Talk:Raëlism/Archive 2

What about Eve?
I'm always fascinated that no one will talk about the human cloning stuff. Even in December 2002, the news wouldn't talk about it besides just saying "it's obviously fake." Do we have any reason to believe the Eve stuff either happened or didn't happen?--Mrcolj (talk) 04:11, 19 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm not aware of any information solid enough to believe that it did or did not. The assumption with such a claim with no verification is simply "it's not true". Human.v2.0 (talk) 01:18, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Several Scenarios were discussed in Aliens Adored: Rael's UFO by Susan J. Palmer. I wont get into them here other than Say to say:
 * Could have been a hoaxed perpetrated on the media (and possibly on Rael as well)
 * Could be real and in hiding
 * could have been real thus the Anouncement and died shortly after from complications like many cloned animals do and thus the sudden back pedal.
 * We Simply dont know and may never know. The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 00:00, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Religion?
I don't quite see what the basis is to call Raelism a religion or a church. Could someone please explain. Thanks. Kitfoxxe (talk) 14:16, 5 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Raelians self-identify as a religion. From their website:
 * Do Raelians consider Raelianism as a religion?
 * In the etymological sense, yes we do. It is clear that the word ‘religion’ has been used, misused, and abused so much throughout the Ages that it is no wonder many people nowadays shy away from anything that is labeled ‘religion’ and would not touch it with a 10-foot pole. At the same time, many people have the wrong idea of what ‘religion’ really means and view it as a belief in a deity of some kind. The word ‘religion’ comes from the Latin word ‘religare’ which means ‘to create a link,’ whether it be a link between people, or between the Creators of humanity and their creation, or between humans and the stars, or between the Earth and the Sky, etc… it really does not matter because the most important is to ‘create this link.’
 * Editor2020 (talk) 01:14, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Our article on religion starts out: "Religion is the belief in and worship of a god or gods, or a set of beliefs concerning the origin and purpose of the universe.[1] It is commonly regarded as consisting of a person’s relation to God, gods, or spirits.[2] Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories associated with their deity or deities, that are intended to give meaning to life. They tend to derive morality, ethics, religious laws or a preferred lifestyle from their ideas about the cosmos and human nature."  So I guess the thing about the "origin and purpose of the universe" might work. Kitfoxxe (talk) 02:52, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The lines of demarcation get a little fuzzy sometimes. :) --Editor2020 (talk) 21:44, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The word "spirit" clearly does it. Raëlism denies that the universe had an origin. It is creation of life on Earth that had an origin. "Spirits" could also apply to "those who came from the sky" or "Elohim".Kmarinas86 (Expert Sectioneer of Wikipedia) 19+9+14 + karma = 19+9+14 + talk = 86 23:03, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
 * @Kitfoxxe I think the question is why would it not be religion? The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 23:11, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Because generally "religion" refers to the relationship of humans to supernatural beings, which the Raelians' space aliens do not seem to be. Kitfoxxe (talk) 15:35, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm going to tweek the wording in the opening sentence of religion per Kmarinas86's comment. Kitfoxxe (talk) 15:37, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Ha ha. The wording has been changed in the last two days. Kitfoxxe (talk) 15:41, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Ahh the old Victorian Anthropology Definition of Religion. Religion 20th and 21st century defintion are not so narrow. Cant beleive our article on Religion boils it down that The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 15:58, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Biased Article?
I started trying to remove some of the "however" defenses in the article, before I realized this article is filled with so much biased, with a sizable quantity of sources cited themselves being nonciting texts and websites. Does anyone else have interest in editing this article? Dominicanpapi82 (talk) 01:41, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

undefined 02:10, 19 March 2011 (UTC)
 * "a sizable quantity of sources cited (are themselves) nonciting texts and websites" Since when did news sources actually cite their sources? All they will say is "he said, she said, they said" etc. News media rarely quote books, published journals, etc.. Do they give book titles, page numbers, issue numbers, or even the year published? Of course not. You would be VERY lucky if your local five 'o-clock news offered all that information to you at no extra cost. Also, some of the third-party research aside from news sources (e.g. Susan Palmer) are basing the claims on primarily the author's experiences, intuition, and/or research, while any reference to other authors about the same subject (i.e. Raëlians) are scant at best.siNkarma86—Expert Sectioneer of Wikipedia


 * Fortunately wikipedia already has a policy on this, WP:R, specifically the WP:NEWSORG section. Basically, news sources that are known to be fairly reliable are preferred, and academic articles are always preferred over news articles. Ashmoo (talk) 09:45, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
 * And I agree with Dominicanpapi82. The article is extremely bloated with fairly weak sourcing, including anecdotes and is dominated by directly citing Vorilhon's primary material. We need to tighten up the sources and try to find reliable 3rd party sources for most of the article. Ashmoo (talk) 09:47, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

"World Swastika Rehabilitation Day"
Celebrated a few days ago, probably should be mentioned on the article: Raelians to Celebrate 'World Swastika Rehabilitation Day' on June 26 by PR Newswire (official link apparently http://www.proswastika.org/page.php?9 )... AnonMoos (talk) 21:23, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

China or Israel ?
Hello Everyone,

"He added that the Elohim wish to have an embassy built to officially welcome them back to Earth and they would like it to be build in China."
 * http://raelianews.org/news.php?item.401.1 says:

ALL RELIGION IS BANNED IN CHINA BY THE COMMUNIST PARTY — Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.138.69.196 (talk) 14:51, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

"On December 13, 1997, the leader of the International Raëlian Movement had decided to extend the possibility of building the embassy outside of Jerusalem and also allow that a significant portion of the embassy property be covered with water."
 * While, The reference (ref no. 133) in the section Raelism suggests:

Thanks! Sincerely: Abstruce (talk) 20:35, 4 August 2011 (UTC)


 * See: http://www.cesnur.org/2003/mi_rael.htm (read the answer for second question) suggests that the original venue for the embassy that was Israel, is not being considered anymore! Guyz, it's time to update the article.


 * Thanks! Sincerely: -- Abstruce ( Talk ) 19:03, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Active Movement by Ex-Raelians
I don't see links or an article section to the vibrant ex-raelian's who have an active site posting personal information about Rael's blatant copying of Jean Sendy's works back in 1974. I mean, to base an entire "religion" or movement, or whatever you call it, on a plagiarized book seems relevant to people understanding the basis of Rael's movement. One only has to look at the myriad examples of Claude Vorhillon stealing directly from Jean Sendy, sometimes quoting direct passages, to see that there should be, at the very least, a controversy section in this article. I suppose I should start working on one, but I don't know where to start. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Katslikefun (talk • contribs) 22:41, 13 December 2011 (UTC)


 * See Correlation does not imply causation:

Determining causation

David Hume argued that causality is based on experience, and experience similarly based on the assumption that the future models the past, which in turn can only be based on experience – leading to circular logic. In conclusion he asserted that causality is not based on actual reasoning: only correlation can actually be perceived.

Intuitively, causation seems to require not just a correlation, but a counterfactual dependence. Suppose that a student performed poorly on a test and guesses that the cause was his not studying. To prove this, one thinks of the counterfactual – the same student writing the same test under the same circumstances but having studied the night before. If one could rewind history, and change only one small thing (making the student study for the exam), then causation could be observed (by comparing version 1 to version 2). Because one cannot rewind history and replay events after making small controlled changes, causation can only be inferred, never exactly known. This is referred to as the Fundamental Problem of Causal Inference – it is impossible to directly observe causal effects.

A major goal of scientific experiments and statistical methods is to approximate as best as possible the counterfactual state of the world. For example, one could run an experiment on identical twins who were known to consistently get the same grades on their tests. One twin is sent to study for six hours while the other is sent to the amusement park. If their test scores suddenly diverged by a large degree, this would be strong evidence that studying (or going to the amusement park) had a causal effect on test scores. In this case, correlation between studying and test scores would almost certainly imply causation.

Well-designed experimental studies replace equality of individuals as in the previous example by equality of groups. This is achieved by randomization of the subjects to two or more groups. Although not a perfect system, the likeliness of being equal in all aspects rises with the number of subjects placed randomly in the treatment/placebo groups. From the significance of the difference of the effect of the treatment vs. the placebo, one can conclude the likeliness of the treatment having a causal effect on the disease. This likeliness can be quantified in statistical terms by the P-value.

When experimental studies are impossible and only pre-existing data are available, as is usually the case for example in economics, regression analysis can be used. Factors other than the potential causative variable of interest are controlled for by including them as regressors in addition to the regressor representing the variable of interest. False inferences of causation due to reverse causation (or wrong estimates of the magnitude of causation due the presence of bidirectional causation) can be avoided by using explanators (regressors) that are necessarily exogenous, such as physical explanators like rainfall amount (as a determinant of, say, futures prices), lagged variables whose values were determined before the dependent variable's value was determined, instrumental variables for the explanators (chosen based on their known exogeneity), etc. See Causality. Spurious correlation due to mutual influence from a third, common causative, variable, is harder to avoid: the model must be specified such that there is a theoretical reason to believe that no such underlying causative variable has been omitted from the model; in particular, underlying time trends of both the dependent variable and the independent (potentially causative) variable must be controlled for by including time as another independent variable.

undefined 00:37, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
 * siNkarma86—Expert Sectioneer of Wikipedia

So, basically, in a nutshell, you're stating that just because two similar works arose at approximately at the same time, and used the same exact language as each other, or rather, if one work appeared just shortly (by a few months) after another work, and had distinct sections copied word for word from one work to another, that that does not prove causality? Surely, if it came to light that the Christian Bible was copied word for word from a pagan or druidic text, that would not cause some issue with it's membership? This is quite different from say, a faith adopting the symbolism of the Christmas tree, or the timing of a specific date. Doesn't controversy of Raelian Membership have a place in an objective article about the faith? Perhaps a brand new article titled Criticism of Raelianism might be a better place for this discussion? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Katslikefun (talk • contribs) 01:58, 14 December 2011 (UTC) undefined 02:35, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Here are some alleged evidences of plagiarism. I have also added some Google Books search links to get the ball rolling on your own independent comparisons. Obviously the texts are different and even disagree on many points, but others see it differently.siNkarma86—Expert Sectioneer of Wikipedia



undefined 02:35, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
 * End Quote.siNkarma86—Expert Sectioneer of Wikipedia


 * ...ok, now is all that even remotely reasonable? That massive wall of bright text is almost impossible to form a thorough response to.  Also, where did you source all of that from?  You obviously didn't type all of that up on the fly. Human.v2.0 (talk) 17:32, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

undefined 23:47, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I did it in about two hours using the material at (http://raelian.com/en/jean_sendy.php) [not the original author mind you], converting it to wikitext at (http://bmanolov.free.fr/html2wiki-tables.php), and formatting it with a little help of a spreadsheet software (Microsoft Excel) and notepad.siNkarma86—Expert Sectioneer of Wikipedia


 * Okay. Well, as stated below, you'd obviously need sources because what you have here is a truely massive pile of original research.Human.v2.0 (talk) 16:54, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

undefined 22:22, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Right. The set of claims I have quoted which attempts to connect the Raelian books with those of Jean Sendy IS of original research indeed.siNkarma86—Expert Sectioneer of Wikipedia

It's simple: any criticism or anything of the sort can be added, if you include references. (See Identifying reliable sources.) — Jeraphine Gryphon  (talk) 17:55, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Graph
The membership graph should be changed to the standard form with time increasing on the horizontal axis to the right, and membership as the vertical (dependant) axis. Otherwise, it is initially misleading. 71.139.171.89 (talk) 21:09, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Reception
I changed the Controversies section subtitle to Reception - as in, "Reception in Popular Culture" - to make it more neutral. The section currently reads like a POV-dump. There's nothing wrong with negative reactions from reliable sources, but some of them appear to be "Dick and Jane" testimonials that don't add any weight to the article. A few positive or neutral perspectives by notable observers are needed here to keep this article out of GAR. Ignocrates (talk) 22:18, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

i think it needs more information
i have been asked to pick a religion that my humanities teacher has never heard of. i came across this religion and i was imediatley attracted by the religion. i love the religion and i agree with many things. i do however, have struggled to get some information. e.g their views on the world and their views on sacrifice. if anyone could add information i would be very grateful. i need it to be done by Friday 12th July 2013. thyank you.

Cardmagiciangirl (talk) 14:28, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

undefined 17:42, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
 * You can try Raelianews.org. Good luck.siNkarma86—Expert Sectioneer of Wikipedia

Largest UFO religion?
I followed a link to this page from UFO Religion, which cited a source saying that Scientology is the largest UFO religion. This page says that Raëlism is the largest. Can anybody clarify? Webster100 (talk) 22:00, 21 October 2013 (UTC)
 * No. The reference for that is apparently a book of fiction Utopia On the 6th Floor: Work, Death, & Taxes-Part 2 by by Steven Propp. The lectures cited are by a fictional character within the book, "History Professor Morton Thompson". That cite should go, and unless there's a better cite, that claim should go too. AndroidCat (talk) 01:23, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Raël
Who is Raël? The word shows up frequently and seems to be referring to a person. Is this another name for Claude Vorilhon? If so, there needs to be clarification in the "History" section. Scarabola (talk) 01:30, 22 June 2015 (UTC)


 * First sentence: Raëlism, also known as Raëlianism or the Raëlian movement, is a UFO religion that was founded in 1974 by Claude Vorilhon, now known as Raël. — Jeraphine Gryphon (talk) 11:59, 22 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Must have missed that. Though I was more focusing on the history section. There should be a mention of when and how Claude changed his name somewhere. Scarabola (talk) 02:29, 2 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I added this to the second paragraph, though maybe that's not perfect. I don't know when exactly when he decided that he should be called Rael. But the beginning of the section calls him Vorilhon and the following paragraphs call him Rael so there should be some sort of explanation in the middle where the switch of names happens. — Jeraphine Gryphon (talk) 12:50, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

Pronunciation?
How is this word pronounced? That seems like a fundamental thing for an article about any non-English or uncommon English word, so I’m surprised that this article has nothing. —67.14.236.50 (talk) 22:49, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
 * The pronunciation is plain, in accordance with standard English formalism. The diaresis above the e indicates that the e is to be pronounce as a distinct, vowel-only syllable, as in Raphael; thus, Ray-ell-ism. This should require no additional explanation in the article. rowley (talk) 19:11, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

Part of that first paragraph makes absolutely no sense and needs fixing . Almost seems like some words were forgotten or almost a sentence is missing.
What the hell is meant by saying all these prophets informed humans of each era ? It's stated like we are already supposed to what is being talked with these eras of informing when absolutely NOTHING has been written about them until they were just mentioned .96.233.70.198 (talk) 10:05, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
 * It's clear that the word informed is used here in the same sense as one would use it in saying that a particular culture is informed by those preceding; as an informed sensibility. It's an, admittedly, archaic or dated usage of the word informed, but it is still used in formal writing, and the meaning should be clear.


 * Also, in English, we usually place the period, or full stop, immediately after the preceding word, with no intervening space. rowley (talk) 19:19, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

You mean " who MISinformed each human era ??? Lol
DUH96.233.70.198 (talk) 10:07, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Assuming you are not just another fanatical Theophobe who got triggered by the mention of religion, you may have a point. Given that the Räelians are atheists who believe in godless aliens, then if the great religious figures of history were purportedly alien agents, then (from the viewpoint of this cult), they must have been lying to humans in proclaiming the existence of God, not "informing" us. The other thing is that people like Jesus and Buddha had completely contradictory messages, so how could both have been agents representing the same aliens? (In Quebec, the Räelians are widely regarded as a sci-fi themed hedonistic cult, and not really a "religion".)77Mike77 (talk) 21:58, 9 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Just pointing out that the diaresis should go over the e, not the a. This shows how the word is to be pronounced. (Disclaimer: I am not a Raëlian; I am a typographer and copy editor, and a godless atheist.) rowley (talk) 19:22, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

External links modified
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Reception area: added information about lawsuit that followed the "amateur documentary."
In case there is any question as to my use of primary sources in this update, here's how I came to those decisions: I was curious what came of the documentary mentioned in the Reception section, so I Googled "Abdullah Hashem," and among some other (mind-boggling) links I found this PRNewswire page https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/us-federal-court-rules-filmmakers-lied-about-raelians-130411248.html

Obviously that's a press release put out by the Raelism org, and doesn't qualify as a reliable source. But I thought that, if the documentary is mentioned in that section, so should the legal case and resulting judgement. So I did more digging, and all I could find are the case files from court docket websites. There doesn't appear to be one outside news source that reported on this judgement, and the press release has a few factually sketchy parts itself. So...

I opted to include the press release citation early in the paragraph, when it's detailing some of the allegations made by IRM. But I took the RICO charge terms directly from the court documents, and when it came to the actual details of the default judgment, I directly quoted the primary source in a few places to make clear the full outcome of the case. There is precedent for doing this on Wikipedia, when no secondary sources are available, which reported on the publicly available court documents. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:No_original_research/Archive_16#Primary_vs._Secondary_sources

And yes, I did search that and other court databases, to confirm no further action had been entered regarding that case. As best I can tell, nothing was done after September of 2011, and that was just notice sent to all parties of the August 2011 decision. There are some other bits and bobs online to this story, from people on both side, but it's all highly inflammatory and unreliable. So much so that, I'm not entirely sure the reference to the documentary should even be here. It's all starting to feel a bit like one NRM attacking another NRM, for profit or publicity. But given it was somewhat publicized, omitting it feels like throwing the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak. CleverTitania (talk) 06:06, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Symbol
They're not a Jewish or Israeli organisation, so why do they base their symbol on the Star of David? Jim Michael (talk) 23:27, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
 * See Star of David for similar shapes. Editor2020 (talk) 02:20, 30 December 2019 (UTC)