Talk:Role of Christianity in civilization

Orphaned references in Role of the Roman Catholic Church in civilization
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Role of the Roman Catholic Church in civilization's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "Orlandis": From History of the Roman Catholic Church: Orlandis, A Short History of the Catholic Church (1993), preface From Roman Catholic Church: Orlandis, preface 

Reference named "Duffy221": From Roman Catholic Church: Duffy, p. 221. From History of the Roman Catholic Church: Duffy, Saints and Sinners (1997), p. 221 

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 20:44, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I just spent some time enhancing this article and also corrected those refs. Sorry they were left that way, it was probably me that did that.  Nancy Heise   ''' talk 22:51, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Talking to computers, Nancy? Now I am worried! Johnbod (talk) 22:57, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Is there no person behind that message, really? Gosh it sounds so humanlike. Maybe you are not a real person either? :)  Nancy Heise   ''' talk 01:26, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

India
This page is incomplete, it needs a section on the Church in India where a large portion of the population is educated by Catholic schools and where the church has a large network of social ministries and hospitals.  Nancy Heise   ''' talk 16:25, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Enlightenment View
This article presents an optimistic post-Enlightenment view which has been called revisionist by a more than a few authors. Anyways, the other, more pessimistic view is presented in the article conflict thesis, which claims that the Church promoted clerical fascism and obscurantism for hundreds upon hundreds of years. This view could maybe be included in order to achieve a balanced NPOV. ADM (talk) 08:48, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Hi ADM, please see the list of books used to create this article, they are university history textbooks, not works of Catholic apologetics. These are the most scholarly works that WP:reliable source examples asks us to use. The fact that none of them discuss conflict thesis or clerical fascism might be because those ideas are considered WP:fringe which we are not supposed to cover in an encyclopedia article. Thanks for your comments.  Nancy Heise   ''' talk 04:38, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Not so much that, but, as conflict thesis puts it in the lead: "The historical conflict thesis was a popular historiographical approach in the history of science during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but most contemporary historians of science now reject it.[1][2][3] It remains a widely popular view in the general public". It is also an aspect of the history of science, not civilization in general, though it has counterparts in other areas. The article clerical fascism deals entirely with the 20th century. I don't think ADM can have read obscurantism either! Johnbod (talk) 15:16, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

POV
There are a number of POV problems with this page:

1. it assumes things are 'evils' from which the Church rescued their 'victims' by twisting them out of their historical/cultural context. For example, human sacrifice: even Catholic missionaries in South America noted that those being sacrificed went willingly to their deaths in what they saw as a necessary religious ritual.

2. it skirts around or ignores many of the most controversial areas where the Church has impacted on civilization: its stance on homosexuality is covered in a very inadequate way with a link to a page explaining the official position while abortion and contraception aren't even mentioned.

3. the provision of education is portrayed as automatically positive, not as a means of proseltysing or retaining members.

I'll post a POV tag while we consider some fixes.Haldraper (talk) 09:58, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
 * These comments reveal a pretty strong POV themselves, I'd say. Any chance of some good references on the human sacrifice point? The Aztecs, I think the principal contemporary culture practicing human sacrifice, mainly sacrificed prisoners of war AFAIK, so I'm dubious about this. It was one of the reasons they were so unpopular among their subject peoples, who Cortes was able to enlist to fight against them - see Human sacrifice in Aztec culture.  More to the point would be questioning "Latin America" here. The Incas also practiced human sacrifice on special occasions, usually of children, something we don't seem to mention in Inca religion. Perhaps you should take your POV stickers there? All the article says is "Slavery and human sacrifice were both part of Latin American culture before the Europeans arrived" and that the church stopped them (eventually in the case of slavery).  This seems entirely neutral to me, & should be in no way offensive to those who think slavery and human sacrifice good ideas. Johnbod (talk) 10:21, 3 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Johnbod, on the human sacrifice point I had in mind the Catholic missionary Bartolomé de las Casas who not only noted that the 'victims' of human sacrifice went joyously to their deaths but that it was hypocritical of Europeans who had their own long - and only relatively recently abandoned - history of human sacrifice to condemn such practices. You could add, I certainly would, that it's pretty ironic for the Church to baulk at others' religious celebration of human sacrifice when it's central ritual (Mass) is based on one.Haldraper (talk) 16:37, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
 * There's a certain difference between sacrificing up to 2,000 POW's, or several hundred children, on a single day, & commemorating the death centuries before of a single individual. Or am I being POV there. Johnbod (talk) 20:35, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't see a consensus for a POV tag and I think that the tag encourages a "battleground mentality". If you think the article is missing something, why don't you improve it instead of just complaining?  Nancy Heise   ''' talk 02:29, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

source used inappropriately
This source (currently #58) is used inappropriately. How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization". Catholic Education Resource Center - This is actually a review of the Thomas Woods book How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization.  We should be citing facts to the book, and not to a review of the book.  Since this book has been used as a source for the article, hopefully someone has access to it and can replace the references to the review with the page numbers for the book.  Thanks! Karanacs (talk) 18:54, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
 * The same problem with this one - this is also a review of the Woods book. Karanacs (talk) 18:55, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Stunningly POV
This page is full of value-laden words, uncited claims, and one-sided justifications and apologies. I will work to fix some of these, but I can't do it alone. I have added an NPOV tag. WhyDoIKeepForgetting (talk) 10:05, 24 February 2010 (UTC)


 * At the very least, the following should discussed:
 * Index Librorum Prohibitorum
 * Inquisition
 * Blasphemy laws
 * Heresy
 * Divine right of kings
 * Wyclif's Bible
 * Catholic Church and Nazi Germany
 * Johannes Kepler
 * Relics
 * -- WhyDoIKeepForgetting (talk) 10:23, 24 February 2010 (UTC)


 * AIDS in Africa
 * -- WhyDoIKeepForgetting (talk) 10:51, 24 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I would go even further than your general comment: it reads as if written by committee, swinging back and forth on all sides of neutrality with the weak hope of the average somehow being neutral. Even if it works out that way, it's a really poor way to write.


 * There is a lot of worthwhile content already here, and I disagree that adding all of those new points would be helpful (although some might). In particular, Nazi Germany only existed for a historical blink of an eye and coverage of the role in civilization of a 2000 year institution vis-a-vis this would set up the article to be deluged with minutae (let alone that section becoming a magnet for POV pushers).  A better solution would be to walk through the article and rewrite the content already there in more declarative, encyclopedic tone. After that is done I think we'd be in better shape to see what is prominently missing. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 15:45, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
 * We have articles on most elements of that list. And I don't see how a lot of them are that significant in the Catholic Church's contribution to civilisation. What we're looking at here is how the Catholic Church has affected civilisation in significant ways.  Xan  dar   19:53, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

POV tag
I didn't put the POV tag on the article, but I endorse the fact that did so. I first brought up some of these concerns years ago. We should not conflate the Roman Catholic Church with the Christian Church. Even though the Roman Catholic Church's official POV is that the two are the same, I don't believe that most researchers agree. The article also focuses almost solely on positive impacts made by the church, and not any negative. Karanacs (talk) 19:26, 10 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Furthermore, Africa and Asia likely should not be included here, since the article's scope is Western civilization. Karanacs (talk) 19:29, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

While I certainly agree with the need to include negative impacts made by the church, the article was since its inception about the Roman Catholic Church. It seems like a reverse of logic to first move the page into "The Role of the Christian Church etc." and then say that the page's content does not conform with the page title. If we need a page about the Christian Church's role in Civilization, we should create a separate page/article that reflects the roles of all Christian denominations, and not change a pre-existing page which originally concerned solely the Roman Catholic Church. Domchiu (talk) 22:00, 6 March 2015 (UTC)


 * The article was renamed Role of the Christian Church in civilization because that is a suitable topic. The Role of the Roman Catholic Church in civilization cannot be a suitable topic because it would lead intractable and pointless POV conflicts over when and where the Church was also Roman Catholic.


 * Claiming an article is or should be about something just because it was in the past is not in agreement with any Wikipedia policy. This idea violates the concept that you cannot WP:OWN articles. tahc chat 23:59, 6 March 2015 (UTC)


 * There are multiple books contradicting the idea that the Catholic church and the "Christian church" are not the same. The Ecumenical Christian Dialogues and The CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH edited by Daniel S. Mulhall discusses the last fifty years of ecumenical dialogues, what it calls the "essential questions of the Christian faith" and the core teachings of the Catechism. The essential point of the book is that whatever disagreements over practices or even theology there might be, they are all "Christian."


 * I know of no researchers who make any separation between "Christian" and "Catholic". For example, Protestants have been writing on the early church fathers as their own as long as there have been Protestants. Here is a website on Fourth century Christianity--from the Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary. []  The distinction simply isn't there in scholarly research, therefore, it should not be here.


 * The article's scope is not just western civilization, nor should it exclude Africa or Asia, as I think that would be interpreted as having xenophobic undertones.


 * The article does contain negatives: the crusades, the inquisitions, the witch trials, the corruption of the later Popes, and colonialization are all mentioned. Details are limited because this has got to be the longest article anywhere on Wikipedia. The fact that in totality the positive outweighs the negative in sheer volume is actual history.


 * This is a great article, a truly impressive achievement with some genuine quality scholarship in it. Don't screw with it.  Please. Jenhawk777 (talk) 06:00, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

Catholic Article dissappearance
Why on earth was the manageable topic of Role of the Catholic Church in Western Civilization swallowed into this mega topic of "christianity" and "civilization"? Ozhistory (talk) 12:55, 13 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Read the discussion immediately above. Jenhawk777 (talk) 02:51, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

Is this appropriate?
It's accurate. It's a reflection of what the source says. It's pertinent to the section topic. What else makes something appropriate to include? Jenhawk777 (talk) 17:37, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

Calvin's political ideas
Quote: "Consistent with Calvin's political ideas, Protestants created both the English and the American democracies." Can anyone provide more info about this? My research has shown Calvin was quite anti-democratic and for authoritarianism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nym~enwiki (talk • contribs) 17:47, 28 May 2019 (UTC)


 * I've seen something similar somewhere--it's quite a claim isn't it? I'll research it and come back. Jenhawk777 (talk) 20:34, 11 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Calvin's political views:

Matthew J. Tuininga in says on page 3 that Calvin wrote neither as a critic or an apologist for any particular form of government. The author distinguishes between what he terms Calvin's 'practical politics' and his 'theological politics' saying his practical actions were all about how he saw working out natural law in his day and time. His theology, however, offers substantial reasons for supporting liberal democracy which he defines as a constitutional representative government that protects human rights, the rule of law, checks and balances and a separation of church and state. Page 4: Timothy Jackson claims political liberalism is Christianity's step-child--that has gone prodigal. (I love that!)

Roland Boer in says on page 80 that Calvin argues for an aristocratic government with distinct popularist elements. "Because monarchy tends toward tyranny, aristocracy slips all too easily toward the faction of the few, and because popular government has a knack of being seditious, he seeks a system with checks and balances: (quoting Calvin) "Therefore, men's fault or failing cause it to be safer and more bearable for a number to exercise government, so that they may help one another, teach and admonish one another, and if one asserts himself unfairly, there may be a number of censors and masters to restrain his willfulness."

David W. Hall can't be previewed bu its abstract says the book examines "the way his followers appropriated his ideas into public policy especially in Britain and America."

The abstract concerning R.M. Britz's article (that also can't be previewed) says: "Although Calvin developed a preference for a collective form of government in Geneva, it is not enough to conclude that modern Western democracy can be traced back to him. The relevant sources also do not provide enough ground to believe that Calvin would have initiated a theory (or even theology) of political resistance. The obedience to God goes beyond that of obedience to the authorities," but Calvin does say that the obligation to God requires disobedience to an immoral leader. Here's a good one on that: []

That's what I have so far. Does that help any? Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:12, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

Requested move 2 June 2019

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: not moved per the consensus against the proposal. (closed by non-admin page mover) DannyS712 (talk) 03:23, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

Role of Christianity in civilization → Role of Christianity in civilisation – Considering American English' less than predominent contextual relevance to the subject? PPEMES (talk) 18:03, 2 June 2019 (UTC)


 * Oppose per WP:RETAIN, based on the lack of a convincing argument for the alternative. Even in British English, the current spelling is more common.-- Netoholic @  02:41, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Oppose per Netoholic. The Ngram result is interesting, although not necessary to the argument. I'm surprised to see that the same is true for organi(s/z)ation. Also please note that Oxford is not in the United States. —BarrelProof (talk) 04:30, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Oppose per RETAIN. No strong ties to any ENGVAR. Primergrey (talk) 04:58, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Oppore per above reasons and for WP:CONSISTENCY with the main article at Civilization. Rreagan007 (talk) 06:41, 3 June 2019 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Image overload
There seems to be too many images, I noticed this as a new one was recently added. — Paleo Neonate  – 03:07, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Citation style
This article currently uses a mix of Parenthetical referencing with a style that puts full citations directly in the refs (footnotes). As a result the Bibliography section has some but not all of the works used in citations in this article. Editors should agree to select some one single citation style, and citations not in that style should be converted. See WP:CITEVAR. Obviously the first question is, which style is preferred in this article. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 22:46, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Hi ! Nice to see you here. I vote for the standard long citation and will volunteer to help with the change-over.  Thanx! Jenhawk777 (talk) 03:28, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Currently, of about 280 cites there are about 60 short cites, most of which are not linked to their respective bib entries. I'd suggest migrating to long cites completely, and am willing to do at least some of it. Some of the existing long cites could use conversion to templates to fix problems with them (I saw a few while in the process of cleaning up other stuff just now). —[ Alan M 1  (talk) ]— 04:25, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
 * That's awesome --we could each do different sections. Maybe someone else will volunteer as well. Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:42, 5 June 2020 (UTC)


 * I will at least volunteer my support for "long citations". Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 17:38, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Nice job on the citations! Sorry I didn't participate – the issue kind of went to sleep for a while and I didn't notice it being worked on. I do see a warning (at the bottom) that there remains an  without a  (so it's hidden). Looking at it (at the end of the line referring to Sublimis deus), I think the note can just be removed, as it's essentially duplicative of the text. —[  Alan M 1  (talk) ]— 19:09, 10 July 2020 (UTC)


 * Oh,hey--NO----do not worry about that at all, please!  I have recently finished up two other articles and I'm waiting on someone to show up and review one for GA--which no one is doing, so I'm waiting and waiting on that--and I'm waiting on  to show up on the other one and find all my mistakes--so then I can nominate it for GA and wait some more. I recently ran across someone who has, like 35 or some such crazy number of GA articles--apparently every article they write goes GA-- and I want to  be them now!  So I'm nominating everything!  Hah!  Not really!  There's NO hope of me ever being you, so being like the GA queen is the next best thing. :-) I have kind of been at loose ends, not working on anything, had the time, and just got on with it, that's all. It isn't my kind of thing normally--the tedious details wear me down--but I was motivated to get that tag down! :-) I will go look for the note and remove it.  Then can we remove the tag? Right? Jenhawk777 (talk) 20:47, 10 July 2020 (UTC)


 * Done! Jenhawk777 (talk) 20:58, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, you should remove the tag, as it certainly no longer applies. I'll still try to review the details of this and the others when I can. Not sure you'd want to be me, but thanks for the compliment regardless. —[  Alan M 1  (talk) ]— 21:09, 10 July 2020 (UTC)


 * Anyone with a brain would want to be you--smart, kind, accomplished--but there is no hope of me ever understanding all the programming type stuff, so I will settle for admiration from afar. See that?  I learn something new every time I interact with you.  What's better than that?  I am going to remove that tag now!  Thank you again Alan.  Oh, and, you're welcome.  Just speaking the truth as I see it. Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:18, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Sorry to bug you again--what about the bibliography? Should I remove it as an incomplete list?  Should I leave it alone?  Should I put the refs that aren't in it into it so it is a complete list?  What? Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:27, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
 * I forgot I was wondering about that, too (somewhat distracted at the moment). I'm not sure what the standard is supposed to be. It seems that, if a source is already used as a cite, there shouldn't be a need to have it in a separate bib list. After removing those from the bib list, I think the remaining items would go into a "Further reading" section instead. I suppose it could be argued that it is convenient to have an alphabetized list of sources, though, in which case it would be good if it were complete. All just gut opinion, though. Pinging, who may have a better answer. I'll be away for a few hours now. —[ Alan M 1  (talk) ]— 21:48, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm no expert on citation styles, but I agree with, above. If it doesn't use inline citations and a single 'References' section I try to leave well alone as I find the article structure too darned complicated to get my tiny brain around. So, I would support the use of all reference works within the text as incline citations, plus just a 'Further reading' section for anything else that seems relevant by uncitable. But there's no point repeating used sources in a Bibliography section. I note that the article creator (and others) used only a References section when the page was begun in 2008, but, about 50 edits in, they added a Bibliography section with this edit. Nick Moyes (talk) 22:46, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Hi ! It's great to meet you.  If you are a friend of  you must be great too.  I think very highly of him. I went through the bibliography one reference at a time, as I was also going through the references looking for where there were citations in that non-traditional style--what is it called--the Harvard style?  (Leave it to Harvard to come up with a style no one else can make heads or tails of.)  Anyway, I had to check both lists, so I am absolutely sure that everything in that bibliography is now also in the ref list in full form.  The Harvard method allows you to reference the same book multiple times without it showing up that way.  No long lists of a,b,c,d,etc. just a single reference for every time you use it--makes it look as though you used more refs than you actually did.  Tricky these Harvard guys huh?  They are all used as in-line citations and are all in the reference list with their full information.  I had some trouble getting all the quotes the guy used into the references, but I figured it out--eventually.  So this job was a big pain in the patootie, but if you say it's copacetic, I will delete the bibliography so no one comes along and decides to use it. What say you oh knowledgable one? Jenhawk777 (talk) 03:09, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

Thank you. Big oops! Jenhawk777 (talk) 20:38, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

Heading changes
You said you had trouble 'wrapping your head' around this article and I wondered if changing the headings would help any with clarification of what this article actually covers. I rewrote the headings under politics and law--only--to see if that helps clarify content any. If it does, I can redo the rest to better reflect content as well: headings as 'mini-ledes.'  What do you think? Are the headings too cumbersome now or do they help explain stuff better enough to keep them? Jenhawk777 (talk) 20:37, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia is communal
I Love Jesus but I have also want to say that Wikipedia is propagating White-Christian Supremacy.Wikipedia should also publish articles on the role of Hindus/Muslims/Sikhs/Jews/Africans in civilization. Thank you ShikaDikaMika (talk) 11:41, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

"Civilization" or "Western civilization"?
The article appears to conflate "civilization" and "Western society"; the only exception to this being a section on the Islamic world tacked onto the end. Per WP:GLOBALIZE, this should be rectified or the article should be moved to a narrower title (if the latter takes place, the section on the Islamic world may need to be split). – Scyrme (talk) 18:02, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

The Talmud says Jesus was executed by the Hasmonean government who stone and hang him and that his punishment is to boil
Perhaps someone could double check this?

"The Talmud says Jesus was executed by the Hasmonean government who stone and hang him and that his punishment is to boil in human excrements for eternity for sorcery and for leading the people into apostasy. " 24.87.2.138 (talk) 09:08, 17 March 2024 (UTC)