Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Civic religion

Civic religion was proposed for deletion. This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record. The result of the debate was to keep the article.

Original research, unverifiable, and generally mumbo-jumbo. The first sentence says, "Civic religion is defined by some..." I might write something like this, but not in an encyclopedia. Fishal 21:58, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. There's a good article lurking underneath there that needs help on PNA and/or cleanup. --DMG413 22:27, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Nominate for collaboration of the week? There is a real term back there:  some states have created a religion of the state.  The term is most often used for Stalin and Mao, but it is also used for (shockingly) the United States by some.  The point is that there is a good amount of material out there for researchers to assemble an article, but this one is a complete mess.  It confuses the general with the specific and seems to make rash generalizations the promote POV.  Clean Up wouldn't do a thing to help:  this would require a panel of neutral Wikipedians working for a week on it.  Geogre 01:42, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * I should also point out that there is a far more factual article on civil religion, which describes the sort of things you were talking about. Fishal 03:27, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Merge whatever's worth merging into civil religion; not sure which title should become the redirect. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:48, Nov 14, 2004 (UTC)


 * Delete: Since Civil religion exists and does the job better, there is no need for a duplicate.  Make this a redirect only. Geogre 05:51, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Strong keep - the new inline disambiguation on civil religion explains that civic religion is an extreme form of the former. Until we reach consensus to merge United States Republican Party with facism and United States Democratic Party with communism, each article is quite distinct and they should not be conflated and confounded. Samaritan 08:36, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * I have to say, that is the single most cryptic remark on VfD that I have ever seen. Are you saying (not that it's relevant) that, say, Abraham Lincoln was a proto-fascist and, oh, I don't know, Woodrow Wilson and Hubert Humphrey proto-communists? Or was that such a throwaway that I shouldn't even try to understand? -- Jmabel | Talk 08:47, Nov 14, 2004 (UTC)
 * Opponents of each associate the current parties with the extreme tendencies identified; google +facist +"Patriot Act" or +communist +"Hillary Clinton", for instance. Nothing more meant. I didn't think it would stand out! Sorry. Samaritan 08:55, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * The article distinguishes between "civic" and "civil" religions, but is there any place, anywhere, besides this article that uses these definitions? Fishal 18:53, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep, but change name I've always heard the term "civic religion" used in the sense of the Civil religion article (in fact I don't think I've ever heard the term 'civil religion' before, maybe 'civic religion' is more of an Americanism), in reference to relatively benign quasi-religious patriotism, eg George Washington and the cherry tree. The topic described in Civic religion is quite an important phenomenon of totalitarian societies, expanding on the personality cult, but it is also quite misleading to put it under such a name.  I don't know if there is an accepted name for this significant phenomenon; might I suggest Statist religion?
 * Not a bad idea. Samaritan 09:31, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. Nonsense. --Improv 15:48, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Toughie, so i'll err on the side of caution, with a weak keep. &mdash; siro  &chi;  o  18:29, Nov 14, 2004 (UTC)
 * Abstain. I don't know enough about the area to know if this is a valid topic or not, or how "original" the work is. It has the appearance of a good article though. zoney &#09827; talk 20:28, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Either keep or merge with rework of civil religion. zoney &#09827; talk 10:37, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. State cults persist nowadays, under various pretences. Usually via the good old trick of playing on the fear of what can be perceived as external (and sometimes internal) menaces. The only problem is to find the right name (state cult, civic religion, civil religion, adoration of the state, sovereignty cult, or whatever). A lot of redirects in sight ;-)) --Pgreenfinch 13:42, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep- I have to say I created this article. I don't know how proud of it I am now, but it is useful.  I think it should be changed around however, to include any replacement of "religion" with the state. However, I'm a little more active elsewhere for now so it will have to be someone else.
 * I would prefer a redirect to Civil religion, but since it looks likely to survive VfD it should at least be retitled and otherwise cleaned up. The first thing that struck me was that, atheism aside, it is almost a description of ancient paganism, Athena=Athens, etc. Fire Star 02:21, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Redirect to Civil religion. That article explains it much better.--Polynova 09:56, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * The situation needs to be sorted out - with an end result of one article. Civil religion is currently self-referential: "The term civic religion is also used in a different way in the Wikipedia article with that title". zoney &#09827; talk 10:37, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like other '/delete' pages is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion or on the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.