Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Epistemics of Divine Reality (2nd nomination)


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   delete. Consensus seems pretty clear here although its the content that seems to the issue not the subject so I'll state specifically that there is no objection to someone writing a properly sourced article. Spartaz Humbug! 17:51, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Epistemics of Divine Reality
AfDs for this article: 
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This article contains one paragraph of OR and a lot of essay-writing. The term "Epistemics of Divine Reality" isn't even attested: see, for instance, this search. The one name produced by this search is also the name found in all the external links and other contributions added to various articles (Epistemics, Revelations, Rationalism, Epistle to the Hebrews) by the author and main contributor to this article, and I have a strong suspicion that this is not a coincidence (see below on user/creater and the redirect).

A closer look at this current article reveals that most of it is a rather haphazard collection of essay-like summaries of different epistemological position culminating in a decidedly unencyclopedic set of questions: "Are there two different methodologies of researching: the scientific, for the material world and the theological, for the spiritual world? Or there is just one. That is a question which must be answered by the Epistemics of Divine Reality." Perhaps--but such an epistemics only exists in the self-published works (e-book, websites, booklets) of Domenic Marbaniang. I have refrained from gutting the article, though that would be no more than proper; it would leave only the first paragraph and the last part of the last paragraph.

The article has been nominated for deletion before, Articles for deletion/Epistemics of Divine Reality. The outcome I believe to have been flawed in the sense that no better article ever came out of it--and this suggests to me the non-notability of the term. The article was trimmed down to this, which is nothing more than an explanation of what the term might mean, but it is still not a notable term. I don't want to pick apart every single keep-argument, but one was by an SPA (its only edit), another was by User:Rdsmarb, the WP name of Marbaniang, which now redirects to User:Platonic Guardian--the user who is responsible for the article in its current form. I do note that all the keeps express doubt as to whether this should stand alone or redirect to Existence of God (this includes User:DGG and User:Colonel Warden); I would suggest that a redirect is the highest this article could attain. However, in my opinion this article is OR and unrelated summary, and the term as such does not exist--this is why I advocate deletion rather than some sort of merge. I apologize for the lenght of this nomination and would ask editors to carefully cut through the non-relevant parts of the article. Drmies (talk) 20:39, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete If someone wants to add the references given to various other articles on religion and epistomology, great. this is to my reading overwhelmingly original research. i cannot imagine encyclopedia britannica publishing this, and if it was an accepted phrase with common use, it would undoubtedly be published there, unlike many trivial subjects that EB would not publish that we would allow. However, as the first poster (not intentional), i am interested in arguments either way. I generally dont see value in articles on religion written assuming that the religious perspective is inherently true, sort of like in-universe articles on fictional characters. from the WP point of view, God/divine reality may be seen as a fictional character or abstract idea that is widely believed to be real, and articles need to reflect that NPOV.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 21:08, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Religion is a very real subject on inquiry, and treating it as fiction is extreme POV. An article on a religious topic needs to assume it true for the purposes of discussion, just as an article on any theory does. That is not in-universe, just clarity. We ought not append to every religious article a paragraph saying that God may not exist after all, just as we ought not add to every article on the material world that it may  be an illusion after all. For articles discussing the question of the existence of God or of the material world, that's another matter.     DGG ( talk ) 22:31, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
 * From God: "God is a deity in theistic and deistic religions and other belief systems, representing either the sole deity in monotheism, or a principal deity in polytheism.God is most often conceived of as the supernatural creator and overseer of the universe." This is what i mean. it doesnt say, for example, "god is the creator of the universe". we dont say "god doesnt exist" or assume god does exist. we write an article about god. i didnt say to write as if all religion was fiction. i meant to say we dont assume a particular religious perspective is true. anyway, truth is not the goal, but verifiability and notability. and we WILL have sourced statements in many articles on religion showing controversies or heresies both from outside and within the religion, if the issue is big enough to get commentary.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 02:05, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete I checked some of the sources a little more carefully this time--I apologize for my earlier hasty reading. I observe that the article did not actually give specific sources in the usual way, referring instead to online essays or reprinted versions--I fixed the first, but stopped there, as it appeared needless to continue.  Such a method of citation does not give any great confidence in the quality of the work.   Goldstein's theory of Epistemics is a   significant philosophical theory, with many Google Scholar references. A clear presentation of it and related theories can be found in his authoritative article  "Social Epistemology" in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.     Unfortunately, what he discusses is not what the present article discusses, and the extension to inquiry into the nature of God appears to be entirely the unsourced OR of the author here.  I see no reason to redirect. This has no particular relation to any of the actual theories being discussed, and is no more a topic in religion than it is in philosophy. A redirect would be according undue weight to pure OR and SYNTHESIS, one based apparently on unsophisticated use of the sources.  A search needs to be made for traces of this OR in our related articles.   I do not think that EB is our standard--we include what it does, but we go much further--and on traditional topics, studies have shown it not to be significantly more accurate than Wikipedia.  The reason this article is inappropriate is that it is discussed by nobody outside Wikipedia at all. Let it actually be published, and let philosophers comment on it, and only then will it be notable.   DGG ( talk ) 22:31, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not seeing the OR. For the most part the article leads us through the views of notable philosophers on the matter.  The approach seems quite respectable.  It just seems that the treatment lacks polish, as is often the case with novice editors.  Colonel Warden (talk) 23:13, 14 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep In browsing the sources, it is interesting that I arrived at a similar place to DGG - see The Epistemology of Religion - another article in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The only problem with the article which we discuss is that it uses the unusual term epistemics for no clear reason. If we consider a better title such as Epistemology of Religion (a stub created by the same editor), then there are hundreds of respectable academic sources which discuss the matter, such as the one I cite.  The matter is thus highly notable and deletion is therefore inappropriate as a way of developing this content, per our editing policy.  A more sensible way forward might be to merge the current content into Epistemology of Religion and then generalise the topic by reference to these numerous sources.  Another possible merge target is Philosophy of religion.  Again this covers similar ground under a better title but is poorly sourced and so might benefit from the merger with this article, which contains numerous inline citations.  The whole topic area seems to need a good clean up but that's not what AFD is for.  Colonel Warden (talk) 23:02, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
 * It not only uses the word "epistemics," possibly a notable topic though underdeveloped in its current state, but also "Divine reality"--which is really a far cry from "religion" and sounds more like a Mahavishnu Orchestra album (which I'd love to have, if it exists) than a philosophical topic. And I won't deny that I also object to an article, a title, and a redirect that lend legitimacy to a set of highly questionable articles--an article, a title, and a redirect that consist of a phrase which is meaningless and unattested in any reliable source. This is not to deny the validity of a large part of your argument, Colonel; what I'm saying, I guess, is it doesn't pertain to the pseudo-philosophy suggested by the phrase "Epistemics of Divine Reality". Drmies (talk) 23:42, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment. Epistemics has a 1000 Google Scholar hits (the max one is allowed to view). Therefore, I think that this argument, where we try to divine the intent of the author of this essay, isn't going in the correct direction. Abductive  (reasoning) 01:36, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * This is about "Epistemics of Divine Reality", not about "Epistemics." Who said anything about intent? Drmies (talk) 04:16, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * What you seem to be saying is that you don't like it but this is a weak argument for deletion. If you don't like material of this sort then a better approach is to improve it.  Changing the title may be done by moving the article or merger.  Improving the content is performed by normal content editing.  Deletion seems quite unhelpful in that it would not only destroy a significant body of work which includes many sources but it would also alienate and drive off an editor who seems willing to work in this area and has give us good food for thought and further work. Colonel Warden (talk) 00:06, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * No, that is not what I am saying at all--invoking IDONTLIKEIT is a way around the argument, and I would remind you that that cuts both was. To say that my objection is the same as a dislike is dismissing all argument as a matter of taste. I do admit that I don't like non-notable material in articles with made-up titles that attempt to mask their lack of content by adding statements made about God by famous philosophers. There is no significant body of work here. Drmies (talk) 00:44, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete. My main reason for agreeing that this impressive looking article is original research is the fact that it contains passages that make little sense.  For example:  Polytheism is an example of pluralistic epistemology which doesn't allow rationalization of experience but accepts plurality of being as given in sense data as the only reality.  Polytheism is the belief in multiple deities.  This unreferenced statement doesn't explain well why the author even thought that polytheism contains an epistemology, much less why polytheism "doesn't allow rationalization of experience".  These non-sequitur sentences seem to indicate that this text is someone's original musings.  The epistemology of religion surely is a valid subject; but I'm not sure this is helping all that much. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 15:48, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


 * It is easy to nitpick and criticise the work of others but this is not the proper purpose of AFD. The question before us is whether this entire article is an utterly hopeless case and so should be completely deleted.  This is a severe test and picking holes in particular passages is insufficient for this as they may be improved by ordinary editing.  When I find a moment, I shall work upon the article to show how it may be improved by such normal editing means.  Colonel Warden (talk) 16:34, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete. This is a textbook example of unsupported original research and essay writing. It is unreferenced by anything that would establish notability and completely unencyclopedic in content and in writing style. Someone should nominate Epistemics too, on the same grounds, but this one is even more clear-cut. NTK (talk) 20:34, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete The only real source is an self-published book which can be seen here. Mangoe (talk) 21:02, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment Colonel W decided to move the page to "Epistemology of religion". Since significant moves during an afd discussion are discouraged, and there does not appear to be any clear consensus yet for this one, I moved it back, without prejudice one way or another to what the  community may decide here. I left the redirect under the name he used--that can be dealt with later.    DGG ( talk ) 21:28, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete Anything that could live under this title would be best discussed in the article Existence of God which already exists (as far as we can know that anything "exists") . pablo hablo. 21:42, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete. As I say above, we can't even figure out what the author is trying to say. It is not our duty to say every essay from deletion by completely rewriting it. Those that do want to completely rewrite it can do it by themselves, without any input from this essay. Abductive  (reasoning) 21:51, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I have no great difficulty understanding it. For example, the first section on Monist epistemologies presents an Indian perspective on idealism - the concept that, because our senses are unreliable, we can only truly know the world of thought and ideas.  Many philosophers have started from a similar premise, e.g. Descartes' famous Cogito ergo sum.  Descartes went on to develop a proof of God and that's the general topic here - philosophical ways of thinking about the fundamentals of God and religion.  The main difficulty when working in this area is that there is a huge quantity of philosophical writings upon the topic.  I find it easier to develop an existing draft than to start from nothing.  The previous author(s) have provided links and references of which I was unaware and I do my bit by my making my own contribution.  This process of incremental development is our explicit policy.  It is quite definitely not our policy to delete early drafts because they are unsatisfactory in some way.  99% of our millions of articles are of less than good quality and so we are exhorted to be tolerant. Colonel Warden (talk) 22:15, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * There remains a basic problem: there is no such thing as "Epistemics of Divine Reality." The concept can be formed, sure, but there is nothing in any kind of reliable source that could be called that. I hate to be a party pooper, but you are talking about the epistomology of religion, and the first thing that needs to be solved here is the basic terminology of the article. You say there is a "huge quantity of philosophical writings upon the topic," but if the topic is "Epistemics of Divine Reality," than that statement is incorrect: there are no sources on that topic, except for the two written and frequently referenced by the inventor of the phrase. I sound like a broken record, I'm sure, but I have the feeling I'm not getting the basics across here: there is no school, discipline, field, philosophy, concept, or focus group called "Epistemics of Divine Reality." Drmies (talk) 00:15, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
 * You seem to treat the matter too literally. A topic is not its title - see Proper name (philosophy).  The essential points of this topic are extensively discussed by scholars - see here for tens of thousands of sources.  If we consider the current title unsatisfactory then we correct this by moving the article to a better title.  Deletion is not needed nor appropriate because it would also erase all the content and edit history. Colonel Warden (talk) 10:15, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
 * That particular article starts with a definition of sorts of "proper name" by John Stuart Mill, and it could been a definition of or statement about the term by any number of philosophers, logicians, or grammarians--see this search. In our case, we need a page just to even clarify the term, because no one uses it--see this search. That the article is really about something else might be a valid reason to move, but I'm not even sure that the article as it is (an essay of sorts with some philosophical questions thrown in) that it is about 'epistemology of religion': that would be an entirely different article, and the history of the present article adds nothing to such an article. You even proved that yourself in this edit. Drmies (talk) 19:07, 16 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete. This is an essay / original research. —Lowellian (reply) 06:33, 16 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment Epistemology of religion is one of major branches of philosophy of religion, and there is enough reliable coverage of the topic to fill 100 WP articles. That said, it remains to be seen whether or not this article is a good start. Recommend incubation. Skomorokh  19:58, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
 * This is not a general article on that subject; it is one person's theory. Mangoe (talk) 23:54, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.