Talk:Christianity, tolerance, and equality

Concern
As a Christian, I am concerned that this article is not very even-handed, and smacks of anti-Christian sentiment. Christians aren't the only ones who are intolerant. Wikipedia editors can be, as well.

I have tried to add to the section on race in order to slightly correct the imbalance. But much more needs to be done to create a neutral point of view for the article. User:Giffmex 18:04, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm...
Is this article, which I think is a POV atrocity, worth saving, or is a redirect to Criticism of Christianity the best way to handle this? KHM03 13:25, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Some thoughts
There are a number of problems with this article:

In sum, if the article is to be kept, it should be balanced with information about all aspects of Christianity that relate to tolerance and equality, the inaccuracies corrected, and the inflammatory material toned down or removed. If the article is not to be kept, then some of its material might constructively be used to expand the Criticism of Christianity article. JHCC (talk) 16:12, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
 * 1) It is simplistic.  The article treats Christianity as a monolithic entity, taking little or no account of the fact that many of the criticisms posed often apply to only to limited times, places, groups, and individuals, which may or may not be representative of Christianity as a whole.
 * 2) It is inflammatory.  The images of torture by the Inquisition or of burning crosses provoke an emotional reaction that may detract from rational discussion of the issue.  It is worth noting here that, while the latter image is a historical photo, the former is not.  As someone noted about a similar picture, "There's also a problem with all such pictures since none are accurate. They are rather works of art and portraying the black legend. Not that the [Spanish Inquisition] wasn't horrendous in many ways, but a lot of stuff was added in this literature" (see Talk:Homosexuality_and_Christianity).
 * 3) It is unbalanced.  This article is entirely about criticisms of Christian actions and attitudes in the various areas discussed, but the article title implies that this is all that there is to be said on the subject.  For example, in the "racism" section, no mention is made of the work of the many Christians, both black and white, in the Civil Rights Movement, and there is no photo of Greek Orthodox Archbishop Iakovos marching with Dr Martin Luther King, Jr at Selma.  There is also no mention made of the many Christians who did everything they could to save Jews from the Holocaust, who campaign for human rights, or who provide relief services in disaster areas.
 * 4) It is inaccurate.  For example, the statement "all the early Church Fathers were themselves Jews" betrays a tremendous ignorance of Church history; while the Apostles may have been Jews, the early Church Fathers were Greek (Basil of Caesarea), Egyptian (Anthony the Great), Syrian (Theodore of Mopsuestia), Roman (Gregory the Great), French (Irenaeus of Lyons), Armenian (Gregory the Illuminator), African (Augustine of Hippo), and yes, Jewish (Saint Paul), just for starters.  Also, Torquemada is called the "leader" of the Spanish Inquisition, when he was merely its first Inquisitor General.  (It would be difficult to be the leader of an institution that lasted from 1481 to 1834!)  While such errors could be cleaned up, they currently do the article no credit.


 * I concur. --Midnite Critic 20:55, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Merge proposal
Since the content of the article is composed entirely of various criticisms of Christianity, this needs to be either merged with Criticism of Christianity as has been suggested, or renamed to something in keeping with the content. A third alternative would be to radically change the article's content to match the title, which would mean including positive examples of Christian tolerance and equality. Are there any reasons at all not to merge with Criticism of Christianity? Wesley 16:52, 15 December 2005 (UTC)


 * All participating editors at Criticism of Christianity have supported merging this article with that one, with the lone exception of User:Clinkophonist. Seems better to sort out the mess in one place than have it split across multiple articles. Consequently I'm changing this back to a redirect to the other. Wesley 19:01, 17 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Sounds good to me; too many poorly written POV articles is only bad for everyone involved. KHM03 20:00, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

The title implies neutrality, yet the new redirect is only to criticism. That's certainly POV. If kept, the title should be a disambig page to both criticism and positive contributions of Christianity. Otherwise this title should be deleted, which personally I think is the best course at this time. Pollinator 20:30, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Actually
The initial text of this article is cut directly from this version of the Criticism of Christianity article. I cut it so that I could remove it from that article, replace it with a brief NPOV summary of the issues, and place it here, under a more general title so that it would, as suggested by Wesley in his 3rd alternative, be radically altered to match the title (which is exactly why I chose the title to be neutral). (And also so that Criticism of Christianity could have these large discussions removed from it)

Yes it is presently inflammitory, but that isn't my fault, it was like that in the other article, I just moved it and toned it down a bit. Even the images came from (and were consequently removed from) that article. The whole point of moving it here was to make it easier to broaden it out and make it more neutral. Yes it does currently mostly, if not entirely, contain criticism, but that is because where I moved it from did; the whole point of putting it under a general title is so that status will change, and that the other side of the coin will be expressed.

Good articles have to start somewhere, sometimes even from POV messes.Clinkophonist 20:47, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Redirect error please fix
Ummm....hey guys, the redirect inside the Criticism of Christianity article supposedly linking to the Christianity Equality and Tolerance article, just redirects back to the Criticisms of Christianity article. It is like the original Planet of the Apes chronology, that just keeps looping back into itself. Can someone please fix this? User:Giffmex
 * Did it...like the Planet of the Apes analogy, by the way! KHM03 20:36, 18 December 2005 (UTC)