Talk:Faith in Buddhism/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Katolophyromai (talk · contribs) 02:24, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

I will review this article. It looks like a promising candidate for GA and I will try to have it finished within the next week. On a side note, I thought I would point out that there is a severe backlog in this section and, right now, I seem to be the only one reviewing articles in it. I also thought I would remind the nominator that he or she has nominated ten article in this section, but has only reviewed four articles total, none of which are in this section. I do not mean to be a nuisance or anything, but I thought I would point out that it is generally recommended that, if you are able, you should try to review at least two articles for every one you nominate. My articles Enlil, Anunnaki, Jonah, Satan, and Aphrodite are all awaiting a reviewer. --Katolophyromai (talk) 02:24, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
 * , thank you for review. I hope the article makes sense to you. Please note that the article is for a great deal based on tertiary sources (e.i. encyclopedia articles), due to the broad nature of the subject of faith. I have, when more detail was required, used numerous secondary sources as well.
 * With regard to the review guidelines, you are right in that I have not reviewed many religious articles. I should do more of that. In fairness, I have done considerable efforts to get Theology of Pope Francis to pass GA, in this, this and this section, but i did not succeed in actually starting a proper GA procedure as the nominator withdrew.--Farang Rak Tham (talk) 12:54, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your reply. I apologize if my reminder sounded too much like a chastisement; that was not at all my intention. I was just trying to remind you. --Katolophyromai (talk) 15:14, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
 * No problem, it is just that I have been reminded before, so the sense of urgency is peaking, lol. Anyway, let's get to business: does the article here meet any of the GA criteria yet?--Farang Rak Tham (talk) 17:38, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
 * , if you have any specific suggestions, I am waiting.--Farang Rak Tham (talk) 19:11, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you for being prepared to help,, but I am currently undergoing a review myself for the article Hypatia, which I nominated in the "Mathematics and mathematicians" category and I am also reviewing another article in addition to this one. I am also caught up in several other conflicts and, on top of that, I actually do have some other things going on in my real life, so please try not to become too impatient. I completely understand the feeling, since I too have sometimes felt impatient with reviewers, but I assure you I have not forgotten about this article and I am working on the review as diligently as possible.
 * I intend to review this article in chunks, starting with the first section and finishing with the lead, so that I can be sure it is an accurate summary of the whole article. I have posted my first set of criticisms below, which are over the "Role in the Buddhist teaching" and "Early Buddhism" sections. I will return later (probably tomorrow) with more criticisms. --Katolophyromai (talk) 21:45, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Great! That's all I ask.--Farang Rak Tham (talk) 15:46, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Specific criticisms
Some of these may be slightly nitpicky:

1. "...a joyful surrender to enlightened or highly developed beings..." The wording here is rather POV. I would recommend rephrasing this to make it more neutral. The word "joyful" in particular has a strong positive connotation, so, unless "joyful surrender" is a specific term that is commonly used in Buddhism, I would recommend changing this.
 * Done.

2 "In Buddhism, in the development of the understanding of faith two historical layers can be distinguished: an early and later stratum." Who is the one distinguishing between the two "layers"? Which scholars make this distinction? You may want to attribute this distinction more clearly in the text itself; otherwise, it may seem like original research.
 * Done.

3 "Indeed, it does not..." I generally tend to dislike using the word "indeed" in a Wikipedia entry because it tends to imply that either whatever follows is a rephrasing of the previous sentence, or that the writer is trying to argue a point. Neither of these are good implications for an encyclopedia article, which is supposed to be concise and unbiased. You can probably just remove the word "indeed," or perhaps replace it with a different opening. This one is really just my opinion and you do not necessarily have to take it.
 * Indeed. And done.

4 "And although the Buddha..." I do not know if this is the case in British English, but I do know that, in American English, the word "and" is always a conjunction and should never be used at the beginning of a sentence; it is only used for joining two sentences together. I assume the rule is probably the same in British English, but I have gotten in trouble for making similar assumptions before.
 * You are probably right. Done.

5 "Because faith is included in lists of virtues for laypeople, it is clear that faith is described as a progressive quality for devotees, as a devotee who is new to the Buddhist religion is characterized as "young in devotion"." The words "it is clear that" are needlessly verbose and should be excised from the sentence.
 * Done.

6 You use the passive voice quite frequently. I would strongly recommend picking out all of the instances of the passive voice and switching them to the active voice, which reads better and is less confusing. For example, one particular instance I happened to pick out is: "In the Pali Canon, different approaches of faith are described," which I would recommend changing to say, "The Pali Canon describes different approaches to faith." This reads much more clearly and is less confusing.
 * This is quite a strong habit in my writing. Thanks for pointing that out.
 * I have replaced many now, but some instances I have left, because rewriting them would make the text more stilted or less readable. It is quite some work. I will continue in the evening.--Farang Rak Tham (talk) 15:07, 23 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Done. As said, I have left some instances in which cases I felt it made sense, when the subject had not clearly been the defined by the source material used, or when the sentence just ran more smoothly in passive voice.--Farang Rak Tham (talk) 00:01, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

General criticisms
You keep contrasting Buddhism with other religions, particularly Christianity. While I will not fail the article on this account, I would recommend against this for several reasons:
 * 1) We do not know where the reader of this article will be coming from and the reader may not necessarily be familiar with Christianity, which would make the contrast more confusing than informative.
 * 2) Contrasting the two religions on specific points may implicitly give the misleading impression that they are similar on other points, which will give a mistaken concept of what Buddhism is actually like.

When I am writing articles about ancient Mesopotamian religion or ancient Greek religion, I usually try to avoid drawing comparisons with present-day religions because I think that doing so would be misleading. --Katolophyromai (talk) 21:45, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I am afraid I cannot follow which Wikipedia principle you are referring to. If you are referring to a POV editing problem, I can tell you that I have not cherry-picked sources which compare Buddhism favorably with other religions.
 * I have now, however, removed a sentence pertaining to God as a creator, which I don't believe added anything valuable to the content of the article. i have also rewritten one instance of the word gods, which referred to heavenly beings in Buddhist cosmology, which is probably confusing.
 * Nevertheless, the word faith, the subject of the article, is essentially a word loaded with Christian connotations, which therefore must be discussed to explain whether they hold for Buddhism or not. However, if you think that any of the statements concerning Christianity would not hold up against scrutiny from mainstream Christian scholarship, then please mention which, and I will certainly consider rewriting or deleting. After all, a Buddhist Studies scholar may possibly be an unreliable source in such subject matter. It must be noted, however, that I have tried, and with great efforts I believe, to show in this article that Buddhism a theistic side throughout Buddhist history, but that scholars dispute as to whether this is "authentic" Buddhism or not. Whether this inquiry into authenticity is really that useful, is another matter of course, which is not for us editors to decide.
 * Finally, it is important to realize when reviewing Buddhism articles, a critical historical approach of Buddhism will—and indeed, must—describe the context from which Buddhism arose. Therefore, comparing Buddhism with pre-Buddhist Brahmanism in modern Buddhist scholarship is as common as the sun is rising in the East. On a similar note, Buddhist modernism, also known as "Protestant Buddhism", was per definition a response to Christian missionary activity in the East. It is widely recognized by present scholarship that these responses have fundamentally affected Buddhist theory and practice, and still are affecting it.--Farang Rak Tham (talk) 14:27, 23 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I am not referring to a specific policy. This was just my own personal recommendation. I was not in any way trying to imply that you were cherrypicking sources that compare Buddhism favorably with other religions. Furthermore, I definitely agree that the article does need to describe the context of pre-Buddhist Brahmanism; the part dealing with Brahmanism was not what I was remarking on here. I was mainly commenting on the several points where you contrast Buddhist faith with Christian faith, which I felt seemed to be assuming that the reader comes from a western cultural standpoint and is familiar with Christianity, an assessment that is not necessarily accurate for all readers. Nonetheless, I appreciate the answer you have given and I think that it is an entirely reasonable one. On a side note, if you think that the word "faith" is a loaded word that carries Christian baggage, it might be worth considering the option to move this article to a better title that uses a word less closely associated with Christianity. What do you think? --Katolophyromai (talk) 21:32, 23 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I have considered that, but it would not work: there are too many terms that mean 'faith' in too many languages, and they mean different things. But like I said, it is perfectly reasonable to assume that Buddhist Studies scholars make mistakes when describing Christianity, which is often not their forte. Therefore, if you are familiar with that field, you should point that out. When you have read the entire article, and you feel it is biased in any way, you should also let me know.
 * Meanwhile, I am still working on making passive sentences active; almost done.--Farang Rak Tham (talk) 23:01, 23 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I see. I appreciate your reply. I have not noticed any errors concerning Christian doctrine so far, but I have not been particularly looking for errors of that variety, nor was I suggesting that there necessarily were any. So far, I am not really noticing any large-scale biases, but I have observed a few POV phrases here and there. I have already pointed out the ones I have noticed. --Katolophyromai (talk) 00:10, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Done. Awaiting further comments.--Farang Rak Tham (talk) 00:05, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
 * , could you repeat those POV phrases again, please? Thanks.--Farang Rak Tham (talk) 01:25, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
 * You have already corrected them. They were the "joyful surrender" and "indeed" points that I mentioned above. Once again, whether or not they are really POV could depend somewhat on one's perspective. I will be continuing this review by moving on to the next section. --Katolophyromai (talk) 02:02, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Okay, thanks.--Farang Rak Tham (talk) 12:57, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

Relevance of sections Millenarianism and Dalit movement
In this and this edit summary challenges whether the sections on Millenarianism and Refuge as a political choice are relevant enough to the subject. I will be starting a discussion about this here, since it pertains to improving the article's focus. I hope I have clarified the relevance of these two sections. Let me know if anything else should be improved in the article.--Farang Rak Tham (talk) 12:57, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
 * 1) I believe Millenarianism is relevant to the subject of faith, since it involves movements that acted out of faith and hope for a better future. Many of these movements were powerful in nature, and have played an important role in the history of Buddhism. This is a significant topic in academic literature concerning the nature of Buddhist faith.
 * 2) The taking refuge as a political choice by the Dalit communities in the last section of main body of the article deals with the modernist phenomenon of people taking refuge merely as a political choice. This is basically about becoming a Buddhist without actually having faith, which indicates a new development in the history of the experience of Buddhist faith.
 * In following up on this discussion, has specified his arguments as follows:


 * In response to this, in a number of edits, I have added more content to the sections mentioned. I think this has dealt with the relation with faith sufficiently (though not in the way that I suspected it at first), proving the relevance of these two sections. Regardless, I will continue to look for further sources to improve the two sections. Should you want to pursue this inquiry, Jim, please continue over here, to keep the discussion centralized.--Farang Rak Tham (talk) 13:54, 27 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I have updated the lead now, to reflect the added content.--Farang Rak Tham (talk) 14:08, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

Mahāyāna Buddhism section
1 "...with the arising of Mahāyāna Buddhism..." "Arising" should just be "rise." "Arise" is not normally used in this manner and it makes the passage more confusing.
 * Done.

2 "Perhaps the most important text (Sanskrit: sūtra) in Mahāyāna Buddhism, the Lotus Sūtra embraces the ideal of faith." I would recommend introducing the Lotus Sūtra before explaining what it is. I would probably reword this sentence to say: "The Lotus Sūtra, perhaps the most important text (Sanskrit: sūtra) in Mahāyāna Buddhism, embraces the ideal of faith."
 * Done.

3 You tend to begin sections with the word "perhaps," which I do not think is the best way to introduce new sections and I think it makes it sound like what is about to follow is purely speculation.
 * Indeed, could be considered WP:WEASEL. I have replaced the statement by a another, similar one from the same source and page.

4 "...an idea similar to the Christian concept of "salvation of sinners"." I do not really see the similarity. Christianity teaches that anyone can repent and be saved, including even the most "wicked" of sinners; it does not teach that "wicked" people have a better chance of salvation than others. This may be one of those errors that you were referring to earlier. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:11, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
 * The source cited can be read in more than one way. But I've re-checked the source, and I think your interpretation is better. I have fixed this now. It doesn't seem like Harvey has misunderstood Christian doctrine, but rather I did.
 * I have also red-linked the Christian term, since it should have its own article.--Farang Rak Tham (talk) 09:07, 25 January 2018 (UTC)
 * , I think I am ready for more assessment now.--Farang Rak Tham (talk) 14:11, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

Other developments section

 * 1) "According to Religious Studies scholar..." "Religious Studies" should not be capitalized because it is not a proper name.
 * 2) "East-Asian" There should not be a hyphen here. The phrase is just "East Asian."
 * 3) "although as of 2004, there was no scholarly consensus about that yet." The use of the word "may" implies that there is no consensus, which makes this statement redundant. Also, the fact that this is dated to fourteen years ago makes the statement sound outdated. I would recommend just omitting this clause altogether.

These are all my comments over this section. I thought it was quite well-written and informative. The information about the deities and the millenarianism was quite interesting. --Katolophyromai (talk) 01:54, 28 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Done, and thanks for the compliment.--Farang Rak Tham (talk) 00:08, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Modern developments section

 * 1) "more emphasized" This should be "placed greater emphasis on." "More emphasized" is not idiomatic.
 * 2) "...against interpretation of Buddhism that do away with all faith and devotion..." There is a subject-verb agreement problem here. "Interpretations" should be made plural to agree with the plural verb tense.
 * 3) "...fed up with the Indian caste system..." The wording here seems a bit colloquial. I might recommend changing this to "dissatisfied" or "irritated by" or "annoying with" or something else that does not sound so trite.

These are all my comments for this section. Once again, I thought that, on the whole, it was well-written, informative, and quite interesting. --Katolophyromai (talk) 02:11, 28 January 2018 (UTC)
 * And done. Thanks for the compliments, and let me know what you think of the article in its entirety.--Farang Rak Tham (talk) 00:08, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

I think this article is up to GA standards and I now feel comfortable passing it. Congratulations! --Katolophyromai (talk) 01:39, 29 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the honest review, !--Farang Rak Tham (talk) 07:11, 29 January 2018 (UTC)