Talk:Christian Science/Archive 5

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Some editing tips

Levi, for future reference, some of this might help:

• Try to aim your writing at a very intelligent 16-year-old, who has an excellent general education and a large vocabulary. She learns fast, but she has never heard of Christian Science.
• You are allowed to use primary sources, but try not to base too much on them. See WP:PSTS for our policy on that: "Unless restricted by another policy, primary sources that have been reliably published may be used in Wikipedia; but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation."
• Try to avoid writing from an "in universe" perspective (please don't take offence that this is a term used about fictional writing; it's just a useful concept).
• Base most of the article on high-quality secondary sources, preferably academic sources.

If you want, you could try to expand the theology section, or write a section about the history and development of the ideas. We currently don't have a history section, so that would be a good addition. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:16, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

SlimVirgin The section you showed is the one that was taken out. The problem with the way it reads now is that it needs to explain that Jesus embodied the Messiah, or Christ. He was the human manifestation of Christ, which is the Messiah. Jesus' vital signs all stopped for three days. CS believes that to human sense, he died. But his conscious awareness could not die, because it wasn't in a brain, but in God. So CS does believe that Jesus was crucified on the cross, that he gave up the ghost (vital signs stopped) but that he maintained conscious awareness and this conscious awareness (his immortal life sustained by God, not by matter) proved sufficient to resuscitate his human body. That is the resurrection. The ascension is considered his final demonstration that the immortal ideal of man, overthrows every last claim of sin, disease, and death. So can you see how misleading it is to say that CS does not believe that Jesus was the Messiah who died for our sins. It is a shallow statement. It should say something like - CS believe that Christ is the Messiah, and that Jesus fully represented Christ in human form, therefore they regard Jesus as the Savior of the world because he represented Christ to humanity. LeviTee (talk) 16:05, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

I think the current text saying CS doesn't view Jesus as the Messiah isn't a perfect paraphrase of the source (my fault, I think) – the source seems to be saying the Jesus was not viewed as the Messiah "as defined by conventional Christianity". So I think we should make that clearer. I am intrigued by the idea the CS thinks Jesus physically died on the cross (as you put it, "vital signs stopped"). Is there a source for that? my impression was the sources were saying otherwise. What is notable about CS's view of Jesus is how it differs from the mainstream, so I think that should be clear. Alexbrn (talk) 16:42, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree it does need to be made clear, and I will look for the source on this. One has to take into consideration that CS teaches that the spiritual conscious awareness IS the REALITY of being, of life, and that death is not the reality, but is part of the illusion that life is in matter in the first place, to die out of it in the second place. So based on that premise, that life is real, and death is the illusion, one can see the dilemma of saying that anyone dies. As a concession to human belief, we say, so and so died. But in reality, consciousness can't die, and doesn't die according to CS. If you look back through the section on CS and the Messiah, you will see a Washington Post article that I attached at the end. You can also read what I wrote right before that and earlier in that section. The reason why Jesus rising from the dead was so important is that it proved life to be the reality, and death to be the unreality, that is the idea in CS. But you will see that there are plenty of implications saying that there was a resuscitation, a resurrection. You can't resurrect someone who is already physically alive. Read the Washington Post piece. LeviTee (talk) 17:31, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

FAQs

In the process of declining LeviTee's request for arbitration on the "dispute" for this article, one arbitrator suggested that any problems might be clearly, civilly discussed on the talk page.

Perhaps one approach to this might be to craft a set of FAQs resolving the main points of contention. If there was consensus, these could even be enshrined in the talk page header, as happens for some other controversial articles (See e.g. Talk:Homeopathy).

Here's a stab a enumerating what I think the questions are, with my proposed answers.

Q1. Does an editor need expertise in Christian Science to edit this article? (No)

Editors are required to capable of understanding and using secondary sources fairly and reasonable in their own terms; this does not require a special understanding of Christian Science beyond that found in those secondary sources.

Q2. Can Mary Baker Eddy's texts be used? (Yes)

WP:PRIMARY allows for primary texts to be used carefully. When the text is evaluated or interpreted however, a supporting secondary source must also be used.

Q3. Is it NPOV that secondary sources critical of Christian Science are prominent in this article? (Yes)

Including negative material is part of achieving a neutral article. A neutral point of view does not necessarily equate to a sympathetic point of view. Neutrality is achieved by including all points of view in rough proportion to their prominence in the real world.

Q4. Should the article describe Christian Science with Christian Science terminology? (No)

Mary Baker Eddy's writings often use words in a particular way alien to modern understanding. The article must be couched in terms, the usage of which will be recognizable to an educated general reader of today. Any Christian Science jargon terms used must be explained.

Q5. Do Wikipedia policies and guidelines apply in a particular way to this article? (No)

Wikipedia's policies and guidelines apply to this article just like any other, starting from the basis of the Wikipedia:Core content policies.

Suggestions, criticisms, etc. gratefully received ... Alexbrn (talk) 10:43, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

OK, here goes:

Q1: Insert "be" in phrase "to capable"; change "reasonable" to "reasonably"; change the phrase after the semi-colon to: "this may require familiarity with Christian Science beyond material found in the secondary sources, since otherwise it may be impossible to paraphrase them accurately."

Q4: Change value-laden terms "alien" and "jargon" to more neutral terms. Add at end: "without deviating substantially from the original meaning."

Otherwise it looks OK.Be-nice:-) (talk) 14:28, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

This is good, and thanks to the arbitrators for helping in this way. I think the question will be, how strong will the pushback be on including sources that describe Christian Science as it is understood by those who are familiar with it's primary texts (including authors of secondary sources), and will people like me be allowed to offer content which explains Christian Science on that basis. I hope so. An accurate explanation of Christian Science is neither favorable nor unfavorable, per se. It is what it is, and then it should be up to the reader make up their own mind about it. I have repeatedly said that I think the negative stuff has a place in the article. But I also know that, for instance, the McClures magazine source (Milmine, Dakin, etc.) would be like using the National Enquirer as a source on an Oprah Winfrey article. At what point do we scrutinize these sources and determine whether they are good or not. That is my concern. So I guess, no matter how much netative stuff is in the article, so long as it is possible to come in and give an accurate explanation and history of Christian Science, how it came about, etc. Then people can make up their minds. But as it is now, the scale is tipped way on the side of negative. And more is being added daily. LeviTee (talk) 16:14, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

• Suggestion about NPOV sentence, because it's the POV in the appropriate sources that we have to reflect: "Neutrality is achieved by including all points of view in rough proportion to their prominence in the real world" to "Neutrality is achieved by including all points of view in rough proportion to their prominence in the appropriate and reliable sources." SlimVirgin ^(talk) 18:14, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Earlier versions

Hi Be-nice, I see you edited this article some years ago. I was wondering whether there's an earlier version that you would consider superior to the current one, or that had sections that were superior. For example, I found this philosophy section, which looks decently written, though it's unsourced. If there's anything else like that that you're aware of – better versions of particular sections, or good material that's not in the current version – it would be very helpful if you could point it out.

Also, if you're aware of errors in the current version, it would be good to know that too. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 03:13, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Hi SlimVirgin, the section you cited on CS philosophy seems reasonably accurate, but is not sourced and looks like OR from a Wikipedia POV. Here is a version of the article before it was "improved" back in September: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Christian_Science&diff=510586979&oldid=508396737. There seems to be quite a lot of material (based on the writings of Mary Baker Eddy) that could be used again, since primary-source material is permitted according to the Wikipedia policies, if used with care. (Alternatively, just go back to 3 September in the History, or indeed any version prior to that going back some years.)

There is some material in the current article that is just plain wrong, either due to the secondary sources having got it wrong themselves, and/or as a result of misinterpretation of secondary sources by editors. I don't see how that can possibly contribute to a quality article. There is also a need for greater balance in the article between pro, neutral and anti-CS sources. I'll have a go at pointing out specific issues when I get a chance, but others are doing that at the moment as well.89.100.155.6 (talk) 09:22, 31 December 2012 (UTC) Oops...sorry, forgot to log in under my Be-nice:-) moniker.Be-nice:-) (talk) 09:25, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll take a look at the version you linked to. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 17:14, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Not sure if this is an earlier version or not, but on the note of fixes, the Christian Science Monitor is still being printed. The article, at the moment, sounds as if it was altogether stopped and never resumed. Uncoveringtruthjd (talk) 11:45, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

I got that impression too from the article. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 17:14, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Unclear sections

I tried to copy edit these and realized I didn't understand them, so I'm moving them to talk until someone can fix them. The broadcasting section doesn't make clear what the issues are, or what the Knapp book had to do with the broadcasting problems.

Health of children

A case of a child's death came up during Mary Baker Eddy's lifetime, the Christian Science Practitioner on the case was James Neal. "On a visit to his family [...] he was asked to treat a seriously ill child who was not responding to medical treatment." After one day's treatment under Neal, without any markable improvement, the case was returned to the doctors. While under doctors' care, the child died. However, the media reported an expected charge of manslaughter against the practitioner. Neal testified and answered that he had never diagnosed disease, and the coroner sought to prove him incapable of healing by asking how he had known he had cured cancer in a previous case. Evidence was supplied of "seven regular practicing physicians," who had all pronounced the patient had cancer, however, after treatment with Neal, the patient was found well. A juror on the case, "known for hostility to Christian Science," would then ask Neal for treatment, and several weeks later would be recorded as complaining to a friend that he had the issue no more.

Broadcasting

In October 1991, after a series of conflicts over the boundaries between Christian Science teachings and his journalistic independence, television anchorman John Hart resigned.

The hundreds of millions lost on broadcasting brought the church to the brink of bankruptcy. However, with the 1991 publication of The Destiny of The Mother Church by the late Bliss Knapp, the church secured a $90 million bequest from the Knapp trust. The book, which had been kept unpublished following a decision by the ruling board in 1948, claimed that Eddy was virtually a second Christ rather than the mere mortal leader she claimed to be. The trust dictated that the book be published as "Authorized Literature," with neither modification nor comment. Historically, the church had censured Knapp for deviating at several points from Eddy's teaching, and had refused to publish the work. The church's archivist, fired in anticipation of the book's publication, wrote to branch churches to inform them of the book's history. Many Christian Scientists thought the book violated the church's by-laws, and the editors of the church's religious periodicals and several other church employees resigned in protest. Alternate beneficiaries subsequently sued to contest the church's claim it had complied fully with the will's terms, and the church ultimately received only half of the original sum.

The fallout of the broadcasting debacle also sparked a minor revolt among some prominent church members. In late 1993, a group of Christian Scientists filed suit against the Board of Directors, alleging a willful disregard for the Manual of the Mother Church in its financial dealings. The suit was thrown out by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts in 1997, but a lingering discontent with the church's financial matters persists to this day.

SlimVirgin ^(talk) 17:19, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

This wording might convey the meaning better.

A child's death occurred while Mary Baker Eddy was living. A Christian Science Practitioner, James Neal, was visiting family in Kearney, Nebraska when he was asked to treat a seriously ill child who was "not responding to medical treatment." The child still gave no mark of improvement under Neal's treatment, and was returned to the care of doctors. While under the doctor's care, the child died. The coroner sought to bring manslaughter charges against Neal. Neal wrote to the local paper "expressing regret at the death of the child, explaining that she had been treated for twelve weeks by physicians, only one day by himself, and had died after medical treatment had been resumed." Neal testified that he had never diagnosed disease. When asked if he had ever healed a case of cancer, Neal answered yes. He was then questioned on how he knew he had cured cancer, given that he had never diagnosed it. "Seven regular practicing physicians" had all diagnosed the patient with cancer. James Neal was never charged. Uncoveringtruthjd (talk) 17:56, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

On that same thought of unclear sections, the adherent "member" estimate could possibly use some clarification. From the article this seems to be estimated members of The First Church of Christ, Scientist of Boston MA, or "The Mother Church." However, not all of the religion's adherents are "members" of the main church per se. There are branch church (church building establishments other than the Boston MA one) members, as well as those who are not a member of either but attend. It may be more accurate to list that estimate as Mother Church members rather than just members. Food for thought! Uncoveringtruthjd (talk) 18:06, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, the child health rewrite is much clearer, and I'll take another look at the member source. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 18:18, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Author/editor

Just for future reference, I'm finding a few examples of material attributed to the editors of a volume, rather than to the author of the article/entry. When there are multiple authors in a book or encyclopaedia, it should be written something like (depending on chosen format): Smith, John. "Name of article," in Paul Jones (ed.). Name of Book, 2012, p. 100. Otherwise we're attributing to Jones something that Smith wrote. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:19, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Original synthesis

There's quite a bit in the article that seems to be original synthesis, in the sense that a fact from A is spliced together with a fact from B, then used to construct an argument. For example: "For them [feminists] Christian Science is a protest movement founded by a woman who conformed to the male-constructed "hysterical" profile of the time, and who had a need for power, status and prestige.

Do either of these sources say that feminists saw Eddy as conforming to the male-constructed hysterical profile and having a need for power, status and prestige? The sources are:

• Fox, Margery. "Protest in Piety: Christian Science Revisited," International Journal of Women's Studies, 1(401), July/August 1978.
• Klein, Janice. "Ann Lee and Mary Baker Eddy: The Parenting of New Religions," Journal of Psychohistory, 6 (3), 1979.

SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:05, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

The synthesis of those sources is McDonald's:

Margery Fox, for example, sees Christian Science as "a nineteenth

century women's protest movement," its founder as "a classic female hysteric who resolved her personal conflicts by developing Christian Science and assuming an extraordinary power role," [...] Janice Klein restates it: Christian Science was for Eddy "a means of rebellion, and a form of coping," a way to gain "power, status,

and prestige."

Alexbrn (talk) 20:23, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, but is it clear that this is a feminist argument? Also, it's not clear that anyone said Eddy needed power and status. The article has a lot of material like this, where it's not clear who said what. For example, "job opportunity" is from Parker, but without in-text attribution, and although she is cited, it seems this came from McDonald, not directly from Parker, so we might be missing context.

Quite a bit of the article seems to have been constructed from factoids and partial quotes. Multiple refs in one sentence are always a bit of a red flag for me. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:36, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, still confused. Which sources were actually checked here, and which ones are the feminists? Also, should we be using sources from the 1970s (where we're not using them to describe past attitudes)?

Some feminists have interpreted Christian Science as a contemporary response to the male-dominated society of 19th-century America. For them Christian Science is a protest movement founded by a woman who conformed to the male-constructed "hysterical" profile of the time, and who had a need for power, status and prestige. By founding Christian Science, Eddy thus created a "job opportunity" for herself, and by taking the job she satisfied her urge to dominate. She came under sexist attack from men who deployed what Jean McDonald called "biological rhetoric": the claim, for example, that she suffered from "one of that familiar group of mental diseases coming on just after middle life" or that, as a woman, she was hampered by the intellectual inferiority of her sex.

Well, the journal is called "Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion", the article is entitled "Mary Baker Eddy and the Nineteenth-Century 'Public' Woman: A Feminist Reappraisal", the paragraphs used are introduced as "Recent feminist scholarship on Christian Science" and McDonald does write that "Eddy and other women of the period gravitated toward Christian Science, not for its theological worth but for its personal utility because it satisfied their needs for status and power in". Because McDonald's article is in part a survey of feminist thinking I think it makes a good source for summarizing feminist views without the need for editorial synthesis. In this case isn't the fragmentary nature of the views a sign that this is a properly plural set of viewpoints, as synthesized by a scholar? Maybe the problem is that I listed the sources used by McDonald as sources here, and instead we should just list McDonald as a single source and let the reader discover the sources "behind" her survey by consulting the McDonald article?

"Job opportunity" is Parker's phrase as used by McDonald. I'm not sure in that case which "the" source is. Is it transitive to Parker or adopted by McDonald? Hmmmm. Alexbrn (talk) 20:52, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:45, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

The section begins "some feminists," then cites several writers who aren't obviously feminists, and one who seems definitely not to be. The best approach with a paragraph like this is to start "Jean McDonald argues ..." (assuming she is an authoritative source) then simply give the paragraph over to her, plus dissenting views if there are any. But I think it's problematic to cite Parker, Fox and Klein without having read them, and to include their views as feminist without knowing that that was the position they were arguing from. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:08, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Sounds good to me - and I agree the move to a more formal cited work & footnotes model means we shouldn't be listing McDonald's sources as our "cited works". However McDonald does describe her sources as "feminist scholarship" so I'm not sure we should be over-hasty in dismissing them as not-feminist. Alexbrn (talk) 06:47, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

McDonald is well-cited [2] and so a sound source, I think. Alexbrn (talk) 07:41, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Okay, thanks, that looks good. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:22, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Also, regarding the age of the source: I wonder whether it's appropriate to use sources from 30 and 40 years ago to discuss feminist views. If there really isn't anything more recent I suppose it's okay, but then we should make clear in the text that these views are from the 1970s/1980s. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:13, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Well, that sort of feminist academic discourse was at its height back then; we could of course be alert to any change in the feminist consensus -- but my searching seemed to suggest that what we've got here is a good representation. Alexbrn (talk) 06:47, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, fair point. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:22, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

There is the Voorhees article - which we're using already - as a source of possible development in feminist thinking. However, maybe these sorts of refinements of feminist (post-feminist?) thinking are a bit too esoteric for use here. Though it is quite interesting ("She framed the achievement of women's societal and religious rights, like all morally just reform causes, as a subset and extension of her brand of salvation through the atonement patterned and enabled by Jesus, and in turn framed that salvation as a component of her millennialism. Within this schema, her gendered language for God supports worshipers in grasping and living the spiritual reality that saves them, and ultimately the world. Within this larger eschatological framework, Eddy's position on the Woman Question in every sense finds its proper scope and seamless significance.") At the risk of summarizing, Voorhees seems to be saying the Eddy was a feminist, okay, but only insofar as it served her wider thinking & ambitions (whereas the earlier feminists seem to be reading CS as a feminist manifestation). Alexbrn (talk) 08:13, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

It looks interesting. I'll try to read it properly later. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:24, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Health issue in lead

Hi Be nice, I see you've twice removed part of the health paragraph from the lead. [3] [4] Is there something inaccurate about it? The reason it's in the lead is that healing is what Christian Scientists are best known for, as well as some of the contention it has caused. It currently reads:

Christian Science has been compared to a form of philosophical idealism, teaching that spiritual reality, or Mind, is the only reality and that the material world is an illusion, though there is no evidence that Eddy herself was influenced by philosophical texts on idealism. Their position includes the view that sickness is an illusion that can be healed through prayer or introspection. A number of deaths occurred in earlier decades among adherents and their children because of an avoidance of conventional medical treatment and vaccination. A church spokesman said in 2010 that the church of today would not allow this to happen; in recent years it has sought to present Christian Science healing as a supplement to conventional medicine, rather than as a replacement for it.

SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:34, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Hi Slim, the main issue with this is that the fact that a "church spokesman" said something or other is not necessarily representative of Christian Scientists or relevant to them, since many do not belong to the Christian Science church. (And those who do, take their theological views from the Bible and the writings of Mary Baker Eddy, not from an orgaization.) Some non-members may not believe in church organization, others may not have got around to joining, others may have left for one reason or another. Consequently, the sentence at the end should not be in the lead, since the article as a whole pertains to Christian Science, not to the organization. However, the sentence at the end doesn't make any sense on its own, which is why I shifted the section to the part pertaining to the Christian Science church organization. I'm trying to think of an analogy: suppose the Wikipedia article on Christianity had something in the first paragraph pertaining to the policies on reproductive rights of the Roman Catholic Church. Not only would this be bizarrely out of place, but many Christians who are not members of the Roman Catholic Church would rightly object, albeit the RC Church claims to be the one true Christian church. On the other hand, it might well be appropriate to have such an item in the area devoted to the RC Church. (NB the section on the CS church organization was only recently added to the article--it was originally a separate article and should have remained as such imo.)Be-nice:-) (talk) 08:38, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Also, this sentence is problematic for a number of reasons: "A church spokesman said in 2010 that the church of today would not allow this to happen; in recent years it has sought to present Christian Science healing as a supplement to conventional medicine, rather than as a replacement for it.[4]" This gives the impression that Christian Science healing may be used in combination with drugs, which does not happen as far as I know, and would go directly against the teachings of Mary Baker Eddy if it did. Combining CS healing with the simultaneous use of drugs would be like trying to move a car stuck in mud, by pulling it backwards and forwards at the same time. (Either method might be tried on its own, but not both together.) Also, in part the material is from a journalistic source (though from a highly-regarded newspaper). Perhaps it would be better just to remove that sentenceBe-nice:-) (talk) 08:54, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps a better source, and a better way of putting this is in this recent article:

The Christian Science Church emphasizes that its members are free to make independent decisions regarding medical care without retaliation from its headquarters, the Mother Church.

IMHO medical controversy should certainly be in the lede. In the case of Roman Catholicism (a much larger topic overall), I'd say the lede there could mention birth control since this is one of RC's most controversial aspects, and key controversies should be summarized in the lede per WP:LEAD. Christian Science is notorious for its approach to medicine. Alexbrn (talk) 11:13, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, the source you give is certainly a better source, and a better way of putting it as you say. However, in regard to the comparison with Roman Catholicism, you're not getting my point. A person can be a Christian without being a member of the Roman Catholic church (or the Anglican church or whatever): consequently it would be absurd to have a remark on the policies of Roman Catholicism (or Anglicanism or whatever) in the lead to an article on Christianity, though it might well be appropriate in the lead to an article on the particular denominational organization. In the same way, a person can be a Christian Scientist without being a member of the Christian Science church. Being a Christian Scientist is a matter of adhering to the teachings of Mary Baker Eddy and the Bible, period. It is a matter of personal confession and self-description. It has nothing to do with whether one's name is on some computer database in Boston or anywhere else (though many Christian Scientists do choose to join either the main Christian Science church and/or one of its branches, by no means all of them do). It is true (AFAIK) that a person cannot be a Roman Catholic without being a member of the Roman Catholic church, but that doesn't necessarily apply in the case of other Christian denominations, and it does not apply to being a Christian Scientist. Consequently, it could well be appropriate to have something on (eg) Roman Catholic attitudes to birth control in the lead to the article on Roman Catholicism, but not in the lead to an article on Christianity. For the same reason, an organizational policy should not be in the lead of an article on Christian Science (though it might be appropriate to have it in a section on the Christian Science organization, which is analytically separate from Christian Science itself). I reiterate my ongoing point that if people are going to edit an article on a particular topic, they should first have a basic knowledge of the topic. It may not be in the Wikipedia policies, but it seems to me to be just basic common sense. Otherwise--with the best will in the world--we are wasting a lot of time that could otherwise be more productively spent, and going around in circles.89.100.155.6 (talk) 12:15, 2 January 2013 (UTC) Oops, sorry, forgot to log in again...Be-nice:-) (talk) 12:17, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

What percentage of Christian Scientists would you say had no relationship with the CS church? Are there any figures? Alexbrn (talk) 13:37, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Relatedly, I've come across a mentions of three (what are termed by Swanson) 'apostate' groups: Emergence International (already covered), the Endtime Center [5] and Christian Way [6] are these latter two pertinent at all? Alexbrn (talk) 14:46, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

I really don't know about numbers. In my own social circle I can think of a number of people who have various degrees of interest/commitment to Christian Science who aren't members, so I imagine that is quite widespread. Why don't they join? Your guess is as good as mine. (It's sometimes unwillingness to give up alcohol, or family pressures, or competing attractions of other churches which have better-organized social activities and business networks...Often fairly mundane things like that.) Also, practicing Christian Science is kind of a sliding scale, from total commitment on one end of the scale, to occasionally reading a CS pamphlet when you come up against a problem that can't be fixed through the "normal" channels, on the other. Furthermore, the CS church has always resisted counting members (even when it was doing well in numerical terms) on the basis that healing is the point, not numbers of members. In regard to the groups you mention, I don't know anything about them, though the names vaguely ring a bell and I may have come across them on the Internet. (There are various formal and informal groups of Christian Scientists, some dissident in terms of the CS church, others not.) Hope this helps.Be-nice:-) (talk) 16:06, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

I think comparing Christians to members of the RC church is not a good analogy; a better one would be comparing Mormons to members of the Mormon church, and so far as I know most practising Mormons would be members of the mainstream church. So it's appropriate to say something in the lead about the church's position toward medicine, given that we raise the issue of healing and the child cases (which we must raise). It seems to me to be important that the church has said it wouldn't allow those things to happen now. That's stronger than saying members are free to make independent decisions without retaliation. Also, does this source cite its source for that statement? A research paper about blood transfusion isn't an appropriate source for the church's position, compared to the statement from the spokesperson that we currently use. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:48, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Does anyone know of a source for: "There is no formal requirement for a Christian Scientist to be a member of the church"? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:51, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Mental powers

Alex, a minor point but I'm not sure the header is quite right. All the healing is based on mental powers -- indeed everything is, not just the healing. The issue in this paragraph is action at a distance, or "addressing the thought." Actually, I was thinking of removing this section and moving the material elsewhere as it looks a little incongruous. But in the meantime, "mental powers" as a header implies that all the rest is something other than mental powers. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:59, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

But it's not just "addressing the thought" but also "malicious animal magnetism"; so if this stays as a section the title should cover both of those. I actually think "telepathy" is a good word here as it corresponds, in its common meaning, to the phenomenon being claimed - but that seems to be a hot button word ... ("Telepathy and witchcraft" would otherwise be a good section title) Alexbrn (talk) 02:13, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Okay. I think I'll to try to work it into another section, but I want to do more reading first. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 03:31, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Mortality rate

This is somewhat weak, so it would be good if we could find some better studies. The one we use compared Christan Scientists (meateaters?) to Seventh Day Adventists (mostly vegetarians), and in all studies that I know of vegetarians are deemed to be healthier and to live longer than meateaters, so the result is more likely to be connected to that. Ideally we should use a review article rather than reporting on one study. The passage currently reads:

A study in the 1980s compared the morbidity of graduates between 1945 and 1983 of the Christian Science school Principia College in Elsah, Illinois, to graduates of a Seventh-day Adventist college. The Christian Science school's cohort had a higher overall mortality rate, but the result may have been biased by the dietary habits of Seventh-day Adventists; both groups abstain from alcohol and smoking, but Seventh-day Adventists are also advised to eat a largely lacto-ovo-vegetarian diet, which may make them less susceptible to certain chronic diseases.

SlimVirgin ^(talk) 03:31, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Not a review, but maybe useful: [7] Scrub that, it's the same.

I can't find anything, and according to Quackwatch "no systematic, medically supervised study of the outcome of Christian Science healing has ever been performed"; I propose dropping this content. Alexbrn (talk) 04:19, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

It's more complicated than that. Some Christian Scientists are vegetarians (I for one). Not all graduates of Principia continue to practice Christian Science, just as not all graduates of a Catholic university end up as practicing Catholics. Morbidity (sickness) is different from mortality (death). And I don't know how one would check the proportions of graduates who retained the practices of alcohol and tobacco abstention throughout their lives (or lacto-vegetarianism for that matter).Be-nice:-) (talk) 09:13, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

I've removed the paragraph for now. We can always restore if we find better sources. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:38, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Church of Christ, Scientist

There was some good material in the above, which was redirected to this one, so I copied over some text from this version, which explains the relationship between the mother and branch churches. It needs sources, but nothing is jumping out as wrong, so I've left it unsourced for now, but I'll be looking for sources. Hopefully others will look too. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:00, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Question about lead sentence

"They define Christ as the eternal, immortal nature of man ..." What distinction are we drawing here between eternal and immortal? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:38, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Eternal means timeless, outside of time. Immortal means deathless, not subject to death.Be-nice:-) (talk) 11:35, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

I couldn't see a distinction in that sentence. I've changed it to be closer to the source: "They define Christ as the divine ideal of man and see Jesus not as a deity, but as Christ's highest human manifestation." SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:41, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

The Lord's Prayer

The implication that Eddy rewrote the Lord's prayer is misleading. She gave what she understood to be the spiritual meaning of the Lord's prayer, but her interpretation of it never appears in her writings without the original Lord's Prayer in it's King James Version. It may be helpful to understand that Eddy was the first Pastor of the Christian Science church, and pastors do more than just read from the Bible. They expound on it to their congregations, they break it down for them. The Bible and Science and health constitute the Pastor of the CS church. It is in this respect that Eddy's works offer commentary, explanation, corroboration, interpretation. Every church does this in the way that expounds their respective theologies. But again, her interpretation never appears by itself in her writings. Here is how it does appear, and I included a line by Eddy before it:

"Here let me give what I understand to be the spiritual sense of the Lord’s Prayer:

Our Father which art in heaven,

Our Father-Mother God, all-harmonious,

Hallowed be Thy name.

Adorable One.

Thy kingdom come.

Thy kingdom is come; Thou art ever-present.

Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

Enable us to know, — as in heaven, so on earth, — God is omnipotent, supreme.

Give us this day our daily bread;

Give us grace for to-day; feed the famished affections;

And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

And Love is reflected in love;

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil;

And God leadeth us not into temptation, but delivereth us from sin, disease, and death.

For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever.

For God is infinite, all-power, all Life, Truth, Love, over all, and All. " Science and Health page 16-17

The Milmine source is about equivalent to what the National Enquirer would be today. LeviTee (talk) 16:37, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Jenkins (2000) refers to Milmine's quoted text as "the CS version of the Lord's Prayer". Is it the word "re-writes" which is problematic? Alexbrn (talk) 16:49, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

It is not a re-write. That is for sure. It should not appear on it's own in the article, since it never does, ever, anywhere in her writings, and she didn't intend for it to sit there on it's own. It is an expounding of the original, so to include it without it's original is improper, and Eddy never did that. LeviTee (talk) 16:55, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Also check out this [8] - it seems the sources agree this is a "new version" of the Lord's Prayer. I think we'd need a source to add content on how Eddy's text is related to the original ... is there anything? Alexbrn (talk) 16:59, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

It is also not a "version" it is an interpretation. The Milmine source reads as a diatribe on Eddy, and Gill refutes just about everything that Milmine claims, and she does it like an investigative reporter would. I would recommend her book. So anyone quoting from Milmine, I would not trust. I will wait for other people to weigh in here. I showed you a primary source. I don't think it is in the minds of good biographers to anticipate every distortion of Eddy's work that would come about, so it may be difficult to find something defending her commentary on the Lord's Prayer. Who would have thought that someone would interpret that as re-writing it. I think this is a matter of common sense that those sources are unreliable based on the fact that Eddy never published this without it's original. LeviTee (talk) 17:06, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Okay, I've found a source and merged it in - see what you think ... Alexbrn (talk) 17:33, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

It's highly offensive. Why would anyone only want to see Christian Science through what counter cult fundamentalists think? The article is still being held hostage by ignorance, prejudice, disrespect. I find it extremely offensive, and I think I would even if I weren't a CS. It's just trash talk. LeviTee (talk) 21:27, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't think we should rely on a 1908 article in McClure's magazine, unless it's to make an historical point about the religion's reception at the time. We should be relying for the most part on modern academic sources. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:38, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

It makes me sick to look at what is happening here. Alexbrn, whatever your motivation, it's very unfortunate what you are doing. I have dealt with this kind of BS for 20 years now. Everything that you are putting into this article is absolute BS. Period. I just think this is hopeless at this point unless more people come in who have a goal of getting at the facts and using reliable sources. At some point intelligent people are going to find it as offensive as I do that this article is such a piece of absolute garbage. It is shameful to use this forum in this way. A royal embarrassment to the ignorant people putting this trash in here, and to Wikipedia. I may not be back. I have better things to do with my time. LeviTee (talk) 21:46, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Levi, stay cool :-) and please hang in there. Your work is appreciated and, whether you realize it or not, has made a difference. Keep it up.Be-nice:-) (talk) 22:23, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Levi — some advice. The process here is consensus based editing, and it's simply not effective for you to question my motivation or throw up your hands in horror saying, in effect, that everything's wrong. Nobody can really engage with that in a way which will affect the article (which is, presumably, what you want to do). You need to make specific points about specific proposed or actual text, and argue your case in accord with Wikipedia policy. So, for example, you've questioned the Milmine source; fair enough - it's now gone. And you could, for example, propose that the article gives WP:UNDUE weight to the cult aspect of Christian Science ... which I for one would disagree with, but at least by framing it in this way people can weigh in and debate the point. I would further advise you to try and work on the article and not in the article - i.e. with a degree of cool detachment. Whatever you may think about my editing, I can assure you that is my mode.

Also — I don't think the article is in that bad a shape. Remember one of the arbitrators wrote it "deals rather elegantly with a controversial topic" - so there's praise from fresh eyes. And with SlimVirgin's ongoing refresh of it, it's becoming even more elegant, I think ... Alexbrn (talk) 04:03, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Actually, if you take a look at the time at which those individuals reviewed the article, you will see that the version they would have reviewed included many of SlimVirgin's main adjustments. Any mention of elegance has been the recent handiwork, which has effectively been in contradiction of the disruptive editing previously imposed on this article. Uncoveringtruthjd (talk) 04:30, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the refresh had recently begun: the "elegant" comment was made at 21:50 on 29 December 2012‎. At that time the article was in this state. Personally, I think it's too kind - but it is notable that on the two occasions we've had a dispute resolution process, the only comments we've received have been broadly positive (I'm thinking too of the 3O comment on our homosexuality content). Alexbrn (talk) 04:51, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

The term, 'Glosses' worries me. This sounds like a colloquialism rather than a generally accepted term. AlexBrn, you are the language expert. What is meant by the term, 'glosses'? Is it a universally accepted term? Michael J. Mullany (talk) 10:49, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

In academic textual work (at least in my experience) the word "gloss" is very commonly used accord to meaning No. 2 here; day-to-day we are all familiar, I think, with the related word "glossary". Alexbrn (talk) 21:12, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Okay, many thanks. Michael J. Mullany (talk) 21:53, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Close paraphrasing

Just a heads-up about this, as I'm finding a few spots where authors have been closely paraphrased without in-text attribution. When we're quoting (with or without quotation marks), or following an author's words or arguments closely, we need to add the author's name, as in "John Smith wrote that X." It's very easy to cross the line on Wikipedia into paraphrasing too closely, because we have to stick closely to our sources, and there's a fine line between close and too close. When in doubt, give credit to the author in the sentence or somewhere in the paragraph, unless you're repeating common knowledge. See WP:INTEXT for more information. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:54, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes indeed. Will the authors who repeatedly reversed my edits because I gave credit to/mentioned names of authors please take very careful note. Michael J. Mullany (talk) 06:41, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Heaven and hell

Michael, sorry, I've removed your hereafter section. [9]. We already deal with that in the "nature of reality" section, and we can't rely so much on quoting Eddy; otherwise the writing takes on the tone of a sermon. In addition, we can't use other Wikipedia articles as sources. I moved some of your material about death into the "nature of reality" section.

Regarding the pronoun you changed, [10] "which" is correct if you read the whole sentence (that they had powerful friends helped them to survive and saw several states pass legislation). SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:41, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

No problem, SlimVirgin. Also, please see my response below. Michael J. Mullany (talk) 06:39, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Actually I think I removed too much, so I restored some of it. Sorry about that. The section now looks like this (see Conception of God, heaven and hell). Does that seem okay? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:14, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, its fine, thanks. Michael J. Mullany (talk) 03:08, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

The problems of error and matter

If my understanding of CS is correct, its theology neatly side-steps the philosophical problems of evil and Hell by declaring these to be unreal. However, this appears to create another problem: if mankind is created perfect in every way, how then does (s)he end up with the error of belief in matter? Where does matter come from? Answers I have ascertained so far include the following:

• Matter never came it only appears to have come from somewhere. Response: Okay, so why does it appear to have come to perfect man?
• CS heals; so its premise that matter doesn't exist must be correct; even scientifically proven. Response: Not necessarily. Outcomes may support theories, but doesn't prove them.

I would suggest that this is a fundamental philosophical difficulty which C Scientists need to address this question urgently with more than off-pat answers. May we speculate, for example, that man has free will; so has the freedom to err and descend from his perfect origins into a belief in matter? Once having reached the perfect state, could he err and enter the 'material realm' again? Alternatively, do all people necessarily need to pass through the 'material phase' on their way to becoming fully-fledged beings? Michael J. Mullany (talk) 23:29, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

No-one has ever seen anything called "matter." It's a generic term we give to things like tables, trees, human beings etc, or rather to the colors, shapes, sounds and so on that we identify by the words tables, trees etc. The colors etc appear to us because they are the result of how sense data are processed and interpreted by the brain. We don't know anything about what, if anything, causes the sense data in the first place, or whether the data are all that there is. The film The Matrix provides quite a close analogy to the CS teaching: the world as it appears to the senses is a systematic delusion or simulacrum. What causes it? In the film it was mechanical energy-vampires, but in reality we don't know. We don't even know if the question of causation has any meaning. Or perhaps the desire to find out what caused the illusion is part of what is causing the illusion to persist. Imagine being lost in a dark room and trying to find out where the darkness comes from. All you have to do is turn on the light, then you realize it didn't come from anywhere. In fact it wasn't anything at all in itself, just the absence of light. Or imagine being caught up in a nightmare. You wouldn't try to work out what caused the nightmare, at least while you were in the throes of being chased by imaginary zombies or whatever. You would first want to waken up. After that, you could philosophise/psychologise about it to your heart's content, if indeed the question was still of any interest once you had realised/demonstrated that it was all an illusion.

The speculation you give seems close to the perspective of conventional theology, but it's one that Christian Scientists would reject.

The second issue re healing is a different one, and as you put it yourself, induction has its limits.

By the way, speaking of The Matrix etc, if you want a bit of fun look up Nick Bostrom on Google. The math is beyond me, but he apparently makes a convincing case that we are probably living in a computer simulation.Be-nice:-) (talk) 23:59, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

http://www.simulation-argument.com/Be-nice:-) (talk) 00:20, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Many thanks, Be-nice. A most ingenious response. I am reading the paper and other discussions you linked me to with great interest. Once I have done so, I may come back to you with another response. In the mean time I do wonder if a matrix-type pseudoexistence was really what Mary Baker Eddy had in mind. Michael J. Mullany (talk) 03:14, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

The article by David Kyle Johnson "Natural Evil and the Simulation Hypothesis" listed on this site, deals with some of the issues you raise: http://www.simulation-argument.com/ Unfortunately I don't know of any literature that links these kinds of speculations specifically to Christian Science, so it would, no doubt, be regarded as OR to refer to them in the article. A pity.Be-nice:-) (talk) 09:28, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks again. I think that the question I originally raised is a major stumbling block to people considering whether or not to join the CS Movement, so thanks for taking the time and trouble to address it. Michael J. Mullany (talk) 20:10, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Attitudes toward the body

Can anyone recommend a good source for the Christian Science attitude toward the body and its needs? I'm left wondering, if they believe sickness is an illusion, what their attitude is toward needing sleep, nutrition, exercise, and so on, and in particular how they can argue that we need certain sorts of things (e.g. food), but not things that cross into a definition of medical care (vitamins, drugs). Any pointers would be much appreciated. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:09, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

It would also be useful to find sources explaining the Christian Science view toward the self, as opposed to Mind, and the relationship between the two. For example, what happens to the self after death? Does it cease to exist, did it never exist, or does it continue to exist as an aspect of Mind? Again, any pointers would be very helpful. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:32, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

The best source on these and other questions is the CS textbook itself, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. Apart from that, look at Robert Peel's book Spiritual Healing in a Scientific Age, or a book by a CS dissident, Christian Science Class Instruction, by Arthur Corey. Christian Scientists have normal attitudes towards sleep, nutrition, exercise, etc. though there is a kind of CS cliche that "I take exercise because I'm fit, not to get fit.") Vitamins are kind of a gray area. I've known Christian Scientists who take them, though I recall my CS teacher saying they are a no-no ;-) Why don't we take medical drugs? In practice Christian Science healing and drugs tend to cancel each other out, and that's probably the most important reason not to mix the two systems. (I have a personal horror story on that--I forgot to tell the CS practitioner, who was treating me at the time for a tooth problem, that I was visiting the dentist, and the anesthetic the dentist gave me didn't work. I nearly hit the ceiling.) The reason we don't mix drugs and CS treatment is because drugs work on a material basis that there is something materially wrong that needs to be materially fixed, and CS treatment works from a spiritual basis, that everything is all right in a spiritual sense and that this needs to be demonstrated. Also, drugs are sometimes poisonous and they can have negative side effects, entailing the use of other drugs to counter-act them, in a potentially endless cycle. (There are, of course, also issues around animal testing, the power of the pharmaceutical industry, and the expense of medical treatment, that Christian Scientists may share with others.) Having said that, as a Christian Scientist I would have no problem in taking pain-killer for an unbearable pain if I ever needed to, though I would be careful not to neutralize it by requesting CS treatment at the same time. Other Christian Scientists may have more rigid attitudes, or more permissive attitudes as the case may be. It's up to the individual.

According to CS, the individual spiritual idea (the spiritual identity of each one of us) exists in eternity, outside of the world of illusion where time and death appear to exist. This is from an absolute (spiritual) perspective. In relative terms, the individual human consciousness continues to exist after death. It is involved in a kind of learning process that continues until spiritualization is eventually reached. Hope this helps.Be-nice:-) (talk) 10:07, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Does individual consciousness exist before birth too? any sources on that topic would be useful. Alexbrn (talk) 10:16, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

"If man did not exist before the material organization began, he could not exist after the body is disintegrated. If we live after death and are immortal, we must have lived before birth..." S&H 429: 19-23 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.100.155.6 (talk) 10:38, 3 January 2013 (UTC) 89.100.155.6 (talk) 10:41, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Be nice, thank you, that's interesting (and very interesting what you say about the dentist). I was thinking more of why Christian Scientists believe we need nutrition and sleep, if material life is an illusion. If pain and illness can be conquered by refusing to acknowledge them as real, could and should the same approach not be used with nutrition and sleep? I'm not suggesting people should try to starve themselves. :) But is it not a contradiction to acknowledge that we have to eat? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:46, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, Jesus did fast, and in regard to one incidence of healing, he said "This kind goeth not out, but by prayer and fasting." Christian Scientists tend to interpret the "fasting" thing metaphorically, ie as "fasting from the evidence of the senses" or something like that. (However, I would say that there may also be a case for interpreting it literally, though literal fasting is normally ignored by Christian Scientists. My experience is that, whenever I've gone on a fast, I've found it difficult to do any kind of "normal" mental work, but extremely easy to do spiritual--Christian Science--work. Also, I discovered how much time we normally waste either eating, or thinking about eating.) The Christian Science interpretation of our current need for eating and sleep is that we will eventually transcend the need for both, but that as "beliefs" they are both more deep-rooted, and less urgent, than the "beliefs" of disease etc. Jesus is recorded as having been asleep in a boat, and even after his Resurrection he joined his disciples for breakfast.Be-nice:-) (talk) 10:19, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Nice — thanks! Sadly, I can't find any secondary material on this. I'm tempted to ask how it works. Is there a pre-created "stock" of souls equal in number to the maximum human population there will ever be, that are allocated to bodies at the moment of birth? Alexbrn (talk) 07:45, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Again, you need to remember the difference between the absolute and the relative in CS. Absolutely speaking, our true spiritual identity exists outside of time and space, in eternity and infinity: in Spirit, God. In the relative (distorted) view, we seem to be born and die, but this is an illusion. Christian Scientists do not believe that there are "souls" in bodies. So the question re a pre-created "stock" of souls is meaningless in CS terms. (Theologically, the idea of a soul in the body was a pagan Greek importation into Christianity, as far as I know. It was not the view of the Jews at the time of Christ, and the word "soul" had a different meaning for them. But I'm not a theologian, I hasten to add.)Be-nice:-) (talk) 10:27, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

(Off topic) So what does "we live after death and are immortal" mean? If it means entering an unindividuated unconscious state, then that sounds just my atheist conception of death! Alexbrn (talk) 10:38, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

No, it definitely doesn't mean entering an unindividuated unconscious state. That sounds more like Schopenhauer's (mis)interpretation of the Buddhist concept of Nirvana. As to exactly what it does mean, I guess we'll have to wait and see ;-) Though having said that, there are burgeoning accounts of Near Death Experiences that, if they are true, would confirm the Christian Science perspective.Be-nice:-) (talk) 11:33, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

So you're saying the "after death" state is different from the "before life" state; and Eddy says that? If some of this stuff is sourced it could be really good in the article. Alexbrn (talk) 11:46, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

I can give primary sources on this area but I'd have a problem finding relevant secondary sources :-/ Meanwhile, here is an interesting account of a near death experience that I came across: http://www.nderf.org/NDERF/NDE_Experiences/anita_m%27s_nde.htm There is no mention of Christian Science, but this is the kind of thing that--on the whole--seems to fit in quite well with our beliefs (though NB, CS does not teach reincarnation).Be-nice:-) (talk) 11:55, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

(off topic) Well my mother died earlier this week, and just before the end she had visions of being on a desert island, of being at a wonderful family party, and of being in a room full of rabbits (and no, I'm not making this up). Call me skeptical, but I take these as examples of what the brain does when the body is in extremis rather than indications of any greater truth. Alexbrn (talk) 12:06, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Sorry to hear :-(Be-nice:-) (talk) 17:53, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't think that your comments are off-topic, in fact, AlexBrn. I was also sorry to hear of your Mum's passing. However, when my mother passed on, she had a NDE which was not so easily dismissed; so much so that it made me doubt my then atheist views and rethink the whole business. She was severely handicapped with polio from the age of 5, and suffered a further debilitating stroke in 1972. Throughout her life she had difficulty in climbing stairs, and after 1972 this became a near impossibility except with the extreme assistance of others. On 29th August 1988 she suffered a further stroke, and was attended to by her next-door neighbour, a Dr Doreen Kossov. On Kossov’s advice she was admitted to Greys Hospital, Pietermaritzburg in South Africa where we lived at the time, several kilometres away. On 4th September she told my dad of an OBE the previous evening, during which she found herself in the doctor’s bedroom. She described a Japanese lamp and a painting of an old man on the wall. She also told my dad that if she had a repeat of this experience in which she felt so freed from her handicap, she would ‘not come back’. The next night she died. A few days later, the family were admitted to the neighbour’s bedroom, and both the Japanese lamp and painting of the old man were there as she had described them. Further, the bedroom lay up a long flight of stairs, making it quite impossible for my mother to have visited it during her earthly lifetime. None of the family had entered the neighbour’s bedroom either, and Kossov confirmed that she had at no time described the contents of her bedroom to any of them. The contents of her room were not something she was in the habit of discussing with anyone. I therefore think that Be-Nice and the CS movement have a point when it comes to NDEs, but acknowledge that we await results which are more than anecdotal. Michael J. Mullany (talk) 20:50, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Alex, I'm sorry to hear about your mother. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:12, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks everybody, for your kind words. Alexbrn (talk) 08:12, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Some Specific Problems

"Christian Science teaches that, rather than providing a moral example for mankind, the atonement exemplified, as Eddy wrote, "man's unity with God, whereby man reflects divine Truth, Life, and Love."[5]"

When I first placed this point in the article I used the phrase, "rather than merely providing a moral example." and I think the word "merely" needs to be put back in, because the way it reads now suggests that CS does not believe that Jesus' atonement provided a moral example, which it certainly did according to CS. The point was that it is more than just the moral example he did provide - that the "exemplification" is what enabled mankind to follow his example. That is the point of that reference in Gottschalks book. The same passage in that source indicates that CS does not wholly deny some aspect of vicarious sacrifice, but just that it should not be thought of as canceling sin in a way that enables the sinner to keep right on sinning and be excused. That is why I had included the parts about how CS was not considered a "wholly vicarious" atonement, nor "merely" providing a moral example. Yes it was somewhat vicarious, and yes it provided a moral example, but the idea in CS is that it was much more because of the "exemplification" aspect, or in other words, the proof it provided for mankind of the unity which exists between God and man.

Next: "Christian Science holds that Jesus did not die on the cross, but was conscious in his tomb, healing himself.[28]" This is still misleading even after all the talk and attempts to clarify this issue. Plenty has already been said about the fact that CS does not teach that Jesus's body was showing signs of life from the time he "gave up the ghost" to the time he was resurrected, and it seemed like the consensus was that his mind did not die, though his body was lifeless until the resurrection. Therefore that CS does belief in one sense that Jesus died on the cross to human sense, but that unseen to those who carried a lifeless body to the tomb, Jesus the spiritual individual man was still conscious and working out the problem of death during those three days in the tomb. Therefore I think that something needs to be done about that sentence.

And finally (for now) the most misleading thing I see is this: "Eddy wrote that anybody asking a doctor to treat them "invites defeat," though she allowed exceptions for going to the dentist, fixing broken limbs, and basic surgical procedures.[31] She argued that "if we trust matter, we distrust spirit":[31]" As you read through this you will see that she never wrote that anybody asking a doctor to treat them "invites defeat". This makes it sound like slam on doctors. I have put in bold print the words "invites defeat" so you can see how out of context that line appears in the source used in the article.

Here are those passages in their context: "Let us suppose two parallel cases of bone-disease, both similarly produced and attended by the same symptoms. A surgeon is employed in one case, and a Christian Scientist in the other. The surgeon, holding that matter forms its own conditions and renders them fatal at certain points, entertains fears and doubts as to the ultimate outcome of the injury. Not holding the reins of government in his own hands, he believes that something stronger than Mind — namely, matter — governs the case. His treatment is therefore tentative. This mental state invites defeat. The belief that he has met his master in matter and may not be able to mend the bone, increases his fear; yet this belief should not be communicated to the patient, either verbally or otherwise, for this fear greatly diminishes the tendency towards a favorable result. Remember that the unexpressed belief oftentimes affects a sensitive patient more strongly than the expressed thought.

"The Christian Scientist, understanding scientifically that all is Mind, commences with mental causation, the truth of being, to destroy the error. This corrective is an alterative, reaching to every part of the human system. According to Scripture, it searches “the joints and marrow,” and it restores the harmony of man."

"The matter-physician deals with matter as both his foe and his remedy. He regards the ailment as weakened or trengthened according to the evidence which matter presents. The metaphysician, making Mind his basis of operation irrespective of matter and regarding the truth and harmony of being as superior to error and discord, has rendered himself strong, instead of weak, to cope with the case; and he proportionately strengthens his patient with the stimulus of courage and conscious power. Both Science and consciousness are now at work in the economy of being according to the law of Mind, which ultimately asserts its absolute supremacy."

And so anyone can see from this passage that there are many more nuances dealing with mental attitudes in the treatment of disease, how much fear or doubt concerning prognosis is going on in the minds of the attending physicians, etc. These points she is bringing out have to do with the influence that mind has on the body - something that is not altogether foreign to the doctors of today.

Here is what she said specifically about bringing in a doctor: "Great caution should be exercised in the choice of physicians. If you employ a medical practitioner, be sure he is a learned man and skilful; never trust yourself in the hands of a quack. In proportion as a physician is enlightened and liberal is he equipped with Truth, and his efforts are salutary; ignorance and charlatanism are miserable medical aids." Christian Healing, Mary Baker Eddy, page 14. So here, one can see that she is not denouncing doctors, but is saying that their ability to help will be proportional to their skill and enlightenment. She also said elsewhere that she wanted to keep quackery out of her system, and so was very specific about how to reason things out spiritually and mentally.

Those are a few examples of where the article can be improved, but I will leave it to other editors to decide whether these are valid critiques or not... LeviTee (talk) 19:50, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Hi Levi, I restored "merely," but I have no idea what this sentence might mean, and how it differs from mainstream Christianity: "Christian Science teaches that, rather than merely providing a moral example for mankind, the atonement exemplified, as Eddy wrote, 'man's unity with God, whereby man reflects divine Truth, Life, and Love.'" Can you elaborate? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:10, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Levi, glad to see you are still with us, and keep up the good work :-) I take your points, but the metaphysical issues are very difficult to convey to people who aren't as familiar with them as you and I are. What may appear as life or death issues to us, may seem to be mere theological quibbling to others.Be-nice:-) (talk) 20:25, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

SlimVirgin: the word exemplification is pretty important, and it used to be included in the quotes which was better I think. The idea is that before Jesus gave the supreme example of atonement, or "at-one-ment", mankind lacked the ability to attain the atonement. Here is another passage that explains it from MBE's Miscellaneous Writings, "His [Jesus'] goodness and grace purchased the means of mortals’ redemption from sin; but, they never paid the price of sin. This cost, none but the sinner can pay; and accordingly as this account is settled with divine Love, is the sinner ready to avail himself of the rich blessings flowing from the teaching, example, and suffering of our Master." The reason why this point is important is that it is one that is greatly misunderstood by the mainstream concerning Christian Science, and one reason why it is believed (and wrongly) that CS doesn't acknowledge Jesus as the savior. It was not only the moral example that we lacked, but also the "means", the "how to" if you will, of atonement with God, or the "how" of working out our own salvation. Jesus provided that for us, and so he is the Master, the Savior, the "Way-Shower". "Exemplification" embodies all those concepts in one word. I hope this helps and does not make it even harder.

Be-Nice:-) I see your point, but having come from the traditional Christian beliefs, and having been pressed on these issues by Christians, I have found that it is important for them to know that we acknowledge Jesus actual crucifixion, because otherwise, it invalidates the idea that he made the ultimate sacrifice, and this is a stumbling block for Christians in understanding Christian Science, because they find that offensive, the idea that Jesus didn't really die for our sins. And I can see why they would. But that is not what Christian Science teaches. So I think for the Christian coming to learn about Christian Science, we owe them some kind of an explanation of this so they aren't left with the wrong impression. LeviTee (talk) 20:46, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Please see my last edit to the article. I inserted the word "only" to serve in the same way that "merely" does above. Actually the section I edited has what is to me a correct paraphrase from the Gottschalk source, and includes the part about the propitiatory aspects. LeviTee (talk) 21:10, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Source request

Hi Be nice, I removed two of the points you added today, because I couldn't see them in the sources. The spokesman for the church who spoke to the NYT doesn't say anything about not mixing approaches (nor does the article elsewhere that I could see), and I couldn't see anything in Gill about neighbors who were familiar with the injury thinking the recovery miraculous – except perhaps for the two who thought she was paralysed, but we already mention them. If there are another two, do you have a page number? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:05, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Hi SlimVirgin, I gave references to the Gill book where I "undid" your revert, and I changed the other reference in the lead to make the point clearer. The NYT article definitely says that the textbook says not to mix CS and medicine, though I had to paraphrase it for Wikipedia purposes. See what you think.Be-nice:-) (talk) 20:16, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll take a look. Regarding this edit, you repeated Gill's opinion that Eddy didn't take her ideas from Quimby, but you left out Gill's point that Eddy's six major biographers believe she did. To be neutral and accurate the article ought to make that clear. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:55, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, I wanted to keep it short and to the point, but if you want to expand that, go ahead.Be-nice:-) (talk) 21:29, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Why is there a picture of Lindsey Lohan in the article!! Oh, nevermind... that's Elizabeth Taylor. (levity). LeviTee (talk) 21:14, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

On the questions of Gill's reliability as a source, this review and subsequent exchange of letters in the New York Review of Books are pertinent. Using Gill as a sole source would appear to be inadvisable. Alexbrn (talk) 22:22, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

I was a bit concerned about that too. I have no problem using her book as a source for factual things (who said what), but highlighting her opinion alone about this key issue, and omitting that she acknowledges that hers is a minority view, seems wrong. I think we should remove that sentence, or make it invisible, until someone has time to write up the source material in a more complete way. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:31, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, that is a bit of a spat, all right. As it says in the Bible, "What is truth?" I request that the sentence be left in, until someone has time to contextualize it. It's a verifiable reference to a secondary source.Be-nice:-) (talk) 22:44, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

If Gill has outlying views I'm not sure they should be used at all, unless there is something particularly notable about what she is claiming (if for example, it triggered some notable documented debate). Alexbrn (talk) 23:06, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Consistent Citations, 2nd time

On 21 December 2012, I volunteered to revise the citations according to WP templates--and I will. But, this Christian Science article is in so much flux. Do other folks think it is worthwhile to do so at this time?

Also, I added a reference to Caplan's Mind Games which is sorely missing. Centamia (talk) 06:41, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Not as much flux now - go ahead. Collect (talk) 13:33, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Nominated for "Good Article" review - it is now a fairly complete and accurate article, AFAICT. Collect (talk) 13:39, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for doing that, Collect. Centamia, I made the refs consistent when I was going through the article; if there are any stragglers please let me know. :) SlimVirgin ^(talk) 16:04, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Then I'll proceed to form the current citations in WP format--so far as I can. Collect: thanks for encouragement. SlimVirgin: there are going to be stragglers galore. For convenience of all, watch for "Breadcrumb Updates" in the Talk pages as this gets fixed. Centamia (talk) 08:56, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Hi Centamia, I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't do that. I just spent time making the citations consistent (short refs in text, long refs in a References section). There is no such thing as "WP format" (all we require is consistency) and adding templates is problematic; they slow down load time and add lots of citation clutter in edit mode. See WP:CITEVAR and Wikipedia:Citation templates: "Because templates can be contentious, editors should not add citation templates, or change an article with a consistent citation format to another, without gaining consensus." SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:10, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Will do nothing then. I was unaware of the problems with the templates, so well-and-good.Centamia (talk) 19:04, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Images

The article has come on a lot in the last few weeks. One thing though: it may well be appropriate to include an illustration comprised of pics of well-known CS people, but hardly at the start of the article. Surely it would be better to have the illustration of Mary Baker Eddy at the beginning--perhaps swap the illustrations around? What do people think? I don't want to try it myself in case I make a mess of it. Thanks.Be-nice:-) (talk) 13:09, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

I am inclined to agree. The montage of people is nice, but at first glace makes CS look a bit like a club for celebrities of yesteryear! Alexbrn (talk) 13:11, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

In that case, assuming there is consensus on this, could some Wikipedia expert do a simple swap of the image of Mary Baker Eddy, with the montage of famous CS people? Both pics are about the same size, so it should not be a problem in logistical terms. (Whatever else CS is, it is not a social club, which the current arrangement of images seems to suggest.)Be-nice:-) (talk) 12:42, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

I think the CS logo would be a more appropriate first image (the image of MBE heads the article on her). Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 12:47, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

OK, no problem. BTW I've no objection to the montage of CS people, in fact it's a good image--maybe it could go elsewhere in the article. (But whatever anyone does, please don't put back that effete image of Jesus that was formerly there!)Be-nice:-) (talk) 13:46, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

And the MBE pic is a good one, so please leave it in!Be-nice:-) (talk) 13:47, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Alex, thanks for your work on this. Much better imo89.100.155.6 (talk) 18:31, 12 January 2013 (UTC)Be-nice:-) (talk) 18:32, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Mark Twain / Sexual Intercourse

I am reverting Be Nice's two recent additions on these topics. For sex, the addition is relying on a primary (attributed) comment, rather than a preferable secondary; I'm not sure it adds much, and may be more pertinent in any case to MBE than to the view of CS more generally.

On Twain, I think we've established above that Gill's claim that Twain had any sort of "balanced" view of MBE is a contentious one, so I don't think we should be suggesting that kind of balance in the article here. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 05:28, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Sex: If you're "not sure"it adds much" that's the (not particularly strongly-expressed) view of a single editor. If it did add much, that could be regarded as a mark against it, as it's a primary source. That's a kind of double-bind. In any case, the reason you give is not a valid reason to remove material without first discussing it on the Talk page.

Twain: the point here is that Twain's view was indeed an unbalanced view, not a balanced one. If I were to say of a particular US president (for example) that the individual in question was the greatest president ever, and also that he was a crazy tyrant, that's not a balanced view, it's an unbalanced view. Much as I respect your editing prowess Alex, please don't remove material without discussing it first.Be-nice:-) (talk) 12:37, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, I was being English in my choice of words. To be clearer: these edits are bad, in my view. Twain is of course a hostile critic of CS & Eddy - so that's what Wikipedia relays; that is neutral. We shouldn't try and "even things up".

As for my reverting edits, that is fine - even, perhaps, how Wikipedia most often works per WP:BRD. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 12:53, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Yet Twain appeared to moderate in his views on CS thereon later. It is improper to aver than anyone has views so cast in stones that they can not moderate them. Collect (talk) 13:13, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

That's kind of funny on the understatement culture. An amusing bookmark for future reference. (It can be infuriating for non-English people btw.) Well Alex, to "be English" back at you, I'm a little concerned about your removal of my posts. For one thing, Robert Peel in his Life of MBE makes it abundantly clear (or a bit clear if you like) that Mark Twain's view of Mary Baker Eddy was deeply ambivalent (or a little ambivalent if you prefer).Be-nice:-) (talk) 13:24, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

There seems to have been a move by CS to "reclaim" Twain, but I'm not sure there are any solid sources. There's some content on this in the archive here. Twain (as is related in this article now) was always interested in mental healing, so it seems he believed CS had some basis.

Be-nice — are you aware you inserted into the article the very wording from Gill, of which Fraser said: "she misquotes Twain at the beginning of her book and, without explanation, rearranges his sentences in an attempt to have him seem to endorse her subject". Something more convincing would be needed, I think, ideally something from a Twain biography. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 13:44, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

I understand Val Kilmer is making a film on this very issue, the Eddy/Twain connection. Should be slightly interesting.Be-nice:-) (talk) 14:16, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

And do you expect a fictional film to be a reliable source for this article? Collect (talk) 14:20, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Em, no, I didn't say that. It was kind of a by-the-way remark, to indicate that this issue may raise its head again in the media, and consequently the discussion may be of future relevance to the article. And how do you know it's a fictional film, since it's not out yet? (In any case, I don't think films of any kind are usually regarded as reliable sources for Wikipedia, unless perhaps the article is about the film).Be-nice:-) (talk) 14:35, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Cecil B. De Mille

I can't find anything on Google that connects Cecil B. De Mille with Christian Science. If someone has a citation for this, could they please note it? Otherwise, the reference (and the image) should be removed, in the interests of accuracy of the article.Be-nice:-) (talk) 11:21, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

There is this. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 11:29, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I found:

Cecil B. DeMille, of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Hollywood, California, who is not himself a Christian Scientist:

Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy is one of the great benefactors of mankind. She has given to the world one of the great religions. She has interpreted the life and teachings of Jesus. [11]

There is little doubt that he was highly sympathetic to CS, but far less tht he was a "member" of it. Collect (talk) 14:05, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure having a section called "Members" makes a lot of sense. Maybe "Adherents" would be a better title for the section. Christian Science doesn't place much emphasis on whether someone has their name on some church database in Boston or wherever. Christian Science, certainly within its own terms, is more a matter of personal commitment and self-identification. I've met committed Christian Scientists who have (perhaps) never even thought of joining the CS church. Speaking of which, is there room for a section, here or elsewhere, on famous people who have shown a strong interest in Christian Science? These would include George Bernard Shaw (eg his book The Plain Woman's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism) and (perhaps) Albert Einstein: see eg this: https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1SePVIC-mFMAGJtzElow5B8K-Wbe9bKo4cj5h3XZLoG8. And there's Mark Twain, of course (both positive and negative response on his part to CS).Be-nice:-) (talk) 18:26, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I got that Shaw reference wrong. It's called The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism. There are a number of variants on that title. I don't have the book, but I recall that somewhere in it he wonders if Christian Science will take over the world. (Mind you, that was at a time when it was strongly growing in numerical terms. )Also, Aldous Huxley's book Brave New World pictures a future where Henry Ford is worshipped and there is a newspaper called The Fordian Science Monitor.Be-nice:-) (talk) 17:36, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Christian Science/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Khazar2 (talk · contribs) 03:14, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

I'll be glad to take this review. In the next few days, I'll do a close readthrough of the article, noting any initial issues that I can't easily fix myself, and then go through the criteria checklist. Thanks in advance for your work on this one. -- Khazar2 (talk) 03:14, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Unless anybody objects, I'm going to hold off on reviewing this one for a week or so, since the past 24 hours have seen a few content disputes; I'd prefer to let those play out and review the resulting version. Thanks to everybody for their work on this one, it seems to be coming along well. -- Khazar2 (talk) 14:57, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

OK, as one of the disputants, I'll hold off on involvement in this article/Talk page for a week or two to help it to settle down for review. Thanks for giving your time to this Khazar2.Be-nice:-) (talk) 21:51, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Actually, I'd encourage you to work out anything you see as still deficient! I've got no problem waiting till there's consensus on these points. We'll give it a few days in any case. -- Khazar2 (talk) 21:55, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm OK with the article at the moment, more-or-less.Be-nice:-) (talk) 23:01, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Cool, good to hear. -- Khazar2 (talk) 00:06, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Just wanted to note that I haven't forgotten this article, but am still holding off for now, as it looks like we've had a few reverts in the last 24 hours. This article has seen an enormous spike of activity in the past few months (3 of the 5 talk page archives are from just the last six months!) and I'd like to see how stable the current version is. Again, I hope editors will read this note as encouragement to keep working on any issues, not as a request that editing stop! I'm happy to wait. Thanks everybody for your work. -- Khazar2 (talk) 20:29, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Initial readthrough

It looks like this article has indeed reached an island of stability, so I'll start with my review. Since this article has proved more controversial than any GA I've previously undertaken, I'll follow my close read for prose and sourcing issues with an attempt to review issues others have raised on this talk page. I've made minor tweaks to the prose as I went, so please double-check me and feel free to revert anything you disagree with.

Here are some comments on the first half; I'm hoping to get to the second half shortly.

• "Eddy wrote that "God is incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love."" -- since the later footnote cites several passages, it would be helpful to follow this quotation with a more specific footnote citing it more specifically.
• "Christian Scientists believe that this opened up practical possibilities" -- what does "this" refer to here-- God's relationship with humanity, or Christ's proof of this relationship?
• I switched a few instances of "man" to "humanity" to try to use more gender neutral language. However, I assume that the original (and perhaps the current) language of Christian Science was "God and man", so if the other seems more accurate to you, feel free to revert me.
• "David Weddle writes ... " This present-day writing on Eddy is described in the present tense, whereas Stein and Rescher were described in past tense. I think either solution is okay, but this should probably be made consistent.
• Not a GA point, but just wanted to comment that this article makes excellent use of block quotations to give the flavor of Eddy's words as well as the content.
• "thinking whatever would be said were he present" -- would all the practitioners be men? If not, it's probably best to use to the awkward he or she, or to make practitioners plural and use "they".
• "The first church was erected in 1886 in Oconto, Wisconsin" -- this threw me for a moment, since the previous sentence mentions she founded a church seven years earlier. But I assume one is the church as organization and the second as building? I wonder if it would help to say "first church building" to clarify that for other easily confused readers like myself.
• "The church boasts one of the world's largest pipe organs, built by the Aeolian-Skinner Company of Boston." -- as a superlative claim, this should probably have a citation
• "A project is currently under way " -- It would be helpful to add an "as of" here instead of currently, per WP:REALTIME
• "individuals claiming to have been healed through Christian Science prayer" -- how about stating instead of claiming here, per WP:WTA -- Khazar2 (talk) 07:45, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Comments on "Reception" section:

• " Pamela Klassen wrote that " -- again flipping to the past tense for a modern-day commentator. It's probably worth making it more explicit in-text that Klassen is writing in 2009, also, since the paragraph is about other commentators on CS.
• "gigantic heresy," -- is this comma in the original quotation? If not, it should be moved out of the quotation marks per MOS:LQ.

My impression on my first readthrough is that this is a solid and well-written article: clear, concise, and well sourced, with no immediately obvious neutrality problems. Thanks to everybody who worked to get it to this point. As a next step, I'll take a look at some of the supporting sources and other discussions on this page to check for completeness and neutrality. -- Khazar2 (talk) 11:37, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

I've addressed all the points you raised above, except three. (1) The article doesn't use LQ because it looks awful (in my view), is rarely used by publishers, and it means having to find the original quote, which is unnecessary work. (2) I haven't yet gone through and ironed out that we sometimes say "she writes" and sometimes "she wrote," but I will do that, and add dates when appropriate (she wrote in 2009, etc). And (3) the whole pipe-organ paragraph is unsourced, so I'm inclined to remove it; it's detailed information about a church building, rather than about Christian Science itself. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:58, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Looks good. MOS:LQ is a guideline but not among the GA criteria, so it's not an issue here. -- Khazar2 (talk) 18:53, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

I've fixed the writes/wrote issue, and removed the unsourced pipe-organ paragraph. I've also fixed a couple of refs that weren't formatted consistently, and moved the paragraph about church services into the sub-section about the church, rather than placing it with the members. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:20, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Much appreciated. I think the only remaining issues are those I noted in the checklist below. -- Khazar2 (talk) 19:27, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

I removed the image of Gray, and replaced the one of Crawford with one of Val Kilmer. The Asser/Swan and Sugerman source issue is resolved. The only remaining issue is that I'd like to restore the sentence "The avoidance of vaccination has been another issue" (or words to that effect) to introduce the paragraph about vaccination. I'm just waiting for Collect to respond on talk. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:53, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Khazar, if you don't mind I'd like to restore United States throughout, rather than US. Seeing US in a list with United Kingdom, for example, doesn't look quite right. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:06, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Don't mind at all. -- Khazar2 (talk) 20:23, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, done. Just to let you know that I've added a new version of the vaccination paragraph that doesn't rely on the Swan/Asser or Sugarman papers that Collect objected to. I've referred to another paper by Swan in a footnote, because the secondary source I used (Fraser 1999) relies on it, but it's a different paper that is specifically about Christian Science. Collect objected to the Swan/Asser paper because (I believe) it was about religions other than Christian Science too.

No response yet from Collect, but so far as I know nothing in the paragraph is contentious (i.e. I believe the facts are not in dispute), so I'm hoping it will be okay. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:22, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Where Fraser is the source, Fraser's words seem not to comport with the claim made, so I used a direct quote from that source. I am concerned about the use of "3" which is a "statistically small number with a very high statistical standard deviation" being cited as evidence of a very high death rate - the source does not say that - it only says the number is being investigated. Collect (talk) 00:53, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

The CDC says what my edit says: "The very high apparent death-to-case ratio (2.3%) is unusual in the United States, which usually has a reported death-to-case ratio of 0.1% or lower." You seem not to want to use the CDC as a source; you even removed it in an earlier edit. But it's a good source for this point.

Your latest edit. There is no need to quote Fraser for such an obviously true point. It now looks as though only Fraser says it. What she says is: "The public image of the church was also damaged by a number of outbreaks of infectious diseases at its schools and camps (many Scientists decline to have their children vaccinated)." This is not in any way contentious; I can find scores of sources for it if you want. I first summarized that as "The avoidance of vaccination has been another issue" back in January before you nominated it for GA, so I don't know why it has suddenly become an issue. When you objected, I swapped the source to Fraser 1999, and changed it to "The avoidance of vaccination has been another issue that has caused public concern." But it doesn't need a source or quotation marks or in-text attribution, and in fact looks strange now. It is "the sky is blue."

And to say that "affected" does not mean "infected" is just odd. How else do you imagine they were affected if not by catching the disease? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:38, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

I've reported what Fraser said – without quotation marks as though there's something unique about the words. And I've added quotes in the footnotes from the CDC, Fraser and the Associated Press to make it clear that people were infected, not affected in some other way. Hopefully these quotations can be removed at a later date, because they're not necessary, but for now they're there to show that "affected" means "infected":

Fraser writes that the church's image has also been damaged by outbreaks of infectious diseases at its schools and camps. Many Christian Scientists do not have their children vaccinated, and are less likely to self-report illness to physicians, so infection may remain undetected. In 1972 128 students at a Christian Science school in Greenwich, Connecticut, contracted polio and four were left partially paralyzed. In 1982 a nine-year-old girl died of diptheria after attending a Christian Science camp in Colorado. In 1985 128 people were infected with measles at Principia College, a Christian Science school in Elsah, Illinois, and three died. The death-to-case ratio was 2.3 percent; the usual rate in the United States is 0.1 percent or lower. In 1994 190 people in six states were infected with measles spread by a child from a Christian Science family in Elsah, after she was exposed to it on a skiing holiday in Colorado.

SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:56, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Further comments

• Most of the other neutrality debates on the page appear dormant or resolved, but if there are any I'm missing, feel free to bring them to my attention.
• The studies of increased morbidity among Christian Scientists seem worth including; these appear to be peer-reviewed articles on a relevant topic for this article.[12] Is there a reason these were cut?
• Be Nice raises an interesting question as to whether the child deaths section may be a little long, but my personal opinion is that the length of this section is reasonable--this was a major national controversy that lasted for some time, has numerous reliable sources, and includes some significant religious-rights/parental-responsibility court cases. (I'd even venture to say that for a generation of Americans like myself, these cases are--fairly or unfairly--what the religion is best known for.) Anyway, five paragraphs on this issue doesn't seem to me to violate neutrality to a level that concerns the GA review, but of course I'll be guided by consensus if others disagree. -- Khazar2 (talk) 12:46, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

The "increased morbidity" included Amish et al and did not further separate the statistics (other than having 16% of the cases related to CS) - making tham problematic, alas. We also have no stats on overall increased morbidity on CS believers. Did anyone find actual "life expectancy" data at all? I also removed the names of children as not being of actual encyclopedic value here. And the "vaccination" claim which did not directly connect to CS is a problem - we nly really have the polio and measles anecdotes. I think this overall improves this article a hair. Collect (talk) 14:15, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Okay, that makes sense. I suppose my own preference as an editor would be to give a sentence to this. But looking more closely--and realizing the CDC and JAMA are both talking about the same study here--it certainly doesn't fall under a "broad aspect" that needs to be covered to meet the GA criteria. A check of Google Scholar doesn't immediately turn up additional literature. -- Khazar2 (talk) 14:47, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

The only study I found is one for Principia College -- but it is barely more reliable than anecdotal for life expectancy - it found CS to have double the cancer mortality rate, but in too small a sample for statistical purposes, and too small a sample to account for other factors. The only area which is of concern is childhood disease, but with that church changing its rules, it seems contrary to logic to focus too highly on past practice now. Collect (talk) 15:18, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi Khazar, the section on morbidity/mortality study was based on a primary source and it seemed weak. For example, the study compared meat-eaters to vegetarians; the latter would be expected to have less chronic disease because of diet, not because of other religious practices. Ideally we would need secondary sources (review articles) before adding a section like that. See discussion here. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:05, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Makes sense. Definitely not an issue for the GA review in any case. -- Khazar2 (talk) 18:54, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Checklist

Rate	Attribute	Review Comment
1. Well-written:
	1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct.	Prose is clear and excellent; spotchecks show no sign of copyright issues.
	1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.
2. Verifiable with no original research:
	2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.
	2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).
	2c. it contains no original research.
3. Broad in its coverage:
	3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.
	3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).
	4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.
	5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.	All issues appear to be resolved.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
	6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.	File:Early gray.jpg and File:JoanCrawfordByYousufKarsh.jpg are copyrighted and lack fair-use rationales for this article. Since these subjects are of only minor interest to this article, these images should probably be removed.
	6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.
	7. Overall assessment.	Pass

On hold till 2/17

I think this is ready to go as a GA in all other respects (though I do want to re-read it now that it's been revised), but it concerns me that three weeks into this process, the article is still seeing content disagreements and reverts between its two most prolific recent contributors. I'd like to give it another ten days to see if it can reach a reasonably stable version, and see where we're at then.

As before, I don't at all want this review to pressure anyone into a hasty or suboptimal resolution to these legitimate content issues, and I realize that an article with a topic this controversial and popular will always be in flux to some degree. But I do want to be sure that immediate concerns about accuracy and neutrality have been resolved, and that the article's not going back and forth daily. Hope that sounds fair to everybody. Again, thanks to all concerned for your work on this one! -- Khazar2 (talk) 05:05, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Haven't forgotten this one, just have a sick kiddo and haven't been doing any real editing the past few days. Will get to this tomorrow probably. Thanks all for your patience. -- Khazar2 (talk) 02:39, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

All right, I've done a readthrough of the new draft and all looks good; the talk page controversies also seem to have died down to reasonable levels. Thanks everybody for your work during this long review process! -- Khazar2 (talk) 13:34, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Medical Criticism

Alex, in relation to the Twitchell case, you have changed "The conviction was later reversed" to "Their conviction was later overturned on a technicality." I don't think the latter wording is a fair reflection of the situation: the couple were found to have acted in good faith in the context of circumstances outlined here: http://masscases.com/cases/sjc/416/416mass114.html. In any case, "overturned on a technicality" is both tendentious and tautologous. (All legal decisions are technical in nature.) Rather than getting into an edit war on this, can we agree on a fair wording? I'll leave it up to you to review the source info and come up with a fairer formulation.Be-nice:-) (talk) 11:47, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Content selectively being removed.

I see that mentions of vaccination have been removed down to a single line from [13] to the current article. I see the content on increased morbidity has been removed. The well sourced content that she was infleunced by Quimby has been removed (Christian Scientists don't accept the actual history) [14]. All mention of Christian Science being made to look like science has been removed (possibly due to a misunderstanding that in the 19th century "science" meant the general search for knowledge, which was not the case in 1872). The mainstream viewpoint is being watered down and removed. Compare what was there: [15] to what is now there at Christian_Science#Health_and_healing. A positive spin has been put on that section by going back to primary sources again (S&H), and by overly relying on the nytimes, while discarding academic sources. IRWolfie- (talk) 12:16, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Contrariwise, the article is far more balanced now than it has ever been. The issue of changes over time to CS are now addressed, and the use of pejoratives have been removed. Material abiut deaths is clearly given, and given due weight per WP:CONSENSUS. I would like to note that "Christian Scientists don't accept the actual history" would appear, on its face, to be a POV claim ab initio. As for the importance of Quimby - that is an editorial decision, not a POV decision. Cheers. Collect (talk) 13:57, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

I guess from your perspective of having not looked at the academic sources it would seem like I'm asserting it ab initio. IRWolfie- (talk) 12:25, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

The article is now in much better shape than it was a few weeks ago. The evolution of the article in its present form, including sources cited, has resulted from consensus editing. (BTW, I don't know what "actual history" means and neither would any contemporary historian, or philosopher of history for that matter.)Be-nice:-) (talk) 09:42, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Oh please. Is this some sort of "everyone's version of history is equally valid" crap? What practitioners claim happened with the history is completely different what the reliable sources say; mostly because it's unflattering. IRWolfie- (talk) 12:27, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Collect is not interested in any reliable sources. See the talk page on the Christian Science article, he claims every reference I have listed breaks "NPOV", but the references I listed were written by reliable scholars such as Timothy Miller and Catherine Wessinger etc. SlimVirgin seems to have got the message and this user is now using some of the references I put on the talk page but this user seem to think they "own" the article, and any edit I or others make they revert, so I am just watching and we will see how their new edits go. Fodor Fan (talk) 23:02, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Kindly note the actual talk age discussions where I note that making a long list of critical articles without any balance at all does seem to be a WP:NPOV problem. The talk page discussion, moreover, makes clear that I exert no "ownership" of an article which I have very few edits on. Cheers. Collect (talk) 23:47, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

WP:NPOV for you means to exclude anything critical of Christian Science. It just happens that the so called "critical" sources are the reliable ones published by scholars or in scientific papers, take a hint Christian Science is nutty fraud, why? Becuase that is what the sources say! Find me a single reference published outside of the Christian Science Church that is supportive of Christian Science? The 90% of references will be critical of Christian Science, there is no reason for a "balance" when the 10% are Christian Science sources published by Christian Science publishers. You are confused about WP:NPOV, with your logic every pseudoscientific article on wikipedia would be supported without any criticism, but if you look round you will see this is not the case, we don't need to balance articles when the majority of sources are against a specific subject. If the reliable sources say Christian Science is nutty fraud and filled with criticisms then that is what should be put on the article, not the nonsense claims from the tiny minority of CS sources... Infact there is no problem in using some CS sources (many are on the article) but to argue for a balance is just totally wrong.

If there are a million reliable sources against Christian Science and only ten in favour of it, are you really going to argue for a "balance"? :) Fodor Fan (talk) 00:12, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

OK -- if we postulate that CS is a "nutty fraud" as you aver from your own personal knowledge, we still have to follow WP:NPOV. I know this rankles crusaders agains "nutty frauds" but that is what Wikipedia is based on. When one editor comes up with twenty sources uniformly critical of a religion, and we have substantial sources from followers of that religion, we can not give excess weight to the critics. Else 99% of all religion articles would be filled with criticism of them as utter heresies as seen by all the other religions. Thus we neutrally pose the tenets of a religion, and list a few of the primary criticisms thereof. We do not list the thousands of books highly critical of Muhammed (for example) as a person in the article on Islam for very good reasons. What we do is present each side in some sort of balance. NPOV is not the same as "we state the absolute truth because we know what the truth is" it means we state what is stated on each side of an issue in reasonable balance for major views. Collect (talk) 01:19, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

No you are utterly wrong that we try and balance views as equal. We don't try and pretend that creationism is equal to evolution for example. Or that global warming denialists have an equally valid point to the climate scientists. What we do is describe them neutrally, but that does not mean we give them extra credibility where it's not due. You admitted that you are not assigning weight to points made by the majority of sources because you mistakenly believe that wikipedia treats two opposing views as equally valid. The only time we aim for balance is when the reliable sources are divided WP:BALANCE: "Neutrality assigns weight to viewpoints in proportion to their prominence. However, when reputable sources contradict one another and are relatively equal in prominence, describe both approaches and work for balance. This involves describing the opposing views clearly, drawing on secondary or tertiary sources that describe the disagreement from a disinterested viewpoint." What you are doing is rejecting the secondary and tertiary academic sources in the name of what you perceive to be balance. IRWolfie- (talk) 11:28, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

• I retract my previous comment about SlimVirgin, I thought we were making some progress but clearly not, this user yet again has deleted an edit I made and anyone elses edits. This user seems to think they own the article, they deserve a topic ban. Fodor Fan (talk) 02:06, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

The aim is to use WP:CONSENSUS to make a "Good article". If your desire is to make the WP:TRUTH be in the article, I rather think you are in the wrong place - that is not how Wikipedia works. As for topic bans - generally the person who is never accepting of consensus and compromise is the one banned. Cheers. Collect (talk) 12:36, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

My aim was to go with what the reliable sources say collect, but no matter how many times you are told this, you don't seem to get it, and keep spouting nonsense. We will just let the Christian scientist SlimVirgin delete all the criticism and conclude Christian Science is valid on the article then! Indeed that is what this user has been doing, and they revert anyone elses edits. You got what you wanted. I am not wasting anymore time on this. Fodor Fan (talk) 14:57, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

AFAICT, SV is not a Christian Scientist, nor am I one. Enjoy editing elsewhere if you are leaving - I think the article is worthy of the GA seal now. Collect (talk) 15:30, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Collect, since you have based your edits on your own personal reasoning (such as claiming that science didn't mean natural science in the 1870's), you don't really have a leg to stand on complaining about others wanting what the academic sources say to be in the article (which you have removed in favour of the new york times). IRWolfie- (talk) 11:15, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

The bit about "science" being used in a different context in the 1870s was from a reliable source - I do not have any personal experience of the 1870s, really, nor do I make assertions not found in reliable sources. My edits on the article have been based on Wikipedia policy only, and not on any personal biases whatsoever, and I regret your attempt to personalize this discussion. It does not appear to be of any utile value whatsoever. [16] shows some of the still-current disparate definitions of "science". [17] states the changes over time - including discourse on the meaning of "science" in the Constitution (also found in law books if you really wish to discuss this in depth)

At the Framing of the Constitution, ―science‖ meant a system of knowledge that comprises distinct branches of study or categories of knowledge. ...

1 WILLIAM F. PATRY, COPYRIGHT LAW AND PRACTICE 123 (1994) (―The term ‗science‘ as used in the Constitution refers to the eighteenth-century concept of learning and knowledge.‖); L. RAY PATTERSON & STANLEY W. LINDBERG, THE NATURE OF COPYRIGHT: A LAW OF USERS‘ RIGHTS 48 (1991) (―[T]he word science retains its eighteenth-century meaning of ‗knowledge or learning.‘‖); WALTERSCHEID, supra note 1, at 125 (―The use of the term ‗science‘ [in the Copyright Clause] is straightforwardly explained by the fact that in the latter part of the eighteenth century ‗science‘ was synonymous with ‗knowledge‘ and ‗learning.‖‘); Oliar, supra note 1, at 1809 (―[T]he eighteenth century meaning of ‗science‘ was close to the meaning of ‗knowledge.‘‖); Solum, supra note 1, at 47-56 (analyzing meaning of science at time of Framing); Malla Pollack, Dealing with Old Father William, or Moving from Constitutional Text to Constitutional Doctrine: Progress Clause Review of the Copyright Term Extension Act, 36 LOY. L.A. L. REV. 337, 376 (2002) (―‗Science‘ means ‗knowledge‘ in an anachronistically broad sense.‖); NEIL WEINSTOCK NETANEL, COPYRIGHT'S PARADOX 106 (describing the overriding purpose of promoting the ―progress of science‖ as broadly understood to include all products of the mind‖) (2008). For a discussion of judicial instances of construing science to mean general knowledge see discussion infra Part II.C.2 and infra notes 15 and 226.

I trust this indicates that it is not my "personal belief" that the word has had different meanings over time, or that I would give "personal beliefs" as a reaon for edits on Wikipedia. Cheers. Collect (talk) 14:42, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Small history lesson. The US constitution was written nearly 100 years before Christian Science came about. Secondly, Why are you relying on a pdf on the J. Reuben Clark Law society page by this guy [18]? Why are you looking at what a professor of law thinks about the US constitution rather than a relevant historical researcher? But since you did it, ok now I'll show you your cherry pick: "Modern courts and commentators teach that science at the time of the Framing meant general knowledge. ... But this teaching is entirely mistaken. All evidence indicates that the modern interpretation of the original meaning of science is anachronistically incorrect. The evidence suggests that neither the Framers nor the public of that time would have ever intended such a broad, and for all practical purposes meaningless, meaning of science." Your very source dismisses your own definition. IRWolfie- (talk) 08:57, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Some thoughts

Hello there; I've given this page a look through and have some thoughts. Midnightblueowl (talk) 19:00, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

• There is no mention, or link, to Christianity in the lead; I know that the term "Christian" is in the title, but nevertheless, I believe that it should be in there.
• I think we need to make it clearer that Baker was an American and that the religion was founded in the U.S. in the introduction.

We should clearly indicate that she was an American, but the "Christianity" bit is difficult - CS does not conform to usual definitions of Christianity, and the use of "Christ" as shown by the name of the church "Church of Christ, Scientist" indicates clearly that she is using the name "Christ" to denote a specific person she calls a "scientist" (old meaning of the word) and not that she considers that person or anyone to be a "Messiah" nor that she accepts any fundamental Christian tenets (not even accepting a death by crucifixion as a renet). So yes to "American" and no to "Christianity". Collect (talk) 20:13, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying. Midnightblueowl (talk) 19:27, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

"technicality"

Where a source states what the "technicality" is in a case, it is reasonable to make clear what it was - in the Twitchell case, it was the denial of a reasonable defense in the first trial. To too many, "technicality" conjures an image of "trivial problem" while the inability to make a defense is frequently a "major issue." Collect (talk) 13:39, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

The LA Times chose to summarize the reversal as being "on a narrow point of law", which is fairly re-expressed as a "technicality". I don't see the words "major issue" in their article, nor do I see it saying the defense "wasn't allowed" to present their argument - just that it wasn't presented, as confirmed by this source. So, you've got some OR (and a spelling error) in your edit that need correction. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 13:56, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Sic-ing is irrelevant. The point is that I sought to represent what the LA Times stated in a neutral manner. The argument was not presented to the jury - and the usual reason for that is that the court decides which arguments may be presented to the jury. The appeal clearly said that it was a reasonable argument - appellate courts do not decide to propose defenses sua sponte. The CSM article on the appeal said In his appeal of the conviction, lawyer Steven Umin also contended to the seven justices on the state's Supreme Judicial Court that, even if the prosecution of the Twitchells were authorized, rulings by the trial judge violated the couple's constitutional rights to due process and to freedom from state interference in religion which appears to conform with what I think is a reasonable and neutral wording of the LAT article. Cheers. Collect (talk) 14:47, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

What the lawyer's contention "appears to confirm" in your view is ... your view. The source doesn't say it, and this reliable source contradicts it: "the Twitchells had not presented an affirmative defense because they had relied upon the interpretation of the Massachusetts law concerning 'spiritual treatment' as satisfying their parental obligation not to neglect a child and to provide a child with physical care" (my emphasis). That presumably is why the LA Times called it "a narrow point of law". How is your OR more neutral than a presentation of what the source actually says? Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 15:02, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Alex, the text you give is an abstract. Here is the full text: http://masscases.com/cases/sjc/416/416mass114.htmlBe-nice:-) (talk) 15:45, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Collect and Alex: this is the key issue as I read it (quote from p. 127 of the above): "It is obvious that the Christian Science Church's publication on the legal rights and obligations of Christian Scientists in Massachusetts relied on the Attorney General's 1975 opinion. That opinion was arguably misleading because of what it did not say concerning criminal liability for manslaughter. If the Attorney General had issued a caveat concerning manslaughter liability, the publication (which, based on such portions of it as appear in the record, is balanced and fair) would have referred to it in all reasonable likelihood." It seems clear from that this the issue is more than a technicality, or what would be commonly understood as a technicality (eg the prosecution getting a date wrong in the paperwork, or the like of that). Let's be fair on this.Be-nice:-) (talk) 15:50, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

It's a different text, but it makes the same point: "The Twitchells were entitled to present such an affirmative defense to the jury. We can hardly fault the judge for not doing so because the defense did not make such an argument or request a jury instruction on that defense." Nothing about "not allowed" there. A fuller commentary on this can be found in Friedelbaum, Stanley H. "Free exercise in the states: belief, conduct, and judicial benchmarks." Albany Law Review Summer 2000: 1059. 19 Jan. 2013.

The basis of the court's reversal of the judgments below and its remand for a new trial was related only peripherally to an affirmation of the spiritual treatment provision. Apart from what was said to be a misconstrued official statement of the law, the spiritual treatment defense would have failed.(265) The court accepted pleas of special circumstances that had not been presented for the jury's consideration.(266) It appeared that the couple had relied on advice furnished in a religious publication, the origins of which allegedly lay in the Massachusetts Attorney General's opinion suggesting that the spiritual treatment provision obviated any fears of criminal prosecution.(267) Therefore, the couple had an affirmative defense that had not been presented to the jury.(268) Its absence carried a substantial risk of a miscarriage of justice; consequently, the court reversed the judgments and set aside the verdicts.(269) The dissent objected to the reversal, stating that the court was "improperly straining" to effect the result announced.(270) Contrary to the majority's opinion, the dissent found that the exclusion of the church's publication was not error since the publication did not provide competent evidence concerning the manslaughter issue.(271)

Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 15:55, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

(ec)I.e. the defendants' claim, rejected by the trial judge seems to indicate that the "trial judge" "rejected" the "defendants' claim" -- seems to indicate that the "trial judge" was the one who prevented a "claim" from being presented to the jury. Unless you can conscionably come up with a different interpretation of what the court said? The LATimes article did, indeed, state that it was this prevention which was the matter on which the appeal was decided. What the Commonwelath wished the court to state: The Commonwealth asks us to eliminate any application of the spiritual treatment provision to this case by holding that the spiritual treatment provision is unconstitutional. I.e. not a "technicality" at all if the Commonwealth recognized that the current law did not back their position. I find there is substantial justification for treating as a defense the belief that conduct is not a violation of law when a defendant has reasonably relied on an official statement of the law, later determined to be wrong, contained in an official interpretation of the public official who is charged by law with the responsibility for the interpretation or enforcement of the law defining the offense to go far past saying that the ruling was only on a "technicality" to be sure. And the failure to present the affirmative defense to the jury, along with the relevant portion of the church's publication which the judge excluded, created a substantial risk of a miscarriage of justice requiring that we reverse the convictions makes further clear that the cause of the reversal included the specific rulings of the trial judge to exclude any basis for a defense argument based on the Attorney-General's statements. Cheers. Way too much information for me to read through <g>. BTW, I consider excluded to be the same as not allowed. Your mileage may vary. Collect (talk) 15:58, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Again, your "seems to indicate" and your "I find" is OR. I don't want to "come up with an interpretation", but to report sources accurately. Why not upgrade our source to a peer-reviewed journal?

Ginger and David were convicted of manslaughter in 1990. In 1993 the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court overturned the conviction on a technicality but also ruled that parents had a legal duty to provide necessary medical care for their children regardless of their religious beliefs.

The latter part of the second sentence there would seem to be important too. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 16:15, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

And how the hell else would you manage to interpret the defendants' claim, rejected by the trial judge that that the defendants made a claim which was rejected by the trial judge? Really? And you somehow think "The Humanist" is a "peer-reviewed journal"? Really? I hate to point out the obvious - but it is a specifically anti-religion group. "Peer-reviewed journal" it ain;t. Collect (talk) 16:44, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

The judge rejected the claim that they were protected from prosecution for manslaughter (and, in law, he was right); the defense missed a trick by not counter-claiming that the Twitchells "reasonably believed" that they were immune. Thus this argument was not presented, and this could have affected the outcome of the trial. That, at any rate, is my reading. As to The Humanist, it is not I who categorize it as peer-reviewed, it is HighBeam. Anyway, all this is moot as SlimVirgin has now edited the article to align the wording nicely with the sources used. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 16:56, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

I tried to make a longer post, but lost it due to an edit conflict :-( Anyway, here's the gist. My thesaurus doesn't give "technical" or "technicality" as a substitute word for "narrow." So that's an inaccurate paraphrase of the newspaper article. Since that is the only source remaining after the others were removed, the text should accurately reflect it. So it should say something like "a strict/precise legal issue" or else give a direct quote from the article referred to.Be-nice:-) (talk) 16:53, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

I've changed this to: "The conviction was overturned in 1993 on a point of law; the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that the couple had "reasonably believed," based on a church publication they had read, that they could rely on Christian healing without being prosecuted, an argument that had not been presented to the jury." SlimVirgin ^(talk) 16:55, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

That's better, though note this quote (p. 127 of source below), which makes it clear that the fault does not lie with the church publication: "It is obvious that the Christian Science Church's publication on the legal rights and obligations of Christian Scientists in Massachusetts relied on the Attorney General's 1975 opinion. That opinion was arguably misleading because of what it did not say concerning criminal liability for manslaughter. If the Attorney General had issued a caveat concerning manslaughter liability, the publication (which, based on such portions of it as appear in the record, is balanced and fair) would have referred to it in all reasonable likelihood." http://masscases.com/cases/sjc/416/416mass114.htmlBe-nice:-) (talk) 17:06, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

(Off topic)Well, if the publication relayed some ambiguously stated opinion as if it were solid legal advice, then surely the publication is entirely to blame!? Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 17:13, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

That's a matter of opinion. I for one would disagree. Anyway I'm reasonably happy with SlimVirgin's fix.Be-nice:-) (talk) 17:16, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Mark Twain

Hi Alex, I restored a few sentences and some refs to the Mark Twain section, including that he wrote Christian Science. It now reads:

The writer Mark Twain (1835–1910) was an early critic. In 1907 he collected several critical articles he had written and published them as a book, Christian Science. Twain believed that mind could influence matter to some degree, but nevertheless took strong exception to the writings of Eddy, calling them "incomprehensible and uninterpretable." He was particularly incensed by the thought that Eddy was using Christian Science to accrue wealth and power for herself. His fear that she could gain great power as a religious figurehead was later the basis of his unfinished satirical work, The Secret History of Eddypus, the World Empire.

Hope that's okay. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 16:53, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Fine by me, the only reason for slimming this down was that this content is (now) in the Christian Science (essay) article, and I was wary of too much duplication. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 16:59, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Okay, sorry, I didn't see that. Just for future reference, if we copy word for word, we're supposed to say so in the edit summary (copied from article X). The reason I restored some of it is that, as it stood, we linked to Christian Science without explaining that he had written it. It also needed fleshing out a bit, I think. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 17:18, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Neighbours

I've removed "Gillian Gill writes that her neighbors believed her sudden recovery to be a near-miracle." I can't find it in the source (if anyone has a page number, that would help), unless it's the reference to the neighbours we already mention, who thought she was paralyzed. I'm not sure, even if it's in the source, that it's worth saying that they thought her recovery was a miracle, because they weren't in a position to know whether she was paralyzed. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 16:37, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree it's not worth including in the article. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 16:53, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

I think it should be left in. Here is the source: "Various Lynn and Swampscott neighbours testified that everyone at the time had been convinced that Mrs. Patterson [aka Mary Baker Eddy] had done great damage to her spine, and those familiar with her injuries regarded her sudden ability to rise from bed and walk out of the sick room as next to miraculous." Gill, p. 164, parag. 3, as given already in the reference to the text. (That's my "undo" of your change under the IP number--I neglected to log in, apologies.)Be-nice:-) (talk) 16:59, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

"those familiar with her injuries" is a wonderfully slippery phrase. Gill again, I see. Is it only Gill claiming this? Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 17:20, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the page reference. The problem is that those people weren't in a position to be familiar with her injuries. We already say two neighbours believe she was paralyzed. That isn't strengthened by saying that 10 did, or 1,000 did. Gill concludes (on the same page) that there is no doubt that Eddy revised her account of the fall. That's the key point, no matter what the neighbours believed. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 17:30, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Be nice, when you're removing or restoring something you disagree with, could you try to avoid reverting any other changes made at the same time (unless you intend to)? Your recent edit removed what the doctor said, the change from probably to possibly (it is only Gill's speculation), and the fix of the page references, as well as the neighbour issue. [19] I've restored the material and removed neighbours again, as it really does seem inappropriate, unless we mention the context – which was that the church, years after the fact, was going around looking for witnesses to counter what the doctor was saying. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 17:37, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

OK, fair enough. And I'm glad to see a homeopath being treated as a reliable source ;-) (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathy.) NB Mary Baker Eddy had considerable respect for homeopathy, regarding it as a step along the way to the complete "mentalization" characteristic of Christian Science healing.Be-nice:-) (talk) 18:02, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

To take my point a bit further, she either underwent divine healing (her own view) or responded to homeopathy (the homeopathic doctor's view). Given that neither homeopathy nor divine healing are regarded as legitimate healing methods by the mainstream, which are we to believe it was?Be-nice:-) (talk) 18:43, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

... she obviously faked (and/or imagined) the whole thing. Occam is your friend. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 18:46, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Be nice, the third option is that she wasn't as sick as she may have believed; or that she never believed she was very sick in the first place. That's Gill's position, that this was myth making. Gill wants to argue that it was not straightforward deceit, but she doesn't deny that it was the creation of a myth. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:00, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Oh, right..."Assume good faith" and all that...:-/Be-nice:-) (talk) 21:51, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Vaccination according to Eddy--and criticism of Christian Science generally

An Eddy quote about vaccination is lacking from the article--vaccination being a subject that was danced around ad nauseum.

It is easily resolved.

From Miscellaneous Writings Page 220. http://www.mbeinstitute.org/Prose_Works/Miscellany_PartThree.html

"Rather than quarrel over vaccination, I recommend, if the law demand, that an individual submit to this process, that he obey the law, and then appeal to the gospel to save him from bad physical results."

Eddy specifically uses the word "physical"--a material/matter/error word that is alien to the "God" construct of Christian Science belief--and then says go ahead anyway, get vaccinated according to the law, and pray for the physical result.

REMEDIES FOR ARTICLE.

(1) ADD EDDY QUOTE ABOUT VACCINATIONS.

- see above.

(2) ADDRESS THE LOGIC OF HER "PHYSICAL RESULTS" CONCERNS: IATROGENICS.

- add this Wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iatrogenics

What say?

If this is so hot a topic, then maybe there is a need to create a criticism article outside an explication of Christian Science beliefs and organization?

See for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_Catholic_Church — Preceding unsigned comment added by Centamia (talk • contribs) 10:29, 23 January 2013 (UTC) ````centamia — Preceding unsigned comment added by Centamia (talk • contribs) 10:43, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

We generally want to avoid quoting primary sources, especially in MBE's case where she said a lot of seemingly contradictory things. In my view a "criticism of" article would be a WP:POVFORK – Catholicism is a rare special case since there is so much critical material it genuinely merits a separate article. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 10:49, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Alxexbrn: Your concerns are good ones. However . . .

1) Vaccination Quote Can Be Cross-Validated.

There are two published church documents. (1) Original Eddy's primary quote and (2) replication verbatim in "The Story of the Christian Science Wartime Activities 1939-1946", p.98. It is within bounds.

2) Forking For Religious Controversies Is Common, Not Rare.

It is quite common to fork for controversies regarding religious organizations--far from rare as you would suggest.

LSD: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_The_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter-day_Saints

Jehovah's Witnesses: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Jehovah%27s_Witnesses

Seventh Day Adventist: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_Seventh-day_Adventist_Church

Scientology: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_controversies

HOWEVER, if a fork is not desired, then a section addressing controversies and criticisms is a common solution. The French Wikipedia article follows this approach--an article that could be a model for the one at hand.

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Science

Centamia (talk) 06:39, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

If the Eddy quotation is mentioned in a good source with some interpretation, then that would be potentially useful. However we would need to be careful not to imply this described the CS view since other sources state otherwise. At the moment we have a very high quality source (Sugerman et al.) backing the immunization text; the book you mention is published by Christian Science Publishing, and so a poor source.

Those other controversial articles you list are also rare special cases: huge articles (the Jehova's witnesses criticism article has 300 citations!) This article by comparison is compact, and I don't see any need for a split.

A criticism section would also be bad for the reasons given in WP:CRITS. Personally, I think the current text interweaves description and commentary nicely. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 07:05, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Medical criticism

I'm in two minds about the placement of the medical criticism section.

It's currently in the Reception section. This makes sense because the medical section is in part about people's response to Christian Science, and also because it flows well to have the medical criticism come after the description of what the church is, who its members tend to be, and what they believe.

On the other hand, it would seem more appropriate to have medical criticism as a subsection of the Health and healing section, which currently contains no criticism. Any views on which is preferable? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:14, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Could go either way - but since the article is structured to have a "Reception" section (maybe less than ideal) I would lean toward having it there. I think if we removed the medical criticism subsection we would also have to think about dispersing the other reception content more generally through the article. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 07:11, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Okay, makes sense. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:56, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

I continued to feel uneasy that the healing section was so detailed about the church's position but contained almost no criticism of it, even though the criticism is substantial in reliable sources, far outweighing anything else. I've therefore added two paragraphs here (beginning with "There has been criticism of Christian Scientists who impose these ideas on their children") and I've linked with a "see below" to the medical criticism section. I also plan to expand the medical criticism section a little. That way, we can keep the medical criticism in the reception section without leaving the first healing section appearing to have attracted little or no criticism. Is that okay with you? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 17:47, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Criticism of Christian Science

There were a number of suicides due to the belief in malicious animal magnetism. This should be put on the article. Fodor Fan (talk) 16:14, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

At first sight, I don't think they are relevant enough to CS itself, or notable enough, to be worth mentioning. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 18:31, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

One of Mary Baker Eddy's main student (who lived in her house) commited suicide becuase of it. It is clearly relevant. Fodor Fan (talk) 18:37, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Hi FF, I've removed that material for now as it wasn't clear that the source was authoritative enough. I agree that we need more on malicious animal magnetism, but there are several modern sources that we can use. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:01, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

One of those references was Edwin Franden Dakin. Mrs. Eddy: the biography of a virginal mind. There is nothing wrong with this source, it is a biography of Eddy. The Christian Science Church banned the book from their churches however! Fodor Fan (talk) 00:06, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

The British psychiatrist Alexander Cannon also mentions some suicides in connection with malicious animal magnetism in his book Powers That Be. Fodor Fan (talk) 00:12, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

"Malicious Animal Magnetism" Said to Have Caused Miss Stephens to End Her Life in an article for the New York Times found here abstract and full article. This is clearly notable. Fodor Fan (talk) 00:16, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree that the reception section could use some expansion, but anything that's added should be based on current secondary sources who offer an informed overview; primary sources can then be used to augment them as appropriate. The difficulty is that it will require some careful study and writing, so that it doesn't look as though material is being added willy-nilly, and that takes work, which most editors are understandably reluctant to commit themselves to (myself included). One book that seems comprehensive and is very critical is God's Perfect Child by Caroline Fraser. You might want to start with that to get a sense of what the key issues are and the best way to present them. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:21, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't think we need anymore sources, all the sources below (most of which are free online) document the fraud, tricks, scams, plagiarism etc of Eddy. Fodor Fan (talk) 00:35, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

The Google Books links show you did a search for "mary baker eddy cult". That's not the best way to approach editing an article like this. The book I recommended above is really very good if it's criticism you're looking for. You could order it from a library so it doesn't cost you anything. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:45, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

(od) It is not the task of Wikipedia to stress what an editor knows to be the fraud, tricks, scams, plagiarism etc of Eddy. The task here is to write an encyclopedia in a neutral manner, and if we set out to show how evil she was, we can not honestly say we are following those tenets and policies. Collect (talk) 00:46, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

It has nothing to do with my opinion, it is down to the facts documented in the books below, and yes the facts do reveal all those things about her. Fodor Fan (talk) 00:53, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Collect if you read this, this innocent lady gassed herself to death becuase she believed in Mary Baker Eddy's ideas about "death thoughts" (malicious animal magnetism). This should be mentioned on the article. It is notable. Link Fodor Fan (talk) 01:02, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

If she were the Devil Incarnate, WP:NPOV still applies. And on her bio, adding every critical reference one can find about her also seems to run afoul of what has been described as "non-negotiable policy" of Wikipedia. Collect (talk) 01:07, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

"Critical references"? You mean anything that isn't published by a Christian Scientist? Try looking around, there is no support for Christian Science outside of their own cult. See the entry for Christian Science in the book by James C. Whorton (a historian of science). It is not possible to be "non critical" when it comes to references about Christian Science. Fodor Fan (talk) 01:14, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Try reading WP:NPOV and WP:PIECE then. You seem certain of the evil of CS - but that is not supposed to be how we write articles. Collect (talk) 12:50, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

References

Here are some references:

• J. R. Walker Eddyism, or, Christian science neither Christian nor scientific. 1899.
• John Elward Brown In the cult kingdom : Mormonism, Eddyism, and Russellism. 1918.
• Charles Fremont Winbigler. Christian Science and Kindred Superstitutions: Their Facts and Fallacies. The Abbey press. 1900.
• R. C. Armstrong. Christian Science Exposed. 1910.
• Frederick William Peabody. Complete Exposure of Eddyism or Christian Science: The Plain Truth in Plain Terms Regarding Mary Baker G. Eddy. 1904.
• Frederick William Peabody. The Religio-Medical Masquerade: A Complete Exposure of Christian Science. New York: Revell. 1915.
• Joseph Jastrow. Fact and Fable in Psychology. London Macmillan and Co., Ltd. 1901.
• W. H. Muldoon. Christian Science claims: un-scientific and un-Christian. Brooklyn Daily Eagle. 1901.
• Fleta Campbell Springer. According to the Flesh: A Biography of Mary Baker Eddy. Coward-McCann, inc., 1930.
• Edwin Franden Dakin. Mrs. Eddy: the biography of a virginal mind. Blue Ribbon Books, 1930.
• Julius Silberger. Mary Baker Eddy, an interpretive biography of the founder of Christian Science. Little, Brown; 1st edition, 1980.

More recent references:

• Another Gospel: Cults, Alternative Religions, and the New Age Movement by Ruth A. Tucker
• The Kingdom of the Cults by Walter Martin
• Nature Cures: The History of Alternative Medicine in America By James C. Whorton
• World Religions and Cults 101 By Bruce Bickel, Stan Jantz
• Cults, World Religions and the Occult by Kenneth Boa
• The Kingdom of the Occult Walter Martin, Jill Martin Rische, Kevin Rische, Van Gorden Kurt
• Self-Help and Popular Religion in Modern American Culture: An Interpretive Guide by Roy M. Anker
• The Skeptic Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience by Michael Shermer
• Christian Science as Pseudoscience by Robert Miller
• Annals of Gullibility: Why We Get Duped and How to Avoid It by Stephen Greenspan

Fodor Fan (talk) 04:37, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Sexual politics

I'm not entirely sure what the point of the second paragraph in the section is; it seems to be about MBE's mental health, rather than sexual politics (maybe to rebut the claims of her misogynist critics?). Might it be better slimmed-down and/or moved to the MBE article? Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 07:15, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

I've changed the header to make clear it's about (sexist) attitudes toward Eddy. I like that paragraph as a way to end the article. It took place toward the end of her life, we have a photograph of her house at the time, and she was interviewed in that house by the "alienists," who declared her sane. It feels like an appropriate final point. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:04, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Cool - works for me. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 22:19, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:20, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Actually on second thoughts it did look odd to end the article with the end of Eddy's life, when earlier sections in the Reception section happened much later. So I've swapped the order; see here. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 03:47, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Malicious Animal Magnetism

This section as it reads makes it seem that Malicious animal magnetism exists, it needs to be made clear it is utter quackery, and does not exist. Also Mary Baker Eddy made her students stand outside of her bedroom to "ward off" any "death" thoughts and she believed that the malicious animal magnetism killed her husband. And as above in the New York Times, there were suicides linked to the belief in Malicious Animal Magnetism. Sources:

• "Malicious Animal Magnetism was her version of the early nineteenth-century fear of mesmerism as an occult work of Satan. For Eddy, MAM was the agency utilized by rivals and enemies to undermine her benevolent mission of healing... She wrote in Science and Health "convince her that it is not a remedial agaent, and that its effects uon those who practive it, and upon their subjects who do not resist it, lead to moral and to physical death". Nature Cures: The History of Alternative Medicine in America by James C. Whorton

• "Although Christian Scientists denied the reality of evil, they were preoccupied with fighting the dangerous temporal impact of false belief in evil. From her conviction that mind could control matter Eddy concluded that if thoughts could heal, they could also harm. Especially in the early years, Christian Scientists attributed much disease to the force of malicious animal magnetism or mesmerism-that is, to the power of one person's belief in evil on the well-being of another. Eddy taught that disease could be caused by the malicious intent of one's enemies. She attributed her husband's death to arsenic placed in his body by the thoughts of those who wished her ill." Women's Leadership in Marginal Religions: Explorations Outside the Mainstream by Catherine Wessinger

• "In 1882, when her third and last husband died, she told a reporter for the Boston Globe that he had been the victim of mental malpractice. The alleged activator of the fatal poison was again one of Eddy's former students. Eddy cautioned everyone who became close to that, in so doing, they entered a targeted space where they would be in constant danger of hostile mental attacks." Religious Outsiders and the Making of Americans by R. Laurence Moore

• "According to Gillian Gill's biography, Eddy believed that former students actually had the power to commit “mental assassination". After a breakup with one of her early protégés, Daniel H. Spofford, she thought he was using mental malpractice to undermine her Christian Science practice and ordered her students to stand outside her bedroom door to mentally ward off any attacks by Spofford. In a celebrated case (1878) that earned her much negative publicity, she took part in a lawsuit against Spofford, claiming that he deliberately practiced malicious mesmerism on one of her unhealed patients, Lucretia Brown. Irreverently dubbed "The Second Salem Witch Trial”, the suit was eventually thrown out of court." Introduction to New and Alternative Religions in America by Eugene V. Gallagher, W. Michael Ashcraft

• Please add some of this information to the article, or I will. Cheers. Fodor Fan (talk) 20:17, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Again I would commend you to read and abide by WP:NPOV. Your zeal to point out how evil and malicious Eddy was is commenfable, I suppose, but is not how encyclopedia article are supposed to be written on this project. Collect (talk) 20:37, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

But the above references were written by scholars on the topic, they are notable, so which references do you suggest instead? Would you like to explain which references do not break "NPOV" on the case of "Malicious Animal Magnetism" and please list some thanks. Fodor Fan (talk) 20:54, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't know what the situation is here, but Fodor is a new account, making the same points and type of editing that was happening before. Adding "there is no scientific evidence for the existence of malicious animal magnetism" looks silly. If there's no footnote after a sentence, look after the next sentence or at the end of the paragraph. Don't remove philosophers as sources for points about philosophy and replace them with a book about something else from South Africa. Don't do Google searches to find random material to support attacks. There is plenty of criticism in the article, but it's based on sources who are very familiar with Christian Science, not people who have mentioned it in passing. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:32, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

The situtation SlimVirgin is that you are a christian scientist and you are biased, you ignore all the sources above which I have collected, especially the ones above, so your agenda is clear, the only sources you want to use are ones that support christian science such as Gill or Gottschalk. See the references that I have collected by scholars such as Timothy Miller etc which conclude Eddy took her ideas from Hinduism and philosophy texts but you ignore these. See the footnore on the Gottschalk book pp. 74-75 which concludes that Walter M. Haushalter's book about Eddy taking her ideas from Hegel was a "forgery". Now what is his source for this? A book by Robert Peel! Yes a devout Christian Scientist, of course he is going to conclude that a book claiming Eddy took all her ideas from Hegel is a fraud. See my sources above, if you don't start using these sources then I will put them in myself. You do not "own" this wikipedia article on Christian Science, stop reverting peoples edits and deleting valid references.

"Don't remove philosophers as sources for points about philosophy and replace them with a book about something else from South Africa." The book was written by a historian of science, it is not about south africa, it is about religious cults and there is a entire chapter on Christian Science in south africa.

Adding "there is no scientific evidence for the existence of malicious animal magnetism" looks silly. It does not look silly, this is what the source says. Fodor Fan (talk) 14:32, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Update - I am not edting the Christian Science at all from now on. I will let other users do that. You will not be able to revert everyones edits SlimVirgin and sooner of later you will need to accept others onto the article. Fodor Fan (talk) 16:23, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

The current Animal Mag section includes this paragraph:

There is no scientific evidence for the existence of "malicious animal magnetism" but the belief still "remains a part of the doctrine of Christian Science". Mary Tomlinson a student of Mary Baker Eddy had committed suicide by throwing herself out of a window. Another Christian Scientist Marion Stephens commited suicide by gassing herself in a bathroom. Regarding herself, Eddy wrote that if she died it would be due to malicious animal magnetism rather than from natural causes.

This paragraph is completely disjointed. I propose removing the sentences "Mary Tomlinson a student of Mary Baker Eddy had committed suicide by throwing herself out of a window. Another Christian Scientist Marion Stephens commited suicide by gassing herself in a bathroom." because they do not seem to fit in with the paragraph. Alternately, the paragraph should be rewritten so that it is more clear why these suicides need to be mentioned here. If the sentences are kept they should be re-punctuated for grammatical purposes. Hearts to all, Dusty|💬|You can help! 19:05, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

It has been fixed. They commited suicide because they were scared of "malicious animal magnetism". Fodor Fan (talk) 19:48, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

The paragraph now reads:

There is no scientific evidence for the existence of "malicious animal magnetism" but the belief still "remains a part of the doctrine of Christian Science".[43] Several persons had committed suicide because of the fear of malicious animal magnetism, Mary Tomlinson a student of Mary Baker Eddy had committed suicide by throwing herself out of a window[44] and another Christian Scientist Marion Stephens commited suicide by gassing herself in a bathroom.[45]

In her later years, Eddy had shown extreme paranoia as she believed that fifty thousand people were trying to kill her by projecting their evil thoughts.[46] Eddy wrote that if she died it would be due to malicious animal magnetism rather than from natural causes.

Fodor Fan (talk) 20:03, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Cone is a "self published source" and can not be used for us diagnosing Eddy with "paranoia." Cheers. Collect (talk) 20:28, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

I just discovered he took that information from this book, Bates, E.S. & Dittmore, J.V. 1933. Mary Baker Eddy. The Truth and the Tradition George Routlege and Sons, London. So I think it would actually qualify as a reliable source, as this same source has been used in the article already. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fodor Fan (talk • contribs) 20:40, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

"In the last half of her life, Mrs. Eddy developed symptoms of paranoia, claiming that her enemies were attempting to attack her with "malicious animal magnetism" (MAM)." A Skeptic Looks at Christian Science by Jeffrey Shallit Fodor Fan (talk) 20:46, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Another non-published and non-RS essay by an individual. Hence - not usable in any Wikipedia article for such a claim. Collect (talk) 21:18, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Fodor is adding mistakes (e.g. the Tomlinson situation was not so simple; see Turner, pp. 136–137); copying material word for word from the Eddy article; and adding sentences such as "'Malicious animal magnetism' is not a scientific belief," which is silly. A lot of the sources are inappropriate (e.g. non-expert and/or self-published), and look as though they're being slotted in based on whatever a Google search turns up. I'm going to tidy it later, but it would be appreciated if this kind of editing would stop. It's time-consuming to fix and I'd rather be doing something else, but given that the article is up for GA it's hard to stand by and watch it deteriorate. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:42, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Stop deleting reliable sources Slim, none of them are non-expert. I have already told you this before, keep doing it and you will be reported. Fodor Fan (talk) 02:38, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

You must be joking, one of those references is a biography of Eddy written by an expert, and how are Eugene V. Gallagher or Ruth Tucker (a historian) not experts on this subject? Once again it is just a case of you deleting references you do not like. Fodor Fan (talk) 02:41, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

I see you're doing the same on Mary Baker Eddy, copying and pasting material word for word from other articles, including this one and British Israelism. Your edits have been criticized here or removed by more than one editor, so please gain consensus for them on talk rather than continuing to restore them. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:59, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Please read what you're reverting. Tucker and the other source are still there. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 03:06, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

That is not true, you have deleted any mention of Gallagher in that section, Dakin's biography and the other sources apart from Tucker. I am not wasting anymore of my time on this article becuase I have better things to be doing and am not responding to this anymore. It's quite clear you don't want anyone else to edit the article, so good luck. Fodor Fan (talk) 03:46, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Morphine addiction

Why have the references to Eddy's morphine addiction and other notes on her using glasses or a dental plate been removed. Fodor Fan (talk) 03:14, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Because you copied it word for word from the article about Eddy; and because this article isn't about her; and because the placement was awkward. Copying material between articles is plagiarism unless you wrote the text originally, and even ignoring that it's poor practice editorially because what's appropriate in one article isn't always appropriate elsewhere. Not to mention that readers don't want to see the identical text in multiple articles. It's also a violation of the licence unless you say in the edit summary where you've taken it from.

Can you say whether you've edited this article before with another user name? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 03:23, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

"Not to mention that readers don't want to see the identical text in multiple articles", then you obviously have not read many articles on wikipedia. There is overlap on many articles with the same text appearing on some articles. The sources for her morphine addiction were added by me on the Eddy article, so it is not "plagiarism". And no I have never been on this article before, I read Martin Gardner's book debunking Christian Science, and felt like coming on here and adding some sources. Fodor Fan (talk) 03:29, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Idealism

In the introduction of the article reads "The ideas of Christian Science have been compared to philosophical idealism, although there is no evidence that Eddy was influenced by philosophical texts." Now what is the reference for this claim? One selective quote mine from one book (a Christian Science book), this does not represent the overall consenus about this issue. Please see the Mary Baker Eddy article, and you will see that the majority of the sources agree that she took her ideas from philosophy/religious texts and Quimby. So the claim that she was not influenced by philosophical texts is clearly not true. Fodor Fan (talk) 03:22, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

See footnote 3 after the next sentence (the footnote supports both sentences). SlimVirgin ^(talk) 03:26, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

As I said your single source does not represent the overall consenus, according to Gardner, Miller, Shermer, Tucker, Peapody, Martin, Whorton, Dakin etc etc Eddy did take her ideas from philosophical texts. But you ignore all these sources. Fodor Fan (talk) 03:32, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

There was a debate at one point about whether Eddy had plagiarized Berkeley, but it was resolved in her favour, though I forget all the details. Personally, I agree that she copied her ideas from philosophers (as well as Quimby), but we need sources who really have looked into this in depth. I would have no objection to that sentence simply saying: "The ideas of Christian Science have been compared to philosophical idealism," and leave open whether or not that is a coincidence. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 03:37, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Here are some of the sources:

• Hinduism Invades America
• Mrs. Eddy Purloins from Hegel
• The Kingdom of the Cults
• Complete Exposure of Eddyism Fodor Fan (talk) 03:45, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

• I've removed the "no evidence" part of the sentence, so we just stick to the comparison, which is definitely correct. [20] SlimVirgin ^(talk) 03:47, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

You do what you want, this entire discussion is futile and a waste of time becuase it is only you calling the shots. You and "Collect" can fix the article. I am busy and am not wasting anymore time editing Christian Science or Eddy on wikipedia. Fodor Fan (talk) 03:50, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

"we need sources who really have looked into this in depth." We had them, you removed them. [21], first paragraph. IRWolfie- (talk) 11:27, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Vaccination section

Asser and Swan

Should only be used once in the article - the 172 deaths had only a minority (16%) being CS related - meaning the "vaccination" sentence is 84% based on non-CS cases in that study. Collect (talk) 23:22, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi, you've again removed "The avoidance of vaccination has been another issue." [22] We need this sentence to segue into that paragraph, moving from deaths resulting from a lack of medical care to deaths associated with a lack of vaccination. We don't actually need a source for that sentence, but we do need the sentence itself. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:32, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Then we should remove the Asser assertion from the prior paragraph. Since only 16% of the cases were CS cases, however, it seems UNDUE to use it twice as though it were two separate studies and sources. We seem to have fully sufficient material on child deaths for an article on a religion already. Collect (talk) 02:05, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

We don't use Asser and Swan twice. The last paragraph is based on other sources, and is specifically about the avoidance of vaccination, rather than the withholding of medical treatment. The sentence "The avoidance of vaccination has been another issue" is needed only for the sake of the writing, to introduce the subject of the paragraph.

Did you mean to remove Sugerman too, or was that unintended? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 03:03, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Sugerman is not on point - it is a report on one case, and extrapolations of general costs and does not refer to "Christian Science" in its text. Using a source on a topic which it does not mention is iffy. In fact, the primary reason for not having a measles vaccination (2/3 of all respondents) was a fear of autism. The study thus is not about "Christian Science", makes no claims about "Christian Science" and makes no claims that "Christian Science" causes any significant number of measles cases. Collect (talk) 14:19, 6 February 2013 (UTC) (In fact, it specifically states that the San Deigo outbreak was not related to Amish or Christian Science groups.)Collect (talk) 14:24, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Okay about the source; it wasn't me who added it. Do you mind if I restore the sentence, or words to that effect? Without it, we don't signal what the paragraph is about. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 18:51, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

I prefer that unsourced claims which do not specifically deal with CS not be added. A source which specifically excluded CS from the case studies is of course absolutely verboten here. Collect (talk) 21:45, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

I am talking only about that sentence, for the sake of the writing, not Asser and Swan or Sugerman. I'll use Fraser as a source. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:03, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Affected/infected

Re your latest edit, I don't know how they could have been affected if not infected. The source says: "Measles spread by a Christian Science child in 1994 affected 150 people in six states." In an earlier edit, you removed a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention page that explained further (and it seems it was over 150 people). That source says:

During April 4-May 17, 1994, the largest U.S. measles outbreak since 1992 occurred among students in two communities that do not routinely accept vaccination. ... The outbreak began in a 14-year-old Christian Science high school student ... From April 16 through May 19, 141 persons with measles (age range: 1-24 years) were reported to the St. Louis County Health Department, and 49 persons with measles (age range: 4-25 years) were reported to the Jersey County Health Department ... All cases met the measles clinical case definition (1) and were epidemiologically linked to the boarding school and/or college. ... Eighteen prospective students from outside St. Louis County attended a carnival at the boarding school on April 16; eight developed measles after returning home (three to Maine, two to California, and one each to Missouri, New York, and Washington)."

SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:03, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Here's what I suggest for the vaccination issue:

Christian Scientists' avoidance of vaccination has been another issue that has caused public concern. Christian Scientists are less likely to self-report illness to physicians, so infection may remain undetected. In 1972 128 students at a Christian Science school in Greenwich, Connecticut, contracted polio and four were left partially paralyzed. In 1982 a nine-year-old girl died of diptheria after attending a Christian Science camp in Colorado. In 1985 at least 100 people were infected with measles and three died at Principia College, a Christian Science school in Elsah, Illinois. The death-to-case ratio was 2.3 percent; the usual rate in the United States is 0.1 percent or lower. In 1994 150 people in six states were infected with measles spread by a child from a Christian Science family in Elsah, after she was exposed to it on a skiing holiday in Colorado.

SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:47, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

• As there has been no response, I'll go ahead and add the above in case it's holding up the review. I'm also going to restore "comfortable financially" (or words to that effect), which was swapped here for an unattributed quote. If we quote, we have to attribute, but it would look odd to name the author of an ordinary phrase like that, so it's better to summarize it ourselves. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:35, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

The changes are demurred with. And I would note that one day (19 hours in fact)  != acquiescence to a major edit. The CDC referred to "affected" and not"infected" IIRC. And Fraser does not make the claim given to it -- I replaced it with the actual wording of Fraser, and used the actual CDC wording. Meanwhile I demur in making an issue of a large standard deviation when dealing with very small numbers - which is what "3" is. It would ill-serve readers to imply that anything over .13 deaths would be abnormal. to be sure. Collect (talk) 00:38, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm at a loss as to your "infected/affected" distinction. It was a measles outbreak; the CDC explains that people were infected. I've added quotes to the footnote to make that clear, but they shouldn't be needed. What makes you think people were affected in some other way, and what other way could that have been?

Sorry, I don't understand your final point. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:42, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

The outbreak included secondary and tertiary infections (from the timing, quaternary ones also) - the "infected" implies a direct nexus between the one child and all the cases. As more than one full month was covered, and the period of infectiousness is well under one month(Five days per [23], it is clear that most of the people were not directly "infected" by that child, and the CDC makes that distinction clear in its language. Read up on exponential rates <g>. I am still concerned with, but did not remove, the attempt to make a major statistical point over a small number ("3" is generally considered "small" when examining epidemiological studies) where the source did not expound on it at any great length. Collect (talk) 13:08, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

No one has suggested that everyone caught it directly from one child, but they were infected (not "affected" in some other way), and the source was traced back to her. Our article says: "In 1994, 190 people in six states were infected with measles spread by a child from a Christian Science family in Elsah, after she was exposed to it on a skiing holiday in Colorado." SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:19, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

To show you the difference: Several million people have been affected by the single first HIV carrier who died of AIDS. The number infected by the one person is a great deal smaller. The difference is non-trivial, which is why the CDC used the language it used. In the case you cite, most of the people were not directly exposed to the one child during her 5 day period of infectiousness. Collect (talk) 00:03, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm aware of that. Our article doesn't say they were all directly exposed to her. But the infection was traced back to her: "The outbreak began in a 14-year-old Christian Science high school student ..." [24] SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:13, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

In which case we well ought to defer to the CDC usage. Millions of HIV/AIDS cases "trace back" to one person - but it would be highly misleading to say they were "infected" from that one person. Cheers. Collect (talk) 00:40, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

statistical deviation

We make a big deal over 3/128 cases resulting in deaths in one anecdote. The problem is that this is not "statistically significant" compared with the ".1%" figure cited - and we would be remiss in implying otherwise. Standard deviations when dealing with very small numbers are very high percentage-wise. Collect (talk) 00:34, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

The source is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and they seemed to find it significant. But I've moved it to the footnote for now. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:20, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Child Deaths

This section seems disproportionately long. I don't want to prune it myself, since I am a Christian Scientist and might be accused of bias, censorship or whatever in doing so. So could I request one of the other editors to have a look at it and remove some of the material, if you agree that it's too long. Thanks.Be-nice:-) (talk) 18:59, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

I removed the names of the children, and also the NIH study cited - it is proper to use for 16% of cases being CS related, but not proper to then say 90% of the total cases could have been cured as going beyond what the article is usable for here. The vaccination sentence is alo a problem as it is fully covered by the polio and measles cases following - and could be misinterpreted by readers. Also the changes seem to go past "reportedly" per sources - no need for a weasel word on the doctrinal changes. Collect (talk) 13:41, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi Collect, I restored some of the material you removed.

I restored "Several children died as a result of undiagnosed juvenile-onset diabetes," rather than "Undiagnosed juvenile-onset diabetes has also been implicated in deaths of children." The disease wasn't only implicated; the children did die as a result of undiagnosed diabetes.

I also restored "The first time the church itself was held liable in a wrongful death suit was after such a case ..." because that's the point of mentioning that case. I restored "When his mother first saw that her son was ill, she asked a Christian Science practitioner to pray," because to leave out the first part suggests she may have done something else at first (e.g. that other treatment was tried but failed). I restored that the nurse rubbed the boy's lips with Vaseline and tried to give him water as he died; in fact she also noted that he might die, which I think we should add to make clear what happened (the court saw the diary she kept as she sat with him). It was because this was such an egregious case that an award was made against the church.

And I restored "The avoidance of vaccination has been another issue" because it leads into the next paragraph and explains what it's about. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:15, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

I've clarified what happened in the case. It was an important case, in part because it was the first time the church was held liable, and in part because it was a clear example of the kind of thing that had been happening. That paragraph now reads:

Several children died as a result of undiagnosed juvenile-onset diabetes. The first time the church itself was held liable in a wrongful death suit was after such a case, when in August 1993 a jury in Minnesota ordered it to pay punitive damages of $9 million to the father of 11-year-old Ian Lundman, who died as a consequence of diabetes in May 1989. When his mother first saw that her son was ill, she asked a Christian Science practitioner to pray, then sought advice from a Christian Science nursing home and the church's Committee on Publication; the home advised her to give her son fluids, then two days later sent a nurse to sit with the boy. The nurse's notes were entered into evidence; the first entry at 9 pm noted that the boy's breathing was labored and he seemed barely responsive. The nurse rubbed his lips with Vaseline and tried to give him water as he lay in a diabetic coma. Over five hours after she had arrived, and sixteen minutes before he stopped breathing, the nurse wrote "passing possible." According to Fraser, doctors testified that he could have been saved by an insulin injection up to two hours before his death. Ian's father successfully sued the boy's mother (his former wife), the nurse, the practitioner and the church. The Minnesota State Court of Appeals overturned the award against the church in 1995, finding that a judgment that forced it to "abandon teaching its central tenet" was unconstitutional.

SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:12, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

There was an overload of detail in this section. I've removed some of it. If it's replaced, it should be in footnote form. (That's what I would tell one of my graduate students, at any rate, if I were talking about their thesis.)Be-nice:-) (talk) 12:11, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

There is no "overload" here. The child deaths are important negative information. Binksternet (talk) 14:27, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

I undid your change (forgot to log in under my moniker--apologies). The child deaths may be important but there comes a point where there is simply too much detail. (If you want it in, it should be in the footnotes.) Assume good faith, and take my word for it that I'm simply concerned that the overload of detail--whether negative, positive or neutral--detracts from the quality of the article. Be-nice:-) (talk) 21:12, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Medical criticism of Christian Science, and the child deaths in particular, arguably constitute most of the coverage that CS has attracted over the years. If anything that section is too short; we don't, for example, discuss the problems people have faced in later life because chronic illnesses and disabilities were ignored when they were children. We don't mention the strange affect of parents whose children are very ill, or who have died, and who seem to uninvolved onlookers to be detached from reality.

The only example where we offer any real detail is the example of Ian Lundman (which you removed entirely). That detail is offered for two reasons. First, it was the first time the church was held liable in a wrongful death suit. Second, the details of the case seem particularly egregious, because the Christian Science nurse took notes as the boy was dying in front of her – including the note "passing possible" – so it was clear that this was not a case of failing to realize how serious the illness was. That detail is needed to show the nature of Christian Science healing. This was not simply a case of it being misapplied: the person concerned was a nurse from a CS nursing home, and the church's Committee on Publication had been involved in having her sent there. So for all these reasons, the case is an illustrative one.

It concerns me that this is the section you want to make less detailed. Not the section about the membership (which you expanded), or the detail about the church, including the (now removed) details about its pipe organ, etc, which you did not object to. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:31, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Your last paragraph seems like an implicit criticism of my good faith, which is against Wikipedia policies. I added a couple of names to the membership list, as far as I recall. I also questioned (in the interest of accuracy) whether Cecil B De Mille should be included, as I don't think he was a member, though apparently sympathetic to Christian Science. (De Mille was a highly-regarded film director/producer, and if I wanted him to stay in to make CS look culturally cooler or whatever, I would have said nothing.) I don't remember anything about pipe organs (I do have a life outside Wikipedia btw). How much detail is it appropriate to include in an article? That's a matter of judgement, and my judgement is that the section on child deaths is disproportionately long, and that much of the detail is more suited to footnotes. In fact, if the "Criticism" sections gets much longer, there is an argument that it should be split completely from the main article and given a section of its own elsewhere in Wikipedia, as is the case with other controversial groups such as Roman Catholicism, Scientology, Mormons/LDS, etc.Be-nice:-) (talk) 21:49, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Your edits have been entirely in favour of Christian Science, either adding positive material or removing negative. Everyone on this page has to follow the NPOV policy, which does not mean that all views are represented equally. It means that our article ought to focus on issues in a way that roughly reflects the proportion of coverage each issue has attracted in reliable sources; see WP:UNDUE.

As you know, the sources focus on CS healing and the child deaths significantly more than this article does. We have had to write it this way in order to explain some of the details of CS and the structure of the church that the sources don't pay much attention to. But it would be a serious NPOV violation to start removing the negative material about CS healing that we do have. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:00, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

"We have had to write it this way in order to explain some of the details of CS and the structure of the church that the sources don't pay much attention to." I don't know what that means. I never made any secret of the fact that I'm a Christian Scientist. I explicitly stated it. My point is not that there should not be criticism, but that there is too much minute detail which should more properly be in footnote form, if it is to be included. I would say the same thing to a student writing their thesis on any subject. Who is to say how much detail there should be? Should there be a book-length section on negative medical issues? Surely not. I could go into exhaustive detail of what Mary Baker Eddy had for breakfast, the political details of CS church history, etc., but it would be inappropriate for the text of the article. The same point applies to the overload of detail that is currently there.Be-nice:-) (talk) 22:43, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

The only section you say has too much detail is the section you don't like. All the other detail, very little of which the sources care about, you find acceptable. I think you ought not to compare the deaths of children to what Mary Baker Eddy had for breakfast. These deaths are not in some way incidental to Christian Science. They go to the very heart of what it's about.

I've added sources and details that explain the importance of the Ian Lundman case that you removed. The mother, CS nurse and CS practitioner (who were all held liable) told the Supreme Court that its importance for Christian Science could "scarcely be overstated." SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:34, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

"The only section you say has too much detail is the section you don't like." A few comments here: (a) you're assuming that I don't like it; (b) you're implying that the reason I say it has too much detail is because I don't like it. I'm saying it has too much detail because it has too much detail. Whether it's because I like it or not is, in any case, irrelevant to the substantive issue. It has too much detail, period. By my reckoning, it's the longest section in the article.

"These deaths are not in some way incidental to Christian Science. They go to the very heart of what it's about." This is a fairly blatant POV statement. Using the same logic, one could argue that the hundreds of thousands of people who die by medical error every year in the US go to the heart of the medical system.Be-nice:-) (talk) 07:29, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

It would be a failure of critical thinking to compare deaths caused by medical error to deaths caused by a failure to call for medical help when the situation clearly warrants it.

Anyway, the point that matters for our purposes is that we have to write about the issues the sources write about, and we are supposed to do this in rough proportion to the amount of coverage the best sources give each issue. Clearly, this article errs in favour of Christian Science, simply because, in order to describe it and the church, we necessarily have to include details most sources are not interested in. Most of the sources focus on the medical issues, and so it would be wrong to try to reduce those sections. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:30, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

"It would be a failure of critical thinking to compare deaths caused by medical error to deaths caused by a failure to call for medical help when the situation clearly warrants it." Not if the former were proportionately greater than the latter, which I believe may be the case. Anyway, I won't have time to edit for a while. My point remains that the "Criticism" section is burgeoning so much that it will probably, at some stage, have to be split off to a separate section on Wikipedia, in line with articles on controversial organizations like RC, LDS and Scientology. (Maybe that's a solution that would satisfy everyone or at least gain consensus?) Bye for now.Be-nice:-) (talk) 07:09, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

OR

Pretty much all of Christian_Science#Philosophy is original research. The first paragraph appears to be a synthesis. The second paragraph conflates what Eddy wrote with what Christian Scientists believe (which aren't necessarily the same thing). The third paragraph is a generalization from a primary source. IRWolfie- (talk) 08:29, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Bosh. We just got this to GA status, and this is not really a very helpful cavil when the material is fully sourced and appears to be neutrally worded, as befits an encyclopedia article. I agree the Grey anecdote may be UNDUE, but that is part of the normal give-and-take seen by WP:CONSENSUS. Collect (talk) 13:13, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

You've just ignored what I said and didn't address any point. The sources do not verify the text. There is synthesis and other issues there. I find " We just got this to GA status" funny, you mean Slim got it to GA after I got the ball rolling with the article (see what it was like before I edited it), you just hung on to her coat tails. IRWolfie- (talk) 00:13, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Congrats on making snark a trademark <g>. I proposed it for GA, and made what I considerable to be noticeable edits on the article and on this talk page. SV has not said I "hung onto her coat tails" so I see nothing for you to gain by making that absurd claim. I tend to make substantial edits as a matter of style, rather than sequences of relatively minor edits, so comparing raw numbers does not work, but I have more than a score of major edits on the article. Not to mention numerous edits on the talk page and GA review pages. If you wish to delete my barnstar for the GA, you might delete it, of course. Cheers. Collect (talk) 12:59, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Could you be specific about which parts you feel are OR? See current version of that section. It should be easy enough to find extra sources. It's worth noting that I intend to develop the theology/philosophy sections using (probably) Gottschalk, so I'm hoping they'll improve over what's currently there. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:56, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

As an update, the section previously called Philosophy is now called "Sickness as error," and looks like this. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:32, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Great, SYNTH in the first paragraph was removed (the "She nevertheless argued that" part linked the first separate point, to a new point based on a primary source). Source at issue in the second paragraph was switched. IRWolfie- (talk) 20:47, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

US census estimates corrections--terrible sourcing/citations.

Congratulations to SlimVirgin on getting a GA for this article. But . . .

Only 100,000 adherents worldwide is patently false.

Based on the U.S. Census's sample for 2008, I am correcting the estimated number of U.S. only Christian Science adherents to CS_USA= 339,000. That's USA alone.

http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2010/tables/10s0075.pdf

Worldwide, the number must be greater. (Or is that OR?)

For shame. The number of adherents listed in this now GA article is based on crumby newspaper quotes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Centamia (talk • contribs) 08:29, 28 February 2013 (UTC) Centamia (talk) 08:36, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi Centamia, all the secondary sources that I've seen say under 100,000. I found one secondary source that says the church puts the figure at 400,000, so that can be added. But it's better to rely on secondary sources for something like this, where they exist. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:50, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

I've added the church estimate (diff). SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:57, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

'Hi SlimVirgin.' So, Census Bureau data is inferior to guestimates from newspapers? That's weird. If we discard U.S. Census Bureau stats, it follows that ALL of the C.D.C.(Dept of Health and Human Services) should likewise be discarded from this article! So, can we drop all this jazz about "secondary sources" stuff? Centamia (talk) 08:38, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

We most certainly can not. Please review WP:PSTS carefully. TippyGoomba (talk) 08:51, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

As far as I know, historians regard newspapers as primary sources.89.100.155.6 (talk) 22:24, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia uses different definitions from most of the rest of the world on this. See WP:RS etc. Collect (talk) 00:08, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

The American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) asked 54,461 people in 2008 about their religious beliefs. I don't know what the 339 figure represents in relation to the overall figure. In 2001 the Christian Science figure was 194, and in 1990 214. If we decide that means there were 339,000 Christian Scientists in the United States in 2008, and 194,000 in 2001, it means the figure increased significantly in seven years. But all sources, the church included, say numbers are shrinking. So we can't extrapolate anything from the ARIS numbers. This illustrates one of the dangers of using primary sources. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:44, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi SlimVirgin. So regarding the most reliable estimates, is the U.S. Census Bureau no better than (1) an NPR talk show transcript (2) an NYT article without references, (3) Gallagher's book without citations? Centamia (talk) 12:28, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi again, my reply is directly above (02:44, 4 March 2013). The American Religious Identification Survey is the survey you're proposing we use. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 18:36, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

New Images

While it's a nice pic, the image of the Christian Science church in Boston is inappropriate for this article. Not all Christian Scientists are members of the Christian Science church. Some may have left, some may never have got around to joining, some may have issues with this particular organization, and others may have difficulties with the whole concept of religious organization. (I don't have an axe to grind on this, being a member myself--I'm pointing this out for the sake of accuracy.) And while I'm at it, the "New Thought" designation would be rejected by Christian Scientists, so that image is inappropriate as well.Be-nice:-) (talk) 21:02, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm concerned that you've several times pushed the article in the direction of independent Christian Scientists, by arguing that the church shouldn't be the main image, and that we had to stress in the lead that the church could not decide that adherents were allowed to go to doctors. But in fact the church and Eddy are synonymous with Christian Science by any reasonable standard. There may be practitioners outside it with different ideas, but they must be a tiny minority. If I'm wrong about that, I'd appreciate seeing an independent source.

I don't know what you mean by the New Thought image. If you mean the template, it's there to inform readers about New Thought in the section that discusses it. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:58, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Just to add to the above, I'd prefer not to use a fair-use logo as the main image when other, free, images are at least as appropriate. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:44, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

I sympathize with your concern. If you're not a Christian Scientist or not personally familiar with the teaching, it may be difficult to grasp this, but here goes. Christian Science is a religious/philosophical/healing system. It is not synonymous with the CS church, any more than Christianity itself is synonymous with the Roman Catholic, Episcopalian or Presbyterian church. Mary Baker Eddy in fact did not normally attend services in the Christian Science church, nor did she particularly encourage members of her household to do so. (In fact there is an interpretation of her founding a religious movement which sees it as a kind of "suffer it to be so now" action rather than anything else--ie her followers largely came out of Christian churches and expected to be able to attend a church, so she gave them the opportunity to do so. There is a certain ambivalence in her attitude to church organization.) In regard to stressing that the CS church cannot decide that adherents are allowed to go to doctors: (1) it doesn't make any such general prohibition; (2) it couldn't even if it wanted to, since not all adherents of CS are members; (3) even if it did insist that members should not go to doctors, I suspect that most members would not pay a blind bit of notice and would do what they wanted to do. There is no general prohibition on CS adherents, or members, using medicine and there never has been to my knowledge, though there may have been informal social peer pressure in some cases, whether real or imagined. What we do avoid (rightly) is using CS and medicine simultaneously, which would be a bit like trying to move a car that is stuck in the mud by pulling it backwards and forwards at the same time. (Either method might work on its own, but not both at the same time.) In regard to independent Christian Scientists (ie people who are non-members of either The Mother Church or a branch church but who practice Christian Science in their own way) off the top of my head I can think of about a half dozen that I know personally, so if you extrapolate that you would surely have a considerable number. In regard to sources, I'm afraid that the only sources I can give are publications by Christian Scientists, either members or others, as I don't have either the time or interest to research so-called independent sources, which from the perspective of people who actually know what CS is about are often inaccurate, biased, or both. In regard to New Thought, the Christian Science church itself and any independent CS people I can think of would reject the New Thought appellation, so that point should be somewhere stated in the article, at least. As a final general point, the over-riding imperative according to the Wikipedia policies is that an article should be a good article and should be as accurate as possible. Issues about in-house sources, secondary versus primary sources (etc.) are, and should be, subordinate to that.89.100.155.6 (talk) 23:05, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Oops, sorry, forgot to log in. That's my post immediately above this.Be-nice:-) (talk) 23:10, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

We need reliable sources for everything you say, if you want it to be added. If you have no independent ones, CS sources might be appropriate, depending on what they are and what they say. As for the church, Eddy seemed rather keen on setting it up, and even bought up the land to ensure that she (or people she approved of) controlled it. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:30, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

OK, I'll have a go when I get some time, which is kind of at a premium at the moment (though actually time doesn't exist according to CS!)Be-nice:-) (talk) 09:10, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Christian Science was founded by Eddy and is known mainly from the Reading Rooms and their advertising. I agree with comments above: I have yet to see any evidence of a CS movement independent of the Church of Christ Scientist. In fact, most people have barely heard even of the Church. Guy (Help!) 16:33, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Recent edits

Be nice, I restored the material you removed. That she was charismatic, inspired loyalty, cause disputes and that her personality was a major factor in the development of Christian Science is woven throughout every source about her.

I removed your addition of Eddy's allegation of plagiarism as UNDUE, non-specific, too long, and based on a primary source:

Eddy in her turn alleged plagiarism on the part of others. She wrote: "The first edition of SCIENCE AND HEALTH was published in 1875. Various books on mental healing have since been issued, most of them incorrect in theory and filled with plagiarisms from SCIENCE AND HEALTH. They regard the human mind as a healing agent, whereas this mind is not a factor in the Principle of Christian Science. A few books, however, which are based on this book, are useful."

We would ideally need a secondary source, or at least details of who she said had plagiarized her work.

And the Gill sentence that you added was unclear. The murder allegation was very complex; people on both sides were discredited. I've therefore summed it up as Eddy's critics believed X, and her followers not-X. Any further detail in one direction would require detail in the other, and it would quickly get bogged down. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:17, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

"Family"

AFAIK, collective nouns like "family" can take either a singular or a plural verb depending on the context. For example, you could say "my family is a large one (singular) or "my family have a tendency to exaggerate" (plural). In the latter case, the plural is more accurate because I am not necessarily talking about my whole family, just a certain number of them. "The police are laying siege to the house" is surely correct rather than "the police is laying siege to the house." On the other hand, you could say something like "the police is a relatively modern institution."Be-nice:-) (talk) 22:05, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

In the context of MBE's family, "was" is probably more correct since it is less comprehensive than "were" and allows for divergences, which in fact existed.Be-nice:-) (talk) 22:09, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Before anyone jumps on this, I'm aware of the contradiction but too tired to try to resolve it! Good night.Be-nice:-) (talk) 22:12, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

membership per ARIS

US Census figures [25] estimating 339,000 members in 2008 up from 194,000 in 2001. Authoritative figures from government agency, I suspect. Low was 190,000 in 1990. I suspect this is the closest figure we are likely to find. Collect (talk) 19:54, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

There's something wrong here. The number of Christian Science churches has been steadily declining for decades. Either the number (of members) was over-estimated in 2008, and/or under-estimated in 2001/1990. There is no evidence of a recent revival in numbers - quite the opposite. The other possibility is that the criteria for defining "members" may have changed, but I don't know enough about this to say whether or not that's the case.Be-nice:-) (talk) 21:47, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

That source was discussed here. There's something wrong with it, as it seems to contradict itself, and definitely contradicts other sources. Because it's a primary source that's hard to interpret, we should leave it out. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:42, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

The Census report is a secondary source- the poll is a primary source. This is an official report of the US government, and should be treated as such (I can find no instances on Wikipedia where the Census Bureau has been regarded as not RS!) As for fluidity of people self-describeing as members of any group - look at the political changes where one year can show a 10% shift in self identification as members of the GOP or Democratic parties!. Fluidity is, in fact, to be expected in any such poll, and if the numbers were constant, there would have to be a fudge factor of immense weight <g>. Chers. Collect (talk) 00:22, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

The census report is a primary source reproducing the poll figures as given. More importantly, there is something wrong with the figures, and it contradicts all the reliable sources. I can't see the point of reverting over these objections. Please look at the figures for yourself and you'll see the problem. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:31, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

It represents the Census Bureau interpretation of the original data (50K+ people surveyed) thus is not the "primary source" you seem to assert, and moreover, as an official government document, has an air of authority greater than the unnamed "scholars" referred to in the NYT. The number of members of a political party (for examples) may have varied over the past two decades by quite nearly a factor of two. Political associations are fluid, as noted by pollsters. Yet we do not assert the polls must be wrong because people can not have fluid religious associations, do we? Collect (talk) 01:18, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

This is the survey. I can't see how to interpret it, and it contradicts all the secondary sources. For example, what does it mean that "54,461 interviews [were conducted] in 2008," and 57,199 were Catholic? And look at the Christian Science figures: growing between 1990 and 2008, and significantly between 2001 and 2008, when everyone says they're declining, the church included. Religious affiliation isn't going to be as fluid as that. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:45, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Read the study -- they made no such claim in the study. There were over 50,000 interviews, which is enough for a statostically valid sample, and the statistics point to 57 MILLION Catholics. That is why they wrote in bold type In thousands (175,440 represents 175,440,000. See probability and statistics. BTW, self-identification is frequently labile on religion and politics. Cheers. Collect (talk) 23:35, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Please don't keep restoring this without consensus. Unless we know how to interpret it, and how to explain the discrepancy, it should be left out. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:15, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

See the discussion at WP:RS/N where your opinion, so often expressed here, woithout others backing your opinion up, seems to have been dismissed. At this point, you are engaging in a bootless edit war, and I suggest you self-revert. Cheers. Collect (talk) 23:30, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

You didn't say you had started a discussion at RSN. It would have been considerate to let people here know about it. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:56, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

The purpose is to get new voices on a topic - not to iterate ones already present here. If the aim is to have the same people at multiple venues saying the same things at every venue, then that should be added to Wikipedia guidelines <g>. Collect (talk) 00:01, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

No, no. If you are given a voice and an argument at a noticeboard, but those who oppose you are not, what kind of skewed results are we to expect? Binksternet (talk) 00:10, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

I've left a comment there explaining my objection. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:18, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

At RSN, Stephan Schulz said that very small groups such as CS would have the poll results be dominated by the 0.5 reliability factor. Only with very large groups are the number going to be within acceptable error margins. Binksternet (talk) 00:21, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Just so you know, Collect has taken this to the science reference desk. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 00:24, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Since so many weird interpretations have been made about simple statistices, I trust that a mathematician will explain just why the error is highly unlikely to be "a factor of three". Cheers. Collect (talk) 00:37, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Collect, when this was raised in March, you didn't seem concerned one way or the other. What happened to make you so keen to include it now? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:43, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

• Hi, all. I became aware of this topic as a result of the query at WP:RSN. I have several observations to share, in no particular order:

(1) This issue isn't unique to Christian Science. There are discrepancies in estimates of members/adherents/believers for many denominations. The denominations themselves often are accused of inflating their memberships, but Christian Science doesn't publish membership figures, so that's not an issue here, but other-source estimates also can be dubious.

(2) The U.S. Census doesn't ask about religious affiliation, and there are no official U.S. government-developed data on this topic. ARIS is a totally independent entity. The fact that the government chose to include it in the Statistical Abstract of the United States gives it an imprimatur of credibility, IMO, but it doesn't make it government data.

(3) The next page of the 2012 Statistical Abstract includes a table from the National Council of Churches Yearbook of Churches that lists denominational membership, largely based on numbers reported by the denominations. Christian Science isn't in the Yearbook. If you compare the tables for other denominations, you can see big differences between the numbers. For example, for the LDS church, ARIS lists over 3 million adherents in 2008 and the Yearbook lists membership of over 6 million. For Episcopalians, ARIS lists 2.4 million adherents in 2008 and the Yearbook lists 2 million members. For Catholics, ARIS lists 57.2 million adherents and the Yearbook lists 68.5 million members. For Assemblies of God, ARIS lists 810,000 adherents and the Yearbook lists 2 million members. For Jehovah's Witnesses, ARIS lists 1.9 million adherents and the Yearbook lists less than 1.2 million members. This wild variability tells me that no one number can be treated as true -- and statistical error related to sample size cannot possibly explain the differences. It's likely that a lot of people self-identify with one religion but publicly affiliate with another.

(4) That New York Times piece isn't exactly the gold standard of information reliability. First off, the newspaper is not an authority on counting church members. Furthermore, the article says "scholars estimate that the church’s numbers have dropped to under 100,000 from a peak of about twice that at the turn of the 20th century" -- these "scholars" aren't identified by name, and there's no information on how they counted or whether they published their methods. The source of information on the number of churches also isn't identified, but that's likely to be more reliable, as it's reasonable to think that it's much easier to find and count churches than it is to figure out how many people affiliate or identify with Christian Science.

(5) The ARIS website has a "Summary" report of the 2008 data, plus several other reports based on the 2008 data, but none of the reports on the website includes numbers for Christian Scientists. (In one table in the Summary, they are lumped with several other small Protestant denominations.)

In view of all this -- and remembering the importance of no original research, there is absolutely no verifiable basis for choosing one number as correct, and excluding other numbers. IMO, the article should clearly and explicitly state that there are divergent estimates of the number of Christian Scientists, and all recent estimates should be given with an accurate indication of the sources. Note that neither the Census Bureau nor the New York Times is a source; the sources are the ARIS survey in 2008 and a New York Times article saying that "scholars" gave a particular estimate. Another source to use is this 2012 article quoting Christian Science officials on the number of churches. --Orlady (talk) 04:19, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable to me. So, something like: "Unknown - estimates range from approx. 100,000[ref] to 400,000[ref]" for the number ? Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 07:49, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

I think the numbers should not be in the infobox at all, that they should be described in prose and attributed to the sources. Binksternet (talk) 14:31, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

RefDesk is in: The figures are governemnt figures, reliable per Wikipedia, and the inane claims about "error rates" are not valid. Rejecting these figures in favour od unnamed scholars' surmise does not work. Barring any actual bnjection, the ARIS figures published by the USCB are more than usable. Note also thay I never removed the NYT unnamed scholars numbers -- it was SlimVirgin who repeatedly removed the church's own estimte (400,000) as well as the UUSCB published study. Cheers. Collect (talk) 11:30, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

I've never removed the church's estimate; I added it to the article in March, and I've just added it to the lead, so now we have the full range right at the top. I hope this can be dropped now, because the recent edits based on ARIS have been really problematic. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 17:05, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

You misrepresent the RefDesk discussion to be in your favor. Experts there identified how the results of the poll could thrown way off by fairly simple factors. Also, you continue to push this independent ARIS poll as if it were backed by the Census Bureau when it is simply being quoted. Binksternet (talk) 14:27, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Statistically unless you show that those factors are present, we preent the figures as stated. In otther articles with polls, we do not say "the results could be off by a factor of three" (noted to be on the likelihood of one in many millions) or the like -- nor should we do so with a report published by the USCB. And statistics on the official USCB site are indeed "published by the USCB." BTW, presentation of a report is past "simply being quoted" as most people understand the term. Collect (talk) 15:20, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

• In case it's helpful, Eugene V. Gallagher, professor of religious studies at Connecticut College, wrote in The New Religious Movements Experience In America (2004), p. 54, that the Christian Science church had a following of around 100,000 in 2003. He doesn't cite a source. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 17:32, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

So we have the official figure which was ruled "unduly self-serving" (400,000), a strong statistical source (339,000), which is deemed a strong RS, and several unsourced claims by individuals. Um -- does it seem odd to reject the one actual statistical study on the matter? Collect (talk) 19:46, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

The survey seems problematic and misleading, so it's not appropriate for the lead, but it is in the article. What you wanted is that the lead reflect the range of estimates, so now we have that range, 100,000 to 400,000, with each attributed. I asked above why you didn't seem that interested when this was raised in March, but now you're very keen to insert the survey into the lead. What changed between then and now, as a matter of interest? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:07, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

I have opined when it was convenient to do so - I do not sit on any articles at all -- but watchlist well over 3,000. And I see no reason why the only estimate based on actual solid statistics fails to meet your approval here - it is, by far, the only one with any solid foundation at this point. And since I have no dog in the hunt, I assume you will take this as truth. Collect (talk) 21:21, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Membership over the years

Year	US membership	Non-US membership	Total membership	Source
1890	8,724			Rennie Schoepflin 2001, p. 119 (Census of Religious Bodies)
1906			55,000	Schoepflin 2001, p. 119.
1906			80,000	"The Truth about Mrs. Eddy", The New York Times
1906	65,717			Rodney Stark, "The Rise and Fall of Christian Science," 1998, p. 191 (Census of Religious Bodies)
1926	202,098			Rodney Stark, "The Rise and Fall of Christian Science," 1998, p. 191 (Census of Religious Bodies)
1926	207,098			Rodney Stark, Religion, Deviance, and Social Control 2013, p. 70
1936	268,915			Schoepflin 2001, p. 119. "The height" of popularity (Census of Religious Bodies)
1981			"declining rapidly over the past forty years."	Rodney Stark, Religion, Deviance, and Social Control 2013, p. 71
1983	218,000; 168,000 adjusted total			Rodney Stark, "The Rise and Fall of Christian Science," 1998, p. 191 (General Social Surveys)
1987			100,000–166,804	Frank Zindler (September 1987). "Mary 'Faker' Eddy and the Cult of Christian Science", American Atheists magazine.
1989			200,000–250,000	Mary Farrell Bednarowski 1989, p. 12
1990	214,000			"Self-described Religious Identification of Adult Population", ARIS
1990	177,000; 106,000 adjusted total			Rodney Stark, "The Rise and Fall of Christian Science," 1998, p. 191 (American National Survey of Religious Identification)
1995				Schoepflin 2001, p. 119. "...membership had been declining steadily for decades."
1995	under 100,000	more than 15,000	about 115,000	"Suffering Children and the Christian Science Church", The Atlantic
1998	113,000			Rodney Stark, "The Rise and Fall of Christian Science," 1998: "Soon, growth was replaced by decline and, today, it is uncertain whether Christian Science will survive for even another generation" (p. 190). "According to the 1936 Census of Religious Bodies, the average Christian Science church had 87 members that year. If we assume that number for today's congregations, then multiplying 87 by 1300 churches offers an independent estimate of current membership at 113,000, which is nearly identical to the adjusted total of 106,000 estimated for 1990" (p. 194).
2000			about 200,000	"Christian Science Church Seeks Truce With Modern Medicine", The New York Times
2001	194,000			"Self-described Religious Identification of Adult Population", ARIS
2003			perhaps below 100,000	"Christian Science", PBS: "The Church says it has no membership figures, but observers say its numbers may have fallen below 100,000."
2003			about 60,000	Caroline Fraser 2003, p. 268
2003			about 100,000	Eugene V. Gallagher 2004, p. 54
2008			400,000	Church estimates, countered by independent observers. "Christian Science Healing", PBS
2008			100,000	Independent estimates, countered by church estimates. "Christian Science Healing", PBS
2008	339,000			"Self-described Religious Identification of Adult Population", ARIS
2010			under 100,000	"Christian Science Church Seeks Truce With Modern Medicine", The New York Times

Discussion

Note: Most of the estimates appear to be entirely guesses .. the only ones with a statistical foundation are the ARIS values, and the official church values which were asserted to be "self-serving." There is a distinct possibility, in fact, that the 100,000 figure cited by several is from a single unidentified source, and thus picked up by media as undisputed fact. I find no (as in "zero") actual solid places for the "under 100,000" claim at all, and the lowest ARIS figure for CS was way over 100,000. I suspect it is a "self-sustaining fact" which frequently permeates articles based on anecdotes. Collect (talk) 00:22, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Your suspicion is not supported by the fact of multiple church closures, the which has been observed over decades. Church closures are taken by experts as a sign that membership is in decline. The ARIS poll is problematic because it contradicts the decline story. Binksternet (talk) 01:50, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

And where a church has no requirement for church attendance - that means bupkis. BTW, your argument also applies to (say) Wicca which had lots of self-identified adherents - and no churches. Arguning that you know something which is contradicted by an actual study is not how Wikipedia functions - we have a reliable source, which is statistically sound, and we use it. Cheers. Collect (talk) 07:18, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't give a hoot about how many people go to CS churches, but in looking into this matter I have seen that there are those who study the problem of membership, and they assign this or that attendance number to the average CS church in order to arrive at CS membership estimates. My argument is about CS only, not about other religions. Binksternet (talk) 14:30, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

PRay tell how do they acquire such information? I suggest that measuring attendance at a church which does not even suggest attendance is pretty silly, indeed. AFAICT, the "reading rooms" are not churches, and are open for a great many hours each week - during which random folks can enter and leave without ever being counted at all. Further that there is no requirement that an adherent use a listed "practitioner" either. In short, the only rational basis for any number is actually "self-identification" for which we have a reliable source. Cheers. Collect (talk) 14:55, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

You are setting up a straw man argument to knock it down. The debate is not carried forward by such maneuvers. Binksternet (talk) 14:59, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

I note you added Rodney Stark who assumes average church attendance percentages in 1936 are identical today (87 per church). That is CHURCH ATTENDANCE IS THE SAME TODAY AS IN 1936. I suggest that if you can find a single source making that assumption with a straight face that you tell us! Meanwhile Stark accepts ARIS as accurate - which would seem to indicate 1. average percentage attendance is down (d'oh) and 2. the number of people self-identifying with a religion is labile. And since Stark accepts and uses ARIS, he would also accept 339,000 for a current figure. BTW, when you cite "Table 7-1" that is not the same as "page 71". Cheers. Collect (talk) 17:19, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

There are scholars who have studied and written about this, and they are cited in the tables above and below. The most cited and most detailed is Rodney Stark, "The Rise and Fall of Christian Science," Journal of Contemporary Religion, 13 (2), 1998, pp. 189–214. He examines the number of members according to various polls over the decades, the number of Christian Science practitioners according to the church, and the number of churches, and reaches certain conclusions based on that information. It is guesswork, but it is educated guesswork. It would have been his work in part that the 2010 New York Times estimate was based on. It makes no sense to pick out one primary source (the 2008 ARIS figure) and present it on a par with that kind of detailed overview from a secondary source. That's precisely what WP:PSTS warns against, namely trying to present primary source material as straightforward when in fact it requires background knowledge to interpret it. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:24, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Christian Science practitioners in the United States

Year	Figure	Source
1883	14	Rodney Stark, "The Rise and Fall of Christian Science," Journal of Contemporary Religion, 13 (2), 1998 (pp. 189–214), p. 192, citing the Christian Science Journal, and below
1887	110
1895	553
1911	3,280
1919	6,111
1930	9,722
1941	11,200
1945	9,823
1953	8,225
1972	5,848
1981	3,403
1995	1,820
2005	1,161	Stephen Barrett (Quackwatch), "Christian Science Statistics", citing the Christian Science Journal, and below
2009	333

Note: Barrett uses the listings in the "Christian Science Journal" which may or may not have any actual relationship to the number of people self-identifying as "Christian Science" adherents. What it actually shows is how many people will pay to be listed in that journal. I would hazard a guess that if folks do not get results from an ad, that they will not run an ad. But I might be wrong on that - that people will keep running ads even with returns less than the cost of advertising. Collect (talk) 22:16, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

He is not talking about adherents, but about Christian Science practitioners in the United States. My understanding is that the Christian Science Journal directory keeps a list of them all. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:32, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

IIRC, we had a discussion wherein it was stated that the CSJ charged for such ads. And we have no sources saying that a self-identified adherent of CS needs to use an "official proactitioner" in any event - just as it does not really promote church or reading room attendance as a religious duty. One might note the number of classified ads in newspapers is down by 90% from the peak, but that does not mean the businesses which used to pay for them have all ceased to exist, as far as I know. Maybe all the old advertisers in the NYT are well and truly dead. Collect (talk) 22:37, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

According to Rodney Stark: "While Christian Science no longer reveals its membership, the movement does continue to list every Christian Science practitioner (including address and telephone number) in the world in each edition of the Christian Science Journal" (Stark 1998, p. 192). It is therefore possible to make certain projections about overall membership based on the decline in the number of practitioners. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:45, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

From the website:

The men and women who advertise in these pages represent that they are devoted full-time to helping others through the prayer-based system explained in the book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, experienced in the healing ministry of Christian Science, and available to give treatment through prayer for life challenges.

No pay - no list. Which rather conflicts with the idea of a "complete list" it is actually "a complete list of advertisers who gain an imprimatur by advertising." I can not find the actual rate card and suspect it is kept private. [26] shows the listing for a competitive site at $69 per year if I read it correctly, so I doubt the CSJ price is substantially different? Collect (talk) 23:38, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

You're making a distinction between those listed and those eligible to be listed, but there's no reason to suppose those numbers differ significantly, if at all. The point is that the number of members, practitioners and churches is declining, according to all secondary sources and most primary sources. The only exception is the 2008 ARIS poll. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:10, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

No reason to suppose those numbers differ? Hoo-Haa!! You are now asserting a "fact" without a scintilla of evidence to back it up -- which is not exactly how Wikipedia operates. I just showed it is advertising for a fee and thus is not in any way warranted to be a "complete list" other than being a "complete list of advertisers." Collect (talk) 01:03, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Doctors in the UK (for example) have to register with the GMC; there is a fee for doing that. [27] The list is nevertheless (I believe) a complete list of doctors licensed to practice. With respect, you're engaged in OR in order to argue for the inclusion of a primary source, but it's not clear what you hope to achieve. The source is in the article, but not in the lead, and you haven't presented any arguments for placing it in the lead. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:29, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Because it is unsupported by any secondary text, I consider the 2008 ARIS number to be a statistical anomaly or even a mistake. Where are the happy CS announcements of greatly increasing membership? Where are the surprised responses from religious scholars who thought the church was in a decades-long decline? These expected publications are not to be found, not even with five years passing from 2008 to now. The ARIS number is a curiosity, an outlier. It should be quoted in the article, attributed, but not given any sort of factual status. We should not simply relay the number in Wikipedia's voice. Binksternet (talk) 00:55, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

As the overwhelming consensus at the refdesk was that it is not a "statistical anomaly" your personal opinion does not count for a hell of a lot. And since the CS church stated about 400,000, it would be amazing if it surprised that church. Who it surprises are those who for some reaoson or other were trusting that the number was under 100,000 -- and since Wikipedia uses what solid reliable sources say, and not what editors "know" that is where we must follow. And, IIRC, I did not place the figure in Wikipedia's voice in any case -- so where that snark came from I do not know. Cheers. Collect (talk) 01:03, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

There is no snark in my recommendation not to represent the 2008 ARIS number in Wikipedia's voice. When Wikipedia editors are faced with multiple sources in conflict we attribute the various conflicting reports. In representing to the reader that the church has been in a long decline since about 1941, the fact being reliably sourced, any increase in membership will be hard to accommodate in prose. Binksternet (talk) 01:12, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

There is absolutely IDONTHEARTHAT in your "decision" not to allow a strong reliable source in tthe article -- and the claims that it is "statistically invalid" were unanimously derided at the RefDesk, and the claim it was not RS was derided at the RS/N board. What mmore do you need? And the idea that we must support what you know to be true and that all sources contrary to what you know must be suppressed ,,, is Orwellian. Facts are messy things -- but when they conttradict what folks know, we use the facts. Collect (talk) 12:16, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Collect, I've left a note on your talk page to ask you to stop restoring this. This is similar to the "infected/affected" situation, where you argued that Christian Scientists were "affected" by measles during a measles outbreak, but not necessarily "infected". The similarity is that it's important to read all the sources and to gain an overview, rather than to focus on the wording of one source. If you read the scholarly papers and books, you'll see that the 339,000 figure is an anomaly. It is in the article, but it's inappropriate for the lead; and it would be inappropriate even if there were nothing odd about it, because it's too much detail for the lead. What we need for the lead is the church figure and independent figure, and just leave it there. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:30, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

I did not restore the infobox but it is inane and silly to keep the only actual scientific figure out of the lead! That you find facts to be an "anomaly" which should be buried is not how Wikipedia works -- and Binksternet agreed at RS/N on this now. Cheers. Collect (talk) 22:42, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Edit on Panpsychism

My apologies. I didn't think this was going to be a contentious change, so I was surprised. The article says that Resher, Nicholas is making a statement about (1) Berkeley and (2) oriental panpsychism. Reading the citation it is clear to see the discussion of Berkeley. Rescher does not speak or discuss any oriental philosophies. The text quoted does not seem to support the claim in the article that "Rescher likens" this to (1) Berkeley AND (2) oriental panpsychism as Rescher does not liken it to this second item. Siliconagency (talk) 00:16, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi, the source discusses it on the linked page in the citation, p. 318, third paragraph (I also added the link to the last edit summary). SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:08, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Order of headings

While the article as it now stands has much merit, the background section comes far too early and the details of CS doctrine too late. Surely we should disclose the basic doctrines first. I believe that we should think of the reader. Most readers will want to know firstly and foremostly what CS is, what its doctrines are, and then may choose to continue to read the historical detail. What do other editors think? Michael J. Mullany (talk) 05:52, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi Michael, the lead explains the basics. The development of the ideas then explains in more detail how the philosophy/theology evolved, and what it evolved into. There's a table of contents, so any reader wanting to jump over that to "Beliefs and practices" can do that. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 06:05, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Other religions/sects/cults seem pretty evenly distributed on the history vs doctrine order. Personally, I could go either way, both sections are quite good in my opinion. A merit for history first would be that it gives the beliefs historic context. TippyGoomba (talk) 06:07, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

I certainly have little problem with the quality or content with what has been written. However, readers are usually guided by the order of presentation of writers. Do we want to say to readers that the most important aspect of CS is its history? Surely we should start by stating in some depth, its doctrines (however wrong to some) and then give the context? Michael J. Mullany (talk) 07:11, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

One can just as well argue in the opposite direction: one can better understand doctrines and stuff if presented withing adequate context; if first learned where they came from. Staszek Lem (talk) 22:07, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Membership records?

The introduction currently says "The church does not retain membership numbers, but estimated in 2008 that there were 400,000 members worldwide." I have added a note asking for a citation of this claim. I am skeptical of the claim that the "church does not retain membership numbers." In fact I believe that the church does not publish membership numbers. But my understanding is that they collect a membership fee (I think it's called something like a per capita tax) from members every year. So I think it is likely that they know how many members there are, or at least how many are paying the fee and donating to the church. Furthermore since the church is not allowed to publish membership numbers I think it is unlikely that they would have provided an estimate in 2008 of the number of members. Perhaps they did but I would be interested to see the citation which shows where this estimate was published. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikiuser1239 (talk • contribs) 20:37, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Sourced in body of article to [28] with a note that Eddy forbade membership tallies. I find no source for any "membership fee". The source for the lowest estimates is based on multiplying the number of churches by 87, and not on any empirical basis otherwise. Usually the lead does not need footnotes for cited material in the body. Collect (talk) 21:24, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

My concern is not about what the total membership number is. Rather I am skeptical of the following two claims: 1) that the church does not maintain a record of the number of members it has, and 2) that it provided an estimate of the number of members in 2008. The PBS interview does not seem authoritative for addressing those claims. Obviously the reporter did say that the church estimated there were 400,000 members in 2008, but that conflicts with the published church rules. The claim that Eddy forbade membership tallies appears to me to be incorrect. I looked up the official church rules (from the Manual of the Mother Church). It says Numbering the People. SECT. 28. Christian Scientists shall not report for publication the number of the members of The Mother Church, nor that of the branch churches. According to the Scripture they shall turn away from personality and numbering the people.[29]. Since the actual rules specifically prohibit publishing the number of members I am skeptical that an "estimate" would have been provided to the press in 2008. Furthermore the same rules state Per Capita Tax. SECT. 13. Every member of The Mother Church shall pay annually a per capita tax of not less than one dollar, which shall be forwarded each year to the Church Treasurer.[30]. If the members of the church are required to pay an annual "per capita tax" then it seems likely that this is associated with record keeping that would allow the church to know how many members there are (at least members who are paying the tax) and there would be no need to estimate the number of members.Wikiuser1239 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 17:58, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

After some more research I feel confident that the information from the PBS story is not accurate. A NY Times story from March 2010[31] notes that Though officials do not provide membership statistics, scholars estimate that the church’s numbers have dropped to under 100,000 from a peak of about twice that at the turn of the 20th century. This would seems to fit with the statement I quoted earlier from the church manual that Christian Scientists shall not report for publication the number of the members of The Mother Church. I don't know what would have led the PBS reporter to state that the church estimated there were 400,000 members as of 2008. Perhaps she interviewed someone who gave that number to her as an estimate. Regardless I do not think it is accurate to say that this was an estimate provided by the church because I have not been able to find any reference to it anywhere else. Instead I have only found information stating the church is forbidden from publishing the number of members that it has.Wikiuser1239 (talk) 03:36, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Judy Valente is a journalist for a reliable source. That is what we use per WP:RS - not what we do OR on, or do SYNTH on, or what we "know." Collect (talk) 08:48, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

UK Charity records have the financial statements of CS churches - and the text generally indicates that membership in the "Mother Church" is not required. Thus the main church would not get capitation monies from churches. [32]. [33] inter alia. If the "Mother Church" does not get capitation moneies, it is clear that all it can do is provide an "estimate" in the first place. Collect (talk) 09:13, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

I am still skeptical of the validity of what Valente reported, however, I think it is fair to include that information within the correct context. However, the prohibition on reporting the number of members is clearly stated in the church manual. As such I think it is important to include this as context for the Valente numbers. I don't know how church officials might choose to interpret this prohibition on publishing the number of members, perhaps they felt it was appropriate to provide an estimate to Valente. I think that an appropriate compromise could be to keep the Valente numbers in the article, but to include the caveat that the church prohibits publication of the number of members. That way readers can interpret this information within the context of the facts that we have. The original statement seemed to me to imply that the church made some public estimate of membership numbers available in 2008 and that Valente was reporting on that. However, the only information that is available from the sources is that in 2008 Valente said that the church estimated there were 400,000 members. We don't know anything else about where she got that information from. And this action conflicts with the 2010 NY Times article which says that the church does not provide membership statistics.Wikiuser1239 (talk) 16:11, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

NPR removal

After the discussion, full removal was clearly not justified. I attributed the statement to the person making it - Judy Valente who is considered a journalist, making a statement on a reliable source as a journalist. Cheers. Collect (talk) 08:46, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Your source is this transcript. Are you saying it's been through editorial rigor? Was she reading a script? Where did she get the number from? This does not appear reliable at all. TippyGoomba (talk) 15:31, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

I originally added a "citation needed" note to the claim that: "The church does not retain membership numbers, but estimated in 2008 that there were 400,000 members worldwide" because I was skeptical of it. I was skeptical of this claim for two reasons. 1) It seems likely that the church does maintain membership records because it keeps track of a "per capita tax." 2) The official church rules (the Manual of the Mother Church) specifically prohibit the church from publishing membership numbers. Thus it seems unlikely that the church would provide an estimate, though of course it is possible. In response to my citation needed note the PBS transcript was provided as a source. However, this transcript does not provide any detail about how the estimate was made or where it came from. I don't doubt that the journalist was provided an estimate from someone, but the way the sentence is currently written it implies that the estimate was something coming from the church headquarters. It is worth noting that Judy Valente was reporting from Chicago but that the church headquarters are in Boston. One possibility is that someone she spoke to while preparing her story gave her an estimate of 400,000 and she attributed that to the church in general. That is purely speculation on my part, but it is a valid possibility that doesn't discredit Valente but simply accounts for it as an honest mistake. If there is some other source for the 2008 membership estimate I would be interested in seeing it. But if the only source is a single sentence in a PBS news report I think that the claim should be removed since it conflicts with the typical behavior of the church not publishing membership totals. If the claim is retained then I think that it should be made clear that the source is only a 2008 PBS story, rather than an official estimate that the church made publicly available.Wikiuser1239 (talk) 20:15, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

That Valente "reported from Chicago" has absolutely nothing to do with the proverbial price of eggs. The source is acknowledged to meet WP:RS and any problems you might have are surely covered by full attribution of the claim. Wikipedia editors are not supposed to do "original research" to try contradicting a reliable source. Cheers. Collect (talk) 20:35, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Note that WP:RS which you reference says the following about new stories: Whether a specific news story is reliable for a specific fact or statement in a Wikipedia article will be assessed on a case-by-case basis. As such it is appropriate to analyze the statement in question and see whether it is reliable or not, rather than simply parroting anything that appears in a news story without any critical thinking. I agree that the fact that Valente is reporting from Chicago is not something that belongs in the article itself. But it is worthwhile to consider the context of the report and whether the reporter could have made a mistake or not. In case this the factual accuracy of the reporter's comments is questionable because it conflicts with published church policy of not providing membership numbers to the public.Wikiuser1239 (talk) 21:18, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

The concept of "grasping at straws" is quite aking to "IDONTLIKEIT" as an argument - if you can provide a source which specifically says Valente is wrong, the way Wikipedia works is to add that opinion, not to remove the reliably sourced claim. The reported specialises in the field of religion for NPR. Her SPS c.v. includes working for the WaPo, the WSJ, multiple Pulitzer finalist, and working on "Religion and Ethics" for eight years for NPR. I suggest a person who has 8 years of experience in the specific topic area is quite likely not to be casually misled. Cheers. Collect (talk) 21:33, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Valente said: Mrs. Eddy forbade her followers from keeping an official membership tally. This is incorrect. As noted earlier Eddy actually forbid reporting membership totals for publication: Christian Scientists shall not report for publication the number of the members of The Mother Church, nor that of the branch churches.[34] Valente's statement about an "official membership tally" appears to be the basis for the statement in the Wikipedia article that The church does not retain membership numbers. This statement is false based on the fact that the church maintains records about its members including their address and their payment of a per captia tax. The following link on the church website says: It is easy to find out if you are a member. Please email Clerk@christianscience.com and include your name, address, phone, number, and member number (if you have it).[35]. This shows that the church does have a list of members. What Eddy prohibited was reporting membership totals, not for the church to retain membership data. Other sources such as the NY Times article corrobrate the claim that the church does not provide membership statistics[36]. Thus despite Valente's credentials it appears her single sentence from a 2008 is being used as the basis for factually inaccurate information in this Wikipedia article.Wikiuser1239 (talk) 22:27, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Your post consists of WP:OR and WP:SYNTH with a good dose of WP:IDONTLIKEIT for added measure. If you wish to discuss this at WP:RS/N I suggest you do so, but I am reasonably sure of the responses you will get there. Collect (talk) 22:35, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Here's another source on the topic of publishing membership information: The Church refuses to release any figures on its membership ...[37]. The author is Caroline Fraser writining in the Atlantic in 1995. She later went on to publish a 500+ page book about Christian Science[38]. Getting back to the issue at hand, the Wikipedia article says: The church does not retain membership numbers, but estimated in 2008 that there were 400,000 members worldwide. First the "does not retain membership numbers" is not even supported by the Valente statement since she says "official membership tally". Obviously the church maintains some members numbers. Second, and more importantly, this sentence ignores the fact that the church rules prohibit it from reporting membership totals for publication. Claiming that the church made an estimate in 2008 ignores Fraser's 1995 statement that the church does not provide membership totals or the more recent 2010 NY Times article which says the same thing. Finally while analyzing the factual accuracy of Valente's statement requires critical thinking which may lead to accusations of WP:OR, there is no original research required to quote from the church manual which specifically forbids the publication of membership totals. Thus at a minimum this information should be included in the article in helping to explain why there is so much controversy about the church membership total. If the church published its membership totals they might still be disputed, but it is a verifiable fact that church rules prohibit publishing membership totals. As currently written the article does not include this information and misleads readers regarding the sorts of records that the church maintains or its willingness to provide information about its membership totals.Wikiuser1239 (talk) 23:13, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

While trying to get a better understanding of Wikipedia's policies I came across the following statement: SYNTH is not directly applicable to talk pages[39]. This seems like a reasonable position. Obviously my contention that the statement made by Valente is factually incorrect relies on analysis of a variety of different sources. I agree that it would not be appropriate to tie these together to make this claim in an article itself. Instead it seems more appropriate to remove the claims that can be traced only to this single source, and instead include information that is more broadly corroborated. In this case the relevant fact is that church policy forbids publishing its membership totals. This is corroborated by two news stories, as well as by the official church rules published in the manual. We don't have any context for where the 2008 estimate that Valente reported comes from, but we do know that the idea of the church providing membership totals conflicts with the church rules as well as behavior reported in 1995 and 2010. All of these facts combined make the Valente claim seem unreliable, and it certainly should not be presented as an official church estimate the way that it currently is.Wikiuser1239 (talk) 06:07, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it's obviously okay (indeed often necessary) to perform research into the reliability of sources. If that wasn't allowed, we might as well shut down WP:RSN now! Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 09:18, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Break

The situation with the ever-expanding second paragraph isn't good. The lead has to be succinct and can't include a detailed discussion of figures. The most recent version from Collect and Wikiuser was:

A census in 1936, at the height of the movement's popularity, counted nearly 270,000 Christian Scientists in the United States. Although church rules prohibit publication of membership numbers, in 2008 Judy Valente of NPR reported that the church estimated it has 400,000 members worldwide. Independent estimates place the figure at around 100,000. There were around 1,100 Christian Science churches in the United States in 2010 and 600 elsewhere. According to a poll conducted by the American Religious Identification Survey in 2008, 339,000 people in the United States self-identified as Christian Scientists.

I'm going to take this back to:

A census in 1936, at the height of the movement's popularity, counted nearly 270,000 Christian Scientists in the United States. The church estimated in 2008 that there were 400,000 members worldwide; independent estimates place the figure at around 100,000.

That resolves Wikiuser's concern about the church retaining membership figures. The sentence about the number of churches is in the infobox; that and the rest of the detail is in the body. If anyone wants to expand the paragraph beyond the version that gained GA status, please wait until the RfC has closed. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 17:06, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

I am OK with mentioning a 2008 church estimate of membership; NPR's part in convrying that number should be cited, not laid directly in the text. Mangoe (talk) 17:13, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

I agree that there was too much detail in the lead and perhaps some of it should be moved to the body. However, I am not comfortable with claim that "the church estimated in 2008 that there were 400,000 members worldwide." The reason is that church policy prohibits publishing membership totals and historically the church has not made these numbers available. So this sentence is suspect. I don't doubt that someone provided this estimate to the NPR reporter, but we don't know where that estimate came form, and as written the sentence sounds like it is reporting publicly available information. However, other news organizations have reported that the church refuses to provide membership information, which is consistent with the church rules as stated in the church manual. All of this detail is too much for the lead, but some version of it could be included in the body. But simply saying that the "church estimated in 2008" implies more than we know from the source. From the sources we have all we know is that this is what NPR reported. But we don't have any context for where NPR got this information from. Also the same paragraph in the NPR report contains a factual error, namely that "Mrs. Eddy forbade her followers from keeping an official membership tally." If one statement in the report can be proved to be false then that reduces the credibility of other statements which are also suspect.Wikiuser1239 (talk) 17:41, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

That you know a major reporter lied about a source for a figure is interesting - but not a valid argument on Wikipedia. She said where she got the figure - and you seem to assert that she can not be telling the truth. As I suggested - try that argument at RS/N, but not here. Cheers. Collect (talk) 18:20, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm not disputing the general reliability of NPR. Instead I am questioning specific statements that appeared in the story which conflict with other published information. I'm not accusing the reporter of lying, I'm simply saying that the statements in the story are incorrect and conflict with other published information. We don't have enough context to know why the incorrect statements appeared in the story, but we should at least properly attribute them, if they are included in the article at all.Wikiuser1239 (talk) 19:40, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Wikiuser, I've tightened it some more to take account of your concern:

A census in 1936, at the height of the movement's popularity, counted nearly 270,000 Christian Scientists in the United States. Current membership estimates range from 100,000 to 400,000 worldwide.

This really is all that's needed for the lead. I only mentioned figures in the lead in the first place to give readers an idea of the figures over time. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 18:59, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

This looks good except it should read "Current worldwide membership estimates range from 100,000 to 400,000." Mangoe (talk) 19:20, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, and done. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:25, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

I also think it looks good now.Wikiuser1239 (talk) 19:40, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Several people during the RfC favoured a briefer option too, so we seem to have consensus. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:08, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

"Brief" != "removal of all the conflicting statements" including the only scientifically derived value from ARIS. Cheers. Collect (talk) 20:39, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

I demur, and suggest that the arguments given against the NPR report referring directly to it being a church estimate is contrary to Wikipedia policy. Collect (talk) 19:59, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Members

I think that the current lead adequately summarize the estimated church membership totals and it seems that a consensus has been reached on its wording. However, when I was looking to add details to the body I realized that the section needed to be rewritten.

What tipped me off was the uncited statement that: "Membership is often passed on within families; the church recruits comparatively few new followers." I was suspicious of this because it implies that more Christian Science children remain in the church as adults than is common for other religions. However, that is not true. In fact the trend in recent years has been for people to leave the church and for few new converts to join leading to an overall decline in church participation and membership.

In trying to verify this information I found a 1998 article by Rodney Stark called The Rise and Fall of Christian Science[40] from the Journal of Contemporary Religion (its behind a paywall but can be accessed from universities). Stark provides the following data about children who remain in various different religions:

Religious affiliation at age 16:	Percentage who remain members as adults
Jewish	85
Roman Catholic	81
Mormon	80
Southern Baptist	80
Jehovah's Witness	67
Missouri Lutheran	66
Methodist	66
Seventh-day Adventist	60
Presbyterian	57
Episcopalian	55
Assemblies of God	51
None	44
Unitarian Universalist	41
Christian Science	33

Overall I think that the following three things are most noteworthy about church membership:

1) The pattern of rise and fall beginning with the church founding, leading to its peak in the 1940s and the continued decline since that time. This is adequetly summarized by Stark in his The rise and fall of Christian science paper.

2) The refusal of the church to publish membership totals, and the methods used by scholars to estimate total membership based on the number of churches and number of practitioners (since that information can be attained by looking at lists published in the Christian Science Journal).

3) The church's claim that it has experienced recent growth in Africa.

I rewrote the paragraph with membership totals relying heavily on information published by Stark in The Rise and Fall of Christian Science. That paper was published in 1998 and it listed 1,300 churches in the U.S. from 1995. However, the more recent 2010 NY Times article says the total number of churches has dropped to 1,100, so it seems likely that the trends that Stark identified have continued.

From looking at the talk page I see that the subject of reporting membership totals has been heavily debated recently. I have not seen all of the debate and I am happy if my edit can be improved. Personally I believe that the NPR estimate is not credible, but since it has not been repudiated I can accept having it included as long as it is sourced to NPR. Likewise I don't think that the ARIS numbers are credible. However, their inclusion has already been debated in detail and I think they are appropriate for the article.Wikiuser1239 (talk) 17:55, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

That looks good to me, Wikiuser. It would help if you could add the page number(s) from Stark for the material you added, just to make it easier for anyone who wants to check it. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:06, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

I added page numbers for the specific numbers that I quoted from Stark.Wikiuser1239 (talk) 05:02, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

That's great, thank you. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:47, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

RfC: Should the lead contain the 2008 ARIS membership estimate?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

The lead contains the church membership estimate and an independent estimate. Should the lead also contain the 2008 ARIS estimate of self-identified adherents? All three figures are in the body of the article. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:13, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

• The second paragraph of the lead says, as in this version:

A census in 1936, at the height of the movement's popularity, counted nearly 270,000 Christian Scientists in the United States. The church does not retain membership numbers, but estimated in 2008 that there were 400,000 members worldwide. Independent estimates place the figure at around 100,000. There were around 1,100 Christian Science churches in the United States in 2010 and 600 elsewhere.

• Should that paragraph also say, as in this version:

According to a poll conducted by the American Religious Identification Survey in 2008, 339,000 people in the United States self-identified as Christian Scientists.

SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:16, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Survey

• Don't include ARIS figure in the lead; see the survey here. It's in the body of the article in the "Members" section, third paragraph. Given that the figure is an anomaly and contradicts all the scholarship in this area, which says numbers are declining and are around 100,000 – e.g. see Rodney Stark, Rennie Schoepflin, and Eugene V. Gallagher, and see this table – it shouldn't be in the lead. But given that the lead is intended only as an overview, it's better to leave out detailed figures anyway, and simply to give the church v. the independent estimates. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:18, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

• Previous discussions about the ARIS source: Talk page, March 2013; Talk page, April 2013; RSN, April 2013; Reference desk/Science, April 2013. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:34, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

• This article has GA status, which means the writing has to be decent. There was already arguably too much detail in the lead about numbers, but when I wrote it I felt it was important to give rough estimates. To extend the second paragraph with details of one poll, which Collect is now trying to add even more details to, means we're focusing on who-says-what about numbers before we even say what Christian Science is. It's important to give an idea of membership, but the additional figures detract from the lead's readability. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:12, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

• The rule is that we include all the reliable sources - not that we only choose the ones we like. IIRC, I was not the one who first added numbers to the infobox - so be wary of stone-casting, please. Collect (talk) 01:51, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

• There's no such rule. Everything can't be added to the lead. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:58, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

• BTW, I added the cite to the lead because another editor insisted on it - I think you should note that fact before casting aspersions here <g>. Collect (talk) 01:53, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

• If we must have lots of numbers, they're better in the infobox than in the lead. The current second paragraph is really too much detail. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:58, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

• Include This was discussed at RS/N where it was an extremely strong consensus that the source meets WP:RS and at the RefDesk (Science_ where the statistics were found unanimously to have a low error espectation. The argument that because it does not "fit" in with what editors "know" to be tbe the "truth" and is an "anomaly" is nowhere given in any Wikipedia policy as a reason for rejecting a reliable source. We use various sources, but we do not reject one an editor asserts is "wrong." Collect (talk) 23:38, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

• Sorry, that is not correct. There were several objections at the RSN to relying on this source. And the question here is not whether to include it (it is included), but whether to add it to the lead, as you did here. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:41, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

• • • Note that the wording of this RfC is argumentative -- and should have been:
      • Is the ARIS report pn the number of self-identified Christian Scientists a reliable source of sufficient weight to be placed in the lead of the article on Christian Science?
    • The wording used is not a neutral and breief exposition of the question. Collect (talk) 23:43, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

• • At RS/N the count was 7 to 3 that it was RS -- with Binksternet now allowing that it is RS making that count 8 to 2. At RefDesk the count that the statistics were meaningful was 6 to 1 with one noting The inherent sampling error, due to the inherent randomness of the sampling process. Since everyone is either a Christian Scientist (CS) or not, the sampling error follows a binomial distribution with standard error sqrt(npq) = 9. If the best estimate for the number of CS adherents is 340,000, the 95% confidence interval would be roughly 270,000 to 410,000 which is a pretty narrow range and clearly statistically significant in the view of math expers. Shouting "anomaly" does not alter mathematics in the real world. Collect (talk) 23:55, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

• No, the lead should not contain the 339,000 membership figure from ARIS 2008, nor should the infobox. The outlier figure is one statistic out of many possible from secondary sources, and it contradicts the mainstream viewpoint in which the church is declining steadily and has been since about 1941. The ARIS figures and other estimates belong in the article body. The only thing to be said about membership in the lead section is that the number of adherents today is unknown. Binksternet (talk) 01:14, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

• Include the number. Don't call it a membership number, though. It's not a membership number; rather, it's a survey-based estimate of the number of Americans who self-identify with Christian Science. None of us knows why this number is so high; it's hard to credit the number as valid. However, we don't have any basis for rejecting it other than various forms of original research ("it can't be true"; "it contradicts the mainstream viewpoint"; it's too high for the number of churches, it must be a statistical anomaly, etc.). Accordingly, it should be reported as one recent indicator of the reach of this denomination. If there were a reliably sourced report in which someone authoritative said that this number is clearly incorrect, then there would be a basis for treating it differently, but until that sort of a source exists, we need to provide a balanced report of all relevant reliably sourced estimates, including this one. --Orlady (talk) 01:50, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

• Hi Orlady, I just want to check that you're saying it should be added to the lead (it's already in the article). If we add that estimate to the lead, why not all the others? That's why I'm arguing that we should present the church versus the independent estimates, but without further detail. Otherwise we'll have to add the scholarly estimates to make clear that the ARIS estimate is very different, and that's too much detail for the lead section. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:59, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

• Mainly because the lead is supposed to reflect what is in the article. If we decline to use the self-described adherents number from the lead (where it is correcly and fully described as such) then we are quite deliberately misleading the reader and implying that the church number is clearly self-serving, therefore there are no numbers other than "under 100,000" for the reader to consider. In fact, I find the ARIS number far stronger in effect than the NYT use of unnamed scholars. Including one who simply multiplies churches times 86 because that was about right in 1936 <g>. We have that scholar's methodology, and I suggest it might be less accurate than an actual study. Cheers. Collect (talk) 11:23, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

• If the lead includes the other current estimates of members and adherents, then this number needs to be included. I think the current version of the lead is fine. --Orlady (talk) 22:08, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

• The lead includes the independent scholarly estimate of people who are members of a Christian Science church, and the church estimate of its own membership. But the ARIS poll isn't about members; it's about people who self-identified as Christian Scientists (as adherents) over the phone during one poll. This would include a lot of people who might not even know what a Christian Scientist is (it's impossible to know how many that might involve). So it's a completely different kind of number. That's why the figure clashes with scholarly estimates of membership and why it's inappropriate for the lead. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:28, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

• show the NYT membership estimate in the infobox, perhaps include the ARIS affiliation number in the article body, but not the lead Unless we are prepared to change all the church infoboxes to show only affiliation, it's misleading to the casual reader to mix that with membership numbers in such a summary. The NYT membership estimate is not inconsistent with the ARIS number, because affiliation numbers from polling/census collection are consistently two to three times recorded membership for most groups, and often more. The ARIS report explains, laboriously, how the numbers they collect cannot be represented as membership. The claim that the NYT estimate is unreliable is baseless; the number isn't inconsistent with related data (e.g number of churches), and while they don't cite a specific source, that's not unusual for newspaper reporting. Nobody has given a convincing justification for belief that this number is wrong, and since it is not directly comparable to the ARIS number, the fact that they are wildly different is not only not germane; it is, as I have explained, expected and unremarkable. Mangoe (talk) 02:40, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

• Rodney Stark states his methodolgy was to multiply churches times 87 because that was the number of members per church in 1936 as his "nethodology" (see section above) which I suspect is a very weak "mthodology" to be called "scholarly" indeed. Thus since his figure appears to be one on which others relied, I think the only scientific study is to be preferred. Collect (talk) 11:29, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

• Frank Zindler in 1987 follows the same methodology as Stark: he gets a range of membership in 1987 from multiplying churches by a "generous estimate" of approximately 100 per church, then again using a "reasonable estimate" of 60 per church. Zindler then adds to this range the number of people in CS societies, which he says is at most 8,204. So, Stark is not alone in his derivation method. Binksternet (talk) 12:16, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
• Two points here, the less important first. I don't have all of Stark's text at hand, so I can only work with what I see written here. And I'm not interpreting this text the same way you are: it seems to me that he's using that as a reasonability test of the number, not a calculation. But even as a calculation, it's not an unreasonable method of estimation; if anything, it is likely to err on the high side, since it's likely that membership per church has declined. In any case your dislike for his means of estimation signifies nothing; other sources do tend to prefer that or a similar number. Second, no matter how much you like the ARIS number—and I cannot criticize it for what it is—you cannot represent it as membership. The ARIS report itself says so. And therefore I have to object to a placement in the article that leads to it being compared with real, tallied membership numbers from other churches. Mangoe (talk) 12:30, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

• Since I did not "represent" it as "membership" but specified "self-described adherents" (other than when used in an infobox which did not admit differentiation by its nature - but which is not under discussion here) I rather think you agree that it is a strong number reliably sourced. By the way, there are no sources with "tallied membership" other than the 400,000 directly asserted by the CS church which was objected to as being "self-serving." In such a case, we are not comparing it in any way to "other churches" at all. Nor do the "87 times number of churches" represent a "real, tallied number" as far as I can tell. Cheers. Collect (talk) 12:37, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

• I can look at the history of the discussion myself and conclude for myself what you did or did not say at any given time, thank you; the point need not be belabored, as along as you stick to the concession that ARIS says nothing about church membership. So we keep coming back to the same pair of issues: first, that you don't like the way the estimates were made, and that you think the methodological differences make the ARIS number better. We can keep going around the point that your objections to methodology are immaterial; personally, as someone who does work with church statistics, I think Stark's crude multiplication isn't that bad, but in any case you are not a reliable source for this. Second, as we have also been around too many times, you can't compare the validity of the two numbers: the ARIS number can't be better than these estimates, because it doesn't measure the same thing. It is valid for a relative comparison within the ARIS data set, and perhaps to some of Gallup's polling along the same lines. But the best it can do for the membership estimates is provide a sanity check, and those estimates pass that check. Which is to say, the ratio between the two numbers is about one expects to see between affiliation and membership. Mangoe (talk) 13:39, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

• Except you misstate the ARIS methodology which uses multiple questions to make sure the person is properly in a specific group -- the claim that is includes scientists who are Christian is errant and misleading, and pretends that the people doing the ARIS study are imbeciles at best. They aren't. And for the ARIS numbers to be off by a factor of three is statistically so improbable (a million to one odds) as to boggle the mind, while the "scholarly estimates" are made by "multiplying churches by 87" which is REALLY SCIENTIFIC. Cheers -- but refusal to accept a scientific study is absurd. Collect (talk) 23:31, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

• The report's authors say that ARIS randomly dialled numbers and asked “What is your religion, if any?” They say the survey sought to check "subjective rather than objective standards of religious self-identification." [41] SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:06, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

• Collect, I would feel so much more confident about the 2008 ARIS figure of 339,000 if any of the usual CS experts had commented on it. Actually, nobody has commented on it in a published article. Binksternet (talk) 01:08, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

• As the church figures seem quite in accord with the ARIS self-identification figures, it appears that you are saying the only source that you do not yrust is the church figures, because it is ever so much more scientific to multiply churches times 87 than to trust church figures or rely on actual querying of people <g>. Do you realize just how ridiculous that argument seems to actual scientists?
• As to methodology, you grossly over-simplify the nature of the survey:

This summary is just the tip of the iceberg of statistical data on a much larger number of religious groups than can be handled here and many more social variables than are highlighted here.

The value of this unique series of national surveys, which allows scientific monitoring of change over time, has been recognized by the U.S. Bureau of the Census The Bureau itself is constitutionally precluded from such an inquiry into religion, and so has incorporated NSRI/ARIS findings into its official publication the Statistical Abstract of the United States since 2003.

In short -- I hear a lot of whistling in the wind. Collect (talk) 01:48, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

• I am not misrepresenting anything. The ARIS notes are quite plain: "Moreover, the self-description of respondents was not based on whether established religious bodies, institutions, churches, mosques or synagogues considered them to be members. Quite the contrary, the surveys sought to determine whether the respondents themselves regarded themselves as adherents of a religious community. Subjective rather than objective standards of religious identification were tapped by the surveys." They state specifically that their numbers cannot be construed as membership, and as I've said over and over again, those of us who work with church statistics know that self-reported affiliation is consistently two to three times recorded membership where the latter is known. You may find the estimation methods distasteful but they are not unreasonable, and the results they give are consistent with the ARIS numbers. The only church number is quite old and nobody but you takes it seriously. I would say "in short" but it seems inevitable that you will hang on, for whatever reason, to your personal and idiosyncratic position which is in direct contradiction to what the ARIS authors say about their own numbers. Nevertheless, you are quite wrong in your insistence. I've worked with the Episcopal Church numbers for a decade, and as a vestryman at present I am responsible for compiling part of that data; I was also one of those who cleaned the membership rolls something like fifteen years ago. Everything I've said is in agreement with what all church statisticians know, and it's time you climbed off your high horse on this and accepted the numbers you have been given instead of making an invalid choice among them because you don't like the lower values. Mangoe (talk) 02:24, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, Mangoe, for your needed perspective. Binksternet (talk) 03:19, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

As we use the term "self-described adherents" the "membership" cavil is a Straw Man argument - as no one has here asserted that even the unnamed scholars have access to "membership." What is at issue is whether an extensive poll gives a better count of adherents than the scientific methodology of multiplying shurches times 87. I suggest the multiplication method is not a scientifically valid methodology, and certainly does not give "membership" eiher. Cheers. Collect (talk) 08:53, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

It's not s strawman; it's you ignoring my statement about the infobox numbers back at the top of this. Personally I would prefer the ARIS numbers to be presented only in direct comparison to other ARIS numbers. My statement in this case, to save you from the scrolling, is that infoboxes for churches should not show affiliation numbers obtained by surveys when we are showing membership numbers in other cases, because the values are not comparable, as the ARIS people are quire clear about. The temptation for the casual reader is to assume the two are comparable. And for the I've-lost-count-th time, your distaste for the estimation methods is immaterial. You are plainly not an expert, and as I've told you several times, it's not an unreasonable method for making an estimate. We are better off putting in a widely-agreed-upon estimate of the right number than a more precisely determined value for the wrong one. Mangoe (talk) 18:43, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Bingo. Binksternet (talk) 19:23, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

• Include The US Census, and any sources it uses definitely fit the Reliable Source criteria. Since there seems to be a discrepancy between estimates (which, in themselves, seem somewhat questionable to me, if only because they're either not backed up, or they are order-of-magnitude estimates, and not nearly precise) and the self-identification numbers. Instead of trying to decide which is right, Wikipedia, as a neutral encyclopedia, should present both estimates side-by-side along with their sources and leave it to the reader to decide which number they want to consider as representative of the number of practicing Christian Scientists. As others have said, the ARIS figure should be presented only at face value, and no wording should be added indicating that this is the actual number of members, only the number of people who self-identify as Christian Scientists. I think that the wording proposed is exactly correct, and, honestly, I don't really see what the controversy is; in general, when there's conflicting data like this, Wikipedia presents both, side-by-side. Arathald (talk) 21:06, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

That is not a neutral presentation; please read all I've said about how the two number cannot be directly compared. Mangoe (talk) 21:36, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm not saying the infobox should include the ARIS number. You make a good point that other religious groups display membership information (generally as reported by the organization itself). The membership estimates, though questionable, are more in line with what should be in the infobox. Christian Science's own estimate may be better, but I think that's a separate issue. The only thing I am proposing is stating that ARIS shows that a specific number of people self-identify as Christian Scientists, which is, indeed, exactly what that number is. If the article doesn't claim that as a membership number, I don't see how that isn't neutral. It's a simple fact, not in any way being interpreted, and it provides a counter to the other estimates which may or may not be correct. That is not directly comparing them, it's calling out membership estimates vs self-identification, and the difference in the two numbers is interesting and extremely relevant. You're not saying "I don't want this interpretation in the lede" (which would be a valid concern), but rather, "I don't want this well-established fact in the lede". I don't think that really fits with the spirit of Wikipedia. Arathald (talk) 20:26, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

No, that's not what I said. Calling it a "fact" is a bit of a problem to begin with because the only thing well-established about it is that ARIS reported it; everyone who deals with religion statistics understands the sloppiness of survey numbers. But be that as it may, what I said was "report it in the body but not in the lead." But I'm willing to compromise at least to the extent of assenting to that inclusion but only if it is reported in conjunction with the estimated membership numbers for which we have plentiful citations. What I don't want is the survey number reported by itself, because it's too easy for the casual reader to misinterpret it. Mangoe (talk) 21:30, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

The numbers otherwise (the 100K figures generally ascribed to unnamed scholars) should be reported as what they are: the number of churches times 87. And so far only one source even gives that as their methodology - so we should report that system, as well as the ARIS survey of over 54K people. Collect (talk) 23:12, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Mangoe, I don't think showing just the ARIS numbers is correct either, and I think showing *both* sets of numbers in the lede is appropriate. You're right that the only well-established thing is that ARIS reported that <x> number of people self-identify as Christian Scientists, and that, I believe is the phrasing that has been suggested in the first place. I also tend to agree with Collect, though, that if we're going to pare the ARIS down to the bare facts and leave them for interpretation, it's only right to do the same with the expert estimates. When I looked at the sources, the only thing that was well established is that someone had estimated the membership numbers in a very ballpark way. I do have some concerns about how those numbers are derived, and stating that explicitly, at least for the one we know about, will help preserve the neutrality (or at least the perceived neutrality) of the article. Arathald (talk) 19:23, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

• Comment, no single reliable source should be given any more weight than any other reliable source on their estimates of self-identified adherents to the faith that is the subject of this article. To give one source more weight than another maybe seen as non-neutral, either in support of the subject (using only the high figure} or against the subject (using only the low figure). Therefore give a range in the lead without going into detail, then include a section that goes into the details of the different estimates, polls, etc. and how those numbers were created (if that can be verified).--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 08:48, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
• Give range in lede/infobox and details in text body, per RightCowLeftCoast. Otherwise the top of the page becomes cluttered with unnecessary detail, which may be confusing without detailed explanations. Staszek Lem (talk) 19:28, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
• Give range - Agree strongly with Staszek Lem. The whole lead paragraph starting with "A census in 1936, at the height...." has to be deleted, and a simple sentence should go in saying something like "Estimates of the number of worldwide adherent vary but range between 100,000 to 400,000.". NickCT (talk) 13:33, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
• Give range consistent with WP summary style in lead. -- Scray (talk) 17:00, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
• Give range. Staszek Lem gave us a well thought out answer. GoodeOldeboy (talk) 03:30, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Threaded discussion

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.