Talk:Religion/Archive 8

Definition of "Religion"
The definition of "religion" given needs to have a source cited surely?CecilWard (talk) 19:26, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

The definitions of religion are too broad and need something more simple and to the point.9marimar (talk) 19:46, 25 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree. Here's one I got from the dictionary.  RELIGION: "a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices."  RELIGIOUS: "relating to or manifesting faithful devotion to an acknowledged ultimate reality or deity."  Note that a religion does not have to have a belief in a particular deity or deities.  For example, Buddhism.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bill the Cat 7 (talk • contribs) 09:21, 28 March 2009 (UTC)


 * From the New Oxford American Dictionary: Religion the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, esp. a personal God or gods. Details of belief as taught or discussed. A particular system of faith and worship. Religious believing in and worshiping a superhuman controlling power or powers, esp. a personal God or gods. (of a belief or practice) forming part of someone's thought about or worship of a divine being. Of or relating to the worship of or a doctrine concerning a divine being or beings. These all seem to emphasize the "system." Perhaps worded something like "''Religion is a personal or institutional standardization of faith, belief, or spirituality. --Ninjasaves (talk.stalk) 03:02, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Any complete definition of “Religion” should include the definition as provided by the Word of God in the King James Version of the Bible; James 1:27 Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.(Keokukiowa (talk) 14:54, 12 March 2009 (UTC))


 * If we are going to add a quote from the Bible concerning the definition of religion, that could start a precedent of needing to add quotes from other religious texts. Different religions are going to have different beliefs of what "pure religion" is. I think we had better stick with a more general definition.--Truecolors (talk) 05:17, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Would it be possible to suggest that religion (according to Cicero, from Latin re- "again" + legere "read") is a human survival strategy which allows those within to co-operate in securing their future - sometimes at the expense of their neighbors' survival.

Hence th prohibition about killing and the 'just war' philosophy. It is significant that the scriptural (i.e. written) Judaic origin of the world and the garden of Eden is closely linked to the time and place (Ur was around Basra in modern Iraq) where writing was invented. The peripatetic Jewish nation invaded Palestine (land of the Philistines) after, and their holy writings record much of this.

Maybe as a westerner I am convinced by the Evolutionary psychology theory. Is this becoming a religion too? I agree however that Wikipedia should be neutral, and the King James is certainly not suitable here Timpo (talk) 08:41, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Criticism
The criticisms of religion are so many that this section is uncredible in its brevity (angelic pencils-with-erasers-at-each-end editors?). That said, the Marx quotation is arguably a continuing misrepresentation of his tenets. Here's the full quotation, full of complexity:

"The foundation of irreligious criticism is this: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is indeed man's self-consciousness and self-awareness so long as he has not found himself or has already lost himself again. But, man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man -- state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d'honneur, it enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.

Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower. The criticism of religion disillusions man, so that he will think, act, and fashion his reality like a man who has discarded his illusions and regained his senses, so that he will move around himself as his own true Sun. Religion is only the illusory Sun which revolves around man as long as he does not revolve around himself.

It is, therefore, the task of history, once the other-world of truth has vanished, to establish the truth of this world. It is the immediate task of philosophy, which is in the service of history, to unmask self-estrangement in its unholy forms once the holy form of human self-estrangement has been unmasked. Thus, the criticism of Heaven turns into the criticism of Earth, the criticism of religion into the criticism of law, and the criticism of theology into the criticism of politics."

This hardly seems to say what the popular, out of context snippet implies.

Dstlascaux (talk) 22:08, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Could someone please rewrite the "Criticism" section, that it might appear slightly less caustic and partisan? I'd do it myself, but it would just wind up biased in the other direction. Volfied (talk) 04:00, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

i agree, there is something majorly wrong with the so-called critisism section. the whole article basically supports religion, which is fair enough, but in the one section in which there should a fair balanced critisism of where religion has been used immorally (i.e. the crusades, fundementalism/extremeism, homophobia and opposition to social progression). Instead, the section is filled with (if you disagree with this term then by all means do something about the section) propaganda, merely stating that there is opposition to religion, but that it can be described as irrational. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.106.195.198 (talk) 10:40, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Believing unquestioningly in things that cannot be observed or proven, then making important and consistent life decisions on these same things, as well as regularly "communicating" with an imaginary being, and declaring said being "the ultimate authority", and going so far as to oppress and kill those who hold to a different imaginary being IS irrational, in fact, it is beyond irrational, it is the very definition of insanity. I think the criticism is not strong enough. Mrrealtime (talk) 23:18, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Attention towards a core of common elements in major religions has been growing. Also the prevelace of religion in all times and locations makes religion as an essential element of human life. A term coined as "Scientific Religion" collects all common elements at the core of all religions. The core is considered as a model of the universe that includes its observable and hidden systems making an overall fair and objective universe. Scientific Religion utilises logical consistent evidences in support of the universal model to satisfy a free and open minded person. In one sense it tries to rediscover religion of first human community; that was in reality a global village. The difference in the Scientific Religion approach from the prevelant traditional one is that it takes earliest modern human beings as fully developed fair minded, conscious, smart, sharp witted individuals in no way less than us, the contemporary people. This aspect of the mental abilities, self conscious or respect of earliest modern humans is now needed to be included uin such studies after abundant discoveries of excellent literary composition texts that has been read from earliest individuals in some cases written records of 5000 years ago. ...also see similar discussion on http://groups.msn.com/ScientificReligion  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.195.83.9 (talk) 13:17, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Basically, Religion is a way of belief, sometimes it's the way you live your life. It's the path you take. You stick to certain "rules". For example, in Christianity there are commandments etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.106.209.83 (talk) 15:01, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

I am concerned that the "criticism" section does not point out a glaring fact: that most religions are inherently critical of each other, by virtue of their incompatibility. I'm not saying they are hostile toward one another, but logically speaking, the basic tenets of the major religions are mutually exclusive. For example, Christianity emphasises that Jesus is the son of God; Islam believes Jesus was a mere prophet. Christians believe Jesus is "the (only) way", while Buddhists seek "Enlightenment" elsewhere. The interfaith movement does not solve this problem, because it is mainly concerned with promoting tolerance of people of other faiths - while their theological views remain incompatible. And the view that the Abrahamic religions worship the "same God" makes no difference: the contradictions inherent in their beliefs about the (eg human) manifestation of that god persist. Furthermore, one could argue that religions can be self-critical, by allowing revision of doctrines - as in the case of scholasticism. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.167.55.66 (talk) 18:47, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The way to start that is with sources that can be cited, so that it isn't just WP:OR. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:52, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Hinduism
i can't edit this page. can someone please include in the table that the earliest evidence for elements of Hinduism date back to the late Neolithic to the early Harappan period (5500–2600BCE). Modern Hinduism grew out of the Vedas, the oldest of which is the Rigveda, dated to 1700–1100BCE. Yet the main ideas haven't changed, only introduction of written materials such as the Vedas / other epics. thanks. Sources: check links here. "Hindu History")

Native Americans
The religions of Native American are ommitted? --Kazuba (talk) 16:48, 25 May, 2008 (UTC)

A poetic introduction
Hey all, just found the following definition while browsing the net (located here): "Religion is, at heart, a way of seeing the world. It is a collection of stories, symbols, and beliefs that give meaning to the experiences of life."

The source is non-notable, but the definition is beautifully clear and inclusive of all religions. I think we should consider something similar for our own introduction to the topic in the article's lead... If we're worried about copyright, we can always email the author and ask his permission. Any thoughts? --Pariah (talk) 03:53, 26 May 2008 (UTC) this is a whittled down and poetic rendering of Morton Klass's operational definition of religion:

"religion in a given society will be that instituted process of interaction among the members of that society - and between them and the universe at large as they conceive it to be constituted - which provides them with meaning, coherence, direction, unity, easement, and whatever degree of control over events they perceive as possible"

(ordered universes 38)

klass also points out the epistemological difficulties with the term supernatural, among others, but for the purposes of wikipedia a scientific attitude should be assumed —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.114.210.164 (talk) 01:08, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

I would note that a philosophy might also fit the definition above, which is definitely something distinct from religion per se. Personally, I would prefer a functionalist definition to an essentialist one, but that might just be me. I have personally always been fond of "Religion is a social way of thinking about social relations", but I have forgotten the source. As to the term "Supernatural", it has an etnocentric mark: it presupposes a distinction "this natural world" and the "wholly other supernatural one" which is not present for underdeveloped societies, where agents posited in the religion is fully as natural as a tree, a rock or a stone. I'll look into the issue! 95.209.246.14 (talk) 10:04, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Yezidi
The Language is KurmanJi, Religion Yezidisim, Prophet Taus Melek, Xode is the all mighty God. Believed to be born from Adam only, All over the world in 30,000 to 500,000 gruops per country. Not Kurdish, Not Deveil Worshipers, rather kind and freindly when you get to know them, another branch of christanity. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.141.85.160 (talk) 04:11, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Language
The language in the "criticism" section is curious. Does the phrase "baptized in blood" belong in an encyclopedia? 210.164.1.72 (talk) 08:09, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Merge from Claims to the oldest religion
The suggestion to merge was put forward by other editor and I second it. Please review the above to filter what will be retained from the article as it stands now. Wikidās ॐ 00:18, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

discuss this at Talk:Claims_to_the_oldest_religion please. Further input is indeed welcome. I adjusted the merge target to history of religion as more appropriate. dab (𒁳) 09:43, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Religion is about the BRAIN only
"Religion" is about the way our thoughts work and to reach the maximum ability of an individual with cosmic energy (super natural).All religions, cultures, texts, ancient practices and others too were written so that one would to able reach the maximum ability of the brain.

Actually we all talking about the functions of the thoughts of the mind and to win it to reach the ability of the brain.This is now in different context as Islam, Christianity,Hinduism, Buddhism and all others. All religion is talking about the brain, the day everyone reaches oneness we were all know that we have mistakenly practising and preaching it.→→→→ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.50.203.102 (talk • contribs)
 * This could be an example of nobrainer. Wikidās ॐ 16:15, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Urm... thanks for that... any reason you decided to give us this handy bit of information? (Midnightblueowl (talk) 18:57, 10 October 2008 (UTC))

Organized religion
Organized religion directs here. It is a term that is used by notable people such as Bill Maher and Bertrand Russell. Is it worthn creating a short article for it? -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 09:18, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Absolutely. Not every religion falls under this category anyhow. Wikidās ॐ 16:13, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
 * @ Wikidas but that's exactly why there would be a section for "Organized Religion", because it would only truly apply to some of them. Organized vs not organized is a legit topic to bring up. Fatrb38 (talk) 07:41, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Calling Shenanigans
The table describing religious persuasions is suspect. First of all it suggests that close to the entire global population as being religious if going by a figure of five billion. Secondly it doesn't cite a source. Third going by Wiki's own world population figure, near 7 billion, that leaves about one and a quarter billion unaccounted for EVEN including the 750 million atheists claimed by wikipedia on its page on atheism. Do the math, the table approaches five billion. At the same time Wiki's article on atheism suggests three-quarters of a billion follow non-religious practices. So what - do the other billion and a half people simply not exist? Buddhism is arguably a philosophical system much like Taoism and Confucianism both of which are more philosophical and less religious. By allowing philosophical systems to be lumped in with religious systems wikipedia is committing a crime against knowledge and enabling xenophobic religion.


 * Please sign your comments when you post--you can do so by typing four tildes, or by pressing the signature button above the editing window. To address your question, you're right that the table should be cited properly and could use some improvement in that department.  That said, it's difficult to make the numbers match wikipedia's world population figure, or even match each other, because the figures for religion were gathered at different times and places, ranging from very recently, to several years ago, when the population was smaller.  But I think the implication that close to the entire population being religious is a fairly accurate one--something in the neighbourhood of 90% or so believe in something.  What qualifies as a religion is a matter of debate, but Buddhism and Taoism are both philosophical and religious at the same time, and deserve to be included.  Confucianism is fuzzier, but there are arguments either way.  I'm don't really understand how their inclusion could be considered to be enabling xenophobic religion.  Religion isn't necessarily xenophobic--even specific religions have different sects that vary in their opinions of other cultures and religions. --Pariah (talk) 21:57, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually, according to the article, fewer than 86 per cent of people believe in "something".

Like the dude above, I also find the table to be highly suspect. It looks good, but there are problems with it because it shows, for example, South Korea to be dominated by Confucionism when there are actually more Christians in Korea than Confucionists now, and Korea is 55 per cent Atheist (or, at least, 55 per cent "no religion").

Also, some western countries, for example New Zealand (35 per cent "no religion") and Switzerland (80 per cent "no religion") are shown as being Christian.

Hmmm.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.249.62.29 (talk) 14:09, 7 August 2008 (UTC)


 * The main place to go for religious statistics is, which collects together estimates from many sources. Peter jackson (talk) 08:26, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Jainism
Date of Origin

The Date of origin of Jainsm is not known precisely: The iron age given as the date of origin is incorrect; in fact this was the time (540 bc) when the last Tirthankara (Lord Mahavira) was born. There were 23 other Tirthankaras before him. Kingpiyush1 (talk) 21:31, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
 * The 23 other Tirthinkaras are generally established as being mythical, and not historical figures, among the unbiased, secular community that wikipedia is. Muslims claim that their religion goes back to Adam and Hawwa at the beginning if time, but it is stil llisted as being founded in medieaval Arabia, because that is what all the historical, empirical evidence points to. Wikipedia does not accept myth as fact - it is an established empirical fact that Jainism as it is known was founded by Mahavira in the Iron Age. There MAY have been 23 previous Tirthinkaras, but there is no empirical evidence for this, and the word of believers cannot be accepted as evidence. (Midnightblueowl (talk) 18:55, 10 October 2008 (UTC))

Jediism
Could someone add 'Jediism' to the new religious movements section in the big table about half way down the article please? It is qualified to be put there as it has over 500,000 believers and is a new religious movement. Much appreciated. Thanks, Kai Tatsu - 21.22 GMT 10th October 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.22.219.19 (talk) 20:22, 10 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Sure--as long as we can find a reliable source indicating the number of believers, I think Jediism should be added to the article. However, we also need to note when the movement was founded.  Does it use the release of the first Star Wars movie as its first founding date?  Or would it relate instead to the first reports of the Jedi census phenomenon or the founding of the Jedi church in England?--Pariah (talk) 05:13, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I think that there is too much dispute over this issue to warrant inclusion in this page. Jediism isn't a new religious movement in many scholars' eyes. It's simply a practical joke, and the vast majority of those who claimed to be Jedi in the census don't actually believe in it. Of course, I could be wrong, but well, I doubt it. (Midnightblueowl (talk) 19:57, 17 November 2008 (UTC))

Belief Systems
I typed the phrase 'belief systems' into Wikipedia,and hit the search button,and the computer did not find any article titled 'belief systems'. It went automatically to 'religion',probably because religious beliefs are some of the most common belief systems,but there is no article in Wikipedia about belief systems. I had written a book a few years ago,titled 'Belief Systems',and I presented the idea to publishers,but none were interested in the idea,and so the book was never published. The book was divided into chapters,chapter one: Religious beliefs,that's the basic belief in God,and includes major religions such as Christianity,Islam,Judaism,and Hinduism. Chapter two: Chauvinist beliefs,that's the belief that men are superior to women. Chapter three: Feminist beliefs,that the belief that women are superior to men. Chapter four: Racist beliefs,for example,the Nazi German belief that Germans were the 'master race',superior to other races. Chapter five: Extraterrestrials,generally,the belief in flying saucers. Chapter six: Machines.Generally,the belief in the capabilities or attributes of a machine,for example,a lie detector. A lie detector is a machine that supposedly determines when a person is telling a lie. Most judges don't buy into this particular belief system,they don't allow lie detectors to be used in court. Another example of belief in a machine's capabilities is a belief that was promoted by the nuclear power industry,the belief that nuclear power plants are perfectly safe. This belief system was challenged by activists who argued that nuclear power plants are dangerous. Chapter seven: History. A belief system may involve a belief in a false version of history. For example,some people believe that an ancient civilization called 'Atlantis' existed thousands of years ago,and that Atlantis had cars,airplanes,and other things normally associated with modern industrial civilizations. Another example of a false version of history is holocaust denial,a false version of world war two's history,it says that Jews were not the victims of genocide in world war two.Chapter eight: Superstitious beliefs. Superstition includes astrology,witchcraft,etc. You could probably find a lot of background material on the subject of belief systems,I think it deserves an article. Anthony Ratkov. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.221.69.201 (talk) 17:11, 16 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Why don't you create an article on belief systems? Just make sure that it is encycolpedic, i.e. not just recycling your unpublished book, as original research is not permitted in Wikiededia.


 * Since when did feminism mean that women thought they were better than men? Never. Feminism was (and still is) about equality, about redressing the balance from a society run for centuries on chauvinist (sexist) interests. Greyskinnedboy (talk) 01:19, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Belief Systems
I typed in "Belief Systems" and came to the religion page. I was a bit annoyed because this is a myopic definition for "Belief Systems". Not all belief systems are religions. You can construct and architect a belief system about almost anything and this is not necessarily a religion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.183.112.84 (talk) 18:37, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Protestant/Western POV
The following material was removed from the lead on the grounds that it represents a western POV:

"'Organized religion' generally refers to an organization of people supporting the exercise of some religion with a prescribed set of beliefs, often taking the form of a legal entity (see religion-supporting organization). Other religions believe in personal revelation."

Since it was in the article by consensus, and since I don't see the material as representing a POV, I undid the change. I'd be glad to hear arguments for its removal. Mmyotis  (^^o^^)  14:49, 28 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't see a problem keeping in the part about organized religion, so I think its removal was a bit overzealous. However, the bit about "personal revelation" smacks of a false dichotomy.  For instance, surely there are organized religions (in the sense the paragraph means) that believe in personal revelation.  Anyway, I think the way to fix this is not to remove the paragraph, but to add other non-Western points of view.   siℓℓy rabbit  (  talk  ) 15:10, 28 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree with Silly Rabbit--the first sentence is fine. The second sentence makes too strong a distinction.  Perhaps a link to the spirituality article would make the point a little better.--Pariah (talk) 17:13, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

I was the one removing the sentences. My reasons are: adriatikus |  talk  18:59, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
 * 1) AFAIK the dichotomy "organized religion" vs. personal revelation (which is implied: some belive... while others...) is found only in the Western culture (and I think all will agree) as a product of Protestantism. The way I see the two sentences, they are implicitly about organized as mediated, because the alternative (and it is an alternative: some... others...) is personal revelation. I must say that not only I am not aware of such dichotomies excepting in Western Christianity (though I admit I may be wrong), but also in general, personal revelations (or personal religious experiences) are not eliminated by the presence or absence of some (let's call them) "mediators".
 * 2) I think "organized religion" is somehow too loosely defined. Religions as a phenomenon have a strong sociological element. They are always "organized" through either only their belief system or set of tenets, or by adding some form of organizational structure. They all have something in common that define some as their members, or followers. But this (which kind of common element, tenets only, or human organization too) is not relevant to the lead, IMO, because it is only an analytical distinction facilitating classifications, while being acknowledged only by a subgroup within Christendom AFAIK.
 * I think there is agreement that the second sentence should be removed. I'm interested in hearing responses to your comments on "organized religion". It seems to me also that by definition religions are organized and that the term "organized religion" is both self-explanitory and redundant. Mmyotis   (^^o^^)  19:18, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree. The "organized" part (or the sociological attribute) is one of the two elements that differentiate a religion from a belief system or personal faith, the other one being the practice (or conducts). adriatikus  |  talk  19:22, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Although, I hope we agree, the term does have currency. For the skeptics: A quick google scholar search for "organized religion" + sociology delivers over 6000 hits.  This is not in itself an especially powerful argument for keeping the passage, but it does suggest that someone with the time and inclination may want to do a bit of research before coming to a decision on what to do with the passage in question.   siℓℓy rabbit  (  talk  ) 19:44, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I've filtered Google search to return only .edu results. The term is loaded: (1) it has a Protestant background; (2) it generally means institutionalized religion; (3) it is opposed by "being spiritual only"; (4) it may be used pejoratively; (5) it's its use/appearance is a Western social phenomenon (linked to criticizing the Church, hyper-rationality, increased atheism/agnosticism in developed societies). Yahoo! :D Finally something tangible: p. 9 (pdf) or 12 (as numbered) and the following:
 * adriatikus |  talk  21:19, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
 * The phrase "organized religion" strikes me as meaninglessly redundant. There is no such thing as an "unorganized religion." I've spent some time trying to find instances where the terms were not interchangeable, but was unsuccessful. Nor could I find a source to support the contention that the phrase as a term "generally refers to an organization of people... often taking the form of a legal entity." Now that I've looked into this issue, I see no compelling reason to keep either of these statements in the lead. Mmyotis   (^^o^^)  00:41, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I'll (re)change the lead then. I hope it'll be OK. If not, I see no reason for not reaching consensus. – The "unorganized religion" sounds nice :). Congrats! You've reached an oxymoron. I'm almost envious for not being the one throwing it here. adriatikus  |  talk  01:13, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I understand why the changes were made, but the term "organized religion" is still a useful contrast with non-organized religions like Wicca, Shamanism, or rural Buddhism, or personally invented spiritualities, in which religious individuals or communities do not answer to a central, institutionalized authority. The term can be used pejoratively, but it can be used neutrally as well.  Also, I'm not sure where the Western or Protestant bias lies in the term.  It may have originated in Protestantism, but nothing about the term suggests that the speaker is Protestant, or even Western.  "Organized religion" is still a useful, and neutral category.--Pariah (talk) 07:03, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I understand why the changes were made, but the term "organized religion" is still a useful contrast with non-organized religions like Wicca, Shamanism, or rural Buddhism, or personally invented spiritualities, in which religious individuals or communities do not answer to a central, institutionalized authority. The term can be used pejoratively, but it can be used neutrally as well.  Also, I'm not sure where the Western or Protestant bias lies in the term.  It may have originated in Protestantism, but nothing about the term suggests that the speaker is Protestant, or even Western.  "Organized religion" is still a useful, and neutral category.--Pariah (talk) 07:03, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

What about Shamanism, Paganism and Wiccan(a more modern paganism)
I see here arguments about religion and stuff but not about the origin. As farback as i can actualy see and have done research is that Shamanism is the first ever grouped religion and no one ever talks about that.. Paganism was one of the first ever grouped religions. Everyone always just think christianity or other popular ones. but if u really look at it the spanish inquisition basicly took out alot of religions during the time and it was put into secret because no one wanted to die. Wiccan is basicly an offspring of paganism. and the christians made it look like the devils work when its not.


 * Which Paganism is Wicca an offspring of? Because there's more than one. 199.117.69.8 (talk) 21:51, 11 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Modern Wicca seems generally Celtic; but draws from a number of pagan traditions--then again I'm not an expert. That said, we really should reserve the talk page for specific questions about the article.--Pariah (talk) 06:10, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

We know very little about what the first religions were; the eldest attested religion is the one contained in the Vedas, which is rather long from shamanism - also, the religions found amongst the most "primitive" societies (the Andaman islanders, etc) is not uniformly indicative of shamanism. Paganism just means "opposed to the religious discourse of the majority", see Paganus, roman god of the forests and wildernesses - so pagan is an empty phrase, purely effective as a pejorative phrase. Wicca should not be considered an offspring of Celtic religions for the reason that it was just an invented religion based on what was believed to be Celtic roots - we know very little about Celtic religion per se, so to posit an continuity is rather presumptuous. Cheers! 95.209.246.14 (talk) 10:15, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

etymology
However, classical etymology is ususually unreliable. Modern Latin philology derives the word 'religio' from a verb 'religere' that has not come down to us, bu must have meant 'to obligate', 'to compel'. This corresponds with the oldest found meaning of 'religio': '(to perform a) religious duty'. In some religious circles Lactantius'wrong etymology still enjoys some -understandable- popularity, especially when the word 'etymology' is made to mean somehting like 'the relationship between god(s) and men'. For this kind of connection however Latin uses the word 'coniunctio'. Gertmaarten (talk) 15:19, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Religion is extremely difficult to define, as one must encompass all religions in a single defintion despite the basic diversity among them. Developing a "functional" or "working" definition of the term is the most ligitimate for practical use, there is still no one right defintion of religion, however, in this case the defintion will be regarding the broad study of religion. Thus the defintion of religion is human transformation in response to perceieved ultimacy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by MainerChick (talk • contribs) 07:30, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

biblers.org - non commercial - religious index
I am sorry to just type here, but I am not sure how this works.

A small group from different religions started working on a religious index, it is a project on www.biblers.org, currently indexed over 22127 sites. The index searches the entire web, a task that will take a very long time, and indexes pages based on religious keywords, and filters again on non religious or offensive content, ensuring that all searches are relevant. I was hoping we might put a link to us on here, or otherwise find some people that want to help us build this index, as we always need loads of new keywords, new start urls and new bad words.

Thank you

Mike December 28 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.237.87.196 (talk) 09:53, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you Mike. I've added it to the External Links section. You are welcome to "just type here!" If you'd like to learn more, you can start here. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:59, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Thank you so much, it is a heck of a job to find religious keywords... indexing on those keywords ensures that if you search for "porn" it will infact only give results that are related to "porn" in a religous context. To make sure that this goes for all content, I need to compile a difficult list of keywords that filters... suggestions are VERY welcome indeed. The index is not for one religon in specific, it is there to index all religions. In the end it would be a valuable tool for those doing religious research, as searching for "light" now will give all instances of "light" within pages already established to be "on" topic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.217.225.187 (talk) 05:51, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

First sentence must go!
At the risk of sparking controversy, I made some changes to the first paragraph. The first sentence was not inclusive ("A religion is the service and worship of God/s or the supernatural."), it did not account for religions in which worship and the supernatural don't really matter--such as Buddhism or Taoism. Also, the first sentence was based on a dictionary definition. As this is an encyclopedic article, I think we could find a more scholarly definition for the term. I've put something more inclusive in place for the time being.--Pariah (talk) 07:37, 29 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Is "give meaning" a distinctive trait of religion? It could also be any philosophical or ethical system, therefore it is partially valid but incomplete and ambiguous. OTOH adding that religion is also an attempt at explaining how reality is and how we should deal with it in order to make it favorable for the practitioner(s) or for the whole of humanity could be included as well. --jofframes (talk) 22:18, 29 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, it is a little ambiguous, but I think it's okay for the first sentence. "Giving meaning" is the defining feature of religion (not all things that give meaning are religion, but all religions give meaning to their practitioners).  This is a more positive version of Keiji Nishitani's ideas from his book Religion and Nothingness--he says Religion is nothing we can ask the utility or usefulness of, but rather that Religion comes into play when someone says "for what purpose do I myself exist?"  In this view, religion isn't so much about making reality favourable for the practitioner--at least, not by changing reality.  It's more about making one's attitude more compatible with the reality that is already there.


 * But for the sake of concision, I think it's okay that the first sentence doesn't go much further than "giving meaning." The sentences which follow narrow down the features of religion more specifically--prayer, ritual, music, art, metaphysics, the supernatural, etc.; things that separate religion from secular philosophy.  I've mostly left them alone.--Pariah (talk) 01:51, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Just by way of explanation, here is my reasoning behind putting "often metaphysical" in the first sentence, which was subsequently deleted. I feel that, without some qualification of "beliefs" as having something like metaphysical or supernatural or something (I'm not sure what!) like that, the sentence could just as well describe any number of things (Aesop's fables, Poor Richard's Almanac, political party platforms, laws of thermodynamics) that "give meaning" but are not religion. It seems to me that even religions such as Buddhism and Taoism have something of this kind of dimension to them, but at the same time I do appreciate the validity of the points you have made to the contrary. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:25, 30 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Okay--we could put metaphysical back in, since there seems to be some other points below to that nature. The reason I deleted it is because the word already appeared in the third sentence... I was kind of thinking that the first sentence was only an introduction to the first paragraph, and that it's really the entire paragraph that defines the meaning of "religion."  But we could put it back in if there are some concerns.--Pariah (talk) 10:40, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

I really think the change I see in the lead is not good at all. The first sentence does not define what a religion is: "Communism (or Nazism, or any ideological ism) is a set of stories, symbols, beliefs and practices that give meaning to the practitioner's experiences of life."

"Astrology (or Zodiac) is a set of stories, symbols, beliefs and practices that give meaning to the practitioner's experiences of life."

Are they religions? They do resemble, indeed, by they are not. Why? Neither Communism, nor Astrology talk about ultimacy, or ultimate power, be it personified (like in Abrahamic religions) or not (like in Buddhism). I'm not the one making it up, and I really think the definition the way I've wrote it is much better. Hm, I now see how it started. I'm OK to change "ultimate power" to "ultimacy", or to "ultimate power (personified or not)". adriatikus |  talk  18:30, 30 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I understand your concerns. A reference to an ultimate reality or power would work fine I think; I think it may also cover Tryptofish's concerns (please confirm or deny).  Sorry for the big change.  I just didn't think a dictionary definition was comprehensive enough.--Pariah (talk) 10:40, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think that's a big improvement. Thanks for working on this. I'm sure the possible ongoing quibbles can be endless, but there's (probably) no point in gilding the lily! --Tryptofish (talk) 15:24, 31 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you :) Yes--there's no end to the possible refinements that could be made--I'm sure it will change again soon enough.  As long as it's reasonably good and inclusive, I think it's okay.  --Pariah (talk) 01:23, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Religious Symbols
The caption under the religious symbols picture seems to be another point of confusion. At first it read: "Clockwise from top left" and the reader seems to have been meant to spiral inward to the center in a clockwise fashion. This confused one editor before, and when I reviewed the history, it confused me as well--going clockwise could also imply going around in a circle, missing the center.

It now reads, "from left to right, starting at top"--to be read the way English writing is read. But I think it can be confusing no matter which way we do it. Really, the ideal solution would be to put a number under each symbol and similarly number the captions. Any thoughts on this?--Pariah (talk) 01:58, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Why is Juche included in religion?
It obviously does not belong under religion, it is included in demomographics as a religion founded in North Korea.

Juche is a philosophy and not a religion, actually it would count as an ideology would it not?

Why is it in religion? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.108.218.125 (talk) 21:04, 29 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I think it comes from here: www.adherents.com: "Major Religions of the World Ranked by Number of Adherents". I disagree, since it's more like a philosophy to be compared with communism, and is bound to the existence of a certain state and a certain imperial dynasty. ... said: Rursus (bork²) 08:49, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Unclear Tag
Stubbed thread for resolution. 72.228.150.44 (talk) 23:13, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Origin of Judaism
Under the date of origin section of the table of religions, Judaism is said to have originated in 1830. This is blatantly false. It should say circa 20th century BCE, not 1830. Let me just make this clear, Judaism was around way before 1830. Why does it say 1830? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.199.170.210 (talk) 03:18, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
 * That looks like a mistake to me too. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:41, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Fixed. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:57, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Criticism section
I'd like to seek discussion about the first paragraph of the "criticism" section. I wonder whether recent edits focus unduly on criticism of the academic study of religion, rather than on criticism of religion itself. What do other editors think? --Tryptofish (talk) 19:38, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with Tryptofish. Criticism of the Study of Religion is very different from criticism of religion itself, and would be much more appropriate in the entry on Religious Studies.

--Allinthebrain (talk) 18:51, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I've shortened that part a lot, and moved it to the end of the section. Maybe that could be improved on further. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:14, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

I was saddened to see some recent edits to this section, and have reverted them, pending talk here. I genuinely believe that the editors who made those edits are pushing an anti-atheist POV. It is appropriate for a criticism of religion section to include reference to prominent and noteworthy critics such as Dawkins, and criticisms of the Abrahamic religions, even if those do not apply to other religions as well. It is not appropriate for it to contain criticisms of the academic study of religion, as discussed without refutation above, nor editorializing such a "stubbornly refused." My recent edits were an attempt to provide NPOV. The recent edits have edit summaries that are sarcastic and not helpful at reaching consensus. Please discuss concerns here, and do not edit war. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:16, 6 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Uh, this is pretty simple. The idea of "religion" did not just spring out of nowhere-- before the 18th century, "religion" was a synonym with "Christianity". The idea of religion as something that people have all over the world is backed up in reliable-source literature by the discipline of religious studies alone. That discipline is now criticized; that criticism should be covered, just as anthropological criticism of the idea of "culture" should ideally be covered in the culture article. Refusing to cover it is simply anti-intellectual and the article would be worse for it.


 * Atheist books, on the other hand, are not a reliable source for anything on religion. Citing atheists in an encyclopedia article on religion is like citing antipapist polemic in the Catholicism article. I'm not against talking about atheism in the article, but what we should be citing is a sociological study of atheists, not their arguments themselves.


 * And Dawkins is a noteworthy scholar like Pelagius is a noteworthy theologician. Shii (tock) 16:19, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
 * The sarcasm of "uh, this is pretty simple" badly undermines your argument. And I think almost everything you say after is incorrect in its interpretation of what the article should be about. I'd like to see further discussion here by more editors. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:39, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I use sarcasm, and also I am wrong, so my arguments should be ignored. Thanks for your input! I am going to revert your edit now. Shii (tock) 16:52, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I have a further statement to make: considering theological criticism of "religion" more important than academic criticism is not just incorrect, it is absurd. Imagine if the Libertarianism article asserted, based on studies of the United States, that libertarians were obsessed with blimps; and the "Criticism" section of the article was devoted entirely to liberals lambasting the anachronistic nature of using blimps for air travel, with academic criticism of that idea of "libertarianism" getting short shrift. This is an analogous situation. It was assumed by 19th century scholars that throughout the world, there was an aspect of society called "religion" with qualities X, Y, and Z. Atheists criticize X, Y, and Z; but now the very assumptions of those early scholars are being questioned. That's the actually important thing here. Shii (tock) 17:04, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I never said your arguments should be ignored. Rather I asked that they be discussed more. Please calm down and assume good faith. I am not going to revert the revert that you just made, because I do not want to get into an edit war. Other editors can look at the criticism section, and form their own opinions. I began this section on the talk page by asking for discussion before making my edit. Neither you nor any other editor disputed my suggestion, but another editor supported it, whereas you then reverted my edit with only sarcastic edit summaries, and you continue to use confrontational language. My reason for not refuting you in detail was that I thought that it would avoid confrontation, but I now realize that I made a bad judgment in that regard, and I apologize to you for not explaining in detail, which I will do now. Starting with your further statement, let me clarify some points. You have framed it as a distinction between "theological criticism" of religion, and "academic criticism" of religion. I understand "criticism of religion" to mean criticism that claims religion itself is flawed or wrong in some way, and I think that interpretation is consistent with the bulk of the content of the main criticism of religion page, where views of atheists, agnostics, and other dissenters are treated prominently. Those kinds of criticism are not precisely "theological" in the sense of being made by theologians. Nor is it accurate to say that I have asked to shorten coverage here of "academic criticism" of religion. As I discussed from the start of this section, I feel that there should not be undue weight given to criticism of the academic study of religion, the criticism that academics do a poor job of studying religion. That's something else entirely, and not a criticism of religion per se at all. The first paragraph of the section as you have edited it appears, to me and to one other editor, to focus on the claim that academic studies of religion are often flawed because religions are diverse and should not all be lumped together. That's a criticism of some academic studies, and not a criticism of religion at all. Now, going back to your earlier comment in this talk, you first comment that "before the 18th century, "religion" was a synonym with "Christianity"." That may be true in Europe, but hardly so in other parts of the world, or BCE. You then make the point that that criticism of that discipline should be covered, and that not doing so is "anti-intellectual." My edit did not, in fact, remove all mention of it. Rather, I simply shortened it and moved it from the beginning to the end of the section. I did so for the reasons I just explained above, and to call that anti-intellectual is both untrue and rude. You then argue that it is improper to cite atheists in general and Richard Dawkins in particular here. You use the example of citing antipapists in an article on Roman Catholicism. I agree that one shouldn't cite anti-Catholics in that context, any more than one should cite atheists in the main parts of this page on religion. But if the Catholicism page contained a section on criticism of Catholicism, then that would be an exactly appropriate place to discuss antipapacy. Please note that the main article on criticism of religion does devote a large percentage of its space to the views of atheists, including Dawkins, and Dawkins does have a biographical page here as well. He is clearly a noteworthy figure (as WP defines noteworthiness), and whether you like him or not, he has written widely read and cited criticisms of religion. An NPOV criticism of religion section should present, without editorializing ("stubbornly refuse"), the criticisms made by critics of religion. Again, I apologize to you for not spelling this out sooner, but I hope that this is clearer now. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:14, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Tryptofish is right--as this is the main religion article, and not the religious studies article, it doesn't make sense to exclude writers like Dawkins who have been very prominent in their criticism of religion as a concept. Personally, I find the man's writing quite disagreeable, but if we're going to have a criticism section in this article, he and other "new" atheists like Christopher Hitchens and Daniel Dennet should be at least mentioned.--Pariah (talk) 20:54, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
 * To balance that, we also need criticisms of the atheists also. Since one of the common arguments against their works,  is that they do not understand their subject (religion) or mischaracterize it. Hardyplants (talk) 21:01, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
 * About that last point, I agree that a balanced discussion should include criticisms (not OR of course) of the critics. Of course, here we have just a short section within a page, and that issue actually would apply more to the main article on criticism of religion. I'm concerned here that the section is unduly skewed to criticisms of the critics, without presenting the critics themselves. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:08, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to comment on this specific claim of yours, because I think it is reflective of the main issue we are discussing here:


 * Now, going back to your earlier comment in this talk, you first comment that "before the 18th century, "religion" was a synonym with "Christianity"." That may be true in Europe, but hardly so in other parts of the world, or BCE.

Actually, in Japan, India, and so forth, there was no word for "religion". There were different kinds of social institutions doing different things, and what I'm claiming here is that the critics of religious studies have hypothesized that those different things are not synonymous with our "religion".

In Japan, for example, the words dharma or tao was used to indicate something akin to what we might call "religion". But when they were introduced to the West, Japanese intellectuals found those words lacking to describe Christianity. Therefore, the word shuukyou was coined in the Meiji period, and that is the article in Japanese Wikipedia that corresponds to our Religion article. But is there a cultural correspondence between the role religion served in the United States at that time, and the role it served in Japan before they were made aware of other kinds of societies? From an anthropological perspective, I am going to have to argue that that is not necessarily the case. There is a possibility, in other words, that this entire article is imperialist POV. That's the criticism that we should be looking at in that section.

The opinions of atheists, especially since they represent a reaction to Abrahamic religion in particular, should not be dealt with on this page but on more specific pages that aren't meant to unite all of the cultures of the world. Shii (tock) 21:54, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you for that thoughtful explanation, which is helpful to me in understanding your views. I think, as a general observation, that it is appropriate to consider what the main page, criticism of religion, says, and make sure the short section here is, in effect, a short version of that, rather than going in any other direction. More specifically, I think most readers of WP would tend to view Eastern traditions as being religions, and expect to see them discussed, whatever the sincere views of editors here. I think that forking the Abrahamic religions -- and their critics -- off to another page would actually promote a POV here, in the form of "righting" the imperialist "wrong." Not really "uniting" the cultures/religions of the world. Since this is a section about "criticism of religion," the fact that some Eastern traditions have not necessarily self-identified as religion is actually a very good argument that the page here should give particular attention to critics of religions that do self-identify as religions. I would also point out about Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, et al., who have been completely deleted from the present version of the page, that although they direct most of their criticisms at Western traditions, they do criticize the Eastern ones too. Just because prominent atheists are sometimes less harsh in their criticisms of some traditions than others, is not a valid reason to suppress their criticisms of religion here, or to give undue weight to arguments that seem to imply that religion should not be criticised. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:41, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for remaining neutral here. Sorry for my grumpiness--I'm a religion major and started messing around with this article simultaneously with doing a comprehensive paper about Fitzgerald and his supporters and critics. I was wrong to say that deists, agnostics, and atheists should be written out entirely, because the story of religion is theirs as well. I think it might be helpful to distinguish between "atheism and rejection of religions" and "criticism of religion as a category"-- they might not have to be two separate categories, but the two different levels of criticism should be made clear. Shii (tock) 23:19, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Also, a useful thing to incorporate into the discussion of atheism is the secularization thesis, a framework of modernization which is often believed to be tied into the emergence of non-theistic beliefs. It's currently not mentioned in this article but it really ought to be. Shii (tock) 23:21, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you, too, for that. And I wish you good progress with your studies. I think that we have made some good progress in this talk here. I'm not sure what exactly would be the best next step to take with the page. I don't feel knowledgeable enough to know how to incorporate the points you described here. One option that I can think of would be for me to revert the section back to what I had before you reverted me, and then you edit it at your convenience to incorporate what you think should be added or corrected. If you have possible additions that might be worth discussing first, please feel free to propose them on this talk page first, and get feedback, if you want. But I won't do any reverts without your agreement, so please let me know. (P.S. I saw your subheadings after I made this comment.) --Tryptofish (talk) 23:43, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

How about we keep the sections split for now, and not judge which one is a "better" sort of criticism just yet? I would be glad to add a brief outline of the secularization hypothesis to the non-religious section-- it fits the deism, agnosticism, atheism progression described in that section well, because it was designed with that in mind. Feel free to change the section headings as well. Shii (tock) 00:27, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Good. I have changed the section headings, so please see what you think. I agree with you that, for now, it is a reasonable idea to have two sections. Please just make sure that "your" section (and I'm using the word "your" a bit facetiously, so please don't take it too seriously) does not present issues with WP:UNDUE, perhaps using the main criticism of religion page as an approximate guideline. As for the section that addresses the views of atheists et al., I think it very important to bring back, within just that section heading, the now-reverted material. That can still, of course, be subject to further editing, especially if discussed. If we do that, I would also have no objection to deleting both POV-section tags. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:11, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Okay, you can bring back whatever you want in the atheism section. It's finals week for me so I may not edit the page for some times, but in the meantime let's remove the NPOV tags. Shii (tock) 22:34, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
 * All good! Will do. Good luck with your exams. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:43, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm glad to see that there is some mention of 9/11 being involved with the recent "anti-religion" mentality going on. It only hints, vaguely, that there's a politically correct association which makes 'Abrahamic' religions to blame for the human sacrifice natures of islam. This is a good first start, which shows how 9/11 itself has caused a huge anti-religion backlash. However, there needs to be more explanation about how islam itself really does call for human sacrifice in cases, and that 9/11 was simply a result of following its teachings. That is a massive political undertaking which really is the crux of the post 9/11 anti-'religion' movement. Monty2 (talk) 07:51, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Religionism
religionism redirects here, and the article doesn't mention the concept at all. I wiki'ed the term hoping to find out what the understood definition is, even if it seems obvious, and ended up at the generic religion article. Not helpful. CouplandForever (talk) 17:07, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

You could have used Google. I just did, and found definitions in several online dictionaries: it means "excessive religious zeal" or "extreme piety." It's just a word, not an ideology or set of ideas. It does not belong in an encyclopedia. 66.234.220.231 (talk) 05:17, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Just checked, it currently redirects to religious discrimination, which makes sense because a few of the definitions I looked out stated or implied discriminatory beliefs/practices. 66.234.220.231 (talk) 05:21, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Science, Religion and Conflict
Currently the text states that "conflict has repeatedly arisen between religious organizations and individuals who propagated scientific theories that were deemed unacceptable by the organizations." This information is false. This claim that "conflict has repeatedly arisen" is something that historians of science have rejected for at least three decades.

Indeed, the claim is contradicted by a quotation already inside the article. Here is the quotation (with emphasis added in the more relevant portion):

A few days ago I tried to edit the article to better reflect the current position of the specialists in the field (see here), but I was reverted by Tryptofish (who thought my edit seemed POV pushing). I understand Tryptofish's initial position. I think much of the problem is the big gap between how the general population see the topic and how the specialists evaluate current historical research. More specifically, the general population, including many academics and wikipedia editors, still see the topic with a 19th century "conflict thesis" mindset, while the historians of science have long moved on to what some call "the complexity thesis".

Anyway, I tried to address Tryptofish's concern in the wikipedia way: by finding more relevant references about the topic. Let's read some quotations (emphasis added in the more relevant portions):

So, can we agree that the current specialist position is that historical instances of conflict were the exception rather than the rule? I hope so, because I am currently very busy in "real" life. I am not sure I should engage in a long discussion here. Maybe I should just leave this post and let other editors decide what should be done about it. But, IMO, to say that conflict has "repeatedly" arisen is to spread misinformation. It is reinforcing a popular view that is in contradiction with the scholarship in the field. --Leinad-Z (talk) 15:43, 19 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Thank you very much for your thoughtful and helpful explanation. I appreciate that you are supporting your suggestions in the constructive way that you have. I've read what you said carefully, and I would say that, while I'm open to persuasion, I still have more questions. You have, clearly, located citable sources that support what you propose. I would have no objection to adding some wording to indicate that some commentators have argued as those cited by you here have. After all, saying that conflict has risen repeatedly does not mean that it always arises or that there is never harmony. The question that remains for me is whether these are the present-day scholarly consensus, as you seem to believe, or are some reputable arguments on one side of an ongoing controversy, as seems, on the face of it, far more probable. For example, the treatment of Darwin in these quotes seems to me to minimize and distort the extent to which there actually has been a repeated conflict, continuing from the Stokes trial to present day court cases. I would ask, then, what are the other modern scholarly citations that would dispute what the authors above say? I would be very surprised if they do not exist, if only for the reason that the quotations above refer to the "tenacious hold" of such views. It's hard to believe that all serious scholars agree about this issue, with only popular yahoos holding to the perception of conflict. I do not want to give undue weight to what may be only a minority, albeit scholarly, view. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:17, 19 March 2009 (UTC)


 * (Note: Please be patient with grammatical mistakes, I am not a native English speaker.)
 * I had quite a few surprises when, some years ago, I started to read contemporary scholarship on the history of science. The first surprise was probably to discover that educated people from the Middle Ages already knew that the Earth was round like a ball (I was told otherwise by my school teacher!). Many other similar "discoveries" followed. What I eventually learned from this is that the received wisdom of our age cannot be trusted on the topic of the historical relationship between Science and Religion. Historians of science such as David C. Lindberg, Colin A. Russell, Ronald Numbers, Edward Grant and John Hedley Brooke generally seem to agree with this notion (edit: that is, they seem to agree with the notion that current received wisdom is unreliable). For instance, this lecture from Ronald Numbers may be worth checking out. From the beginning he draws a sharp distinction between what people today "know" about the topic and what is actually the view among historians of science.
 * I cannot give you quotations disputing what the authors above say because I could not find an historian of science actually disputing them. So, I think the answer for your main questions is "yes", the quotations are more or less the present-day scholarly consensus. I think it is safe to say they represent the current mainstream view among the specialists. --Leinad-Z (talk) 05:18, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks. It's hard to say. I have an open mind about it, but this seems to me to have a lot of the typical hallmarks of POV-pushing, and I remain skeptical. Fortunately, there's no hurry. I'd be very interested in hearing from more editors on this issue. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:52, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Ok, take your time. I just went to the wikiproject history of science (WP:WPHOS) and asked there for input in this discussion. (See here, Let's hope this can be useful). Meanwhile I'd ask you to read WP:POVPUSH, especially when it points that it is generally not necessary to characterize edits as POV-pushing in order to challenge them. POV pushing implies a kind of intellectual dishonestly. Having my words characterized as "probably POV pushing" was not exactly the funniest experience. Anyway, happy editing. --Leinad-Z (talk) 19:31, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I was writing a further comment below, and had an edit conflict with your reply to me above. I've put what I wrote just below, without further edits. But let me say first that I think that your request at the WikiProject should be very helpful. And also, let me both apologize if you found my comment about POV hurtful, and explain. I think I've made it clear that I appreciate the thoughtful approach you have taken in this talk. At the same time, the subject of religion and science is obviously a fraught one, and the ideas you have suggested are, as you have acknowledged, contrary to much of what is understood in modern culture. I was reacting specifically to your statement that you could not find sources with views different that those you had cited. It seems a little hard to believe that, and my own very preliminary attempts at research (below) seem to raise questions about it. But editors from the project should be better able than me to help sort that out. Here is what I had written before seeing your answer:
 * Continuing along these lines, I've made a very preliminary attempt at locating contemporary sources to the contrary. (Here, I have to make a "please be patient" request of my own: I'm not at all an historian of science, or any kind of historian. By the way, your English grammar is just fine.) The first thing I notice is that some of the historians you cited seem to me to take a more nuanced view than that science and religion have usually not been in conflict. John Hedley Brooke, for example, seems to acknowledge significant conflict in this essay. Edward Grant and perhaps others show that there was more sophisticated scientific advancement in earlier times than is often supposed, but do not appear to me to discount conflicts with religion where they have occurred. John Worrall, though not an historian per se, has written on conflict. There are quite a few contemporary scientists (H. Allen Orr, David Sloan Wilson, Kenneth R. Miller, Peter Atkins, Victor J. Stenger) who have written either about nuanced views of the interplay between science and religion, or about outright incompatibilities between them. Even if these authors do not have historical expertise as such, they are certainly, as scientists, reliable sources as to how they perceive their science to interact with religion, and where they describe conflict, that's conflict. And, of course, popular writers such as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens have expressed views that there are conflicts. As I said earlier, I have no objection to adding words to the effect that there is a school of thought among some contemporary historians that conflict has been overstated, but at the same time, I think it remains accurate and NPOV to say that there have been "repeated" (not "constant," not "unmitigated," not "without exceptions") instances of conflict. But, again, I'm no historian, and I'd like to hear from more editors. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:52, 23 March 2009 (UTC)


 * For the benefit of other editors, this is the edit being discussed. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:07, 23 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Just to throw my two cents in, I think Leinad-Z's new information is really thought provoking and worthy of inclusion in the article; but I agree with Tryptofish's approach. State that the conflict thesis is the more popular one, particularly with prominent Atheists; even while many science historians feel differently.  That way, both views are mentioned, and the reader will be encouraged to think critically about the issue.--Pariah (talk) 02:22, 24 March 2009 (UTC)


 * WP:UNDUE requires that views be given weight corresponding to the views of experts on the topic not the general public. The conflict thesis hasn't been taken seriously by serious historians of science for a couple of decades now. For example Peter J. Bowler says in Evolution: The History of an Idea (2003) "The antagonism of the creationists should not blind us to the fact that science and religion have sometimes been able to work in harmony. The history of evolutionism reveals many attempts to see the development of life on earth as the unfolding of a divine plan." In The Making of Modern Science (2005) by Bowler and Iwan Rhys Morus the authors devote an entire chapter to the topic of science and religion. They conclude: "A historical survey of the relationship between science and religion reveals that they cannot be seen either as natural allies or as natural enemies. The "warfare" breaks down in the face of the long tradition of natural theology and the evident fact that such a theoology has often given positive support to scientists' thinking." Thouhgh they go on to admit that there have been episodes of conflict. I believe that this very much represents the current thinking of historians on this topic. Edward Larson also presents a nuanced complex view of the interaction between religion and science in his Evolution: The Remarkable History of a Scientific Theory (2005) particularly on page 250. Although I will have to dig a little to come up with exact quotes Martin J. S. Rudwick has expressed similar views as has Stephen Jay Gould (who was much more historically minded than most contemporary scientists). I have read the views of Dennent and Dawkins, and I believe they are much more interested in current events, ie. the religiously motivate attacks on evolutioinary theory in the 20th and 21st centuries than they are in looking at the entire history of interactions between science and religion. They don't for instance take into account the many contribuions made by people motivated by natural theology to natural history in the 16th, 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries. Rusty Cashman (talk) 04:50, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Ok, now that I look more carefully at the text in the article I see that this has been addressed reasonably well. That will teach me to react to an argument on a talk page before carefully reviewing the actual article. Rusty Cashman (talk) 05:01, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you to both Pariah and Rusty for your well-balanced and helpful advice. One point I'd like to add, because you both mentioned it, is that the text we are discussing here is not narrowly about the Draper-White conflict thesis per se, which apparently claims an all-out "warfare" between science and religion, and which I think has been widely refuted by recent scholarship, but, rather, it is about the existence of "repeated" occurrences of conflict between science and religion, occurring alongside repeated instances of positive interactions between them (such as the pursuit of scientific studies in medieval monasteries), which I think may actually be what at least some of the modern science historians are saying. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:02, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
 * As I said earlier, I am avoiding Wikipedia due to my currently busy life. I had decided that my previous post would be the last one for a while... But, before I go, I'd like to say that I really want to know if someone can find quotations by respected historians of science disputing the ones I provided above. I could not find opposing quotations myself. I do think the texts I cited represent the mainstream scholarly opinion. Thanks. --Leinad-Z (talk) 00:30, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I'm busy too, but I'll look some more when I have time. In any case, I really don't think anyone is disputing the quotes you have found, so much as the way you have suggested changing the wording of this page in reaction to these sources. After all, the Ferngren quote above and in the page says, in part, "while at other times the two have co-existed without either tension or attempts at harmonization." That reflects a nuanced view (correcting the insufficiently-nuanced conflict thesis), which I think is currently reflected accurately on the page, and not the appearance of almost constant harmonization (except for a few aberrations: "oh, that pesky inquisition!") that your edit, reverted by me, would seem to have imposed. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:41, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Just a few points (this is me trying not to participate :-P)... You (Tryptofish) were, at first, clearly disputing the validity of the quotations I provided as representative of the mainstream historical view... And I don't think my edit gives "the appearance of almost constant harmonization"... Anyway, I am grateful for it seems everyone here is aiming to make this a better article, even though we may differ in what a better article would look like. Bye. --Leinad-Z (talk) 20:04, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
 * To be fair, I said from the start, "You have, clearly, located citable sources that support what you propose." What I objected to, and would still object to, is a change in the content of the page that would, indeed, distort the fact that conflicts occur, and in fact, oversimplify what at least some of those sources really say. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:39, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I won't comment the things I still disagree about what you argue... But I'd like to point that when you originally wrote: "You have, clearly, located citable sources that support what you propose." I interpreted it to mean that you thought the citations "clearly supported my proposed edit". So, it seemed that your original argument was something like: "These quotations support your edit, but I don't think they represent the scholarly opinion". Now, reading your last post together with other recent comments, it seems I was misinterpreting this aspect of your POV. --Leinad-Z (talk) 04:38, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * What you refer to as my POV is called NPOV. I'm sorry that you did not understand what I have been saying. What I did say, and what has been supported by Pariah's comment, is that the sources you found meet WP criteria of notability, verifiability, and so forth, and are interesting and can add to the page (although in fact one of them has already been well-represented on the page for some time). I never stated that they were unrepresentative of scholarly opinion, but that it was unclear whether they were representative, and that there was good reason to be skeptical and cautious. I have tried very hard to approach this issue in a manner that is fair to you, and have been attempting to study the sources you cited and make myself more familiar with them, and I continue to be in the process of doing so. So far, my reading has been making me think that the authorities you have cited are, indeed, substantial and respected scholars, but that also what they have been writing is more nuanced than what would have been reflected in the edit you made to the page, and that the page as it is now may be doing a pretty good job of reflecting what these authorities have said, as opposed to the oversimplified interpretation of those sources that you apparently advocate. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:41, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * POV is an abbreviation for point of view. Everyone involved in this discussion is expressing a POV. To say someone has a point of view about something is not to say he is necessarily wrong about it (or, at least, it was not my intention above). Your current POV (as I came to see it after noticing my previous misinterpretation) actually seems very reasonable and defensible. I do disagree with some specific things you said in previous posts, but I won't argue about them right now. And thanks for your effort, I'm really sorry if this discussion and my previous misunderstanding of your POV drained you in any way. You seem tho be a good editor and an asset for Wikipedia. Keep the good work. --Leinad-Z (talk) 20:35, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much for the kind words. And I, in turn, thank you for your hard work in seeking out high quality source materials. I think we are all doing our best to help make the project better, and I hope that my comments are understood in that spirit and not as anything personal. Best wishes, --Tryptofish (talk) 20:42, 26 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Entering the discussion a little lately I wish to repeat User:Tryptofish'es thanks: your citations are very valuable. Regarding the current text: it is true - there has been a repeatedly occurring conflict between at the very least Christianity and science. There is no point in denying this, if taking either science or religion seriously. But as you pinpoint very often religion and science often coexist peacefully, and also often crossbreed, and this certainly needs some extra text, when relevant sources are found. There is no need to get a consensus on whether these conflicts are exceptions or a rule in the relation between science and religion; it is however important that both the conflicts and the collaborative states are reflected. I would for example recommend integrating the Science in medieval Islam in the text, because the combination Islam/Science/Medieval is a philosophical base on which western science resides: collected and fused from multiple sources, f.ex. Greek, Hindu, redeveloped, methods added (f.ex. algebra, algorithms) and new concepts (f.ex. "information") created. In this specific case Islam saved the bacons for the Western Civisation. ... said: Rursus (bork²) 09:15, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Seems to be a case of "both" rather than "either/or". AFAIK, there have certainly been repeated and often dramatic instances of "conflict" between "religion" and "science" (e.g. Galileo put under house arrest, Giordano Bruno burned at the stake, religious authorities arguing against Darwin's theory of evolution, vigorous debate about Creation and evolution in public education, including the recent "Strengths and weaknesses of evolution" debate in Texas, USA). I don't think that we can deny this. There have also been other times and places without any notable conflicts of this type (or of "harmony" between "religion" and "science"). The former are often worth mentioning, but (as the old joke says) we probably don't want to create specific content of the type "on this site in 1743, nothing happened". Therefore, IMHO, we should mention that conflicts often occur, and probably link to examples, and may also want to mention the ideas of others on "harmony" (per User:Leinad-Z's post). -- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 23:21, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Beware of oversimplification, as Reaction to Darwin's theory shows that involved harmony between religion and science as well as "conflict", and has been much hyped as conflict subsequently by interested parties. . . . dave souza, talk 22:00, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, beware of oversimplification in either direction. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:15, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah, what Dave souza and Tryptofish said. The case of Giordano Bruno is another widely misinterpreted episode; his cosmology was secondary (both for Bruno and for the Church) to his religious views, and in fact was derived from his religious ideas.  Note what the Giordano Bruno article says,: "According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "in 1600 there was no official Catholic position on the Copernican system, and it was certainly not a heresy. When [...] Bruno [...] was burned at the stake as a heretic, it had nothing to do with his writings in support of Copernican cosmology."".--ragesoss (talk) 18:51, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Note also that that a lot of these myths and exaggerations about earlier conflict are actually a demonstration of the conflict (not universal, but significant) between scientific and religious viewpoints in the mid-19th to early 20th centuries (when the conflict thesis was popularized). That was the period when there was probably the most sustained conflict, when the whole approach of separating natural knowledge from other kinds of knowledge became permanently ingrained in the newly professionalized disciplines of science.  Not co-incidentally, that's also the period when the term "scientist" came into use (and was retroactively applied to historical figures like Bruno, Galileo, etc.); they needed a term to separate people who did strictly natural or experimental philosophy from other kinds of philosophers and theologians, while in earlier periods seeking natural and religious knowledge were generally part of the same enterprise.--ragesoss (talk) 19:05, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Common Sense Definition of Religion
Religion: "A set of beliefs that are of ultimate concern to an individual." Given by Mrs. Barton, who was instructing a "History of World Religions Class" at San Diego City College in 1972. Submitted by Ron Tillotson 64.42.71.67 (talk) 18:54, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Crescent moon and star
Since when is the crescent moon and star an islamic symbol? I imagine it would be a symbol of muslims downfall, rather than islam Faro0485 (talk) 03:17, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

It isn't. It should be removed. There is no symbol for Islam. It is a sin to use a symbol to represent Islam. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.243.56.111 (talk) 13:59, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I have tagged it for correction. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:38, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Then how come the crescent moon and star are practically ALWAYS associated with Islam, and the symbol is found on many flags of Islamic countries? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.90.55.168 (talk) 08:40, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Introduction
I think there should be sufficient evidence to aver that religion refers to a set of enforced beliefs and practices that helped primitive societies to survive wars, famine, disease and social unrest. It is therefore distinguished from culture, which is the voluntary adoption or maintenance of social rituals and practices. The current introduction seems to be be more about the how? than about what? and why?

' The first sentence may be a reference to Clifford Geertz, but it is problematic to say, "through reference to a higher power or truth". This phrase seems to assume that any such "higher power or truth" exists, rather than being something that in which religious people believe. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.167.55.66 (talk) 18:34, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
 * That last point you made is a very good problem that you've brought up. Modern religion scholars are dealing with exactly this problem right now: the mere act of defining religion seems to always betray a religious view on the part of the scholar. For example, the first claim you made is a very narrow definition of religion, and in my opinion very silly. You need to get a cite for that (Sigmund Freud doesn't count). Shii (tock) 20:14, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Classification of religions
In the article, a classification of religions is given based on their origin (eg middle-east, asia, ...). Also, some sub-forms of these are treated as a seperate religion. This classification is offcourse very confusing and not really any classification at all.

Thus, I propose a alternative classification, classifying them on the teachings themselves:


 * Christianity, Judaism and Islam (Abrahamic religions)
 * Hinduism (main difference here is worship of several gods;
 * indian religion (encompasses jainism, Buddhism, ...) -->perhaps use other "name", indian religion again points toward geographical location; perhaps buddhistic religion or something ?
 * Animism (should encompass African diasporic religions, zoroastrims, taoism, paganism, shinto -rather than keep these seperate)
 * New relious movements; these encompass older religions in a new way of thinking; thus no animistic religions (eg unitarianism, universalism, bahaism)
 * Any combination of 2 or more of the main religions (eg abrahamic religions, hinduism, or subreligion and main religion as bahaism and buddhism...) or atheism

Not sure about Sikhism, forgot how the religion went again; guess it needs to be classified with indian religion; as for the korean, ... religions; I'm guessing these are animistic ?

Together with the new classification, also alter the main image, the Shinto, Sikh, Baha'i, Jain really have no place in the Religious syms.svg image —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.245.180.13 (talk) 13:21, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Also, a pie chart could be made of this classification as shown at the left, however this pie chart should follow the classification noted above. See http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html or adherents.com webpage. Note that the abrahamic religions as above should be placed together in abrahamic religions, yet christianity, islam and judaism should be colored each in their own color (use green for islam))
 * Adherents.com is not a reliable source. Also, as a Buddhist I think it is strange to claim that Jainism is based in Hindu tradition but Buddhism is somehow not. Shii (tock) 18:10, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Modified text again, I ment indian religion in stead of hinduism; note that a alternative name should be used, see above. Hinduism should have its own section, as it is polytheistic; does anyone know whether natural elements (rain, floods, ...) are ever used to signify the gods(eg Brahma, Shiva, ...). I guessed so (eg shiva= fire, ...); perhaps the religion can be classified as animism then ?
 * You'll find religions are not very easy to categorize, even less so when you have to find an academic source for these categories. Shii (tock) 18:33, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Combination of religions
Perhaps a small section could be added to explain why the combination of religions is a seperate classification of religion and where it is practiced. This is the following: any religion always states that it is the one and true religion, any other side is always "wrong" despite the fact that religions still preach that we must live in coexistence with them. (Note that I read this viewpoint too being defended by Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins. They may be referenced to for this article section.

As such, anyone relying on 2 religions, actually isnt part of any at all. Still, in certain countries (eg countries in the sahel), eg islam and christianity is often combined. Also, islam and animism is combined frequently troughout the whole of africa     —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.246.135.162 (talk) 07:56, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
 * With respect to the occurrence of people practicing a combination of religions, it would be helpful if someone could provide sources documenting that. Thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:51, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Conflict or co-existence
A new section should be made on conflict or peaceful co-existence. In the section, it should be mentioned that most religions preach peaceful co-existence or persuade to convertion by peaceful talk (eg with islam -jihad, which is basically this and not jihad by sword)

The section could mention Saint Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai as this convent has both a church and a mosque and their inhabitants live in peaceful coexistence. Also has a sacred document by mohammed saying that christians are to be defended by muslims. (charter of priviliges)

Religions encouraging environmentalism
Another section could be on regions and environmentalsim. Religions often state that they must respect all god's creatures and his planet. See Alliance of Religion and Conservation and other similar organisations.

Conventions and Wording
First, the caption under the religious symbols should be edited. The religions listed in the caption should be nouns, not adjectives, unless grammatically supported. This comes up only because of much (unwarranted) general criticism from those whose objectivity is influenced by a specific viewpoint. While in this case a minor issue and not pertinent in the narrowest sense, grammar and conventions are often an easy target for a biased individual or group to attack and discredit an otherwise useful and objective article. This article describes a concept that, unfortunately, is the center of much controversy. Therefore, I would ask that a good wikipedian take a look into this article and others in the same position. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ol' Oleander (talk • contribs) 00:51, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Atheism
An edit adding colloquial use of the term "religion" to include non-religious ideas including atheism cited a dictionary and a report of a Supreme Court ruling from a source which states "What the court actually said was that "[t]he Supreme Court has recognized atheism as equivalent to a 'religion' for First Amendment purposes." Many have deliberately misconstrued this nuanced qualification to dishonestly advance their own agendas." Doubtless an addition made in good faith while failing to read the source. . dave souza, talk 20:43, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks Dave, I agree. I want to add that my own edit summary may have placed undue emphasis on atheism, since the list in the deleted edit also included NFL fanaticism and a number of other items that were OR. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:58, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * ALL religions in the USA are legally recognized for "First Amendment purposes". The only thing new is that atheism is now also recognized for "First Amendment purposes."  There is no misconstruing but by those who want to confuse the issue counting on the public's ignorance.  According to the US supreme court, atheism is a religion the same as all the other religions and for the same purposes--freedom from persecution by the state.  Atheism means "not believing in God/gods," it does not mean anti-religion.  A simple perusal of what religion has meant in the English language for centuries makes this clear.
 * All this paragraph does is bring attention to something obvious, but often overlooked. This meaning is not a 'colloquialism,' and calling it so is nothing but opinion and OR.  Opinion and OR don't count on WP.  It is a valid definition from three unabridged dictionaries (Dictionary.com Unabridged, Webster's Revised Unabridged and Oxford's English Language Dictionary) and one abridged dictionary (American Heritage Dictionary).  These are high standing, long recognized sources, not fly-by-night pubs by some fringe group.  Ignorance of the English language is not a valid reason for any action.  Christian Skeptic (talk) 21:41, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I disagree. The edit that you have put back in is seriously flawed for several reasons. I think the first sentence of the paragraph is, arguably, reasonable. However, the remaining sentences are badly flawed. They make statements (such as the list of "isms") that are not contained in either of the references cited (I looked), and represent an argument going beyond anything within those sources. The sentences are also argumentative in the way that they are written. Although I don't have any problem with referring to dictionaries as a source, the second reference is is an online opinion piece that does not come close to justifying the text you have put into this page. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:01, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Old fashioned catagories...
Where are you planning to go with this? Christian Skeptic (talk) 01:40, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
 * See above; theology is not the only way to categorize religion, and including a poorly sourced table of the largest religious groups is misleading. (I found the sources myself, but they're bad.) The major religious groups article should be the home of this scheme and table. Shii (tock) 07:51, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

The "Axial Age"
Minor rewrite suggestion for the first few sentences...


 * The period from 800 BC to 200 BC was termed the "axial age" by Karl Jaspers, because he believed similar revolutionary religious thought appeared independently in China, India, Greece, and the Near East.
 * Jaspers' work The Origin and Goal of History (Vom Ursprung und Ziel der Geschichte) identified several Axial Age thinkers who profoundly influenced subsequent philosophy and religion, and identified characteristics common to each area from which those thinkers emerged. He saw in these developments...

As it stands, it's not as informative. Foggg (talk) 14:33, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, I would go ahead with this. Although I'm not sure why 19th century claims of ancient global consciousness belong in this article anyway. Shii (tock) 23:17, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Table
The table showing all of the major religions in the world and the number of followers is old. The statistics are from nearly 10 years ago, also it would be nice if there was a pie graph showing %. I believe there used to be one, you should also include Atheism in it because it ties into religion, it is also growing, it is beneficial to the statistics of religions. Thank you. Adhmeow (talk)
 * Actually I suspect these statistics are even older than 10 years. To tackle your latter question quickly, atheism is not a religion and it is impossible to track the number of atheists. But to be frank it is also very difficult to track the number of "religious" people because there is no standard definition for being a devotee of a religion. For example, my mom is ethnically Jewish but prays to Catholic saints, and furthermore would probably call herself "agnostic" on a telephone survey. There could be endless arguments over whether this is Catholicism, Judaism, both, or neither. And this is not an exception but kind of the standard for how people "adhere" to religions. I don't know how many people follow this talk page but I wonder whether it might be beneficial to discuss the ambiguous nature of religious categories and adherence and delete the table entirely. Shii (tock) 17:57, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I think that you both make some excellent points. Just my 2 cents, but I would add the following. Perhaps a better approach is to keep the table (or a newer one if available) and discuss the ambiguous nature of the statistics. I think a lot of readers want the kind of information the table attempts to present, whereas some discussion to explain the needed caution in interpreting it is appropriate. As for atheism and related forms of non-belief, I agree with Adhmeow that it would be a good idea to include that too. Of course it's not a religion, but it is very relevant to religion to assess how many people might reject it. I agree that it is difficult to quantify, but no more difficult than religions are. The atheism page has sourced statistics on that. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:11, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree wholeheartedly that atheism is an important aspect of describing religion and will probably become more so in the 21st century. One problem I would have with listing global statistics on atheism, though, is that people's self-identification as atheist is very culturally defined. In America, the percentage of atheists is very small because it's normal to identify yourself as Christian even if you've never been to church. In China, though, religion has been denounced by the establishment for long enough that people may call themselves irreligious even if they engage in obviously religious practices such as prayer or building shrines.

Another problem, more generally, is sources. The sources for this table are mostly other encyclopedias. I am guessing that these encyclopedias added up country statistics from various sources (for example, Middle Eastern government sources claiming a country is 100% Muslim) and adjusted them for population growth over time-- this is possibly what they've been doing for 50 to 100 years as the original stats get older and more questionable. Those that are not from encyclopedias are even more speculative. I was sourcing the table earlier this year and found that the Rastafarianism figure, for example, came from adherents.com, which in turn cited a website on NRMs (now closed), which in turn cited a 1970s-era book published by a Rastafarian. The original book, which I haven't looked at, probably gave a wild guess to counter the government censes that showed very few Rastafarians. This just goes to show that few or no academics will waste time drawing up an estimate for such a vague definition of adherence. I think it might be helpful to remove at least that line from the table, but the other lines are just as bad!

I think Wikipedia should rise above the poor methodology of Britannica and so forth. I'm not going to push my own POV about getting the table removed if other people object strongly, because my opinion is worth no more than any other, but it's these many regional variations which I think make a table harmful, rather than helpful, to understanding what religion really is. If we were to use the space that currently divides religions (haphazardly and inaccurately) into Ethnic, Oriental, Christian, Jewish, and so forth to talk about the diversity of opinions on adherence and problems with ascribing religions to categories, it would give more room for describing the spectrums of devotion and atheism, too. Shii (tock) 20:12, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
 * About atheism, I guess that's why atheism gives diverging statistics by location. About the numbers in the table, the sentence leading into it says something about the numbers being "generally agreed upon." It would be a good idea to change that to something more nuanced, with an inline citation to a source about the difficulty of measuring such populations. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:02, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
 * But I believe it would be impossible to find statistics that were not essentially made up by Britannica or a competing encyclopedia. When Britannica goes out of business, what will happen to our figures? Will we continue to cite the 1998 Micropaedia for the next 100 years, or will we start doing the same unhelpful fabrication that they did? People who study religion, as a rule, never compile stats like this, and always take the official figures of religious organizations with a grain of salt--whereas the Japanese Shuukyou Nenkan, which is our cite for Tenrikyo and Seicho-No-Ie (and the probable source for Britannica's own figures), reports them without comment. Shii (tock) 21:08, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, my suggestion is that it would be too much to delete without more extensive prior discussion here. Let's see what, if anything, other editors might say. And as for other sources going out of business over the next hundreds of years, let's cross that bridge when we come to it. If you can find a good secondary source saying, in effect, that the numbers are made up, I'm all in favor of adding it, as I described above. Another possible approach might be to keep the table, but delete the column about numbers of people. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:17, 4 May 2009 (UTC)


 * As a compromise, maybe we could leave the table in the Major religious groups article, which seems to exist solely to perpetrate the idea of religions being fundamentally classified by theology (I'm sure liberal Christians would be pleased to hear they are basically the same as Fred Phelps), and continue to point this article to that one. Shii (tock) 21:13, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
 * We had an edit conflict there. I sure hope that all articles exist solely to present NPOV. Anyway, WP:There is no deadline, so let's see what others say before making any major deletes. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:19, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Since it seems no one else wants to talk here I am going to relegate the table to the major religious groups article and replace it with a section detailing the various ways of classifying religious groups. Shii (tock)
 * I agree with the editor who reverted your deletion of the table, at least for now, at least until we can see what might replace it. Let me suggest creating the alternative section you have proposed before making any large-scale deletions, rather than deleting first and leaving the page with no material of this sort until the new section is ready. Also, there is no certainty that there will be consensus for the new material. Perhaps you may wish to create a sandbox version of the new section, and seek comment before introducing it into the page. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:30, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I noticed that another editor has just added an entry to the External Links section, to a university page about studies of statistics about religious adherents. I haven't looked into it in detail, but I wonder whether it may provide some useful sources for the issues discussed here. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:21, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

I've had a look at the link given. It's a list of websites-- at the top is Adherents.com. Guess what Adherents is? A list of other sources. Travel down that rabbit hole and eventually you'll find most of the stats on world religions come from encyclopedias.

There are many links for American religion only-- I have very little doubt that in the United States, influenced by Christianity, adherence is easy to identify to a particular theology.

There's a link to the World Factbook. The description makes me think they are talking about this page: But note that not all countries have percentages.

Finally, there's a link to a Christian website, which I'd like to point out is the real problem here. After I encountered some resistance to removing this table, however minor, I went back to the 19th century when these stats started to be calculated. I found guesses from 34 different sources over 100 years. Here's the results: http://shii.org/knows/Adherence

The very earliest statistics come from missionary yearbooks. Later there are statistics the Church Missionary Atlas and the Catholic Encyclopedia. Finally, encyclopedias catch on, and make up their own guesses based on the church numbers. The abrupt change in the ratio of Christians to Buddhists is especially revealing.

Even if you don't agree with any of this analysis, here's the final blow against this table: it stood for ages in a state of complete inaccuracy. The numbers were unsourced and came from adherents.com, and the list of major religions was concocted. Last June, user Darknshadow removes all the disclaimers of the original table: Here's an interesting list of changes he made:


 * Rastafarianism was added, stats likely from adherents.com. Over the past month I've tracked down the source of the "600,000" number to the introduction pages of a 1988 book on Rastafarians. Placing the Rastafarians next to UUs in terms of followers is outlandish, to say the least. It's a guess. But it's just as accurate as anything else on the table.
 * Scientology was added, stats likely from adherents. The actual number of registered Scientologists is close to 50,000 (not worthy of inclusion), and the number of Freezoners is minimal.
 * Neopaganism was added, stats likely from adherents, and at "1 million" an extremely generous estimate.
 * African religion having "no founder" was changed to "no known founder", weirdly implying that all African practices could have originated from one source. Know what's even weirder? That we group all African practices together while separating them from other indigenous religions. The only reason you would want to do that is for missionary purposes.
 * The estimate of Jains was changed from a reasonable "6-12 million" to the impossibly accurate "4.2 million". The following text was removed, which provides a perfect example of why it is ridiculous to keep this table: Figures for the population of Jains differ from just over six million to twelve million due to difficulties of Jain identity, with Jains in some areas counted as a Hindu sect. Many Jains do not return Jainism as their religion on census forms for various reasons such as certain Jain castes considering themselves both Hindu and Jain. Following a major advertising campaign urging Jains to register as such, the 1981 Census of India returned 3.19 million Jains. This was estimated at the time to still be half the true number. The 2001 Census of India had 8.4 million Jains.
 * "Spiritism" was added. What is it? Clearly not the 19th century movement described on the wiki page. But this strange entry was kept until I removed it.

This table is way out in cloud cuckoo land. Anyone can add anything to it sourced to some weird encyclopedia or a paper napkin guess in the introduction of an academic book. The figures in it seem accurate only because they have been repeated many times, but there is no reliable knowledge behind them, only guesswork. Shii (tock) 23:17, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I congratulate you on having looked into this so thoroughly. In my mind, this leaves us with the question of how to proceed, and the answer is not clear to me, other than to be careful not to do more harm than good. At this point, I think you have pretty well convinced me, for one, that the figures presently on the page are badly flawed. At the same time, I want us to be careful not to substitute OR or SYNTH in their place. It strikes me that a large amount of what you have just said, however sound, would fail WP:OR except to the extent that you could cite other sources to back it up, and you have, in fact, indicated pretty clearly that most available sources might fail WP:RS. So, that leaves me suggesting two things that I have also said before. First, do please generate an alternative to what we have now, but please do it in talk or on a user sandbox page, so that other editors can take a look at it before it goes on the page here. Second, since most of the most objectionable problems occur with respect to the estimated numbers of adherents, I think it might be reasonable, for the interim, to simply delete the column with those numbers from the table, while leaving the other parts of the table until something better is agreed upon. Thoughts? --Tryptofish (talk) 16:43, 31 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't want to replace this with SYNTH material at all. In fact, I don't think these numbers should be wiped out from Wikipedia entirely; the table as you see it should remain at the Major religious groups article following a proper discussion of what a "religious group" is and who defines that term (as opposed to the current article which sort of takes that idea for granted). I don't dispute that this is an important concept and is often relevant to discussions of religion.


 * What I would do, right now, is replace the table in this article with a summary of groups that are most relevant theologically. Now, I suppose the list would resemble somewhat the table we currently see here, with a list of countries and historical ties. But there would be less superstructure and more social and political context. For example: "Islam:"; copy-paste intro sentence from Islam article; one sentence on history; one sentence on theological divisions; "Islam is the dominant religion of northern Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. Wahhabi Islam is the established religion of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. There are also several Islamic republics, including Iran which is run by a Shiite Supreme Leader", etc. Shii (tock) 19:02, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Of course I can't speak for anyone else, but that sounds good to me. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:18, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

God
I think the beginning of the article should somehow mention the notion of God or of gods. Although certain religions are nontheistic, a good deal of historic and important ones are. When you bring God into the equation, at least in terms of a fundamental cause or explanation for existence, religion goes beyond the level of mere sociological phenomenon and actually tries to re-organize all of society according to this one belief in a God. ADM (talk) 13:32, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
 * The beginning should mention the importance of spiritual beings, but the word "God" carries a lot of connotations with it that exclude a lot of the religions in the list. Shii (tock) 14:22, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I think you both make good points. I would suggest framing it as something that is true of some, but not all, religions. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:24, 2 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I've made a change to the intro which I think is inclusive of both points of view. However, as usual, the intro sentence / definition appears to be growing into something large and unwieldy, and may need to be pruned.  Don't ask me how... :) --Pariah (talk) 03:19, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

One in the same
Its just come to my attention that both 'Indian Religion' and 'Buddhism' are both classed as different religions. Isn't it a fact that Buddhism is an Indian religion and is only a subgroup in that religion and not seperate?.
 * There's nothing Indian about Soka Gakkai whatsoever. It probably wouldn't even work in India. Shii (tock) 22:12, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Buddhism as a religion in any shape or form it has taken has always originated from India. Soka Gakkai, Zen or otherwise. The teachings may have been exteneded to contain other beliefs but the root of its creation is within India. On a note of Soka Gakkai, take a look at the symbol(Dharma wheel) used to represent it. It is the symbol for Buddhism which would mean that it is still part of that religion and in some sense therefore originated in India. —Preceding unsigned comment added by RRRAD (talk • contribs) 17:14, 9 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Buddhism may have originated in India, but Buddhism today exists primarily outside of India, and arguably many Buddhist traditions are quite removed from their Indian roots (Zen has roots at least as much in Taoism as it does in Indian traditions, for example). Further, Buddhism is a wide and varied category in itself.  To include it all under Indian religion would make that category unwieldy and would only confuse the issue.  Buddhism merits its own category, if only for the sake of convenience and ease of understanding.--Pariah (talk) 23:01, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Evolutionary psychology of religion
I like the new evolutionary psychology section--it certainly merits inclusion in the article and it looks like a good start. I just have some concerns about it in it's present form:
 * 1) Right now the section focuses entirely on memetic ideas of religion, and has more on that subject than the actual Evolutionary psychology of religion (EPoR) main article.  Meanwhile, the EPoR article mentions some other theories besides memetics.  I think these need to be balanced better by including more of the other theories on the religion page, and moving the bulk of the memetics stuff to EPoR.
 * 2) Memetics is really more of a metaphor than a robust scientific theory, and this is an important fact that must be mentioned.  Blackmoore & Dawkins' ideas are interesting, but memetics has its critics (mainly from other scientists) and this warrants attention.  It's been a while since I looked into this stuff, but if I remember correctly, Steven Pinker has been one such critic.
 * 3) The tone of the memetic work into religion is generally critical; Dawkins invented memetics so that he could describe religion as pathological.  This should be mentioned.

That's my two cents.--Pariah (talk) 03:30, 30 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Please make the improvements you suggest. --Dr.enh (talk) 05:43, 30 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I can make a start on it, but I am not an expert in Evolutionary Psychology or Memetics. I'm versed in the general concepts, but not the specifics.--Pariah (talk) 20:23, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Memetics is not a science, so you can remove that entirely (I already removed competing theories of religion like the Axial Age theory). Then we can deal with adding in hard science. Shii (tock) 16:25, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

William James
I have no account, but William James was not just a philosopher. He is considered the father of Psychology. Can someone add that? 'Philosopher and Psychologist William James'. Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.93.174.179 (talk) 19:16, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Done. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:50, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Deity, god or God?
This edit of mine was reverted. I would rather see the more generic word of deity used rather than using God and a piped link to deity. The Abrahamic God is dominant in Western society but not elsewhere, so in order to avoid systemic bias we should use the more politically correct term of deity. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 21:56, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
 * What about "or deities"? --Dr.enh (talk) 02:30, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Deities encompasses all gods so therefore there no need to mention any specific god. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 04:35, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
 * It was me who did the reverting; I apologize for being slow to reply here, but I was traveling. Actually, this issue replays a very similar discussion at atheism (see talk archive 40). Here, my reasoning about the revert was that "deity," by itself, does not convey the both-singular-and-plural information of "god or gods" (ie, monotheism and polytheism). But I would have no problem with "deity or deities." --Tryptofish (talk) 18:11, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Definition
The definition is quite vague and makes no distinction in the belief in the actual events of a religion (eg the existence of Jezus, Mohammed, ...) or the institution (eg "the church", ...) Perhaps the definition is to become something like "interpretation of faith according to a group of people" for the intitution and "the believe that something of above-human capacity keeps the universe together". The latter definition would btw work for all religions; including polytheistic and animistic ones 81.243.184.220 (talk) 06:34, 21 August 2009 (UTC)