Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Religious symbolism of unity of opposites


 * 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 is that this is WP:OR. If anybody really wants to try salvaging parts of it for merging, they can ask for the material to be userfied to that end.  Sandstein  07:42, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Religious symbolism of unity of opposites

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Appears to be entirely original research. How these symbols are indicating the "unity of opposites" is not sourced to any reliable sources. jps (talk) 01:28, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Religion-related deletion discussions.  Jinkinson   talk to me  01:31, 14 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Delete Normally my rule of thumb is to tread very gently when the subject is religion and to give as much latitude as possible when articles on religious topics show up at AfD. In my experience that has usually been how the community seems to work as well. But this article fails pretty much every test we have. To be frank I can't really even grasp what the subject is. The sources hugely fail RS and I can't find anything on Google that remotely supports a case for notability. Only the fact that this is a religiously themed article prevents me from treating it as a suspected hoax or maybe an A-11 CSD. -Ad Orientem (talk) 01:46, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
 * delete By all appearances this is just something someone made up. Mangoe (talk) 02:57, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Merge some of the content which might be salvaged (with better source references) into unity of opposites. Other parts of the article should be discarded if unverifiable. Gccwang (talk) 03:06, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
 * That's kind of what I'm leaning towards. I get what the article is trying to say: basically, it's looking at "unity of opposites" in religious symbols. Basically, it's a list of religious symbols that hold two meanings that are normally seen as distinctly separate but are united in the religious symbol. For example, the ankh can mean both death/life and male/female. I get where they're trying to go with this and it's not something that's just made up since it is referenced somewhat in various different texts (examples:, , , , . , ). However the problem here is that there isn't a lot of stuff that specifically focuses on religious symbolism. It's mentioned somewhat in passing and often vaguely referred to, but for the most part this is pretty much WP:OR on behalf of the article creator because it's not exactly explicitly stated in the way that Wikipedia seems to like. I agree that the symbols they've listed would fall under the banner of "Religious symbolism of unity of opposites" and if they were writing a paper on this, I'd read it. In any case, I'm leaning towards merging some of this into unity of opposites and listing parts of it as an example. The ankh should be easy enough to verify since there are multiple sources that talk about the symbol's dual nature, but other parts will likely be a little bit harder. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)   03:29, 14 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Weak delete. There is no evidence that the article under discussion is not WP:SYNTH.  It does seem likely that out there somewhere in the scholarly literature are accounts addressing the presumptive topic of the article as a whole.  But unless and until the article is written based on such sources, I think the article should be deleted as OR.   Sławomir Biały  (talk) 14:40, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I would also sanction a smerge to the existing unity of opposites article. At least some of the references could possibly incorporated there, but others have expressed concern over the quality of those references, so I leave the matter to better minds.  Sławomir Biały  (talk) 16:46, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Delete: Pure unsourced and unsourceable OR. I can see nothing worth saving or merging anywhere else, as I highly doubt that reliable sources exist. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 02:49, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Merge sourced material with Unity of opposites. The real topic seems the concept being a part of religious teachings and traditions.  I don't see much value in bringing together the symbols of this in one list (besides it being OR.)  Anyway the other article could use more information on religion to balance out some of its emphasis on Marxist philosophy. Kitfoxxe (talk) 15:02, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Delete I'm concerned that this jumble of religious symbolism does not actually reflect any scholarship - it seems to be purely the result of a small number of editor's opinions. Without reliable sources there is no way to know if these religious concepts share any common features, hence it's safer to just get rid of this kind of content. It's useless and has no encyclopedic value. --Salimfadhley (talk) 17:58, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Delete as WP:OR. It is possible that sources on this subject may exist - but none of the existing content could legitimately be included in an article. About.com is not a scholarly source... AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:23, 15 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment: As an "IP", I'm not sure if I can "vote"; however, I'd like to comment that this is potentially a valid WP topic.  As it currently stands it is woefully lacking in WP:RS-es.  A bit of research can validate many if not all of these items.  For example, I just referenced Kangiten with a good source (based on my research for a related article).  I suggest that for now it be converted to an annotated list.  In addition, please note that the  Deletion policy does *not* include a currently poorly sourced article as a reason for deletion; instead:  "Articles for which thorough attempts to find reliable sources to verify them have failed" [or] "cannot possibly be attributed to reliable sources."   I assert that a thorough (or even cursory) attempt would negate deletion.   —Eric, IP=71.20.250.51 (talk) 17:38, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
 * —Is "unsourceable" the result of an actual check, or simply personal judgement? In less than 1 minute I found this:, which could be used as a source for several of the items.  I am putting this in the 'Further reading' section for anybody wishing to attempt actual due diligence.  Although tempted to adopt this article since the originator  (cf. contribs) does not seem to be active; I shall not.   ~E:71.20.250.51 (talk) 05:13, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Although that source is associated with a university, it's not an academic source. The ideas it presents are typical Joseph Cambell-influenced syncretism and do not represent a scholarly viewpoint. Mangoe (talk) 14:08, 19 August 2014 (UTC)
 * The article topic is by virtual definition, a syncretism; the source is a peer-reviewed journal, and as such is a secondary source which is preferred in the WP-sense. An "academic source" would tend to be a primary source, and thus is less-preferred.  And tangentially, just because Joseph Campbell represents a "typical" viewpoint (rather than a "scolarly" one), it would be no less valid as far as WP is concerned.  Wikipedia is only supposed to present reliably verifiable information, not to judge it.   —E:71.20.250.51 (talk) 02:36, 20 August 2014 (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.