User:Shii/Religion

Planning for the talk page

Describing a history of religions, i.e. what every country in the world was doing that we now classify as religious at any given point in time, is:


 * 1) Not relevant to the subject of the article This article is not about how world history works according to an Enlightenment ideology of comparative religion. It is supposed to be describing religion without any theories attached.
 * 2) Impossible to accomplish This is just as important as the subject itself. Trying to write a History of Religions is like trying to write what was going on with Schroedinger's Cat while it was in that box. First, in premodern times, what contemporary individual was dubbing any activity "religious"? Was there a time-traveling religious scholar wandering around to each city and determining which buildings and artifacts were serving a religious purpose? If we're going by self-identification, we have a serious problem-- in medieval Europe, for example, only Christians were religious; pagans were dumb subhumans without any religion about them. Second, what religious achievements in history qualify as "notable"? Do you really want to ask this question to an endless stream of editors, most of whom will come to this article in order to make sure their agenda is reflected?
 * 3) Not accurate As above, achieving objectivity on this issue is impossible. The disagreements over what could be considered "religious" will never end. An article that attempt to describe them is doomed. Hindus might want to call the entire state of India as built on religion in prehistoric times, while Dalit Buddhists could insist that this was irrelevant to the majority of the ancient Indian population. Is Shinto part of the history of religion, or was it only invented as a religion relatively recently? Careful! If you say it has always been religion, then you're siding with the Allied Occupation forces ("history is written by the victors"). If you say it only became religion recently, you're siding with conservative nationalists. Is Plato's Republic a religious text?
 * 4) POV Wikipedia policy is that "we should describe disputes, not engage in them". To write a History of Religions is to engage in all the disputes above-- to bring another point of view to all the arguments around the world, the official Wikipedia POV on the role of religion in world history.
 * 5) Not useful to the researcher This is a somewhat less critical point, but I think in terms of what an encyclopedia is meant to do, it's more relevant. Most articles on Wikipedia attempt to improve your knowledge and ground you for a more sophisticated discussion of the topic in question. However, the "History of Religions" is irrelevant to any such discussion and prepares you for nothing whatsoever. You have been given the Wikipedia POV on what part of human history was the product of Religion, not the NPOV analysis of the dispute itself. I cannot imagine any possible use that any serious writer might have for such a history, except if they wanted to swipe it for their own encyclopedia, rewrite it to show that Christianity has always been the best religion, or use it to justify the claim that all religions are evil and cause wars.
 * 6) Not useful to the casual browser We already provide a list of religious traditions which all have their own history articles that can be fleshed out in much greater detail. If someone want to learn what religion was doing historically in XYZ country, they should go to that country's history article rather than trying to find it in a Grand Overview. This is so obvious I'm ashamed to write it here. We would necessarily leave out very important things in such an overview-- thus, the only use this section would have would be to answer questions like "what religion was the most powerful historically" or "what religion was the most peaceful" which are (1) patently subjective and (2) inane topics for an encyclopedia.

Describing a history of the religious category is:


 * 1) The subject of the article This article is about "religion", a "system of symbols"--h/t Geertz--or maybe an intuition of the divine--h/t Schleiermacher--or an expression of Serendipitous Creativity--h/t Kaufman--or whatever it is that people are calling religious these days. The history of religion is the history of what people were calling religious in those days.
 * 2) Possible to accomplish because it's the current focus of religious historiography and uses texts objectively, not theologically.
 * 3) Accurate, as above.
 * 4) NPOV Wikipedia policy is that "the implication that it is possible to describe disputes in such a way that material from all reliable sources is presented comprehensively and neutrally ... is an empirical question, not a philosophical one." The way the article has been rewritten reflects a success of this empirical test.
 * 5) Useful to the researcher Let's say I want to write a newspaper story about Falun Gong. This is a calisthenic practice which China accuses of being a cult. They say they are not a religion. This article will ideally point me to a historiography of religiousness in modern China (e.g. Qing dynasty interactions with brotherhoods and secret societies, etc.) as part of the overall summary of the category.
 * 6) Useful to the casual browser Those who come to this article will learn something concrete and verifiable, not the mostly imaginary history of religions.