Talk:Taoism and death

School project
Please note that this page is being constructed by students working on a university project. If there are problems with the page, feel free to edit, or bring up these problems with those involved in its creation, but please do not move to delete the page. Thank you. Vote Cthulhu (talk) 00:02, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Merge suggestion
As this article will be expanded and further edited over the next few days, the suggestion to merge is inappropriate att his time. The intention of this article is to give a wide coverage of issues within Taoism relating specifically to death. If done properly, this article will provide an expanded forum that the Taoism article itself can only summarise.Vote Cthulhu (talk) 00:01, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

sources, age, and intent of cites
with respect to the is/has been issue raised here. two things: first, academia moves at a different pace than the rest of the world. 14 years is a bit old, but not decrepit by any means. remember, it can often take two years for a scholarly response to filter through the research/writing/editing/review/publication process to become part of the public debate. second, the purpose of a citation on wikipedia is not to show that something's been said, per say. but rather to show that the knowledge is either generally accepted by, or part of an ongoing discussion in, the field. if you've only got one source that talks about taoism and death, then I start to have concerns about the notability of the topic. 'has been' is ambiguous: it should either be 'was' (to show that it's an older debate that has since been closed) or 'is' (to show that it's a current, ongoing debate). -- Ludwigs 2 14:54, 21 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Well put. On that basis I've reverted to your previous edit. There were comments at the recent AfD that the subject is notable, but the point is clearly some way from being proved. andy (talk) 16:01, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

removal of unsourced material
Vote Cthulhu (talk) restored my recent deletions on the grounds that "afd already achieved consensus to KEEP, so don't start deleting it bit by bit". In fact the afd decision was No Consensus and there was certainly no agreement that existing material should not be edited or even removed. One member of the Rescue Squadron offered to improve the article, and did in fact do some work on it, but the two unsourced sections I deleted have not been touched since they were first written.

WP policy on unreferenced material is given at WP:PROVEIT which states unequivocally that "The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation." The policy states that "Any material lacking a reliable source may be removed" but recommends tagging it first and looking for references oneself. This material has now been tagged for over a month, I can't find any references and no-one else who has worked on this article has been able to do so either.

Jimmy Wales has stated here in a posting titled "Zero information is preferred to misleading or false	information" that "There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong.  It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced."

On this basis I'm removing the material again until such time as someone is prepared to source it. andy (talk) 07:09, 24 April 2009 (UTC)


 * a bit harsh, andy. by convention and policy, wikipedia prefers to retain information (even faulty information) rather than destroy it.  I've readded the sections, and added original research tags to make it clear there's a dispute ongoing.  if you have specific concerns with the material, please voice them here on the talk page.  -- Ludwigs 2  13:22, 24 April 2009 (UTC)


 * The information in this article is garbage. As a someone familiar with Taoism, I can say that the info totally misrepresents the religion and does not offer any context. It is also very badly written. It is beyond rescuable. It should be deleted and completely rewritten with adequate sources.Zeus1234 (talk) 14:36, 24 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Hear hear! andy (talk) 18:44, 24 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm not actually disagreeing, as of yet; I'd just like to go a little slower with it. for example, I know that there is a very long history of the quest for immortality in Chinese folklore, based in Chinese medicine (which in turn is based in taoist philosophy).  I think there were even at least one major motion picture that took this as a theme (I seem to remember a James Bond type movie that centered around some golden acupuncture needles that could give you immortality if you used them correctly).  religious and cultural taoism are filled with this kind of thing, though it all sounds pretty alien to the secular/philosophical taoism we know and love in the west.  granting that a lot of what's here isn't very strong, you can't really say that it's not a notable topic, and it's hard for the page develop at all if it keeps getting chopped away.  fix what you can before you chop what can't be fixed.  -- Ludwigs 2  20:07, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Added some references for some of the material. Not hard to find. More can be added, and stylisticly the article can be improved. Absolutely no need to delete, as was determined at afd.Vote Cthulhu (talk) 22:52, 24 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Wrong! Lack of consensus at AfD defaults to Keep, for obvious reasons, but it's not the same as Keep. Nothing is "determined" by a No Consensus result (that's what "No Consensus" means). The article can be relisted at any time, which is something I may well do fairly soon. This article is extremely poor and needs a total rewrite, but so far no expert has come forward to do so. andy (talk) 16:01, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Look again. Several editors have been working sporadically on this article since your last failed attempt to have it deleted. In the last few days, I've added several solid references and can certainly add more in due course. As always with Wikipedia, this article remains open to revision.Vote Cthulhu (talk) 08:40, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

ChristianCHRR (talk) 20:26, 1 February 2010 (UTC) agrees that the content of this page is very dubious. It should mention at the outset that these beliefs and practices -of which I never heard despite many years of reading Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, and Lieh Tzu in various translations- are related to "taoism-the-RELIGION", and not "taoism-the PHILOSOPHY". The mention of verse 16 of the Tao Te Ching as a reference to immortality and/or life after death is a totally arbitrary and specious interpretation. I base this last statement on 20+ years of reading this text and verification on 8 different translations. I can check more if needed... Similarly, Carl Jung's writings -another of my main interests and a big influence on me- about alchemy and the unconscious have nothing that could even remotely be connected to the religious rituals described in the last paragraph of the "Immortality" section. I removed both of these inane distortions.

Re-examining this page
This orphan page definitely needs a fresh look. Not only does it not examine religious vs. philosophical Daoism - a somewhat disputed distinction these days -- but it needs to be more specific about which sect or branch of Daoism is being discussed: Chinese? Taiwanese? Japanese? Contemporary or historical? Tianshi vs. Zhengyi?

As it stands, it sounds more like a standup comedian than an encyclopedia ("Have you ever noticed that Daoists die like THIS? But Buddhists die like THIS.") Msalt (talk) 22:15, 11 December 2012 (UTC)