Talk:Religion

One of the worst articles I have seen

Pretty much every aspect of this article is bad. From the definition of religion to most of the individual sections. for example the section on religious beliief and judiasm claims that "a belief in God is not a requirement expressed by God anywhere in the Tanakh" which is totoally ridiculous. It the literally the most repeated thing in the torah, the main book of the tanakh. And its actually in the ten commandments (the crib notes version of judiasm) several times. And I couldn't believe there is no history section at all. which is what I came to the page looking for. As far as most of this page is concerned Judiasm is the first religion. Its really terrible. Obviously its locked so I'm not going to research all the edits and do it myself but it really needs a lot of work 68.188.25.170 (talk) 09:08, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

I am sympathetic to how you feel, but alas, the way things work around here involves a lot of compromise and negotiation. If, perhaps, you become interested in doing so, it would be very nice if you decide to stay around and create a registered account so that you can help make the page better. And in the mean time, I hope that you can find the information you are looking for at History of religion. --Tryptofish (talk) 13:31, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree with OP. Terrible Article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.127.120.45 (talk) 22:43, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Polly want a cracker? Because, it's not like actually suggesting improvements would be more helpful that just saying "I agree" or anything. Ian.thomson (talk) 23:10, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree terrible article. The negative perspective of religion is half or more the text if the list of religions is omitted. Positive perspectives are loosely and arbitrarily described in a few sentences. Thus, someone could easily come to the conclusion that religion must be definitely a bad thing. Also definition must be reedited and should contain more views as a complex subject that is, not only etymology. Also, the Christian concept has more space here than it should.--Κλειδοκράτωρ (talk) 16:45, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

There's no doubt that this is a dreadful article, and many appear to agree. Part of the problem is that we have so many different ideas of what is "religion". Therefore, it's possible that this article will never get anywhere until we come to grips with the many egregious definitions of the word. I would think that the first paragraph should at least have a workable definition of "religion", perhaps contrasted with the definition of "cult". Without a solid definition in principle, this article will never get anywhere. At the very least, it should be recognized that a religion is an organized method of teaching something, whether Christianity - or engineering. Then the rest of the article would flow effortlessly. But by starting out with wooly, half-baked, statements like "[Religions] tend to derive morality, ethics, religious laws or a preferred lifestyle from their ideas about the cosmos and human nature", well, the article is doomed to fail. Santamoly (talk) 07:24, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Moreover, according to this definition ideologies like communism are also a religion. They have their symbols (Hammer and Sickle), worldviews and dogmas, even 'holy' books ("Das Kapital") and their leaders are worshipped like saints. Although science and history have proven most of their dogmas as wrong, critics are being prosecuted and punished, so they even have their own form of inquisition! So, what is missing? That most religions come from revelations of higher beings who reveal themselves to select people showing them that there are other, higher worlds that are free of suffering and that can be reached by a certain conduct after death. This aspect is completely missing in the definition, isn't it?178.9.170.87 (talk) 10:36, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Criticism section

It is consistent with other philosophy articles that there be a link to the criticism article and/or a short summary of it. There is no reason (I can think of) why religion should be exempt. Examples: anarchism, atheism, existentialism, pragmaticism, secular humanism (controversy section), etc. byelf2007 (talk) 25 August 2011

Well, WP:OTHERTHINGSEXIST ain't a valid argument for your added section. Yes, criticism is always considered a part of controversial topics, and usually have a section of critics' opinions. However, that's not the case here. Criticism of Religion is a large parallel article, and a "see also" is where it belongs, IMHO. Btw, I don't see a criticism section for Atheism as you claim, and it falls into similar account. It's just mentioned their, not a dedicated "criticism" section. ~ AdvertAdam ^talk 18:29, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Also, I think you should take-a-look at Religion#Secularism_and_irreligion. ~ AdvertAdam ^talk 18:35, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough about the "other things exist" point, and I didn't see that "criticism of religion" is already linked. So why not have a criticism blurb separate from the rest of the article? I think it's good to have that near the end. If you don't like criticism blurbs in other articles, does that mean you want those removed? If not, what is your rationale for having them there but not here (I like format consistency in articles). Furthermore, having "criticism of religion" in the "modern issues in religion" section implies that criticism of religion has only occurred in modern times. I think it would be better if we had what I put in and eliminate the other "criticism of religion" link. Byelf2007 (talk) 27 August 2011

So, you simply admit that you haven't closely read the article :p. First, this is not the talkpage of those articles, and I'm honestly not involved in them to give my option.

Second, what you're suggesting is like adding a focus on criticism. "Issues of religion" is the same as "problems/criticism of religion," so that's the relevant place for it, according to this article's style (also Atheism's). Yes, "modern" is a good catch, which is simply inaccurate because it's reported that there was critics since the 5th century BCE. I just removed it. Btw, even the used tag is "main article" not a "see also".

Do you have further concerns :). ~ AdvertAdam ^talk 19:56, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

A problem with a short section on Criticism, serving mainly to have a link to the Criticism of religion page, is that it really doesn't say very much. Obviously, this page isn't the place for every criticism that has ever been raised, and I think that the material in the Secularism and Irreligion section probably covers what we need here, although I suppose one could add some further content there. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:23, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm good. byelf2007 (talk) 27 August 2011

The splitting out of the "Criticism Section" and making a separate "Criticism Article" is a direct violation of the neutral point of view policy. Specifically, refer to Breaking out trivial or controversial sections. Also see WP:CFORK, from which I quote "A point of view (POV) fork is a content fork deliberately created to avoid neutral point of view guidelines, often to avoid or highlight negative or positive viewpoints or facts. All POV forks are undesirable on Wikipedia, as they avoid consensus building and therefore violate one of our most important policies." Furthermore, the Religion article does not even mention the criticism anywhere. The ideal would be to completely incorporate the criticism directly into the text (i.e. merging the criticism article with the religion article). Since that has not been done, we must at least have a criticism section in the religion article. Right now, the criticisms have been deliberately removed from the article creating a POV fork!

Also note Wikipedia's policy on Tag-team editing: Tag teams work in unison to push a particular point of view. Tag-team editing – to thwart core policies (neutral point of view, verifiability, and no original research); or to evade procedural restrictions such as the three revert rule or to violate behavioural norms by edit warring; or to attempt to exert ownership over articles; or otherwise to prevent consensus prevailing – is prohibited.

In conclusion, the Religion article requires a criticism section to abide by Wikipedia's guidelines. The following banner must be placed on the Religion page as well. JacoLink (talk) 17:02, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

I am disappointed to see that nobody responded to this post and that no administrator had the courage to do the right thing and put the disputed neutrality banner on the main page.184.161.195.19 (talk) 04:35, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree. No courage to stand up to Religion174.0.218.219 (talk) 06:26, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Guys, try actually looking before complaining: We have a Criticism section in the religion article, and we even have a Criticism of religion article. The criticism article is longer than the religion article. Placing it in this article would violate WP:UNDUE. The article includes a lot of specific criticisms of specific religions (instead of general criticism of the subject broadly), which violates WP:SYNTH. Pushing a bias against religion does not deal with any sort of bias for religion. Ian.thomson (talk) 16:33, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Hey Ian, try actually reading WP:UNDUE before responding to a complaint. From that I quote "Keep in mind that, in determining proper weight, we consider a viewpoint's prevalence in reliable sources, not its prevalence among Wikipedia editors or the general public." The criticism of religion page has 223 sources listed as opposed to the 75 listed on the Religion page. The criticisms of specific religions should be directly incorporated in the Religious Movements section and then they would not violate WP:SYNTH. Let us not forget that you have ignored the fact that the creation of two separate articles (Religion and Criticism of Religion) is "A point of view (POV) fork"..."a content fork deliberately created to avoid neutral point of view guidelines". WP:CFORK. Furthermore, it is the Religion article that is currently violating WP:UNDUE and WP:SYNTH. For example, the 'Religion and Violence' section serves to attack atheism, instead of describing the countless historical religious wars and the current ones in the middle east etc... I could go on like this for every section in the whole Religion article.

An administrator must put the following banner on the Religion page as there is an obvious dispute over the neutrality of this article! JacoLink (talk) 21:02, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

On a positive note, I am pleased to see that there is now a Criticism section in the Religion article and would call that a good start. We still need the neutrality banner to be placed on the main page and we should be working on merging the Religion article with the Criticism of Religion article. This would address other violations such as the violations of WP:CFORK, WP:UNDUE, and WP:SYNTH as described above. JacoLink (talk) 21:18, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Why haven't any administrators responded to JacoLink's comments and suggestion to place a neutrality banner on the Religion page?195.245.148.112 (talk) 03:08, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Because he didn't know what he was talking about, and Wikipedia is not a pulpit for him to preach from. There was a criticism section long before he saw that there was one, and with his interpretation of WP:CFORK we might as well lump Communist mass killings into Marxism, then shove that into the Atheism article. The article is about religion in general, not specifically the criticism thereof, which is why we have two different articles. For such a highly diverse topic, we have to separate this into smaller portions. The Buddhism article currently has 238 sources, the Christianity article 267, the Hinduism article 213, and the Islam article 210. Those are just four of the biggest religions. To shove all 200+ sources from the Criticism article into this article would completely violate WP:UNDUE, and to shove the thousands (probably millions) of sources from the various religion articles to keep it from being undue would make the page unreadible. Ian.thomson (talk) 19:51, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Ian.thomson, you have an attitude problem - this is a talk page, not a place to make personal attacks on people who comment. Please understand that the argument in this thread is about separating out the criticisms of religion; maybe you should re-read the thread with an open mind. Nobody suggested that articles such as the Crusades or Religious violence be incorporated into the Religion article, which is what you are suggesting in your last irrelevant comment about Marxism. If all you are going to do is make personal attacks on people trying to be constructive, please do not comment at all.

In my opinion, JacoLink has a valid argument and it seems that Wikipedia's policies clearly state that criticisms should NOT be separated out of the main article. I believe that this is a good policy because it keeps articles neutral and ensures that those reading the article do not receive a biased opinion based on fundamentalist views. Neutrality is one of the most important principles of Wikipedia, and from reading the Religion article, my personal opinion is that it is biased - not neutral. For now, I also think it would be a good idea to put the neutrality banner on the Religion page.92.105.113.195 (talk) 10:58, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Please point out where I made a personal attack. I have not changed my posts since you have posted, so please, point out where I have made a personal attack. I have pointed out how the article fits the current neutrality policies, that it gives due weight according to sources, and that it discusses the main subject and then discusses secondary subjects elsewhere. JacoLink has proposed moving the Criticism of religion article into this one ("we should be working on merging the Religion article with the Criticism of Religion article"), which completely goes against WP:UNDUE; and is no different than merging the content of Communist mass killings into Marxism. Ian.thomson (talk) 15:49, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Ian.thomson that having here a section about criticism and a article itself for criticism is well balanced and we don't need to do any other changes. A ntv (talk) 18:43, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

"Because he didn't know what he was talking about, and Wikipedia is not a pulpit for him to preach from." To me, this is nothing more than a personal insult. Please do not take this thread on another tangent about what is or is not an insult etc... Just try to be more respectful of others in the future.

I think that there is a more fundamental argument here, which has nothing to do with merging Communist mass killings into Marxism. Please stick to the "Criticisms" argument and stop talking about merging random articles together. I don't understand why this topic is still in the thread. I could say that Ian.thomson is suggesting that we separate Trotskyism and Maoism out of the Marxism article but that is not what he is suggesting, that is irrelevant to the conversation, and it is definitely not productive. On the same note, it is obvious that JacoLink did not suggest to merge Communist mass killings into Marxism, only Ian.thomson talked about doing that. Try to stick to the point of the thread!

Sticking to the point of this thread, one could draw the analogy of merging Criticisms of Marxism with the Marxism article, which would make sense, and I would say that those articles should also be merged. The problem with separating the the two articles is that when someone wants to know about Religion or Marxism and does a Google search, they just see the Religion or Marxism article-the criticisms remain hidden in separate articles; my guess is that most people do not even know that the criticisms articles exist and would expect those texts to be incorporated in the main article. In addition, the criticism section is extremely simplified and is way down at the bottom, many people don't get that far in the articles. To me, creating these separated articles are nothing other than content forks: "A point of view (POV) fork"..."a content fork deliberately created to avoid neutral point of view guidelines" as JacoLink pointed out. Why would one want to take out all the criticisms and hide them in a separate article? It may be "easier" as the two biased articles do not have to directly confront each other, but it decreases the quality and accessibility (more so for the criticisms) of the articles. When reading an article-the article itself should be balanced. There should not be one easily accessible biased article with all the criticisms separated into another biased article. The two biased views should be put together in one neutral article that everyone accesses.92.105.113.195 (talk) 19:28, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Religion and health

Could anyone add Impacts of religion on health to religion and health part. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Teddykra (talk • contribs) 13:15, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Done. Thanks for starting the article. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:22, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Sections: one more needed and one too long

I added a couple of quotes from anthropologists John Monaghan and Peter Just. There did not seem to be a good section to work them into. Perhaps one should be added discussing ethnography or another term that would encompass general statements of the types I added.

On an unrelated note, I question the length of the section called "Religion as a Christian concept". It seems excessive relative to the rest of the article. It certainly is notable, but the article itself defines religion in a broad manner that is inclusive of more than Christianity. I recommend pruning this section to be more concise or splitting it into its own article. --Airborne84 (talk) 04:22, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

About the "Christian concept" part of what you say, it's been an issue of discussion before. Please see Talk:Religion/Archive 9#New edits and Talk:Religion/Archive 9#Eurocentrism of the History section. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:51, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for adding an academic source to the article, but does the quote really accomplish what the heading suggests? Is there any history of any "prophet" in any religious tradition who came to a previously entirely irreligious society and then make it religious? The section title seems to suggest that we are going to read something about the origin of Religion, not the origins of the various specific religious traditions. This is a fascinating question (on the origin and universality of religion) that the article might helpfully address.65.71.203.98 (talk) 21:13, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Fair points. As I mentioned above though, there did not seem to be a good section in which to add the quote—which seemed useful in this article. Perhaps it belongs in an as-yet-uncreated section. --Airborne84 (talk) 21:51, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

File:Lord hari.jpg Nominated for speedy Deletion

An image used in this article, File:Lord hari.jpg, has been nominated for speedy deletion for the following reason: All Wikipedia files with unknown copyright status What should I do? Don't panic; you should have time to contest the deletion (although please review deletion guidelines before doing so). The best way to contest this form of deletion is by posting on the image talk page. If the image is non-free then you may need to provide a fair use rationale If the image isn't freely licensed and there is no fair use rationale, then it cannot be uploaded or used. If the image has already been deleted you may want to try Deletion Review To take part in any discussion, or to review a more detailed deletion rationale please visit the relevant image page (File:Lord hari.jpg) This is Bot placed notification, another user has nominated/tagged the image --CommonsNotificationBot (talk) 06:16, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

A bug in the revision history

I think there's a small bug in the first revision. How can you compare the difference between the first version with a non-exist "previous" version? I tried to look the process of creation of this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Religion&oldid=332500026

Apparently there's a wrong hyperlink lead to a follow up revision. I mean, this is not the way like: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dance_science&oldid=131569219

Is this a bug of the BOT or just a mistake in this article? Gunbuster23 (talk) 00:15, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

I see what you mean. The "earliest" version of this page has an edit summary referring to even earlier versions. I suspect that what must have happened was that there was a content merge from an earlier page that was deleted, and an administrator would have to fix the revision history. I'm not an administrator, so I don't have access to what was deleted. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:49, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

I see. Thanks for reply. But not only the earliset version, I found that this situation happens in several versions. Is this normal? If it's the merge that cause the abnormal link, the further question would be: where can I see the creation for an article of this kind? Could the process be traced? How do I know that the edit history of an article is altered? Thanks for your kindly reply again.--Gunbuster23 (talk) 12:01, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

You would need an administrator to do that. I was hoping that one might see this discussion thread and step in, but I guess that hasn't happened. If you leave a request at WP:AN (include a link to Talk:Religion#A bug in the revision history so they see what we said here), someone will take care of it, I expect. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:55, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Bali is 92.29% Hindu!

I appreciate the map showing the distribution of religions around the world but what happened to Bali? It is 92.29% Hindu however it does not even seem to be on this map! HELP! I do not know how to fix this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.132.244.204 (talk) 11:52, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Make sure your statement is verifiable and not original research. Hill Crest's WikiLaser (Boom). (talk) 00:48, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Mistakes in the Buddhism Sectioin of your article

There are factual errors in your article on Buddhism. Mahayana Buddhism began in India, not China. Vajrayan also began in India, not Tibet. You really should not allow such an error-filled article to be published.

````

Pauline Westwood — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.217.150.69 (talk) 06:19, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Dharma

I cannot comment on the quality of the article, and I have not read it fully. It does seem that a lot of points have been covered. Due to the nature of the article, it is possible that there can be a few inadvertent inadequacies.

I noticed this line: 'For example, the Sanskrit word dharma, sometimes translated as "religion", also means law.'

Even though I am not good in Sanskrit, due to the fact that this word 'Dharma' is much used in most Indian languages, I think I should say that this word does not really mean religion or law or even justice.

It more or less means what is right or righteous in terms of the social code connected to the precedence of hierarchical levels of what is right as encoded in the feudal languages of India. Even though, in ancient times, it may have been connected to caste hierarchy and associated precedences, in current times, it may be more in association with social position. In short, what is a right or rightful for the superior, would not be the same if claimed by the inferior. Dharma is different for different levels of people --Ved from Victoria Institutions (talk) 07:17, 18 March 2012 (UTC)