Talk:Ceremonial use of lights

Oil Lamps are not candles.Hindus don't use candles
Hindus and other Indic religions almost always use lamps of oil or clarified butter. This needs to be corrected in the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 120.61.39.165 (talk) 09:41, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Errors
This article started as a 1911 EB transplant. There are a bunch of OCR errors with only the first paragraph cleaned up. I've put the rest of the article here to make it easier to clean up before moving back to the article, paragraph by paragraph.


 * I've cleaned the text up quite a bit from, but there are still some scan errors I couldn't decipher. --Sullevon 05:39, 12 March 2006 (UTC)


 * It's still a mess. -- SECisek 08:26, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Caption needed
The image Znicze franciszkanska.jpg has no caption on it. Clicking on the image, the comment for it is (I think) in Polish. All I could make out was a reference to Pope John Paul II. If anyone can read the comment, could they please enter a caption for the image? Thanks. MishaPan 15:26, 21 June 2007 (UTC)that is so right

Globalize with material from Candle
The Candle article has had a flurry of activity with folks from every religion adding material to make sure their ceremonial use of lights is represented. That makes for a bizarre emphasis in that article with material that really belongs here. Meanwhile this article is pretty ethnocentric, pretty much Christian and history leading to Christian use. I suggest moving that content here. Ccrrccrr (talk) 22:07, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Incorrect title!
The name of this article needs to be changed to "Ceremonial Use of Lights in the Christian Faith". Are all other faiths considered not worthy of discussion according to Wikipedia? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.255.76.48 (talk) 17:47, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Another solution is to add in the material about uses of candles (and other lights) by other religions. The Candle article formerly had descriptions of the use of candles in Judaism - Shabbat candles, Hanukkah candles, Yahrzeit candles and so on.  That material was lost when the religion section was redirected to this article.  Accordingly, either this article should be renamed to be Christian-specific, or it should be expanded dramatically to cover other religions. Cullen328 (talk) 00:54, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Need to change "Overview"
The "Overview" for this article needs to be changed: a) because it's ethnocentric, b) because it has errors, c) because it overgeneralizes, and d) because it begins with Christianity when it purports to be about many religions. Here is my suggestion. Replace the "Overview" with these paragraphs:

"In many religions light represents joy and life-giving power, as darkness symbolizes death and destruction. Fire, the great transformer among the elements, produces light and is revered in indigenous religions as well as in the East. The Parsis venerate fire as the visible expression of Ahura Mazda, the eternal principle of light and righteousness; Hindus worship it as the God Agni, omnipresent in all of creation. The Hindu festival of Diwali (Sanskrit: दीपावली Dīpāvalī meaning "row of lamps"), when temples and houses are illuminated with countless lamps, is held sometime between mid-October to mid-November to celebrate Lakhshmi, the goddess of prosperity. And many Native American peoples worship the sun as a Goddess, among them the Cherokee, the Miwok, the Tunica, the Toba of Argentina and the native peoples of Greenland and Alaska

In the ritual of the Jewish temple fire and light played a conspicuous part. In the Holy of Holies there stood a candlestick with six branches, on each of which and on the central stem there was a lamp eternally burning; while in the forecourt there was an altar on which the sacred fire was never allowed to go out, the ner tamid (נר תמיד). Similarly. Jewish synagogues each have their eternal lamp.

The ceremonial use of lights in the Christian Church probably has a double origin: in a non-natural symbolism, and in the adaptation of certain pagan and Jewish rites and customs of which the symbolic meaning was Christianized." ˜˜˜˜

Need to change "Overview"
The "Overview" for this article needs to be changed: a) because it's ethnocentric, b) because it has errors, c) because it overgeneralizes, and d) because it begins with Christianity when it purports to be about many religions. Here is my suggestion. Replace the "Overview" with these paragraphs:

"In many religions light represents joy and life-giving power, as darkness symbolizes death and destruction. Fire, the great transformer among the elements, produces light and is revered in indigenous religions as well as in the East. The Parsis venerate fire as the visible expression of Ahura Mazda, the eternal principle of light and righteousness; Hindus worship it as the God Agni, omnipresent in all of creation. The Hindu festival of Diwali (Sanskrit: दीपावली Dīpāvalī meaning "row of lamps"), when temples and houses are illuminated with countless lamps, is held sometime between mid-October to mid-November to celebrate Lakhshmi, the goddess of prosperity. And many Native American peoples worship the sun as a Goddess, among them the Cherokee, the Miwok, the Tunica, the Toba of Argentina and the native peoples of Greenland and Alaska

In the ritual of the Jewish temple fire and light played a conspicuous part. In the Holy of Holies there stood a candlestick with six branches, on each of which and on the central stem there was a lamp eternally burning; while in the forecourt there was an altar on which the sacred fire was never allowed to go out, the ner tamid (נר תמיד). Similarly. Jewish synagogues each have their eternal lamp.

The ceremonial use of lights in the Christian Church probably has a double origin: in a non-natural symbolism, and in the adaptation of certain pagan and Jewish rites and customs of which the symbolic meaning was Christianized." BetterNan (talk) 22:38, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Ceremonial use of lights. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20080626072138/http://www.seventhsenseindia.com/prodgallery/gallery/89.jpg to http://www.seventhsenseindia.com/prodgallery/gallery/89.jpg

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 22:15, 14 January 2016 (UTC)