User:Tgeorgescu/sandbox

[1], [2]

The idea that "every voice is a bit right" seems simply wrong. Someone saying "2+2=16" is simply wrong, for instance. WP:NPOV and WP:FRINGE suggest that we shouldn't give equal weight to all views, we should give more weight to mainstream views, and all the way down to "none" for extreme views - like those who believe that past life regression actually gives you access to memories of past lives. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 17:16, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

• • • • Wikipedia is not an advertising billboard. Just because members of the MGTOW community don't like this article doesn't mean it's biased. Wikipedia is designed to be written from a neutral point of view, not a promotional point of view. In the case of fringe opinions, such as MGTOW, Flat Earth Society, etc., the proponents of such opinions are as a rule never satisfied with the consensus version of the article. That doesn't mean Wikipedia should completely avoid covering such topics. FiredanceThroughTheNight (talk) 03:12, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

@Proveallthings: I did overlook Stephen Miller's reasoning, and I did it intentionally. And it's because me and you are attempting to do two different things right now. You're attempting to use evidence to find what is true. I'm attempting to survey the literature to find out what most scholars say about this particular question. That's because Wikipedia is not an encyclopedia of truth, but a service for summarizing what the scholarly community says.

If we were here to discover what is true together on the Wikipedia talk pages, then you would be doing what is right (marshalling the linguistic arguments), and I would be doing something wrong (just quoting a bunch of authorities and pointing out that "your side" here consists only of people with a particular theological set of commitments). So let me be clear. I'm not saying you're wrong about "father". You, and Kenneth Kitchen, might be right. I'm just saying that, in terms of the way Wikipedia weighs sources, Kenneth Kitchen's opinion is out on the fringes in the scholarly world. Alephb (talk) 21:36, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

God made man upright, but man sought after logismos. Allos Genos (talk) 04:32, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

"It was the lie of the cornered liar, whose web of lies is finally revealed for all to see and so comes up with something more preposterous than ever, as when Basil Fawlty tells a thousand lies to conceal the fact that there's a rat loose in the dining room."

Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Protestants, Adventists, Baptists, Pentecostals, Lutherans, Moonies, Mormons, Unitarians, Shia, Sunnis, Ahmadiyya, Alevites, Buddhists, Shintoists, Confucianists, Taoists, Hindus, Jainists, Falun Gong, etc.

... Here's the bottom line: I call a troll a troll. I call a POV pusher a POV pusher. Accuracy is not incivility. ... KillerChihuahua^?!? 15:22, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Just because you are paranoid, that doesn't mean that they aren't out to get you. There is an organized group that wishes to replace science with religious pseudoscience on Wikipedia, and this page is one of their main targets. As for bias, Yes. We are biased. --Guy Macon (talk · contribs) 20:02, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

@Til Eulenspiegel: First of all, popular opinion or the opinion of non-scholars on scholarly topics is of no encyclopedic significance whatsoever. Second of all, WP is very much biased toward real qualified academic scholars from real universities writing in real academically reviewed journals and books. If you have a problem with that, you're in the wrong place. Third of all, we cover only significant views, not extreme minority or fringe views. Last of all, and most important, you have not explained why you failed to provide any reliable independent secondary SCHOLARLY sources when asked to do so to support your contention that other significant views exist. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 23:57, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, but I'm not giving you a choice here. We have a policy on original research, which we enforce strictly. You are the one advancing the view, so the onus is on you to depict that such a view is representative of due weight in the scholarship and the mainstream. El_C 16:19, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Xonq Yeah, I know what you mean about The Tao of Physics - I don't think we would look to use that as a reliable source for anything except as a primary source for assertions about what the author wrote in the book. The Atmospheres of Breathing book seems to be talking about qi as being metaphorically similar to fields in physics - I don't think it's saying that qi exists, and it is discussing in terms of biological energy again. The School of Oriental and African studies source is talking about 17th Century Chinese philosophy, and I don't think it's written by a physicist - I don't really understand why it's relevant. This is all interesting stuff, but I don't see how we could use any of it to support the idea that qi is, or even might be, an actual thing that exists. This is the problem with this sort of subject - we don't want to talk disrespectfully about people's belief systems, philosophies or whatever, and so long as these things are kept within the realm of spirituality we don't have to wrap them up with language about pseudoscience. But qi is something that people argue actually exists, that can cause or cure ailments, all that sort of stuff - that is intrinsicly pseudoscientific, and we can't shy away from mentioning it. GirthSummit _(blether) 18:42, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

It's about the Hebrews/Israelites/Jews who are more than capable of knowing about their own origins as well as for Christians.

An 'ethnos' does not have any intrinsic right to write its own history and affirm this 'national' version as on a par with, if not superior to, what 'outsiders' write. That infantile malady, as Einstein called it, is excluded on principle from Wikipedia. How any ethnos may tend to view its past comes from education, slanted to indoctrinate a sense of common identity among heterogeneous subjects, and is written by nationalists almost always with an airy insouciance to the facts, or historical method. History is the domain of qualified historians, whose status is determined not by their ethnicity or faith, but by their mastery of the relevant scholarship. I've met very few Christians who know much about the historical side of their religion. Most Japanese never had heard of the sun-goddess a hundred and fifty years ago: decades of indoctrination had millions ready to die for her and her putative lineal descendant. Nishidani (talk) 08:40, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Hardly truth. "Atheists tend to make up contradictions in their own minds with zero basis, in order to discredit Scripture." is something you've made up, for instance. It's original research. We rely on sources meeting WP:RS and with religious texts we do not use them to make an argument but rely upon scholarly sources. And if you think the scripture of your religion is infallible, perhaps you shouldn't be editing articles about it. Wikipedia cannot accept that any scripture is infallible, see WP:NPOV. And I suspect that most Christians don't think scripture is infallible. Many Christians accept evolution, for example Doug Weller talk 17:32, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

"You seem to be assuming reliable sources are always correct" That may seem to you, but I am not. If a reliable source turns out to be incorrect in spite of all evidence agianst that, and Wikipedia has quoted that source, then Wikipedia will be wrong. We have to accept that risk. The alternative is to find another system that has a lower risk of articles being wrong. Can you suggest one? I don't think so. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:05, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Finally, in relation to pseudoscientific topics, Wikipedia's WP:NPOV policy is not about presenting a false balance (WP:GEVAL); per the WP:PSCI policy such topics must be clearly described as such. As others have pointed out, WP:MEDRS is expected to support biomedical claims, but WP:PARITY also allows more common sources to be used and support criticism. —PaleoNeonate – 01:40, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

Please never change sourced text

Unless you can show that it doesn't represent the source. Your changes misrepresented sources. Doug Weller talk 21:02, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

Is Genesis History?

On Wikipedia we unambiguously specify when a practice is pseudoscience and adjust the weight of articles according to the mainstream and scientific views of relevant experts in the field, supported with reliable sources (WP:RS). Theroadislong (talk) 14:54, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not endorse any religion, therefore it does not endorse Sola Scriptura. The Bible cannot interpret itself, but always has to be interpreted by WP:MAINSTREAM WP:SCHOLARSHIP.

English Wikipedia already kowtows to WP:CHOPSY, it is weird that you think it shouldn't.

Sectarian sourcing

Wikipedia sticks to academic sourcing over sectarian sourcing. There are a lot of Christians working in academia, so we don't need to stick to sectarian think tanks. If what academia comes up with doesn't immediately jive with what the sectarian think tanks have concluded, that doesn't mean scripture is inherently wrong, it just suggests that we haven't interpreted scripture correctly (even literalism is an interpretation). Ian.thomson (talk) 21:50, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

It's fairly clear what agenda you are following by doing so - how can anyone have this discussion without concrete examples? You continue to dismiss out of hand people you identify as "theologians" (which is incorrect) or Christians (which is absurd) without any evidence that this has any affect on their scholarship. The only other places you have made these arguments have been in attempts to deny the historicity of Jesus or else, most recently, to deny that Tacitus has anything to say about it because the scholars saying he does are "biased". You have provided no evidence that mainstream scholars who happen to be Christian have reached conslusions any different than anyone else's. Ask anyone who edits in this area: scholars following a non-mainstream, fundamentalist view are regularly removed from Wikipedia. There is no problem on Wikipedia with the POV of theologists be considered a mainstream just based on the fact that their works are historically more numerous. This is just your own POV.--Ermenrich (talk) 00:53, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, I suspect you might be misusing the term "theological sources" - theologians discuss God, not history. Can you give us some examples of sources you might mean?Achar Sva (talk) 00:29, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

• This looks to be a case of someone who demands respect for his own belief system (fair enough), but who feels entitled to launch intemperate attacks against the belief systems of anyone who disagrees with him ("Bolsheviks", "cultural Marxists", etc). MastCell ^Talk 16:30, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

I never said that Wikipedia should strive to represent the views of editors. Rather what I said is that since Wikipedia strives to represent views in proportion to the coverage they receive in reliable secondary sources, editors who let their views bleedthrough into their editing are a bigger problem when their views are outside of the mainstream then when their views are within the mainstream. For example if an editor is a Nazi who believes whites are the superior race, when they try to force this view into our articles, this is a significant problem. By comparison, if an editor believes that there is no such thing as a superior race, it's far less of a problem when their editing to articles is biased by this particular view. It's not because there are few Nazis on Wikipedia, and most editors are not Nazis. It's because sources overwhelming reject Nazi idealogy. The fact that our editors also overwhelming do so is great, but was never part of my point. The rest of your commment supports this, so I'm not even sure why you're challenging me. Nil Einne (talk) 05:31, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

Mahner

Martin Mahner, 2013.

No religion is objectively true: religion means subjective beliefs. That a religion could be objectively correct is a figment of imagination. Wikipedia sides with objective knowledge.

• There are more eyes on you now than if you hadn't made this report. I am not seeing anything actionable here - if this is stalking/harassment, then I should hand back the keys to my account because I routinely click through to Users' contributions if one of their edits seem a bit suspect. I would withdraw this and carry on as if nothing happened. -- a ^{they/them | argue | contribs} 21:42, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

References

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Testosterone

A man urinates on average 374 nmol testosterone during 24 hours. The average seminal testosterone level is 47 ng/100 mL. So during 24 hours an average man urinates the testosterone from 65653 ejaculations.

References

Theology

Claiming that historical criticism is passé may suggest to some that conservative biblical scholarship has won the “battle” against historical criticism and is now finally vindicated. This may sound appealing in popular circles, but it is not true in academia.

— Peter Enns, 3 Things I Would Like to See Evangelical Leaders Stop Saying about Biblical Scholarship

A black pastor who’d earned his Master of Divinity (M. Div.) told me, “I wouldn’t suggest you go to seminary. There’s a reason they call them cemeteries. People go there to die [spiritually].”

— John Richards, Confessions of a Black Seminarian

I remember Tami coming into the meeting and sharing her sense of call to minister to women, to those struggling in marriages, and I remember her saying something about becoming a speaker for women’s events. She then said that she would begin by entering into seminary. Of course, as soon as she mentioned seminary, I immediately began to imagine how this mom with three small kids at home would be devoured by liberal seminary professors like the ones I had at Princeton. I imagined her crisis of faith like the crisis I endured in Princeton. I imagined her intellectual meltdown like the meltdown that led me to lose my faith all together for a season. And of course, the very first words that came out of my mouth were, “Tami, I don’t think you need to go to seminary to pursue this particular call. I think there are many opportunities to do this kind of ministry without having to go through seminary.” Pastor Drew, who was seated close by and had a very similar experience to mine while he attended the Divinity School at Vanderbilt, chimed in with almost the same exact sentiment. Now please understand, Drew and I loved Tami and we wanted what was best for our church member her family…which for us meant trying to talk her out of going to seminary!

— Colonial Presbyterian Church, EPC, On Knowing God’s Will and Doing God’s Will

Have you ever heard someone say that seminaries are cemeteries? The idea in that sentence is that you go to seminary with a living faith, but your faith dies while you get lost in a stack of scholarship, theology, and philosophy. One friend told me that in his entrance interview to a certain seminary he was asked the following question. “Every student comes to a point in seminary where they lose their faith; how will you handle that?” My friend decided that was not a seminary he wanted to attend, so he joined Ashland Theological Seminary instead, where I met him in class.

— Preston Yoder, Seminary: A Near Death Experience?

When I made the decision to go to seminary, people in the church I was in at the time said, “They’ll teach you not to believe the Bible.” Again, true, but misleading. What they did was teach me how to read the Bible in context. As a result, I started to believe the Bible again but not in the way they taught it.

— David Anderson, The Suffering Servant and Recovery from Depression

The End of White Christian America: A Conversation with E. J. Dionne and Robert P. Jones on YouTube Harvard Divinity School

Exodus

Mahoney’s method of film-making is pretty straight forward. Gather together an ensemble cast of legitimate scholars, then lionize some fringe loon on the outskirts of the academic radar.

— David A. Falk, The Moses Controversy: More So-called Patterns of “Evidence”

Arguments

Does Wikipedia consider the strength of the arguments when labelling something as "fringe" or is it merely the number of people labelling something that matters? Thanks --Damiano Tommasi (talk) 02:18, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Strengths of arguments is subjective and there is no way to measure it on wikipedia (certainly wikipedia editors are not the deciders of the strength of any particular argument) aside from consensus views (peers in a field holding a particular view). Wikipedia is not a source for truth, it is a collection of scholarly views on a topic - so we do not determine the truthfulness of a claim - rather sources are the ones that can make such statements because they have actual expertise. We just cite what these experts have to say on a matter. Usually fringe views are designated as such by mainstream sources too so for example, with Jesus denialism/mythicism, there are almost no scholars that hold such a view. It is not for a lack of trying.Ramos1990 (talk) 03:55, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Video on YouTube

outside of traditional Judaism - with an initial assumption that the books were ordinary human documents and were thus within the regime of academic literary theory and methods — copy/paste from Composition of the Torah

Q. Do you agree with Phillip Johnson in the following quote, "Liberal Christians, theistic evolutionists are worse than atheists because they hide their naturalism behind a veneer of religion." Do you agree with that statement? [3]

tgeorgescu (talk) 19:12, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

This article should be deprecated and merged with the articles on baal, ashtoreth, biblical minimalism, the documentary hypothesis, and anti-jewish propaganda. It doesn't even bother to quote a Jewish source post Moses as a minority opinion on the Jewish God. It is not encyclopedic - it is IGNORANCE. Jews will recognize this immediately and avoid the article, but the typical gentile reader will be confused, and our readers deserve better. Jaredscribe

Til, how about a short subsection on "Daniel and the Book of Daniel"? It could be quite interesting and informative, bringing in the Ugaritic Dan'el, Ezekiel's Daniel, the role of the mantic tradition in Babylonian religion (Deuteronomy condemns the sort of thing Daniel is praised for), and then the fact you noted just now in an edit summary that the book never actually says Daniel was the author. PiCo (talk) 22:05, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

This is the exact same false dichotomy that creationists get caught up in with the Theory of Evolution. Finding some flaw in either theory will not set the clock back to status quo before the theories were proposed, in the exact same way that observations finding a flaw in Newtonian gravity did not take us back to a pre-Newtonian view of gravity -- rather it will take us forward to a new, more complex, and only subtly different theory. This new theory will most certainly also state that, however exactly it states this universe/space-time-contiuum began, it began billions of years ago. Hrafn

But the “subtle energy”[1] folks want science to look for the demon without doing the coin-toss experiment first. It is usually brandished about as explanation for an effect that does not exist in the first place. Some confirmation bias and cherry-picking makes people claim that some effect exists. Usually, pseudomedicine proponents are the ones pushing the idea of “subtle” energy. When science refuses their claims, it is not doing so at the level of the detectability of the energy but questioning what they say are the consequences.

— Raziman T.V., Quora.com

It's not American centric to have an article about a notable U.S. group. Also, it would be like subsuming Ufology into the Search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Just as readers interested in scientists searching for ET life would be uninterested in what really happened at Roswell, readers interested in philosophical arguments would be uninterested in attempts by religious fundamentalists to prove the argument from design. The authors of Of Pandas and People don't have the same attention in philosophy textbooks as Thomas Aquinas. TFD (talk) 01:30, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

primary source cannot be used to source interpretation C.Fred

The essence of his argument was that the logical structure of the evolution debate is framed in such a way as to favor evolution from the outset; scientists “have to rely on a definition of science that does not permit an alternative to naturalistic evolution.”

— Michelangelo D’Agostino, In the matter of Berkeley v. Berkeley

I haven't reverted any of your edits personally, but I am giving you an NPOV warning based on a review of your contributions. For a variety of reasons, Wikipedia does not take as definitive what a religion says about itself for religious topics.

You would be right only if the following were abolished: WP:FRINGE and WP:MEDRS; WP:LUNATICS, WP:CHOPSY and WP:GOODBIAS; WP:DUE, WP:PSCI and WP:FALSEBALANCE; WP:ARBPS and WP:ARBCAM. Since this hasn't happened, you're wrong, completely wrong.

There is a section "Publishing of scientifically discredited claims". All of those, as well as most of the claims documented in the rest of the article, are obvious misinformation. Disinformation is something else though, spread deliberately to deceive. It suggests that those people know that what they say they is wrong. I don't think there are sources for that one, or even evidence for it. It seems that they actually believe all that crap, immersed into the bubble of Extreme-Wacko Deny-The-Science-And-Replace-it-By-Paranoid-Delusions Mainstream Bizarro American Conservatism as they are. So, "disinformation" ought to be misinformation. Other than that, we are deep in WP:SKYBLUE territory here. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:46, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

they they he

The article currently cites multiple published sources, you cite none. We don't base articles on random assertions. AndyTheGrump (talk) 11:39, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

• Draftify for complete rewriting. The current direction of the article is unsalvageably vague. It is like have an article titled Effects of food on weight presenting conclusions that eating food (of unspecified kinds) leads to getting fat, with the implied corollary that the healthiest route is never eating food. BD2412 T 05:06, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

• @Elpiniki: Re I believe all edits that Christians add - no matter how well documented, are being removed by one or two vandals, see WP:Assume good faith. I'm a Christian and I rarely get my edits removed. That's because I only add stuff if I cite a mainstream academic source while doing so, instead of looking at last names and going "guess they're Jews or something." Ian.thomson (talk) 01:13, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Steiner

Discussion is taking place or should take place at WP:FTN. They want a license to dodge WP:PSCI—it ain't gonna happen! They're also in WP:1AM territory: [4] and [5].

Have you read "Why Does Wikipedia Want to Destroy Deepak Chopra?" If Anthroposophists don't complain that Wikipedia wants to destroy Rudolf Steiner, we are doing a bad job. If anything can be said about the two men is that Chopra is considerably less fringe than Steiner. Chopra never belonged to völkisch Wagner clubs, and has never claimed to be a clairvoyant.

Other

Theological correctness is in the eye of the beholder (or in the church of the beholder).

The NCCIH was originally the OAM (Office of Alternative Medicine) under the NIH. That wasn't the NIH's idea, it was set up by a US Senator who was a fan of chiropractic (the 'cure any disease with manipulations' kind). The only reason that it is a separate from the NIH now is that when the NIH director tried to hold them to basic scientific standards the same senator got upset and spun them out to be independent (and thus not answerable to anyone but Congress, which in practice means not answerable to anyone). Given the history it should not be surprising that they aren't regarded as a reliable source, and just because a government puts a stamp of approval on something doesn't mean that it works - after all, India has a government agency that says putting coconut oil in your nose will help prevent COVID infection. MrOllie (talk) 01:14, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Agree. Sanger's central argument is that WP should never have accepted the idea of WP:false balance. He thinks we should include points of view strictly on the basis of the number of people that hold them. This would require changing the whole idea of a WP:reliable source; the most reliable source on any topic would be whatever the most people believed, whatever had the largest circulation, and factual evidence would be irrelevant.

The Bible, the Koran, and the Bhagavad Gita would be the main "reliable sources" for our articles about the Earth's origin, cosmology, evolution, and ancient history. The idea that the Democratic party is run by a secret cabal of pedophiles, that Trump won the 2022 election, that Covid is no worse than a cold, would have to be written as possible facts, given equal credibility with the truth, since about half the US population has swallowed these lies. Our biographies of celebrities would have to include, as facts, the fake scandals published in the National Enquirer, as it is a main source of celebrity info. Our medical articles would have to include, on an equal basis, not only alternative medicine cures, but curses, the evil eye, faith healing, witchcraft, and demonology, as worldwide these are 'medical' traditions believed by a large percentage of developing world populations. Our articles on Woman and Feminism would have to include, as an equal theory, that women are inherently biologically inferior to men, because a large proportion of the developing world still believes this.

In other words, Wikipedia would become like the rest of social media, Facebook Groups without the content controls, a summary of whatever the lowest common denominator believes, because they are the most numerous. --Chetvorno^TALK 19:29, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Another point: You are starting at the wrong end. First convince the scientific community, then this will automatically end up in Wikipedia. The other way around does not work - neither the first step nor the second. --Hob Gadling (talk) 18:10, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

When the “red-diaper” comment came up at the end of a long phone interview, I broke the news to McCain: “I hate to tell you, Rob, but the Communist Party’s position on sex was about as progressive as the Catholic Church’s.”

— Judith Levine

The policy also says "Articles may not contain any new analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to reach or imply a conclusion not clearly stated by the sources themselves" In an essay you can use reliable sources to reach a new conclusion not stated in the sources, on Wikipedia you can't. And "probably" in any case looks like OR however you interpret it. Doug Weller talk 08:23, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

 Not done. Wikipedia works on the basis that whatever scientists commonly consider to be true is true. Binksternet (talk) 23:13, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

Creationists, climate change deniers, 9/11 conspiracy theorists, astrologers, homeopaths, covidiots, flat-earthers, holocaust deniers and many others agree with you. What you said is pretty much the same reasoning they use. According to them, their worldviews are also not rejected by Wikipedia because they are rejected by mainstream sources but because of all those biased Wikipedia editors. --Hob Gadling (talk) 10:15, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

The sources of Huffington Post

1. Carroll, Jason S.; Padilla-Walker, Laura M.; Nelson, Larry J.; Olson, Chad D.; McNamara Barry, Carolyn; Madsen, Stephanie D. (2008). "Generation XXX". Journal of Adolescent Research. 23 (1). SAGE Publications: 6–30. doi:10.1177/0743558407306348. ISSN 0743-5584.
   Blue, Violet (24 July 2009). "Are more women OK with watching porn?". CNN.com. Retrieved 13 July 2022.
   "One in three women watch porn - study - The Courier-Mail". news.com.au. 10 February 2010. Archived from the original on 14 February 2010. Retrieved 13 July 2022.
2. Edelman, Benjamin (1 January 2009). "Markets: Red Light States: Who Buys Online Adult Entertainment?" (PDF). Journal of Economic Perspectives. 23 (1). American Economic Association: 209–220. doi:10.1257/jep.23.1.209. ISSN 0895-3309.
   "Are the effects of pornography negligible? - UdeMNouvelles". nouvelles.umontreal.ca (in French). 1 December 2009. Archived from the original on 31 January 2013. Retrieved 13 July 2022.
3. https://web.archive.org/web/20130116164054/https://www.google.com/adplanner/static/top1000/
4. Hotsheet, Political (25 June 2010). "29% Accessed Porn on Work Computers Last Month - CBS News". Wayback Machine. Retrieved 13 July 2022.
   Leahy, Michael (2009). Porn @ Work: Exposing the Office's #1 Addiction. Moody Publishers. ISBN 978-1-57567-332-5.
5. Anthony, Sebastian (4 April 2012). "Just how big are porn sites?". ExtremeTech. Retrieved 13 July 2022.

Anonymous gospels

• • "Accurate, not undue weight. In a section about "when were they written" one would expect the views of people within the first century after Jesus's death to be the first views presented."
• Hmm, this is why I said I suspect it would be more incendiary to go into the history in more depth. We flat out don't know what people in the first century thought on this topic. A lot of what we have from that period is in the New Testament, and they don't seem to write about gospels (Paul sure doesn't), with at most some letters that might date to the early 2nd century (but dated earlier by traditionalists) blandly talking about "scripture". Luke 1:1 vaguely talks about other gospels being out there, but only to hint that they're wrong / incomplete. And for that matter, even citing Papias to 110 is a little problematic. Papias's work, unfortunately, did not survive. We have a few quotations of Papias from Eusebius, writing at a much later date in the fourth century. But there's every reason to think that Eusebius was quoting selectively, taking the parts of Papias he thought was usable for his purposes, and discarding everything else, because Eusebius also basically insults Papias as rather naive. Basically, if we trust Eusebius, it seems like Papias was talking nonsense at least some of the time. And more generally, the quotation from Papias isn't even obviously talking about "our" gospels. We know that early Christians attributed lots of stuff to apostles that everyone, the Church, etc. thinks were false attributions. Papias claims that his Matthew was a "logia", or sayings gospel. But that doesn't sound like our Matthew, right? Maybe it was Papias just writing half-remembered second-hand info that flowed from real-Matthew. He also claims that his Mark didn't write his gospel in an "ordered form". This one is admittedly more borderline, but it at least suggests that Papias's Mark wasn't the same form as modern Mark, because "our" Mark is certainly ordered well enough. Anyway, the text does a little trick by saying that "church historians" are unanimous. That way, anybody who disagree simply can be dismissed as not a church historian. I'll mention one prominent case generally used by scholars for why the traditional ascriptions are suspect: Justin Martyr. When ancient Christian writers of the 3rd/4th/5th century discussed gospels, they generally named the gospel they were talking about, just as modern Christians do. 1st and 2nd century Christian works, however, often don't discuss gospels, or act as if there only was one. Justin Martyr quotes lines from the modern gospels, but does not say "As Mark wrote" or "As is seen in Matthew's gospel" or anything. That is very strange because later authors have no such compunctions, and Justin was writing in Rome - which was allegedly exactly where Mark wrote his gospel. Justin was maybe the most prominent Christian of his era, so why doesn't he name the gospels? It's not so unanimous now.
• Basically, if we want to have a section about what the early Church thought, sure, let's have it. But it's going to have to include all the facts and not merely highlight the pro-traditional view facts. (And more generally, I don't agree with the premise that we necessarily have to start with the older views anyway.)
  • "I won't call this perfectly written but I think the information here is important and without undue weight."
• I don't think Ferdinand Christian Baur is very important at all. I'll be honest, this is maybe the second time I've seen his name. If he's important, his crazy dating of John isn't important. It's setting up a straw man to shoot down. I've never seen anyone discuss such a late date as a relevant thought had major support. If we want to talk about prominent 19th century scholarly views, then I'd say that Adolf von Harnack's views are the ones to highlight.
  • " But this is developing a narrative of how critical views of the dating evolved. "
• But it's hugely misleading! It writes "the idea of a late dating of the gospels started to lose ground", but what it really means is that Baur's crazy theory was disproven. I happen to have come across a family Bible from 1857 or so, and here's the dates it offers: File:American Tract Society Bible Dates.jpg. All of these dates have moved backward since then. The actually fair phrasing would be "the idea of an early dating of the gospels started to lose ground."
  • "Again, copy-editing needed, but what about this is wrong?"
• It's too reductive - if we really want to go into detail, there's more reasons than just "Marcan priority" and the destruction of the Temple to suggest the later date. It's like saying "Police arrested Alice because Bob said she confessed to killing Trudy." True, but if Alice had a bloody knife in her car trunk, video camera footage showing her exiting the crime scene, and had previously given the police an alibi that proved to be false, then it's probably best to mention those as well, lest the case come across as unduly simplistic. From a Christian perspective, merely discussing the destruction of the Temple is a somewhat weak argument (maybe it was a prophecy?), so I'm not sure it should be the one leading here.
  • What, are we supposed to make our readers think that no one, not even devout Christian scholars...
• I agree entirely! But isn't this already covered elsewhere in the article? Anyway, I'm happy to expand this section if desired. I think it's the most keepable part, for sure.
  • Other than the claim that all four are anonymous, I'm not sure what is controversial about this.
• It was already in the article - the IP editor who added this was just repeating it. They'd added "Modern mainstream scholars hold" though which is unneeded; the idea that the Gospels were not originally written in Greek is very fringe as there's some extreme philological evidence that all suggests a Greek origin. (It doesn't rule out some sort of Hebrew or Aramaic proto-gospel, of course, but if such a thing existed, it's been totally lost and was only used as a source, and the gospels we know aren't raw translations of it.) SnowFire (talk) 06:07, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

Communism and flower power

Communist parties hated:

• drugs;
• religion;
• spirituality;
• sexual liberties;
• disrespect for authority;
• critical thinking;
• draft dodgers;
• artistic freedom.

While peace movements, labor unions, and anti-racism were more or less congruent with Marxism-Leninism. Ideology was dumbing down the Communist parties, so they were not so cunning and intelligent as they might have been otherwise.

Morals: flower power wasn't a Communist plot.

Policies and guidelines

Edmbugger that is now five other editors explaining Wikipedia policies and guidelines to you. Please read WP:MEDRS, WP:OR and WP:NOTAFORUM, and do not persist until/unless you have a new secondary literature review that meets WP:MEDRS (there isn't one-- if there were, we would know it before you :). If you persist, you could be formally uninvited from participating at this talk page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:51, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Further

There are sects of Christianity that refuse Jesus being God, and there are also biblical passages that refuse the divinity interpretation, for example 1 Corinthians 11:3, 1 Timothy 2:5, John 17:3, Isaiah 46:9, Mark 10:17-18 etc. Temp0000002 (talk) 14:11, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

You are welcome to edit here, but you must do so within our guidelines, asking you to do that is not bullying. Slatersteven (talk) 15:52, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

It would be interesting to set out the ways in which the Yahweh of Iron Age Israel/Judah is not the YHWH of modern Judaism or the God of Christianity. For starters, he had a wife (Asherah), he was the head of a pantheon of gods, he was only one of many other national gods, and he demanded blood sacrifices; none of these are true of the YHWH of Judaism. Nor was he a trinity, nor did he create the world from nothing, nor did he have written texts (unless you count the earlier prophets and the early psalms). About the only continuity between that god and the modern Jewish god is the name, and Christianity has lost even this. Achar Sva (talk) 02:01, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

• I'm a bit unconvinced by not accepting the reality of the "consensus" situation at Wikipedia on topics like climate change being a reason for their sanction (as well as their statement that they will do the best I can to use "reliable" sources). Quite apart from the scare quotes, when in comes to subjects like climate change it is not the consensus at Wikipedia that is the issue, it's the consensus amongst the vast majority of scientists and reliable sources that we follow. Black Kite (talk) 14:18, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

endorsed by the NIH You probably mean the NCCIH, which started out as the quackery branch of the NIH, manufactured by quackery-fan politicians.

Sun and Gan again? Didn't I already link Gorski? [6] It seem we are going in circles. --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:30, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

Paul R. Gross: "Everybody who has undertaken in the last 300 years to stand against the growth of scientific knowledge has lost."

• d) When it comes to fiction, the main purpose is escapism and wish fulfilment, not critical analysis. Dimadick (talk) 21:29, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Freedom of thought

No, actually. "Freedom of thought" is not remotely what science is about. Which is not to say freedom of thought is not a good thing, but it has nothing to do with science. Science is about testable hypotheses, and repeatable experiments, and drawing objective conclusions. Science is a method for finding the answer that best fits the observed phenomena. It is not about matters of opinion, it is not about giving equal time to every notion that pops out of someone's head, and it is not about agreeing to disagree. Science has no time or use for untestable ideas.

The relevant similarity with Wikipedia is that Wikipedia also couldn't care less what your (or my) opinion is. The only things that belong in articles are things which can be verified. You're absolutely welcome to your "freedom of thought", and you can certainly express whatever opinions you hold dear on Facebook or Twitter. Not in Wikipedia articles, though. Because we don't care. We're only interested in verifiable facts. --Ashenai (talk) 23:07, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Yet other

If you need a pulpit, I advise you to buy one at amazon.com. Wikipedia just isn't a pulpit for your preaching. See WP:RNPOV: we describe what Christian theology says, but we never endorse it in the voice of Wikipedia. This holds true for all other religions: here Christianity is in no way privileged over Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam, since no religion is objectively true. Wikipedia is written by a diverse bunch of people: we don't have the same country, the same religion, the same ethnicity, the same social class, the same income, the same education, the same academic field, and so on. So we have agreed to describe scholarly information, not our personal musings. If you want to improve the article WP:CITE WP:MAINSTREAM WP:SOURCES. If you don't have WP:RS there is nothing to debate there. Tgeorgescu (talk) 10:24, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

You are violating our WP:RULES. Do you understand that? Even the Friedrichshof Commune had rules, why do people find strange that Wikipedia has rules? Tgeorgescu (talk) 01:41, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

One could claim that we shouldn't trust secular institutions either because they tend to have a bias against any conclusion that could be helpful to religion - That is simply a plain wrong argument. "Secular" means "not affiliated with (any particular) religion". It does not mean "opposed to religion". --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:28, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

• The only lack of consensus is in your head. You are now being rather disruptive, because many editors have taken the time to quote extensive sources that attest to the views of mainstream biblical scholarship. Stating as much is hardly POV pushing and you are now placing yourself at risk of sanction for your continued obstreperousness and lack of good faith. Eusebeus (talk) 17:17, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Dever and Finkelstein

Dever holds that there was a "united monarchy" as per the Bible stories in the 10th Century BCE, but even he does not claim that the full extent of the biblical grandiosity is historical - rather that the "kingdom" was small and localised. In 2003 Dever regarded the kingdom as an ethnic group rather than an organised state. In 2021 Dever still refers to the 10th century entity as an "early inchoate state,' one that will not be fully consolidated until the 9th century BCE". Wdford (talk) 19:18, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

My problem with that is, however, that if Wikipedia admits that fundamentalist Christians do Bible scholarship (as in history), by the same standard we will be compelled to admit that Ken Ham writes WP:SCHOLARSHIP. Otherwise there's no denying that they can write superb exegesis, but when they step on the turf of historical criticism, their claims are often WP:FRINGE. Their position is denialism of mainstream historical claims about the Bible, Judaism and Christianity. tgeorgescu (talk) 01:05, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

More to the point: at least in terms of neutrality, we do what he alleges we do. He doesn't approve of our policies on neutrality, fringe theories, etc. The distinction is what we define as neutral, he defines as biased. Yeah, we say there isn't evidence for energy healing, we don't put fringe ideas on par with established ones, we do say that Trump has lied, we don't try to ensure all sides or both major political parties get equal weight if it's not reflected in reliable sources, we do prioritize descriptive language and mainstream medical sources on abortion topics over what activists say, etc. To anyone who thinks that makes us biased, Sanger's opinion will have resonance. (None of this is to say he doesn't sometimes find examples of when we fail our own neutrality policy, but he's pointing them out because they fail his version of neutrality). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 15:23, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

I would say Agree with summary style in the first paragraph as proposed, but then move this down to the body, probably in Rupert Sheldrake § personal life. I honestly also would just remove He was also a plant physiologist in India.. It's extraneous in this formatting and in true summary style, it's also a stylistically problematic short sentence.

Also agree this did not need an RFC. OP should withdraw. Could have just been discussed. A reminder to all editors here, that creating multiple unnecessary RFCs is a component of tendentious editing, and to make sure you have always engaged in WP:RFCBEFORE before you start one. I see that the talk page discussion had not been responded to for a few days. That is not a good enough reason to start an RFC. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 14:33, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

“Unambiguous exposés of quackery will inevitably appear rude to some people and hurt some feelings. This is a fact of adult life.” PMID: 15208545

Be well, but be well somewhere else.

"It was G. K. Chesterton who quipped that the Church is the one continual institution to have been thinking about thinking for two thousand years, and it is for this reason, as Chesterton also quipped, that She saves us from the ignominy of ignorance which makes us children of our own time and slaves of the Zeitgeist. It is She who enables us to think outside the temporal box so that we can perceive the time." — what's the problem with such argument? The authors of the Bible were children of their own time. The Church Fathers were children of their own time. And so on.

Empty rhetorics, meaningless blather. You can write exactly the same in the Talk page of every other article about a pseudoscience or pseudoscience proponent. (Many, many people actually do that. See the footnotes in WP:YWAB for examples.) Bring reliable sources that trump the ones we already use, that is the only way to change the stance of the article. --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:57, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Many medical students complain that many facts of medical sciences make no sense, have no apparent logic, and you just have to learn them by rote.

Exactly. Or to quote the famous aphorism, "Competent editors are all alike; every incompetent editor is incompetent in their own way." Mathglot (talk) 07:58, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

You've got to understand that Wikipedia operates through collaboration and consensus. If you want to think of that as "procedural technicalities", then yes. If it didn't it would just be complete chaos. You have an opnion. I have an opinion. Slatersteven has an opinion. If our 3 opinions are all different there needs to be a mechanism for resolving it otherwise it would just be paralysis. That mechanism is partly all our policies and guidelines and partly our collaborative processes. If you want to call them "procedural technicalities" that's fine. But if an editor doesn't want to accept them they won't be allowed to edit Wikipedia. it's as simple as that. DeCausa (talk) 11:56, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

[...] They are here, as demonstrated, to right the great wrongs of "academic scientism" (AKA, our WP:BESTSOURCES) and remove or extinguish their ideological enemies [...] — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 16:43, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

This is a privately owned website that can determine what content appears on its computers just as you can determine what is said and done within the four walls of your residence. See WP:FREESPEECH. 331dot (talk) 10:42, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Of course. The exceptional people who really moved knowledge forward understood certain aspects of what we now call the scientific method. I was thinking of the full implementation of the scientific method in all the scientific disciplines, especially medicine, which is a relatively recent phenomenon. Some elements have been used by certain people since ancient times.

Experimentation is an ancient concept, but alone often proves nothing related to the wider population. The conflation of association and causation has always created problems, and modern scientists have developed better ways to screen for those problems. In alternative medicine and other pseudoscientific areas, they still conflate those matters. To them, anecdotes and popularity are proof. They don't realize that "The plural of anecdote is not data." (Roger Brinner) or that "Humans have brains that are built to work on anecdote rather than real data." (Jeffrey P. Utz, MD) or that "Anecdotes are useless precisely because they may point to idiosyncratic responses." (Pediatric Allergy & Immunology, 1999 Nov;10(4) 226-234) -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 15:26, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

[...] Yes, the "theory" of "porn addiction" is clearly a crude case of religious hysteria masquerading as science for political purposes. [...] Random person no 362478479 (talk) 14:19, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

@Morgan Leigh: Ernst was pushed out because he did not follow the party line. There was interference from Prince Charles, a well-known supporter of woo. His "crime" was to publish studies that honestly investigate the claims of alternative medicine rather than promote it, as most alt-med studies do. The main function of alt-med journals is to publish pseudoscience and give an appearance of legitimacy - that's why we generally exclude them per WP:MEDRS. They are a marketing tool not a scientific enterprise. Ernst's Law: if you are studying alternative medicine and quacks do not hate you, you are not doing your job. Guy (Help!) 08:24, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

The article quotes Micheal Licona saying "his positions are those largely embraced by mainstream skeptical scholarship," which should establish that most scholars support him (or he supports them). And before you jump in about the "skeptical" qualification, any good scholar is skeptical, it's what makes them scholars. (The opposite, I imagine, would be a credulous scholar, though I can't quite see what his his credulity would consists in).Achar Sva (talk) 08:41, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

Pornography is bad

This is has a bad effect on mostly adolescent 102.89.40.1 (talk) 21:26, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

1. In order to edit Wikipedia (well, except correcting spelling mistakes), you have to WP:CITE WP:RS, in this case there are very stringent conditions, see WP:MEDRS;
2. There is not much information about it, since universities are not allowed to perform experimental studies upon minors and porn;
3. The few empirical studies that do exist say: low correlation, and causality cannot be shown.

Conclusion: no, it isn't science that pornography is bad for adolescents. While that might be religion, this is not an article in theology.

While there are legal demands prohibiting showing pornography to minors, that is an ethical prescription, not a fact of empirical sciences. And this article is not an article in law science, either. The legal prescription must be obeyed, because the Parliament expresses sovereignty over its state, but that does not make its claim an objective, proven scientific fact. You should not conflate scientific facts with ethical demands, yet both are entitled to respect. Law defines the ethics of science, it does not prescribe its facts. So, there are laws meant to protect minors from harm, but there is definitely no scientific evidence that watching porn is harmful to minors. Also explained in the book Not in Front of the Children. While these books are more than 20 years old, nothing has essentially changed which would invalidate their point.

If you want a popular, but scientific introduction to the problem, see https://psychcentral.com/lib/teens-and-internet-pornography . But do mind that it talks about porn addiction, and that's an entirely pseudoscientific diagnosis. tgeorgescu (talk) 07:55, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

WP:NOTTRUTH. It is pointless to argue on Wikipedia that something is true. You need to find a reliable source that says it is.

BTW, that phrase was already well-known before blogs were invented. --Hob Gadling (talk) 18:17, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

You're essentially reading policy line by line to subvert established process, just like you were reading NOTNEWS line by line to justify including a snippet on upcoming events. Overemphasis on procedure over principles can be disruptive, and wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. You can't add a maintenance-tag because you feel the article is biased, there must be an articulable reason. So far your explicit concerns have been rejected on this talk page, i.e. there is consensus not to post that tag in article space. So it is removed. Draken Bowser (talk) 16:30, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

As you appear to be new to Wikipedia, I allow myself to correct you. What you say is completely wrong, sorry. Whether mainstream scholars are convinced by the arguments or not is exactly what we take into account here. Please read WP:FRINGE and WP:NPOV. Jeppiz (talk) 19:59, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

Nothing over-the-top about it. Instead, it is a pretty accurate description.

some kind of cheerleader for the medical establishment Weird description, but indeed, Wikipedia is on the side of science and opposes proven frauds like Wakefield, not only in the field of medicine, but everywhere else too. See WP:FRINGE. --Hob Gadling (talk) 12:48, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

So, as always, our own opinions and observations do not count for anything here. I'm not saying you are wrong, I think you raise a valid point, but unless and until a reliable source makes the same observation, we can't add anything on it to the article. What we can do is add statements reliably sourced to the organization and let the reader draw their own conclusions. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:38, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

Nobody has demonstrated any substantial POV concern here. What we have seen here recently is a lot of people (or, at least, some people with a lot of IP addresses), many of whom were brought here from an externally coordinated campaign, who want to kvetch baselessly without even having read the FAQ. Loudly asserting "POV" or "controversy" is not the same as an actual controversy because an actual controversy has substance and loud assertions are just noise. To justify a NPOV tag we would need to see multiple Reliable Sources that present views contrary to those covered in the article. I doubt that such sources exist. DanielRigal (talk) 23:56, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

inerrantists agree that there is one true and evident meaning to the Bible--they just don't agree on what that true and evident meaning is. --BRPierce (talk) 15:15, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Hi Nomnompuffs - sorry to intrude here, but I responded to your call for a 3O on the Gender of God page. I think you might not understand what constitutes a reliable source here. WP works mainly off secondary sources, and in this context the Bible is a primary source. So while what you say is correct - that the Bible says such and such - what is needed is a secondary source that literally says "the Bible says such and such". Do you see the difference? It needs to be a reputable other person making that statement, not just a WP editor. Otherwise this is called WP:OR (Original Research) because it is you who is editing the article based on your own analysis, rather than editing the article based on the analysis of some other reputable person. I hope that helps clarify what seems to be going on. Cheers, Blippy (talk) 07:32, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

It *is* one of Wikipedia's fucking jobs to pick sides. This notion that Wikipedia should be unbiased ignores the fact that bias for truth, *for reality*, *for reliability* is still a fucking bias. "Oh no, a reliable source and an unreliable source! Well, we can't pick sides, better put them both in the article!" LightNightLights (talk • contribs) 11:45, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

What we care enough is not to give equal validity to mainstream astronomy and beliefs such as flat Earth or geocentrism. Wikipedia was never meant to do so, that is simply a misunderstanding of encyclopedic neutrality. Wikipedia isn't neutral in respect to mainstream science, it is wholly pro mainstream science. That's what any serious encyclopedia should do. So, if you want to change the status of ID inside Wikipedia, first change scientific consensus and Wikipedia will faithfully record such change. What you should not do is advocate certain fringe views inside Wikipedia in order to change scientific consensus. While scientific consensus can sometimes be wrong about something, it is not our role to venture such projections.

I can confidently say given that you reject the effectiveness of modern medicine and are invoking big pharma conspiracies that you are a crank, and that it's not worth wasting by time talking to you. Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:48, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

Anthroposophy is a weird mixture of obsolete scientific theories, schizophrenic delusions, and platitudes, held together by pompous flubdub. And that sentence is 100% pompous flubdub. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:18, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

If you want to cleanse the information you do not like, you are in the wrong place. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:08, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

Modernism basically means the Enlightenment. And radically rejecting the Enlightenment means being anti-EU and anti-US. tgeorgescu (talk) 22:55, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

"Personally, I believe that those who put their faith in the Bible have their priorities all wrong, it is not the Bible which saves them, rather they should have faith in God." Steven Craig Miller.

It is very frustrating to be on the WP:FRINGEs when you think you should be WP:MAINSTREAM. And, to be fair, when it first was developed, Wikipedia did not do a great job of explaining how it intended on addressing this imbalance which is baked in to knowledge production and rational discourse. After more than 20 years, the answer we've come up with is: "if you don't like the status quo, go change it out in the real world." That normally shuts down the arguments, and I am convinced it remains the best argument we can say when people ask us how to fix the situation they dislike.

Back during the cold fusion wars, Steven Krivit interviewed me on the phone (sadly, the recordings were corrupted, so, no, you can't listen to it). When I said that the best advice I had for cold fusion advocates was to convince the rest of the world that they had what they thought they had, he was not happy, but what could he say back? Most of the WP:PROFRINGE want to use Wikipedia to change the world and that's fundamentally why they get frustrated. jps (talk) 18:16, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

The way Wikipedia works is that editors summarize what reliable expert sources say about a given topic. Sources decide what's relevant, not editors. - LuckyLouie (talk) 12:49, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

@Savagecrybaby Well, more than half the world's Christians are Catholic, and the official Catholic position is that the early chapters of the Bible state spiritual truths "in simple and metaphorical language adapted to the mentality of a people but little cultured" (Humani Generis 38). Modern mainstream Lutheranism, Episcopalianism, Presbyterianism and Methodism all reject uncritical claims of literal truth in these stories. I don't want to make assumptions about you personally, but I suspect that if you have the impression that the majority of Christians support Biblical inerrancy, you are viewing the world from inside a fairly small bubble out on the fringe. Sorry. Doric Loon (talk) 15:58, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Anyone who believes that reincarnation is science has no business editing articles on reincarnation, or science for that matter -- since they clearly don't understand it or the scientific method -- or WP:FRINGE subjects in general. LightProof1995 seems to be heading toward a topic ban on science and fringe, which, if it's proposed, I would support. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:54, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

Well, that's because Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. And, like Britannica, it exists to help give people a summary about what reliable sources are saying on any given topic, and it's policies repeatedly and in many different places indicate that there is a certain kind of curating we do here. The end result, when Wikipedians do their jobs well, is an accurate reflection of the world's institutionally produced knowledge, specifically of the kinds of information produced by mainstream universities, newspapers, and so on. To put it in another way, Wikipedia is a free summary-writing service for the journalistic-academic complex. There are, no doubt, interesting and worthwhile conversations that occur out there, that generate a fair bit of public interest, but which fail to attract the attention of the journalistic-academic complex (what Wikipedia calls reliable sources, roughly). The good news is that people like Eric Dubay, if they are being ignored by the establishment, have alternate outlets, like YouTube. Just not Wikipedia. Wikipedia has already bitten off an enormous bite -- trying to summarize all the significant WP:RS material out there, and has about 30,000 highly engaged editors trying to keep 5-6 million articles in some kind of decent shape. If you would like to try and get the community/leadership of Wikipedia to change its overall approach to what is notable, I would be happy to point you in the direction of where you would need to discuss a change like that. But it's not going to happen on this particular talk page. We don't have enough people here to change Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. On individual articles, our job is just to follow them. Alephb (talk) 03:35, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Ian, surely there's a difference between the god of Israel and the God of Israel? Yahweh was the god of Israel in the sense that Khemosh was the god of Moab and Asshur was the god of Assyria: these were the national gods, charged with looking after the various kingdoms to which they were attached. God, on the other hand (the one with a capital letter), is a pretty recent concept arising from (ultimately) Greek philosophy, which came up with the idea that there could only be one, single, ultimate Being. By the 2nd century AD the Christians had decided that this Being was their God; Jews then adopted the concept, and much later so did Muslims. That is God with a capital. PiCo (talk) 11:38, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

"Neutral" does not mean "some say this, some say that" on Wikipedia. It means "follow where the sources go". See WP:FALSEBALANCE. --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:13, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Collapsed quote on WP:SPADE
I'd say that your statement of [y]our demand that all content on Talk pages complies with NPOV is absurd is what's actually absurd. I would also suggest that calling what you're doing "POV pushing" is, in fact, accurate, since that's exactly what you're doing. If you don't like being called a POV-pusher, don't push a POV. ... --Calton — [[User: Talk 03:36, 18 November 2018 (UTC)]]

I realize you don't know me but the discussion on ANI isn't going your way right now but I wanted to make one more stab at explaining Wikipedia to you. The project doesn't care about your opinions or my opinions. It doesn't matter how much you have studied the literature, how knowledgeable you think you are. And you very well may be an expert! But content on Wikipedia is not based on your ideas or original research, in fact, editor interpretation is specifically not just discouraged but editors can be blocked over inserting their own original research into articles and it can result in articles being deleted. Wikipedia articles rely on reliable sources which are independent, secondary sources (not primary sources like scriptures) that provide significant coverage of a subject. So, if you can't accept that the content of articles might disagree with your own beliefs about a subject, I don't see how you can work on a collaborative editing project like this one. Perhaps your writing is more suited to a personal blog or website where you don't need to maintain these standards. Or, you could set about writing a book yourself and if it is accepted and reviewed by the academic and literary community, then we might possibly use it as a source. But as a regular editor, today, you can't introduce your own interpretations of any type of literature or concept into articles. It will just be removed or reverted.

If you can agree to abide by this "no original research" policy, then I think Wikipedia might benefit from your contributions. But if you find this policy unacceptable, then your tenure here is likely not to last much longer. We all have to live with policies that might not agree with, and we don't just tolerate them, we have to enforce them as well. It's the core of Wikipedia and you'll have to decide whether or not that's something you can live with. Thank you for your contributions so far. Liz Read! Talk! 06:56, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Use whatever you like, but no change request will succeed until you accept and follow Wikipedia's policies. MrOllie (talk) 20:37, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Sergeant Batou: "... science may establish theories as certain and gain massive support from the scientific community, only to later dismantle them."

Yes, that's the nature of science, and Wikipedia goes along with it, always open to recording the current state of scientific knowledge. And in the current state of scientific knowledge, intelligent design is a pseudoscience. -- Jmc (talk) 04:08, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

There are not two equal sides here. There is a mainstream scientific point of view, and there are fringe theories outside the mainstream. There is not an "open debate" between mainstream science and fringe theories. That's not how it works. --Srleffler (talk) 20:46, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

I should make it clear that, since I'm presumably included amongst the 'accusers', that I don't consider this to be an issue of 'bad faith'. It is instead a question as to whether a contributor so demonstrably at odds with multiple Wikipedia policies, and so unwilling to accept that he may be in the wrong despite the advice of so many others, can usefully continue to contribute. It is entirely possible (and indeed sadly quite common) for a contributor to be simultaneously 'good faith' and yet disruptive to the extent that the project would do better without them. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:00, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

JaredScribe is a poor fit for Wikipedia. And, I'd have to suggest, Wikipedia is a poor fit for JaredScribe. He's clearly got some talents, but the evidence suggests they aren't the sort that work well in a collaborative environment. I honestly think it would be better for JaredScribe if he were to take his talents elsewhere, to venues less constrained than an online encyclopaedia burdened by decades of (apparently necessary) 'guidelines', 'policies', and essays that explain that thinking you are right - or even being right - isn't good enough, and that you have to accept that others may prevail. And that if you won't, you may have to be shown the door. A door, it should be noted, to a whole damn world outside. With plenty of other things in it that need fixing. Go fix them instead. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:21, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

• Jaredscribe has always struck me as the type of editor who, despite being highly motivated to build a free encyclopedia and working towards this goal in good faith, neither understands the methodology by which we work here nor is willing to learn about it and eventually follow it.
  In their view, Wikipedia editors should take a scholarly approach, directly representing the attributed views of primary and/or non-secular (e.g., religious Jewish) sources to 'correct' and 'balance' the mainstream academic view, which they regard as systemically biased by enlightenment ideology. See, e.g., here, where they define this type of "deliberate ignorance" promoted by "previous generations of European and Anglo-American scholars" as "anti-Jewish systemic bias". While there are many possible interpretations of WP:NOR (I myself believe that scholarly experts who edit WP should be allowed some more editorial discretion than is typically held safe, especially in the evaluation of secondary sources), Jaredscribe's perspective here is fundamentally at odds with the core goal of representing mainstream academic views untainted by editorial selection and interpretation of non-academic sources. Yes, following existing policy will reproduce the systemic bias inherent in mainstream academic views, but the alternative of allowing direct representation of non-academic (primary) sources without any restriction is a pandora box by which, once opened, any perceived systemic bias will become a valid excuse to contradict expert academic knowledge and to push non-mainstream or fringe views.
  Any editor who like Jaredscribe prefers to start from primary sources and has an axe to grind with mainstream academia is a liability to the project. I understand Kashmiri's hesitancy to straightly go to the 'nuclear option' of an indef, but as others have pointed out, no single-page block or topic ban will solve the basic IDHT issue. Editors have been trying to educate Jaredscribe for two years yet their attitude remains the same. It seems beyond doubt to me that this attitude makes them a net-negative, in the sense that many articles (I'm thinking, for example, about the articles related to Aristotelianism that they've edited "in the living tradition of aristotelian scholasticism", i.e. from an explicitly neo-Aristotelian POV) are likely affected in ways that only someone thoroughly familiar with the academic secondary literature will be able to recognize, let alone correct.
  What should be done to prevent this? Short from an indefinite block, which I would support if no other action is taken, perhaps we could devise some editing restriction disallowing Jaredscribe any and all usage on Wikipedia of primary sources, broadly construed? Would that solve the existing problems? If so, this would give them the chance to learn how to edit starting from a review of secondary sources, as ideally we should all be doing. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 23:24, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Wait, do we have a secondary source that says that it's never been considered? If not, the sentence needs to be struck as original research. We really don't need to bother evaluating the truth of the statement independent of the sources. The source that's there now is inadequate. 0x0077BE [^talk/_contrib] 12:15, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Everyone is biased, because everyone holds an opinion! Everyone subscribes to one particular point of view or the other. The onus is on the individual to keep an open mind, in spite of his particular opinion on a topic.
— User:Liberal Humanist

BDEhrman March 1, 2019 at 9:03 am - Reply

I’m not sure what you mean by assumption based? It seems to me that all human knowledge is based, in one way or another, on assumption, no? (Even scientific knowledge.) Maybe the problem is that people assume (!) that assumptions are just kind of like guesses or opinions, as opposed to reasoned judgments based on careful analysis?

As to Acts: note that Peter is the first to come up with the idea! But I think that’s part of the fiction, and yes, I think the Great Commission is as well. It is trying to show that Jesus foresaw it all…

• I just wanted to drop a line here and say this entire thing, this entire family of articles, is heavily heavily patrolled by a small number of Anthroposophy-friendly and especially Waldorf school-friendly editors. I waded into the deep end on this when I first started editing 7 years ago, and got hit with a stick pretty sharply. Some accused me of being a sock puppet, others said I ran anti-waldorf websites, etc. etc. I would tell anyone and everyone, this article and the entire family of articles needs more eyes. It needs more people who are willing to question "in-universe" sources and subtle POV. There's a lot of omission in these, especially about Steiner's views on race, disability, intelligence, vaccines, etc.
  What happens is, in broad strokes, a few skeptical/neutral editors will notice how wildly promotional these articles are, and attempt to fix it. One or two pro-Steiner editors will notice, and push back at every single change. Even if you push through some changes, you will eventually move on and go to other articles and worry about them. Meanwhile, the pro-Steiner editors will slowly work the article back to their POV. It has been like this for years, and I've seen this cycle repeat several times. The issue, above all, is that there is a huge huge dearth of quality sources. And even more than that, Steiner really promoted higher education and formalization of his wack-a-doodle ideas about spiritualism. So the editors who are Pro-Steiner are actually very well-educated and really understand the wikipedia game. They will act extremely formal and polite, while creating POV problems in every article. This is also why few of these pro-Steiner editors have ever been TBAN'd or sanctioned. I would caution everyone to tread carefully, but please involve yourself in these. These articles desperately need neutral editors. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 17:45, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Just call it NPOV 2014 style... " Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 00:19, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

• • Bingo! It also implies that the bias is "editorial bias", something we do not allow. Editors are supposed to leave their biases at the door while editing, but they are also supposed to document what RS say, including the biases found in those RS. Since this is the English language Wikipedia, and most RS are in English, it would be natural to expect that English, primarily Western, sources, would tend to view Russia and its aggression in a negative light, and therefore our articles on such topics will naturally document that POV. This is just the "nature of the beast" for ALL different versions of Wikipedia. They will all display different, and even opposing, biases. Don't blame editors for that situation. In fact, if editors try to disguise, hide, or whitewash those POV and biases out of content, they are in violation of our NPOV policy. It is only "editorial" biases we keep out of content. Otherwise, sources and content are not required to be "neutral". -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 20:18, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Hi, DisciplinedIdea. I'm not familiar with the original dispute, but I think I see where there's a disconnect. You write, Ask some guys expert on phase-change how limited science is? Wikipedia consensus knows better? I think this is where there's a communications breakdown. Wikipedia is not about what's true, only what the sources say. This took me a while to reconcile with my own background, but it's an essential part of fitting in on this website. So if Wikipedia came to a consensus that 1+1=3, and had reliable sources to back that up, then that's what would be published. There's plenty more nuance and I can elaborate if you like, but I know this was (for me, at least) the hardest part of adjusting to Wikipedia; that it doesn't matter what's right, only what the preponderance of reliable sources say. I hope this helps clear some thing up, and my apologies if this message is unwelcome. EducatedRedneck (talk) 16:17, 28 May 2024 (UTC)