fnon-religion.2Fatheism_articles.3F regarding helping users navigate between related topics. --Noleander (talk) 15:54, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

The aforementioned discussion includes a draft proposed updated to this template. Please post any comments there. --Noleander (talk) 05:09, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

The general sense in that referenced discussion is that the alternative template may be better in some regards, so I'm putting that new sidebar here. The goal at this point is just to get more feedback. If you have any suggestions or comments, please reply here. Thanks. --Noleander (talk) 12:32, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Cybercobra: do you have any specific suggestions for improvement to the proposed template? --Noleander (talk) 13:42, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

I see there is a footer template (Navbox) at Template:Irreligion which looks like this (ignore the formatting problems :-):

and much of the content overlaps with the proposed Atheism sidebar template. So I suppose the question becomes: should the Atheism sidebar template be expanded to have scope similar to the Irreligion footer? And, if so, should the Atheism sidebar be renamed to "Atheism and "Irreligion" or similar? It seems like there ought to just be a single list of articles, and it is available in two formats: Sidebar and footer. Each relevant article could choose either the sidebar or footer. Does that make sense? --Noleander (talk) 14:27, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Here is a revised proposal: It is based on the premise that the sidebar is more prominent, and a more precious commodity, than the footer templates. The proposal is:

• We create a single sidebar that covers a broad range of related topics, including atheism, irreligion, antireligion, etc.
• We have 3 footer templates on more focused topics, such as: Irreligion, Criticism of Religion, Atheism

The current state of affairs is the reverse: we have one sidebar Template:Atheism2 which has a relatively narrow focus (atheism, considered as a philosophy); and we have two footers: Template:irreligion and Template:Criticism of religion, which are broader. My perception (and maybe it is just me) is that the sidebar is what most readers primarily use to navigate, and the footer templates are more obscure. So it seems sensible to make the sidebar have more breadth. The footer templates could still be used for the more focused topics (e.g. Atheism as a philosophy). Thoughts? Superseded by discussion below. --Noleander (talk) 16:33, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Draft Sidebar "A" - I've put a draft Template:Atheism2/PossibleImprovement sidebar template at the right side, here in the Talk page. Comparing it to the Template:Irreligion footer (shown in this Talk page immediately above) shows they are very similar in scope. The proposal is to combine them into a single sidebar template (perhaps with a new name, such as "Atheism and Irreligion" or "Irreligion and Atheism" that reflects the wider scope). And also to have multiple footers on more focused topics: Template:AtheismFooter; Template:Irreligion; Template:Criticism of Religion. Note that several such "focused" footer templates exist already. So this proposal is to change only the sidebar template. Comments? --Noleander (talk) 13:24, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

The big difference between the Irreligion footer and the draft Atheism sidebar is how the constituent articles are grouped: The Irreligion footer is intended to cover all the irreligion/antireligion/atheism topics, and it uses four groups to do so: Atheism, Nontheism, Agnositcism, Naturalism to organize itself. The draft Atheism sidebar at right is Atheism-centric, and the "non atheism" articles are just tacked-on at the bottom in a "Related topics" group. That was done because it seemed like a non-objectionable way to gradually expand the Atheism sidebar to have a wider scope. --Noleander (talk) 14:11, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Draft sidebar "B"

Here is a second draft sidebar, that attempts to consolidate the best of the Irreligion footer and the first draft sidebar. Note that the title of this sidebar is "Atheism and Irreligion""Irreligion". --Noleander (talk) 14:28, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

To recap the reasons for a new sidebar:

1) To help readers find articles that may be nearer to their area of interest

2) To have a single "one stop shopping" sidebar for all articles within the atheism/irreligion/nontheism realm.

3) To help editors integrate and cross-reference the articles in the irreligion/atheism/nontheism realm by drawing the attention of editors to related articles

4) To provide a sidebar that may be used by articles that are in the irreligion scope (but not within the strict scope of atheism)

Any comments on the latest proposed sidebar (draft "B" shown at right)? --Noleander (talk) 13:24, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Seeing no comments or feedback, I'm putting draft Sidebar "B" into several articles, so more eyeballs can review it and provide feedback. I'll leave the old "Atheism" sidebar alone, and Atheism article will continue using the old Atheism sidebar until more editors weigh in. If anyone wants to improve the sidebar, feel free to improve it (click the small "e" at the bottom). --Noleander (talk) 18:37, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

• Sorry it took me a while to get to this, but I've taken a look and I have this advice. I like the new Atheism sidebar (Draft A) better than the old one, because it includes a lot more information. I have a concern about the top of Draft B: I think the combined "Atheism and Irreligion" title seems too long and complicated. If we use it at all, I would make it just Irreligion. Thus, there would be two templates available, one specifically on Atheism, for pages with that focus, and a second on Irreligion, for pages that are not exclusively related to atheism. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:19, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. You raise some good points:

• For a "pure atheism" sidebar, I agree that draft A Template:Atheism2/PossibleImprovement is superior than the existing Template:Atheism2, mostly because it has the "Related Topics" articles, so readers that happen to be in an Atheism article will be more likely to notice that there are some important articles such as Criticism of religion (which they may not notice with the old sidebar Template:Atheism2 ).
• The new Irreligion sidebar template is "draft B", and I agree that the title would be better as "Irreligion" rather than "Atheism and Irreligion". Maybe I'll make that change. The only reason I suggested "Atheism and Irreligion" was that I was contemplating a single side bar used by all atheism/irreligion/nontheism articles, and I thought "Atheism and Irreligion" may be more acceptable to some editors.

Perhaps the next step should be (1) to rename "Atheism and Irreligion" sidebar to "Irreligion"; (2) add a "Related Topics" group to the Atheism sidebar Template:Atheism2 .. i.e. bring it closer to draft A; (3) long term: see if there is any interest in consolidating the Irreligion and Atheism sidebars (because - if a Related Topics group is added to Template:Atheism2 then its article list will be nearly identical to the new Irreligion sidebar). --Noleander (talk) 22:05, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

I did tasks (1) and (2) from the prior post. --Noleander (talk) 22:19, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Merge with Template:Atheism and Irreligion Sidebar sidebar?

There are two sidebar templates that are very similar: Template:Atheism2 and Template:Atheism and Irreligion Sidebar. The lists of articles found in both templates are very similar. The big difference is that the Atheism2 sidebar's title is "Atheism" (and non-Atheism articles are in the "Related Topics" section), whereas the "Atheism and Irreligion" sidebar's title is "Irreligion" and it doesn't single-out Atheism for special treatment (although it does have the Atheism section at the top). Should these two templates be merged? The only downside I see to a merger is that the "Irreligion" sidebar's title "irreligion" is a bit obscure, and to many readers, they may get confused. The word "Atheism" is very common, but doesn't include all the topics of Irreligion. Is there another title that would facilitate merging? --Noleander (talk) 00:14, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

<repost from wt:atheism>If you are interested in the evolution of these templates to a more concise form... we can merge irreligion and atheism, and take care of a great many other topics by having just two for all of them: Template:Philosophy of religion and Template:Religious philosophy. This approach has the advantage of attaching the main organization to an academic area. Take a look at Template:Logic and its compartments for an idea of what I had in mind. Greg Bard 01:11, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

That sounds like a great idea for the footer templates (the footer template for Atheism & Irreligion is Template:atheism). This particular merger proposal is focusing on the sidebar templates, which are not as flexible as the footers: the space is more constrained, and it is harder to have "templates within templates". Can you look at the two sidebar templates Template:Atheism2 and Template:Atheism and Irreligion Sidebar and see if merger looks like a good idea? Maybe after they got merged (or whatever the outcome is) we can look at how the Atheism/Irreligion sidebar fits into the bigger picture (e.g. how would it relate to the Philosophy sidebar template Template:Philosophy-sidebar). Thanks. --Noleander (talk) 01:32, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

After I commented in the thread above, I also began thinking about this merger approach, so I'm glad to see it come up here. And I also got stuck on that same issue: "irreligion" seems the broader term, with "atheism" as a subset, but "atheism" is the more familiar term. It does seem to me to be desirable to make a single sidebar, containing the sum of all the links from both of these sidebars, but I'm stuck as to what to call it. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:53, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

A few titles I can envision for a merged sidebar include:

1. Irreligion - Many readers won't be familiar with the term
2. Atheism - Not technically accurate
3. Atheism and related topics - Too lengthy?
4. Anti-theism - Word too rare: even rarer than "Irreligion" (#1 above)
5. Irreligion and Atheism - Okay.
6. Atheism and Irreligion - Okay.
7. Atheism and Antitheism- Worse than #6 because word "Irreligion" is much more common than "Antitheism" [Note: choice #7 was added after #1 to #6]

None of them are outstanding. Choices (5) and (6) seem to be the best, in my opinion. Between them: (6) probably reads better than (5) because it starts with the very common word "atheism". --Noleander (talk)

Yeah, I'm going to change my mind from what I said in the previous thread, and agree with you about (6). --Tryptofish (talk) 21:01, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

I generally do not favor any alternatives that are not the names of some academic field. Otherwise we get templates and what goes in them is the wild west. If it is tied to an academic area, we have some intelligent basis.Greg Bard 22:34, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the sidebar template should have a well-defined scope. Do you have a suggested title? Or was the suggestion above for "Religious philosophy" your recommendation? Is there an academic field that encompasses both Atheism and Agnosticism (but excludes the study of deity-based religions)? --Noleander (talk) 22:33, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Greg: another thought: I think that a key article in the sidebar template is Criticism of religion. That article summarizes the arguments (made by skeptics and others) that some religions have lots of downsides. That topics is more journalistic or skeptical - as opposed to an academic field of philosophy (think Mark Twain vs. Baruch Spinoza). So whatever title the side bar ends up with: it should include that journalistic/skeptical aspect as well as the academic/philosophical. That's one reason I'm leaning towards the title Atheism and Irreligion ... the word "Atheism" encompases the academic/philosophical aspect, and the word "Irrelgion" evokes "irreverance" and is defined as "absence of, indifference towards, and/or hostility towards religion." ... so that includes the journalist/skeptic aspect. --Noleander (talk) 23:13, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

I support the merge. 5 or 6 should be the title. --Ninjasaves (talk.stalk) 22:50, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

I added choice #7 "Atheism and Antitheism" just to give another option. But it seems inferior to #6 because the word "Antithesim" (or "Anti-theism") is very rare compared to "Irreligion" (according to google-book or google-scholar hit count). --Noleander (talk) 13:57, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Proposal to merge with title "Atheism and Irreligion"

This is a formal proposal to merge the two sidebar templates, under the title "Atheism and Irreligion". Any objections? I added a notice to the Atheism article Talk page, to ensure more editors are notified of the proposal. --Noleander (talk) 14:05, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Oppose merge. I'm all for expanding the atheism template when possible, but the proposed title is just too clumsy and would seem to give too much synthetic weight,wp:undue, to the relationship between atheism and irreligion. Although frequently atheists are also irreligious, atheists can also have religious beliefs and theists can be irreligious. Wikipedia does not currently have a portal:irreligion or project that is equivalent to the portal:atheism, and the irreligion article itself is poorly referenced and is practically a stub. Thus, it would appear that this proposal would give irreligion too much weight in relation to atheism. --Modocc (talk) 23:22, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Modocc: Can you suggest a title for the sidebar (or other improvements to the sidebar, such as a different layout/groupings) that would address the concerns about Irreligion having too much weight? (see above list for some proposed titles). --Noleander (talk) 15:50, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Oppose For essentially the same reasoning. --Cybercobra (talk) 02:54, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Support merge. The topics are really so close as to be treated like the same topic. --Ninjasaves (talk.stalk) 15:23, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Support merge I understand what Cybercobra and Modocc are saying, and indeed this is not a clear-cut decision. I think the key question we should be asking is: "What is best for the readers of the encyclopedia"? Most readers are browsing the encyclopedia, and the sidebar should help them navigate and find related articles. I understand there are some concerns about Irreligion: the Irreligion article is not that great, and the word "Irreligion" is not especially common. Those are genuine concerns. On the other hand, if we limit the sidebar (used in Atheism article) to just "pure" atheism, viewed as a philosophy, I think we are doing readers a disservice. I guess I'm suggesting that the sidebar be broader: many readers looking into Atheism will also be interested in Agnosticism, and perhaps also Criticism of religion. It is true that Atheism has a project and a portal, but is the intention that those be strictly limited to atheism? What about Nontheism or antitheism? The borders are so fuzzy. I don't think sidebars should be subject to the same "Undue" and "NPOV" polices as articles: sidebars are purely navigational aids, and I think we should err on the side of inclusiveness. Finally, the footer template Template:atheism is a merged template (and it has the title "Irreligion", by the way) and it encompasses all these related topics, and is not limited to pure atheism. --Noleander (talk) 15:48, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

... also, I don't have a strong opinion about what the title of the sidebar should be: if we decide to omit the word "Irreligion" that is fine. I'm mostly interested in having a shared sidebar that helps readers navigate the atheism/agnosticism/irreligion articles. --Noleander (talk) 16:02, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

It looks like there isn't consensus at this point. Perhaps the best path forward is to leave the Atheism sidebar alone, and re-title the Irreligion sidebar to "Atheism and Irreligion" (which is what was proposed here ... the difference is that we are not deleting the original Atheism sidebar). Then we can let the "Atheism and Irreligion" sidebar decant for several months and (after its utility is validated or not) revisit the merger. --Noleander (talk) 13:53, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree with that approach. It's a tough question. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:22, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

One of the things that puzzles me is: if there is no agreed-upon definition of Atheism, how can the sidebar be limited to one particular interpretation? If you ask 10 atheists what atheism is, you'll get 10 different answers. The atheism article says that agnosticism is included in Atheism ("Under this demarcation of atheism, most agnostics qualify as negative atheists") yet the Atheism sidebar template did not even include any mention of Agnosticism (until it was recently added in the "related topics" section). Likewise: many people consider Criticism of religion to be a key component of atheism, yet that too is relegated to the "related topics" section. It appears as if the Atheism sidebar is skewed towards a strict academic/philosophic interpretation of the term. Oh well, I'll bring the merger up again after some time has gone by. --Noleander (talk) 17:44, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

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.